A lot has happened since our last Currents magazine, most notably, was a violent storm that came through on Labor Day weekend and caused a massive outage. Please see the in-depth story, “Massive Storm Results in Widespread Damage.” Other news includes updates from our District and Annual meetings.
During September, I was privileged to meet with you at our district meetings as well as the Annual Meeting. On Thursday, September 15 at the Anderson Auto Group Fieldhouse hundreds of Cooperative members attended the annual meeting as well as many special guests.
Attendees received a nice gift bag and some lucky winners won some great door prizes and power credits. If you haven’t made it out to the Annual Meeting, I encourage you to come out next year and hear what we have going on.
The annual event, as mandated by the cooperative’s bylaws, was used to discuss several items from the past year as well as looking forward to the future.
Members entered the Fieldhouse, registered, received their free meals, and were given a complimentary gift of a large, insulated tote filled with picnic-themed gifts like a picnic blanket, frisbee and collapsible travel cups.
The members then made their way past informational tables for TWN Communications, Asplundh, Arizona Generation & Transmission Cooperatives (AzG&T) and Grand Canyon State Electric Cooperative Association (GCSECA). MEC had tables there as well, staffed with MEC employees who provided information on the SmartHub® app, Capital Credits, and the Outage Management System.
Board President Joe Anderson introduced the 9, member-elected Directors that comprise Mohave Electric Cooperative’s Board of Directors, along with Phil Cook, the CEO/GM of Graham County Electric Cooperative; Jason Bowling, CEO of Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative; Russell Smolden, CEO of B3 Strategies; Patrick Ledger, CEO of AzG&T; and Grand Canyon State Electric Cooperative Association (GCSECA) CEO Dave Lock.
Those in attendance learned that the results of a recent public opinion survey showed that over 90% of MEC members approve of the service that MEC provides, with 50% citing reliability as their top reason why. Good service and costs were the second and third most popular reasons. Reliability is critical for consistent and affordable service, which is why we are working so hard to secure other avenues of local energy generation and storage.
Members in attendance voted to approve a proposed Bylaw amendment changing the way notifications can be disseminated to board members for special meetings. Notifications can now be provided by email and telephone and the time required for providing notices has been shortened.
We also held our board member elections at our district meetings, and members in attendance recommended that Rich Tempelman (District 1), Deborah Johnson (District 2), and Toni Barbaro (District 3) continue representing them for a 3-year term. I’d like to congratulate these 3 board members who, along with the rest of the board members, work tirelessly to help the cooperative. We are happy to have them continue in their roles.