Oakley remains on PEC board sans VP status
By Lew K. Cohn
Managing Editor
The Highlander
Burnet County Judge James Oakley will remain on the Pedernales Electric Cooperative Board of Directors, but he must relinquish his vice presidency.
PEC directors voted 6-0 Tuesday, Jan. 17, to replace Oakley as vice president of the organization “due to the distraction associated with and stemming from” a November 2016 Facebook post he made which gained national notoriety.
In accepting the recommendation of a PEC Complaint Committee, the board also issued a warning to Oakley that “as long as he remains on the PEC Board, to carefully and thoughtfully guard his public and personal actions,” but did not remove Oakley from the PEC Board of Directors.
There was an effort to do just that as directors Cristi Clement and Kathy Scanlon tried to get the board to consider ousting Oakley from the board and declaring his District 5 seat vacant, but their motion failed by a 4-2 vote as Board President Emily Pataki, Secretary Paul Graf and directors Amy Lea SJ Akers and Jim Powers declined to pursue that harsh a punishment.
The board also voted 4-2, with one abstention, to table a proposal by Oakley to rescind the very bylaws for removal and discipline of a PEC director that were being used against him.
Last November, Oakley made a Facebook comment regarding the arrest of a man for the shooting death of a San Antonio law enforcement officer which garnered national attention when it was made public by former director Larry Landaker, who runs a blog called PEC Truthwatch.
Following the arrest of an African-American suspect, Otis Tyrone McKane, for the shooting death of SAPD Det. Benjamin Marconi, Oakley shared a Nov. 21 post by the San Antonio Police Department on his personal Facebook page with a comment of “time for a tree and a rope … .”
That comment, because it was placed on a shared public post, was publicly visible while it was on Oakley’s Facebook page until he removed it the following day.
Oakley’s comment drew condemnation from a number of individuals, who thought the elected official had overstepped his bounds by commenting so harshly in a public manner or that he had commented in a manner which could appear to have been made with malicious, racial overtones.
Media coverage of the posting drew references to Oakley's position as a PEC director, leading to Clement filing a complaint against Oakley and calling for his removal. During a Nov. 30 meeting, the board of directors established the Complaint Committee — comprised of Pataki, Graf and Scanlon — to review the matter and report back to the board its recommendation for how it would discipline Oakley if necessary.
After several contentious meetings, the committee made its recommendation by a 2-1 margin, with Pataki and Graf in favor and Scanlon opposed to a proposal to keep Oakley on the board, but removing him from the vice presidency.
During Tuesday's meeting, Clement said what she found was most disappointing about the situation was “how Director Oakley acted during this whole committee process.”
“He is rather dismissive of the gravity of the incident and blames others,” he said. “I believe you have caused harm to this board and this organization. Our employees and management are held to a high standard or respecting others and the value of diversity and they get it. I have little faith that the committee's recommendation will encourage you (to change). I believe, Director Oakley, that you just don't get it.”
Oakley defended himself Tuesday, stating he was “standing firm that I did not intend my comment to be taken as racist. That is not even in the realm of my domain.
“My focus was on the crime of a police officer being shot in the head, merely for wearing his uniform,” he said. “I understand the process of due process. I respect that. I believe this was a horrible crime and should be eligible for the death penalty. I do not agree with my comment being twisted by people into calling for a lynching.
“I think there is a strong coincidence that the people who have spoke against me are documented as being against me in last year's election on their own Facebook pages or in Larry's blog or in email strings. This was just an opportunistic jab to get rid of me out of the office to which I was elected.
“I have maintained all along that my comment was on my personal page,” Oakley added. “Is it my proudest moment? No. Should I have chosen different words to enunciate what I said? Yes. But we have to move on.”
During public comments prior to the board taking action, members spoke up against and in support of Oakley.
Landaker spoke of his admiration for the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the day after the holiday celebrating his life, quoting King: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
He voiced his frustration with the recommendation of the Complaint Commitee and what he perceived as leniency in its treatment of Oakley.
“You are going to slap him on the wrist to take away his vice presidency so he can turn around and abolish the complaint committee?” Landaker said. “If that is the case, why not do nothing? Why not make him president again? If this board lacks the character to be rid of Mr. Oakley, or at a bare bones minimum, ask him to resign, then you own him and his remarks and PEC by default has rebranded itself by accepting those remarks and must accept the consequences.”
However, AB Walters and his wife Elizabeth, who support Oakley, lambasted Landaker, Clement and Scanlon for the “enormous amount of money which was wasted on this ridiculous racist charge against James Oakley.”
“The credit for our beng here should go to Larry Landaker as he ranted about James Oakley's connection to PEC and twisted his words into something racist,” Elizabeth Walters said. “I hope the board will realize this fiasco can be credited to his Wizard of Oz antics and that the majority of PEC members and employees see through the fog and that James Oakley will be exonerated from Cristi Clement and Larry Landaker's political gaming. His members want him to stay, but Scanlon and Clement need to go for the hundreds of thousands of dollars they have cost the cooperative.”
“We are going to make sure you, Cristi Clement, and you, Kathy Scanlon, lose your next election and are no longer on this board,” Walters said. “Thanks for waking us up to who you really are. You two are like Thelma and Louise in a car headed over a cliff. We are sick of the liberal interference in the PEC's ability to deliver low-cost electricity to its members. Take your liberal agenda down away from this organization.”
