MEA members polled

ERIC BURKETT Frontiersman reporter

PALMER — It was a busy weekend in Mat-Su for pollsters, and one of the polls would have pretty serious ramifications for Matanuska Electric Association.

Two polling groups were working the telephones last week, calling residents of the MEA service area. One of the pollsters, Ivan Moore Research, is based in Anchorage and was hired by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547 in an effort to help the union get a feel for the political current in the area.

The second, Conquest Communications & Data, based in Richmond, Va., was hired by MEA to help determine public sentiment concerning the utility's efforts to exempt itself from regulation by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.

The Virginia organization's efforts could not have been strictly called a poll, and their particular effort is known among pollsters as an ID. Pollsters use such broad-based techniques to put information out among members of the public as well as to derive information.

A copy of the results released by MEA Thursday noted that the "survey was terminated after two days due to consistency of response."

Conquest, which has served other Alaska clients — such as former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Lindauer, state Sen. Lyda Green, R-Wasilla, and the Alaska Republican Party — as well as the Virginia Christian Coalition and American Right to Life, polled more than 5,000 MEA service-area residents Jan. 22-23.

Those who responded to Conquest's call were asked, "Based on what you know today, are you more likely to support or oppose replacing state regulation with local member control?"

More than 61 percent were undecided, while 17 percent said they would support self-regulation and 18 percent said they opposed it.

People were also asked, "Do you need more information on the pros and cons of state versus local member control before you vote?"

Sixty-two percent replied "yes"; 36.8 percent replied "no"; and 1.3 percent were undecided.

The second question in the poll asked people if they knew "that in Alaska 65 percent of electric utilities are self-regulated and that nationwide 85 percent of co-ops rely upon local member control?"

More than 68 percent replied "no" and 22.5 percent said "yes."

The question did not reveal that there are 101 electrical utilities in Alaska, and of the 65 percent that are unregulated, 51 are exempt from state regulation anyway, because they earn less than $50,000 in annual revenues, or serve too small a population.

Ivan Moore Research did not release the results from its poll to the public, which was conducted on Jan. 17, 18 and 19. Its work was commissioned by the IBEW. Ivan Moore has also worked for the state of Alaska and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, as well as the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council and the Anchorage School Board.

Linda Shattuck, a member of the MEA board of directors, was one of the members of the public Ivan Moore contacted.

Shattuck told fellow board members at a meeting last week that she had been alarmed by the poll and felt it had been very slanted.

Shattuck took issue with how some questions had been presented and said she told the pollster, "This isn't right. You're giving bad information."

Ivan Moore polled 270 residents in the MEA service area, based upon their level of participation in MEA and Matanuska Telephone Association elections, Moore said Friday.

If Shattuck was offended by the poll, it was because she didn't like the subject being addressed, he said.

"The best way to justify their position is to attack the poll," Moore said.

Those who answered Moore's poll were asked whether they felt certain MEA expenditures, as revealed in a recent order by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, were or were not appropriate.

They were also asked for their feelings about a large number of public figures, including Green, MEA board members Tiny DePriest, Rod Cottle, Lois Lester, MEA general manager Wayne Carmony, MEA government affairs director Tuckerman Babcock, the RCA, the IBEW, Mike Janecek, and interestingly, Lindauer — Shattuck's and Babcock's former employer.

Moore said he had derived a great deal of useful information from the poll.

"There was nothing wrong with the poll," he said.