Incumbent board members best able to meet SDCEA challenges

I attended a Meet the Candidates meeting in Howard hosted by Sangre De Cristo Electric Association May 4.

Each of five candidates spoke of their background, experience and goals they would have as a SDCEA board member.

After the candidates spoke, pertinent questions were asked by members of the audience. Each candidate had an opportunity to respond to the questions.

SDCEA will need to hire a new CEO in the immediate future.

I feel the incumbent board members are best qualified for this important task. SDCEA is ahead of current federal requirements for purchasing wholesale power from renewable sources, by pursuing geothermal generation of electricity here in the Arkansas Valley.

SDCEA purchases most of it’s power from Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which is also a co-op organization. Joe Redetzke gave us several reasons why this is a good relationship.

Joe Redetzke and Michael Robinson recently came to our 6 a.m. coffee group in Howard to explain current SDCEA practices and policies.

Recently, during a heavy wet snowstorm, when calling SDCEA at 4 a.m., to report the outage, they informed us due to the heavy wet snow, power was out in Howard, Coaldale, and Cotopaxi and crews had been out since 1 a.m., working to repair damaged lines. Appreciation is extended to the personnel and crews that have to work in such conditions.

I believe that the incumbent board members, Joe Redetzke, Michael Robinson, and Blake Bennets are worthy of your vote and mine.

Tom French

Howard