MEA board picks Downing

PALMER -- In a secret-ballot vote, the Matanuska Electric Association Inc. board of directors agreed Monday to place former board member Aaron Downing in a seat recently vacated by Rose Marie DePriest, despite allegations that called Downing's eligibility into question.

Three candidates were in the running on Monday, after Peter Probasco pulled his candidacy for unannounced reasons last week. Downing, Kim Robinson and Ken Klunder were up for the seat Monday when, during the audience participation portion of the meeting, Tony Pippel -- a Palmer resident and member of Utility Watch, a local utility watchdog group-- raised allegations against Downing.

"It seems to me Mr. Downing went to work for Irby subsequently after he lost his MEA board seat," Pippel said. "Did he do bids for MEA less than two years after he held the board seat?"

Pippel said it was his understanding that MEA bylaws prohibited former board members from performing contractual work with the cooperative for two years after serving on the board.

Although the rŽsumŽ Downing submitted to MEA does not list any work history after 1995 when he served as an MEA board member, Pippel told the board members he recalled that Downing was the Palmer manager of Irby Construction -- a Jackson, Miss.-based company with which MEA contracted in 1997 to perform six construction projects.

Downing, in a Monday morning interview with three members of the board of directors to determine his eligibility for board candidacy, said he contracted for MEA "up until three years ago."

According to MEA spokesman Mike Pauley, Downing was a subcontractor for Irby.

MEA was recently reimbursed $270,100 by Irby after a suit launched by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547 was upheld when MEA appealed it in federal court. The decision required MEA to reimburse IBEW for the amount Irby, a non-union contractor, underpaid the contractor's employees in wages and benefits because the cooperative did not require Irby to work under the agreements regarding wages, hours and benefits that had been agreed upon in the collective-bargaining agreement reached between MEA and IBEW.

Pauley said after he reviewed MEA's bylaws, he found one resolution that seemed to apply to Pippel's allegations. That resolution states that board members are "ineligible for employment by the Association for a period of two years after their term on the Board of Directors has expired."

"Mr. Downing was not an employee," Pauley said, "he was a subcontractor for Irby, which was doing work for MEA. This policy is talking about employment . . . it's simply not applicable."

When asked if, under that interpretation of the bylaws, a subcontractor could simultaneously hold a seat on the board, Pauley said that was possible.

Other MEA members who testified at the meeting stated their opposition to having Downing seated, citing a belief that Ken Klunder, the second-highest vote getter in the April election in which he ran against DePriest, should be seated in her place.

Palmer resident and MEA member Janet Kincaid handed out to board members a petition requesting that the board seat Klunder.

"This is the will of a lot of MEA consumers," Kincaid said as she handed over the petition. Kincaid, at the meeting, said the petition contained several hundred signatures.

Tom Rapp also spoke on behalf of Klunder.

"You replaced Mr. Janecek with the second-leading vote-getter because of his indiscretions," Rapp said. "Right there, you guys don't really have any excuse for not seating Ken Klunder. . . Mr. Klunder should be seated by your own rules."

Pauley maintained that the two situations -- that of Michael Janecek's being denied a seat due to allegations that he did not properly fulfill campaign disclosure requirements, and DePriest's resignation -- are two different situations, and the same rules do not apply to both.

"The bylaws simply say that if there is an availability on the board, obviously outside the context of an election, the board members choose [the replacement]," Pauley said. "If you look at how MEA has filled board vacancies in the past, there simply is no pattern. There have been a variety of individuals that the board has chosen to appoint. The bottom line is . . . that nobody has inheritance rights for a seat like that."

Pauley explained that in Janecek's case, from the board's perspective it was as though he had not run at all, so the seat was given to Mae Tischer, the only candidate whom the board found ran in accordance with their understanding of the rules.

DePriest's resignation, he said, is a different matter.

"To say that Mr. Klunder has the right to inherit that seat, when the majority of the people voted for someone else . . . that's a non sequitur," Pauley said. "The fact that Mr. Klunder lost . . . it's just a non-issue in this context."

When the board began to discuss the matter, MEA attorney Stephen Ellis interjected that, after consulting Robert's Rules of Order, he determined that the correct method of determining who should occupy the seat would be a vote by secret ballot.

Board member Lois Lester moved to delay the matter until the board could determine whether the allegations against Downing were correct.

"The allegations are there, I think we need to take a look at them," Lester said.

Board member Linda Shattuck seconded her motion, and a "third" was heard from Rapp, who was now sitting in the audience. Board member Bill Folsom asked Rapp to remove himself from the audience, to which Rapp agreed, but not before firing off a few barbs.

"This is a joke," Rapp said. "You guys are an utter joke."

After the commotion, Lester attempted to speak about her motion.

Board member James Hermon interjected, stating the motion had no second, but he was told that Shattuck had seconded it. Lester said her concern was that if the board went forward, the board's action could be moot.

"Next month, someone could come and sit in that chair, in case Mr. Downing is elected, and say [he should not have been seated]," Lester said.

Hermon said people who come to testify with allegations against possible board members should bring proof with them that their allegations are true.

When the question of whether or not to delay came to a vote, Hermon again denied that Lester's motion had been seconded, and he was again told that the motion had been seconded by Shattuck.

The vote failed, with only Lester's vote in favor.

Hermon moved that ballots be cast to determine who should take the seat. The balloting would continue, Hermon said, until a minimum vote of four in favor of one person was reached. Attending telephonically, Shattuck voted by faxing her signed ballot to the MEA office.

On the first vote, Downing received a majority of four votes. Kim Robinson received the two remaining votes.

Upon hearing the outcome, Kincaid stood up and announced her intent to launch a formal protest to Downing's being seated. She was instructed by Folsom to contact MEA's member affairs office and MEA general manager Wayne Carmony asked Kincaid to submit her complaint to MEA administration, which would then review it.

Klunder stood and asked permission to address the board. Folsom said the time to address the board was during audience participation, in which Klunder chose not to participate.

Klunder continued to address the board despite Folsom's comments.

"You're setting a bad precedent," Klunder said. "You're taking the membership out of this process. You've taken the consumer out of this process and, last I heard, you represent the consumers of MEA."

Klunder also said he found it offensive that Ellis had directed the board to use a secret-ballot process. The board members, he said, are elected to represent their service area, and those they represent should be allowed to know who they voted for and why.

Downing, when contacted Tuesday, declined to answer questions about the allegations made at the meeting. He said that disagreements with the reporting style of previous Frontiersman reporters led him to a decision not to answer questions from the Frontiersman. Downing said he will respond to the allegations in written form, but did not indicate where or when the written response will be available.

Pauley said Downing will be seated at the board's next meeting, which is scheduled to be held at 4 p.m. Dec. 10.