||| FROM ALAN MIZUTA, et. al |||
What Happened Before This Was Published
On April 14, 2026, thirty individuals and one community organization from the Decatur community formally asked the OPALCO Board to defer the April 21 vote on the Decatur solar expansion. That letter is linked here: https://tinyurl.com/5a8627bn
It took significant effort to deliver it at all.
OPALCO does not publish email addresses for its elected board members. There is no direct, accessible way for member-owners to contact their own representatives. Correspondence must instead move through management-controlled channels. For a member-owned cooperative whose elected directors are accountable to those same members, that is not a minor inconvenience. It is a governance problem.
The letter was delivered through the channels available. We have reason to believe it reached at least some board members. We received no formal acknowledgment, no confirmation of receipt, and no official response of any kind.
The Board met on April 16. Many from the community attended, spoke, and urged the Board to delay action. During the public portion of that meeting, no director moved to delay the April 21 action. As of publication, there had been no public notice of any change to the plan to proceed on April 21. Thirty-plus member-owners asked their elected representatives to slow down, documented the reasons in detail, and received no public response.
That silence is itself part of the record.
What follows is the coalition’s full assessment of the leadership and governance failures that made this publication necessary. It is addressed to the Board because the Board must own what comes next. But it is published here because member-owners deserve to read it,
and because the channels that should have made publication unnecessary were either unavailable or went unanswered.
The Board had every opportunity to respond publicly. It did not. This is the consequence.
The following letter was delivered to the OPALCO Board on April 16, 2026. It is published here without alteration.
- Dawni Cunnington
- Brian Grant
- Dave Groff
- Bill Hurley
- Alan Mizuta
- Jill Rullkoetter
- Roslyn Solomon
April 17, 2026
Subject: By Keeping April 21 on Track, the Board Now Owns the Record on Foster Hildreth
Board Members,
Yesterday, during the public portion of the meeting, the Board was asked to delay action on the Decatur expansion until after the election, after the annual meeting, and after the project’s legal and permitting posture was actually settled. No motion to delay was made in public, and as of this writing there has been no public notice of any change to the plan to take action at the April 21 Special Meeting.
That continued public posture matters. By making no public move to delay and giving no public indication of a changed course, the Board left the April 21 action on track in reliance on the judgment, representations, and strategic framing of General Manager Foster Hildreth despite the record now before it. His record is therefore no longer a side issue, and no longer merely management’s problem. It is central to whether this Board is exercising competent oversight, and whether it is willing to own the consequences of proceeding on a record that should have stopped this project in its tracks.
We therefore write to place before you a direct assessment of Foster Hildreth’s leadership as reflected in the public record. This assessment is not based on rumor, personal grievance, or undisclosed information. It is based on OPALCO’s own public board materials, project pages, survey materials, and related public reporting. Taken together, that record shows a pattern of weak project execution, advocacy-leaning communications, and repeated overstatement of member support for management’s preferred direction.
Our conclusion is that the record does not raise a question about Foster Hildreth’s ability to manage a utility. It raises a question about whether this Board can trust what he tells it. Those are not the same question, and for a cooperative board, the second one is the only one that matters. The public record now shows serious weaknesses in project execution, stakeholder process, and member trust. More troubling, the survey record suggests OPALCO did not merely misread member sentiment. It appears to have designed, framed, and then publicly reported member sentiment in a way that exaggerated support for management’s preferred policy direction while minimizing the conditions, reservations, and objections that members actually expressed.
That matters because the survey was not peripheral. In January 2025, after pausing Bailer Hill, OPALCO told the Board it would check with the membership through a survey to determine whether it had support to continue permitting and building local renewable-energy projects. In other words, the survey was positioned as a legitimizing tool for major strategic choices.
- The tidal project remains the most serious governance failure in the record
The tidal project is still the clearest sign of leadership failure at the highest level. OPALCO publicly emphasized tribal engagement and repeated “touch points,” but the Swinomish Tribe later told FERC that OPALCO’s December 2024 response contained “no substantive information,” that meaningful consultation could not occur until adequate substantive information was provided, and that the project would directly interfere with treaty-reserved fishing rights in the Tribe’s adjudicated usual and accustomed fishing area. The Tribe went on to urge FERC to deny the project.
That is not routine project opposition. It is a formal tribal-government escalation in a federal licensing process, centered on substance, process, and treaty rights.
The leadership problem here is not whether OPALCO had contact with tribes. It is that OPALCO appears to have treated outreach activity as evidence of success while a sovereign government concluded the consultation was not meaningfully substantive. That is a grave failure of judgment and credibility. For a cooperative claiming to advance innovative infrastructure in a sensitive and regulated environment, that kind of breakdown is not a side issue. It goes to the core of whether management can be trusted to recognize when a project is not procedurally or politically ready to advance.
- Bailer Hill shows weak execution and poor early risk screening
In January 2025, OPALCO told the Board that county requests for additional information would take another 9 to 12 months, push the project beyond the low-income solar grant schedule, and that, rather than continue struggling with delays and permitting opposition, OPALCO had decided to pause permitting efforts on Bailer Hill. At the same time, OPALCO said it would survey the membership to determine whether it had support to continue permitting and building local renewable-energy projects, and it identified Decatur as an alternative site for the grant-funded low-income solar component.
That sequence is deeply damaging. After years of strategic messaging around local renewable buildout, the flagship project stalled, was paused, and then triggered a grant-driven pivot. That is not merely a county-permitting story. It points to weak early siting judgment, weak entitlement-risk assessment, and weak appreciation of what it takes to build durable public legitimacy around a controversial project.
The Board should treat this not as an unfortunate detour, but as evidence that management advanced a major project farther than the underlying siting and public-process realities justified.
- Decatur shows that trust damage is now cumulative, not isolated
The Decatur matter now looks less like an isolated siting conflict and more like a breakdown in member confidence. OPALCO’s own project page confirms it acquired 19 acres of forested land adjacent to its current property in March 2025, intending to use part of the site, together with Commerce grant funds, for additional solar development. The proposed expansion, including clearing roughly eight acres of second-growth forest, quickly united much of the community in opposition.
What makes this more serious is that Decatur does not appear to be a fresh slate. Public reporting ties the new proposal to dissatisfaction with the first project and to broader concerns that OPALCO was not listening or had not fully delivered on earlier expectations. That means Decatur is not just a permitting matter, it is a trust and legacy issue. A cooperative can ask members to accept difficult tradeoffs. It is far harder to ask them to do so when the local memory of prior execution is already contested.
There is also a separate and significant liability in the public record: OPALCO is now asking San Juan County to revise or roll back pre-existing restrictions on the Decatur solar site. That is a serious public-interest problem. It suggests the site was acquired or advanced without the level of up-front due diligence and risk screening the Board should expect when recorded restrictions are already in place, and it places the cooperative in the position of using member resources to seek relief from protections that were already part of the property’s legal condition. Even if management believes those restrictions should be changed, that is a difficult position to defend and one that predictably deepens mistrust.
The survey and the broader public record cut directly against management’s Decatur posture. The representative survey found the lowest support of any listed siting category for forested land, 13%, and only 19% for residential land. Members most preferred previously disturbed or industrial sites at 60%, followed by public non-conservation land at 48% and agricultural land at 44%. Scenic views and wildlife tied as the top concerns at 49% each, followed closely by increases to cost at 47%. These are not peripheral caveats. They go directly to projects like Decatur.
The Board should read that plainly: OPALCO’s own representative survey says members are least supportive of exactly the kind of forested siting that has made Decatur so controversial. If management nevertheless treated the survey as support for its broader siting and policy posture, that is not a minor interpretive mistake. It is either careless or tendentious.
- The Rock Island easement dispute reveals the same pressure-first posture toward members
Recent public reporting suggests that this pattern may extend beyond renewable siting disputes. In a Dec. 2 San Juan Journal news report, San Juan County landowners alleged that OPALCO/Rock Island wireless facilities and related equipment were advanced on private property without proper permits or easements. The County’s director of community development confirmed that a 2019 permit application for backup power equipment was not approved because the County needed additional information regarding easements and that clarification was never submitted. The same report stated that OPALCO/Rock Island’s counsel later demanded a new easement and referenced possible disconnection of electric service if the easement was not granted, even as OPALCO/Rock Island maintained that it follows permitting requirements and that no violations have been identified. Days later, adjacent homeowners publicly added a first-person account stating that Rock Island expanded operations without asking, had no easement to use their property, claimed that OPALCO membership gave the utility control over their property, and threatened shutoff if they did not allow use of their land and private road. Whether every allegation is ultimately proven in court is not the point here. The point is that the public record now reflects the same deeply troubling institutional instinct seen elsewhere in this letter: when property rights, permitting limits, or member consent complicate an infrastructure objective, the response appears to lean toward pressure, necessity, and after-the-fact rationalization rather than front-end clarity, permission, and discipline.
- The survey and its public reporting deserve a far harsher assessment than OPALCO has received
This is now a centerpiece issue, not a side issue.
The survey’s topline framing says members strongly support maintaining reliable service, reducing dependence on mainland power, and advancing local renewable-energy projects with appropriate environmental safeguards. But the deck’s own details show that support was conditional, conflicted, and heavily shaped by question framing.
The survey first primed respondents with an outage narrative. It reported that 61% were concerned about future outages, then told respondents that the county’s Comprehensive Plan projects 30% more electrical use due primarily to population growth and that “there is no plan” for the increased electricity need that growth would bring, after which 74% became more concerned. The deck then used that primed context to report that 60% would support flexing land-use policies and 63% would support streamlining permitting processes if doing so would allow quicker renewable development and prevent future outages.
That is not neutral measurement. It is advocacy dressed as research. The survey did not ask members what they thought. It told them what to be afraid of first, then asked whether policy and permitting should bend in response. That is a push poll. The outage narrative was not neutral context. It was engineered to produce a result. The survey record shows exactly what that result was supposed to be.
The same pattern appears in the Essential Public Facility question. Respondents were told that an Essential Public Facility is a land-use designation that helps get essential facilities built “without circumventing environmental permitting requirements,” and then were asked whether they would support designating OPALCO’s renewable energy and battery storage projects as an Essential Public Facility. Reported support was 73%. But that result is inseparable from the favorable definition embedded in the question itself. It is not a neutral test of how members would react to the actual controversy such a designation would raise.
The county-policy and land-use results were likewise spun beyond what they support. OPALCO’s reporting and the republished coverage emphasized that 71% said renewable projects should receive priority in the land-use process and 74% thought the county should adjust policies to allow more local energy generation. But those figures collapse major conditions. Only 28% said “yes, definitely” on land-use priority, while 43% said yes only as long as county permitting requirements are met. On county policy, only 20% said policies should be adjusted as quickly as possible, while 54% said only as long as there is intentionality about environment, conservation, and safeguards.
That distinction is everything. The survey does not show a mandate for OPALCO’s preferred projects, preferred siting, or preferred policy pathway. It shows a membership saying, in effect, that reliability matters and local resources may matter, but environmental safeguards, proper permitting, and careful siting still matter a great deal. That is not a framing choice. It is a falsification of what the membership actually said.
The cost issue alone should have prevented any triumphal presentation. The representative survey found members split on willingness to pay more for renewable energy, 50% willing, 45% unwilling, 5% unsure. A nearly even split is not a mandate. It is a warning to proceed cautiously and honestly.
Worse, OPALCO’s own published comments show respondents themselves objecting to the instrument. The survey file includes remarks such as “The survey assumes that blackouts are coming,” “The survey questions and potential answers are loaded,” “The wording of this survey could have been better, the options are very slanted,” “This survey was worded in a very biased way,” and “Your survey has inadequate response options and is fraught with survey bias.” Those are not stray complaints from an outside critic. OPALCO published them in its own materials.
There is also a methodological problem that should have triggered far more caution in public reporting. OPALCO’s own survey materials say the opt-in portion did not rely on random sampling, was not weighted, and cannot be treated as a representative sample. Yet the public presentation still used broad language about what “members” think, and the surrounding communications environment invited exactly that inference. When a cooperative commissions a representative survey and then wraps it together with a much larger opt-in exercise, plus AI-assisted qualitative synthesis, it has an obligation to be especially careful. Instead, the presentation flattened complexity and promoted a narrative of support.
In our judgment, that deserves blunt language from the Board. A cooperative survey used to justify policy pressure and controversial projects should be above reproach. This one is not.
- The survey failure makes the broader communications problem look worse, not better
Before reviewing the actual survey deck, it was possible to say OPALCO had a communications problem. After reviewing it, the problem is more serious: OPALCO used its communications tools to manufacture legitimacy for disputed strategic moves. That is a much more troubling governance issue.
The concern is not that management published information. It is that management shaped what it published around a policy agenda already underway, after Bailer Hill was paused and while Decatur was a live controversy. The survey was not listening. It was lobbying.
This matters because the communications pattern is no longer just about tone. It is now tied to process integrity. The published conclusions do not reflect what members actually said. The survey record proves it. A cooperative that cannot be trusted to report its own member sentiment accurately cannot ask its Board or its members to take future communications at face value. That trust, once broken, does not repair itself quietly.
- Rates and strategic ambition now collide with weakened trust
The survey also makes the rate issue more politically dangerous for management. If members were enthusiastically aligned with management’s renewable strategy, rate pressure would be easier to defend. But the survey shows ambivalence on paying more and strong conditions around siting and safeguards. That means rate increases are being layered on top of contested strategic choices without a clear member mandate.
For the Board, that should heighten concern about leadership judgment. Management is not operating from a settled base of trust. It is advancing controversial strategic positions while relying on a survey record that, on close inspection, does not cleanly support the conclusions publicly drawn from it.
- The pattern now looks systemic
Taken together, the public record shows a tidal project that triggered formal tribal escalation on consultation and treaty-rights grounds, a flagship solar project at Bailer Hill that was paused after years of effort, a pivot to Decatur despite the membership’s weakest siting support being for forested land, a separate Rock Island property-rights dispute that exposed the same pressure-first posture toward members, and a survey structured as a push poll whose findings were reported in a way the underlying data does not support.
That is no longer a collection of isolated controversies. It is a management pattern: advance a strategic narrative strongly, underweight stakeholder and legitimacy risk, then use communications to defend or rehabilitate the position after confidence has already eroded.
Conclusion
The record does not raise a question about Foster Hildreth’s ability to manage a utility. It raises a question about whether this Board can trust what he tells it. Those are not the same question, and for a cooperative board, the second one is the only one that matters.
The public record shows a serious imbalance: operational ambition has been paired with weak judgment in project execution, stakeholder process, respect for member consent, and the honest presentation of member sentiment. On the most serious external issue, the tidal project, OPALCO’s process drew formal tribal escalation. On Bailer Hill, execution broke down after years of promotion. On Decatur, management is pushing a forested-site expansion even though OPALCO’s own representative survey shows forested land is the least-supported siting category. And on the survey itself, the published conclusions do not reflect what members actually said. The survey record proves it.
For the Board, the question is no longer whether management can continue to frame disputed projects aggressively and ask directors to accept the resulting risk. The question is whether this Board, having been warned and given the chance to slow down, will now choose to make that pattern its own. If it proceeds anyway, it will do so with full notice of the record, full notice of the gaps, and full notice of the damage already done to member trust.
Yesterday, the Board had the opportunity to insist on discipline, candor, and proper sequencing. Instead, it left the public posture unchanged. If the Board now proceeds on Decatur, responsibility will no longer rest with Foster Hildreth alone.
It will rest with the Board that was warned, left the public posture unchanged, and made itself responsible for the consequences.
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Krista from OPALCO here. The OPALCO Board did in fact meet this week to review and determine next steps on the Community Solar Expansion project. There was a tremendous amount of information shared and reviewed with the Board and the public in attendance. We encourage interested members to check out the information presented to the Board as posted on our website: https://www.opalco.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/April-2026-Regular-Board-Materials-7.pdf. You can also find the document library the vast amount of information the Board has reviewed and decided on throughout the years that have led them to the meeting that occurred last week.
The Board is doing its due diligence on this project like all of the projects OPALCO undertakes. They will be deliberating and deciding on next steps at the planned special meeting on Tuesday, April 21 at 10 am. Email communications@opalco.com for the link to watch.
We appreciate the response from the Decatur community and the Board will carefully consider the comments made this week.
The use of the term “due diligence” in this context is as ridiculous as the rest of OPALCO’s response to the issues raised about Foster Hildreth’ s and OPALCO’s mismanagement reflected in Mizuta et al’s detailed assessment. Before it sacrifices any remaining trust with its members, the board would be wise, as a first step, to table the Decatur project next week. Next, it should seriously examine the pattern of mismanagement and dissimulation that has led the cooperative to this point. Cleaning house seems like a necessary next step to restoring member trust, critical to OPALCO’s future.
I want to express my support for the concerns raised in this piece regarding OPALCO’s handling of the Decatur solar project and, more importantly, the broader issue of board accountability.
What stands out is not just disagreement over a single project, but a pattern that many of us have now experienced firsthand. During the earlier tidal energy effort, OPALCO invested significant time and resources advancing a project that was presented to the community as if it were all but decided. Key steps, including the FERC permitting application, moved forward with little meaningful public awareness or engagement. Environmental concerns raised by residents, wildlife protection groups, and tribes were not substantively addressed, leaving many with the impression that input was being managed rather than genuinely considered.
The Decatur proposal feels less like an isolated case and more like a continuation of that same approach.
At the same time, we are being asked to absorb rising rates while fundamental vulnerabilities remain unaddressed. The fact that a single transmission line continues to represent a point of failure for the entire county is not an abstract concern; it is something we are reminded of each time an outage like the one this week occurs . It is difficult to reconcile increasing costs with the absence of a clear, credible plan to improve resilience and redundancy, particularly in our connection to mainland power through BPA.
Reasonable people can disagree about the right mix of local generation, conservation, and infrastructure investment. But those decisions must be made through a process that is transparent, responsive, and grounded in trust. That trust has been eroded.
Rebuilding it will require more than better messaging. It will require a demonstrable commitment from the board to engage openly with the community and to fully consider environmental and local impacts.
The concerns raised in this article deserve serious attention, not dismissal. We are asking for accountability, clarity, and a plan that truly serves the long-term interests of San Juan County.
Subject: Request for Pause and Greater Transparency on Decatur Solar Expansion
Board Members and Fellow Decatur Residents:
I am writing as a Decatur resident and OPALCO member-owner to express my support for the concerns raised by members of our community, including Alan Mizuta and others.
While I have not been as involved as many, I know and respect several of those who have spent considerable time on this issue. I trust their judgment and take their concerns seriously.
I support solar energy and the need for long-term, resilient solutions. My concern is not with the goal, but with the process.
Based on what I have read and observed, I am troubled by the lack of transparency and responsiveness, as are many in the Decatur community. Member communication channels are limited, formal outreach has gone unacknowledged, and in public meetings, questions are heard but not meaningfully addressed. For me, this has become a matter of trust.
I understand there may be timing pressures related to grant funding. In a prior role, I have written and managed federal grants, and I appreciate both how difficult they are to secure and the desire to retain them. However, proceeding without fully addressing community concerns risks longer-term damage to member confidence.
More broadly, I am concerned that the project does not yet reflect a fully developed, clearly articulated, and executable plan. Language such as “we hope to,” “we intend to,” or “we plan to” suggests important elements are still uncertain. That uncertainty, combined with limited engagement, makes it difficult for members to feel confident in the path forward.
I respectfully ask the Board to consider a short delay to allow for clearer communication, fuller responses, and broader participation in a decision of this importance.
OPALCO’s strength depends on the trust of its members. At this moment, greater transparency and engagement would go a long way toward restoring that trust.
Respectfully,
Michelle Harden
Krista, I read your reply carefully looking for a response to any specific claim in the letter. There isn’t one. Not the 13% forested-land support number from OPALCO’s own survey. Not the Swinomish Tribe’s formal FERC filing. Not the published member comments calling the survey biased. Not the thirty-plus members who asked in writing for a delay and received no acknowledgment. You wrote that the Board is doing its due diligence. Any first-time homebuyer performs more due diligence than this cooperative did on Decatur. Due diligence means reading the title report and understanding the recorded environmental protections before closing on a parcel, not spending nine months and more than a million dollars developing a project that doesn’t comply with restrictions that were already on the property, and then asking the county to change the restrictions to match the project. That is not due diligence. That is the opposite of due diligence, dressed up in the language of it.
Krista,
Just so I am clear, interested members can view information provided BY OPALCO but NOT give feedback in advance of the special meeting April 21st? I may have misunderstood why a vote is being taken this close to the election, with permitting & land use issues still pending.
What’s striking here is not just the content of the letter, but the absence of any substantive response to it.
Pointing people back to board materials and past documentation avoids the actual issues being raised — namely timing, process, and the decision to move forward on a project that appears to remain unsettled in critical ways.
Due diligence isn’t measured by how much information exists. It’s measured by whether legitimate concerns are directly addressed.
So far, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Rather than relying solely on the agenda referenced above by Krista, which was prepared by OPALCO, I encourage readers to listen to the full board meeting discussion. Much of the slanted or incomplete information presented to the board in that agenda is directly challenged during the meeting itself. I will share a link to the April 16 board meeting here once it becomes publicly available.
I want to highlight are what I believe to be some of the most egregious actions currently underway. OPALCO is attempting to remove or revise longstanding environmental protections that are recorded on the property, protections that were clearly identified in the title report prior to purchase.
Who does not read their title report?
These are not obscure details. They are fundamental encumbrances that run with the land and bind all future owners.
San Juan County has never been asked to reverse protections of this kind. Yet the board is being told that it is only a matter of time before the “Native Growth Covenant Area” (3.82 acres) and designated “Open Space” (6+ acres) can be altered or removed. These protections were established decades ago and are not optional. They are now being challenged through what appears to be an inappropriate use of the short plat process.
The property includes nearly 10 acres of protected land, in addition to 9 wetlands and their required buffers. Taken together, these constraints make the 20 acre site wholly unsuitable for clear-cutting. The project should be designed to fit the land, not forced onto it by attempting to undo the very protections that define it.
Even OPALCO’s own member survey raises serious concerns. Only 13% of respondents supported cutting down healthy second-growth forest to install a solar project that would generate relatively limited power. That is not a mandate, it is a warning sign.
Most importantly, this approach stands in direct conflict with OPALCO’s stated values: “We care deeply about our island communities and are dedicated to the protection of our sensitive environs” Those words should guide decisions, not be contradicted by them.
It’s troubling and honestly ridiculous to see a vote being rushed before all the relevant information is available. These decisions have long-term impact and deserve transparency, thorough review, and enough time for both board members (especially new board members) and the public to fully understand the implications. Moving forward risks undermining trust and could lead to outcomes that don’t serve the community well
At last year’s meeting, our community made its position very clear: we do not want additional solar development. We participated in good faith and felt that decision should have been respected.
At this point, there are two reasonable paths forward. First, cancel the project altogether. Second, postpone any further decisions until the newly elected board members are seated, and then move forward with a transparent, fair, and untainted process
Per Opalco’s member survey only 13% of the co-op members felt the use of existing forest lands for solar panel extensions was acceptable. According to my math that means 80% of the co-op members are against Opalco‘s planned solar extension on Decatur Island. Think about that 87% of the co-op membership and the vast majority of the Decatur Island community are against the Decatur project, but Opalco general manager Foster Hildreth wants it and that’s apparently all that he cares about.
Why when there is so much strong opposition from co-op members and the people who live on Decatur Island does foster Hildreth continue to push forward forward and violate all sensible, moral, and ethical values regarding this project?
Foster Hildreth is responsible for this disaster, which is called the Decatur Island solar extension project. The project is wrong for so many reasons and Hildreth refuses to acknowledge any of them, because in doing so he would be admitting that he was wrong, and even though all the fact show this project needs to stop now Hildreth will not acknowledge the truth or the facts and continues following his own personal agenda, instead of listening to the thoughts, comments, and wishes of both the Opalco co-op membership and the Decatur Island community.
The Decatur Island board representative ,Tom Ostermann ,has been silent on this issue and even though the residence of Decatur Island have repeatedly stated they do not want this project going forward the Decatur Island Opalco board representative continues to not speak and to not say anything to address the communities concerns.
On April 21, the Apollo Board of Directors will vote on whether to proceed with a Decatur Island project. They are going ahead with this expedited vote before the permits are in place, before the legal issues have been addressed, before the co-op members are fully informed and allowed to voice their opinions based on the true facts, and because CEO foster Hildreth realizes the more time people have to get the correct information, the smaller the likelihood of the Decatur island solar expansion happening. This expedited vote is so wrong. It falls under the umbrella of a criminal action.
Please, I ask anyone who sees this article to comment and to let your voice be heard. I ask the Opalco Board of Directors to stop foster Hildreth. He is not the board, he is on the board annd each member must have the strength, courage and integrity to enforce the Will of the people they represent.
Thank you….Dennis Jenkins Decatur Island Wa
I am one of the signers of this entry and have been involved in addressing the Decatur matter. I want to encapsulate a few key points directed at the Opalco Board. As we have had issues reaching the Board I am hoping that some or all are reading this directly, and if not, that people who know Board members will forward the article and direct them to the comments as well.
– The Board works for the coop members. They were elected by us and owe their duty to us, not management. This should be obvious but the behaviors of some suggest that this duty has eluded some. They do not work for management.
– The Board evaluates the CEO, and determines his pay and other conditions of employment, including his ongoing employment. I call attention to the relevant entries in the website http://www.OutOpalco.com that addresses a number of matters including the CEO compensation, which exceeds that of Seattle City Light’s manager, who oversees an entity that is 5.9 billion in revenue vs. approximately 17.1 million. Seattle City light includes actual hydroelectric facilities. Seattle City Light is 345 times the revenue of OPALCO. And employee numbers are roughly 1,200 vs. less than 100. Interestingly, some Board members receive tens of thousands of dollars in compensation from OPALCO, while others receive little to none. What is this about and might it be possible that there are problematic incentives in place for some?
– We the members are paying for everything, including legal bills by out of state law firms to defend OPALCO’s various mishaps.
– Competency of management is clearly an issue based upon purchasing land without reviewing restrictions. Likewise in the decision to trespass on lands on San Juan to install a cell phone tower with zero permission, or easements on private properties. See recently filed cause Cause No. 25-2-05083-28 in San Juan County on April 14, 2026 that addresses the matter. And for background see this background documents which the filing addresses in detail: https://www.sanjuanjournal.com/2025/12/08/not-a-shared-burden-letter/
– We and others have documented that solar does not solve the matter of energy security for the San Juan Islands. Many of us were bemused at the outage on Thursday the 16th. Notwithstanding the existing solar array on Decatur, we are unaware of a single minute of reserve power flowing from the array when the mainland source was impaired. We are nonetheless expected to embrace additional local generation to save us and other islands from what exactly?
– When presented with data that questions and challenges, the OPALCO communications director plays nice with conciliatory statements, but I am not aware of any meaningful countering of facts presented.
– This matter may be the one that has outed and revealed a longstanding pattern that is finally called to account. Being on the Board of a well-managed and solvent entity can be a joy and honor. But from time-to-time Boards have to reckon with real challenges that are uncomfortable and difficult. Decatur and the underlying culture and leadership that have led to it, is such a challenge. OPALCO Board – do your job! Remember who you serve.
Brian Grant – Decatur Island
Typo above. The referred to website is http://www.OurOpalco.com
My apologies.
During the past few months, members of the OPALCO coop and other experts have presented extensive analyses of the Phase 2 Decatur Solar Project. These analyses clearly document the waste involved and the irrelevance of this project to the current and future energy needs of San Juan County. It is unnecessary to revisit this information as there is no evidence that OPALCO management, under the direction of Foster Hildreth, intends to read or consider either the science or community concerns for the project. Instead, OPALCO has dug itself into a deep hole. The hole contains the trust and respect that have defined our relationship with OPALCO for generations. It contains member-generated resources that have been squandered under Hildreth’s leadership in pursuit of a project that has absolutely no likelihood of enhancing the the County’s power resilience. It holds the seeds of lasting environmental damage in violation of property restrictions and County law. The hole holds the honesty and respect for members and their environment that OPALCO articulates and that we expect from our cooperative. We ask OPALCO not to back-fill and cover this hole by failing to respect the intelligence and concerns of its members, by continuing to ignore the science and by wasting its good will resources. We ask the board to terminate this costly, doomed project.
The first OPALCO solar installation is honestly an eyesore. It sits right along what is essentially the main gravel road on our tiny island. It’s where we hold our 2 block Fourth of July parade every year. It’s across from our 1 room schoolhouse.
At a minimum, they should have followed through on what they promised, like adding proper landscaping and visual barriers, but that never happened. The site has been left looking neglected, and even basic commitments like keeping the panels clean have not been upheld.
This is exactly why people are frustrated. It feels like the first project was pushed through without real transparency, and now we are being asked to accept more of the same. There are clearly better locations for this kind of infrastructure that would not impact the heart of the community in the same way. Instead, it feels like poor planning and broken promises, and that is hard for people to support
The OPALCO bylaws do contain a provision for member-initiated removal of directors and officers. It is spelled out in Section 6, subsection 1. This is a good time for everyone to familiarize themselves with the process.
https://www.opalco.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Bylaws-Updated-2024-06-20-1.pdf
The belligerent attitude coming from OPALCO is baffling to me and makes me wonder if there is even more to this story yet to be uncovered.
My family owns the property that is surrounded on three sides by the property of OPALCO purchased a year ago. When we bought our property in 2012 it was with full knowledge and appreciation of the open space that extends from road to road and includes our 7 acres. This allows free flow of wildlife to access the pond on our site.
To remove or relocate the environmentally protections that were placed as “Open Space” as a condition of the simple land division that created our lot goes against the very intent of its original recording.
If we can’t trust San Juan County protections when we purchased our property what are they worth? We should not have to hire an attorney to protect the integrity of our land.
Opalco needs to stop now‼️
Stop spending our money on out of state attorneys to try and roll back recorded deed restrictions!!!
Tom Osterman is not and never was a resident of Decatur Island. Therefore he should not be on the OPALCO board as he illegally obtained his position.
To clarify, Tom Osterman does not and did not meet the residency requirements of OPALCO. He does occasionally visit Decatur.
As the owner of the property surrounded on three sides by OPALCO’s proposed clear-cut site, I want to be absolutely clear, as I have been with them from the beginning: no trees on my property will be cut or trimmed to accommodate this project.
Despite repeated communication, OPALCO continues to push forward with plans to clear-cut a healthy forest to install solar panels that would ultimately sit in the shade of surrounding 80-foot trees. This is simply the wrong site for this project.
It is hard to understand why a solar installation would be placed in the middle of a forest when alternative, previously cleared parcels are available.
What can I say that has not already been said above and in many other places.? This project will. NOT reap the benefits touted. That has been shown with diligent consideration and thoughtful exploration by many. This has been voiced to the powers trying to push this abomination of important land through.
I am so very disappointed by the lack of willingness of all concerned not to stop before irreparable damage is done.
This is not wanted by the vast majority of the community. If implemented it will surely be a crime on Nature and against all who have put so much effort into proving the harm and lack of any real benefit to anyone.
Shame, shame, shame on all of you.
Like other land owners on Decatur Island, I oppose the clear cutting of second growth forest on Decatur in order to install a solar farm. While I support green energy solutions in general, this project makes no sense as planned and puts an undue burden on Decatur Island. Please cancel this project or seek a better location that does not require the clear cutting of forests. Thanks, John
I agree with the original document and the follow-up comments shown above. Therefore I will not reiterate them.
I ask the Opalco board to delay any further votes on the Decatur solar project until the new board has been seated and has had a reasonable amount of time to review the whole project and process.
DELAY THE VOTE!
While OPALCO is advertised as a MEMBER OWNED COOPERATIVE, premised on member sovereignty, but the actual structure of the organization is dictorial with Communication structurally prohibited from members to the board, a Democratic deficit of representation without communicative access, a principal-agent failure because feedback loops are severed and therefore oversight is nonexistent allowing the board to operate without constraint. Transparency requires access to decision makers along with document access. The Essential Public Utility designation simply revealed Opalco’s existing “bypass” method of operation, and that same bypass method is being used in the April 21st voting.
To Opalco Board Members, your position of power must be used responsibly and with temperance. Consider all relevant data, long reaching ramifications and effects, and most importantly, your integrity as a human being. Delay this vote.