Letter to the Editor
Vote for DeLong
Published Monday, May 12, 2008
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To the editor:
Golden Valley Electrical Association members will soon receive mail-in ballots for the board election. For those who live on the west side of town (District 2), let’s recap why you should pull the ballot from “junk mail” and return it with a vote for Tom DeLong.
In 2006, GVEA promoted a spin-off of their power generation and transmission systems to an entity without direct accountability to co-op members. DeLong was the only board member to openly challenge the proposal. At the December 2006 special election, the idea was overwhelmingly rejected by GVEA member/owners.
Fourteen months later, a GVEA nominating committee decided that despite Tom’s position as an incumbent board member, he was insufficiently qualified to run for re-election. Tom’s supporters gathered signatures to restore his name to the ballot in this election.
Look what happens when public utility assets are spun off to independent owners. In the 1990s, Enron vigorously lobbied for laws forcing California’s power companies to sell their power plants to independent companies.
In 2001, Enron used fraud and deception to create an artificial energy “crisis” in California, with high prices and rolling blackouts. California residents paid about $50 billion for an amount of electricity that cost about $7 billion two years earlier. During the scam, Enron CEO Ken Lay told the chairman of the California Power Authority, “In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter what you crazy people in California do, because I got smart guys who can always figure out how to make money.”
If not for Tom DeLong’s leadership, our cooperatively-owned facilities could have been sold to an Enron-like corporation, without a vote of GVEA’s member/owners. Learn what could have happened; Rent the movie “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.” It’s a documentary researched by reporters from Fortune Magazine.
Movie critic Roger Ebert highly recommends this movie, and it’s available to rent locally. According to Ebert, “This is not a political documentary. It’s a crime story. No matter what your politics, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room will make you mad.” Also see my Web site, SaveGVEA.com.
Community Discussion
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There is a reason that most industries that are like this are regulated, having a monopoly only leads to corruption, greed and deniability.
Go Tom! We're behind you 100%
I regret that I live outside Tom's district. My choices this year are the good ol' boy and his clone.
"Fourteen months later, a GVEA nominating committee decided that despite Tom’s position as an incumbent board member, he was insufficiently qualified to run for re-election."
Do the facts or truth ever enter in to any of this nonsense?
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