Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 30, 2013 — Troy Benjegerdes, a Farmer with an electrical engineering degree from Iowa State University, has experience building a solar-powered car, installing solar panels, and grid-scale energy storage modeling announces his candidacy for mayor of Minneapolis, and seeks a law firm to represent Minneapolis electric utility ratepayers.
Troy Benjegerdes grew up on a farm watching the future of electrical generation being built…wind turbines. In a few places (mostly in Minnesota), those turbines were owned by farmers. “When I lived in Ames, Iowa, I sat in on a city council meeting where concerned citizens said ‘we want more renewable electricity’, the city council voted, and the Electric Director bought 30MW from the nearby Story County wind farm. What I have experienced since moving to Minneapolis, is an electric utility that is run by politicians and lawyers, not engineers, and what’s worse, is the politicians and lawyers are chosen by the shareholders of Xcel, not the people who actually have to pay the bill,” states Troy.
Troy is running for mayor because although he has the ability to do the engineering and financial models on how we can get to 100% renewable electricity in 10 years, costing less than coal and nuclear power, the reality is this is not an engineering decision, it’s a political and business-insider decision. The politicians are not elected; they are CEO and PR people at Xcel Energy and the Public Utilities Commision. The PUC does not represent Minneapolis, or the awareness the city has about climate issues.
Troy is focusing his candidacy on three issues : Local Food, Local Energy, and Local Currency. Many of us understand the benefits of access to healthy, locally-grown food. We need local control of our energy infrastructure, and we need to issue local currency to build strong communities and truly occupy Wall Street.
“When I saw Xcel sending out letters to all ratepayers trying to manipulate local elections through spreading fear and uncertainty about the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign, it became clear that everyone paying an electric bill to Xcel energy should probably be part of a class action lawsuit. Xcel should be responding to customer demand, yet they are wasting ratepayer and shareholder money interfering in local elections. If you are a law firm that handles class action suits and would like to be be part of this campaign, please contact me. If you are Xcel Energy, please contact me to discuss options on how selling the grid to the city and operating it on contract would be a win-win-win for everyone involved.” says Troy Benjegerdes.
The official Mayor campaign blog is at http://mayortroy.com, and campaign contributions are accepted via Bitcoin at address 1MYBOSLTN3HW3YJOJ7JFXOKHATGKGQJBAO
Mayor Troy 