Hi everyone!

My name is Jackson Koeppel, and I joined the Public Grids team as our Donor Program Manager earlier this year! I’m excited to bring my 15 years of experience in non-profit development, energy regulation, and community organizing to the national public power movement.

I was born and raised in New York City, politicized by frontline struggles against fossil fuel extraction in West Virginia and Ohio, and have made my organizing and political home in Detroit. A huge part of my life to date has been co-founding and serving as the first Executive Director for Soulardarity, an organization formed to replace the streetlights repossessed from Highland Park, MI by DTE Energy with community-owned solar lighting that expanded into a broad array of campaigns and projects for energy democracy. 

I’ve had successes and hit ceilings. We’ve won historic victories against DTE Energy rate hikes, only to see them rolled back in the next case. We’ve built skilled organizers, advocates, and implementers who struggle against DTE’s ability to use the money we pay them to buy politicians and pad shareholder pockets—all while infrastructure crumbles and households suffer. I’ve learned by trying that the pace, scale, and complexity of the problems we face demands that the institutions running the energy system put people ahead of profits.

Across many experiments, I’ve learned that we need organized people and organized money if we’re going to take on the people committed to bleeding our communities dry. That’s the commitment I'm bringing to Public Grids to run a new program for resourcing our movement. I’m excited to bring all of my experiences as an active member of Resource Generation, a founding governance assembly member of Collectrify, and a donor and fundraiser for a wide array of causes to this organization.

Despite the grim conditions we find ourselves in, I am hopeful. I believe the struggle for public power can build unity across the lines of race, class, and ideology that have been constructed to divide us. I’m honored to be joining this project and excited to connect with all of you on making sure we have the resources we need to win.

Looking forward to chatting with all of you!

Jackson

You can be a part of the public power movement from wherever you are: will you join us with a monthly donation? Help us show our strength in numbers.

The public power movement so far this year

• California: San Francisco city leaders say, “Enough of the games. Let’s see the numbers.” as they file their most recent evaluation of PG&E’s assets’ value in the city, which exceeds previous bids [more]

• Florida: Dump Duke Florida organizers push the St. Petersburg City Council to vote for a feasibility study [more] [here]

• Michigan: Ann Arbor for Public Power organizers qualify a ballot initiative for November that would establish a new public power board for the city, on the path to taking over their part of DTE [more]

• Maryland: Baltimore organizers launch a new campaign to take over Baltimore Gas & Electric [more]

• New York: NYC City Councilors call for a transition away from ConEd, and DSA NYC launches a new city-wide public power campaign [more]

• Arizona: Statewide climate organizers elect a clean energy majority on the board of the Salt River Project, the state’s largest public power provider [more]

We’re building up the people who can win public power

This installment of our newsletter is long overdue. Since our last letter to you, ICE invaded our cities (literally) and the EIA reported that utilities disconnected us 13 million times in one year, among many other growing signs of distress in this country. It can’t be ignored that outrageous electricity bills are reshaping American politics.

Here at Public Grids, we know—and we’re sprinting to keep up. Since the start of the year we’ve doubled in staff size, and all of us have been hard at work to build the movement infrastructure needed for campaign strategy, legal research, economic analysis, and more.

We launched our monthly Campaign Office Hours to support new and existing organizers, initiated national communication channels, and have been developing rigorous analyses about the root causes of our electricity affordability crisis to back up organized demands for public power. Our initial campaign sites are locked in, and we’ve begun raising the money we need to win at scale.

Soon we’ll stop telling you what we’ve been up to and start showing you. Each of our next few letters will introduce you to another person who’s joined our team, our work from the last several months, and our plans for the years ahead.

Public power spotlight

Emerging as Maine’s Democratic Senate Candidate, Troy Jackson Wants to Talk About Climate and Renewables by Nathaniel Eisen, Inside Climate News

​​Paying for Their Profits: How Ratepayers Foot the Bill for Soaring Utility Profits by Daniel Tait, Shelby Green, and Sue Sturgis, Energy and Policy Institute

Why Climate Politics Can’t Wait by Aaron Regunberg, Boston Review

Clearwater appraises Duke Energy property as it investigates ditching the utility; In reversal, Clearwater poised to approve contract with Duke Energy By Colbi Edmonds and Emily L. Mahoney, Tampa Bay Times

With gratitude and solidarity,

The small but mighty (and growing!) team at Public Grids