Correction

Director Kit Jones pointed out last night that the contract referred to in the posting "Costly Decisions" was a five year contact, not a four year contract.  I appreciate her diligence to research that and bring it to my attention.

 I do not apologize for suggesting that there was an appearance of a conflict of interest because they were voting to directly benefit a group that had endorsed them and assisted in their election.  At a minimum those potential conflicts should be acknowledged and ruled on in due process.

For illustration sake take one of my contributors- Dave Cruz of Cruz Construction.  If something came up at a meeting that directly affected Dave Cruz (such as a construction contract) I would be obligated to disclose that he had contributed to my campaign and the chair should rule if there was a conflict that rose to the level of requesting me to recuse myself on that vote.  Those issues are rarely brought to the light of day on the MEA board and I believe that is an area in which we should improve and a problem we should try to protect with our bylaws to the maximum degree practicable.

The driver behind every Director and every decision  every Director makes should be the broadest spectrum of the Member/Owners.

Costly Decisions

Let me illustrate how in the last year and a half the composition of the board yielded to special interests at the expense of the broader membership.

 There was a motion at a board meeting Sept 8, 2008 to stop supporting the advertising to repeal the Borough ordinance that imposed California style permitting restrictions  on all power generation in the borough that exceeded 20 megawatts.  Two independent reviews of that study indicated that the cost of that single ordinance alone would be $9 million dollars over the thirty years life of a generation plant.  The annual expense of complying with the permit alone was over $500 thousand dollars.  Director Katie Hurley put it on the agenda and Director Janet Kincaid made the motion.  With almost no debate and without answering my question, "How is this motion in the interest of MEA?", the motion passed with only David Glines and David Dahms and myself dissenting.  Subsequently, after skillful manipulation of the language on the ballot by the borough attorney, and tens of thousands of dollars spent by out of state environmental agencies in alignment with Friends of Mat Su, the Borough vote to repeal failed.

You can year the audio of this part of the meeting here- it gives a lot of insight to the dynamics of the board:   Borough Power Plant Repeal audio.


Now for another example of costly special interest voting.  Just before the last annual meeting (Feb 9, 09), the board voted to give the IBEW linemen a 24% raise over 4 years.  Normally actions of this magnitude are thoroughly debated.  With almost no comment, the motion passed- again, with only David Glines and myself in dissent.  The five yes votes were not surprisingly all Directors put on the board with the endorsement of the IBEW.  Two of them were actively in a campaign for their seats with the help of the IBEW at the time of the vote.  They got elected and the union got its inflated raise in an economic environment that was actually  deflating.