MEA board turns up heat

DAWN DE BUSK

Frontiersman reorter

PALMER - The president of Matanuska Electric Association's board said Saturday that the utility co-op's member advisory committee has discovered some discrepancies - such as late filing, mathematical errors and incorrect dates - in campaign financial disclosure reports filled out by recently elected board member Peter Burchell.

During its monthly meeting May 9, the MEA board passed a resolution asking Burchell to turn over more financial records so the advisory committee could verify information included in his 2005 candidate finance reports, according to Lee Jordan, MEA board president.

Burchell, who received the largest number of votes in the co-op's April 2 annual election, said he will comply with the board's request, and corrected five of the reports on his own during his campaign. He said he has until May 30 to provide the committee with copies of his financial records. His induction onto the board is set for July.

"No one has told me what would happen if I don't do it by then, if I'll turn into a pumpkin or six white mice will drag me off the board," Burchell said. "They were clerical errors. It's not an attempt to hide something."

Lois Lester, an MEA board member and Eagle River resident, explained that the rules for reporting campaign finances are very strict, and have been made even more strict over recent years.

"From what I can see, it's a matter of adding and subtracting incorrectly," Lester said. She also thought Burchell may have reported something within the wrong time frame. "In the bylaws, there is no concrete step of what to do when someone violates campaign disclosure requirements. It could be a slap on the wrist or a dismissal from the board," Lester said.

Usually, it is not the task of the member advisory committee to review the campaign disclosure reports. This year, however, MEA General Manager Wayne Carmony asked the board's members if they would assign the committee the job of reviewing those candidate reports so the work wouldn't tie up MEA staff.

Six community members belong to the member advisory committee, with MEA spokesman Mike Pauley and MEA employee Moira Halbert serving as staff support. The committee's members are Penny Nixon, who serves as its chair; Janey Wineinger, a former aide to state Sen. Lyda Green, R-Mat-Su; Noel Woods; Charlie Turner; Pete Probasco and the recently appointed John D Alexander, the third-highest vote-getter in April's election. The board selects members to sit on the advisory committee.

Campaign finance reporting is the issue that touched off a lengthy legal tussle between MEA and Scott Waterman, a constituent of former board member Mike Janecek, who was kicked off the board twice during his three-year term. Janecek finally left the MEA board in 2004 after losing his re-election bid that year.

"The campaign disclosure reporting is as cumbersome and labor intensive as it gets. In that simple election, you have to report about 11 times," said Janecek, whose candidate reports were reviewed after he won a seat on the board in April 2001.

Although Janecek received the majority of the votes during the election, board members voted, 5-2, to deny him a seat on the board. Board members indicated the reason for removing Janecek was that he filed inaccurate campaign reports and did not show a good-faith effort to follow MEA bylaws, according to previous Frontiersman stories.

In January 2002, Palmer Superior Court Beverly Cutler ordered that Janecek be reseated on the board. The board again removed Janecek in April 2003, after he refused to submit a hair sample in compliance with the board's freshly enacted drug-testing rule. But Palmer Superior Court Judge Eric Smith reinstated Janecek until the lawsuit filed on his behalf by Waterman was decided. Earlier this year, MEA agreed to pay $40,000 in legal fees to the law firm that represented Waterman in the case, in exchange for dropping a complaint stemming from the drug-testing matter.

After hearing about the scrutiny of Burchell's candidate reports, Janecek responded, "Are we surprised? That's what they did to me from the start. Now, MEA has rewritten the bylaws so they can do anything they want."

According to a new bylaw, which was changed in January 2004, candidates must file 11 reports - one each week during the campaign season and two following the elections. If a candidate accepts a donation exceeding $250, a special report must be made.

New board members don't step into their positions until the July board meeting, Jordan said, which gives candidates time to correct campaign finance reports.

"There's nothing to indicate, at this point, that he will be removed from his seat," Jordan said.

MEA spokesman Tuckerman Babcock was in Juneau on Saturday and his cell phone was busy during repeated attempts to contact him. Pauley, on Saturday, said the bylaws leave disposition of the matter to the board's discretion. "[The member advisory committee] would like to have another meeting in the future to review additional information from Burchell to clarify his report," he said.

Five candidates vied for two open seats in the election. Burchell received 4,611 votes, winning a three-year term; and incumbent Jordan retained his position with 4,355 votes. Other candidates were John D. Alexander, who received 3,077 votes, John D. Glass, who received 3,038 votes and Tom Staudenmaier, who received 1,199 votes.

Burchell said he hopes he can put this matter behind him and start serving the co-op members who voted for him. "The board doesn't need more controversy, and I don't need any. I'm not here to fight. I'm here to make good decisions, and there's some major decisions to be made," he said.

Dawn De Busk can be reached at 352-2252.