Continental Divide taking director nominations

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Continental Divide Electric Cooperative’s annual meeting is rolling around again. To prepare for the board election to be held at the April 25 meeting, the co-op is announcing a call for candidates to run for the board of directors.

This year the seats in District 5, currently held by Alfred Saavedra of San Rafael; District 6, currently held by Grant Clawson of Ramah; and District 8, currently held by Lyle Adair of Gamerco are up for election.

District 5 includes the service area south of the Grants city limits, along N.M. highways 117 and 53 and takes in San Rafael, El Morro and surrounding communities.

Bluewater and Prewitt are also included in District 5.
District 6 takes in additional parts of N.M. Highway 53, east of El Morro to the Arizona state line and includes the Zuni and Ramah Navajo reservations plus the Jones Ranch and Fence Lake areas.

District 8 encompasses the unincorporated areas north and south of Gallup, and extends north about three miles and south about 10 miles, Juarez said. This district abuts the state line to the west and Rehoboth to the east.

“Any member and active consumer of Continental Divide can run for a seat on the co-op’s governing board or vote for someone who may be running in your district,” CDEC Spokesman Mac Juarez said.

A nominating committee of co-op members including Clifford Chavez, Shane Evans and Jimmy Analla will meet Feb. 24 to make their selections. Other co-op members living in districts up for election may enter the race through a petition process.

Candidates must live in the district they want to represent on the board. Anyone wishing to run should pick up a petition from one of the Continental Divide offices and return it with the signatures from at least 15 co-op members living in their district. Deadline to return petitions is March 26, 2009.

Co-op electricity consumers must also be members of the co-op to vote at the April meeting, which will take bylaw changes under consideration along with the officer election.

Continental Divide consumers who are not currently members have until March 31 to join the co-op. All new memberships must be filed at either the Grants or Gallup co-op office and include a five-dollar joining fee.

“We tried eliminating the five-dollar fee last year, but we didn’t have a quorum. So that bylaw change will be on the ballot again this year.” Juarez said.

In order to pass any changes to the bylaws the co-op must attract a quorum to the annual meeting. Because the quorum is a percentage of the full general membership for the service area, Juarez cannot provide the number of members needed.

Information: Nomination meeting, Feb. 24
at 11 a.m.