Oh, What a Year It’s Been
Greetings,
Last year at this time, I updated you on the district’s capital investment plan and the commencement of the advanced meter infrastructure project. Everyone was gracious and understanding as we upgraded the various systems to current technology. We’ve been able to be more responsive to your needs because of these investments.
Little did we know we would lean on this and other technology so heavily as staff transitioned to remote work due to the pandemic, or even fully appreciate how quickly we would be able to respond to outages or system maintenance opportunities as this plethora of information has become more readily available.
There are still a few more meters to go to call the project 100% finished, but we’re working on them in a diligent and customer-centric manner because these installations are more technical in nature and require a bit more engineering and planning to complete. We’re almost there!
That project, along with many others, has continued to keep the lights on during this interesting year. In management speak, we use terms like “opportunity-rich environment” to try to make lemonade out of the lemons that sometimes show up when we’re trying to accomplish other things.
District staff, your board of directors and our contractor community have worked hard to make lemonade out of 2020 when it wasn’t always easy. We’ve delayed work, reshuffled short-run priorities and altered course in a few ways to support the community as people have fallen behind on paying their PUD bills.
We’re doing our part. We need you to do your part as well. Please contact us if you need help catching up on your bills.
For the district, September means the end of the third quarter of operations, transitioning from the summer construction season to the fall, and preparing for our winter heavy-use heating, or peak season. We’re finalizing 2021 budgets and preparing to support new member(s) of the board of directors because it is an election year.
“The show must go on” is an appropriate phrase. It must go on regardless of pandemics, regardless of season and regardless of how many lemons present themselves. That’s our commitment to you, and we will continue to live up to it.
As always, organizational performance information and much more is available at www.nwascopud.org.
Happy September, everyone. Please stay safe and healthy.
General Manager
Roger Kline
