EWUA Recall Integrity
The people being recalled should not be the people managing the recall meeting and counting the ballots that could remove them from the Board.
The dominant Board Faction – Jim Nelson, Teri Nigretto, Mike Cleveland, and Leith Templin – refuses to permit a neutral party to manage the recall process.
The recall group has more than enough signatures to cause a meeting of the EWUA Members. Thank you. However, once the petition is submitted, a clock starts.
Secretary Leith Templin or an election inspector must send a notice to all Members within one (1) to thirty-five (35) days of the submission of the petition. According to the bylaws, that notice must include an approved proxy form, a date, a time, and a location for the Member meeting. It must also include instructions on how proxies are submitted.
For this to be done fairly, a neutral party needs to be selected to manage the notices, all proxies, and the counting of the votes. The decision on who will be that neutral party needs to take place prior to the submission of the petition. The recall petition and all proxy forms should go to the neutral party running the Member meeting, not to the people being recalled. The directors have a fiduciary duty of loyalty to the Members to conduct this process fairly.
On June 18, 2024, EWUA director Jim Cook made a motion at the EWUA Board meeting. It is provided here for your consideration:
Move to authorize association legal counsel, Rochelle Doyea, to coordinate with a representative of the minority board faction, and to appoint an independent election inspector who will do the following:
- Accept and verify all recall petitions and proxies
- Manage the process without the involvement of any EWUA director or staff
- Send notices of Members’ meetings to Members
- Conduct a member meeting for the purpose of the recall
- Count and record all votes cast.
Jim Cook also submitted the following motion:
Move to authorize association legal counsel, Rochelle Doyea, to review the proposed proxy form by June 30 and, if it meets the statutory requirements set forth by Washington state law and the EWUA bylaws, approve the form for use.
Rochelle Doyea (EWUA legal) and the EWUA Board were provided a copy of the proxy form being used by the recall group. As Doyea acknowledged, it has all of the statutory-required elements.
Jim Nelson, Teri Nigretto, Mike Cleveland, and Leith Templin voted ‘no’ on both the appointment of a neutral election inspector and on allowing the proxy form to be used. No rationale was offered.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Do you want your representatives to spend more money in court, opposing a neutral party to run the Member meeting? If not, contact the dominant Board faction (Jim Nelson, Teri Nigretto, Mike Cleveland, and Leith Templin) to demand that, without a court fight, the EWUA Board:
- Approve the recall group’s proxy form, and,
- Work with the recall group to select a mutually-agreed upon neutral party to run the recall process.
ABOUT OUR PROXY
The proxy that the recall group is using is based on the proxy that is currently being used by the dominant Board faction for the proxies they hold. The recall group’s proxy is based on the proxy that the EWUA dominant Board faction mailed to all Members in October 2023 just prior to the director election. You can see the proxy that the dominant board faction is refusing to accept here – https://bit.ly/rw-forms
ABOUT THE BOARD’S PROXY
Some of the 51 proxies that were given to the Board along with the 2023 ballot are still held by the Board and can continue to be used as the Board sees fit. If you do not want the dominant Board faction to use your proxy to perpetuate their hold on power, notify the Board in writing that you are canceling the proxy you gave them. You can use this form to make that easier.
The dominant Board faction spent about $150,000 in legal fees over the last 12 months to prevent anyone from looking at the records. Is this how you want your water rate money spent?