BOULDER - The city of Boulder continues to want businesses and skeptics of its effort to form a municipal electric utility to speak up, the city's energy strategist told the Boulder Chamber on Wednesday.

Heather Bailey, the city's recently hired executive director for energy strategy and electric utility development, gave the chamber an overview of the city's recent work.

Bailey said work has been focused on conducting research about whether Boulder could clear the financial, technical and legal hurdles necessary before launching an electric utility.

City staff and consultants could have a recommendation for the Boulder City Council about whether it should form a municipal utility by the first quarter of 2013, Bailey said.

In November, Boulder voters narrowly approved two ballot measures that give the Boulder City Council the authority to form an electric utility and allocated $1.9 million in tax dollars to study whether it was feasible and could meet conditions set by the Boulder City Charter.

The Boulder Chamber was among the opponents of the measures and advocated for their rejection. The meeting Wednesday was partly an effort to ask skeptics to stay involved in the process.

"Whether you are for or against, it's very important to engage in the process we're going through," Bailey said.

The city is trying to engage businesses and residents in a few ways. It has established a new interactive website, http://www.InspireBoulder.com, where users can comment on the energy strategy. The city also plans to hold open houses this fall, and Bailey invited business owners to contact her through the http://www.BouldersEnergyFuture.com website.

Bailey said the city understood reaching out to businesses requires some special effort, as they may not have much time to spend following a protracted and convoluted process.

"Most of y'all are busy running your businesses," Bailey said.

If Boulder does form an electric utility, it would have to obtain the distribution grid from Xcel Energy Inc., which has said it is not a willing seller and invested heavily in last year's campaign against the measures.