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News & Views from Your Elected Representatives
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Board Meeting
February 26, 2002
The meeting of the Board of
Directors of Salem Electric was called to order by President Alicia Bonesteele,
following an executive session which began at 6 p.m. Board members present
were: Alicia Bonesteele, Jim Dyer, Paul Ennor and Nancy Horn. Also present was
Angie Thomas, the Leadership Youth representative.
Craig Anderson from Chemeketa Community College
presented an update on the College's new Viticulture Center which is located in
Salem Electric's service territory. Anderson thanked the board for the
invitation and provided information on the wine grape industry, noting that
Oregon is second nationally in the number of wines produced and fourth in grape
production. The program currently has 440 students enrolled, with 475 projected
for next year. He mentioned that students come from all over the Northwest and
as far away as the east coast and even New Zealand to take the course. The
property in West Salem consists of 57 acres, with the potential for 18 acres of
grapes. Currently 1.6 acres is planted. Anderson said they anticipate
being in the building by June 2003.
Jack Belleque, Administrative Services Manager, called
attention to the Top 50 Vendor List which was included in this month's
financial report. He noted that the auditors have been at Salem Electric for
the past week and have completed their audit. They will be giving their report
at the April meeting.
Roger Kuhlman, Engineering & Operations Manager,
provided a brief report on the problems experienced with the water source heat
pump system that was installed during the remodeling project. He said a
consultant has been hired to determine the source of the problems and the best
options for fixing the system.
Terry Kelly, Member Services Manager, said Image
Analysis, a Portland company, has been selected to conduct a customer survey.
He briefly reviewed the questions that will be asked. He said about 400
customers will be randomly selected for the phone survey. He expects a report
from Image Analysis within a month of their completing the calls.
Angie Thomas, Leadership Youth member, reported that
she and President Bonesteele had attended the mid-year pizza party at the
Chamber of Commerce. It provided an opportunity to talk about the pros and cons
of the boards the students are serving on.
Bob Speckman, General Manager, provided an update on
discussions taking place about the future of the Bonneville Power
Administration (BPA) and efforts to come up with a common position for public
power and investor-owned utilities. Speckman went over the current BPA
adjustment which will take effect April 1, 2002, that could result in an
approximate 4% reduction in Salem Electric's wholesale cost. BPA has also
announced that they expect to raise rates 11% in October.
He said he would like to suggest a policy that it is
Salem Electric's intent to provide more rate stability for its members than BPA
is providing us. Under such a policy, Salem Electric would adjust its rates
annually instead of each time BPA changes its rates. MOTION was made by Dyer
and seconded by Horn that it is the policy of the board to maintain as much
stability as possible with regard to rates during this unstable time. Further,
the board would like to limit rate adjustments, when necessary, to once
annually. MOTION carried unanimously.
Funding for the Salem Electric Member Assistance
Program was reviewed. Terry Kelly noted that the economy has been the reason
given by many of the first-time applicants for low-income heating bill
assistance this year. Staff anticipates there will be an estimated 986
households needing assistance. At the current level of funding, there is enough
to assist only 824 households. Following a brief discussion of the options
presented, a MOTION was made and passed that the board go with the staff report
option to increase the budget and maintain current assistance levels through
the end of this heating season, April 30.
Meeting adjourned at 8:35 p.m.
Nancy Horn
Acting Secretary
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Last month
President Bonesteele wrote an article on the fast-changing world of the
electrical industry. She spoke of the almost endless source of information that
your Salem Electric board of directors and management has concerning innovation
and new technology. These things touch on every phase of the industry from
worker safety to generation, transmission and distribution. She touched on the
many sources of generation that are now becoming available. One of these is
wind power.
It seems like only a few years ago that most people
thought a windmill was either in Holland or in a farmer's field pumping water.
In 1935, a laser was a toy in a science laboratory. Things do change, and
rapidly. My folks always told me that every cloud had a silver lining. This is
true in the generation of electricity. The horrible "cloud" created
by the drought of 2000-2001 and the mess California made of their misguided
efforts in deregulation of the electrical industry was, and is indeed, a dark
cloud. But there seems to be a silver lining of sorts. Major industries such as
Florida Power and Light, Southern Company and even the now defunct Enron saw
that there could be money made from wind generated power. This brings me to the
subject of the Last Mile Co-op (LMC).
A few years ago our members indicated a strong
interest in supporting alternate sources of electrical generation. Letters and
calls continue to support that interest. Last year the Washington Rural
Electric Cooperative Association (WRECA) began looking into the possibility of
testing for wind generation in areas covered by co-ops, municipals, and PUDs.
The reasoning was that if this prospect was not looked into by publicly-owned
utilities, then it would be bought or leased by major investor-owned utilities
(IOUs).
Florida Power and Light has an operational site now in
Wasco County. It was argued that the IOUs could largely dictate the price from
that source of power. Even more importantly are such projects even feasible.
Obviously there are costs to operate the LMC and selecting sites. Fifteen
public utilities put $10,000 each into LMC to fund a director and to purchase
some test wind generators. These only test the flow and consistency of wind at
various sites and do not generate electricity. There would eventually be
construction costs and a huge amount of contracting with some transmission
company. I hasten to say that Salem Electric will not be involved at that
level. We are a distribution company, which leaves us largely free of
government oversight. This gives Salem Electric a considerable advantage when
it comes to serving our members in the way we feel, and the way they tell us,
they want to be served.
Roger Kuhlman and I have been attending LMC's
quarterly meetings. There are telephone conferences each month. We will update
you from time to time as the project moves along.
Jim Dyer
Vice-President
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