The Draft Report by Cannon Engineering analyzing alternative sites for Well #7 exceeds 100 pages and is expected to go to the Board about June 3. Cannon experts will attend the June 19 special Board meeting to answer Directors’ questions in executive session. Prior to that, the Draft Report will have been reviewed by a Committee of President Dave Stephenson, Vice President Alma Quezada, and Business Manager Ann DiMartini.
The Draft Report recommends one of the sites–even though Crestview did not ask for that–but the Board was not told at its May 27 meeting whether the recommended site is the low cost site. It seems there are millions of dollars in capital cost differences among the three sites, and that all three would cost millions more than any previous estimate for Well #7 or Well #8. So, it appears Well #7 may be the most financially significant decision Crestview has ever had to make.
At the last valid election of Directors, in August 2023, at least two current Directors ran explicitly on a platform of Shareholder transparency, and there has been admirable openness since then. However, at the May 27 meeting a Director called for withholding the Draft Report from Shareholders on the ground that the contents of the Draft Report might become the basis for inflammatory comments on Next Door. Such secrecy would make it impossible for Shareholders to make meaningful comments to the Board before the vote. Access would probably be required even to understand Directors’ comments to each other–if indeed they have any discussion at all after having discussed it fully in executive session five days earlier. The “open” Board meeting on June 24 could appear to be nothing more than a “show trial” to announce a decision already reached in secret.
Until May 27, Shareholders who have been actively supporting the site selection process expected to have access to the Draft Report in time to give the Board meaningful written and oral inputs before it votes to select one site. That openness was part of the site selection plan approved by the Board on October 27, 2022 and was informally affirmed as recently as May 14, 2025. The Board should affirm that openness policy at its June 19 closed meeting and include the Draft Report in the Board Packet for the June 24 open meeting. It would be appalling if the most important decision Crestview has ever made were made in secret.
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