When Carroll County REMC members voted at the annual meeting to not merge with White County REMC, the Comet reported it. We presented statements from representatives from both sides of the issue.

REMC board president Tom Flora told the Comet for its June 25 issue that the cooperative's options included: pursue a merger, wait for a year or longer to pursue, or do nothing.

Carroll County REMC members did not have to wait long to learn the answer.

The board of directors announced in late August that they were replacing outgoing Chief Executive Officer Ron Kennedy with Randy Price, the CEO of the White County REMC, as a move toward eventual consolidation of the two rural cooperatives.

Last week we ran a simple question on our Web poll asking if our readers were in favor of the new hire. It seemed like a legitimate question since the membership had just recently voted the merger down due to unanswered questions.

Shortly after last week's issue came out, the White County member services director sent out a mass email in an effort to influence the outcome of the Comet's Web poll question. The e-mail was forwarded to the Comet by a concerned White County resident and it follows:

"I need your help on an issue. For those of you not familiar with White County REMC, our board of directors and the neighboring co-op board of directors reached a management agreement to share our CEO in an effort to curb rising costs. I support this effort and feel it is important to continue looking at shared services as we go down this road with energy costs.

"The local newspaper in the other community has been against our working together printing the negative side to items the two cooperatives have proposed recently. Today on the left hand column of their front page our CEO is the "Poll Question." I would like to ask all of you to take a moment and go to www.carrollcountycomet.com and vote "Yes" in support of the board's decision. I would like you all to do this as often as possible so that the vote is overwhelming in support of this. Please forward this to all of your friends and colleagues.

"It may only count your vote once per day, I'm not sure, but let's get out the vote on this. It is very important to us here that there is in support. Thanks everyone!" Casey Crabb White County REMC

So the results of this week's Web poll are undoubtedly skewed.

Kennedy pointed out to the Comet last week that only 220 of the REMC's 6800 members voted down the merger. (On the other hand, only 199 out of the 6800 voted for the merger) Apparently that was the justification for the runaround. Majority vote be damned.

It appears what Carroll County REMC members want does not matter to either its board of directors, nor to its neighboring cooperative. What a great way to start a merger.