The year 2006 may well be remembered as the year of the underserved, under represented and under siege.
While NCUA fought a two-front war over the underserved, with banks criticizing its approval of underserved FOMs at the same time banks and Congress criticized the agency for its lax monitoring CU service of the underserved-some credit union members felt they were under represented by their boards as volunteers at DFCU Financial, Lafayette FCU, Think CU and others voted to convert to bank charters. The fallout of Columbia CU's failed conversion attempt continued to make headlines with the expulsion of two of its board members, while a former CU-Viewpoint Bank-took the stock market by storm when it made the leap from mutual bank to stock-based institution.
As The Journal sought to explore members' rights and the role of democracy in CUs, the nation saw democracy in action when the Democrats swept the GOP as the ruling majority in Congress. For a week-by-week look at how the year unfolded, see pages 13-17.
