LIHU‘E — Former Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative board member Alfred Laureta of Wailua urged current board members to fill a vacant seat with either Dane Oda or Ray Paler.
The empty seat belonged to Dennis Esaki, who resigned.
Laureta resigned earlier.
Both Oda and Paler are former KIUC board members, and both have credentials as cooperative directors, Laureta said during the public-testimony phase of Tuesday’s board meeting at KIUC headquarters.
The current KIUC board is eight members, and the KIUC bylaws provide for anywhere from seven to nine directors. Laureta said a ninth should be added to ensure a five-vote majority.
“The vacancy should be filled,” said Laureta.
He said the 2009 board election results present two qualified candidates in Oda, who finished in fourth place, and Paler, who was fifth, in the election where the top three vote-getters won three-year seats on the KIUC board.
“I recommend appointing either one,” said Laureta, a retired judge who added that filling the vacancy won’t set any precedent about filling board vacancies.
Board Chair Phil Tacbian said through KIUC spokesperson Anne Barnes that the board is not currently acting on any plan to fill the vacancy, but may take up the matter at the next board meeting, later this month.
The bylaws state that a board vacancy “shall be filled for the un-expired term by a majority of the directors then in office.” Esaki’s term expires in March 2011.
Board member Allan Smith said Laureta was looking well, and Laureta said, “I feel very good after my resignation.”
“Me too,” said Esaki, who was in the public-seating area but did deliver a National Rural Electric Cooperative Association state director’s report to his former board mates as chairman emeritus.
