... the SECU Board?
If you've been following along with the first four parts, you know that SECU members asked the SECU Board "for some answers" about several issues at the October, 2022 Annual Meeting.
The SECU Board dutifully organized several meetings to explain its actions in November, 2022 and published video highlights and answers in December, 2022. That should have been the end of it; it wasn't.
I asked you yesterday to begin by focusing on the answer to the LGFCU merger question from the member-approved resolution [see Part 4]. Here again is that excerpt from the official Fireside Chats "Highlights" video [link] published by the SECU Board. To make it even easier, the "LGFCU merger" response starts at 7:41. Be sure to take two minutes to look!
In that excerpt, what I saw was the Chairman and CEO of SECU look 2.8 million SECU members dead-in-the-eye and with great earnestness - as we say in the South - "tell them a story". What these two gentlemen said so coolly did not meet any honest person's standard of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. How can you be so sure?
Recounted for you in Part 4 how during 2022, as a former CEO of SECU, the emails and calls began to stream in with complaints about the new culture, new direction at SECU. I requested that the concerns be documented and independently verified. And, "two full filing cabinets", a flooded email in-box, and a tapped-out answering machine later; I reluctantly agreed to present that "October resolution" to the Board [link to read] summarizing several major concerns.
I received extensive written documentation and during 2022 talked directly with numerous leaders at SECU, LGFCU and several other North Carolina credit unions. As lawyers like to say: "I was on all fours" with the facts. How can you be so sure?
One source was especially unimpeachable. After seeing the video response from the SECU Board Chair and CEO, I went back to that source and asked him if I could use the information he had provided to me on the merger proposal. He asked that I not divulge the information at that time as he was still the CEO of LGFCU, feared retaliation from SECU, and had pledged to do no harm until the divisive dispute was settled.
Mr. Maurice Smith has now been retired for over a year as CEO of LGFCU and SECU has publicly pledged full support in the scheduled move to "independence" in June, 2025.
Take a look at what Mr. Smith told his staff about the merger proposal on 1) January 11, 2022, [link] then comeback and take a look at 2) Mr. Smith's additional email to Jim Hayes on May 12, 2022 [link].
Think about what you read. Then, lets talk about what this two year struggle has really been about: The judgment and transparency of the SECU Board.
Should the members have real, continuing concerns about the still unanswered fundamental questions posed to the SECU Board in that October, 2022 resolution:
Q: Who are we? Where are you leading us? Why are you taking us there?
By the way, what adds farce to all this; is one of the people in 2022 who sent me emails of concern and with whom I spoke directly about his concerns over merger was Mr. Dwayne Naylor, "the third star" in the video... but that's - as we say in the South - "a whole different story".
