The cows are still coming home to Cobb EMC. The Marietta Daily Journal is reporting that Dwight Brown is taking legal action against Cobb EMC because he thinks he is due the full $2.1M from a consulting contract.
If I were Dwight Brown I would do the same: who wouldn’t want to collect $13,800 per week plus expenses for three years (plus attorney’s fees of $5,000 for the contract he had drawn up).
This is a perfect example of how open meetings and transparency help Board members too. Larry Chadwick, the Board Chair of Cobb EMC, signed the contract without the approval or authorization of the co-op’s Board of Directors. That wouldn’t happen if business and voting take place in an open meeting, along with access to documents and records (and there are co-ops that discuss personnel and contractual matters in executive session but vote in an open meeting. It can and is done successfully) .
Maybe the previous rubber stamp board would have agreed to the contract too, but we will never know. Now the co-op has to spend yet more of the owner-member dollars in an effort to break the contract and recover some of what has been paid.
All of the “doing and deals” cooked up by Brown and the Board of Directors in control prior to November 2011 defy good business practices. A court agreement between owner-members and the Board required that Brown leave the co-op at the end of February 2011. After insisting that Brown was the only person on the planet who could effectively run the co-op, the Board hired him as a consultant on March 1, 2011 to work as a consultant where, according to the MDJ, he essentially continued to work as the CEO.
It is stunning to watch the machinations of people who have long lost sight of what is best for the community they live in, the co-op they work for, and the owner-members who elected them to conduct business on their behalf.
It bears repeating: open meetings and transparency held Board members too.
What say you now Washington EMC leaders? Still think keeping the door slammed shut to members is in the co-op’s best interest? What about your best interest?