On PEC Reform Front, more specifics from the watchdogs

"This most important reform – establishing basic member rights that can only be changed by member ratification - could be adopted now, without interfering even slightly with whatever comprehensive reforms might be adopted at some later time."

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Note: The e-mails below from PEC watchdogs & members Carlos Higgins, Milton Hawkins and Joe Summy (all long time PEC watchers) spell out in more detail some of the big concerns being raised about the direction and intentions of PEC's new 'reform-minded' board of directors.

Learn more about the pec4u watchdog discussion group at pec4u.org Click on the link 'Keep Informed! Join Watchdogs.' Email: watchdogs@pec4u.org

Fyi, we received our first rebate check in the mail yesterday – $5.78, with a balance of $306.06. The letter accompanying the check says "we felt that issuing a check would better represent your financial participation as a member-owner." Thank you PEC and board. May I just say in response that my financial participation would be more efficiently served by crediting my account and skipping the expense of the 44-cents first class stamp. Taking a conservative guess that 100,000 rebate letters were sent in the first round . . . that would be an expenditure of $44,000 in postage alone. That kind of money might be better invested elsewhere.

B. Ochoa/Editor

In Making Promised Reforms: This PEC Board Gets a Failing Grade

We need to keep our eyes on the ball, and that’s reform. First, though, was it prudent for our PEC Board to return our capital credits in the form of small checks instead of simply crediting those dollars to our monthly bills? Of course not! The expense to generate and mail all those checks was a waste of our PEC money, and it’s an additional nuisance and expense for us to get those checks cashed or get them to our bank accounts. Worse, the Board apparently sent out the checks to “educate” us about the benefits of being co-op member/owners. Please! We recognize the benefits. It’s the RIGHTS of being co-op members we are after.

The Board can divert our attention by making these kinds of poor decisions, but we need to stay focused on the major issue this Board is neglecting. Reform!

When do we get a Board that’ll represent PEC members? The members of our previous Board, whether you blame it on their self-serving support for the culprits or oblivious ignorance, fiddled while PEC coffers were raided. Now, what kind of Board did we elect?

Not a “reform” board. The old Board, under public pressure and Court settlement mandates, put in place what few reforms we have. But those reforms are entirely inadequate. They offer no security to member/owners. The Board can change those reforms at will.

Our new Board members are failing to live up to their reform promises. For example, in a letter to the Hays Free Press in March, Larry Landaker said, “If elected, I will introduce permanent reform with member-written By-Laws that can only be changed by member ratification.” He asked for our votes as a reform candidate.

Foolish us, I suppose. We didn’t ask Larry when he’d get around to the reforms. We just assumed from what he said that he actually meant what he said, and that it would be soon.

One reason given for delay in revising the Bylaws is that no changes should be made until the entire set of Bylaws can be carefully studied and a comprehensive revision offered. That’s B.S.It does not take rocket-science or word-smithing by a world class lawyer to go ahead and make clear in the Bylaws right now that certain basic issues are to be decided by the member/owners rather than by the Board alone.

This most important reform – establishing basic member rights that can only be changed by member ratification - could be adopted now, without interfering even slightly with whatever comprehensive reforms might be adopted at some later time. The number of Directors and Districts, for example, can easily be decided later. Let’s get on with first things first.

(Note: Thanks, Board member Williams, for your common sense in voting against wasting our money by sending out all those checks. Now, let’s see the reforms we were promised.)

Carlos Higgins
Member since 1974
CarlosTX@sbcglobal.net




Friends,

As you may know by now, the Board has revised its timeline for revision of the Bylaws. You will recall that until a few months ago, following last year's election and the redrawing of director districts, the almost universal expectation was that the coming 2010 election would feature directors running in, and selected only by the members living in, seven separate districts. Districts affected in 2010 would be District 4, a seat now held by O.C. Harmon, and District 5, a seat now held by R.B. Felps.

The expectation was that the new Board majority would quickly revise the Bylaws to provide for single-member-district voting in the newly aligned and balanced districts. However, in what was presented by the Board majority as a means to allow for a comprehensive evaluation and revision of the Bylaws, eliminating any internal contradictions and any inconsistencies with respect to provisions of the Articles of Incorporation and the Electric Cooperatives Corporation Act, a timeline was developed that put final Board acceptance of the revised Bylaws well past the 2010 election deadlines. And in keeping with that intention and timeline, the Board majority successfully resisted any proposals to make piecemeal changes to the Bylaws, especially proposals to provide for single-member-district voting and term limits.

It now appears that the Board, thanks to some process streamlining suggested by Pete Slover, and perhaps to some pressure from member/owners wanting change much sooner, has developed a plan that allows the Bylaws Committee to complete its work and make its recommendations to the Board in February. Action by the Board then would allow the 2010 election to be conducted in accordance with the revised Bylaws, assuming that the election scheme in the revised Bylaws required no change in the Articles of Incorporation.

(Changing the number of directors from the number specified in the Articles, seven, would, for example, require a change in the Articles, and that change would have to be approved by the membership for it to become effective. The membership could vote in June of 2010 to approve the change, and that change would be effective for the 2011 election.)

Now to the meat of the matter. In my estimation, there is not now a majority on the Board in favor of single-member-district voting. For various reasons, at least four directors appear to favor keeping the at-large scheme we now have. Some fear the parochialism that tends to affect single-member-district representation; others recognize, and wish to maintain, the power that well-organized political or interest groups have to influence the outcome of at-large elections. There are others who would like to allow time to consider adding several directors elected at-large to mitigate the possible narrow interests served by directors elected from single-member districts and to add balance to the Board.

In any event, if left to its own desires, a majority of the Board would probably receive, and approve, an election plan that kept the present at-large voting scheme, with candidates running for the seat in the district in which they reside, but being selected by voters from all seven districts. The necessity of running an at-large campaign does add to the labor and cost of campaigning, the necessity of considering candidates from seven different districts does add to the burden of the voters, and there are other considerations as well. But that is the result we are likely to see if the majority of the Board members are left to settle the matter as they wish.

Fortunately, another outcome is possible. The new timeline of Bylaws revision and Board approval calls for public forums, presentation of information of the PEC web site, with a provision for member/owner reaction and input, and of course public comments at the December, January, and February Board meetings. If we are to see a change in the election process resulting in single-member-district voting in June of 2010, those who favor that approach had better make their voices heard and their opinions known. You are going to have to establish a position that the majority of the directors cannot comfortably ignore.

And those of us who favor a mixed or hybrid system, with a number of directors (I would say seven) elected from single-member districts, by voters living in those districts, and another number of directors (I would suggest two) elected at-large, by voters in every district, had better decide that we should take the step available now (single-member-district voting) and push for the additional step (the at-large directors) later, when the need might be more apparent.

This is not complicated. It's a matter of numbers and publicity. If enough member/owners make their positions known, by public comments at PEC forums and Board and committee meetings, and by written comments addressed to the Board or posted on the web site when that is on line, the directors will get the message, which will be reinforced by media coverage.

Of course the advocates of at-large voting will have their say as well, but theirs is a harder case to make. Defending the status quo against attractive change is always difficult, but especially so when the existing system has produced the results this one has. We have suffered for years under the reign of previous Boards and their chosen leaders and managers, and, speaking frankly, and given the field of candidates, we have been very lucky the last two election cycles. Regardless of your view of the incumbent directors (and I have some regard for them all, and much regard for some), we could have done much worse, very much worse.

So it's time to speak your piece where it can be heard, and write it where it can be read, and do so where it can all be reported. I realize that it's rather presumptuous of me to set this all out in this fashion, but I think the matter deserves attention here and elsewhere. Forgive the presumption, and do your part.

Milton
Milton Hawkins
mhawkins@tstar.net
830-868-9075




Milton....excellent. You have addressed the issues as succinctly as possible. May I use this in my online column...unedited of course?

As you and I have observed concerning the present board, it is, unfortunately, the natural process for politicians to consolidate power, and power is too often a corrupting factor in partisan politics...no matter who is in the majority. A myopic vision to control becomes the overriding hidden agenda of the controllers.

It is only with a watchful eye from those observing from "the outside looking in" that the powers to be are often held accountable.

Your public leadership in this area is important; don't worry about being presumptuous...it is needed.

From a separate e-mail:

Here is one "reform" the board passed at Monday's meeting to be more "open and transparent"...the PEC will now provide any member with a list of co-op members and their mailing addresses for limited and justifiable reasons...the only justifiable reason listed was for candidates running for the board. What are the other justifiable reasons?

There is no opt-out provision for members as indicated at the last board meeting. In addition, a member's request to opt-out will not be honored.

How does providing a membership list to a candidate have anything to do with openness and transparency?

Where was the membership input on this issue?

My wife has spent the last few years trying to get us off of mailing lists.

This is an unnecessary invasion of individual privacy, which as Director Williams pointed out at the last meeting, is not required by the PEC.

Once again, Director Williams using common sense voted against this "openness reform" policy.

Joe Summy
Johnson City
joesummy@moment.net