Union proposals failed, Station Casinos says

Alana Roberts

Friday, May 20, 2005 | 10:57 a.m.

Station Casinos Inc. officials say three corporate governance proposals the Culinary Union Local 226 brought before shareholders at the company's annual meeting Wednesday have failed. The company said the union didn't submit ballots or proxies -- a charge the union denies.

The union, which is a small shareholder with 262 shares, had proposed an end to the company's supermajority two-thirds voting requirement by replacing it with a simple majority requirement; requiring an annual election for directors instead of the three-year terms directors currently have and letting shareholders decide whether to keep the company's "poison pill" anti-takeover defense.

The company said in a press release that the independent inspector of elections, Corporate Election Services, certified the voting results, however it doesn't say what the results were. Glenn Christenson, chief financial officer for Station Casinos, declined to say what the results were on those three proposals.

Chris Bohner, research director for the union, said all three of the proposals won by between 67 and 75 percent or shares cast according to preliminary results from the firm that counted the shares, Automatic Data Processing. He said the union properly submitted the votes but that Corporate Election Services is refusing to accept and count more than 16 million shares of votes that were largely in favor of the union's proposals.

Bohner questioned the independence of Corporate Election Services because the company hasn't publicly released the results of the vote and is not counting all the shares. A representative for Corporate Election Services could not be reached for comment.