RIVER FALLS — The River Falls City Council gave staff the go ahead to do due diligence on the purchase of St. Croix Gas during the July 28 meeting.

Utility Director Kevin Westhuis presented to council to gauge interest in the purchase of St. Croix Gas by the city. Westhuis said the city was approached last year by St. Croix Gas to potentially make the transition.

“This is an investor-owned utility, but Don and Marty have run this kind of like a municipal utility. They are ingrained in our community; they serve our community,” Westhuis said. “I know it’s really important to both Don and Marty that they pass this along to somebody else that’s going to have the same type of interest for our community and for the employees.”

St. Croix Gas serves about 10,000 gas meters, compared to 8,000 customers served by River Falls’ electric utility. The St. Croix Gas territory includes River Falls, Prescott and a small island in the Hammond area. The company has 12 employees.

In 2025, St. Croix Gas came away with $10,377,007 in operating revenues, coming out to $464,880 in net operating income after expenses. The office building on Spring and Second streets, as well as the garage space at North Quarry Court, would be part of the transaction. All equipment other than a pickup truck and a mower would be included.

“This really is a good match with our current utility offerings,” Westhuis said. “The rates and oversight are by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin out of Madison. We have to do a rate case; we have to do a full cost of service study. They determine what’s most fair for our customers that we’re going to serve.”

St. Croix Gas pays state tax; if the city took ownership, the utility would do payment in lieu of taxes to the city’s General Fund. Last year, city electric contributed $450,000 to the city’s General Fund and the water department $375,000. Westhuis gave a rough estimate of $400,000 in annual payment to the general fund from the purchase. He said community ownership is one of the biggest draws to purchasing the company.

An appraisal valued the company at $9.5 million. Finance Director Josh Solinger feels “comfortable and confident” with an offer between $5-7 million, which led to a negotiated $6.4 million negotiated offer.

“If you’re thinking of a horse race, we’re just getting into the starting gate with this. We’ve already done quite a bit to get there, but the race is ahead of us,” Westhuis said. “We’re not even sure this has been done in the State of Wisconsin before.”

After the research is complete and the terms are laid out, the item would require approval from council, the Public Service Commission and a public referendum.

“Ultimately, the community will decide if our city is the best organization to run this gas company,” Westhuis said.

City Administrator Scot Simpson said this is not a purchase to buy assets, lower expenses and create return on investment. Instead, it would continue to operate lean to best benefit ratepayers. He said legal and financial due diligence would cost about $150,000, but that is the only way they would be willing to do it to ensure it is the right move for the city and its residents.

“By the time we get to the referendum, all cards will be on the table, probably including a rate structure,” Westhuis said.

Westhuis was asked why not everyone was champing at the bit to purchase if it is such a good deal. He said a big part of it is St. Croix Gas’ interest in the city being the ones to take it over.

Flock cameras

Lifelong resident Sy Pitzen returned for a second consecutive meeting to speak during public comment against the city’s Flock license plate reading cameras. At the previous meeting, Pitzen spoke about specific cases of misuse throughout the country. At the July 28 meeting, Pitzen said the company’s connection to the government.
“A City Council member from Santa Cruz, California, found their Flock data was being shared with agencies cross-state without their knowledge or consent,” Pitzen said. “Last year, the vice president of Flock accessed a camera. The camera he chose was in a children’s gymnastics room at a private community center in Georgia. He claimed this was for a sales demo. He was given access to the camera as the center’s cameras were shared with their police department for emergency response. I find it off that, for a sales demo, this VP picked a children's gymnasium out of any of the 400 cameras in that network. These are supposed to read car plates. Why would anyone need them in private property?”

Pitzen said if they can identify plates, they can be easily modified to recognize facial features in the future.

Community member Dana Linscott said he contacted the police department to ask who in the department could answer questions about Flock cameras.

“I was told that Chief Young was deciding if it should be responded to or not. That type of decision seems pretty easy considering how much Chief Young claims to support transparency,” Linscott said. “They are a valuable tool for law enforcement, but are they more valuable than public trust?”

Alderperson Nick Carow asked during the administrator’s report how they can verify information is not stored in Flock’s cloud beyond 30 days.

“We can verify whether we were able to access it, or if it was retained within the cloud that we have access to,” Simpson said. “In the example where an employee of Flock is violating moral, legal or ethical standards, that is something that we should be grappling with as a society.”

Simpson said they cannot control other municipalities, but officers that misuse the cameras in the city will be terminated.

“We should expect in a society that there’s things in place in each of these organizations that take care of bad actors,” Simpson said. “If that’s the standard that the public decision makers expect is that we can verify that absolutely never, ever anyone has accessed any of our data against our wishes, I don’t believe we can verify that. That’s perfectly acceptable from policy. If the council believes that’s unacceptable, then you have to make a decision about the technology.”

Simpson said Flock is not the only license plate reading agreement the city has in place. He said they are happy to continue talking about it, and the contract and ordinances are available to the public.

“We’re at $25-30,000 a year; you have to get a $25-30,000 public safety benefit,” Simpson said of the cost of Flock cameras.

Young is monitoring whether or not that cost is worthwhile for the department.

Other business

• Approved Rg-3 rates that lower costs for charging electric vehicles in non-peak hours. Peak hours are considered 3-7 p.m. and electric vehicle owners would see the lowest costs by programming their vehicle to charge from the hours of midnight to 5 a.m. The city’s previous system had two cost tiers rather than three, with the higher tier being 8 a.m.-8 p.m. “This is a very good way of helping ratepayers save money by creating these group filing discounts,” Alderperson Sean Downing said. “I would like to highlight that this creates a system-wide savings for everybody.”
• Approved the Specific Implementation Plan and Development Agreement for The Creamery at Cedar, a multi-use space that includes a brewery and restaurant, event space and housing.
• Approved a special event noise control exemption at Luther Memorial Church and a block party open container exemption in the Linden neighborhood.
• Approved $162,000 in street lighting at the Whitetail Corporate Park.
• Approved a $420,000 development incentive for the St. Croix Valley Business Innovation Center.
• Approved a Purchase Agreement for 2.2 acres at 404 S Winter St.