Colleagues lash out at Wagner
Charlie Wagner got what he wanted at the beginning of the March 25 meeting of the Socorro Electric Cooperative Board of Trustees — but that’s all the satisfaction he would get.
The District 5 trustee from Magdalena was repeatedly shot down by his colleagues the remainder of the meeting and even received a tongue-lashing from the SEC attorney, prompting an executive session.
For the third meeting in a row, Wagner asked if the delinquent report could reflect the number of actual people who were behind in making payments.
Wagner seemed satisfied when a copy was provided.
“Now we’ll be able to tell if it trends up or down,” he said.
But Wagner was thwarted every other time he raised an issue and also came under attack for his renegade ways.
Trustee Leroy Anaya called Wagner out for contacting representatives of Tri-State Generation and Transmission Inc. to question the legality of Anaya serving as both the SEC’s representative to Tri-State, as well as its delegate.
Wagner had raised the concern, when the board elected Anaya to be delegate at its March 10 meeting, that Anaya serving in both roles could potentially present a conflict of interest.
At the same meeting, Anaya questioned Wagner’s loyalty to the board for publicly speaking out against a resolution in opposition to a petition calling for strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions the board had passed 10-1 in February.
This time, Anaya accused Wagner of being out of line for taking it upon himself to make a call to Tri-State.
“I don’t think Mr. Wagner has the authority to do that,” Anaya said. “All of us voted as a board, but he did this on his own. He says he’s part of the board, but he did this individually.”
Others chimed in.
Board President Paul Bustamante chastised Wagner for his penchant for going renegade.
“This is something that’s been constant with you, Mr. Wagner,” he said. “You have to have respect for the majority decision.”
Trustee Donald Wolberg said the board needs to convey the perception that it’s a unified body, and if one member strays too far, “it’s not good for the board or the membership. I think we have to be really careful in what we do and what we say.”
When Wagner defended himself, saying that minority views have the right to be heard, SEC attorney Dennis Francish lashed out at him.
“If you want to be a member of the board … you need to act like a member of the board,” he told Wagner. “Where do you get off going from this board and going to Tri-State to air our dirty laundry?”
Moments later, Bustamante called for executive session and the meeting was closed to the public.
Earlier in the meeting, Wagner agitated his fellow trustees by suggesting to SEC General Manager Polo Pineda that the board should at least look beyond First State Bank for its banking options.
In addition, Wagner found himself on the short end of 10-1 votes to release patronage payments and to retire $300,000 in capital credits accumulated since 2007.
Wagner also made a motion to have an ecumenical invocation at next month’s annual meeting, because not all member-owners are Christians, which died for lack of a second.
SEC member-owner Richard Epstein of Lemitar showed up in hope of addressing the board regarding the invocation, but was not allowed because his request was not made in writing five days in advance of the meeting. So instead, he distributed copies of his request to the trustees.
“I would like to ask you not to have an invocation at the coming general meeting, or else to have a truly ecumenical one,” he wrote.
Epstein wrote that at last year’s annual and district meetings in Socorro, only a Christian invocation was delivered, during which members were asked to let their Christian beliefs guide them in making their decisions. He pointed out that the SEC’s membership is also made up of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, agnostics, atheists and allowing only a Christian invocation is offensive to non-Christians.
“If, however, you wish to have an invocation, at the least you should be willing to allow that it be given as often by followers of other religions, with a directive to them to make the invocation inclusive, rather than exclusionary as it has been recently,” Epstein wrote.
Wagner agreed.
“We should not offend even one person on the basis of religion,” he said.
Anaya pointed out that Wagner previously supported the idea of including the pledge of allegiance, which includes the line “one nation under God,” as part of meeting agendas.
Wolberg said since the SEC is a private, member-owned corporation it was up to the members to make changes, and if they wanted to make a change with regard to an invocation they could bring it up in the form of a resolution at a members meeting.
“It’s not up to decide this,” Wolberg said.
Contact T.S. Last