MEA sues Borough clerk over rejected petition

MAT-SU – The Mat-Su Valley’s electrical cooperative has tried many times through initiative petition to submit new land use regulation to a vote of Mat-Su Borough residents and has been shot down by the Borough every time.

The latest initiative petition application, submitted July 31, would require a vote on platting regulations, rules affecting public utility service and land use plans passed by the Mat-Su Borough Assembly, Matanuska Electric Association attorney James Walker says in a letter to Mat-Su Borough Clerk Michelle McGehee.

While MEA completed and filed the initiative petition was in the proper form and had affixed the correct number of valid signatures, McGehee, with the help of Borough attorneys and citing the Borough and state constitutions, rejected the proposed initiative mainly on account that it is not a true initiative.

Instead, MEA’s proposed ballot question is “a blanket referendum for laws which have not yet been created,” McGehee says in her response to MEA Manager of Government and Corporate Communications Lorali Carter. Carter co-sponsored the latest initiative petition with MEA attorney James Walker.

Carter said the Borough rejected the cooperative’s initiative petition application out of fear.

“I’m confused [as] to why the Borough is afraid of the voters,” Carter said. “It would be good public policy that land use regulation be subjected to the voters.”

Carter said the Borough has a history of passing poor land use ordinances, including those that have negatively impacted MEA. Carter said an example was the cooperative’s fight with the Borough over transmission lines and poles.

The Borough also has recently passed a power plant ordinance that was opposed by the electric cooperative.

“They’re trying to so heavily regulate the industry that it has come to the point of being ridiculous,” Carter said. “They need greater oversight.”

As the next step in the initiative petition process, Matanuska Electric Association General Manager Wayne Carmony has sued McGehee’s office. MEA has sued the Mat-Su Borough clerk before over past versions of the its initiative petition.

Borough attorney Nicholas Spiropoulos said MEA’s latest initiative petition was substantially the same to two other applications the cooperative submitted since July 2006. Spiropoulos advised McGehee to “review the first two applications, rely on the legal analysis provided, and also review your earlier rejections of the applications,” Spiropoulos said.

As a blanket referendum, MEA’s proposal is in conflict with the statutory requirements for referenda and the Alaska State Constitution, McGehee said.

In the July 31 proposal Walker accused McGehee of wrongly rejecting the cooperative’s previous initiative petitions.

“You have accepted erroneous legal advice classifying this proposed ordinance as an unlawful blanket referendum that is administrative in nature,” Walker said.

In past proposals MEA requested that land use regulations passed by the Borough assembly would not go into effect until voted on by the public.

McGehee said she doesn’t harbor an opinion about MEA’s proposed initiatives and is not making any deliberate efforts against the cooperative.

“The clerk helps decide whether [the proposal] is ripe for initiative,” McGehee said. Getting an initiative petition onto the ballot is rigorous, but not impossible.

“You really have to know what you want, you have to do your research,” McGehee said. “It can be an easy process if you do things correctly.”

Examples are the Tobacco Excise Tax and the upcoming Prop. 1.

McGehee had two weeks to approve or reject Matanuska Electric Association’s proposal. Had she approved, she would have had two more weeks to produce the petition. MEA would then have had 90 days to collect the 2,000 to 2,100 signatures typically needed for petitions in the Borough.

Petitions must be certified 60 days before an election.