You and I have a lengthy history of ideological differences, some of which have been rather stark at times, at least to the extent that our comments on this site have accurately represented our views. However, I believe the situation you've described (if accurate, as I admit I haven't done any independent verification on it) represents a fine example of a case where our respective desired outcomes are closely aligned.
Caution: extreme run-on sentences ahead, as I believe it is critical to be very specific when discussing matters like imprisonment, and logical continuity matters greatly here.
(1) If this sequence of events is true, and (2) if it were proven that the actions of the elected officials were made in bad faith via intentional exclusion of factual data which should have been reasonably interpreted as favoring continued municipal energy production, with (3) accompanying direct and improper financial influence over the officials in question, and (4) optimally in terms of rating the eventual severity of the consequences, (a) strong evidence of the presence or lack of external conditions which would in retrospect be reasonably viewed as more likely root causes of the cited rapid energy cost increases, (5) I would be delighted to see the mayor and town council members serve lengthy prison terms. Their prison time would hopefully be followed up with personal financial sanctions, of greater or lesser severity depending upon the nature of (a) above, if only to serve as a clear warning to others. Unfortunately, I suspect any funds recovered via such penalties would fail to even begin to approach the total economic damage done to the community.
Regardless of our varied views on appropriate roles of government, and with clear acceptance that I am suggesting judicial and executive intervention on behalf of the people to determine whether egregious abuses of public office and trust have occurred in this case, how do you suggest we might encourage the people who appear to have been wronged to force such an investigation and prosecution if consequently warranted?
I support the "TLDR" here is: if this is true, it seems the community as a whole either doesn't care or doesn't have the capacity to understand that it has been wronged. How can we fix this? Looking forward to your reply.