Members of the Lincoln County Power District board and staff look over a draft report on the feasibility of possibly merging Lincoln County Power District with Alamo Power District. (Dave Maxwell photo)
Further discussions are being planned regarding the possible merger of Alamo Power District No. 3 into the Lincoln County Power District No. 1.
The board of directors for both districts had separate meetings this week to discuss the idea and see if there was continuing interest in pursuing future discussions. Both boards showed a willingness to talk further to identify and address what concerns might be expressed by both boards.
LCPD General Manager Dave Luttrell said Alamo Power District General Manager Doug Miller has been talking about the possibility of a consolidation for the past six months or so, and are now putting together some draft ideas.
Miller said at the Alamo Power Board meeting, a merger would be a benefit to both companies involving a drop in electrical rates for both residential and industrial customers in the Alamo and Hiko area, without increasing rates to the balance of LCPD’s customers.
Other reasons would be to maintain or improve levels of service to customers and provide expanded opportunities for existing employees of Alamo Power.
Another of the major reasons for a merger is because Lincoln County Power is the service provider for the Coyote Springs development. “When they have to respond to some issue, their guys have to come all the way from Caselton, whereas if they had people here, (i.e., the present Alamo staff), the response time to an outage or other problem would be much shorter. Eventually, (if Coyote Springs moves forward) we’re going to have to be together or have offices side by side,” Miller said.
As decided at the meetings, Luttrell and Miller, along with Ed Wright and Lee Mathews, and Liz Sanders and Ken Johnson of the Alamo Power Board, will set up a time to meet for future discussions on the draft report.
Alamo Power District No. 3 began in 1936 after the Lincoln County Power District was created in 1935.
