MEA should carry out voters' wishes . . .

Frontiersman editorial board

Matanuska Electric Association (MEA) lost one of its most staunch public supporters Monday, when Rose Marie "Tiny" DePriest resigned from the co-op's board of directors.

The former school teacher took pride in her position on the board and thoroughly enjoyed telling people how the cooperative had changed the face of the growing Valley over the past 60 years.

Unfortunately, her love of the association was costly for those she represented on the board. It allowed her to cast a blind eye on issues board members should watch closely, and trust the cooperative's administration to do the right thing -- or in its apparent ability to tell her the right way to vote.

Depriest was a member of the board when the Regulatory Commission of Alaska found that MEA spent more than $1 million in rate payer fees in 1999 on items that legally could not be reimbursed through customer rates -- money that will never be passed back to those same rate payers.

And she routinely voted in a bloc with board members who, in the mid 1990s, were responsible for giving MEA president Wayne Carmony a contract that allows him to override any movement by the board to terminate him.

In the wake of Depriest's departure, there is an empty seat on the board. That seat must be filled by someone who will properly represent member-owners from the Palmer area.

The most logical way to do that would be to seat the next-highest vote-getter in the most recent board election.

What makes this choice logical is not only that the election was just six months ago and the choice of the voters should still be considered valid.

One should also take into account that MEA administration recently set that precedent itself by declaring Mae Tischer -- the second-highest vote-getter in the controversial Michael Janecek-Tischer race -- as the most natural choice to fill the seat when the board declined to seat Janecek.

The fact that the DePriest-Klunder election was very close and the margin between the two candidates in the race was very small adds to the logic.

There were only 35 votes separating DePriest and Klunder, with DePriest receiving 1,489 votes to Klunder's 1,454.

It seems the voters have already made their choice. Now it's up to the board to carry out their wishes.

Railroad meeting reset

Last issue we used this space to encourage the public to attend a special work session of the Palmer City Council with Alaska Railroad president Patrick Gamble. The summit with the railroad corporation was called to discuss plans for developing the barely used railroad right of way that runs through Palmer. Gamble subsequently asked to postpone, but the public still has a chance to attend the meeting, which was rescheduled for today, beginning at 2:30 p.m., at the council chamber in Palmer City Hall.