50% of SRP Customers Have No Voice

If you are a renter or small business SRP customer in the yellow area of this map, then you don’t get to vote on who gets on the SRP Board and Council.

Strange, huh? You give them all that money, but can’t vote.

There’s more.

If you are an SRP customer who owns a home, business or rents in areas like Fountain Hills, or Apache Junction —which is serviced by SRP— then you also don’t get a vote. You are not in the yellow areas, the “votable lands.”

You have no voice in decisions made about your electric bills, where your energy comes from and many other things that the SRP Board does.

You also need to know that SRP is not regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) —the poorly-named elected body that is supposed to regulate monopoly utilities. Per the AZ Constitution, the ACC is supposed to “make and enforce reasonable rules, regulations, and orders for the convenience, comfort, and safety, and the preservation of the health, of the employees and patrons of such corporation.”

In plain English, the ACC is supposed to protect you from monopoly utilities’ tendency to raise rates at the expense of customers. It can also choose where your energy comes from. Up until recently, the ACC was moving toward more clean energy and energy efficiency.

The ACC “oversees” APS, TEP and a bunch of co-op utilities. But not SRP.

Why should you care about this?

Well, if you are one of those folks who don’t have a vote on the SRP Board and Council, then there is no fall-back. Nada.

There is a long, detailed history behind this. I’ll save it for another blog post.

The best way I can sum it up is this: If your property sits on land that about 100 years ago was farmland, and which the farmers put up as collateral for government loans to build Roosevelt Dam and other infrastructure, then you have voting rights.

Of course that farmland has since been subdivided in to small home parcels. But your voting rights convey with the land.

If you own the average Phoenix home on 1/6th of an acre, then you get 1/6th of a vote. If two of you are on the deed, then you each get 1/12th of a vote.

Did you get that?

If you own 40 acres, you get 40 votes.

The SRP Board and Council are making decisions that affect your life very directly, even if you can’t vote.

Rates have been increasing, the Board is making it harder for people to put solar on their homes and they are catering to AI data centers that are shifting costs on to you.

Can this Change?

The Arizona Legislature does have power over the structure of the electric side of SRP’s business —confusingly known as “The District”.

In 1977 the Legislature created four new at-large seats in response to pressure from people who objected to this acre voting system. While they did not go so far as to create a one person, one vote system, they did make it so the four at-large seats are voted on as one property owner, one vote.

So, I guess it was progress.

In other words, as far as the at-large positions go, if you and your partner own a home in “votable lands”, you each get a vote.

Is it possible that the Legislature could come back and require the Board and Council of the electric side of the SRP business to add seats to represent SRP customers who are renters, or who don’t live in “votable lands”?

I’m not an attorney, so I can’t say for sure if it can be done. But we should at least be talking about this.

I wrote a Substack about this 1977 decision. I think you’ll find it interesting. But, then again, I’m biased.

One of the arguments against one person, one vote for the SRP board was that the original farmers were like shareholders in a company who got the loans to build SRP’s infrastructure. But that argument carries less water (get it?) over time as there are fewer farmers, more homes and because all the loans were paid off in the 1950s. Also, the power delivery side of the business was originally meant to supplement the then-larger water deliver business. Now the electric business dwarfs the water business.

Meaning that hundreds of thousands of electric customers who can’t vote for board members are supplementing the water side of SRP’s business.

What can you do?

Even if you can’t vote in the election, you can help.

Join me in my campaign. Sign up for my newsletter here. Make a contribution here. Sign up to volunteer here.

I’m running in SRP district 6, but I want to represent your voice, even if the system does not give you a vote.

I want to meet you in person. I’m hosting as many meet-n-greet events as I can between now and April. Please choose one from this google survey and join us.