Thanks for caring about the PUD's future

By Rich Riazzi, General Manager

11/21/2006

It was gratifying to see more than a hundred people filling the seats at the Confluence Technology Center on Monday, Nov. 20, to hear our detailed explanation of the PUD’s financial situation -- past and future. The lesson seems to be: If you explain it, they will come.

This is the second public strategic meeting where more than a hundred members of the community have attended for three hours to hear details about the PUD and its finances. We are driving home the message that revenues are not covering costs in any of our services, and that we have been relying too much on wholesale surplus power sales to make up the shortfall the past few years. We can’t keep doing that forever.

Those of you who are interested can look at the whole PowerPoint presentation from Monday night by clicking here. There is also an audio recording of the entire meeting available at the same link.

We hope to see everyone back in February when we take the next step in our strategic process and start looking at possible action plans for changing the way we do things. We will want plenty of public comment and to hear new ideas as well. We’ll be giving you plenty of advance notice for the next meeting.

I’m glad to be part of such an involved, concerned community. Again, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend our meetings.