If you pay your electric bills to Sangre de Cristo Electric Association, you are a Co-op member/owner. As such, do you support the Board’s proposals to increase your base rate by 45 percent, to $46/month? How about decreasing use charges for high energy users and eliminating incentives to reduce energy use by investing in solar panels and other renewable forms of energy? Members who know about these proposals oppose them. If enacted, Sangre’s electric charges would remain the highest in Colorado and local efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and build climate resilience would stall.
In 2022, responding to members’ opposition, the Board withdrew its rate restructuring proposal, but then resubmitted it in 2023, essentially unchanged!
You might ask: How can the member-elected board twice ignore members’ opposition to these proposals? One reason: Board membership has tipped towards “business as usual”, neither transparently nor democratically. Rather, the Board is wed to its rate restructuring proposals.
What you can do:
To rebalance the Board: VOTE in the May, 2023 elections for new Board members.
Only about 14 percent of Sangre members vote in Board elections. Predictably, the Board’s reaction to low voter turnout is to disregard members’ preferences.
Jeff Fiedler and Mark Boyle, highly qualified candidates, pledge accountability to members’ interests while building a cheaper, cleaner, more resilient energy future. Jeff has three decades of clean energy policy experience, and Mark has 40 years of experience as an electrical engineer.
Exercise your member/ownership rights in the Cooperative. Watch for your ballot in the mail.
Terri Lukas
Nathrop
Editor’s notes: Ark Valley Voice has seen no proof of this statement above: “local efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and build climate resilience would stall.
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