MEA's big lie sullies board members

MARK KELSEY/On the Mark

May 20, 2007

Anyone looking for real entertainment and a great education about the kind of characters allegedly representing us at Matanuska Electric Association can now get an up-close look at the May 14 meeting of the board of directors.

Jim Sykes, of the watchdog group Utility Watch, recorded the meeting. The final minutes - board member comments - is the best part. It's also the part I suspect this tragically unaware board would most like you to see.

So we went ahead and accommodated them. Links to excerpts can be found within the text of this column, at the appropriate places.

But to summarize those board comments, what appeared to be most on the minds of board members was &#8220misinformation” about their plan to build a coal-fired power plant in the Valley. I lost count of the number of times I heard the word.

It was not hard, though, to count the specific examples of misinformation I heard offered. Zero.

Apparently, the thinking must be that mere repetition of the charge, even without any supporting evidence, is enough to make it true.

This is likely no surprise to anyone who pays attention to what passes for business as usual at MEA. Misinformation, in MEA parlance, is simply the stuff they don't agree with or would rather their member-owners - we, the ratepayers - not know.

Board member Dave Dahms led off for the management team that night during comment time. He opened by expressing disdain for the anti-MEA forces who turned out en masse to give the board a piece of their minds before the meeting, but did not stay to listen to board comments at the end.

The irony of his observation, given the longstanding complaint from ratepayers about not being listened to by MEA, was apparently lost on Dahms.

He proceeded, full-steam, into a passionate tirade against misinformation and inaccuracies that he claims are being spread about the cooperative's plan. Shamelessly, he did so without example, unless you count the misinformation he used himself.

He continues, for example, to wrongly characterize a recent gathering of anti-coal folks as being a &#8220Sierra Club/Friends of Mat-Su meeting.”

It would be generous to call that &#8220misinformation” the first time he alleged it in the pages of this newspaper. Weeks later, after he's been set straight on the matter, it has become something more blatantly dishonest.

Same goes for the demonstrably false and slanderous allegation he continues to make about the Frontiersman story that followed that meeting. Call me idealistic, but it seems truth and honor ought to be held in higher esteem by someone who holds elected office. (See video clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd_-LNAONyQ)

Dahms closed by concluding, with staggering lack of awareness, that MEA must do a better job of getting its message out. Never mind that board president Lee Jordan and management's overpaid spokespeople refuse to return phone calls or answer the most basic of questions. The more mind-boggling - and rude - aspect of the observation is the simple lack of consideration it offers for the possibility that maybe, just maybe, MEA's message has been heard loud and clear - and people quite simply don't like it.

After Dahms, board vice president Larry DeVilbiss took his turn and provided another stellar example of how well MEA listens to its member-owners when he summarily dismissed the concerns of all who spoke during public comment time.

&#8220If I thought what we heard was representative of our entire membership,” he said. &#8220I would think a lot differently.” (See video clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=9II54d7GfTY)

No one - not a single person - at the May 14 meeting spoke in favor of having a coal-fired power plant dirtying up their community. Yet somehow it's easier for DeVilbiss, who strikes me otherwise as a reasonably intelligent person, to believe that somewhere in the Valley a great silent majority of people are rejoicing about coal and expressing unconditional support for the secrecy and deception that shroud MEA's plan.

Amazing.

Jordan, the board president, was next. (See video clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pPf1GYc9Cw)

In a stunningly elitist turn, the man who is up for re-election in less than a year dismissed the entire body of protesters and anyone who has criticized MEA's plan with the following statement: &#8220The people who question what we're doing … I question their credentials. I don't see the degrees after their names, the initials after their names.”

In addition to being profoundly insulting to those Jordan represents, the statement is also false. Much of the criticism of MEA's plan, including cost analysis, is based on a report by Mark Foster, a utility consultant with a long list of impressive bona fides, including service on the Alaska Public Utilities Commission.

None of this would be as thoroughly disturbing without the tone of moral superiority that underscored all the comments. Dahms, especially, laced his statements with melodramatic indignation at the &#8220unconscionable” actions and inactions of MEA critics, including this newspaper.

But the last thing this bunch has is any claim whatsoever to moral high ground. What is genuinely unconscionable is the abject lack of integrity in the way the board unflinchingly reneged on its own resolution about allowing ratepayers access to the details of the plan they'll be saddled with paying for, and living with, for decades to come.

Let's call this what it really is - MEA's big lie.

At its March meeting, the board approved an unambiguous resolution stating the co-op's still-secret Integrated Resource Plan would be made public as soon as Chugach Electric released its own IRP. Last month, Chugach did just that.

Turns out MEA's resolution was all bluff and bluster. Management and board never had any intention of letting anybody see the plan, least of all the ratepayers who picked up the tab for it.

And peer review? Forget it.

Unlike Chugach Electric, which unhesitatingly sought, then received, the stamp of approval for its plan earned through peer review, MEA can make no such claim.

No reasonable person would possibly accept all of this without suspicion.

So when board member Linda Shattuck (See video clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVkvWU6PdiI) took her turn for comment and talked about the public testimony that began the meeting, the complete lack of awareness on the faces of her fellow board members left me dumbstruck.

&#8220I definitely noticed some angry undertones to a lot of the (public) comments, and that concerns me,” she said. &#8220There seemed to be no trust - not in the board or in the co-op and the decisions that were made. … I don't know how in the world we're going to counter that.”

Well, since the obvious seems, inexplicably, to elude this bunch, I offer the following suggestion: Try some truth and transparency, and have a little respect for the people you were elected to represent.

Mark Kelsey is the Frontiersman's managing editor. Contact him at 352-2268 or mark.kelsey@frontiersman.com.