In response to the Dec. 22 article “HEA moves forward after vote,” as a multi-account HEA customer, I can explain the vote to remain supervised by the RCA in simple terms: lack of trust and accountability.
Bill Fry should be embarrassed to be quoted as saying he was surprised that many of the members didn’t want them to save money that way. Perhaps he is genuinely surprised, however, if that’s the case, he’s had his head in the sand for many years now. I have been asking and will still ask how our little co-op could go from charging some of the least expensive electricity rates in the nation to some of the highest in the nation in a mere 10-12 years?
I have listened to or read every single sales pitch for every single project conducted in these 10-12 years and what I’ve heard versus what’s been the outcome are two very different things. In each and every instance, we have ended up with higher rates, then had HEA have the audacity to ask the RCA for higher rate increases again. Not once has it resulted in lower or stable rates as advertised. And then you have Brad Janorschke, who, rather than explain why the rates are going up instead of down or stable as promised, tells us straight out at one of our HEA meetings that our rates will never go down. What?
So HEA, I ask you, why would we trust you? Why would we believe anything you produce on paper as being the whole truth and nothing but the truth? You peddle all kinds of versions of the same truth, but your truth isn’t our truth and in the immortal words of Edith Ann, “that’s the truth.” It’s a case of total mismanagement and now it’s about to implode. Rumor is, you’ve overspent by some $365 million and instead of admitting the mismanagement and debt, you want to slide it under the table to your ratepayers via deregulation presented as an opportunity to save money. That’s insulting. And how much money did our co-op spend on this deregulation pitch that now comes out of our pockets? Not to mention what we pay monthly for a basic customer charge, even if we’ve used no electricity, plus the cost of power adjustment. It just goes on and on and I believe the end users have spoken by telling our HEA management we don’t trust you. Unfortunately, we as co-op owners/customers are stuck with this group and now must pay the piper for the gross cost run-ups incurred and mismanagement already demonstrated.
How sad for us that situations like this detract from the beauty and wonder that used to make us enthused to live in Alaska. It’s always been more expensive to live in Alaska and we get that, but this just adds to another “being ripped off” scenario that makes it less likely we’ll want to stay in Alaska when the time comes to decide.