In a little under 5 hours from this writing, at 12:30PM Pacific time, the SAIF Corporation Board of Directors will meet to determine their course of action regarding last week’s bombshell court decision that reinstated John Plotkin as CEO of that company. Last Tuesday Marion County Circuit Court Judge Claudia Burton ruled that the board had twice violated Oregon’s Open Meeting laws, and voided Plotkin’s May 9, 2014 termination.
Today the board will discuss a solution to the dilemma. They replaced Plotkin in May of 2015 with Kerry Barnett. They will either need to appeal, settle on Co-CEO’s, or negotiate a settlement with Plotkin that will result in his exit from the company.
Much has changed at SAIF over the last three years. The Executive Council has a host of new members, including Barnett, and the Board of Directors has three members who were not part of the board that that was found to have violated state law. Unfortunately, there are still two members of the BOD serving who had direct rolls in that action. Board Vice-Chair Kevin Jensen and Krishna Balasubramani were both members who voted to terminate John Plotkin, a decision that could potentially cost the carrier and its customers millions of dollars. Balasubramani was the board member who made the official motion to fire Plotkin at the May 9th meeting.
The fact that these two men remain to clean up their own mess is reportedly a source of angst for many SAIF employees who have been closely following the story.
I will likely have more on this tomorrow. Here is hoping that this current board does the right thing. It will be a refreshing change from days gone by…..