We’ve been invited –- now let’s tell Coast Central Credit Union what we need.

Thanks in part to its new CEO and board of directors, Coast Central is taking a few slow steps toward allowing its member-owners to act like, well, owners.

After dismal track record for transparency, that’s a good start. We can build on that beginning, by insisting on more improvements during Coast Central’s annual meeting at 6 p.m. this Thursday, Feb. 27, in the Coast Central branch at 402 F St. in Eureka.

I write “during,” but actually we won’t be allowed to talk much during the meeting. Years ago, the nine elected members of Coast Central’s board decided they didn’t want the people who elected them to have the privilege of speaking during the annual meeting, when minutes are taken and a written record is kept.

Here’s why that’s not good enough for our community’s premier financial institution: As an owner, you deserve the convenience of being able to read a full report of what happened at the annual meeting if you weren’t able to attend. That includes meeting minutes that summarize the questions asked by your fellow owners, as well as the answers provided by your elected board or by your employees.

I ran for the Coast Central board last year partly because I’d heard about the annual meeting in 2023, when dozens of angry people showed up demanding to know the vote count in that board election, and demanding that they get responses. Attendees were gaveled into non-existence. Only informal questions and answers were permitted, and only after the meeting had already ended.

That informal approach has continued, pushing member-owner concerns into a twilight zone, where no minutes will ever note that they existed.

Coast Central’s board needs to change its bylaws this year to allow questions from the floor and answers during the meeting instead of after.

It also needs to change its repressive election rules, which impose bizarre restrictions on who can say what and in which venues.

And It needs to stop appointing people to vacant seats just weeks before its election, allowing them to run as board-approved “incumbents” when they might only have attended a meeting or two.

I campaigned on some of those issues when I ran for the board last year, and enough people agreed to award me 52.3 percent of the vote. That wasn’t enough to win, because it was a multi-seat election, but perhaps it was enough to nudge the credit union into finally releasing the number of votes each candidate received in previous board elections. Or perhaps that was my official complaint to state banking regulators after then-CEO James Sessa stood up at last year’s meeting and again explained why we weren’t entitled to know who got how many votes.

Now that it has begun releasing vote totals, Coast Central has also moved its annual meetings from a small branch lobby with limited seating to a bigger venue, with the possibility of remote attendance.

This is good stuff –- let’s be sure to say thanks at the annual meeting. But let’s offer thanks the way you would to a good employee who still has some weak spots that need fixing: “Great start; now here’s how you can do better next year.”

With close to 80,000 member-owners, Coast Central shapes our region’s economy, affecting people who are buying a home, expanding a business, or just trying to put aside a little something for their future.

Together, we own this thing –- and that includes every one of us who has an account at Coast Central. The top executives work for us. The nine-member board is elected by us. We deserve a credit union that fully includes us in conversations about our community’s financial future.

You might already have your own list of priorities. Maybe they involve Coast Central’s ATM locations, weekend hours, fees, interest rates, or dozens of other policies that affect how well our credit union serves us all.

Change won’t come unless we, the owners, insist on it. This annual meeting is our time. Please mark your calendar now for 6 p.m. on Feb. 27 at 402 F St. in Eureka. Bring a friend. Come with polite but firm questions, as well as with appreciation for the things that keep you a Coast Central member.

We own this thing. Let’s make it better.

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Carrie Peyton-Dahlberg is a retired journalist and longtime Coast Central member.