Kit Carson Coop Responds to Critics

Coop Members invited to Air Issues

Call Your Trustee: Look up his or her phone number.

On Tuesday April 27, presumably KCEC will hold their regular monthly meeting of the board of trustees at Coop HQ on Cruz Alta at 9 am. We say presumably because KCEC doesn’t notify the public of their meetings. And the Coop doesn’t send out a copy of their agenda in advance. If you look at the Coop’s web site, you’ll notice that contact information is limited to their snail-mail address and phone number for the general public. No email addresses are listed for the Coop or the trustees. Indeed, the trustees don’t even list their phone numbers despite posting lengthy bios. Under meetings, the Coop has yet to post a summary of a single meeting in 2010 on their web site.

Cover up or Incompetence? We’re only asking.

According to a press advisory, however, posted on Taos Horse Fly, April 25, by the apparent public relations spokesperson, Susan Embry, Kit Carson Electric Coop plans to hold advisory meetings for the general public. One meeting has been announced for April 29 but no time or location accompanies the announcement. Another meeting will be held in Penasco at the KCEC office May 10 at 5:30. And on May 11 at 5:30 in Taos at KCEC HQ members are invited to attend and learn about the Coop’s plans—and even ask questions.

Here are the questions we members have for the trustees and their CEO, Luis Reyes.

How does KCEC plan to pay off $60 million in debt during a period of declining growth in electrical demand, while engaged in money losing on diversification projects: Propane, Internet, Call and Command Center Capital Improvement Projects, and digital metering?

Reyes has announced in the newspapers that he is seeking support for taking on $20 million more in debt to subsidize a potential Broad Band Grant and estimates that 10,000 customers will benefit. (Taos Friction estimates that KCEC, Qwest, and Taos Net et al might have 10,000 Internet customers today but quien sabe?)

The Coop’s total assets are estimated at about $105 million and their current loan portfolio at $60 million. Putting another $20 million on the books would seem excessive.

Basically, the Coop’s monopoly on electricity sales and favorable low interest government loans, guaranteed by members, allow it to operate on extremely thin margins.

Due to the Coop’s merger and focus on capital intensive growth during the last decade, members can rightly ask: “Where are our capital credits?” You guys get to travel while we surf the Internet or browse through our fantasies while we stay home.

A drop in revenues or decline in growth means the Coop will ask the PRC sooner or later for a rate increase on electricity.

The Coop, a monopolistic culture, like local government, is not considered competitive in a market where other providers—Propane, Internet, or Broadband–exist.

Now Coop members are being forced to subsidize diversification projects, which look fiscally unsound both in terms of the past record and future speculation—where quick changes and flexible responses are necessary in the high tech world.

Few of the Trustees can be viewed as techno-energy mavens or even independent-thinking entrepreneurs. Trustees appear to serve at the Coop in an effort to acquire travel vouchers or secure monthly stipends. For all their many trips to Santa Fe, Denver, Las Vegas, Orlando, Hot Springs, San Antonio, Los Angeles or Washington D.C. it is extremely difficult to see how members benefit. The trustees may be unaware of modern communication methods and the information available on the Internet itself. Or perhaps they have turned a blind eye to high tech potential in favor of maintaining the political status quo of the club.

Currently, the board has gerrymandered coop districts so the outlying villages of Questa, Penasco, Angel Fire, and Ojo Caliente disenfranchise the majority of members, who live in Taos. Even Manuel Medina, an alleged representative of Taos residents, has voted against his constituents and supported the policies of the village highwaymen. (See facts and figures below.) Unfortunately, in Taos, whether due to “faith” in green energy or due to pay-offs in green advertising, the mainstream media appears to back the bad boys at the Coop right down to their travel vouchers.

KCEC Voting Facts and Figures

District 1, Taos, represented by Francis Cordova, Toby Martinez, Manuel Medina, and Luisa Mylet, has 17, 113 meters and 12,469 eligible voting members. So each trustee represents about 3,100 members. (Almost 2,000 members voted in the last election.)

District 2, Questa and Red River, represented by Virgil Martinez and Bobby Ortega, have 3,634 meters and about 2,726 voting members. So each trustee represents about 1,376 members.

District 3, Ojo Caliente, represented by Art Rodarte, has 1,640 meters and 1,239 eligible voting members. Trustees estimate that Art, the Tri-State Rep, makes an easy 40,000 grand for representing 1,239 members.

District 4, Peñasco Valley, represented by Chris Duran and Ambrose Mascarenas, has 2,057 meters and 1,619 eligible voting members. Each trustee represents 809.5 voters plus one cheerleader.

District 5, Angel Fire-Eagle Nest, represented by Jerry Smith and Bruce Jassman, has 4,714 meters and 3,918 voting members. Each trustee represents 1,959 members. (74 members voted in the last election.)
The one man, one vote rule applies to political subdivisions but, apparently, not to the Coop.
21,971 members are eligible to vote. Yet, the elected officers represent only 6,763 members.