Event-goers listen to Mike Francis during a town hall held Monday on utility concerns. 

Public Service Commissioner Mike Francis held a town hall meeting at the Sliman Theater Monday afternoon to give local residents a chance to voice their concerns about rising utility costs in Iberia Parish.

Along with staff from the Public Service Commission, which regulates many utility companies in Louisiana including Cleco, Francis gave a presentation outlining several of the reasons that many in the area have seen a drastic increase in their electrical expenses.

Brandon Frey with the PSC said increased bills across all electric utilities are being driven by purchased power costs and fuel prices. Prices this year saw the first-time natural gas averaged over $8 in almost 14 years.

For Cleco users, a rate increase has also been due to a rate increase made eight years since the last one.

Cleco was sold to a group of investors almost a decade ago, and the rate increase was made after the group had agreed not to increase rate prices for several years.

New Iberia City Councilwoman Deedy Johnson-Reid, who was present at the town hall, asked Francis why New Iberia residents could not have more than one choice for choosing an electrical company.

“If we had another company we could potentially have better rates,” Johnson-Reid said. “Right now we don’t have any competition. Some people are trying to make a choice between having electricity and having food and that should never happen.”

Francis said that a technical conference would be happening in November where leaders in the utility industry would be having conversations on that and similar subjects in order to deal with those issues.

Other concerns included Cleco not having a long-term plan to switch from coal to other energy sources

“We’re not asleep up there in Baton Rouge, I’m not happy about this,” Francis said.

Other concerns included the huge prices of electrical costs for businesses. Employees of Iberia Medical Center at the town hall said that the IMC budget saw a significant increase in electrical costs in their budget recently, and asked if hurricane damage was a contributing factor to those prices.

“There’s no hurricane damage on your bill, “ Francis said. “We do not let Cleco collect a penny from storm damage.”