Pages

Monday, November 16, 2009

Shoe's on the other foot? PEC Board 'reformists' are catching some heat


If this Board refuses to act in the best interests of PEC members, then, as in any democracy, we go back to the ballot to elect those who will act in our best interests


Send your comments and news tips to online.editor@valleyspringcomm.net or click on the "comments" button at the bottom of the story

Note: The cross talk on the pec4u watchdog discussion group is growing louder with complaints that the new "reform" members of PEC's board of directors are not moving fast enough on promised reforms. During their campaigns, for instance, Larry Landaker, Patrick Cox and Cristi Clement promised term limits, transparency in decision-making and vastly improved financial management to eliminate waste. Apparently, waste, debt, complacency and "fixed" board meetings are old problems that continue to linger. Term limits has been placed in the "review" box. Lots of committees have been created, but so far no big reforms to write home about.

The critics are calling for less show and more reforms
Outside of nice press releases we get from the PEC that barely scratch the surface, we hardly know anything about what's really going on inside PEC management. Maybe everything is peachy keen and the critics are barking up the wrong trees. But many legitimate cost & management-related questions are being asked like 'why is our co-op spending $300,000 to mail rebates to its customer/members when it could easily credit the rebates to bills?' 'Why does the PEC continue to hang on to money losing ventures like the Kimble Electric Co-op which PEC purchased back in the day for $15 million when it was worth $8 million?' And 'when will PEC's General Manager Juan Garza start doing the bidding of the reform board and not vice versa?'

Board President Landaker & District 7 rep Cox both are Wimberley boys. It'd be nice if they'd drop us members a line every once in a while to help clear up these questions, without the spin. Couldn't be that hard, could it?


Learn more about the watchdog discussion group at this link:
http://pec4u.org/?page_id=69

****************

Here's a sampling of e-mails being passed around of late (with slight editing for punctuation):


There's a short answer and a long answer to why PEC is instituting a costly means of distributing capital credits this year. There's also a real answer to this. It's the same answer as to the question of why Social Security & VA recipients are NOT getting a COLA increase for the next two years, but are having individual $250 checks mailed out to each of us. It's to buy the loyalty of those who are naive enough to be bought by those established in power & doing everything they can to remain there. Make no mistake as to the lengths they will go.

Ed Gunter



Ed,

There are several links to support your view; here are three:

1. The refusal of the reform candidates to address continual election reforms. Burying issues in committee for more study is an old political tactic.
2. The lack of outrage by the supporters of the reform candidates concerning the election reforms many wanted. There was plenty of outrage when the shoe was on the other foot.
3. It appears the decisions are being made by the reform candidates before the monthly meetings actually take place.

There has already been more 4-3 votes than under the old guard, which never blocked any of the reforms, and in fact, initiated the election reforms before the reform candidates were elected.

What we have is just the same power consolidation that the reformers criticized the old board.

Joe Summy
Johnson City



Heretofore, PEC has been run as a private fief by three strong kingfish – Fuelberg, Burnet and Morisund. The Board of Directors just went along for the merry ride. Then the famous lawsuit broke up the playhouse.

Elected, reform minded Directors came on the scene. I believe that all of us expected them to start working to cut costs, stop frivolous spending and demand that Management give a true accounting of the company finances. WELL, not so far.

When can we expect the Directors to instruct their employees to stop the waste of money and start reasonable accounting practices? If the Directors cannot get PEC to do basic, rudimentary, reasonable business practices, how will they ever get to more complicated matters: like reducing the mass of employees, like reducing the number of relatives employed. Matters like eliminating sections of PEC that are big money-losses, matters like insuring respectable purchasing and contracting practices .

Paul Langston 830-598-1322



Linda Kaye Rogers wrote:
Bravo, the light is on!! The micro-managing is indeed slowing things down. And it is precisely what a board is NOT suppose to do. And the Reform 4 think that they are doing what we, the members want!! I would believe that if they were listening to the members, but they are not. They are conducting their own ego show and wasting our time and money. Worse yet, is the blatant ignorance of PEC affairs that is so evident among these four. And they are unwilling to listen to the many professionals we have who do know what to do and how to do it. I am very disgusted, embarassed and sad about what is happening in our coop. These actions will only make other coops more reticent to follow our lead in democaracy and transparancy. I don't blame them if this is what happens. We have a chance to be a leader in moving coops into the 21st Century – instead, we are becoming a laughing stock. Yes, I hear from others outside our coop, who are watching things, and they are not impressed. They are amazed at the poor quality of our "elected" directors, Mr. Williams aside. We may have been hood-winked by Fuelberg and Burnett, but at least our coop had respect (in spite of shenanigans!!). I am far angrier about this atrocious behavior, lack of action, show-boating for individual ego, than some of what went on before. That was behind my back, but this is "in my face" and with an attitutde that smacks of exactly what we worked to get rid of. So what do we do now?
Linda Kaye



Linda Kaye:

I find myself in the peculiar position of defending the current Board even though I am very disappointed in their failure to address issues that I have raised.

To what are you referring when you state that the Board is micromanaging? Please provide examples.

With the old PEC Board we had lawsuit depositions and discovery, and the Navigant Report to document their miserable governance including both errors of omission and commission. With the current Board I am aware of several failures to act, most particularly, to enforce the Open Records Policy, to instruct General Manager Garza to substantially reduce controllable expenses, to suspend the granting of bonuses until these controllable expenses are substantially reduced, and to enact reforms. I would prefer that criticisms such as unwilling to listen to the many professionals we have, atrocious behavior, lack of action, show-boating for individual ego be accompanied by concrete examples. I suspect that the current PEC Board would disagree about their "lack of action," given all those committee meetings. With the exception of wasting member money on all those committee meetings, to my knowledge the current PEC Board has committed only errors of omission, at least to the extent that they have not acted fast enough to please some of us.

Who are those well-informed others outside our co-op and what are they saying? By what measures are our "elected" directors judged to be of "poor quality," and by whom? What do those well-informed others outside our co-op have to say about the quality of our old Board of Directors?

As I previously stated, I will give this Board one year to accomplish the reforms that a lot of us were expecting with the election of the newest members. Based upon current progress, I am not particularly hopeful.

Come now Linda Kaye, are you arguing seriously that the co-op had respect under the Fuelberg and Burnett? We were the laughing stock of the country to allow these clowns and their lackeys to ride roughshod over the members and PEC employees for decades.

If this Board refuses to act in the best interests of PEC members, then, as in any democracy, we go back to the ballot to elect those who will act in our best interests.

Merle



Dear Merle:

All of us are impatient. I do not agree that we should wait for a year to see how the new "Reform" Board works out.

I thought that the new Board would have done their home work well in advance and would have been ready to start swinging a sharp axe the day they sat down. Instead, they seem to be in a "learning mode." Both Garza and The new "Reform Board" seem to be playing a waiting game, waiting on each other. The New Board seems to have no priorities.

The Board is the Boss of the show. All they have to do is tell Juan Garza what to do and let him get about it. Mr. Garza has almost two years inside the inner circle of PEC and he has hired a complete crew of able, well-paid executives.

For Example, if the Board ordered Juan Garza to cut the overhead of PEC by 30% within the year 2010, or else, Mr. Garza knows exactly how to get it done.

If the Board insists on "micro-managing" Garza's job, giving him intricate instructions on each item, strained and filtered thru Robert's Rules et al, Mr. Garza only has to mark time, do exactly as ordered and he is at leisure/safe. But, very little will get done.

Best Regards, Paul Langston 830-598-1322

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So now PEC4U is a "watchdog" group. Didn't they endorse Landaker, Cox et al during the PEC elections - over more clearly qualified and consumer oriented candidates? "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

Anonymous said...

Wow! A reduction on each bill of $2.00???

That's laughable, especially since we cooperative members have thrown away millions during the past decade on our electric bills.

We have overpaid dramatically for our electric needs. Just review how much former PEC leaders took for their personal use.

Now we'll save $2.00??? Most humorous.

Anonymous said...

The PEC press releases are a joke. If you have the time, read one and then watch the actual meeting video it corresponds with. The amount of spin in the press release is laughable. That's what you get for making a salesman the board president and then letting him approve all press releases.