May 2009
Manager's Report to the Members
Please regard this message as a personal invitation to attend the 68th Annual Meeting of Mountain View Electric Association to be held on June 11, 2009 at the new Falcon High School. The annual meeting lies at the heart of the cooperative principles and presents an opportunity for the member/owners to provide direct input to the Board and Management on the operations of the Association. This meeting also gives you the opportunity to learn of issues that may have an impact on the Association and future electricity sources. If you need an excellent reason to attend your annual meeting, I can give you two. First, the Colorado PUC is investigating the opportunity to regulate resource planning for Tri-State G&T and second, the Obama Administration and Congress are writing laws to control greenhouse gases. Both of these actions, if ratified, will prove to have a very dramatic increase on the price of electricity in Colorado.
On the local front, in early February, 2009, the Colorado Public Utility Commission opened a docket to begin a preliminary investigation into increasing the regulatory participation in and authority over Tri‐State’s electric generation resource planning activities. The Tri‐State Board unanimously passed a resolution to strongly oppose this action. MVEA, as one of the 44 member/owners of Tri‐State, unanimously passed a resolution to oppose any added PUC regulation and to support Tri‐State in its opposition. PUC authority would only add another layer of un-needed regulation that would make Tri-State accountable to the PUC rather than the members. The PUC is composed of a three‐person commission appointed by the Governor. The Tri-State Board, composed of one director from each of the 44-member systems, is directly accountable to the local cooperative membership and is the most effective and appropriate regulatory body to govern Tri-State’s generation resource plan. An added layer of regulation by the PUC will eliminate the “Local Control” concept of the Tri-State Board and increase the price of electricity through increased administrative and regulatory costs.
On the national front, the Obama Administration gave the EPA a “green light” to draft the rules for the regulation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. At the same time, Obama informed Congress that if the politicians could not draft legislation to control the greenhouse gases, the EPA was in the process of drafting regulation. Congress has begun the process. The House Energy and Commerce Democratic leaders released a 600-page, four-part draft energy and climate strategy to spur discussion heading into a series of hearings and markups intended to culminate in a finished committee product by Memorial Day. The four titles of the bill -- clean energy, energy efficiency, global warming and transitioning to a low-carbon economy -- encompass an ambitious agenda House Democratic leaders and President Obama are trying to shepherd this bill through Congress as early as this year.
The draft from Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and his Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., includes some of the guts of a plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions through a market-based cap-and-trade plan which would reduce carbon levels by 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. It has an interim marker of reducing U.S. emissions 20 percent by 2020.
The draft will be missing crucial details for a cap-and-trade program, including how emission credits would be either given to businesses or sold to them via auction. "We thought it was more important to talk to members and get more member input on allocating credits,” Waxman said. The bill does not lay out how to reroute cash to consumers who could face higher electricity bills if companies pass on cap-and-trade costs. "We're still trying to determine the best way to handle that," Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., said.
The Senate version of the energy bill -- which Senate Majority Leader Reid has said he wants to merge with a cap-and-trade plan being worked on by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for the full Senate this summer -- is expected to include oil, natural gas and other domestic energy production items not covered in the Waxman and Markey draft.
Both of these issues are of concern to the MVEA board and management as they should be for our membership. Attendees at the upcoming meeting will have the opportunity to learn how these issues will impact the price and availability of electricity in future years.
The purpose of this Annual Report is to provide information to the membership on the status and the operations of Mountain View Electric Association. Please take the time to review the pages of the Annual report and to contact one of our offices if you have any questions.
And as always, the employees of the Association deserve special recognition. It is their dedication to customer satisfaction and their professionalism that helps to ensure the success and stability of your Association. The employees continue to work diligently to meet the demands of growth throughout MVEA’s service area. They strive to uphold the credo that delivering quality service to the membership is our number one priority.
Please mark your calendars and plan to attend your cooperative’s Annual Meeting. I encourage you to take this opportunity to be more involved in your electric association and exercise your rights as a member of MVEA. We welcome your questions and participation. I look forward to seeing you the evening of June 11th at the new Falcon High School.
President's Message
Mountain View Electric Association is preparing for its 68th Annual Meeting. This year’s meeting will be in Falcon at the new Falcon High School on Thursday June 11, 2009. Due to overwhelming attendance the past several years, we will once again have an evening meeting. Your presence helps make this a successful event and we look forward to seeing you at this year’s meeting.
If I was to create a title for this report, I would call it..."The Uncertain Future” because, that is just what we face. When it comes to our members, MVEA has always focused on providing three things: available electricity, reliable electricity and affordable electricity. There is an uncertainty in regards to all of these items. Are we going to have enough electricity in the near future or will we have rolling blackouts? How reliable can the system be if we have rolling black outs? Due to the difficulty in building base load generation, I would say the answer to these questions is uncertain. Our biggest challenge is going to be keeping rates affordable in the face of pending climate change legislation at both the state and federal levels. There is talk in Washington about a cap and trade bill to help reduce the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. With very few details available concerning this bill, it is hard to say exactly what will happen with rates; but, there is reason to believe they will go up significantly if the bill is passed.
Electric co-ops have succeeded against great odds in the past; however, this does not guarantee that we will do so in the future. Bringing electricity to rural America was, perhaps, the greatest engineering achievement of the last century. But unless we take action now, who can say what the future holds for us in regards to electricity availability.
Please plan to attend your annual meeting so that we can update you on the latest developments in regards to pending legislation. We want to share how, together, we can work to keep your electricity available, reliable and affordable.
On another note, Operation Round-Up continues to be a strong program for providing assistance to our members with approximately 70% of our members donating to the fund. Round-Up has awarded well over $1,000,000.00 in grant disbursements to members and organizations that benefit our members. I would like to thank all of you that participate in and support this very worthwhile program.
Construction continues on our new office facility in Falcon. We hope to be completely finished by the fall of 2009.
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to thank all the employees of MVEA for their hard work and dedication to our Association and its members. We are very fortunate to have quality employees to serve you.
Facts About Your Coop
MVEA Facts (December 2008)
Counties served – Arapahoe, Crowley, Douglas, Elbert, El Paso, Lincoln, Pueblo and Washington
Year organized – 1941
Power source – Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
Number of employees – 135
Number of services – 45,319
Miles of energized line – 5,982
Consumers per mile – 7.58
Total plant in service – $199,716,682
Service territory – 5,000 square miles
Notice of Annual Meeting
Mountain View Electric Association, Inc.’s 2009 Annual Meeting of members will be held at Falcon High School, 10255 Lambert Road, Falcon, Colorado, on Thursday, June 11, 2009, commencing at 7 p.m. for the purposes:
1. To elect three directors of the Association: One from District 1; one
from District 4 and one from District 6, all as provided by the Association’s Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation;
2. To approve and confirm the minutes of the last annual meeting of members;
3. To receive and act upon the report on business transacted since the last annual meeting, and to report on financial transactions during calendar year 2008;
4. To transact such other business as may properly come before the meeting or any adjournment or adjournments thereof.
Dated at Limon, Colorado, this 13th day of January 2009,
By Order of the Board of Directors
Milton L. Mathis, Secretary
In the beginning.....
In the early part of the 20th century, society was divided into rural and urban, the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Electricity was the great divider. The rural people of America were the have-nots. They were told that it was not profitable for the electric companies to provide electricity to the rural areas. No profit, no power.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt changed that forever with the New Deal. As part of his plan, the Rural Electrification Administration was established in 1935. In 1936, the Rural Electrification Act was signed enabling loans to be made to cooperatives ready to electrify rural America.
The folks outside Colorado Springs were getting antsy to have the same advantages as the city folk. So, in December 1940, approximately 150 people gathered at the Black Forest Community Center (the log structure at the corner of Black Forest and Shoup Roads) to see about forming an electric cooperative. They succeeded in their efforts and incorporated just a month later in January 1941 as Mountain View Electric Association. The cooperative applied for and received a loan to build an electric system.
MVEA got a jump-start by purchasing Commonwealth Electric Company and its generator located in Limon. Hence, Limon became MVEA’s headquarters and an office was established. The purchase of Commonwealth included the electric lines running along Highway 24 from Limon to Falcon and from Limon to Genoa. To join MVEA, you needed to purchase a membership at the cost of $5. According to the Consumer Price Index, that $5 they paid in 1941 would be worth about $73 today. It was a lot of egg money back in 1941. Joining the cooperative didn’t mean someone was just going to come in and build your electric lines. Members were expected to help by contributing equipment and lots of hard work. But with WWII, growth at the co-op was almost at a standstill. It was almost impossible to get supplies and there were few able bodied men to help build the system. But after 1945, MVEA took off. Eventually, crews were hired and equipment was purchased and the cooperative built services to its members. This was MVEA’s foundation – a group of dedicated, hardworking members.
MVEA still operates on the same principles it started with 68 years ago. It is still owned by the members it serves and it works to provide the best in service. Remember, as a member, you are part of a great tradition – a rural cooperative.
Your Board of Directors----A Dedicated Group
Being a director for MVEA takes time and dedication. Not only do they attend daylong board meetings each month, but also serve as directors for other related organizations and attend seminars, conferences and classes to stay informed and enable them to better serve MVEA. The Board of Directors is your voice in the cooperative. They ensure that the best interests of their districts are served by their decisions.
The MVEA Board of Directors is responsible for directing the affairs of the cooperative. They understand that the electric utility industry is an evolving high-tech system that must be designed and engineered to meet regulatory and consumer standards for reliability, quality and safety. To meet these standards requires an appropriate investment by MVEA for planned growth and unexpected natural and man-made disasters.
The board is responsible for:
- The financial health of MVEA.
- Ensuring and evaluating the long-term stability of the organization.
- Identifying goals through strategic planning and by authorizing the appropriate allocation of resources through the adoption of financial policies and by budget review and approval.
- Maintaining a good relationship with consumers, community leaders, media, public officials and others that can affect the success of the cooperative.
- Managing and maintaining these relationships for the benefit of MVEA.
To help directors gain the knowledge and skills they need to make responsible decisions for the cooperative, all of MVEA’s directors have completed utility courses through the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the Colorado Rural Electric Association. These courses assist directors in meeting the challenges of keeping a growing cooperative financially stable while providing safe, reliable and cost effective electrical service through innovative technology to its members.
You can be assured that your MVEA board of directors is dedicated to governing a business that is owned by the membership with responsibility, accountability and a thorough understanding of the complex environment of today’s electric industry. Effective decision-making is a must and your directors have gained the tools to make those decisions through education and experience.
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We had another very successful year with our calendar photo contest! The photos were great and produced a beautiful calendar. We look forward to getting your awesome photos again. Click above for the entry form and rules-----keep up the good work!!
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