SECU What Next? If State Laws And Regulations No Longer Apply?

    Well, just make up your own!

We've been taking a look at how SECU has been converting the SECU Annual Meeting from a legal business requirement into a ritual [link], evidently with the full support of North Carolina credit union regulators [link].

Perhaps that's the "new/new" standard in the world of credit unions. But if so, it is a cataclysmic change which shouldn't pass unremarked. As an SECU member, you have a lot to lose.

As noted the SECU Board pulled a sleight of hand by obtaining approval for bylaw amendments in 6/23. The open-ended bylaw language was then used to change the "Order of Business" at the Annual Meeting [link]. As an SECU member losing your right to speak and present comments, suggestions and resolutions at the Annual Meeting should be of great concern. 

What's next?  SECU's chief "legal" counsel is actively inventing new rules to "kick you to the curb" as a member-shareholder [link]. Best example?:

😎 SECU member-shareholders now may no longer present resolutions in advance of the Annual Meeting.  That democratic right to address the Board is universal among credit unions

 ✅ In fact, all major American shareholder-owned businesses are required by law to permit shareholders to address boards at the annual business meeting - except SECU member-owners! Can't make this stuff up, unless you're a chief "legaler"!

If our Administrator of Credit Unions continues to sit on her hands, an illegal "precedent" has been set that all North Carolina credit unions may block member-shareholders rights at the annual business meeting.  If our laws are meaningless, the State of North Carolina and three million credit union members have a lot to lose.  

✅ Our Governor Josh Stein and/or our State Legislature should not permit this abridgement of basic business law to occur.

"Why does the SECU Board fear the members?"

SECU What Next? Giving The Legal Profession A Bad Name?

   SECU sowing weeds?

✅ Trying to look at the bigger picture for credit unions can be difficult, but that's what we need to struggle with. The future of SECU is being refashioned without your consent. 

This undermining of purpose, principle, member governance, and North Carolina law is moving forward on several fronts. [Might want to refresh yourself on the parable about "sowing weeds".] Stick with this if you can as we wander into the weeds ; as a member you have much to lose.

✅ To add to the complexity of the puzzle, the dismantling of the credit union cooperative ownership structure is also proceeding rapidly on the national level through mergers, bank acquisitions, and future charter conversions.  But right now, lets continue to look at the letter from the SECU's "Chief Legal Counsel" [link].

Try the "chief legaler's" claim that the SECU bylaws: "... do not require SECU to offer the opportunity for member-sponsored resolutions." That statement, like the tawdry "no formal proposal proposal" and the classic "recently permitted prohibitions" [link] are what's known in the legal profession as pettifoggery! Sorta true but really not so much.

The actual truth is that from 1937 to 2023, resolutions from SECU members were always allowed at the Annual Meeting. No prior SECU Board ever considered removing that member right and privilege.  

😎 Evidently guided by the pettifoggery of the chief legaler,  the current SECU Board, has unilaterally taken this member right - to actively participate in the governance of SECU - away from you, without your consent.

Stick with this if you can as we wander into the weeds ; as a member you have much to lose.

✅ "Why does the SECU Board fear the members?"

... hold tight, there's still more!