Miller to address Vermont energy plan at annual meeting

Washington Electric Cooperative, with more than 10,000 member/owners in 41 central Vermont towns, will hold its 72nd Annual Membership Meeting at the Montpelier Elks Lodge on Wednesday, May 25, 2011. The annual meetings ‘ which feature dinner (by reservation), voting for Board members, officers’ reports, and a guest speaker ‘ combine both the social and policy-related advantages of belonging to a cooperatively owned electric utility. The guest speaker for the 2011 annual meeting will be Elizabeth Miller, Vermont’s new commissioner of the Department of Public Service (DPS). Her address will be titled, ‘Energy for Vermonters: Weighing Our Choices and Making A Plan.’
This year, in addition to electing three co-op members to the nine-seat Board of Directors, the membership also will vote on whether to approve WEC’s participation in the upcoming 22-year electricity-supply contract between Hydro-Quebec and 21 Vermont electric utilities. The contract will take effect on November 1, 2016. Due to statutory provisions in Vermont law that apply to cooperatively owned electric utilities (as opposed to investor-owned utilities), WEC’s member-owners must approve their co-op’s involvement.
Because WEC produces much of its own power, from landfill methane and a small hydroelectric facility, and has contracted for power at competitive rates from other sources including First Wind’s project in Sheffield ‘ now under construction ‘ WEC will not need HQ power for several years. However, the co-op proposed unique provisions in the HQ contract that will allow it to retain its share of the Canadian company’s power, used and paid for in the interim by Vermont Electric Co-op, until WEC needs it. Those provisions were approved by the Public Service Board when it awarded Hydro-Quebec a Certificate of Public Good in April.
Voting, both for the Hydro-Quebec contract and for candidates for WEC’s Board of Directors, has already begun, through mailed-in ballots. Balloting will conclude at the May 25 meeting, where the results will be announced before adjournment at 8:30 p.m.
DPS Commissioner Miller, formerly a Burlington-based attorney, was appointed by Gov. Peter Shumlin to head the Department in January. Shumlin has charged the Department with Washington Electric Co-op, updating the state’s 2008 Comprehensive Energy Plan, and broadening it to include a ‘Twenty-Year Electric Plan.’ Miller is overseeing that project. WEC General Manager Avram Patt said he anticipates that the energy and electric plan will figure largely in Miller’s address.
‘We have been pleased to see that under Commissioner Miller’s leadership the Department is taking a serious role in statewide energy and electricity planning, and having an open process that enables everyone to be involved,’ said Patt. ‘In turn, we thought it would be a good idea to have the commissioner be involved with our members, and were very glad that she accepted our invitation to be our guest speaker.’
The yearly meeting of co-op members ‘ the seventy-second this year, since WEC’s founding in Adamant in 1939 ‘ is the premiere opportunity for members to practice participatory democracy, electing fellow-members to the Board of Directors. Three board seats will expire at the time of the meeting. For the first time in several years the candidates are all incumbents ‘ Treasurer Donald Douglas of East Orange, Secretary Marion Milne of Washington, and Director David Magida of Middlesex. Write-ins are permitted.
The 2011 annual meeting will be the first since WEC instituted a 23.81-percent rate increase on January 1 ‘ the co-op’s first rate increase in 11 years. It takes the form of a temporary surcharge, pending a ruling on the increase by the PSB later this year.
‘We’ve had a lot of discussion with our members about this increase, well before it went into effect and continuing afterward,’ said Patt. ‘I’m sure we’ll talk further about it at the annual meeting. That’s one of the primary functions of a cooperative’s membership meeting ‘ to share information and involve people in important, sometimes difficult, decisions.’
The May 25 Annual Membership Meeting will begin at 5 p.m., with registration and ballot boxes available. Dinner will feature locally grown food products, and will be served at 5:30. The business meeting will convene at 6:30, with Commissioner Miller’s address scheduled for 7 p.m. WEC will provide free childcare for Co-op members.
Source: WEC