Board elections for the La Plata Electric Association resulted in only one change in members, with three out of four incumbents earning another term.

The annual LPEA board meeting, held Saturday at Sky Ute Casino and Resort in Ignacio, was open to all LPEA member-consumers.

Jeff Berman was re-elected to his seat in District 3, which represents the city of Durango.

Berman, who has a degree in electrical engineering, has pushed for clean-energy and green-energy initiatives.

Co-op members also re-elected Joe Wheeling to his seat in District 4, representing northern and eastern La Plata County.

In District 1, covering Archuleta County, LPEA members elected Ken Fox to fill the seat of Harry Cole, who is retiring from the position after 27 years.

Davin Montoya will continue to fill his seat in District 2, covering south and west La Plata County.

Because Montoya had no opponents, LPEA had already re-elected him, and his name did not appear on the election ballot.

Four bylaw changes were up for a vote. All four bylaw amendments passed.

Because the bylaw amendments were mostly based on changes to state laws, their passage helped the board to avoid a difficult situation in which their members’ interests and the state statutes would not align, LPEA spokeswoman Indiana Reed said.

Several of the bylaw changes added distinct time frames in which LPEA will need to inform co-op members of upcoming elections and amendment votes, Reed said.

These changes also mandated that this information be made public on the LPEA website, she said.

The amendment to bylaw 2 will change the way members can vote.

Previously members who sent a mail-in ballot could change their vote if they attended and re-voted at the election. While members may still vote by mail or at the election, the new amendment will no longer allow members to change their votes.

“It’s one or the other, not both,” Reed said.

A change to bylaw 4 will require that petitions submitted by members be signed by 10 percent of all LPEA members, rather than the previous requirement of 500 signatures.

As there are more than 30,000 LPEA members, this is a considerable change, Reed said.

The amendment to bylaw 2 will mandate that board members may not have a spouse or children who are employed by LPEA. Previously, the bylaw mandated that members have no close family employed by LPEA, so this amendment was for clarification, Reed said.

While the public turnout at the meeting was higher than in recent years with about 300 attendees, Reed said the voter turnout was down from about 20 percent the past three years to about 14 percent this year.

Reed said the re-election of all incumbents who wished to keep their seats could be viewed as a vote of confidence from members.

“Constituents will like what the board is doing, and say ‘why change,’” she said.