Four uniformed Socorro police officers were dispatched to the Socorro Electric Cooperative Thursday night to quell a disturbance.

When they arrived, officers found five SEC member-owners upset that they were not given the opportunity to listen to a presentation regarding the Co-op's 2008-2009 audit. The presentation — to be given by Randy Robbins of the Lubbock-based Bolinger, Segars, Gilbert & Moss L.L.P. — was the lone item on the board's special meeting agenda.

As quickly as the meeting was called to order, trustee Juan Gonzales motioned to close the meeting and go into executive session. The motion was quickly seconded and approved — the member-owners were then asked to leave.

"We simply asked the board why we were being excluded from the presentation about our audit," Dr. Donald Wolberg said. "It wasn't a personnel matter they were discussing; they just didn't want us to hear how our money has been spent."

When asked why the board opted to exclude member-owners and the press from the proceedings, Gonzales quipped, "It's executive session — that's all you need to know ... "

Gonzales then warned the lone media representative against printing anything regarding the meeting.

The door was shut and board members reconvened in executive session while member-owners waited for the meeting to be reopened.

That never happened.

Ninety minutes after closing the doors, trustees emerged, headed for their cars and left.

"It's a pathetic situation," Magdalena resident Barbara Moore said. "Perhaps they were worried that the audit would make them look unfavorable."

One hour into the executive session, SEC General Manager Polo Pineda and three SEC staff members joined the police and member-owners outside the meeting hall. Pineda said the audit would be posted on the Co-op's Web page as soon as he received a PDF version of the document.

"No one's hiding anything," Pineda said. "The audit will be on the Web site for anyone to review."

A check of the co-op's Web page Friday, Aug. 28, revealed that the current audit results had not yet been posted. As of Chieftain press time, only excerpts from the previous two audits are posted.