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We Respond to the Attack
On
May 30th, HILCO placed an ad in one of the papers calling us "liars." (See
below for more info.)
This website has tried to communicate there are expenditures being made by the
HILCO board of directors that are excessive and unnecessary. At no time
have we resorted to juvenile name-calling, nor have we said anything the
directors are doing is illegal. We can only assume they've lowered
themselves to these childish name-calling antics because they just can't defend
themselves with the facts.
In
order to provide the truth behind their "smoke & mirrors" figures, we've asked
Jerry Lemons, former CEO of HILCO for
almost 8 years, to respond. (The HILCO board offered Mr. Lemons $160,000
severance which required him to keep silent on these matters. He refused,
and was forced to resign for being a whistle-blower.)
Since
the board offered him so much "hush" money, and he felt strongly enough about
this information being made public that he turned it down, we feel he is the
perfect individual to respond to these accusations.
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The gist of the numbers are as
follows:
HILCO made approximately
$600,000 in margins/profits (semantics here) from the sale of
electricity. That is the amount that will be credited back to
member accounts -- not the $4,000,000 discussed in their article.
The
$4,000,000 is "below the line" margins, not passed on to the
members except for the $600,000 discussed above. That
$4,000,000 consisted of the $600,000 of operational margins
discussed above, almost $700,000 from the Double Diamond lawsuit,
around $300,000 capital credits from CoBank and CFC (another bank)
where HILCO has over $50,000,000 in debt.
It is like a small rebate but some is cash & the other is capital
patronage (not real money). HILCO received almost $2,400,000 in
"non-currency" (no cash) from Brazos Generation & Transmission
Cooperative. I repeat -- no cash was received from Brazos.
The only thing the members will receive on
their 2006 capital patronage accounts is their share (based upon
individual usage of electricity) of the $600,000. The biggest
individual share of that $600,000 will go back to Holcim which used
almost half the total energy consumed by HILCO members and is the
same member that contributed almost $700,000 of those profits from
the sale of electricity "above the line." That's right -- without Holcim,
HILCO would have lost $100,000 in 2006 in
operational margins/profits from the sale of electricity.
It might also be interesting to note the
directors claim credit for the HILCO accomplishments, but their
duties are governance & approval of the annual budget. They
have/had nothing to do with the "operations activities" quoted in
the article, plus these activities happened before several of
them became board members. |
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Do we really have our own coop placing ads calling our members
"liars?" We found it difficult to believe, too. Apparently, YOUR
coop just spent $294 of YOUR money to place an ad calling its members "liars."
Is it not ironic they're spending money on this frivolity to dispute our claims
they're wasting money?
While we appreciate them proving our point, we really wish they'd quit
wasting money -- and that's the point of this website.
Before they call us "liars" on this, too, please read the following e-mail sent
to Mr. Lemons from the publisher:
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Mr. Lemons,
Hilco Electric Cooperative, Inc.
purchased the ad that ran Wed., May 30. They used their logo and
have their phone numbers listed at the bottom of the ad. The ad was
in response to a petition ad placed by Bill Peters on Wed., May 23.
The cost of a 1/2 page ad is $294.
Thanks,
The Lakelander & Tacklebox
694-4344 or 694-6289
694-2175 (fax)
lakelander@valornet.com |
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Rescue HILCO -- Take our Co-op Back!
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