OCR Text |
Show Legislature Offers Relief For Irrigation Companies New legislation allowing nonprofit non-profit corporations more flexibility in voting privileges passed recently in the June 20 special session of the Utah Legislature. The change is a benefit to many small irrigation irriga-tion companies and other nonprofit corporations that often cannot get enough shareholders to vote on corporate matters. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Lyle Hillyard of Logan, amends a restrictive quorum requirement re-quirement found in the Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act that became be-came law last May. The Act previously pre-viously required that unless otherwise other-wise provided in a nonprofit corporation's corpor-ation's articles of incorporation or bylaws, a majority of votes entitled to be cast on a matter constituted a quorum. The Utah Farm Bureau proposed an amendment that changed the quorum requirement so that members mem-bers present in person or by proxy shall constitute a quorum at any meeting of members. Some mutual irrigation companies com-panies have bylaws that are silent on this issue and often have less than 10 percent of their shareholders attend meetings. If unamended, the law would have produced the unfortunate consequence of preventing prevent-ing some companies from taking action on corporate affairs, including includ-ing electing directors or even changing chang-ing their bylaws. The correction in the law now enables mutual irrigation companies compan-ies and other nonprofit corporations to amend their articles of incorporation incor-poration or bylaws to aJdressx another important provision of the Act that is potentially problematic, dealing with how shares of stock are represented. Under the Act,- voting is not conducted according to shares of stock unless specified in a company's com-pany's articles of incorporation or bylaws. The default provision of the Act provides for one member, one vote. Warren Peterson, Millard County Farm Bureau board member and partner in the law firm Waddingham and Peterson, suggests that all mutual irrigations companies com-panies in Utah carefully review their articles of incorporation and bylaws and make any necessary changes in order to avoid such problems. The Utah Farm Bureau Federation Feder-ation is the state's largest farm and ranch organization, with more than 22,300 member families in Utah. More Farm Bureau policy positions and news on todayfs food production issues are available on the UFBF website at HYPER LINK "http:www.fb.orgutfb" www.fb.orgutfb . |