DEAR EDITOR:
Re: Around Town item, "Rain on Brown's parade: Appeals ruling major setback for EMC board," Saturday's MDJ

Congratulations on the column concerning Cobb EMC head Dwight Brown's luncheon where he invited some 200 elite and influential Cobb County people to attend. It must have cost us, the members of Cobb EMC, hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. I can only speculate as to the exact purpose of "feeding and watering" the select few, but believe it is part of an ongoing effort by Brown and his cronies to propagandize those who may be on a grand or superior court Jury should our district attorney seek indictments for alleged criminal acts by him and others.

Concerning the Court of Appeals order mentioned in the editorial, the members' attorneys prevailed on every point ruled upon by the Court of Appeals. The Court remanded the cases back to Cobb Superior Court Judge S. Stephen Schuster with instructions to issue an order in keeping with the clear language of the settlement agreement. That is exactly what the members' attorneys wanted.

However, the Court of Appeals properly held only matters pertaining to the settlement agreement were to be ruled upon. Issues concerning bylaws enacted by the directors which did not relate to the settlement agreement were not part of the original motion and for that reason were not ruled upon.

That leaves us members with a problem. Something must be done to overturn the bylaw the directors enacted, allegedly on Dec. 12, 2008, giving them the right to censor what may and what may not be brought before the membership for a vote. If the directors do not want the membership to consider a resolution or proposed bylaw, they can simply refuse to put it on the agenda for the membership to consider. If the directors on their own refuse to repeal the censorship bylaw, the members can only file a lawsuit and seek an order holding that the censorship bylaw is illegal or have their state senator or representative introduce a bill in the General Assembly outlawing such power grabs by officers and directors of electric power cooperatives.

Because the term of the General Assembly is at an end, it will be nine months before a bill could be filed in the Georgia House or Senate. If a lawsuit is filed, there is no telling how long it would take to final resolution, once all appeals and delaying actions have been exhausted. Further, Dwight Brown will once again hire the most expensive lawyers he can find and use our, the Cobb EMC's money to pay them.

Fletcher Thompson
East Cobb