BEATTY -- The Valley Electric Association board, which consisted of four directors since its inception in 1964, will expand to six directors, after 73.6 percent of cooperative members voted to approve a bylaw change 1,233 votes to 425.

Directors will also serve three year terms instead of two. The results were announced at the annual meeting here Saturday.

A change in the bylaws last year allowed mail-in voting for the first time. This year 1,752 members voted by mail, another 175 showed up in person.

The newly-created district five will include Sandy Valley, Mountain Springs and Trout Canyon. Pahrump will be split by Highway 372, district one will be the southern part. The newly-created district six will be the northern.

Former VEA Director Bob Davies from Pahrump, sought to change the bylaws back in 2005, arguing there was only one director representing a town like Pahrump with 33,000 residents and one director representing 500 residents in a rural area like Fish Lake Valley.

Letters will be sent out to cooperative members in those two newly-formed districts. Prospective board members will be invited to submit resumes and their qualifications. A nominating committee will be set up to place names on the ballot for an eventual election, expected to take place this summer.

Longtime VEA Director Bob Hartman, from Fish Lake Valley, attended his last annual meeting. He will be replaced by John Maurer, also a Fish Lake Valley farmer. Hartman served on the board from 1982 to 1986, then continuously since 1992.

During his speech at the 43rd annual meeting, VEA Chief Executive Officer Tom Husted said America needs to mobilize a program to continue providing affordable, dependable electricity amid concerns over climate change, just as it sent a man to the moon.

"Every time America discovers it has a crisis on hand, our government wakes up and proposes a crash program to fix it," Husted said. He said Henry Ford II even had a name for it, "crisis crash syndrome."

In 1958, America rose to the occasion with a campaign to put a man on the moon, after the Russians orbited Sputnik I. But Husted said not every crisis leads to impressive results, like the response to the Arab oil embargoes that began in 1973, which led him into a recurrent theme in his recent speeches, the lack of a national energy policy.

"Every time we've been inconvenienced at the pump we've heard our leaders pledge to develop a national, energy policy that would free us from the foreign oil producing nation's hold over us and our economy," Husted said. "However every attempt to formulate a serious, national energy policy has fizzled under the stress of competing special interests, pulling policy makers first in one direction and then in another."

He predicted, "the goal of addressing greenhouse gas emissions may pose a more difficult challenge than reaching the moon."

Congress has to keep in mind a goal to provide every American access to dependable electricity, Husted said. Over the next 20 years cooperatives must increase generating capacity by 30 percent to keep up with demand, he said.

"The excess capacity we've enjoyed for decades has been used up. At the same time that lawmakers address climate change, they need to address an impending electricity shortage. In some parts of the country it will hit as soon as 2011," Husted said.

While cooperatives are emphasizing better efficiency, conservation and renewable energy, Husted called that "a drop in the bucket" to what's needed.

Husted called on all 16,570 VEA members to e-mail or write their congressman, asking political leaders to keep electricity affordable and reliable when voting on any new legislation about climate change, part of the Our Energy, Our Future campaign sponsored by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

"We need a plan that is as carefully executed as FDR's New Deal or JFK's race to put a man on the moon. Public-private partnerships have worked in the past and they will work again but it will require an active role by our elected officials to provide guidance and support," Husted said.

The largely receptive audience didn't grill VEA officials about anything, there's usually a question about alternative energy. The only query was about returning patronage capital, which is available to members from 1992 or earlier.

Husted said VEA didn't provide patronage capital back to the members last year because the cooperative will be making a huge $30 million investment in infrastructure with the proposed 238 kilovolt line around Mount Sterling and a smaller loop around Pahrump Valley.

"We will have to put in transmission, substation facilities that are very expensive. We know that we have to do it, but they will serve members for years to come," Husted said. "So can we afford to retire patronage capital when we know we have to borrow the money?"