Letter to the Editor - Huron Daily Plainsman - Pat Doak
To the Editor:
Last week’s Dakota Energy town hall meeting was a huge disappointment. Dakota Energy members weren’t even allowed to speak, at our own meeting.
Questions were only allowed via text and were then screened by Laurence and Schiller before the panel answered. When a DE member in the audience tried to ask a question, she was ridiculed and insulted.
Did the panel answer even one of the texted questions? It appears that panel members were skillfully coached by legal, marketing, and Guzman staff. Always eluded the direct answer. Maybe that’s how you control the crowd in a town hall meeting so you don’t have to take unscreened and uncomfortable questions.
DE Members were insulted as not knowing the facts, a bunch of hayseeds not knowing any better, sheep following blindly behind the big bad wolf, East River Coop. How degrading. Is that the kind of management you want from our coop?
Time and again, the message from the panel was, “we want a number from East River”It wasn’t, “what do our members want?” It wasn’t “Let’s ask the members”
Follow the money. Who will gain from this?
Some of the panel ridiculed coop principles, new folks don’t care, just want a cheap price.......
I think all of the Dakota Energy members care about these Coop Principles:
- Voluntary and open membership
- Democratic Member Control
- Members Economic Participation
- Autonomy and Independence
- Education, training, and information
- Cooperation among Cooperatives
- Concern for community
DE Board members may not have a save face exit strategy, they are in it too deep. Would Guzman sue DE if we members stopped the law suit against East River? We need to see DE's letter of intent to Guzman to see how it’s written. They won’t give it to us.
Pat Doak
Huron
Note: This letter to the editor originally appeared in the Huron Daily Plainsman
https://plainsman.com/article/...
Posted April 14, 2021