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During an agenda meeting on Wednesday, Mayor Michael Winters asked the Great Falls City Commissioners to abolish the board of Electric City Power.

Due to legal issues, city staff informed the Mayor it would be difficult to completely eliminate the ECP Board. Commissioners instead will look into disbanding the five-member board and taking on its responsibilities.

Mayor Winters told commissioners there has been no paperwork given to the city commission regarding ECP's future, and that he was disappointed in the lack of information provided by the board in previous joint work sessions, and he says it's time for action.

Winters said, "At this point, the people who entrusted us to be the representative part of our city government wanted to see some action. We've been at ECP - the Board's been at ECP - long before we've been on board. There hasn't been any action."

The commission will discuss possible plans for the ECP board at Tuesday's meeting. Commissioners can choose to vote on the board's future at that time, or table it for consideration at a future meeting.

Winters is insistent that if the item is tabled, commissioners don't let the process drag on.

City Commissioners are also planning on attending ECP's meeting on Monday to hear recommendations from board members.

(January 11, 2010) Great Falls City Commissioners are meeting with board members of Electric City Power on Monday evening to discuss results from a recent study of the city's involvement in the electric business.

This will be the first time the newly-elected commission will meet with the city's power arm.

ECP executive director Coleen Balzarini says they will be at the meeting at the request of the commission but have not been asked to provide any documents; she added that she has no expectations for the meeting.

Michael Winters, newly-elected Mayor, says he expects ECP representatives to show up fully prepared. He noted, "If you're going to play baseball you've got to bring a bat and a ball, and they should know that. We're going to ask some hard questions and we want some hard and fast answers, and we're going to stand our ground."