BRMEMC set to lower rates
Electric bills will reflect reduction; Board Member Jack Hughes honored
By JOAN CROTHERS Sentinel Writer

Manager Joe Satterfield was greeted with applause when he announced at the annual meeting that Blue Ridge Mountain EMC members would see a 3 1/2 percent reduction on their October, 2006 electric bill. TVA, he said, had announced that due to growth and sales, this reduction would be passed on to EMC members. This includes Union, Towns, and Fannin counties in Georgia, and Cherokee and Clay counties in North Carolina.

This was the 68th annual meeting on September 9, 2006 and along this positive note, Satterfield said they had added 2,000 new members the past year which is a 4.3 percent growth.

"We also have added about 125 miles of new line to the existing 5,400 miles of power lines." Satterfield continued, "We have completed several big projects. The Ranger Substation, located in Cherokee County, N.C., is finished and now providing electric for the northern part of Union County, Ga. Then the rebuilding of the transmission line from Hayesville, N.C., to the generating plant at the Chatuge Dam is completed.

"We are now running fiber optic lines out to our service areas, working with Balsam West. Our mission is to provide services to you at the most reasonable rate or by EMC providing the service, other companies will compete with lower rates. We have to buy our DSL from the phone company so our rates are higher than Windstream."

The entertainment at the annual meeting is always great and Bryan Townsend was no exception. He said if the audience laughs at what he's saying, he's a humorist, if they don't laugh then he calls himself a motivational speaker. Another line that was good was that the old telephone party lines were the "first internet."

A touching moment was the presentation of a resolution commending the service given by EMC Board Member Jack Hughes, who passed away suddenly in April 2006. His daughter Marla and her husband, Rick, accepted the framed resolution.

During the business meeting, it was announced that 418 members out of 41,405, were present, a smaller than usual number but enough for a quorum to vote on three members on the Board of Directors. George Daves, Fannin County; Jerry Nichols, Towns

County; and Robert Ensley, Union County, were approved by the membership.