Wyoming Association of Municipalities Deputy Director Stephanie Reeves is stepping down from her post with the association to become the first administrator of Choice Gas supplier Wyoming Community Gas, it was announced at a Wyoming Community Gas board meeting in Rawlins last week.

The move is designed to help separate the functions of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities (WAM) with those of the gas supplier and its partner ONEOK, Inc., Reeves said.

Since the inception of Wyoming Community Gas, WAM has preformed much of the administrative work for the supplier, which has never had any actual employees of its own, Reeves said.

When Reeves begins her new position on Aug. 1 she will take over most of the administrative duties WAM currently performs and become the first full-time worker for Wyoming Community Gas, she added.

In her new position, Reeves will officially be employed by ONEOK, which has a contract to supply Wyoming Community Gas with its natural gas, she said.

Besides supplying Wyoming Community Gas with its commodity, ONEOK also sets the price at which the gas is sold to Choice Gas customers, Reeves said.

This is necessary because ONEOK is the entity which assumes all the risk that Choice Gas suppliers undertake with selling gas in such a manner and because they have the expertise to set prices, something the Wyoming Community Gas board and WAM do not have, Reeves added.

The idea to separate Wyoming Community Gas from WAM with the creation of an administrator position for the supplier has been on the table for some time due to ONEOK's desire to have someone local working full-time for the supplier, Reeves said.

The decision to make the move now is partially in response to some criticism that WAM took during April's Choice Gas selection period, Reeves said.

Some critics charged that an entity like WAM had no business being in the natural gas business, Reeves said. And while WAM was not a supplier in the program, the fact that it did do much of the administrative work for Wyoming Community Gas and that the two were closely related led some to believe that WAM and Wyoming Community Gas were one, Reeves said.

Reeves' departure from WAM to work for Wyoming Community Gas should hopefully help alleviate some of this confusion, she said.

Casper man Dick Innes, who was vocal in his criticism of the relationship between WAM and Wyoming Community Gas during the Choice Gas selection period, was happy to hear the two entities are getting some separation between them.

"They (WAM) simply needs to get back to what they were intended to do and that is represent the communities of Wyoming before the state legislature," Innes said. "They have no business being in the gas business. I think that is a wonderful step."

Innes added that it is also a good thing that Wyoming Community Gas will now have someone on board full time to answer questions about the suppler.

"I think that is not only good, I can't understand how they ever suspected to be successful without that very thing," he said.

Despite the separation between WAM and Wyoming Community Gas, the two will not be completely divorced as WAM will continue some to have some role with the supplier after Aug. 1, Reeves said.

"I think they will help facilitate a lot of things and be involved in knowing what is going on," she said. "We have not sat down and outlined anything. WAM, I think will be involved in being possibly an intervener with the Public Service Commission."