Share
PoliTex blog: From North Texas to D.C., our insiders take you beyond the usual rhetoric 
More Watchdog columns, investigative reports and product recalls
Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
Getting information out of Tri-County Electric Cooperative is like trying to penetrate a secret society. Customer Paul Thompson of Keller called The Watchdog for help. He told me about the annual membership meeting at a Fort Worth church. I tried to get in but was turned away.
I wrote a letter seeking an interview with A. Craig Knight, the executive vice president and general manager, who is paid about $300,000 a year to run the nonprofit. He wrote back that he wouldn’t meet with me a second time (we first met in May) because an earlier Watchdog column included facts that "were inaccurate and misrepresented." "I do not see anything productive coming from another interview, so I respectfully decline," he added. I wrote back that I take errors seriously and feel a duty to correct them. "Would you please point out the material you believe was 'inaccurate and misrepresented’ so we may deal with that immediately?" I asked. I never heard back. Thompson told me getting information from the co-op was nearly impossible. The co-op’s IRS Form 990 is the most detailed account of finances, and that’s where Knight’s annual salary is disclosed. Thompson met with Knight once, but then, as he did with me, Knight turned off the information spigot. All this supports the suspicion that some electricity co-ops are truly closed shops. Two years ago, state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, was denied entry into a board meeting of Pedernales Electric Cooperative, the largest in the state. Fraser calmly told the receptionist that he was not only a member of the co-op but also the state senator who heads the committee that regulates electricity distribution in Texas. After a long wait, he was finally allowed in. Fraser and Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, introduced a bill this year in the Legislature that would have placed co-ops under the state’s open-records and open-meetings laws. The co-ops’ powerful lobbying group, Texas Electric Cooperatives, wasn’t about to let that happen. "We did, in fact, oppose the imposition of the open-records and open-meetings law which applies to other governmental agencies," said Mike Williams, president of the lobby group. As for the meeting I wasn’t allowed to attend, citizen gadfly Thompson reported what happened after the church doors were shut before me: The purpose of the district membership meeting was to elect a director to a three-year term. As Thompson wrote to The Watchdog: "There never is an election or vote at the district meetings because it takes 3 percent of the district to be at the meeting before a vote can be held. If there’s not 3 percent, the old director is automatically nominated again." About 90 members attended, not enough for a quorum. Thompson continues, "Our current board member has been there over 30 years." "The quintessential good-old-boys system" is protected, Thompson wrote, so "if a board member wants to retire, he would do so during his term and then Mr. Knight and the other board members would hand-pick the successor and then he would automatically become the nominee at the next district meeting, assuming no quorum.
@Nyx.CommentBody@