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Along the same line, I had a discussion with one of our members who lives in Bellingham. He told me that OPALCO was not member oriented, and if there was another electric utility serving the San Juan Islands, our policies would be much different. I told him that whether there's competition or not, we want to be your utility of choice. We want to be so good that even if there was another utility, you would continue to buy power form us. One of our major thrusts for all of OPALCO during 1996 is to make sure we are your utility of choice. We have a lot of ideas on how to accomplish this and we will be checking with our members during the year through various formal and informal surveys to see how we're doing towards this goal. On a slightly different topic, you can now drop your telephone payment for PTI off at the OPALCO offices in Eastsound and Friday Harbor. You can also drop them off (along with your OPALCO payment) at Rainbow Services in Eastsound. In the near future, we hope to have a dropoff point for OPALCO and PTI payments in the Lopez Village area. We have done some minor remodeling of the Eastsound office to serve you better. We have expanded the counter so we can work with more than one person at a time. This should make things go faster if you stop in to pay your bill or if you have any other business with us. A final comment for those members with underground power lines. You need to call the Underground Locate Center at 1-800-424-5555 before you do any digging. The Underground Locate Center will take the necessary information and contact all of the local utilities so their facilities can be located before you start. The Underground Locate Center requires 48 hours advance notice. Digging up an underground power line can cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars, not to mention the potential for electrocution and the inconvenience for you and your neighbors. Remember, before you dig, call 1-800-424-5555.
Doug Bechtel
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