By JAMES GARDINER and CHRIS DANIELS
Aucklanders' $650 electricity dividend is in jeopardy after two members of the Powerlynk team sided with the Citizens & Ratepayers' trustees against their chairwoman, Karen Sherry.
Powerlynk, which holds a 3-2 majority over C&R on the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust, promised every home and business in Auckland an equal share of power company Vector's more than $150 million accumulated earnings.
But that majority - and the Powerlynk ticket itself - has collapsed only two months after being voted in.
At a meeting on Tuesday night, Ms Sherry's arch-rival, C&R president John Collinge, was calling the shots and Powerlynk trustees Coralie van Camp and Pauline Winter voted with him and the other C&R trustee, Mike Buczkowski.
Ms Sherry said yesterday that she was in a minority of one when she put up a motion to distribute the dividend equally among all consumers. No one would second it.
As a fallback position, she suggested customers be asked how they wanted the money shared, but again got no support.
Mr Collinge said the other trustees agreed it was necessary to get legal advice first to ensure the trust deed was followed.
Twelve per cent of Vector's 270,000-odd customers were businesses, he said, but their bills contributed 56 per cent of revenue.
He would not say what his preference was, as that would be "improper" before getting the legal opinion, but previous C&R-dominated trusts have given bigger power users more money than households.
Under that philosophy, households would get about $350, and big businesses tens of thousands of dollars.
The relevant clause in the trust deed reads: "In deciding upon the allocation of the net income, as amongst consumers, the trustees shall, in exercising their discretion, nevertheless be entitled to take account (to the extent to which they may see fit) of the relative contribution which consumers in different tariff categories ... have made to gross profit."
Ms Sherry said the next clause clearly overrode that and made a legal opinion an unnecessary waste of money.
It reads: "The trustees shall, however, retain an absolute discretion as to the proportions in which consumers shall share in a distribution, and in this respect the decision shall be final and binding."
Mr Collinge and Mr Buczkowski said the decision to go to a lawyer would not delay the payout, but Ms Sherry said the money could have been in people's hands before Christmas.
Powerlynk, set up to contest the trust election, has become so dysfunctional its members cannot even talk in private.
Mrs van Camp has threatened to sue Ms Sherry over comments she made to the Weekend Herald last month about her susceptibility to Mr Collinge, and will no longer attend Powerlynk meetings.
She yesterday refused to talk because of "scandalous and nasty things" written about her.
The trust will not meet again until late next month.
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