LETTER TO THE EDITOR
I am writing this letter to encourage all Slayton residents to vote YES in the upcoming special election on Tuesday, May 14th 2024 in support of creating the Municipal Electric Utility of Slayton.
As a member of the Slayton Fire Department for 14 years I have seen many instances where Xcel Energy has failed our community. There have been four incidents where we have waited over three hours for Xcel Energy to show up and terminate power so that we could eliminate a hazard. Each time we were met with “Boy, we didn’t know it was this bad of an incident”. There is a major breakdown in the corporation of Xcel and the true needs of the small communities they serve.
Xcel Energy has slowly removed their equipment from these rural communities as their workforce retires. They were asked at the first community meeting if they had any intentions of replacing those people with new ones and they couldn’t answer that question.
Nobles Cooperative Electric has been very proactive in all of the communities that they serve. This goes for the service that they provide on a day to day basis and also for their financial support that they provide to these communities as well.
If the citizens of Slayton vote YES and allow the city officials to move forward with this process, you are saying YES to keeping your hard earned money local and allowing your money to be used for things right in our own community instead of sending it to an organization that doesn’t even have a presence in our City.
I encourage you to ask questions now and become informed with the process so that you can be an educated voter on May 14th, 2024.
Respectfully Chris LeTendre
