New board members elected to govern Holley Navarre Water System

The Holley Navarre Water System Board of Directors will welcome two new members to its ranks and one of its more controversial incumbents was sent home Tuesday night following voting tabulated during the board's annual meeting.

Board members also voted to a 6% rate increase for its 17,000 members.

Businessman David Crumbley and Air Force veteran and construction contractor Michael Matthews, neither of whom have ever served before on the water system board, secured 313 and 282 votes respectively to capture seats ahead of incumbents Daryl Lynchard and James Dabney. The newcomers will serve three-year terms.

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Lynchard was third in the balloting with 261 votes, so he will serve two years to complete the term of Mike Kennedy, who left the board in October, before facing another reelection bid.

Dabney finished seventh among the eight candidates running for board seats, totaling 162 total votes. He had been publicly implicated late last year for stealing water from the very utility for which he worked. Paperwork had been turned over to WEAR TV that showed he had been fined $500 this year for utilizing an "unauthorized water connection" since as far back as 2006.

Mark Neville, Keith Plourde, Maurice Ripall and April Salazar also received votes. All but Salazar finished ahead of Dabney.

The election was marred by what some called "ballot harvesting." Joe Campbell, the board president and interim CEO, confirmed Tuesday morning that of 91 total "proxy" votes turned in ahead of Tuesday's election, "one individual turned in approximately two-thirds of those" or, in other words, single handedly cast about 62 votes. The board did not release the name of the person who cast the 62 proxy votes.

According to materials posted on the Holley Navarre Water System website ahead of the election and annual meeting, water system members can, upon providing proof of membership, choose to turn their ballot over to someone on the board of directors or "a member of their choice" to serve as their proxy.

"By assigning your proxy to someone else you are giving them the authority to vote for a candidate of their choice," the election material states, paraphrasing language found in the utility bylaws.

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After the annual meeting had begun but ahead of the votes being tabulated Tuesday, utility member Wes Siler stood before the board and called upon it to immediately put an end to the practice of allowing proxy voting, which he believed members were empowered to do within the utility bylaws. Lynchard, however, argued that ending proxy voting could only be done through the much more complicated process of amending the utility's articles of incorporation.

Campbell, who acknowledged casting three proxy votes himself, and another member of the board told Siler that they would like to put an end to proxy voting as well, and the interim CEO said he has requested that the board attorney review the process by which that could be done.

Matthews, who wound up winning a seat, had said prior to the votes being tabulated that he was surprised to learn about the proxy voting and how it could be manipulated to impact a simple board election.

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"Earlier today (with absentee ballots also counted) we were up to about 350 total votes. If we're able to get as many as 500 people, maybe we can win. My thought is, the more people who turn out the better your chances," he said. "But it sure seems like when people go for the proxy votes and can get 60 to 70 proxies, you get a quarter of the vote right there."

Dabney's loss could impact a board voting bloc that Ty Campbell, a former Holley Navarre Water System finance director and no relation to Joe Campbell, termed "black hats." He blamed Dabney, Lynchard and Mark Miller for disrupting the board and clinging to a good old boy system that had hampered utility operations for years.

"There are three board members that do not understand the nature of a governance board versus an operating board," Campbell said in a letter he submitted when resigning the Water System. "These three board members feel they 'own' HNWS and that is an untenable situation that has become evident over the course of the past decades at HNWS."

Lynchard and Dabney have their supporters as well. It is they, those supporters say, who are trying to force the Holley Navarre Water System administration to operate more transparently. The bloc recently pushed utility staff to turn over salary information for all utility employees.

After the votes were counted Dabney thanked his supporters.

"I'm sure I'll run again," he said.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Holley Navarre Water System welcomes new members to governing board