In a letter to the editor (Herald, May 1), a candidate for the La Plata Electric Association board touts his business experience, saying, “LPEA is a business, and I feel it should be run as a business.” Other challengers for the board say similar things in their mailers and ads.
The thing is: They’re wrong.
LPEA is not a business; it is a cooperative. Both businesses and cooperatives provide a service for a fee. But the goal of a business is to create profit for its shareholders, while the goal of a cooperative is to create value for its members (That’s us).
In his first term on the LPEA board, Britt Bassett has promoted programs and policies that benefit LPEA’s members. He requested that LPEA negotiate the unreasonable charge Tri-State imposed for a duplicate meter on community solar gardens because a lower charge benefits members. He fought for an AMI (“smart meter”) opt-out program with a meter-reading fee that reflects actual costs – not a punitive fee – because this benefits members. He objected to the large increase in the base charge pushed by Tri-State and to the loss of reasonable off-peak hours for time-of-use customers. He has been working toward changing Tri-State’s requirement that it provide 95 percent of LPEA’s power because local power generation helps the local economy and benefits members.
Please keep Britt Bassett working for you, the members. Re-elect him to the LPEA board of directors.
Ilana Stern
Durango
