SDMEA Hometown Power

CHRISHILL

DIRECTOROFMUNICIPALELECTRICSERvICES

In-person meetings and getting together with peers is one of the things that I look forward to in my job.

This past month I was able to start meeting with legislators about some topics that will be discussed during the regular session in 2022. I was also able to catch up on some of the topics being discussed during the special sessions regarding legislative boundaries and impeachment. It seems like marijuana and money will be other main topics during the upcoming session. I am sure with more upcoming legislator visits I’ll continue to hear about bills that may affect constituents across the state.

Another great opportunity I had in November was meeting with our regional municipal utility associations. This is our annual in-person Midwest Municipal Utilities Association meeting and this year it may have been the most informative meeting with this group that I have attended.

Those in attendance for the in-person meeting were Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. We discussed topics ranging from marketing to federal regulatory issues. My major takeaways were that all of the states in our region have more member municipalities than South Dakota and that all of them are working hard to support those members.

Focusing on member relations, I am looking forward to working with our members to offer more training and safety programs to help promote our public power communities. If you have been following along with my recent articles you may know that there are a lot of changes that are taking place with the SDMEA like a new website and an associate membership program. The board and I agree that these opportunities will allow us to develop programs that will help our municipal electric communities with on-site safety training and education for potential or current employees.

Meeting and networking with others who have developed an association and understand my ideas for our association is very refreshing. To make our association as strong as possible, we need our members to help us out. I know that city employees already have plenty going on. That’s why I am working hard for you. Together we can enhance our public power employees.

Some things that we as the SDMEA need to work on include promoting your hard work, educating our citizens so that they understand the value of our electric utility and what it means to each one of our municipalities, and improving scholarship and recruiting efforts to help keep our workforce strong.

The SDMEA Operations and Conference Committee will meet December to finalize dates and decide which topics will be discussed during our annual conference.

Please remember that the SDMEA Conference and Technology Expo is open to any employee or board member from our member municipalities. Please look for that information and try to send a representative from your public power community so they can network with other members of the SDMEA. This is a great opportunity to learn about how others are working hard for their community to make their HOMETOWN great! ■