After months of squabbling over board policies, the number of members participating in Montezuma Water Company’s annual meeting and election on Saturday nearly tripled from the 2000 election.

Of the 3,500 current members, 313 attended and another 1,314 sent in proxies. They elected Cindy Green, Wade Greene, Richard Swanner, and Wesley Wilson to serve on the rural water company’s board of directors.

Challenger Richard Swanner defeated 12-year incumbent Jim Youngs by 268.5 votes to represent District 7. Swanner said several factors contributed to his win.

"For one, I’m a lifetime resident," explained Swanner. "I also worked very hard at communicating with all the members I knew and I had people helping me throughout the community that felt there needed to be new blood on the board."

But not all of the members wanted new blood. Director Cindy Green barely defeated challenger Pat DeGagne to win a second, three-year term on the board. The final tally left only a 34-vote margin of difference between the two candidates.

And Wesley Wilson, former chairman of the board, handily defeated challenger Donald Miller, 1,317 votes to 124.

Wade Greene ran unopposed and gathered 674.5 votes to win directorship for District 6 to serve out the two years left of former director Wayne Lee’s term.

DeGagne has been a vocal critic of the board, and said that despite her defeat she will continue to stay involved and attend board meetings.

When asked if the appointment of Greene and Swanner will change the tenor of the board, DeGagne responded, "I don’t look for it to be a drastic change, but I’m hoping some issues that were brought up will be resolved."

Green said she thinks both of the new directors will be a "good asset" to the board. "I think that they went into this with a little bit of a sway as to what we do or don’t do, but once they sit on the board they’re going to understand the works and reasoning behind what we do. I’m comfortable with both of them," she explained.

From the new slate of directors, three were picked to hold offices for 2001. Glen Fish was elected president, Green as vice president, and Ralph Cellar as secretary-treasurer.

In addition to the election, votes were tallied on a survey — initially advertised as a ballot — querying the members on the most controversial issues recently brought to the board.

The members who voted on the survey supported reinstating term limits the 2000 board had nullified. Of the choices listed, the members voted to limit directors’ terms to three, three-year terms on the board. And by an almost 2-to-1 margin, the members also supported replacing the proxy voting system with a mail-in ballot.

"It was a good meeting; we got a lot of issues out," DeGagne said.

"I was very pleased with the meeting," agreed Swanner. "It showed me that we have good membership. We have a lot of interest in this company."

Bridging the communication gap between the members and directors was a prominent item of conflict during the campaign. Some candidates charged the board of directors were not informing the members when by-laws were changed.

In response, the members supported publishing a monthly member newsletter rather than the current bi-annual newsletter.

Green said the directors would "absolutely address the results of the survey" at the directors’ next meeting. Swanner agreed and

In addition to the survey, a motion was defeated to change the articles of incorporation and allow the members to change the by-laws.

In other business, Kelly Wilson was named to the Montezuma Water Company Wall of Fame.