MEA elections wrap Tuesday at annual meeting

WASILLA — Five challengers are seeking to capitalize on electric rate increases to unseat or replace three incumbents on the local electric co-op board of directors.

In interviews Friday, challengers in the Matanuska Electric Association election generally sought to portray a vote for the incumbents as a vote for the status quo and additional rate increases in the future.

Incumbents object to that portrayal, saying the most recent and unpopular series of rate increases stems from factors largely beyond their control, and that a board that has overseen transition from an electrical wholesaler to an electrical generator isn’t interested in the status quo.

Most candidates also pointed to the planned retirement of general manager Joe Griffith in January 2016 — and the possibility to hire his replacement — as an opportunity to change the course of the co-op’s future.

The three incumbent candidates — Peter Burchell, Kit Jones and Janet Kincaid — even published a campaign flyer under a single message, showing a cowboy on horseback in water, emblazoned with the words “Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream.”

The message was clear, Burchell said.

“I think the middle of the stream is we’re successfully operating the new power plant,” he said. “That was a six-year process. Nobody talks about how the original general contractor was not doing his job, and we basically released them and hired a new general contractor because we were falling farther and farther behind.”

Ratepayers — some of whom may already have cast their vote via the mail or online — should vote based on candidate experience, Burchell said. He hinted at a largely electronic campaign push to paint the incumbents in broad ideological strokes.

“The thing I find most offensive is that we have a conservative board,” he said. “We work really hard together. But we don’t like each other all the time, and that’s good. We have this great board, and you can call the board a bunch of liberals or whatever, but that’s hardly the case.”

Burchell, who converted a former Chevrolet dealership into a successful alternative high school bearing his name, chafed at implications levied by the challengers that incumbents could do more to hold costs down.

“My reputation for being frugal is off the chart,” he said.

Incumbents also pointed to what they said were gains in reliability and decreases in the number and severity of electric outages.

The challengers — Kevin Buckland, Ron Johnson, K. Wayne Price, Bryan Scoresby and Glenda Ledford — almost universally pointed to recent rate increases as the motivation for running. In some cases, they tied incumbents to the rate increases directly.

“I think if the stream you’re in is to keep having higher rates, you should vote for the incumbents,” Scoresby said. “If you want somebody to do something different to make rates go lower, you should vote for the challengers.”

For Johnson, who cited rate increases occurring faster than increases in other economic indicators, and lingering issues with the Eklutna Generation Station, the bottom line is industry. He cited a document filed with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska showing the company has asked to extend an interim agreement to buy power from Chugach Electric until the end of April — officials had previously said March and said the plant was not operating as intended, despite claims from MEA spokeswoman Julie Estey that the plant had been operating since April 1.

“If we cannot provide continuing sustainable low-cost energy to the Valley, we’re stifling families. But we’re also stifling business and future business development,” Johnson said. “We don’t have much industry. But one thing that industry does require, most industry requires lots of power, lots of energy.”

“We’ve got lots of issues facing us,” he said.

Johnson also said he’d allow Griffith’s replacement to set the agenda in terms of cuts. The board’s goal should be to provide parameters for the manager and ask him to manage within those parameters, Johnson said.

While incumbents concede the rate increases are difficult, the price of fuel, which is priced according to a three-year contract expiring in 2018 and approved by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, is not controlled by the board, said incumbent Kincaid, a former Borough Assembly member, longtime Valley resident and local businesswoman.

“The rate increases for the large part are sort of out of our hands,” she said. “As you probably know, 70 percent of the rate increases are directly attributable to the fuel costs.

She said both costs and revenue fluctuate for the co-op.

“For instance, a huge windstorm always generates lots of overtime, and there’s nothing you can do about that,” Kincaid said. “People want their power on yesterday. They don’t want to wait.”

In addition to the three open seats, voters will also decide a number of bylaw changes, Estey said.

Three are related to simple bylaw changes, and two focus on more consequential changes. One proposed change would allow MEA to publish election materials electronically as a cost-saving measure. Current provisions require those ballots to be published via hard copy.

Another change would put the burden of public disclosure of financial support for MEA candidates on the candidates themselves, rather than requiring MEA staff to collect reports and evaluate whether those reports were accurate.

“The purpose of that (change) is because the current bylaws have no teeth,” she said. “It takes a lot of policing to not be very effective.”

Electronic ballots are accepted until 5 p.m., April 27 online at mea.coop, though voters submitting electronic ballots must retrieve their voting ID number from a postcard that was mailed earlier this month. Paper ballots must be received at the MEA offices by 5 p.m., April 27.

The MEA annual meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m., April 28 at Raven Hall on the Alaska State Fairgrounds.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.