GRANT COUNTY PUD

There are a lot of things I have to be thankful for, and this time of the year is a good time to reflect on them. I have a good family, good health, and live in, what I consider, the best place in the world.

One of the things that I have been busy with is trying to convince the PUD commission to hold off on its rate increase schedule until 2011 and give our economy here a chance to recover and have some compassion for those who unfortunately have lost their jobs or are living in fixed incomes. I attended all three of the hearings on the budget and pointed out solutions to the problems they are facing and tried to get them to understand their own budget and what it has meant from a historical perspective. There was only one commissioner who took to hear what I had to say, Terry Brewer. He has stated to the other commissioners he would not vote for a rate increase, for the reasons as stated above.

I just completed reviewing the PUD’s financial statements from the October 31st time period, and am even more resolved in the belief that a rate increase is unnecessary. Our PUD, it does belong to all of us, is showing a net operating income so far this year of $25,254,000 on top of the net operating income of $279,000,000 for the last three years. The only way for us to let the commissioners know we don’t want them to raise our rates is to e-mail them. The commissioners need to hear your voice. E-mail Greg Hansen, Randy Allred, Bob Bernd, Tom Flint and tell them your stories. You can e-mail them at commissioners@gcpud.org. I hope they will listen.

Dale Walker

Moses Lake