After annual meeting fiasco, canal board needs do better

Dear editor:

On the positive side, the Shell Canal Company annual meeting sure was entertaining! But it was not satisfying enough to stay past the 3-½ hour mark. I would guess that it was around midnight before any new board members were elected. Given the questionably reconstituted board (following the unexplained, abrupt resignation of four members recently), the election of directors should have been the first order of business.

I did witness the vote on the motion on the floor to go back 50 years to the 1974 bylaws, which passed the two-thirds threshold of the vote (by water shares) as per the bylaws. I am confident however that this action will not hold up in a court of law. I am not a lawyer (not even a pretend one), but it seems fundamental to contract law that a person has access to the language or document that you are binding yourself to. That would be analogous to being asked to sign a prenuptial agreement that you are not allowed to read. You cannot bind yourself to hearsay. Sign here, trust me, it’s great! No one attending the meeting and asked to vote on the motion on the floor had access to the previous 1974 bylaws.

Scripture prescribes: “Let all things be done decently and in order.” When the vast majority of the Shell Canal Company members are small users, but those interests are in no way represented on the reconstituted board conducting the annual meeting, that is alarming. Do better.

Janet Evans

Greybull