Lou Green:
Welcome to York Electric Cooperative’sAnnual Meeting, celebrating 80 years of serving you.
We regret we can’t all be together in person but are happy to have you join us virtually.
At this time, Representative Gary Simrill, the majority leader of the South Carolina House of Representatives, will offer our invocation.
Gary Simrill: Invocation Lou Green
Thank you, Representative Simrill.
And now Corporal Ryan Putnam, a YEC lineman, will offer the Pledge of Allegiance. Ryan served 4 years and two tours as a United States Marine as a machine gunner.
Ryan Putnam:
Please stand.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Lou Green:
Thank you, Ryan. And now I introduce YEC Board Chairman, Tom Settlemyre.
Tom Settlemyre:
I’d like to officially call the 2021 Annual Meeting of York Electric Cooperative to order.
YEC mailed 56,001 individual registration cards to invite its member-owners to the 2021 Annual Meeting. The total number of registered members for the 2021 annual meeting has been recorded as4,375. The required quorum to host the meeting is 2,819, which has been met with the number of members present.
We also have an action item to approve the 2019 annual meeting minutes. Are there any objections to approving the minutes?
Hearing no objection, the 2019 annual meeting minutes are approved as presented.
Now, YEC’s President and CEO Paul Basha will provide a report on your cooperative.
Paul Basha:
Thank you, Chairman Settlemyre. Thank you all for coming to our celebration of our 80th year of serving you.
Most of all, I want to thank our Lord for another year without a major injury or large-scale outage.
Thank you to our dedicated Board of Trustees who always looks out for you, our valued members and this cooperative.
Thank you all who continue to participate in our Operation Round Up Program. The Trust Board has allocated $3.2 million to those in need and non-profits in our community since inception.
Here at YEC, we have locals looking out for you. We are committed to providing our members with reliable, safe and affordable energy.
Over the past 10 years, we have not increased electric rates. In 2021, your board of trustees voted to decrease rates. Even better news, we do not expect an increase for the next two years.
We like to keep money in your pocket. That’s why your board of trustees voted to return $2 million to members in the form of capital credits this year.
We strive to keep your power on. This year marked a record low number of power outages.
Part of this record success in reliability is because we now have over half of our distribution lines underground.
Speaking of outages, we just energized the new Aycock School Substation, which should greatly improve reliability for our members in Bullocks Creek, McConnell’s, and southern York County.
When the lights go out, so do we. Our dedicated employees work hard to maintain a high level of service excellence.
Consistency is a good thing. YEC recently got one of the highest published scores of any of the 700 companies across our nation who participated in the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey.
Some of the companies were Ruth’s Chris, Chick-fil-A, and Southwest Airlines. The last four of these surveys marked YEC in the top two (2) and often in first place.
For years, several parts of our service territory have been without high-speed internet.
We are proud to announce YEC is working to install fiber to provide high-speed, broadband internet service to more than 5,000 members in western York County and parts of Cherokee County.
Installation of fiber began this week. Please look for more information in the coming months about how you can sign up.
In summary, rates are down, rebate checks are large, rural internet is being installed, and electric service reliability is excellent. Your Cooperative is in great shape.
Aside from our Annual Meeting, this is an important weekend. To the moms and all those missing their moms, Happy Mother’s Day.
At this time, I’d like to introduce YEC’s attorney John Tiencken.
John Tiencken:
Is there any old business to come before the meeting this afternoon?
Is there any new business to come before the meeting this afternoon?
Hearing none, we’ll move on to reporting on the annual election and the election results.
We’ve had a substantial number of elections, so I’ll go through each individually.
First the results for the District 1 and District 2 races. Both of these races are unopposed.
Mr. Tom Settlemyre and Mr. Jack Cornwell ran unopposed and have been reelected. Congratulations to these gentlemen.
District 3 election results:
Mr. Richard M. Roach with 1576 votes, Mr. Charlie Westbrook with 1141 votes and Mr. Ronald Wylie with 1149 votes, so Mr. Richard Roach has been re-elected.
Congratulations to Mr. Roach.
The results for District 4 election are as follows:
Mr. Scott Good with 1899 votes and Mr. Dale Poston with 1874 votes. Mr. Scott Good has been elected. Congratulations to Mr. Good.
The results for District 5 election are as follows:
Mrs. Carolyn Hicks Boyd with 2826 votes and Mr. William J. Hagner with 971 votes. Mrs. Boyd has been re-elected. Congratulations to Mrs. Boyd.
The results for District 8:
Mr. Tommie Bratton had 2299 votes and Mr. Jack Ferguson had 1514 votes. Congratulations Mr. Bratton.
The vote to approve bylaw amendments and redistricting are also in. There were 3315 votes in favor of the bylaw amendments and redistricting and 292 opposed. The bylaw amendments and redistricting passed.
Those are the total votes and those have been tabulated and certified by our Credentials and Election Committee. We appreciate the work they have done.
Without any futher objection, is there a motion on the floor to adjourn this business meeting and move on to the rest of the program?
I hear a motion and a second. We will adjourn. Thank you very much.
Lou Green:
Thank you, Chairman Settlemyre, Mr. Basha and Mr. Tiencken.
At this time, we will begin our door prize and grand prize drawings. YEC’s Key Account Representative Markeus Farrand will spin the roll cage. Representative Simrill, along with Sayla Leake and her doll, Lilly, daughter of YEC employee Phil Leake, will help draw the winners!
And now for the grand prizes! We have placed all tickets drawn back into the hopper.
The first $500 power bill credit goes to Don Cloninger.
The second $500 power bill credit goes to Keith Robinson.
And the truck goes to Kathy Harnatkiewicz.
Prize Drawing Gift Recipient List »
If you won a prize today, your gift card will be mailed to you and you will receive a phone call on Monday to remind you of what you won and when you should look for your prize in the mail.
All three grand prize winners will also receive phone calls on Monday to discuss your winnings. Thank you for joining us and for allowing York Electric Cooperative the opportunity to look out for you.
