ACE presents refund check to city

John Hehnke, soon-to-be chair person of the Public Alliance for Community Energy-or ACE-presented the city with a refund check from the group at Tuesday's city council meeting. ACE is a community owned natural gas supplier.

"I would like to take this moment to return some money back to the community," Hehnke said.

ACE returned a total of $100,000 to all its member communities this year. Sidney received almost $7,000 of this money. Past refunds have been used for various community betterment projects.

"Lately we've been using it for improvements and stocking at the Legion Park pond, and we'd like to continue doing that," Hehnke said.

To date, the city has received almost $77,000 in excess revenue from ACE. Hehnke commented that it was always nice when the alliance could give back to the community.

"The more residents we can sign up with ACE, obviously that allows us to have the opportunity to have these refunds come back to our community," Hehnke said.

The sign up process in which residents can choose their natural gas supplier will begin again in April. Hehnke informed the council that the group will continue to help support low gas rates for all residents.