LPEA CEO Chris Hansen is known for his “Coffee with Chris” events, billed as a chance for one-on-one conversation with our CEO. They’re interesting and informative, if you want half the story.
When Chris speaks of the benefits of LPEA joining the Southwest Power Pool, he fails to mention we are currently members through our membership in the Tri-State Generation & Transmission nonprofit cooperative. When he speaks of the benefits of getting hydro power from Vallecito, Chris fails to mention we’ve been getting hydro power from Vallecito since at least 2004, again through our membership in Tri-State.
When Chris speaks of the decreased power rates available to us by leaving Tri-State, he fails to mention the increased interest payments on our debt. On top of our current 90 million in debt, our board has approved an additional 250 million of debt. 162 million of the debt is to divorce us from the nonprofit Tri-State cooperative. A conservative estimate is that interest payments will account for 15% of the LPEA budget.
When Chris speaks of our Fitch A+ credit rating, he fails to mention that Fitch noted we were a regional utility monopoly that could raise rates without legal restriction.
When Chris says don’t worry about large data centers, he fails to mention that Google and Amazon are event sponsors of a nonprofit of which he is a founder and board chair.
Now we know why our LPEA board hired a politician to be CEO; the whole story is not so pretty.
John Purser
Durango
