The City of Golden demanded action from Xcel Energy, saying the latter’s power shutoffs caused grief throughout the community, including “financial shocks” and a “disproportionate” impact on one of Colorado’s major tourism destinations.

In a letter, city officials said the company needs to put into place a more resilient infrastructure so its customers wouldn’t have to face the kinds of disruption Golden experienced a few weeks ago.

“Xcel Energy, which reports annual profits of $1.5 billion or more, should be made aware of these costs and we demand that Xcel invest in more resilient and hardy infrastructure and public facing communications tools. The current approach results in a loss of Xcel customer confidence,” the city said in its letter to the utility company.

Mayor Laura Weinberg sent the letter to both Xcel Energy and the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) — the state agency that regulates the company and which sanctioned utilities’ ability to turn off power during extreme weather events — on Jan. 2.

Xcel’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs that occurred on Dec. 17 and Dec. 19.

As of Friday, the energy company has not responded to the city’s letter.

Xcel told City Manager Scott Vargo that it would provide a response by the week of Jan. 26. The PUC has not acknowledged the letter, Vargo told the City Council on Tuesday.

In its letter, the city said while it recognizes the “importance of wildfire mitigation and public safety, the execution of this event revealed serious and systemic shortcomings that cannot be dismissed.”

Xcel turned off the power multiple times to at least 48,000 customers amid severe winds and extreme wildfire danger between the two December days. As many as 160,000 customers lost power at some point west of Denver, officials said.

The shutoffs were part of the company’s nearly $2 billion 2025-2027 Wildfire Mitigation Plan approved by the PUC in June.

“It’s like living in a third-world country,” Brandon Bortles, owner of Nosu Ramen and Abejas Bistro in Golden, told The Denver Gazette. “We’re all behind the eight ball. I want to know: Are we going to do this 10 times a year? What are we going to do in the future? Just shut down the town every day?”

In the letter, Golden raised questions regarding residents with medical devices, people on fixed incomes who lost food, and business owners forced to shut down.

“Financial shocks — such as lost wages, spoiled food, or additional heating costs — can push already-strained households into deeper financial hardship,” the city said.

Bortles, for example, estimated that he lost around $50,000 to $75,000 in both product and revenue in his two restaurants over the five-day stretch. Both of his establishments had lost power between Dec. 17 and Dec. 21.

Golden also claimed that the area was “disproportionately impacted due to poor weather prediction accuracy.”

The city added that the public outreach from Xcel was “inadequate, unclear and at times misleading.”

Between 7 a.m. Dec. 17 and 7 a.m. Dec. 18, the company released four updates via its social media accounts, while the company’s power outage map was experiencing its own outage.

“I think we are communicating as frequently as we can and as transparently as we can. That said, there’s always an opportunity for improvement and I know that’s never going to satisfy everybody,” Xcel Energy President Robert Kenney said on Dec. 18.

In the final section of the letter, Golden raised the question of why the power shutoffs need to occur in the first place when infrastructure could be improved.

Part of the approved Wildfire Mitigation Plan is to move some wires underground and lower the need for shutoffs during high-wind forecasts.

It isn’t that simple, company officials insisted.

“It doesn’t necessarily mitigate the risk to do targeted undergrounding everywhere. It depends on the geographic location, it depends on the topography,” Kenney said on Dec. 18. “We are doing targeted underground in some locations but that’s not necessarily the best mitigation everywhere.”

Golden outlined several options, including the hardening of infrastructure, clearer timelines, improving weather predictions, and cleaning up coordination with local governments to ensure vulnerabilities are taken into account.

Shutoffs continued again Friday, with Xcel powering down parts of Fort Collins and Loveland due to high winds and dry conditions.

“It was not overly friendly. It did express the concerns the city had and it was well-worded,” City Councilor Paul Haseman said, referring to Golden’s letter.

“Golden is a resilient community that can weather any storm. Our residents and businesses are asking for and deserve a wildland fire risk response that is in step with public safety and economic vitality,” the city said in the letter.

The Golden Chamber of Commerce will hold a power shutoff business impact meeting at 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 21 at the Golden Community Center. Individuals and business owners do not need to be members of the chamber to attend. More info about the meeting can be found at business.goldenchamber.org/events/calendar.