LETTER: SEC Info?

To the editor,
At this point it is safe to assume that Socorro Electric Cooperative’s (SEC) Board of Directors realize that their collective services are too costly in the eyes of many owner members otherwise they would not have advanced their own board-size reduction proposals … that or their proposals are cleverly designed to thwart any change. No doubt all of the “old head” Board members have come to personally depend upon the thousands of dollars that they receive each year from their tenure and have no desire to lose … but.
One question that I injected at Saturday’s Finley Gym meeting had to do with what the board members do to earn their money. I didn’t get much of an answer. And, I didn’t get much of an answer to another question involving the merits of the very reasonable appearing member proposed changes. It seems to me that if the Board members were truly concerned about their neighbors (member owners) they would be quicker to cooperate. Apparently the Board’s attitude toward member owners is, “go away, you are a fly in the ointment.”
I have been an owner member user of SEC services for 24 years. Until not so long ago when an SEC board member “hung up” on me as I was pressing an issue regarding a very costly system failure I had nothing but good to assert about the Cooperative. That good view changed.
When I exclaimed “WOW!” to the amounts listed on the SEC Board payout form that I observed in the hands of a fellow Gym meeting attendee he, the fellow attendee, added, “Yea, but did they take more under the table.” And, being a retired law officer of the major fraud variety memories of prior theft cases worked came to mind. Where people and things of value are concerned, theft is always a possibility. For sure, the Board’s apparent resistance to provide internal information to member owners fuels the fires of suspicion.
Having personal knowledge of what it takes to endeavor in the fields of electrical distribution, accounting, and fraud investigation I must wonder what education, training, and expertise those 11 nice paid board members have brought to the SEC’s management table.
Frankly, as a member owner I would like to see an honest, objective, up to date and complete audit (criminal and civil) of SEC affairs by professional auditors of the type I once associated. With a fresh start then, and only then, will my faith be restored.

Alvin B. Hickox
San Antonio, NM

LETTER: SEC Info?