October 10, 2008

Wasco electric refutes member allegations
Storkson claims election illegalities

By KATHY GRAY
of The Chronicle

     A The Dalles-area man has launched a media campaign accusing Wasco Electric Cooperative of violating its bylaws through election improprieties and saying that Oregon law does not require cooperatives to be accountable to their members.
     This week, Wasco Electric took the unusual step of refuting Britt Storkson’s accusations with a letter to cooperative members.

Term limits
     Storkson claims both Neal Harth and Jean McKinney have exceeded the term limits spelled out in the Wasco Electric bylaws and are now serving illegally.      Both Harth and McKinney have served in excess of the 18-year, six-term limitation noted in the bylaws. But those rules specifically state, “This requirement may be waived by the members if a director is serving as a director for state, regional or national rural electric association.”
     Both McKinney and Harth serve on such boards. Harth presently serves as second vice president of the Northwest Public Power Association. McKinney has represented Oregon on the national rural electric cooperative association for the past 10 years. Both have served on other boards, as well.
     But Storkson, an unsuccessful board candidate in this and several previous elections, claims Wasco Electric hasn’t obtained the waiver the bylaws require.
     “What they have to do is have a vote of the members specifically to grant the legal waiver,” Storkson said.
     The bylaws don’t spell out the specific mechanism required to obtain the waiver. Wasco Electric’s Manager, Jeff Davis, said the cooperative fulfills the waiver requirement by having a nominating committee — fully apprised of the term limit conditions — select the slate of candidates. Candidates can also be placed on the ballot by petition, which is the way Storkson has run in the past few elections.
     Those candidates then go to a vote before the full cooperative membership, who vote either at the general meeting in November, or by a secret mail-in ballot, similar to the public election ballots.
     However, information that a term limit waiver is evoked does not appear on the ballot, Davis added.

Allegations
     Storkson has alleged that the elections are tampered with, by destruction of some of the ballots supporting his election.
     “The problem isn’t counting the votes — it’s the fact that the ballots first go to the Wasco Electric board, not an independent third party like the county clerk,” Storkson said.
     Davis denies any ballot tampering and as early as 2002, the cooperative threatened Storkson with legal action, claiming his allegations of a “rigged election” constitute “defamatory libel.”

Accountability
     Storkson says the cooperative is not being accountable to its members.
     “We don’t have any rights as members; they hold all the elections, count the votes and take the votes,” said Storkson, who has sought legislative change to Oregon Revised Statute 62, which governs the formation of cooperatives.      Storkson says the state law allows cooperatives to operate in secret, with no mechanism for accountability to their members.
     “There’s nothing in the law that says they can’t have rigged elections,” he wrote in a political advertisement in The Chronicle, stopping short of a direct accusation.
     While much of the law defers to a cooperative’s specific bylaws, ORS 62.440 specifically outlines accountability requirements:
     “A cooperative shall keep correct and complete books and records of account, and shall keep minutes of the proceedings of its members, board and executive committee. ... At any reasonable time, any member of shareholder, or the agent or attorney of any member or shareholder, upon written notice stating the purposes thereof, may examine for any proper purpose any books or records pertinent to the purpose specified in the notice and may make extracts therefrom, all in accordance with any reasonable conditions prescribed by the board restricting disclosure, dissemination or use by any member or shareholder, or any agent or attorney of any member or shareholder, or any information therein contained. The board may deny a request to examine books and records if the board determines that the purpose is not directly related to the business or affairs of the cooperative and is contrary to the best interests of the cooperative.”
     In fact, Storkson sought and was granted the right to have an independent observer present at vote counting during an earlier board election, said Davis, adding that records indicate the individual found no improprieties.

Board members
     Neal Harth is a primary target of Storkson’s media campaign. Harth is the long-time president of the Wasco Electric board of directors and has served on the board for the past 21 years. When the term limitation bylaw was passed, Harth was in the middle of his 17th year on the board, he said.
     “I was also serving on the Northwest Public Power Association board,” Harth said.
     He chose to run for another three-year term this fall to finish out his commitment on the regional board. He says we will not seek additional terms after this fall.
     “If the members wish, the can vote someone else in,” he said.
McKinney concludes her board service this year, but has come under Storkson’s scrutiny.
     “It makes me so unhappy,” she said of his criticism. “I’ve dedicated 27 years of my time and have represented Oregon for 10 years on the national board. I’ve served on the regional boards. I feel like I’ve given up a lot. It’s been absolutely worthwhile, a great experience, and I’ve been given lots of opportunities, but I did sacrifice some in my own personal life. I spend a lot of time at my desk.”
     McKinney says she doesn’t think Storkson has looked into the principles that guide cooperatives, one of which is democratic control.
     McKinney says she chose to run the last time because the cooperative had been in a period of transition and needed continuing experience on the board. At that time, two people on the board had died, another had stepped down for health reasons. The cooperative had a new manager and a new attorney.
     “I elected to run an additional three years,” she said. Now, she says she feels confident that she is leaving Wasco Electric in good hands.
     Davis cites a laundry list of both Harth’s and McKinney’s affiliations.
     “You can see the value that those type of individuals bring, not just to Wasco electric, but to the industry as a whole,” he said. “They are serving in a legitimate capacity.”

Meetings
     Storkson also criticized the cooperative for not having published agendas, making it more difficult for members to know when to attend the meetings.
     “The agenda isn’t published,” he said. “We don’t even know the time and place.”
     Cooperatives do not fall under the same meeting notice requirements as public entities, however, Wasco Electric’s manager says the meetings are held on the same day and same time every month. The meetings are held the fourth Thursday of each month. Winter meetings are held at 1 p.m. During the busy agricultural seasons, they are held at 7 p.m.

Representation
     Storkson has taken his complaints about the cooperative, including a beef over a power line easement, to several legislators over the years, seeking changes to the statutes. His recent criticisms have targeted Oregon Rep. John Huffman, R-The Dalles.
     In his recent advertisement, Storkson alleges Huffman has kowtowed to “a couple of high-powered individuals” in not pursuing legislative change.
     Huffman denies the statement Storkson attributes to him.
     “As far as the quote goes, I have said nothing even close to that,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s Wasco Rural or anything else I’ve dealt with, anything; there is nobody I wouldn’t stand up to. I never said there were big powers I was going to side up with.”
     Instead, Huffman says he and his aide researched the issue over the course of six weeks shortly after Huffman’s appointment to office. Huffman says he spoke to Storkson three or four times every week. He contacted the Oregon Public Utilities Commission and the attorney general’s office.
     “The bottom line is, it came back that we don’t regulate them. It’s a member co-op and the members vote on the bylaws.
     ‘‘[I told him] if it’s something you and the other members have a problem with, then it’s something you have to deal with in the process and that process is set out by law.”
     Storkson claims to have supporters among the cooperative membership, but contact with several people who signed his petition yielded no one with supporting comments. Others did not return phone calls.

Response
     Storkson’s criticism of the Wasco Electric has been ongoing for a number of years.
     The cooperative decided to respond with a mass mailing to its members after Storkson appeared on the Lars Larsen radio program, then took out a daily political ad in The Chronicle.
     “His allegations have gone unresponded to for the most part,” Davis said. “Sometimes it’s not worth getting into a dogfight with mud-slinging. but untruths can only be told so long without responding to them.”