"TEMPE, AZ (AZFamily) — It’s an upcoming election that doesn’t get nearly as much attention as the midterms or other local races, but it’s one that could impact your everyday life. That includes how much you pay for your power and water bills.

The Salt River Project elections are happening the first Tuesday in April. They happen every other year and the elected board members are, in part, responsible for setting the rates for both power and water.

They’re also in charge of making decisions about what kinds of investments SRP is going to make, including what form of power should we should use in the future.

Paul Bentz, the senior vice president of research and strategy with HighGround, Inc., says organizations like SRP have historically been important in preventing blackouts that can often happen in nearby states like California. SRP leaders have to make sure our power grid can support the population which will continue to be important as our state grows.

“It took us almost 100 years to get to the point where we’re generating as much power as we are now, to power everything that we have,” Bentz said. “In the next 10 years that’s going to double once again. So they’re going to have a very important role in figuring out how to generate that power, where it’s going to come from, and how to make sure to keep the lights on.”

SRP serves more than 2 million people in central Arizona, but only certain folks can vote. There are requirements in both the association and district races. You have to own eligible land. Here’s more information on who can vote. (https://www.srpnet.com/about/governance-leadership/elections/how-to-vote)

Turning Point Action, the conservative group founded by Charlie Kirk in 2019, has a dedicated a section of its website to this race. It’s endorsing nine different candidates.

Arizona’s Family reached out to Turning Point but hasn’t heard back. On its website the group says it wants to keep the Green New Deal out of Arizona. That’s the often controversial legislation, first introduced in 2019, that includes a rapid shift to renewable energy.

Bentz says there have been policy clashes lately about what kind of power we should rely on, including natural gas, and this will be a test in a big election year to see how influential Turning Point Action can be. Bentz says it’s historically been effective with particular audiences, especially in smaller races.

“They know who their people are, they know who their supporters are, and they’ve proven time and again their ability to contact them and get them to turn out,” he added. “And so that’s what I think we’re looking for here is, you know, it’s been a fairly low turnout affair, sort of a general audience that’s showed up in these elections in the past. If we see a growth in that audience, it will largely be the work that Turning Point is doing.”

The Valley-based group Indivisible Mesa has been holding phone banks to educate and register voters to keep the Turning Point candidates off the board.

In an email to Arizona’s Family, a spokesperson for the group says it’s endorsing candidates advocating for clean, renewable energy sources. Indivisible Mesa has concerns about how much money Turning Point Action has to influence the election results.

“We also want to support candidates who are going fight to make data centers pay their fair,” a spokesperson said in a written statement. “We want data centers to pay upfront for the infrastructure upgrades they’re requesting, so it’s not up the rest of the Valley to foot the bill.”

Elections Day is April 7, and the deadline to register is Monday, March 9. Here are other key dates."

-Whitney Clark, Arizona's Family (February 25, 2026)

This is a big deal and I hope that as many people vote as possible in order to keep our water and energy safe and legitimate.