Randy Klaus to challenge PEC finding of election ineligibility
Randy Klaus is a former Pedernales Electric Cooperative board director and a retired certified public accountant for the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Courtesy and staff photos
A former Pedernales Electric Cooperative board director plans to challenge a finding that he is ineligible to run for the District 3 seat in the 2023 election. PEC’s Qualifications and Elections Committee informed Randy Klaus by email on Wednesday, April 5, of its decision.
The QEC is made up of cooperative members representing each of the PEC’s seven districts. They are chosen by the current board member of each district and tasked with vetting candidates. The vote was 6-0 with one district absent.
“The PEC Qualifications and Elections Committee finds candidate Randy Klaus ineligible to run for Director in the 2023 election in that while a director he failed as required under the PEC Bylaws to act in good faith and represent the best interests of the Cooperative as a whole,” the committee’s finding reads. “The Committee further requests that Counsel report these preliminary findings to Mr. Klaus under Sec. 6.2.1.8 of the PEC Elections Policies and Procedures, giving him until 4 p.m. on April 5, 2023, to present any additional information to the Committee for its consideration. If Mr. Klaus does not respond, these findings of non-qualification shall take effect without further action by the Committee.”
Klaus plans to be at PEC’s headquarters in Johnson City on Thursday, April 6, with an attorney.
“This is not a ‘finding’ or ‘finding of fact,’” Klaus wrote to PEC in a reply to the notification email. “Explain in detail how I allegedly did not ‘act in good faith and represent the best interests of the cooperative as a whole.’”
Klaus, a retired certified public accountant who once worked for the Public Utility Commission of Texas, was elected to the PEC board in 2017 in the co-op’s first single-member district election. Previously, directors were elected at large. He resigned during an executive session at the Feb. 21, 2020, board meeting “under duress,” he told DailyTrib.com earlier this year. He later filed to run for the seat again that year, but the QEC found him ineligible and his name was excluded from the ballot. Current board President Mark Ekrut is running for re-election for the District 3 seat.
When asked why Klaus did not pass the vetting process for the 2020 ballot, PEC issued the following statement via email for a DailyTrib.com story published Jan. 26 of this year:
“In 2020, Randy Klaus voluntarily resigned from the PEC Board and agreed not to run again. Despite his voluntary resignation and statement to not run again, Mr. Klaus applied to be a Board Director candidate in spring of 2020. The Qualifications and Elections Committee determined Mr. Klaus was not qualified.”
Klaus told DailyTrib.com at the time that he would file an injunction in Blanco County if he is not allowed on the ballot.
DailyTrib.com asked Klaus what he plans to do when he shows up at PEC headquarters on Thursday.
“I intend to respond to the preliminary finding once I know what the basis for the QEC finding is, and how I allegedly did not act in the best interests of the coop,” he said by email.