NH Electric Co-op resignations highlight alleged culture of sexism and bullying

Lina Portman5 days ago

0 3 minutes read

Mara Hoplamazian
|New Hampshire Public Radio

New Hampshire's consumer advocate is calling on regulators to investigate New Hampshire Electric Cooperative after two women who previously led the board resigned Tuesday.

Sharon Davis, former president of the co-op's board of directors, and Madeline McElaney, former vice president, both served on the board at various times. Davis was first elected in 2003 and has served since then, except for a break in 2018. McElaney had been in office since 2019.

At the co-op's annual general meeting held earlier this month, McElaney described an environment of sexism and bullying within the organization. She noted that she, Davis and Executive Director Alyssa Clemsen Roberts were the co-op's first female leadership team.

“It has not been an easy journey. In fact, I believe there is a double standard for women leaders at NHEC,” she said. “We are questioned, interrupted, fired more easily than our male counterparts. This behavior is reprehensible and contrary to our values and cooperative principles.”

At Tuesday's board meeting, McElaney read a letter announcing her and Davis' resignations, saying the behavior she observed in the days following the annual meeting led them to leave altogether.

“The board has made decisions that we fundamentally disagree with and has acted contrary to the principles of good governance,” she said. “We believe that this board has failed to do its own job and has prevented management from doing its job, and that this puts the cooperative and its future stability and viability at risk.”

McElaney also said a toxic and hostile work environment was damaging the co-op.

“We have tried repeatedly to protect the cooperative's reputation by handling this matter discreetly, but at this point we feel that the risk of remaining silent outweighs the risk of harming our reputation,” she said. “It has become clear that we have no way to influence or rectify the situation.”

At Tuesday's board meeting, newly elected board president William Darcy said the co-op board and staff need to “be more respectful in our language,” but asked those present not to attribute motives to other people.

“It serves no purpose for harmony and productivity to attribute these differences publicly or in confidential contexts to personal characteristics such as gender, age or other unrelated factors,” he said. -he declares.

During a portion of the meeting reserved for comments from cooperative members, two members addressed the board, saying they were disappointed with the behavior they had observed.

Sharon Yeaton said she was a former co-op employee and called the board dynamics “chaos,” saying it led her to take early retirement.

“This has been going on for a long time,” Yeaton said. “You've had years to work on your behavior, and you haven't.”

In an emailed statement, Darcy said the co-op's board of directors would hold a special meeting to review McElaney's allegations of gender discrimination.

“The Board treats these allegations with the utmost seriousness; we have zero tolerance for professional misconduct, and the alleged professional misconduct is contrary to our values and our strict code of conduct,” he said.

In his letter to state regulators, Don Kreis, the state's consumer advocate, said the resignations, alleged sexism and bullying “could threaten the cooperative's ability to provide affordable and stable default energy service.”

Kreis also expressed concerns about policy positions taken by board Chairman William Darcy on how the utility should purchase electricity for its customers.

“I'm concerned that Mr. Darcy doesn't understand the difference between running a utility and governing a utility,” Kreis said in a telephone interview. “The day-to-day operation of the utility, including decisions about electricity purchases, is actually what a utility hires expert employees to take care of. »

In his chairman's report, Darcy said he studied how the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission established default electric rate policy and expressed support for adopting those policies.

Later in the meeting, Darcy asked co-op staff to send any energy contracts older than six months to the board for review. He also expressed interest in establishing a policy on the extent to which the cooperative should rely on “spot” purchases, or real-time purchases of electricity from the region's wholesale market, rather than signing long-term electricity contracts in advance.

These purchases save money, Kreis acknowledged, but can also cause costs to rise dramatically if a storm or cold snap causes some power providers to go bankrupt. New Hampshire regulators have asked other utilities in the state to rely more on spot purchases to buy electricity for customers.

The cooperative is not subject to the same regulations as the Public Utilities Commission, but is managed by its members, who are customers.

Kreis said the alleged conduct of the board members posed a “serious threat” to electricity customers because of the cooperative's reliance on customer participation through board elections.

“The principle is that this utility company doesn’t need regulatory oversight because it’s run by the same people who report to it,” he said. “If you have duly elected board members who feel so uncomfortable and so mistreated because of sexism and bullying that they literally resign, that really undermines the whole paradigm.”

These articles are shared by partners of the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Lina Portman

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