MEA hopefuls speak up at forum

WASILLA — At a forum Tuesday, candidates for the Matanuska Electric Association’s board of directors were asked a couple of questions about an issue some might have thought was settled — coal.

“This is the number one question I get, other than ‘Why would you do this to yourself,’” said candidate Crystal Nygard, during the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce candidate forum.

The issue of an MEA proposal to build a coal plant came up two years ago, leading to months of heated public meetings and ultimately culminating with an ordinance the Borough Assembly passed the summer of 2007 requiring power plants to obtain a permit from the borough. MEA fought that ordinance at every turn, decrying it as a costly measure that would hinder their work.

But lately the board of directors, after a shift in its makeup, has discontinued those efforts. In any event, after the ordinance passed the board voted to table the coal plant idea for at least five years but is moving ahead with a natural gas plant.

At the chamber’s forum, the candidates for the board seemed in agreement that coal wasn’t the way to go, though they arrived at those positions in different ways.

Nygard, co-owner of a local environmental and safety business, said coal looked like a cost-effective option on paper but cited regulations as an insurmountable hurdle.

“It is very likely it would be stopped right from the get-go,” she said.

Candidate Marvin Yoder, a deputy administrator with the city of Wasilla, cited costs in his reasons for opposing a coal plant, saying that big, statewide projects like geothermal energy from Mount Spur and hydroelectricity from Lake Chakachamna appear promising.

With coal, he said, “There could be a carbon tax which would make coal unprofitable.”

Kit Jones, an incumbent on the board who was appointed last year to fill a vacant seat, said MEA needs to have electricity generators online by the middle of the next decade, when its contract with Chugach Electric expires. But estimates for coal plants show it likely wouldn’t be constructed in time.

“It is not now the best economical answer for the Valley nor is it the beast answer health-wise for the people of the Valley,” Jones said.

Lois Lester, the current board president who is seeking re-election, said she thinks there are other options worth pursuing.

Tom Staudenmaier, a perennial candidate for the board with a colorful history criticizing MEA and most other Railbelt utilities, cited an example of the clean coal plant in Healy and the state’s efforts to get it off the ground.

“They’re in it 400 million dollars and the damn thing still don’t work,” he said.

Another question asked how the candidates felt the board should relate to its general manager. Relations between the current general manager — Wayne Carmony — and the board have lately been, to say the least, frosty.

“The general manager works with us to do strategic planning,” Lester said.

Yoder and Nygard seemed to agree that the board gives the general manager direction, which the general manager then implements.

But Nygard raised questions about the way the current board is operating. Using the analogy of Alaska Airlines’ board of directors, she said that the board should engage in policy discussions but shouldn’t go out and check tire pressure on the airplanes. But the current board, she implied, is micromanaging.

For her part, Jones said she’d like to work to fix relations between the board and its general manager, saying it should be a relationship based on trust and cooperation.

“At MEA now, that relationship does not exist,” Jones said.

Staudenmaier, playing, as always, the gadfly role, took the opportunity to call for Carmony’s dismissal.

“Where do we get off paying this guy $240,000 cash and he doesn’t do a damn thing?” Staudenmaier said.