Conference 7.286::dcu

361.0. "Reluctant Plea For Recall Of Entire Current DCU Board" by AITPLB::PBRIGGS (Pete Briggs - AITC (LMO2-1/J11 [296-5253])) Mon Nov 11 1991 15:58

      Fellow DCU members:  I've been watching the, at times, bizarre dialog
between the DCU Board and the actively-interested group of members who have
successfully caused the 12-Nov-1991 Special Members Meeting to occur.

      Occasionally, both groups seem to want to whip on the other group. 
Natural, I guess, when people are anxious about things.  It seems that I'm
not the only member who feels that, NCUA blessings aside and completely
believing the "absent malice" assertions, that the Board may have been
guilty of complacency.  So, too, the membership.  We've all preferred to
"let so-and-so do it!" rather than to invest the time to be certain that our
funds are being handled well.

      Only in the last few years has everyone begun to understand the
apparent weaknesses in the financial infrastructure -- clever people's
ability to bypass whatever rules and policies the various government groups
may impose;  the ability to engage in such complicated schemes to defraud
banks, sometimes even with the active collusion of bank officers or board
members, that auditors and regulators are always behind the times in
spotting them;  the outright failure of numerous savings & loan,
cooperative, and commercial banks.

      I feel, even with several years on the inside of two large commercial
banks during the 1960s and considerable experience as a consultant to major
venture capital investors through the early 1970s, that some fundamental
trust has been at least stretched, if not broken between ALL financial
institutions and their clients.  Perhaps I'm naive.  So be it.  I still
assert that the DCU Board has a fiduciary responsibility to its members. 
They are the oversight body over the managers of our money.

      The DCU Board, not doubt concerned about the legal implications of
imputations of either wrong-doing or complacency, and having just discovered
that it and the bank it's chartered to oversee have just been bilked by the
founding president, are also feeling a bit harassed (the Board's favorite
term) by its world.  The owners/members are only one of the forces making
the Board feel that way, but we probably seem the easiest one to dismiss and
the force with the least ability to hard the Board.

      The Board may construe this argument as the basis for their assertion
that dismissing the Board would cause fundamental harm to the DCU.  Were the
Board to operate "in the open", declare that, just perhaps, they had been
asleep at the switch, and ask our tolerance while they re-constituted
themselves to do a better job, I'd probably be willing to support them.

      When the Board, and the DCU officers (the Board's employees) they
govern begin to operate defensively AGAINST their fiduciary clients, I find
myself unable to offer even slight support for the existing Board members. 
The recent institution of various policies which have the effect of making
it more difficult for members to deal with the DCU seem wholly reprehensible. 
The Board's position are based on the trust of the membership, and the
Boards actions seem almost designed to demolish the basis for that trust.

      Given these recent actions, I strongly urge the membership to vote the
entire current Board out of office.  If members of the existing Board wish
to run for re-election, fine.  For me, they must go through the sort of
cathartic declaration I outlined above, before I would even consider voting
for them.  Two members of the Board are personal acquaintances, yet I still
feel sufficiently strongly about this to declare it openly.

      It seems likely that the DCU will suffer some degree of financial loss
due to its former President's malfeasance.  The incident, itself, would not
have caused me to distrust the Board.  Only the Board's evident efforts to
discredit those who have criticized it, and its apparent willingness to
operate as if a substantial minority of its membership were enemies brings
me to this position.

      I encourage all DCU members who can to attend the meeting.  I intend
to circulate this document at the meeting.  I am willing to speak to this
point during the meeting.  Unless the Board's statements at the meeting
fulfill the above requirement, it is my intention to vote for their recall.

Regards.................Peter L. Briggs
			190 Kirkland Drive
			Stow, MA  01775
			(508)897-2879 [home]
			LMO2-1/J11
			296-5253 [DTN]
			explor::PBriggs