Letter to the Editor
Has it changed for the better?
Editor:
Comes now the Socorro Electric Coop’s Board of Trustees and their attorney of convenience. They suspend a couple of key co-op management employees, then fire them a week later.
Ostensibly this is to do with the results of an audit by accountants Bolinger, Segars, Gilbert and Moss. Financial irregularities and material weaknesses had been found and the board’s response is to dismiss management employees who should have known better?
Who else knew?
The question on the minds of co-op members: When did Board President Paul Bustamante and his inner circle of trusted trustees (and former trustees) know of these irregularities and weaknesses?
Members have been seeking reform of the board’s structure and methods for several years because the irregularities and weaknesses were obvious to them long before the audit.
If the board had voluntarily mended it’s high-handed and profligate ways when they were confronted with the embarrassing evidence of their self-enrichment from co-op coffers, there would not have been a “reform” movement followed by lawsuits and countersuits.
Ridiculous, laughable lawsuits. Wannabe lawyers.
How much time did Bustamante, et al, have to “cleanse” the files and books at the co-op before Polo Pineda and Kathy Torres were removed? How much is there for the forensic auditors?
Bustamente has replaced the fired employees. Now what? Grudging retrenchment and cover-up is not much reassurance, nor a confidence builder to co-op members. Do we now have the “second string” or just more of the board’s uniquely qualified performers? Has anything changed for the better?
Let’s not start the dancing in the streets, yet.
Herbert Myers
Socorro
Show us the money
Editor:
Members of the SEC board of trustees, a clear choice is upon you. Those of you who have nothing to fear from a forensic audit — that is, an audit that achieves a level of scrutiny required by a court of law — now have an opportunity to vote in favor of such an action.
Those who vote against it leave themselves at the mercy of a public distrust and suspicion that is weekly fueled by reports of the slapstick comedy, which your previously noble organization has become.
I have been an SEC member for five years, and purchase enough green power to cover the amount of electricity our household uses each month in order to limit the greenhouse gases of our collective environment.
Furthermore, I attenuate my electricity usage when my bill is high and in this way, I regularly act to conserve the precious resource distributed by your organization.
What conservation measures have you as board members undertaken? Are your actions as those in positions of community eldership commensurate with the responsibilities entrusted to you as elected individuals?
Show us that each of you is worthy of the task at hand. Vote for a forensic audit to begin as soon as possible.
Michael Herman
Socorro
Spiraling out of control
Editor:
It is obvious as a member-owner of Socorro Electric Co-op that the situation has continually and systematically spiraled out of control.
It is my belief that the entire board of trustees named in the counter suit is in conflict of interest with their duties, and as such should step down in the interim until all the facts are heard.
Justice and fair play cannot be had when the trustees are opposed to the member-owners in this fashion. It seems that they are grossly negligent in recognizing this fact, and continue to cause harm to the member-owners.
It is incomprehensible to understand what in the world the trustees were thinking when they sued the membership. Conversely, it is completely understandable what the membership is thinking when counter-suing the trustees, both current and former.
My hat is off to the trustees as I nominate them as a group for a “What was I thinking award.”
David Dotson
Socorro