Grass-roots group of "owner-members" organizes to demand more democratic practices and transparent management at the Pedernales Electric Coop. Group puts up slate of alternative board candidates who make an outstanding showing in the balloting.

All of the below Photos were taken by Mara Eurich. Thanks Mara!

While people arrived for the meeting, PEC4U members set up a table outside and gave literature to everyone entering the hall. We also got members to give us their contact information. My beautiful wife Annie Borden did a great job of running the info table. Here she is getting emotional at the press conference we held just before the meeting.	PEC4U's core group is made up of some very smart people. Here, John Watson (one of our smartest) informs the assembled press about our financial concerns. At the meeting, John knowledgeably and forcefully demanded financial accountability from the PEC, an organization long known for its secrecy about such matters.
That's me at the press conference, talking too much as usual.	Linda Kaye Rogers was a relatively quiet member of the PEC4U core group, until the meeting, that is. Then, she was a ball of fire, speaking up early and getting the crowd ignited with her eloquent, passionate style. Looks like she's brought ol' "Bud" Burnett (PEC board chairman) to tears.
Sue Barnett was the PEC4U candidate for board district 4. Here, she makes our case for a more democratic election process. We were asking them to establish single member districts and a method for board nominations by petition.	Our other board candidate, Beckie Morris, was running for the district 5 position. Here she is making a terrific nomination acceptance speech. How could any thinking person not vote for her? In fact, she and Sue each received about 360 votes at the meeting. Since there were only about 480 members in attendance, that's a pretty good majority.
This old guy surprised us. He started out talking about how we shouldn't be attacking the board and management. Then, once he got the suits disarmed, he smacked them up side the head by telling them that his lawyer has advised him that the election procedure was illegal because the board was offering a chance at winning money by sending in your proxy. He contended that this was "buying votes". Yes!	In addition to the ballots mentioned above, our PEC4U representatives carried about 370 proxies to the meeting. Here, Hillary Hart displays her ballot, showing her votes for Sue and Beckie and the 360 proxies collected in her name. If we had had more time and a bit of an operating budget, we surely could have gotten thousands more proxies. Maybe next year?
Here's another member we'd never met before who made some extremely well thought out points. We found lots of allies at the meeting and the movement grows.	These were the ballots that were handed down my row to be collected. They were all for our alternative candidates. Of course, the incumbents already had the election sewed up because about 37,000 proxies has already been "purchased" by the board with their offer of instant riches.
Learn more and please join us in our efforts to bring democracy and transparency to the PEC. Go to www.pec4u.org. There you will find our position on many important PEC issues, links to most of the press coverage this movement has received, a form on which you can sign up to be kept informed and lots more. Thanks.