Celebrate Your Public Utility at Austin Utilities Electric Vehicle and EV Expo

AUSTIN, MN October 4, 2021 —In October we celebrate Public Power and Public Natural Gas Week. This year, October 3-9, Austin Utilities (AU) will be celebrating with live and virtual events. “We are featuring a live event that will be held outdoors but there were some virtual events we held last year that were popular with our customers, so we kept some of those,” says Mark Nibaur, General Manager.

The events are part of an annual campaign to raise awareness of Austin’s public utility. Austin Utilities is proud to be a public, community-owned, not-for-profit electric, natural gas, and water utility. Says Nibaur, “We have so much to share with our customers about the benefits of having a local public utility, electric vehicle technology, and fun activities customers can participate in from the comfort of their home.”

Activities can be followed at www.austinutilities.com and our Facebook page.

Activities

We hope customers will have fun engaging in the live outdoor event and virtual activities we are having for Public Power and Public Natural Gas Week. You must be a customer of Austin Utilities to earn prizes.

Electric Vehicle Expo and Touch-A-Truck Expo- Wednesday, October 6th from 3-6 pm in the Austin Utilities parking lot.

There is something for everyone at our Electric Vehicle Expo and Touch-A-Truck event. AU will be showing our 2021 Nissan Leaf and sharing information about electric vehicles. Our local car dealers will have new models to display, and members of our EVO Club (electric vehicle owners) will bring their vehicles and personal experiences about being an EV owner. Participants will also have the opportunity to see up close some of the biggest equipment we use to provide public service to you including a line truck, skid loader and tractor backhoe.

White Truck Treasure Hunt – We’re hiding a model sized replica of one of service trucks somewhere in the community of Austin. Find it using our daily clues and win a new EnergyStar dehumidifier. Clues will be posted daily at 9 a.m. on our Facebook and website beginning on Monday, October 5th.

White Truck Website Challenge – Let us know where you find ten utility truck icons on our website to be eligible for one of ten AU Gift Kits.

ALL CUSTOMERS – Stop in the office during the month of October and receive a free gift for being a customer of a public utility! Remember to follow mask guidelines and social distancing when coming to our office.

These events celebrate the benefits of being served by a municipal utility. Austin Utilities’ first organized board of commission meeting was May 1903, but we have been serving Austin as far back as 1888. Austin Utilities is one of the largest combined municipal utilities in the State of Minnesota with 74 full-time staff.

Your public utility is good for the community for many reasons including:

• Local Control: Having a public utility gives a community local control over how homes and businesses are served. Decisions are made through an elected board and citizen participation instead of being made in a distant city by people who do not understand local issues and who are primarily focused on profits instead of service.
• Competitive Costs: In order to offer fair and competitive rates, public utilities operate as a not-for-profit entity and do not face pressure to pay dividends to stockholders.
• Economic Benefits: As a public utility, we play a valuable role in helping communities broaden their tax base, and in turn improve the local economy and increase jobs. Public utilities ensure that local dollars stay at home.
• Customer Service: As a not-for-profit entity, we focus on service, rather than profits. Public utilities are an integral part of a community. We maintain a close relationship with our customers, and as a result, we are successful in meeting our customers’ needs.