One candidate says she has the stabilizing force of experience to keep electricity rates down over the long haul.
Her opponent wants to bring new energy to the job – renewable energy, in particular.
Kathy Vaughn, 56, a mortgage broker from Lynnwood, is the incumbent Snohomish County PUD commissioner seeking a third six-year term.
Eric Teegarden, 37, a civil engineer from Mountlake Terrace, is the challenger, a relative unknown who hopes to ride into office on a plan to push the utility toward conservation and solar energy.
Teegarden would like to see the utility provide incentives, such as low-interest loans, for customers to generate their own electricity using solar panels and to reduce their energy consumption by using passive solar heat.
“My goal is to make it so it becomes commonplace,” Teegarden said.
Vaughn said she wants to stay in office so she can continue leading the utility’s negotiations with the Bonneville Power Administration. The federal energy wholesaler provides the PUD with 80 percent of its electricity.
The utility is now negotiating a 20-year contract with Bonneville. That needs the delicate hand of experience, Vaughn said.
Still, the PUD will have to buy more electricity than Bonneville supplies, she said.
“We need to plan for the future,” she said. “We need to not only look at power supply, we also need to look at the infrastructure.”
Vaughn also wants to be around to finish the utility’s fight with Enron Corp., the discredited power broker that manipulated energy prices during the height of the West Coast energy crisis six years ago.
Teegarden wants to focus on expanding conservation at the utility. He said that spending money to help customers use less electricity is the cheapest way to meet the growing demand for power in the county.
He also would like to have a better accounting of high-priced energy contacts that the PUD signed with Enron and others during the energy crisis. Having more PUD commission meetings at night and in other locations in the community, is also a priority, Teegarden said.
Vaughn said she also is interested in expanding the utility’s reliance on renewable energy, something she would like to focus on after a contract with Bonneville is signed.
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.
PUD commissioner
Name: Kathy Vaughn, nonpartisan
Age: 56
Residence: Lynnwood
Occupation: Mortgage broker
Name: Eric Teegarden, nonpartisan
Age: 37
Residence: Mountlake Terrace
Occupation: Civil engineer
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