The 74th Annual Sand Mountain Electric Cooperative Annual Meeting will take place this weekend at the DeKalb County Schools Coliseum.
These meetings have become quite the community event with numerous prizes including free electricity for a year, entertainment by The Southmen Quartet...and a ballot.
The actual purpose of the meeting is to elect three (3) trustees and to report on activities of the cooperative for the previous year.
The candidates for the trustee positions are:
District #2:
- James P. Carmichael (Incumbent)
- Dennis R. Lewis
- Gary Storie
District #5:
- R. Lee Bailey (Incumbent)
- Roy Collins
- Alan Duke
District #9:
- Leo Bomian (Incumbent)
- N.T. Fetter
- Terry Reece
Registration for the annual meeting will be held two days in the lobby of the coliseum. Members may register Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Saturday from 8:00 AM until approximately 11:00 AM.
During the business meeting I will have the honor of reporting that for the 20th consecutive year SMEC is solid, both physically and financially, and has met its goal for generating the margins necessary to keep the cooperative strong. And notably, once again this was accomplished without SMEC having any rate increase.
We all know that the cost of energy has gone up over the last 20 years, but in the case of your electricity almost all of that has been the result of increased costs from TVA. SMEC has worked hard to hold down the portion of your bill related to delivering the electricity to your home or business.
In fact, during the last 20 years SMEC has increased the delivery portion of the rate only two times, one for 3.5 percent and the other was for 2.7 percent, totaling only 6.2 percent. During the same time period the cost of living index increased by more than 61.8 percent.
The majority of the credit for this accomplishment goes to the employees and directors of the cooperative. Thanks to their dedication, hard work and planning we have been able to make vast improvements to our distribution system, customer billing system and customer service while staying within our allotted budget.
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- Mike Simpson, Manager/CEO
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