Recordbreaking money coming into Grant PUD race
Money continues to flood into the Grant County Public Utility District elections at a record pace, primarily from advocacy group AG Power Users of Grant County, which has already donated almost $54,000 combined to candidates Nelson Cox and Judy Wilson, according to filings with Washington state’s Public Disclosure Commission. This dwarfs the previous record for donations by a single group into the Grant County PUD elections, $34,500 of in-kind contributions made in 2008 by Quincy-based public relations and marketing firm Lubach Communications.
Fundraising in the race has largely been framed by the opposing interests of irrigators and data centers vying over favorable electricity rate structures. The vast majority of money raised by Cox and Wilson have come from AG Power Users of Grant County and various farms, while their opponents, Patricia (Patti) Paris and incumbent commissioner Terry Brewer, have raised a sizable sum from various data centers. Quincy-based H5 Data Centers, which has contributed $5,000 each to Brewer and Paris, is the largest source of outside funds for Brewer or Paris.
Paris has also contributed an additional $19,000 of her own funds to her campaign. In total, over $126,000 has been raised in the race for the two open PUD commissioner seats. Though slightly over $130,000 was raised in 2010 and 2008, both races had more candidates — Cox alone has raised $48,000, more than any other candidate for the PUD in recent history.
In literature distributed by the election campaigns of Cox and Wilson, the two align themselves with irrigators, which are called “core customers,” in a flyer, while criticizing what they call “better rates than anyone else” that data centers negotiated under current commissioners. Meanwhile, Brewer said in an interview that the contributions by AG Power Users of Grant County to Cox and Wilson are due to tensions over the utility district’s cost-of-service-based rate schedule.
As of three years ago, Brewer said, the utility district aimed to charge no less than 20 percent below cost for irrigation customers. In recent years, however, irrigators have received over twice the discount, Brewer said, and they are loathe to let it go.
Though AG Power Users of Grant County is registered with the state as non-profit, it is not registered as a tax-exempt entity with the IRS, according to filings with that agency. As the group is also not registered with the state Public Disclosure Commission, it is not immediately clear where the group is getting its money. The PDC was not able to determine before press time whether the group was technically involved in political activities to such an extent that it was required by law to disclose its financial information, and the agency’s compliance and enforcement division is currently looking into the matter.
In filings with the Washington Office of the Secretary of State, the group lists four governors: John Bates, Travis Meacham, David Stevens and Ryan Vandyke. In an interview with the Columbia Basin Herald, Meacham said the PDC had previously informed the group that they were not required to file financial disclosures. Meacham said he would reach out to the PDC again to settle the matter, but declined to release the group’s financial records in the meantime.
Though the money flooding into the race is setting record highs, it is microscopic compared to the size of the agency the new commissioners would help steer. The PUD’s forecasted budget for 2018 is $251,752,000, compared to a $124 million budget for the Moses Lake School District and a $121 million budget for Grant County in its function as an independent agency.