Letter to the Editor: Canal board not acting in its shareholders’ best interests

Dear editor:

While I didn’t go to the recent Shell Canal Company board meeting, I was able to see the video of it. Congratulations to the board in finally admitting that the shareholders passed annual assessments at $30 per share to fund the annual budget (with 60% of the vote and 99% of shares represented) at the special shareholders’ meeting you called on April 7. If you call any more “special” shareholder meetings, you need to provide minutes from the previous shareholder meetings before any business is conducted, which you failed to do.

If the saga ended there, that would have been a nice punctuation mark. But we never saw assessments mailed out after our meeting, which per the bylaws should have been mailed in March and paid by May 1. The board seemed to have another festering, covert agenda. In fact, bylaws state that “The board shall order approved assessments to be paid before water is delivered to any Shareholder.” They did not do that. Instead, they announced that they had hired a lawyer/ law team with SCC money for ambiguous reasons. The lawyer present came from the opposite corner of the state, berating shareholders who had questions or information to share and offering such legal gems as: “Are you guys against free money or what?” “I have not seen the contract.” And, “I know how this goes.”

For the current board meeting, they had an agenda item to “ratify” what the shareholders already approved. At this regular board meeting, board member Barbara Burbridge, we presume of her volition and free will, made a motion that she read:  “The motion is to ratify the shareholders’ vote to set the 2025 assessment at 30 dollars per acre, to enforce the charge for landowners who fall within the minimum assessment category as stated in the rules at $230.77 and to levy a special assessment at $100 per shareholder to hire an engineer to design the Thompson lateral project.”

I couldn’t hear what happened with the vote as the board was speaking in low voices and mumbling, but apparently this motion passed the board-only vote. Numbers wise, Burbridge’s motion represents a net change for people with 10 acre down to 1 acre shares of 300% to 1500% punitive cost increases from the prior year, respectively. 

To be clear, the shareholders did not vote to fund this capital improvement they are hiring an engineer for with an inequitable special assessment not based on shares – as we have not seen any documentation, nor have had our input sought about the potential project and grant associated that requires SCC shareholders to foot the bill for 40% of the capital expenditure. Also, the board desires for this capital improvement to be on the largest shareholder’s property when there are other less expensive options. At every step, this board lacks transparency and accountability, and appears to be serving only the largest shareholders in a shady manner.

Janet Evans

Greybull