First Basin "suspends" the election!

This is America, not the Soviet Union. Our directors and management cannot simply "suspend" the election if they are not getting the results they want. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of the credit union's money to prepare for this election, they must:

Release the results of the election.
Dislose how much of the credit union's money they have spent.

The members have spoken. If our directors are not interested in listening to the will of the members, they should step down, or the members will go about finding new leadership that does represent them.

Learn more here.

You can help save First Basin!

Learn about the conversion, vote no, talk to other members, and join Save First Basin!

Mismanagement Compromises Annual Meeting

Save First Basin will continue to work for democratic accountability at our member-owned credit union.

At the April 15th Annual Meeting, the incumbent candidates were reelected to the board of directors. We believe this meeting was not carried out in a democratic manner, and are not satisfied. We will continue to fight for honesty, accountability, and member benefit at First Basin.

Here are a few of the problems with this meeting.

First Basin leadership chose not to inform the member-owners about this election in advance. If the voters are not informed of this election, how can we be satisfied with the results?
The ballots were not secret. First Basin leadership required all voters to write their names and account numbers on the ballots, and staple on bracelets with account information as well. Why go to additional effort to avoid a secret ballot? We are concerned that this may have been implicitly intimidating to members and employees.
Before calling the meeting to order, CEO Shem Culpepper gave a prepared one hour presentation criticizing the members who disagree with this leadership, but those members were given no opportunity to respond.
Members were told they could not pass out fliers explaining their point of view-even outside of the meeting room.

Our elected leadership should be promoting democratic governance. But in our view, they are using their power to entrench themselves and silence other opinions. We will continue to fight for you. But we will need your help! Click here to join Save First Basin.

First Basin’s board and executives have proposed converting our credit union into a bank. We believe that this conversion is bad for members and that the boards reasons don’t add up. Here’s why we oppose the conversion:

	Available evidence shows that we will likely pay worse rates and fees.
	We could lose more than $11 million of member-ownership without fair compensation.
	We will lose control of our democratically-owned credit union.
	The directors and executives may have a conflict of interest in recommending this conversion.
	The board is not telling the whole story. The real story is that conversion is bad for members.

What You Can Do.

You can:
Come to the annual meeting and vote for new leadership!

Latest News

Local Credit Union CEO responds to Culpepper's letter: says Culpepper not telling his members the whole story (5-10-08)

Added 5/12/2008 2:23:33 PM.

Credit unions sprang from humble roots
May 10, 2008 - 7:15PM
BY: Louise Smith, President Permian Basin Credit Union - Odessa

After reading Shem Culpepper's letter in the April 20 Public Forum section of the Odessa American, I am compelled to respond.
Culpepper has taken an effort for improving credit unions' ability to better serve their members and turned it into an attempt to discredit and spread doubt about credit unions in order to prop up his argument to convert First Basin CU to a bank.

Culpepper let everyone know that his credit union could only hold up to $16 million in business loans under the 12.25 percent cap.
While that is true, he did not tell you that currently First Basin CU has only $5.3 million in business loans. Therefore, he can triple his holdings before hitting the cap.

That is assuming First Basin CU does not grow at all. In fact, First Basin grew 13 percent in assets during the first quarter of 2008. If First Basin continues to grow at that rate, it will be able to add $7 million a year in business loans to its portfolio. It only added $3.3 million in business loans last year, so I think it has room to grow.

Culpepper spoke of credit unions being taken into conservatorship due to bad business lending practices. Just for the record, credit unions rarely fail.

In fact, most credit unions nationwide are growing and prospering while many banks are reporting record losses due to overly aggressive auto and home lending practices.

As to the recommendations from the U.S. Treasury about consolidating all financial services under the Federal Reserve, Culpepper failed to say that leaders in the U.S. Senate rejected that suggestion right after it was made and it is effectively dead.

Credit unions serve a vital purpose in our community, which is often very different than that of a bank. For instance, credit union roots are in auto, home, personal loans and other services that help individual members. And they can make all of those types of loans that they wish.

Savings banks have some very tight restrictions on the dollar amount of those types of loans they can hold.

I, for one, believe in credit unions and the "people helping people" principle. And I believe that credit unions will continue to grow and thrive.

If Culpepper wants to see pioneering spirit, he needs only look at credit unions. Each of them has a story of how they were started in a company breakroom or in someone's living room. The founders of credit unions demonstrated pioneering spirit and innovation matched by few people.

Louise Smith
President
Permian Basin Credit Union
Odessa

Read it here on the Odessa American website

See more news here.

Armando Rodriguez supports Save First Basin!

Armando Rodriguez recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Odessa American, telling Ector County what he thinks of this conversion. "Let's keep our good rates and member ownership." he wrote. Read his letter to the editor here.