Electric cooperative hopes for a quorum at annual meeting

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Continental Divide Electric Cooperative officials have high hopes that after a decade they will be able to attract a quorum 501 members registering for the annual meeting.

The official meeting at 2 p.m. will be preceded by four hours of a community fair starting at 10 a.m. at Grants High School. And members who register don't have to be present to win the grand prize there also are lots of other prizes to be offered of a trip for two to Las Vegas, Nev., June 30-July 2, according to Continental's press officer, Mac Juarez.

Included in the grand prize will be round trip airplane tickets, a hotel room at the Imperial Palace and dinner for two the night the winners attend The Legends concert.

Among the other prizes will be cash, outdoor gear, electric kitchen appliances, power tools, and electric barbecue grill, a flat screen television, a ride in a hot air balloon at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, a pair of season tickets each to the University of New Mexico Lobo football and basketball seasons, and a Steffes electric thermal system heater which cuts the cost of winter heating.

By offering this type of a grand prize, the member-owned utility hopes to attract more members, enough to reach the quorum to conduct official business, according to General Manager Dick Shirley.

If no quorum is achieved, there can be no changes in the by-laws, such as amending the quorum or changing the distribution of what in a private utility would be called profits or dividends. Co-ops call them capital credits, which are composed of the excess of revenue over operating, debt and capital costs. Currently the by-laws require that only the oldest accounts receive the money each year. If there is a quorum, that by-law could be changed to allow more account holders, including newer ones, to receive the refunds.

The by-laws of the 61-year-old cooperative require 3 percent of the registered members, with Continental having 16,685 members as of March 31.

Another tactic to try to increase attendance was to change from a night to day meeting, and to increase the activities for children. This resulted in the community fair of vendors, games and entertainment by one of the Grants High School bands.

Community fair activities include an arts and crafts fair, hot-dog-style lunches, a children's jumping castle, ring toss, face painting and free safety photo identification kits by the Grants City Police Department, which are approved by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Vendors will sell pottery, leather pouches, hair barrettes, cowboy hat racks, sterling silver jewelry, rosaries, bracelets, Victorian laces, pearls and ribbons, wood crafts, plastic tulips with pens, bead work, Chinese and Mediterranean finished jewelry, rattle gourds, gel candles, gift mugs with coffee, brownies and chicken soup, lotions, trail mix, lip balm, crotchet items, a local author's cookbooks, dolls, emu egg etchings, ceramics, collapsible plastic vases and paintings.

Since nobody filed as a board candidate, incumbents Alfred Saavedra (District 5 Prewitt, San Rafael, Old Sky City), Grant Clawson (District 6 Jones Ranch, Zuni, Candy Kitchen) and Lyle Adair (District 8 Tse Bonito, Yah-Ta-Hey, Red Rock, Manuelito) will serve another 3-year term on the 9-member board. The nominating committee placed their names on the ballot. Members can place nominees on the ballot by submitting a petition with the signatures of 15 members from the district.

To contact reporter Jim Maniaci in Grants, telephone 285-6184 or (505) 870-7775 (cellular).