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I told you in those OPALCOGRAMS that I am committed to having OPALCO be your utility of choice in the future. There are a lot of hard decisions that we are going to have to make between then and now. How important is it to have a locally owned and operated electric cooperative? Have you had any dealings with PTI since they closed their offices? If you buy your power from a cut rate supplier, the chances are there will be nothing but a voice at the end of a telephone in Colorado, Minnesota, or Texas. We are proud of what we put back into San Juan County. Our employees are involved in many community organizations. Jim Cahail was the mayor of Friday Harbor for many years. Carol Cotton has served for several years on the Orcas Library Board. Other employees are involved in their local water system, Little League Baseball, soccer, community foundations, port commissions, and so on. Each year we offer electric safety education in the schools and for other groups. We have sponsored art contests in the schools, we are active in the county fair, and our Project PAL helps our members having financial problems. By being a local organization, we know who you are, and we are far more able to help you with a problem than someone several miles away on the other end of a telephone. I believe it is very important for our employees to be active in the community. I, for one, think San Juan County would be a far different place if all OPALCO had were linemen on a few of the major islands. Not to count the effect of our payroll on the local economy. When we start fighting to cut that last small fraction of a penny off of every kWh, it is going to be hard to compete with those people who have no commitment to our community. How important is price and how important is the local service you receive from OPALCO? If you have any thoughts on the importance of OPALCO to the community, let us know. In the meantime, we continue to examine all of our costs of operation to make sure that our costs are as competitive as they can be. We are coming up on the 1997 budget cycle here at OPALCO, and it is going to be interesting to see how the process evolves and what changes we will see in 1997.
Doug Bechtel
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