PASGAGOULA, Miss.—What has been described as an “impassioned plea” by a board member at Navigator Credit Union here has led to members voting down all the nominees for the board.
With nearly 1,000 members in attendance at the Navigator Credit Union annual meeting, Barbara Harris, the first woman to serve on the board of the 76-year-old credit union, told members she had not been re-nominated to run for her board seat and was being kept off the board by an “old boys club,” according to the Sun Herald.
At the meeting, which the Sun-Herald called “raucous,” the election for the three open board seats did not take place, leading to some uncertainty over what to do now. The Sun-Herald quoted Kathy Scarbrough, CIO at the $290-million Navigator, as saying another meeting may need to be held, or the credit union might fill the vacancies by appointment.
But Harris, who said she will fight to keep her seat, said that she and her lawyer believe Mississippi credit union regulation allows directors whose terms have expired to remain on the board until replacements are selected.
At the annual meeting, three men were up for election—Ron M. Elias, Richard Schenk and Tony Taylor, with Elias and Taylor having been re-nominated by the board to run for re-election.
At the meeting, the Sun Herald reported that Harris gave an almost 15-minute speech in which she alleged that other board members had ignored her in meetings, left her out of decisions and then forced her off the board after the nominating committee used several means to block her nomination.
She said the board was an "old boys club" that had pushed out the only woman to have ever won a board seat.
"You need to make it a point to know your board members, and as a member of Navigator Credit Union I want to know my board members behind those closed doors are true to the members and employees and that they're honest, fair and consider everyone, not just a few," the Sun Herald quoted Harris as saying during the meeting. "I have great concerns about the manner in which the board conducts its business."
The newspaper reported that Harris twice rebuffed efforts to remove her from the stage, including once citing Robert’s Rules of Order so as to retain the microphone, and was involved in a “heated exchange” with other board members.
Numerous members called out “Let her speak,” according to the Sun Herald, which said the meeting became “noisy and boisterous.”
"If there were no reasons, her re-nomination would have been accepted, and that's all I'll say," nominating committee chair Jim O'Brien told the meeting, according to the Sun Herald. "If there were no reasons, this never would have happened. You've heard only one side to the story."
Navigator Credit Union’s Scarbrough was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the credit union had recently changed leadership and many of Harris' complaints were about previous leaders. "We have nothing to hide," she told the Sun Herald. "We are a transparent organization. Although there are reasons why Ms. Harris was not re-nominated for another term, some of those can't be discussed in an open forum."