New wind blowing at electric co-op

It may have taken more than four months for new and re-elected Matanuska Electric Association board members to take their seats, but they wasted no time this week in making a radical change in the organization’s power structure.

The March 1 election ousted former board president Lee Jordan, replaced on the board by Janet Kincaid. And it didn’t take long for the board’s new president, Lois Lester of Eagle River, to put the cooperative’s management on notice that business as usual isn’t acceptable anymore.

Finally.

In her first act as president, Lester proposed changes to board policies that make General Manager Wayne Carmony take more direction from the board. Although meeting some resistance from members Larry DeVilbiss and David Glines, we’re pleased to see the measure pass. We hope Lester can show the leadership and fortitude to earn back the trust MEA member/owners have lost in their electric cooperative.

In addition to taking more board accountability for the decisions and moves made by MEA management, we hope this board can make MEA the open, transparent and public-friendly organization it should be. Under the previous board’s makeup, representative Peter Burchell was shot down several times in attempting to make MEA board meetings more accessible to the public. Instead of meeting at 4 p.m., when most people are still working, MEA should follow the example of other governing boards, like the local school board and city councils, and hold evening meetings.

More than transparency and accountability, MEA needs a change in attitude. Good luck trying to talk to your cooperative’s general manager. On many occasions, representatives of the Frontiersman have attempted to talk to Carmony for input and comment on various stories — all information that would be useful to our readers and MEA’s member/owners. Each time, we’ve been told Carmony doesn’t take any “outside calls.”

Reacting to Lester, DeVilbiss said he needed to study the new president’s proposal “before I know how much I want to swallow.”

Funny, that’s the same sentiment shared by member/owners about MEA’s management and board for some time.

This week’s meeting and election of new officers was a good first step, but it will be a long and difficult road for the MEA board to instill a new culture of operating in the open under the watchful eye of the public. We hope Lester and her colleagues are up to the challenge.