Letter: Re-elect Thompson for Richland council

In 2000, the Bonneville Power Administration offered its customers a new 20-year contract choice — the standard “requirements” contract or a new “slice” option. Slice allowed customers to play the market and buy and sell power, whereas with a requirements contract BPA played that role.

Richland consultants (owned by Benton and Franklin PUDs) were strongly pushing the slice option. In a preliminary vote, the Richland City Council voted 6-1 (Tanner against) for slice, however Mayor Bob Thompson made a significant effort to provide an opportunity for the minority position to be more fully explored and evaluated. He and council members Moser and Mazur spent many hours examining the complex potential differences between the options. In the final vote in April 2001, they joined Councilman Tanner to reject the slice option against the strong arguments of the staff and its consultants and the lobbying of the neighboring utilities.

Since that time, through 2015, this choice has saved Richland ratepayers an amazing, but easily demonstrated, $163 million! As a longtime member of the Utility Advisory Committee I can assure you that Thompson’s actions at that time were essential. That’s why I strongly urge you to reelect Bob Thompson.

This story was originally published July 12, 2017 at 11:53 AM with the headline "Letter: Re-elect Thompson for Richland council."