Pedernales Electric’s Board of Directors unanimously voted to place a member bill of rights on the 2010 ballot, giving PEC’s 196,000 members the power to ratify the document at the cooperative’s June 19 annual meeting in Johnson City. If ratified, the bill of rights would establish core rights, such as election safeguards, that could be changed only by member vote.

If a majority of members vote for the bill of rights, it will become part of PEC’s articles of incorporation. The board voted to place several other proposed amendments to the articles of incorporation on this year’s PEC ballot, and these proposals would change how board vacancies are filled and what constitutes a quorum of members. Board members also considered proposed revisions to the cooperative’s bylaws, however the revisions did not garner the necessary two-thirds support.

In November 2009, the board passed a resolution creating a policy that allows members to have access to a complete PEC membership list for a limited number of reasons, including campaigning for the board. The board has amended that policy to allow any member to remove his or her information from the list available to other members.

Directors also heard a report from System Engineering Manager Robert Peterson about recent developments in the field, and he praised PEC employees for their swift response to an outage on Jan. 28. The outage occurred at the Henley substation west of Dripping Springs, and PEC restored power to all affected members in 70 minutes.

District 1 Director and Board Vice President Cristi Clement -- who chairs the Financial Strategies, Contracts, and Budget Committee -- spoke about the progress PEC is making in submitting a 2010 budget for the board’s approval.

The regular monthly meeting in June will be one week early on June 14, and after the June 19 annual meeting, the board will hold an organizational meeting on June 21 to formally seat the newly elected directors.