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Members vote their choice
at locally owned electric co-ops
By Michael Callahan
Electric Power Associations of Mississippi Executive Vice President/CEO
Can you choose your electric power supplier? No, but you do have a voice in how you are served—if you are a member of an electric power association.
Service territories for Mississippi’s electric utilities, whether investor-owned corporations or consumer-owned electric power associations, were established by the state Public Utilities Act of 1956.
So, although you cannot choose your electric supplier, you can influence the quality of your service by choosing a director to represent you on the electric power association’s board. Your electric power association is a cooperative governed by a board of directors made up of electric power association members. Each director is accountable only to the membership. Members elect directors at the electric power association’s annual membership meeting, which is open to all members regardless of how much electricity they use.
Directors come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but they are single-minded when it comes to electric service: They demand reliable and affordable electricity from a stable, well-run electric cooperative. They want their cooperative to anticipate and prepare for future service needs. And they need an electric cooperative capable of responding quickly to power outages of any magnitude. Isn’t this what you expect from your power provider?
Directors set the rates members pay for electricity. (And directors pay the same rates members pay.) An electric power association’s rates cover only the cost of doing business. Directors carefully consider the association’s costs for wholesale electricity, line construction and maintenance, expansions and upgrades, salaries, building maintenance, taxes and other costs involved in operating a business. (One thing they don’t have to consider is a profit for investors.)
With local directors controlling your locally owned electric power association, you can rest assured your cooperative is more responsive to its members and more accountable for its service.
Our members know they can walk into (or call) their local electric power association office and get personal service—which seems to be disappearing in this age of annoying and difficult-to-navigate telephone menu systems.
We want our members to feel a part of their electric power association. Good communication with our members is a valuable tool that helps us gauge needs and develop programs specifically for our service area.
If you are a new member, I encourage you to learn how your electric power association works; it is unlike any other form of electric utility. And make plans to attend its next annual meeting. You may be pleasantly surprised at the warm welcome you get from the general manager and the directors.
Consumer-owned electric power associations have been giving Mississippians the cooperative form of “choice” for more than 70 years. You are our partner in the delivery of safe, reliable and affordable electric service.
You—not investors—are the reason we exist.
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