Cobb EMC to hold first member meeting since spate of legal problems. Its current directors still want to build a coal plant in Ben Hill County.

Kim Isaza wrote for MDJonline.com today, Sides set for first EMC meeting: Date set for Sept. 17, but Cobb Superior court judge must first grant approval

Pending approval from Judge Stephen Schuster, the first meeting of Cobb EMC members in nearly three years will convene at 10:15 a.m. Sept. 17.

At that meeting, members will decide two issues: whether to allow voting by mail-in ballots at future elections, and whether to amend the electric cooperative’s bylaws to limit director compensation to a daily rate while also prohibiting future directors from being paid retirement benefits. Previously vested benefits would not be affected.

And look which one the directors really don’t like:

The larger of those two issues is whether Cobb EMC can finance campaigns of incumbent directors.

The directors argue that the so-called muzzling provision is “fundamentally unfair” and thwarts the directors’ First Amendment rights.

Really? I never heard of the organization you want to be elected to financing your campaign being a First Amendment right.

They respond with a non-sequitur:

“Only recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City publicly pledged to donate $50 million to the Sierra club to fight the use of coal for power generation,” Davis wrote in his brief filed Wednesday. “Given the Sierra Club’s longstanding, public and vociferous opposition to Cobb EMC’s plans to rely on coal to meet its members future electricity needs, some of Mayor Bloomberg’s $50 million will be spent supporting anti-incumbent candidates.”

Hm, maybe if coal wasn’t such a bad idea, you wouldn’t be facing that kind of opposition.

People who are not incumbents say:

“A rank and file member would have virtually no chance of ever successfully pursuing election to the Board,” Carr wrote in a memo filed with the court yesterday afternoon.

Well, openings on the Kremlin wall don’t open very often!

Remember this is the EMC that the same judge said asking questions of was “about as fruitful as trying to squeeze information out of the Kremlin”; the EMC whose chief executive was indicted on 31 counts of criminal wrongdoing. He got off on a technicality, but got removed from the board. The same EMC that’s caused people to ask for more transparency for power companies. And of course the same EMC that wants to build a coal plant in Ben Hill County when the land they bought for it could better be used for a solar plant. If you don’t like that last, you can help stop it.

And if get electricity from Cobb EMC, you are a member, and can attend that Cobb EMC member meeting.

-jsq

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