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The one time I am tempted to just drag out a prior OPALCOGRAM is each year at our Annual Meeting. Each year, I say the same things. I tell you how surprised I am that only 10% of you are going to return the ballot for directors of OPALCO. Most cooperatives routinely get a 30-50% return. Each year, I remind you that OPALCO is a cooperative, and the Annual Meeting is your opportunity to help set the course of our cooperative for the next year. With nearly 8,000 members of OPALCO, we usually get about 150 members attending. This year, our Annual Meeting is going to be on Saturday, April 27. As usual, it will be held on a Washington State Ferry. For the last several years, we have been holding it relatively early in the day so that it doesn't take up all of your Saturday. By the time you read this, we will have mailed you our Annual Report. There is a lot of interesting and useful information in this report (at least I think so), and I urge you to read the report, tear out the ballot for directors that is contained in the center, and mail it back to OPALCO. Then mark April 27 on your calendar and attend the meeting. If you are planning to attend our Annual Meeting, you don't have to mail in the ballot. You will be able to vote at the meeting. But we encourage you to vote by mailing in your ballot anyway. That way, even if something comes up and you can't make the meeting at the last minute, your vote will still be counted. This year, let's try something different. If the 700 of you who return your ballot will each remind a neighbor to return their ballot, we could double the votes cast with very little effort on any of our parts. In the past, you have heard me talk about Project PAL, our local program to help senior citizens and others having problems paying their electric bills. There is some information of Project PAL in the Annual Report, and there is a place to mark on the back of your envelope if you want to sign up for this program. If you haven't already done so, please do. If you are not certain whether you have signed up, check the box anyway - you won't have to pay twice if you have already signed up. There are a lot of people in San Juan County who were helped by this program last winter. There were a lot more we could have helped had there been additional funds available to us. Project PAL is a chance for you to help your neighbors at a cost of about 50 cents a month. At any rate, we look forward to seeing you on the ferry on the 27th.
Doug Bechtel
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