Dear Editor:

A disturbing circumstance exists, re: our member-owned Petit Jean Electric Cooperative (PJE), regarding an apparently longstanding policy of prohibiting General Members from attending our Board of Directors Meetings.

To understand the disturbing nature of this circumstance, please be aware that as a ‘member owned’ organization, every Member is entitled to observe the conduct of our organization’s elected representatives so that we may be fully informed about matters pertaining to the well being of our organization. Denied the right to exercise this prerogative, we have no basis to know how our business is being administered by those we elect.

As affirmation of this and other rights of membership, laws govern the conduct of member-owned cooperatives. Akin to the ‘Sunshine Laws’ which mandate open public meetings of government bodies, regulations pertaining to member-owned cooperatives favor the rights of Members to attend board meetings and stay informed by various other means.

These regulations also permit an organization’s Board to ‘close’ a Board Meeting, effectively barring Members from attendance, but only under a limited set of circumstances. Such permissible circumstances are similar to those established by ‘Sunshine Laws’ for Executive Session but grant a slightly wider scope of lawful reasons for which a meeting may be legitimately closed.

With this in mind, please consider that several months ago a number of PJE Members, each with a unique concern about some aspect of our organization’s conduct, attended the Annual PJE Membership Meeting. While our directors were polite and courteous, we came away from that meeting with additional concerns and resolved to attend every Board of Directors meeting for the coming year. The first meeting we planned to attend was held June 26, 2006.

Sadly, on that same date, after contacting the PJE office to confirm the time of the meeting, I received a phone call from David Fugitt, PJE General Manager, informing me that Members are NOT welcome to attend Board of Directors meeting unless they have a specific item of business to bring before the board. I emphasized to Mr. Fugitt that we did NOT wish to address the board but simply wished to observe our Board conducting our organization’s business, and again Mr. Fugitt made it clear that Members are NOT welcome at any board function except as previously noted.

Respectfully, this policy does a disservice to Member interests, prohibiting us from knowing with certainty the business affairs of the cooperative we own. In the interest of rectifying this untenable circumstance, a letter requesting clarification of the legal grounds on which this errant Member restriction has been adopted was mailed to the PJE main office in Clinton on June 27. In this regard, I invite any PJE Member who wishes to be further informed on this subject to contact me.

Thank you,