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Joint venture: an organization that results from a contractual arrangement and that is owned, operated or governed by two or more participants as a separate and specific activity subject to joint control in which the participants retain an ongoing financial intrest or responsibility.

That is right out of the City of Great Falls Notes to Financial Statements June 20, 2006. So, my interpretation of the City's statement is that a joint venture requires a contract of some sort. But apparently, they now do not feel that a joint venture needs a contract. Hmm.

Another thing I noted in the same document. "During the fiscal year 2004, the City entered into a joint venture with SME G&T..."

Now I could link to document after document here, documents stating that The City and SME are partners, ECP and SME are partners, some statements of which predate there even being an ECP, or an Ordinance allowing the city to operate an electric utility. I can show, with documents off the City website, that it has been stated that The City operated an electric utility as far back as Aug 2003, when in fact the ordinance to create it was not passed until October 2003. And then they had to do it again. Ordinance 2925 was adopted by the City Commission in November of 2005. That set it up as a non-profit, and apparently, took away our right to vote on spending money on HGS.
I can show, with documents off the City website, that the City has made statements referring to SME as a partner, or ECP as a member of SME, without any apparent documentation that a partnership exists. The SME website states the City/ECP is a member.

Is the City of Great Falls, through it's Municipal Utility, Electric City Power, a partner in a joint venture with SME G&T?

If we are to take Exibit A of Resolution 9537 to hold as an actual commitment to be a Joint Venture then how can we make the statement that we have not committed to annexing HGS? Exhibit A clearly states "5(e) an annexation agreement..."

Section 3 of that same document, Exhibit A, states "SME will permit the City as Co-owner of the Station to participate fully in the decision making process relating to the development of the Station..."
The financial statement from the city States "This Joint Venture does not meet the criteria for inclusion in the City's Finance Report since the City does not exercise administrative control."

What is administrative control?

Here is a little statement from our Fiscal Manager. April 2005.
"Electric City Power: Coleen Balzarini stated that Electric City Power was building its customer base with the goal to sell 65 mega watts of power. She added that the City requested the Public Service Commission transfer the license from the City to Electric City Power. They denied the request without prejudice and Staff was working on a re-submittal. Additionally, Staff was working on a pilot program for small customer supply. Mrs. Balzarini reported that the City was the first entity to apply the new statute providing for this so the PSC was treating it as a contested case. The goal for the City was to give consumers a choice."

Wait! Hold on! They want to give us a choice!
It's all good now, don't listen to him.