Forest Park is the 99 Percent - For Community Choice Aggregation

If Forest Park was looking to get all of its residents and small businesses to decide on choice, they almost couldn't get much better than this.

A referendum allowing for the village to bargain for a less expensive energy source won hands down in March.

And after six months, residents and small business owners in a way voted again - 99 percent of them signed on to community choice aggregation.

"The results are clear, absolutely," Mayor Anthony Calderone told commissioners Monday night.

Forest Park banked on the village acting on behalf of its people by bundling lots of electric accounts and seeking bids for electricity on the open market.

And Calderone is still confident that - who provides the electricity - will come across. The rate that the company charges - 4.68 cents a kilowatt hour —will save on average 45 percent annually. That will translate into roughly $300 for each customer over the year, he added.

The rate with is fixed for two years, at the end of which the village will once again go out to bid for a rate.

But folks won't be losing ComEd because the company still will deliver the juice, customers’ bills look identical (just with smaller numbers), and ComEd still conducts repairs for outages.

To date, more than 250 communities in Illinois have approved referendum measures allowing for community choice aggregation.

While the news was good on the savings front, Calderone alerted residents that solicitors are going door-to-door to get them to sign up for their programs.

Calderone warned they are aggressive in their approach and might not be properly licensed. A couple of arrests have been made recently, he said.

He suggested that people should check for credentials.