New faces, old blood

Hurley, Glines, DeVilbiss win MEA election

March 20, 2007

By Russell Stigall/Frontiersman

MAT-SU - Out with the old and in with the newly elected Matanuska Electric Association board members.

At Monday's MEA meeting and official release of the vote count, board president Lee Jordan welcomed to the board Katie Hurley and David Glines and congratulated successful incumbent Larry DeVilbiss.

Though elected in March, Hurley and Glines will not take their seats until July.

Of the 41,542 ballots mailed out by MEA only 8,214 were returned, for a voter turnout of 19.8 percent. Of the ballots received, 8,121 were deemed valid.

Incumbent Linda Shattuck chose not to run for re-election to her Eagle River district seat. She left the campaign up to three new candidates, Alfred Romaszewski, Glines and Will Alteneder, and to former

MEA board member Tom Staudenmaier.

Glines took the three-year seat by 78 votes, with 791 over the next highest vote-getter, Alteneder.

In the race for the Wasilla seat, Hurley beat out incumbent Dallas W. Massie, the board's secretary-treasurer, in another close race, 1,742 votes to 1,624.

The third seat up for grabs, the Palmer district, cast a shadow on the validity of the recent election.

In the Palmer election, incumbent vice president LarryDeVilbiss won back his seat with 1,503 votes to Dan Tucker's 1,176.

At Monday's meeting, Tucker asked board members to throw out the Palmer district vote. Tucker accused MEA staff of biasing his candidacy by listing him on the ballot as being from Wasilla.

The ballot listed his opponent, DeVilbiss, as a resident of Palmer. Tucker said this difference disadvantaged him with Palmer residents who may have voted their hometown pride.

Board member David Dahms said he agreed with Tucker's comments. However, Dahms with voted with the 5-2 majority in favor of approving the election results. Board members Peter Burchell and Lois Lester cast the dissenting votes.

In his comments at Monday's meeting, DeVilbiss said the addresses on the ballot made no difference.

&#8220I didn't get any votes out of that,” DeVilbiss said.

Current board members are President Lee Jordan, DeVilbiss, Massie, Peter Burchell, Dahms, Lois Lester and Shattuck.

Jordan and Burchell are up for re-election in 2008.

Contact Russell Stigall at 352-2267 or russell.stigall@

frontiersman.com.