Paul Zabriskie Confirmed to First Term After Recount; Don Douglas and Jean Hamilton Re-Elected
“It’s an interesting election,” said President Stephen Knowlton, before announcing the vote results for 2026 Board of Directors candidates. “You may remember two years ago we had an election that demanded a recount. Well, here we are again.” Incumbents Don Douglas and Jean Hamilton were both re-elected by a decisive margin. However, a spread of only 17 votes separated the third and fifth candidates.
A recount, completed May 12, confirmed Paul Zabriskie of Middlesex, a first-time candidate, was the third candidate elected to the Board. But the final count was even closer than first reported, with Zabriskie bringing in just two votes more than Ian Buchanan of East Montpelier. Steven Farnham of Plainfield followed closely. The 2024 election Knowlton referred to, in which Olivia Campbell Andersen was elected to the Board by a single vote, was also upheld by a recount.
WEC’s 87th Annual Meeting was held in a new venue: Alumni Hall at the New School of Montpelier, located on the old campus of the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier. The atmosphere was especially festive, and a full house of members and several distinguished guests enjoyed each others’ company in the brick hall under warm string lights.
The evening began with a classic Safety Moment from David Young, who advised members on the key points of power line safety, including how to exit a car when the ground below could be energized. See this issue’s Safety Minute on page 8 for more.
Official Business
After comments from US Senator Peter Welch and a presentation by ecologist Shelby Perry, members visited over a buffet dinner, Knowlton called the meeting to order, introducing the Board of Directors, candidates, and special guests. A number of Vermont political figures were present, including US Senator Peter Welch, Lieutenant Governor John Rodgers, State Senator Andrew Perchlik, State Representative Candice White, as well as partners and colleagues from throughout Vermont’s electric sector.
Ballot Committee Co-Chair Cort Richardson confirmed the quorum with more than 750, or about 7%, of Co-op members voting. Board Secretary Betsy Allen confirmed the meeting had been duly announced.
Staff recognition included Mike Gray, System Maintenance Technician, who was honored for 15 years of service. 2021 was a big hiring year for the Co-op, with five staff honored for five years of service. These included First Class Lineman Justin Lemieux, and Dylan Gagnon and Ryan Martel, both Apprentice Linemen who had just been promoted to First Class Linemen. Director of Engineering and Operations Dave Kresock and General Manager Louis Porter were also recognized. Knowlton commented on Porter’s accomplishments hiring and retaining talented staff that strengthen WEC. Porter, for his part, praised his team, and members applauded the many WEC staff present.
One of Porter’s additions to the recognition portion of Annual Meeting is to single out one staff member for an annual award. The recipient of the 2026 Manager’s Award was Donnie Singleton, First Class Lineman. Porter noted Singleton’s commitment to his work, and told members that it is likely him they’ve seen out their windows in the worst weather, restoring their power.
Treasurer’s Report
Treasurer Don Douglas jumped right into the good news. 2025 started with a 2.9% rate increase, he said, but it also started with an 11% rise in kilowatt per hour sales. Record generation at WEC’s Coventry landfill gas-to-energy plant meant WEC was able to sell more than $2 million in Renewable Energy Credits, or RECs. All this meant that WEC was able to defer $1.2 million into 2026, providing an ample buffer for major storm repair costs or other expenses. “Meanwhile, every other utility in Vermont is asking for a rate increase. We’re using that money to not have a rate increase,” Douglas declared.
Douglas also made an impassioned pitch for support for NRECA International, which has taken up fundraising since the federal government cut aid to build out the electric grid in rural Africa. For more information or to donate, visit NRECAInternational.coop.
President’s Report
Knowlton began his remarks with a tribute to Vice President Mary Just Skinner, who died suddenly in January. “Mary brought her legal and legislative experience, and extensive mental Rolodex” to her role, he commented, remembering her intelligence, tenacity, helpful legal opinions, and preferred seating at Board meetings. “Woe to the hapless Director,” Knowlton joked dryly, who took Skinner’s favorite seat before she arrived to claim it.
Affordability is the term of the moment, and Knowlton is focused on members’ bills. But as costs increase, so does the wealth gap, and “I don’t think the pain of rising costs is being shared evenly among us,” he pointed out. The job of a cooperative is to serve its members equitably, Knowlton reiterated, and that value will continue to drive WEC’s policy decisions.
Knowlton also extended his appreciation to all 2026 Board of Directors candidates for their willingness to volunteer in service of their fellow members, and to engage in a healthy competition of policy platforms. Without contested elections, “I don’t think a democratic organization like WEC can operate at its full potential,” Knowlton said. With that, he announced Douglas and Hamilton’s re-election, and confirmed a recount to determine the third Director.
Q&A
What followed was perhaps the briefest question-and-answer period at any recent Annual Meeting. Former President Barry Bernstein congratulated the Co-op on a good financial year and commented that, with utilities around Vermont raising rates, the coming year would mark “the first time in 87 years our members’ bills will be less than Green Mountain Power’s” customers’ bills, to lots of applause. He then asked what 2025 production had been like at Wrightsville, the hydro plant the Co-op is considering selling.
General Manager Porter said Wrightsville produced just 51 kWh in 2025. In 2024, he added, Wrightsville produced 1.5 million kWh, about a million kWh short of the mark. It seems counterintuitive to want to sell an owned asset, he added, but the numbers favor it. “The biggest challenge is we spend about as much staff time on Wrightsville as we do on Coventry,” he explained, when the hydro plant generates almost nothing compared to the landfill gas plant, which produces about three-quarters of WEC’s power.
Steven Farnham of Plainfield asked if the Morrisville Power and Light hydro case had implications for Wrightsville. Porter explained that Morrisville’s utility hadn’t exactly won its case, but had received a pledge to review ponding rules after the next three years, and that the outcome was still unknown. Ponding, or building up a great deal of water and then releasing it, like a form of hydro battery storage, is very effective for generating electricity but has a deleterious impact on water quality and organisms, he added. The degree of ponding is regulated by state agencies.
Carl Quesnel of West Brookfield asked two timeline questions: when smart metering infrastructure will roll out, and when net metering will be permitted again for residents whose power travels through the Jackson Corners substation. Porter announced that WEC is about to sign the contract with a contractor to roll out advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), and anticipates it will take 12-18 months. The delay, he added, is mainly due to compliance with the federal grants that are paying the bulk of the upgrade: the extra time is worth it if it means the cost doesn’t fall to the membership. As far as Jackson Corners, it’s an old, wooden substation that needs a full rebuild. That will take closer to two full years, and the substation won’t be able to support new net metering projects until it’s complete.
Finally, Bud Haas asked the Co-op to consider redesigning its bills. Porter replied that bills are complicated, especially with net metering calculations factored in, and invited members to call the office with questions about their bills.
With that, the meeting adjourned, door prizes were distributed, and members headed home.
Special Guest: Sen. Peter Welch
United States Senator Peter Welch took the podium to greet WEC members and praise the Co-op for its social and environmental values. It’s inspiring, he said, that when corporate power wouldn’t serve rural Vermont because it wasn’t profitable, WEC members had the self-confidence in 1939 to say “Hey, we’re going to take care of ourselves.” Putting people and values first in energy policy is important, but it’s as great a challenge now, he pointed out, as federal decisions end renewable power projects and invest in fossil fuels. “Energy policy in Washington is truly upside-down,” he said: hindering renewable power, energy efficiency, and beneficial electrification. Worse, he said, this is happening while the administration started a war that closed the oil-critical Strait of Hormuz, which rapidly raised the price of fossil fuel. China is the exact opposite, he added: improving its grid and investing in wind and solar.
“So, we’ve got a problem in DC,” he concluded. “We’ve gone from a values-based approach to one that’s all transactional. You’re a sucker if you don’t step on someone in your way. That’s the poison in our political system now.” In contrast, Welch said, he appreciates cooperative principles, where the metric for action is how a decision benefits all members.
Senator Welch pointed to some projects that could impact WEC members. He’s seeing bipartisan support for investing in grid improvements, which could avoid $180 billion in costs over time, he said: “My job is to advocate for policies that make your jobs a little bit easier.”
The Senator also delivered a shout-out to longtime former WEC President Barry Bernstein, recalling when Bernstein would visit him in Montpelier to discuss energy policy. Later, Bernstein confirmed that WEC’s late Vice President, Mary Just Skinner, who passed away in January, was a mentor to Welch in the Statehouse. Skinner was elected to Vermont’s State Senate the biennium before Welch, and both served as Democrats at a time when Vermont’s General Assembly first began to shift to that party’s majority.
A Slime Mold Epiphany
Shelby Perry, Wildlands Ecology Director for Northeast Wilderness Trust, Introduces Co-op Members to their Lesser-Known Neighbors
Shelby Perry, Wildlands Ecology Director for the Northeast Wilderness Trust, endeared a room full of people to springtails and liverworts. She started by describing her slime mold epiphany. Perry’s job is to make management decisions about wild places, which are home to millions of known and unknown species. But she realized that she had trained herself to see human shaping of landscapes—for example, seeing fields where forests had grown in—when she discovered a cluster of little yellow ovals in the woods and had no idea what it was, or how it fit into the ecosystem. “I started to feel the limitations of the human lens,” she explained. “How was I supposed to make management decisions about something I didn’t understand?”
This humility and curiosity led her to want to learn more about the “least known neighbors” in our wild areas, she explained. There are species many of us know, like blueberries. There are also a lot of species we “kinda know”—we might identify something as a fly, but there are thousands of species that match our understanding of what a fly is—and the vast majority of species are unknown to us, not even named.
With charm and humor, Perry described the behaviors of slime molds—the fruiting bodies of which were those yellow ovals that caused her epiphany. “They fruit like fungi and move like animals, so they defy the categories we have,” she said. Springtails, also known as snow fleas, contain either 3,600 species or 36,000 species, “depending who you ask,” she said. Their flea-like, flicking movements are caused by building up pressure in their abdomens and then using a rear-end tripod to balance: “They fling by their belly and stick by their butts, so I propose a new name of ‘springbelly sticky butts,’” she offered, to chuckles from the audience.
Perry captivated members with more facts and vivid slides—such as the existence of a fungi in Northeast woodlands that glows in the dark, and the differences between dry and hydrated sphagnum moss, which can contain up to 26 times its dry weight in water.