Utility's CEO won't let customer discuss rates at meetingApr 21 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Dan Gearino The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
The Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative annual meeting isn't the proper forum for a customer to discuss power rates -- at least according to the utility's CEO. A customer, Barry Gierard, who lives near Zanesville, wanted to talk about his rates because of a Dispatch report on April 7 that showed Guernsey-Muskingum has the third-highest residential bills in the state. He never got the chance. "I think my rights have been violated," he said. Customers of rural electric cooperatives are also shareholders, and the April 13 meeting was the one time this year when they gather to hear from utility executives and ask questions. The Dispatch story had come up earlier in the meeting when the utility's CEO, Jerry Kackley, mentioned it as part of his comments about rates and finances. He said the newspaper's numbers were incorrect, according to Gierard and others at the meeting. Later, when Gierard rose to speak in the "new business" part of the agenda, the utility's attorney approached him at the edge of the stage to ask what Gierard intended to talk about. The attorney told him that the Dispatch story was an off-limits topic because the numbers were incorrect, Gierard said. The April 7 story compared the electricity costs for the 52 largest utilities in the state, which together serve 98 percent of households. The Dispatch asked each company to provide the total bill from January for a household using 1,000 kilowatt-hours. None of the companies have contacted The Dispatch to dispute the report. The monthly bills ranged from a high of $153 for Butler Rural Electric Cooperative in southwestern Ohio to a low of $91 for the city-owned utility in Celina in northwestern Ohio. Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative was the third highest with $143, a number provided by the utility. In an interview, Kackley said he knew that the $143 figure was accurate. What he meant at the meeting, he said, was that he didn't know where the other utilities' numbers came from, so he could not be sure that it was fair to compare his rates with the others. He said his own reports from this summer show that his company had the eighth highest rates, not the third highest. He declined to say which utilities had higher rates at that time, and he noted that the numbers may have changed since summer. That aside, Kackley explained that Gierard's request to speak was declined because it isn't practical to turn the annual meeting into a forum about individual shareholder concerns. "Every one of them could have something they want to stand up and say and a point they want to make," he said. "Mr. Gierard's may have been the (newspaper) article. Someone else may be wanting to talk about the cherry tree we cut down." Gierard, 54, said he had planned to make a motion to hold a special shareholders' meeting in four months. At that meeting, he wanted the utility's managers to report why rates were so high and how they planned to improve the performance relative to other utilities. He is not exactly a typical consumer. Gierard said he has spent much of his career managing tree-trimming for a contractor that serves Ohio's largest utilities, and he now works for Westerville's city-owned electric company. He has lived in Muskingum County since the mid-1980s. Guernsey-Muskingum, based in New Concord, covers parts of Coshocton, Guernsey, Harrison, Licking, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble and Tuscarawas counties. It serves 14,725 households, which makes it the fifth-largest rural electric cooperative in the state, according to 2011 figures from the Energy Information Administration. Several other Guernsey-Muskingum customers said they do not share Gierard's concerns. "I know (the rates) are higher and there are reasons they are, but nobody has complained about it," said Kurt Barbee, 69, of McConnelsville, who was also at the meeting. Rural electric cooperatives have some of the highest rates in Ohio because the areas they serve have a low population density and almost no industrial base. In some areas, rugged terrain makes it even more expensive to maintain the system, which makes rates higher. Kackley, who was promoted to CEO last August, said he would like it if rates were lower, but he thinks they are appropriate. "Given our territory, and given that we serve in the hollers and hills of eastern Ohio, we think we're doing pretty good," he said. If that is the case, Gierard says utility officials have no reason to fear an investigation of rates. dgearino@dispatch.com @dispatchenergy http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=28321839 |