On one side of the page, Socorro Electric Cooperative trustees and its members are trading insults while on the other side of the page, co-op attorney Dennis Francish is hightailing it up I-25 back to Albuquerque with the back end of his car stuffed with $100 bills, saying to himself, “When’s the next co-op meeting? And better yet, I hope the judge certifies the class-action suit.”
If the trustees want to do something good for the community, they can decide on July 28 that there will be no more co-op meetings for the attorney that got us into this mess in the first place.
All it would take would be for one trustee to make the motion, another one to second it and then take a vote. After they get rid of the attorney, they also can drop the suit.
Right now, the community is being ripped apart by this guy.
Basically, he has advised the trustees to sue their own families, their own friends, the police, the sheriff, the judges, and in fact, everybody in the Co-op coverage area.
Francish wants to drag everybody into court to test three bylaw amendments that some trustees - and he - think keep the co-op from doing its business.
Since we are all getting sued, we the members also need legal representation.
Beware of attorneys who want to fight this because they also want to be aptly compensated.
The Mountain Mail cares about this community, so if the trustees and Francish decide to pursue the lawsuit, this newspaper is prepared to file a class-action suit and everybody is invited to join along.
Perhaps an attorney is prepared to represent the class “pro-bono.” No charge.
If the trustees turn their back on the community by keeping the status quo, we will see them in court.
Perhaps an attorney will open that box of Pandoras and who knows what he will find.
The trustees have one chance to save face in the community and that will come on Wednesday. If they don’t that will be a shame.
We will be opening that box of Pandoras, and they will get what’s coming to them.
Dennis, Arguendo, welcomes a class-action suit.
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Not that I in any way agree with Francish regarding plans to file a lawsuit against members of the Socorro Electric Cooperative, but this screed is really a sloppy attempt at "journalism." Since when does MM run opinionated rants on its front page? It's unethical for the ABQ Journal to run opinion columns on its front page, and it's equally unethical for the MM to do so.
ReplyDeleteThis opinion piece starts off just fine, for an opinion piece, with the cartoon idea illustrating what the MM feels Dennis Francish's actions amount to, and the writer suggesting the board of trustees should fire him as a consequence of those actions.
Then the writer takes a literary nosedive, getting into some wild, emotional rhetoric and using wholly unsubstantiated claims to make some kind of point, although that point is lost in the word salad that comprises the remainder of the piece.
- "Right now, the community is being ripped apart by this guy."
Perhaps this is an overstatement/hyperbole? Not sure, since that particular assertion is unsubstantiated in this opinion piece.
The writer also does not make it clear why the MM would/should file a class-action lawsuit in response to a suit by the co-op. Is this a counter-suit? If you believe you have a case, then why didn't you already file the suit? Or is that why you included the non-sequitir about attorneys being "aptly compensated" (you don't have the funds to hire an attorney)?
- "Perhaps an attorney is prepared to represent the class 'pro-bono.'"
This appears to be speculation (???), so why is this even included in the editorial? "Perhaps" an attorney is prepared? Does this class have an attorney who is prepared to file a suit, or doesn't it?
Finally, the phrase "Box of Pandoras" is a malapropism; what you meant was "Box of Pandora's," as in "Pandora's Box,"referring to an artifact in Greek mythology. This is also extremely cliche.
I am rapidly losing respect for the owner and the editor of the Mountain Mail.