Incumbents won Snapping Shoals EMC board election

Insurgents lost an EMC board election, but made their point anyway. Following up on the three locals running for the board of Snapping Shoals EMC, they lost, but remember Snapping Shoals EMC quit coal-pushing Power4Georgians when they announced they were running.

Crystal Tatum wrote for the Henry Daily Herald 26 July 2012, Morris, Snapping Shoals EMC incumbents win by landslide,

CONYERS — Members of the Snapping Shoals Electric Membership Corporation (EMC) have returned to office three incumbents in a rare contested election to the agency's 11-member board of directors.

EMC board members set policies and oversee the finances and administration of Snapping Shoals. They serve staggered, three-year terms. The non-profit EMC is a consumer-owned cooperative in Covington, providing service to about 95,000 consumers in an eight-county area, including Henry County.

Gene Morris of Henry County, Walter Johnson of DeKalb County, and Anthony Norton of Rockdale, were being challenged because of their support to build the coal-fire power Plant Washington. Kaye Shipley, also of Henry County, Albert Roesel of Newton County, and Cheryl Mathis of DeKalb County form the group challenging the three. Voting took place at the cooperative's annual meeting Thursday in Georgia International Horse Park in Conyers.

In the District 2 Rockdale post, 2,400 ballots were cast, with Norton beating Roesel 2,157 to 224. Nineteen ballots were voided. In the District 3 DeKalb County Post, Johnson garnered 2,099 votes to Cheryl Moore-Mathis' 280. Twenty-one votes were voided. In the District 4 Henry County race, 2,392 ballots were cast, with Morris getting 2,082 votes to Shipley's 300. Ten were voided. Newton County District 1 representative Pete Knox ran unopposed.

Amusingly, incumbent Gene Morris termed it a David and Goliath struggle with the incumbents as David. I'm not sure most people think of the power company as the little guy....

The story mentioned a post-election press release by the challengers, but didn't link to it. No problem;

the insurgents facebook page, Smart Energy for Snapping Shoals, has it: Snapping Shoals EMC Candidates Continue Their Call for Answers: Despite Election Losses Candidates Celebrate End of Plant Washington Spending. Here's an excerpt:

Shortly after the candidates announced their plans to run, Snapping Shoals EMC announced that they would no longer spend any money on Plant Washington but would maintain a partnership with the developer of the plant. The details of the partnership were not shared publicly.

“Families and businesses in the SSEMC service area can not afford to take a chance on future rate increases when the need for another power plant is questionable,” explained Kaye Shipley the candidate from Henry County. “I think our candidacies helped to push for this very public announcement around Plant Washington and I plan to continue to push for a full investigation of Plant Washington, as a customer I want to make sure we are investigating the cheapest energy options moving forward.”

So they won their main point simply by running. And now they have more visibility to help pursue making Snapping Shoals EMC more transparent. They didn't even have to replace more than half the board, like what happened with Cobb EMC. Hm, what about Snapping Shoals EMC and those Plant Vogtle nukes?

-jsq