Co-op reform leader back at board meetings
It’s been nearly two years since Charlene West was allowed to attend a Socorro Electric Cooperative board of trustees meeting. A leader in the movement to reform the co-op, West was banned from attending board meetings after the infamous “sour grapes” stunt, in which she dropped a bunch of grapes on the boardroom table in front of a former long-standing trustee who had lost his re-election bid a month earlier.
West already had a restraining order against her that restricted her from parking her car in the lot and speaking to or harassing board members. The stunt led District Court Judge Matthew Reynolds to amend the order, keeping her out of meetings altogether.
But late last month, the restraining order was lifted by mutual agreement. She was back in the audience at an Oct. 12 special meeting of the board called to stake out a plan to hire a new attorney, and she was on her best behavior.
So was the board, which made it through the 40-minute meeting without any major flare ups. It’s not unusual for fireworks to fly during meetings, due to the conflict between board members and reform-minded members.
“They tried tonight, I will give them that,” West said in commenting on the decorum that night. “But the sad part is it really hasn’t changed. It’s the same thing over and over again — everyone picking on Charlie.”
Charlie Wagner is the District 5 trustee who has been West’s alley in the fight to reform the democratically controlled co-op. For the past two years Wagner has had one less friend in the room whenever he spoke out against the co-op’s business practices during board meetings.
“Charlie and (his wife) Charlene have gone through so much to see this thing through,” said West, who doesn’t see herself as the martyr. “They’ve gone through a lot and it’s been hard on them.”
Wagner greeted West when she walked in the boardroom and took her seat behind him.
“A lot has changed since you’ve been gone,” he told her by way of welcome.
Most noticeable was a change in the seating arrangement for audience members, three new trustees sitting at the table and another new face in the general manager’s chair. Copies of the meeting agenda available at the door was something she hadn’t seen before. And there were cameras in the room, something permitted by a new bylaw requiring the board to follow the Open Meetings Act.
West said she’s been keeping up on board meetings by viewing video clips posted on www.theinformedcynic.com, a website created by member James Cherry that’s a treasure-trove of information about Socorro Electric and issues that impact it and its members.
West said she’s seen clips of what’s gone on at meetings in her absence, many of them showing Wagner in conflict with his colleagues.
“It’s all hard feelings and animosity,” she said. “They need to disband and start over again. Let somebody else do it.”
Co-op board meetings have often been contentious since the reform movement — sparked by revelations Socorro Electric’s board incurred expenses significantly higher than any of the other rural electric cooperatives operating in New Mexico and the board’s propensity to conduct business behind closed doors — gained traction 3 1/2 years ago.
West became chairperson of the Socorro Electric Cooperative Reform Committee, which advocated for change and succeeded. Three incumbents were ousted in district elections in 2009 and members came out in droves for the 2010 annual meeting to pass nearly a dozen reform-related measures by overwhelming margins.
It was a great victory for the reform movement, and a blow to the majority of the trustees, who were the target of reform measures that slashed their expenses and put limits on their terms. Under the board’s direction, the co-op challenged the validity of three new bylaws calling for increased transparency. In order to do so, the co-op sued all of its approximately 10,000 member-owners.
The co-op lost the case and board members now face a countersuit that calls for their removal. But West said she thinks the board still doesn’t get it.
“I don’t think they’ve learned anything,” said West, who was the only individual named as a defendant in the lawsuit against “all unnamed member-owners.” “They fought it all the way, like stubborn little boys,” she said.
The board hasn’t shown a willingness to relent on another new bylaw — one that reduces the size of the board from 11 to five. The co-op’s position is that the reduction can’t take place until redistricting is approved, which requires a quorum at the annual meeting. Until a plan is approved, nothing changes.
West said the board should have learned by now that they were elected to serve the people and should yield to the wishes of those they represent rather than protect their own selfish interests.
“They should be asking the people, ‘What do you think?’ But they’re still guarding their territory,” West said. “They need to give it up and let somebody else come in.”
Change doesn’t always come quickly, but West said she plans to keep attending board meetings until reform is complete.
“Someone has to be witness to it,” she said.
Contact T.S. Last