For the Record: Dirty Deeds

I am posting this excellent letter from farmers Barbara and Fred Housel because I want it entered into the permanent record of the blogosphere. For those of you outside of the Kona area, it is a documentation of the weasely behaviors perpetrated by large-scale Kona coffee processors Roger Kaiwi Machen (Captain Cook Coffee Co), Tom Greenwell (Greenwell Farms) and Cherry Ward in their takeover of the Kona Coffee Council.

The clowns have taken over the circus. Let them have it. They no longer represent the voice of the South Kona farmer. That privilege belongs to the Kona Coffee Farmers Association. We now have an Independent Voice, and intend to use it.

>>>>>Start letter>>>>>
TO: The Kona Coffee Council Board of Directors:
Roger Dilts
Bob Foerster
Bryce Decker
George Fike
Colehour Bondera
Bruce Corker
Grace De Aguiar
Tom Greenwell
Roger Kaiwi-Machen
Dave Bateman
Donna Woolley

From: Fred and Barbara Housel

Re: KCC Proxy Vote Election

We are Kona coffee farmers and have been members of the Kona Coffee Council since 1999. We have not attended every KCC meeting since we have been members, but, in 2005, we participated in Cream of the Crop, staffed the KCC booth at the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival Cupping and Hale Halawi, and donated hundreds of dollars worth of our coffee to KCC for fund raising events. We also took an active role in the 2006 Annual General Meeting and elections.

We have taken great pride in supporting the Kona Coffee Council and its goals.

We are writing this letter to express our concerns about the recent KCC Elections which took place in January 2006. Since the election, there have been a multitude of claims and counter-claims about the results of the election.

Amidst all the controversy, we wanted to find out for ourselves the facts behind what actually happened in the KCC election.

One of the major questions was the use of proxy votes in the election.

We compiled a summary of the proxies voted in the January election and who submitted them

The proxy summary is as follows:

Dave Bateman 2
Roger Kaiwi Machen 109 ( ed. note...for shame, Roger)
Cherry Ward 31
Gloria Biven 4
George Fike 2
Donna Woolley 4
Total 152


Bruce Corker 7
Bob Smith 12
Sandra Scarr 22
Mary Lou Moss 5
Christine Sheppard 18
Colehour Bondera 2
Fred Housel 2
Total 68


Mike Rand 2
Roger Rittenhouse 3
Joanie Rowe 1
Grace De Aguiar 1
Lenore Rick 11
Marsha Eckert 1
Brooke Bateman 2
Leta Schooler 3
Randall DeAguiar 1
Total 25


Total Proxies
245


Total Votes
365


Percentage of Total Votes Voted as Proxies
67.1%


It is obvious that the KCC election was won on the basis of proxy votes.


Who were these proxies from? We compiled a complete list of all KCC members who signed proxies.

We reviewed this list with Tom Greenwell who confirmed that most of the proxies submitted by him via Cherry Ward were Greenwell employees. Tom also confirmed that most of the proxies submitted by Roger Kaiwi Machen were employees of Captain Cook Coffee Company, Kona Joe Coffee Co., and Bayview Estates Coffee Company. To our knowledge, these employees have never attended a KCC meeting nor have they actively participated in any KCC events. Therefore, it is apparent to us that the true purpose of their memberships and proxies was to simply acquire votes to swing the election.

The total KCC Election vote counts were as follows:

Bateman 223
Fike 219
Greenwell 214
Dilts 208
Kaiwi-Machen 206
Woolley 190
Smith 162
Wood 135
Scarr 133
Moss 116
Hennig 108
Griffith 85
Housel 83
Biven 24

The average margin of victory by the top six candidates over the second six candidates was by 87 votes. At the election, Roger Kaiwi-Machen was publicly observed marking all his 109 proxies identically to be voted as a solid bloc for the six winning candidates.

The net effect of all the questionable proxy votes was to elect the six candidates to the KCC Board of Directors. Without these newly acquired proxy votes, the six new directors would not have been elected. Never before in the 20+ year history of the Kona Coffee Council have the goodwill of the bylaws been subverted in this manner..

Even if the tactics used in this election may have been within the letter of the bylaws,was the election fair to the active membership and morally acceptable?

Our conclusion is that these tactics are totally unethical and we cannot, in good conscience, support KCC Directors who subverted the election for their own purposes. Some of the new Directors submitted no or few proxy votes, however, we believe, as they have taken no action to remedy the impropriety of the election, they are willing parties to the dishonest election..

With deep regret, we feel we must resign from the Kona Coffee Council. If the Kona Coffee Council can demonstrate it can hold fair and open elections of directors who support its members, then we would certainly consider joining the KCC again.

Sincerely,

Fred & Barbara Housel