Connecticut league clarifies RenComm position

I was pleased to read Elaine Kingoff’s article on the Renaissance Commission that appeared in the October 3 edition of Credit Union Times. Generally speaking, it was very well-written and accurately reflected comments in our letters to Barry Jolette and Dan Mica. The one exception to this occurred in the paragraph concerning “CCUA’s position that the Commission’s vision statements are inappropriately and overly focused on justifying the current tax, regulatory and insurance structures applicable to credit unions.” If you will re-read our letter to Barry Jolette, you will find that this comment only related to the Commission’s vision statement on the mission of credit unions. As a result of this error, I believe your readers outside of Connecticut may conclude that Connecticut credit unions and CCUA do not think these issues are important. We do. As indicated in our letter, we simply did not think it was appropriate to include these in the mission statement. CCUA’s comments concerning the recommended vision statement on the mission of credit unions are as follows: “We agree with the Commission’s conclusion that having a clear and appropriate definition of what credit unions are about is extremely important and we further agree that this definition must be easily understood and accepted by lawmakers and regulators. In order to accomplish this, we believe the definition of credit unions must also be concise. In our opinion, the vision statement recommended by the commission does not meet these requirements. Rather, it is inappropriately and overly focused on justifying the current tax, regulatory and insurance structures applicable to credit unions. While we recognize maintaining the current tax-exemption and unique regulatory and insurance of credit unions are important, we do not believe these are part of the mission of credit unions. Rather, we believe these are the result of the structure and operations of credit unions.” Kevin Stewart President/CEO Connecticut Credit Union League Wallingford, Conn.