MEA adds bylaw to ballot

WASILLA — Reversing its previous position, the Matanuska Electric Association’s board of directors has decided to include a proposed bylaw change on its ballot this year.

The change, supported by Lee Jordan, Aaron Downing and other past board members, would make conflict of interest rules for serving on the board more strict.

Currently, the bylaws preclude a member from joining the board if he or she or members of his or her household do business with MEA. The change would expand that requirement to preclude relations to the board members “too closely related under state law for a legal marriage to occur between them, or the spouse of any such person,” Jordan wrote in the press release. Folks doing less than $10,000 business with the co-op would be exempt.

In the audio recording of Wednesday’s meeting posted to the co-op’s Web site, board attorney Robin Brena advised the board to go back on its action denying the petition.

“Certainly the last thing I would want to do as counsel for the board is give a recommendation that over 300 members, if they properly file a petition consistent with the bylaws to modify those bylaws, that somehow that will of those 450 people could be defeated based on facts that I stated that I understood to be true which I believe have proven to be false,” Brena said.

He said that his previous counsel, that the bylaw change had not been properly received since it was late was proven incorrect. Another piece of advice he gave, that the change had not followed the general petition process, he said, was also false. Though the petition wasn’t routed through board secretary Peter Burchell — the objection Board President Lois Lester raised in her argument to reject it — neither had petitions in the past.

“There’s a prior practice that needs to be respected,” Brena said. “What I don’t want to do is change the way this board handles petitions and apply those retroactively in a way that forecloses those 450 members’ voices from being heard.”

The meeting adjourned, according to the recordings, but with the understanding it would resume the next day.

In recordings of that meeting, the board is heard hashing out exactly which statements will go in election materials for distribution to members.

The first bit to receive scrutiny was a recommendation from the co-op’s bylaw committee that the voters strike the measure down. The committee cited a couple of reasons: First, that the measure is too stringent, the second being that it likely wouldn’t survive a legal challenge.

Neither Brena nor MEA staff attorney Jim Walker offered an opinion as to the legal soundness of the change. But Brena said that conflict of interest rules could be as strict as the board wants them to be.

The board approved the committee’s recommendation be printed.

Next, they considered a statement put forth by the petitioners who filed the amendment.

“We asked for a recommendation. I expected a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ back from the bylaws committee. We got a statement that was clearly designed to affect the vote on that petition and if we desire to be consistent with the basis of having pros and cons, which has been stated at this table before and voted on I think we should at least consider this,” board member Larry DeVilbiss said of the statement from the petitioners.

A vote on whether to even consider the statement failed, with DeVilbiss and board member David Glines voting in favor.

What’s still unclear, Jordan said Monday, is whether the petitioners will halt legal action they began in the wake of the board’s initial denial of the petition.

“We’re still awaiting conference with the attorney,” Jordan said.

In a press release he prepared regarding the board’s reversal, Jordan and Downing expressed dismay that the bylaws committee would be allowed a voice and the petitioners would not.

Whether the bylaws will be changed will be settled in this year’s election, through ballots both mailed in and cast at the co-op’s annual meeting, scheduled for April 25 at Palmer High School. Two board seats are up for election as are a host of other bylaw changes submitted via the bylaw committee. The results of all those ballot questions will be announced at the meeting.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.