{"id":1495,"date":"2011-09-18T09:43:02","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T13:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/cobb-emc-loses-special-election-by-huge-margin.html"},"modified":"2011-09-18T09:43:02","modified_gmt":"2011-09-18T13:43:02","slug":"cobb-emc-loses-special-election-by-huge-margin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/cobb-emc-loses-special-election-by-huge-margin.html","title":{"rendered":"Cobb EMC loses special election by huge margin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/a>\nCobb EMC lost<\/a> a\n\ncourt-ordered special election<\/a> yesterday by 2561 to 1113,\naccording to\n\nTake Back Cobb EMC’s facebook page.<\/a>\nThat was the vote against mail-in voting,\nbecause the insurgents believe mail-in voting helps incumbent directors win\nre-election.\nIt’s Cobb EMC’s incumbent directors who want to build a coal plant in\nBen Hill County,\nabout 70 miles north of here.\n

\nMJDOnline explained the issues 14 September 2011,\n\nDon McKee: Decision day comes Saturday for Cobb EMC members<\/a>\n

\nThere are two questions in the form of proposed bylaw amendments to be\ndecided by members Saturday: (1) whether to allow mail-in voting for\ndirectors, and (2) whether to prohibit payment of retirement benefits\nto directors.\n

\nReform groups Cobb EMC Owners Association, Take Back Cobb EMC and Cobb\nEMC Watch strongly oppose allowing mail-in voting until new directors\nare elected. They argue that mail-in voting would give an overwhelming\nadvantage to incumbent directors with unlimited EMC member funds at\ntheir disposal in campaigning for re-election versus the very limited\nfunds available to challengers.\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\u201cThe historical evidence of mail-in voting shows that it favors the\nincumbents over challengers,\u201d Cobb EMC Watch says. \u201cIt gives the\ncorporation tremendous leverage to manipulate and influence the voting\nprocess. The corporation can use its much greater financial resources\nto back its slate of candidates.\u201d\n<\/blockquote>\nOne would guess the second item on the ballot passed:\n\n\n

\nThe second proposal, eliminating fat retirement benefits for directors\n(incumbents have racked up $211,000 in future benefits already), looks\nlike a slam dunk. Even the EMC management is supporting this change to\nundo one of the egregious doings of this board of directors.\n<\/blockquote>\nThe insurgents out-organized the incumbents, including demonstrating\noutside the building where the meeting was held.\nMaybe there will be some new faces on\n\nthe Kremlin wall.<\/a>\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cobb EMC lost a court-ordered special election yesterday by 2561 to 1113, according to Take Back Cobb EMC’s facebook page. That was the vote against mail-in voting, because the insurgents believe mail-in voting helps incumbent directors win re-election. It’s Cobb EMC’s incumbent directors who want to build a coal plant in Ben Hill County, about […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,216,1127,40,14,49,16,21,22,32],"tags":[8736,2732,8753,2090,8818,1484,8701,3791,3792,3793,8715,3790],"class_list":["post-1495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-coal","category-cobb-emc","category-community","category-economy","category-elections","category-environment","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","tag-activism","tag-ben-hill-county","tag-coal","tag-cobb-county","tag-cobb-emc","tag-election","tag-georgia","tag-incumbents","tag-kremlin","tag-organizing","tag-pollution","tag-special-election"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-o7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}