Thanks to our incredible staff and leadership team, La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) is well run and stable. We have a balanced budget, dependable leadership, low-cost electricity, and an increasingly clean energy supply. Collectively, LPEA has experienced some big wins:

 

• Lowest single-year outage stats since 2014 with reliability above 99%

• Completed Electra Lake, CR 250 and Pagosa to Bayfield rebuilds on budget and ahead of schedule with North Animas Valley transmission line rebuild and the Lake Purgatory cable upgrades soon to be complete.

• Exceeded all financial health targets including operating margins, cash reserves, and debt to equity objectives. 

• Launched the Sunnyside Community Solar Garden and announced a 40MW PPA of solar power from Dolores Canyon solar. 

• Hosted food drives sponsored FLC’s Hawk Tank, and launched the Giving Tree program

 

During my five-year tenure on the LPEA Board, we reduced wholesale rates by over 10% and returned more than $11 million in capital credit refunds to members. I’ve consistently fought for and helped keep rates low, limiting annual increases to just 2.5% — well below the 23% inflation rate over the same period. I also helped secure over $16.5 million in grants to protect bald eagles from high-voltage lines, expand low-cost renewable energy — including the Sunnyside Community Solar Garden — and improve wildfire mitigation and power grid resiliency.

 

Lowering your electric bill, implementing renewables, building climate resilience against extreme weather and fire mitigation will continue to be my top priorities as an LPEA board member. In addition to supporting these incredible LPEA board initiatives over the past five years, I am proud to have led the search committee dedicated to replacing our departing CEO with an exceptionally qualified new CEO, Chris Hansen.

 

When you see an LPEA truck fixing electric poles, performing fire mitigation, or burying an electric line, take a moment to wave; we are grateful for their hard work.

 

I am grateful to be an LPEA board member and hope to continue serving our community as District Four’s incumbent representative in 2025 and beyond.

 

While the LPEA board role is a paid position, I donate all my LPEA income to the Round Up Foundation; an organization my wife, Jessica, served six years on the board. While there, she helped direct $1 million in grants to local nonprofits and represented the Foundation on the Community Emergency Assistance Coalition, working to prevent housing insecurity in La Plata County.

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