Members attending the July 22 meeting will be asked to vote on whether candidates from the board should be allowed to make 500 word statements about themselves as part of the ballot package, whether the CU should be forbidden from endorsing board candidates, and whether the CU should be prohibited from spending CU funds promoting any board candidates.

Save CCU has alleged that all three policy changes have been put into place to try and hamper members from electing any more candidates affiliated with Save CCU to the board. The credit union has countered that disallowing long candidate statements has served to keep the costs down and has answered member complaints that the election packages had grown too large.

There are 17 candidates running for board seats in the coming election, which will conclude on Aug. 25. The credit union has endorsed six of the candidates, including two former and current board members who voted in favor of the bank conversion attempt in 2004.

Although the CU has refused to answer questions about its positions or policies, it has published a special edition of its newsletter addressing the controversy. The newsletter pointed out that the credit union is flush with candidates when, it contended, many other CUs have trouble getting people to run for board positions. The newsletter also took issue with the supervisory committee calling the special meeting, suggesting that the committee's members had a conflict of interest in that, as Save CCU members, they stood to benefit if they forced the CU to change its policies and that resulted in Save CCU members being elected to the board.

"The Board is concerned about the way in which the Supervisory Committee considered and called for the Special Meeting," the CU stated. "Why didn't the Committee bring the issues to the Board first? Why does the Committee believe the three questions are within the Committee's scope of business? How did the Committee assess any potential conflicts that its members may have on these issues?"

The CU also pointed out that it has instituted online voting to help make voting more convenient and put into place a Meet The Candidates Night to help members meet candidates and get to know them better. But perhaps the cruelest cut of all came when Steve Straub, the former head of Save CCU who was one of the majority board members who resigned from the group, went out of his way to pen an article in the newsletter repudiating his former membership in the group charging that the organization has "lost its way." "We originally formed Save CCU to stop Columbia Credit Union from becoming a bank," Straub wrote. "We achieved our purpose. The credit union is still a credit union and will remain one. Save CCU's membership has declined to 15 members or so. Yet, it continues to disrupt the good work being done on behalf of the credit union's 60,000 members."

He urged members to reject the group's candidates and positions. "The future of our credit union depends on it," he added.

For their part, Save CCU contends that it is Straub who has lost his way and that the group merely presses the CU to enact the sorts of reforms that he was elected to carry out. They maintain, among other things, that their membership is significantly higher than 15 members and that Straub was merely counting the meeting held over the July 4 holiday weekend and thus was lightly attended. Robert Tice, secretary of Save CCU, noted that Straub supported the very same things he now opposes; fair and balanced publications and information, open access to records and branches, transparency and accountability, and, most critically, he opposed endorsements by the board for specific candidates. "Right now, Straub specifically opposes allowing opposition to their policies to be communicated to members, any kind of access to records even by fellow board members, he opposes allowing candidate statements, and has helped to install a branch access policy more restrictive than that installed by the old conversion board and which he, himself, fought against," Tice said, asking: "Now, faced with others working for those same objectives he once supported, he says we have lost our way?"

But there is a tinge of something deeper and more disappointed with Tice and other Save CCU members who say they once believed Straub was committed to building the kind of credit union that the members wanted and are shocked at his change of heart. "I once had great faith in Steve Straub and avidly supported his election," Tice said. "I stood in snow, in the cold rain, battled with the local authorities to keep from being arrested, and expended considerable personal funds and many hours of my time to support Straub because I believed he had a high degree of integrity. Apparently, he doesn't. His reversal of positions has stunned me. His incumbent support of the very things he opposed before his election is absolutely incredible. Evidently, he thinks we have no memory…but we do have written records." [email protected]