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THE TOWN ELECTRIC DEPARTMENT
New Carlisle runs its own electric utility, and its council minutes argue about poles to prove it. The department stands in the town's working record at full departmental strength: Jason Quirk reported to the Council as the Electric Department in September 2021 — two poles in question "both belong to AEP," PPE testing, materials ordered — and the June 2025 council agenda carries an Electric Rate Study agreement with Baker Tilly and AEP easement agreements side by side, which is the exact shape of a municipal distribution utility buying transmission access across its own ground; the town's Reach Alert signup lists power outages among its alerts. The supply arrangement stands in the town's own minutes of 11 September 2007, when a subdivision developer asked whether AEP could take over his annexed subdivision and was answered from the chair: this "is the town's electric... the town has an agreement with AEP to purchase electric. Therefore, the town provides the electric to our residents. The town maintains and repairs the electric." The department's founding — when the town bought or built its system — does not stand in the record and is banked as a named gap (GAP-NC3-UTIL-2), settlers the town's ordinance book and the state utility commission's early municipal-utility filings. One generation seat belongs to this section at pointer size: the St. Joseph Energy Center, 54745 Walnut Road east of town — purchased jointly by Wabash Valley Power Alliance and Hoosier Energy in March 2025, a 720-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas plant on the Alliance's announcement — which is generation on the town's ground, not the town's distribution utility, and whose full course belongs to the county's industrial record.
Sources:
- Town Council minutes, 11 Sept 2007: the AEP purchase agreement and the town's own distribution, stated to a developer on the record.
- Town Council minutes, 7 Sept 2021: "Jason Quirk, Electric Department" report, the AEP poles.
- Town Council agenda, 3 June 2025: Electric Rate Study agreement (Baker Tilly); AEP easement agreements; Reach Alert outage notices (town site).
- Wabash Valley Power Alliance, 14 Mar 2025: the joint WVPA/Hoosier Energy purchase of the 720 MW New Carlisle plant.