Sour tone set at SEC trustees meeting
Hope that the tenor of Socorro Electric Cooperative Board of Trustees meetings might become more harmonious with three newly elected trustees on board were quickly dispelled on Tuesday, Jan. 12 — before the meeting even started.
When time came for the 6:30 p.m. meeting to elect new officers to start, District 5 Trustee Charlie Wagner — who was frequently at odds with fellow trustees during his first four-year term — began complaining to board President Paul Bustamante that it was time for the meeting to start.
District 4′s David Wade was the only absent trustee.
Bustamante explained that he was in communication with Wade and he would soon arrive.
As the minutes ticked by, Wagner grew more vocal with his complaints.
“We’re a professional organization and we need to act like one and start our meetings on time,” he said, and added that not doing so inconvenienced everyone in the room, including more than a dozen audience members.
Wagner then tried to make a motion that all board meetings start promptly at the appointed time. But Bustamante said he couldn’t accept a motion until the meeting was called to order.
Wagner became more irritated with Bustamante.
“You are not being a very good leader,” Wagner said in a raised voice.
“That’s the kind of tone (that has been) set over the years. It brings hostility,” Bustamante responded. “We want to bring a new tone, and you’re going to start it off like that, Mr. Wagner?”
Moments later, Wade walked into the tension-filled room, about 15 minutes late.
Words were briefly exchanged between trustee Milton Ulibarri and an audience member Ulibarri accused of calling Wade “old.”
Wade apologized for his tardiness, and took his seat at the table.
Donald Wolberg, one of the newly elected District 3 trustees, tried to calm nerves.
“I think we all need to take a deep breath,” he said.
Bustamante then welcomed the three new trustees to the board and called the meeting to order.
That wasn’t the end of the hostilities, however. Wagner later argued with Bustamante over when a motion to combine the secretary and treasurer positions could be made.
In the business and finance meeting that followed, Wagner clashed with Bustamante over other issues. He also accused Bustamante of appointing “certain people” to committee positions so a strategic majority was attained.
At one point, Bustamante chastised Wagner again for bringing a negative tone to the meeting.
“You’re always going backwards,” he told Wagner. “I think we need to start going forward from now on.”
Wagner has been an outspoken proponent of reform measures that would reduce co-op expenses by decreasing the number of trustees from 11 to five, establish term limits and bring more transparency to the way the board conducts business.
Many of the motions he’s made over the years of his first term died for lack of a second. Votes on other issues often went 10-1 with Wagner casting the lone “no” vote.
Nevertheless, Wagner won re-election and a bevy of reform-related resolutions he supports were passed at the District 5 election in Magdalena last October. This victory came on the heels of the District 3 election in Socorro, at which other reform resolutions were proposed and three challengers unseated long-serving incumbents.
The winners of that Socorro election — Luis Aguilar, Precilla Mauldin and Donald Wolberg — were attending their first meeting as trustees.
While Aguilar and Mauldin said few words, Wolberg interjected himself into discussions — tempering his tone and carefully choosing his words.
Wolberg said he was “concerned” that attorney Dennis Francish, who was hired last month, may have a conflict of interest because he represents another co-op.
Wolberg asked a series of questions regarding expenditures. He was “troubled” by the number of payroll advances that were made to employees. He also questioned payments made to Pro Force, which provides security services, and the cost of the co-op’s annual employees awards banquet.
“My calculation is that almost $10,000 was spent,” he said of the awards banquet. “We live in difficult economic times and we really need to re-evaluate what we spend and why.”
When Wolberg was through asking about expenditures, he told his fellow trustees that they needed to work to change the public perception of the board. He produced an “I (heart) My Electric Cooperative” bumper sticker and said he’d like to see attitudes change so member-owners would be proud to display it on their vehicles.
Wagner followed up on several of Wolberg’s questions about expenditures. He wanted to know if anyone other than Pro Force submitted a bid for security services and if the co-op had even made an effort to advertise for competitive bids.
When told by co-op General Manager Polo Pineda that he knew of no other local security service, Wagner said, “I’ll accept that as an excuse, but I don’t like the answer.”
Wagner also pressed the issue of costs for the awards banquet. He told Pineda that he wanted to see an itemized cost of the award’s banquet in 2008 and 2009.
“If you’re going back two years, we’ll have to hire more employees,” Wade quipped.
More hostility involving Wagner took place during approval of the minutes for the Dec. 28 meeting. He noted that a claim made by co-op employee Kathy Torres stated only that her charge against him during a conference call last month was for “discrimination.”
Since there are different types of discrimination and they are treated differently by state and federal laws, he argued that the minutes should be revised to reflect her allegation was for “sexual discrimination.”
Wagner and Torres gave their own accounts of what was actually said during the conference call.
Torres said Wagner personally accused her of falsifying IRS Form 990, which reflect trustees’ compensation.
Wagner said his complaint to the auditor was that it was false accounting, and the auditor agreed.
Wolberg attempted to defuse the situation by ending the discussion.
“We need to address this in a different forum, not here,” he said.
In the end, the board voted 10-1 to approve the minutes with the changes Wagner requested.
Wagner cast the only vote against approval, protesting that he had another change he wanted to make before Bustamante called for a vote.
The next meeting of the co-op’s board of trustees is set for Wednesday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m.
Contact T.S. Last