WASHINGTON -- The Coalition for Credit Union Charter Options, the banker led group which advocates for credit unions seeking to convert their charters to mutual banks, is using the ongoing governance fight at the $726 million Columbia Community Credit Union in an attempt to draw members and to raise funds.
"You likely have a few dissident members in your midst already," CCUCO executive director Lee Bettis wrote in a Sept. 12 membership and fundraising letter. "They could be obvious ones like embittered ex-employees, people turned down for loans, or jilted director candidates. But they could also be professional activists hoping to use resources of the credit union to re-engineer society in their socialist visions."
Bettis even turns to hectoring the letter's recipients.
"Independent-minded credit union leaders like you," Bettis writes, "the ones who won't be duped by the Philosophy Police, yet who have not taken a public stand--are supporting the anti-conversion extremists by their indifference."
