How to Participate in your Cooperative

There are a number of ways in which you may participate as a member of Kaua'i Island Utility Cooperative:

• Attend the annual meeting: Each year the cooperative meets to review the previous year's activity. Bylaw revisions, officer reports, and guest speakers provide members with a valuable opportunity to learn about Kaua'i Island Utility Co-op. Door prizes and renewing old acquaintances give the meeting a festive atmosphere.
  
  
• Attend a member meeting: This provides members with an informal setting to discuss their concerns and to learn more about cooperative issues and events.
  
  
• Serve on the board of directors: Directors are elected for staggered three-year terms with three of the nine directors being elected each year. However, in the initial election where all nine directors will be elected, the three candidates with the most votes will serve three year terms, the next three candidates will serve two year terms, and the three elected candidates with the lowest vote totals will serve one year terms. Members can be nominated to run for director in one of two ways. The Board appointed Nominating Committee solicits applications from members for Committee nominations. In addition, any qualified member may be nominated by a Member Petition. [For more information on the responsibilities of being a KIUC Director, or on Member petitions for director nominations, CLICK HERE.]
  
  
• Member Committees: Occasionally, Kaua'i Island Utility Co-op will ask members to sit on a various committees to provide input to the board and management staff
  
  
• Be informed: Kaua'i Island Utility Co-op will offer members a number of ways to receive information about the co-op.

You'll like being part of a co-op

A history of self reliance

The people of the Island of Kaua`i know they must rely on themselves whenever something needs to be done.

The same is true for people from small towns and rural areas across America who remember the day the lights came on, thanks to cooperatives. That day was less than a lifetime ago, and was the result of people coming together to form electric cooperatives to provide themselves with the benefits of electricity when no one else would do it.

Commercial power companies were reluctant to construct electric lines beyond the city limits - too expensive, they claimed; besides cash-poor farmers and ranchers could not afford the service, the equipment, or the appliances. Electrifying rural America was, in a word, unprofitable.

Although city residents had enjoyed the comforts and convenience of electricity since the 1880s, fewer than 10 percent of rural Americans had access to central-station electricity well into the 1930s, despite feasibility studies, demonstration projects and the efforts of social and political leaders.

Finally, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who while governor of New York had initiated such studies, signed an executive order in 1935 creating the Rural Electrification Administration as a relief agency that would provide grants to power companies to build lines into rural areas and accomplish two things: put large numbers of people to work and electrifying remote and sparsely settled parts of the country.

It didn't work out that way. Power companies showed little interest in taking advantage of the generous loan terms available, and few undertook construction or extended lines into unserved areas. In 1936, they even organized congressional and other business forces to oppose legislation for a positive, long-range electrification program, which Congress did pass, transforming the relief agency into a lending and development agency.

Meanwhile, word spread around the country about the REA and letters poured in wondering when the dream would become reality. Why the delay? The agency, realizing that other strategies were necessary, advised the letter-writers to find out how many people in a given area would pay for electricity if they could get it at a reasonable price.. Eventually, though the agency's loans were still available to commercial interests willing to abide by certain regulations, preference would be given to nonprofit organizations.

What followed was an incredible story of human will and perseverance. In those early days, farm organizations and others "of cooperative character" became the main borrowers in the REA program. Determined people spent hours going door to door to convince their friends and neighbors that they could have electricity, that the cooperative idea would work.

A nationwide network of rural electric cooperatives finally began to take shape, tackling little understood laws and regulations and overcoming the obstacles in stringing power lines where none had ever been, sometimes in the face of strong opposition. It is a network that stands today as a working, living demonstration of how ordinary people, fired by a common desire - a better way of life - touched off a quiet revolution for electric power produced at affordable prices and with respect for the environment - no matter where you live and work.

Statement of Non-Discrimination

Kauai Island Utility Co-op is the recipient of Federal financial assistance from the Rural Utilities Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and is subject to the provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended and the rules and regulations of the U.S. Department of Agriculture which provide that no person in the United States on the basis of race, color, national origin, age or handicap shall be excluded from participation in, admission or access to, denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any of this organization's programs or activities.

Any individual, or specific class of individuals, who feels that this organization has subjected them to discrimination may obtain further information about the statutes and regulations listed above and/or file a written complaint with this organization; or the Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 20250; or the Administrator, Rural Utilities Service, Washington, D.C. 20250. Complaints must be filed within 180 days after the alleged discrimination. Confidentiality will be maintained to the extent possible.