Steven Moen, Minot

My wife and I went to the North Prairie Regional Water District (NPRWD) annual meeting on Monday, May 10th, expecting the normal somewhat boring but informative nature of these meetings.

We were in for quite a surprise though. The meeting started out as normal, a pretty good meal, the presentation of scholarships to students, followed by the meeting. So far so good although the manager’s report seemed more like a lecture than just presenting the facts. Maybe she had a bad day I thought. The next item on the agenda was the Directors report, which was passed over by the chairman as he said they didn’t have one, which I thought was odd but then he moved on to election of new directors.

Now it got interesting as a young lady stood up and called for a point of order, which she can do according to Robert’s Rules of Orders for meetings. The chairman ignored her and she called for it again and again. Then quoting Robert’s rules she made a motion from the floor to have an election for the election of directors in 2020, which come to find since we had no annual meeting in 2020 due to COVID, the directors were appointed, not elected as the by-laws state. So at the very least the directors who were appointed last year for a 3-year term should have stepped down and their seats should have been up for election for the 2-year remainder of their terms. Needless to say the chairman and the manager were having none of this and they called on NPRWD’s lawyer to step in and give a legal opinion. She sided with the chairman and a verbal exchange ensued between this young lady, the chairman, the lawyer and members on the floor. A cop was called in to quiet things down and the chairman threatened to have this young lady removed from the meeting. This helped for a bit till they called for 3 members to count ballots for the 2021 election of directors. The 2020 election was promptly forgotten. When the 3 members left to count ballots some other concerned members went to watch the ballot counting but just like in the 2020 Presidential election they were denied access to watch the ballot counting.

When this got back to the floor the debates started all over again and somehow the chairman gave the mike to the young lady and she started quoting Robert’s rules on how this was being handled all wrong, at which time the manager attacked her and grabbed the mike out of her hand and that was the last we heard from her but not from members on the floor. They were not happy. I overheard from one of the members who went to watch the vote count get asked by the vote counters, “why are you here and where do you work?” He was incensed by this and rightfully so. They don’t need to know where he works and after the 2020 election fiasco they should know why they came to watch.

After the meeting was over another member talked to the lawyer on rules of order and she told him that she was a lawyer not a parliamentarian so she wasn’t up on Robert’s rules so she apologized for being wrong. I might have gotten some of the events out of sequence as a lot was happening and needless to say it was an interesting and informative meeting. It also brings up the point that the members need to stay informed and I believe that future NPRWD board meetings will be attended by concerned members to see just what goes on at these meetings. The lid was cracked open and we will have to wait and see if it’s full of worms or not. I want to commend the young lady for her courage to stand her ground and insist that rules be followed. I also applaud her for her sense of decorum, as she was polite, congenial and very composed the entire night even when she had the microphone tore out of her hands by the manager.

The same can’t be said for the others though and I am sure they will be hearing about this for some time to come.