In defense of MEA …

Spectrum by Fred Agree

During last year's MEA election I received a few mailings from Mike Janecek, running for the seat from Wasilla north. I know these mailings are expensive, and I wondered why anyone would spend upwards of $10,000 for a seat on a board which pays $20 a meeting to attend. Also, MEA meetings have usually been as exciting as watching golf on TV. While in Palmer, I went to MEA and asked to see his campaign disclosure.

Janecek listed a large contribution from Mitch Gravo, an Anchorage lobbyist. This appeared as a personal contribution, until I later learned Gravo was a spokesman for the IBEW. Neither the IBEW nor Gravo had registered as an interested party. This appeared to me to be an effort by Janecek to hide the fact that his campaign was being financed by the union.

Furthermore, the disclosure claimed that he had collected about $1,800 total. I could tell that he was spending six times that amount. It was then that I filed a complaint with the MEA co-op. I feel that if you run for MEA office, you should let the co-op members know truthfully what you are spending and who is providing the moolah! That's only fair and it's the rules. And, you should disclose that information before or during the election.

MEA investigated my complaint. I do give them credit for listening to a co-op member and taking action.

At the board meeting to hear the charges Janecek claimed that the printers, the mailing house and Frontiersman had "extended him credit," and he had yet to pay them, so he considered those expenses exempt from reporting. This was a willful and blatant attempt to hide important and pertinent information from the co-op members whom he is seeking to represent. Humor was not absent, as during his campaign, he pledged to work against just the type of deceit he had just employed!

Now comes Janecek's final report. This was filed, of course, after the election and the horse was already out of the barn. Janecek claimed 68 unnamed contributors had given him $6,450. That averages out to about $95 per contributor. I'm not mathematical, and I hardy did better than Bill Gates or George Bush in school, but that means if a few people gave him $20 or $50, he could not have possibly have gotten $6,450 from 68 people. If you are "numbers-gifted" and understand probability lines, you will see this is absurd. More deceit!

According to the bylaws, the candidates need not list these "under $100" contributors on the disclosure, but it specifically says they must be disclosed to the board on request. Janecek has refused to do this. Maybe its because he knows how difficult it is to get two people to keep a baloney story straight, let alone 68! Duh, does anyone see a pattern here? The board did when they refused to seat him.

It is not a well-hidden secret that the IBEW is trying to take over MEA. The IBEW infiltration of the board of Chugach Electric Association nearly brought that utility down. That is why MEA sought to buy it. It was so "depleted" by union/management infighting, it became an attractive takeover target by a strong, well-organized group, in this case, MEA. The IBEW does not want to take control of MEA because it was floundering. It's not that MEA has done bad. They want it because MEA has done good. The IBEW would not care about MEA if it was the insolvent, disorganized, incompetent loser IBEW claims it is. They want it because they want to fleece it for their members to use it as a power base. Am I being simplistic here?

The State Department of Labor statistics say that MEA linemen make salaries in the upper one-percent of wage earners in a state with the highest per-capita income in the U.S. I, for one, feel they deserve it. However, is that a reason for the union to take over the co-op and destroy it a la Chugach, just because it's the "nature of union management" to combat the employers?

The Frontiersman -- hardly frontier types, the Friends of the Mat-Su -- who are bringing us zoning, Utility Watch -- what's there to watch? and Jim Sykes of the Green Party, in my opinion have banded together to wage a "jihad" on our electric company.

MEA is doing great by us. The rates are fair, the billing is accurate. Repairs are speedy, and outages are relatively few.

A recent online poll by the Frontiersman asked : "Do the co-op members control MEA?" Seventy-four percent of those responding answered "YES." I for one, will not sit by and allow special interest raiders to destroy my electric service.

Fred Agree is a republican activist and a Trapper Creek resident.