Guest Opinion: Election Review Committee Process Free of OPALCO Mgmt/Board Input

— by Terry O’Sullivan —

[In response to recent opinions expressed in Orcas Issues,] and as one co-chair of the Election Review Committee, I want to ensure that everyone understands that OPALCO’s Board and Management are the wrong ones to ask why our Committee recommended what it did. Our Committee was not influenced in any way by OPALCO’s Board or Management. At no time did the Board or Management offer any ideas, critiques, suggestions, or anything else that influenced our Report.

Our Report was the work of the committee, alone, and we explained in detail in the 20 page document the Committee’s rationale behind each recommendation. Please go to the OPALCO web site, read it, and then in the Open Houses we can discuss our rationale and any opposing rationale so members can determine which makes more sense to them.

We don’t expect everyone to automatically agree with everything. However, we do hope that members will offer constructive commentary that supports fairness, transparency and good representation of the membership by the Board.

We were asked to review the elections process, and we did. OPALCO’s election process is based on districts, so we felt obliged to review the current district system. I was surprised to find that one of the four districts includes only 2% of OPALCO’s11,200 members. I invite those commentors who oppose our Recommendation for three districts to explain why they think it is “fair” that the other 11,000 of us can vote for any director candidate we want, as long as it is one of the 231 people in that district.

The Committee measured each Recommendation by three standards: fairness, transparency, and promoting good representation of the membership by the Board. I invite those who comment on our Report to offer constructive suggestions which further those same objectives.

Part of the Committee’s charge was member outreach, and the upcoming OPALCO Open Houses are part of that process. Read the report in detail and attend the Open Houses prepared to have a constructive discussion. The Orcas meeting is October 11th, 5 p.m. at the Senior Center.