The Flathead Electric Cooperative Board of Trustees voted unanimously Friday against joining an Oregon-based group of utilities. Although FEC officials have spent years studying the issue, concerns arose in the weeks leading up to the vote by members of the public and some trustees that joining Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative (PNGC), based in Portland, could jeopardize the allocation of low-cost power FEC receives through the Bonneville Power Administration. Some board members also questioned whether Montana statute dictated that such a decision must be put up to a vote of the entire cooperative membership.
Those questions prompted the trustees to table the motion indefinitely in favor of informing the entire FEC membership of the deal’s potential benefits and drawbacks. How that information will be distributed – through mailings or public meetings or some other way – remains to be seen.
In remarks prior to the vote, five trustees on the nine-member board expressed concerns about entering into the deal, particularly after a memo by FEC’s attorney, Max Davis, which stated he was unable to determine the risk of the venture since it is unclear how much control over the low-cost “Tier 1” power could be affected.
“The issue that prompted this was, can the board join PNGC if that joining requires assignment of the BPA Tier 1 power?” Davis said. “I can’t tell.”
George Taylor, president of the board and a former attorney, also had misgivings about the contract.
“There are a lot of questions that don’t resonate well with me,” Taylor said. “I don’t think the contract protects us to the extent that it should.”
Paul Holland, Emery Smith, Jay Downen and Earl Messick also had concerns about either joining PNGC, or taking that step without a full vote of the membership.
Board members Chris Byrd, Doug Grob, Duane Braaten and Alan Ruby expressed support for joining PNGC, citing a need for FEC to enter into such a group to have ownership over generation facilities that would keep rates low as demand increases.
The board also voted to implement a rate increase, beginning in May, it had previously decided to defer through the winter due to wholesale power rate increases. The decision increases the basic charge on residential bills from $16 to $18.91 and introduces a tiered structure for electricity rates. Fiscal analysts estimated 79 percent of residential customers would see an average increase on their bills of $3 or less.