City council suspends energy rate increase

TYLER — The Tyler city council voted on Thursday evening to suspend CenterPoint Energy’s filing to raise its costs. “The city has taken action by law that it can take,” said Tyler City Attorney Deborah Pullum. The city council took only a few minutes to suspend the filing, our news partner KETK reports. CenterPoint Energy gave the city of Tyler a notice of a proposed rate increase of 5.8% that would go into effect on Dec. 4 if no action was taken by the city. Hence why the city council met on Thursday. Pullum said they want to make sure the city and its businesses get to a fair number. “I think it’s important for all parties obviously and important to the customers because they only want to be charged fair rates but they also want to be able to get the services that they need,” added Pullum. Officials said they expect to have ongoing talks with the company and have 90 days to come to a decision with CenterPoint Energy on a rate.