NCUA Re-Vote On Utah Case Has ItsPerils

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - (12/14/04) -- The two options laid out for NCUA bylast week's federal court decision striking down four of theagency's precedent-setting community charter grants could leave thefederal credit union regulator between a rock and a hard place,according to expert observers. That's because one of the twositting NCUA Board members--Deborah Matz--has already expresseddoubts about the validity of the broad six-county Utah communitygrant. That puts an NCUA Board vote to appeal the ruling or toreconsider the controversial community grant in question. Duringthe April 24, 2003 debate on the application by Tooele FCU, Matzquestioned whether the six counties qualified as a single communityunder NCUA's rules and dissented on the two-one-vote. Since then,Dennis Dollar, who voted for the precedent-setting Tooele FCUcharter, has departed the NCUA Board, leaving the panel with twositting members. Meantime, an NCUA spokesman said Monday lastweek's court ruling has been referred to the agency's Region Fiveoffice, which reviewed the applications for Tooele FCU and thethree subsequent credit unions awarded the six-county charter, andthe Board will await the region's review before deciding what to donext.