5.2. ERMUSR 01-13-2009 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Not long after the July 21 meeting MREA informed us that they wanted to put the process on hold while they consulted with their membership. Our sources tell us that a small but vocal group of co-ops preferred the status quo to a negotiated deal. There were also some members of the MREA board, which is composed of local co-op board members rather than system managers, who were not favorably disposed toward a negotiated settlement. We anticipated that MREA would tell us they wanted to re-open some items that had previously been agreed upon. Instead, on December 17 Norm Krause, chair of the MREA board, sent a letter to Gary Gleisner to inform us that they were terminating the process. The letter is included with this memo as Attachment A. Needless to say, this is a very disappointing end to a process that at one point appeared very promising. We anticipate that the MMUA service territory negotiating team will reconvene soon to consider an appropriate response. At this point there aze several observations we can make about the negotiation effort: • Our side was better prepazed than they were through every step of the process, a fact that was obvious to both sides. • Some players on the co-op side were probably surprised by our willingness to engage in the hard work of finding a comprehensive solution to a difficult problem, and to make the concessions necessary to enable the two sides to find common ground. • We will want to be ready in case the co-ops decide to launch a surprise attack on our right to use the eminent domain process in service territory cases. (But we think they will be cautious about picking a fight with us, having seen how well prepared we were in the service temtory negotiations.} Conservation and CIP. At the 2007 MMUA annual meeting the membership approved a resolution authorizing an assessment on electric utilities of a small percentage of their CIP requirements in order to fund an MMUA position dedicated to working on conservation and related issues. 2008 was the first year of the assessment. Bob Jagusch, formerly the Superintendent at Mora, began his employment with MMUA as Director of Energy Services on Mazch 24. Bob's first few months at MMUA were largely devoted to helping MMUA members prepare their biannual CIP reports, which were due in June. Bob worked very closely with the Office of Energy Security on preparing the filings, and as a result of his work, OES greatly simplified the reporting form. Aside from the CIP reporting process, Bob's efforts over the year break down into these broad categories: