Look Who Joined the Party

As you know, I am running for board in SRP 6.

You may not know that a power couple has entered the race for two of the Council seats in SRP 6.

See what I did there?

“Power couple.”

Energy nerd humor. Whatcha gonna do?

Meet Sara and John Travise.

Sara is an artist and cybersecurity professional who brings a valuable mix of creativity and technical expertise to her campaign.

John is an Army veteran with over a decade of service, including deployments to Iraq. After his military service, he transitioned into cybersecurity.

They are running as a team because they know that change needs to come fast in order to meet the moment.

“To shift policy toward customers—toward energy freedom—we need new voices willing to ask hard questions. John and Sara are a team at home, a team in this campaign, and if elected, they'll be a team fighting for you.”

They are framing their campaign in terms of “energy freedom.” I’ve talked about this in my blog posts. It’s what many folks are talking about these days.

Customers want more freedom when it comes to putting solar panels or batteries on their home. Freedom means having a utility that works with them to reduce energy demand through energy efficiency. It means freedom from continued air pollution. It means the freedom to plan your future, knowing that Arizona will have water security for generations to come.

I met Sara and John at one of my many community meetings. They told me about the difficult process of getting solar panels on their home in SRP territory, and how they wanted to use that experience to improve the process.

I’m running with John and Sara because they are the type of elected officials we need: they are running to solve a specific set of problems.

They are not running to appease their own egos or because they come from old family money.

“Everyone loves a good org chart,” said no one, ever.

To understand what Sara and John are running for, it’s worth a quick look at how SRP is structured.

Basically, SRP is two businesses in one: the water “Association” and the power “District.”

It’s probably obvious that the Association delivers water and the District delivers electricity. The profits from the District subsidize the operation of the Association. This allows the water side of the business to deliver water to customers at rates about 30% lower than any other water provider in the state.

Here’s where it gets a little out of the ordinary. I mean, even more than the SRP election is already.

Both the Association and the District have almost identical elected positions, and most people run for both Association and District.

I’m running for Association Board and District Board. Sara and John are running for Association Council and District Council.

The one difference is that the electric District board has four at-large seats. There is a whole history behind this, if you are ever looking for extra reading material. See my Substack.

When people run for office, they they carry two sets of petitions. One for the Association and one for the District. When you vote by mail, you will get a blue ballot for the Association and a white ballot for the District.

I like how they make the petitions and ballots blue or white to remind you of water and electricity.

Clever.

So, each of the 10 districts in SRP territory (sometimes called divisions) have one Board seat and three Council seats.

The Board is primarily responsible for rate making and bonding decisions. The Council is more administrative in nature.

Got it?

I don’t blame you if you don’t. Just bookmark my website and refer back to this when you get your ballot.

You did request a ballot, didn’t you? Do that here.

And welcome Sara and John!