Passive protest halts SEC meeting
Wednesday’s meeting of the Socorro Electric Cooperative Board of Trustees quickly turned into a shouting match and soon thereafter was canceled when member-owners refused to leave for executive session.
Two Socorro police officers were called to the board room on Abeyta Street and everyone left peacefully within 40 minutes of the meeting being canceled.
Co-op President Paul Bustamante said he felt the display of passive resistance by more than a dozen member-owners was premeditated.
“We pretty much knew that this was going to go on. We can’t conduct business like this,” he said in the parking lot outside the board room, while police urged everyone to go home.
About 17 people, some of them wearing T-shirts that read “Socorro Electric Cooperative Member-Owner and My Vote Counts,” attended the meeting.
The T-shirt is in reference to the board’s reluctance to implement all of the reform-related bylaws overwhelmingly passed at the annual meeting of member-owners in April.
At its May meeting, the board voted to contest three new bylaws — each of them aimed at making the business dealings of the board more transparent — by filing for a declaratory judgment requesting injunctive relief.
Bustamante said members of the audience created a hostile environment on Wednesday night.
Bustamante singled out member-owner James Padilla of San Antonio, N.M., whom he said made a claim that he wanted to strike the trustees over the head with a 2-by-4 during a meeting of the SEC Reform Committee earlier this month.
“Mr. Padilla was intimidating me, standing behind me during the meeting,” Bustamante said.
Police spoke briefly with Padilla, who denied causing any kind of disruption.
The meeting became volatile soon after it started.
After roll call, Bustamante noted that a man in the audience, James Cherry, of Magdalena, had set up a tripod and was prepared to film the meeting. Bustamante said recording devices were not permitted and the camera had to be turned off.
District 5 trustee Charlie Wagner, who has led the movement for reform in opposition to his fellow trustees, protested, saying that member-owners had passed a bylaw that the board abide by the Open Meetings Act.
Wagner argued that OMA allows for provisions be made to permit recording devices, so Cherry should be allowed to film the proceedings.
Wagner soon got into a dispute with SEC attorney Dennis Francish, who has advised the board that attempting to apply OMA to a public non-profit electric utility was unreasonable, unworkable and unlawful and he could make a case against it in court.
Wagner insisted the OMA bylaw was already in affect and the board needed to follow it.
“You don’t have to do anything that doesn’t apply,” Francish responded.
Wagner then accused Francish of being the attorney for the board, which hired him last December, and failing to work for the interests of the member-owners, who passed the new bylaws by such a decisive margin.
“This guy has got to go!” he exclaimed, referring to the attorney.
District 4 trustee David Wade then got into the argument.
“You might be smart in New Orleans,” he told Wagner, who hales from Louisiana, “but this isn’t New Orleans.
“People come here for 30 minutes, and they want to change everything,” Wade added.
Others board members chimed in and the audience grew vocal in Wagner’s defense. In the midst of the verbal crossfire, Bustamante recognized a motion to go into executive session.
District 3 trustee Prescilla Mauldin, one of three new trustees voted in last October as the reform movement gained steam, said the board needed a reason to go into closed session.
“Why? Is it personnel or legal (matter)?” she asked, citing two exceptions OMA allows for public bodies to retreat to executive session.
No reason was given, and when member-owners were asked to leave nearly everyone stayed seated.
Bustamante then directed SEC General Manager Polo Pineda to call police. Moments later, Bustamante called for a motion to cancel the meeting altogether, and beneath the shouting that persisted his request was granted.
“You are violating the law,” yelled member-owner Roger Martin when the motion passed and some of the trustees got up to leave. “You people give the appearance of wrongdoing. Is this what you want the public to think?”
District 3 trustee Donald Wolberg was jeered by some audience members as he prepared to leave, called a “fraud” and a “turncoat.”
Wolberg was elected as a reform candidate last October but voted along with the majority of the board to challenge the three new bylaws member-owners passed in April.
On his way out, Wolberg muttered, “Bunch of idiots.”
While most trustees left the room, Wagner invited the audience to stay while he continued his tirade against the board, its failure to follow OMA and other bylaws he said have been ignored over the years.
Because the board has not been compliant with OMA, Wagner said that action taken at the three board meetings held since the April 17 annual meeting was invalid.
Wagner also noted that the SEC has a bylaw that states districts should be aligned to assure equitable representation.
Because redistricting hasn’t been done since 1967 and populations have shifted dramatically since then, Wagner claimed the board has violated that bylaw for decades.
“In all that time, people in District 1 have not had an equal right to vote. These people have been disenfranchised from not having equal representation and the person who is supposed to be representing them has not done a thing,” he said, implicating District 1 trustee Leo Cordova.
Redistricting and reducing the size of the board from 11 to five were two other bylaws passed in April.
When police arrived, Wagner explained what the dispute was all about and handed officer Gilbert Gallegos a copy of the Open Meetings Act compliance guide distributed by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. He told the officer that if anyone needed to be arrested, he volunteered to be the one.
“Take all of us,” someone in the crowd offered.
Gallegos then got the other side of the argument in the debate over OMA from attorney Francish via cell phone, because the attorney had already left the premises and was on his way home.
When the police officer got off the phone, he asked everyone to leave, as they would be trespassing on private property if they stayed.
One woman put up a mild protest.
“But this is our Co-op,” she said.
Gallegos then made the point that since the meeting was cancelled there was no longer a reason for them to be there. He added that law enforcement’s resources could be better utilized elsewhere, and people eventually complied.
Police were called to Co-op board meetings three times in 2009 for various disputes. This is the first time it has happened this year, although there was a presence of law enforcement at both an informational meeting prior to the annual meeting and the annual meeting itself.
Emotions, at times, have run high in the conflict between the board of trustees and those who are pushing for reform.
The chairwoman of the SEC Reform Committee, Charlene West, has been banned from meetings by a restraining order. Police reports have been filed relating to minor incidents occurring last year involving Wagner and trustees Wade and Milton Ulibarri.
While the board has voted to challenge the validity of the three bylaws in court, Wagner and member-owners have threatened that lawsuits could be coming from their side.
Lately, the conflict has turned racial. Trustees and Co-op employees have made allegations that Wagner has made discriminatory remarks against Hispanics.
Last week, a television crew from KKOB-TV in Albuquerque aired a segment in which Ulibarri claimed Wagner referred to him a “Mexican Chihuahua.”
Ulibarri retaliated by saying he would be justified in calling Wagner a “Louisiana Cracker.”
Wagner has said the racial allegations are unfounded and nothing more than an attempt to smear him.
Contact T.S. Last