Allow me to cut to the chase. I wish to challenge Matanuska Electric Association to a simple no-brainer. I challenge MEA management and board President Lee Jordan to run this MEA election without touching the ballots. I propose that MEA hire a certified public accountant and a special lawyer charged with the task of certifying member signatures and counting ballots.

Currently, MEA staff takes care of the first part of member voting. MEA staff picks up the mailed-in ballots, and each ballot envelope is checked to make sure the signature matches that of the original membership signature. In some cases this signature may have been delivered 30 or 40 years ago. This means that MEA staff can choose which ballots get counted.

I know they will say they have some community member as a watchdog on this, but quite frankly, I don’t think we should have to trust this system. MEA management should want to change this so that some critic like myself can’t possibly make claims like this. MEA officials should do everything they can to guarantee our election is rock-solidly democratic and above reproach.  

The other aspect of this issue that sticks in my craw is the fact that MEA management does not notify members whose ballots did not count. Mind you, recent elections have been finalized with winners and losers separated by fewer ballots than the number of ballots that were cast out. Ask if you could see who was cast out and why, and you get stonewalled. Recently the MEA board of directors considered a motion put forward by director Peter Burchell that would direct staff to notify those members whose ballots were thrown out. The motion failed 4-3. Those who chose to vote against this sensible motion were Larry DeVilbiss, David Dahms, David Glines and board President Lee Jordan. Those in favor of the notification effort were Katie Hurley, Lois Lester and motion sponsor Burchell. I find it hard to believe that a director would vote against members in good standing who are robbed of their voting rights. How much more undemocratic can it get?  

To fully protect these voting rights, we should make changes to the board of directors. Simply put, Jordan has to go and here’s why. Under Lee Jordan’s leadership, MEA has been willing to institute bogus bylaws and fight with any and all of the electric utilities around us. MEA has burned all of its bridges. It has spent big bucks on big fights with the IBEW, the union that provides contract negotiations and safety standards for about half of MEA’s employees. The organization is willing to plop a coal-fired generator just outside Palmer. Combine the addition of coal trains, coal dust, heavy metals in our environment, future carbon dioxide off-set taxes and having to make deals with an unregulated energy market, and you have your basic mess. Remember, we (member-owners) never got a say in how MEA should develop energy for our consumption.

At this point, we should be absolutely insulted that we have an electric utility management team consisting of the four board directors who voted against notifying members of their loss of votes. General Manager Wayne Carmony and Assistant Manager Tuckerman Babcock have planned to build a coal-fired, 100-megawatt electric generator in the Valley. What are they thinking?

MEA management knows that only 20 percent of its members actually vote in MEA elections. That’s roughly 8,800 votes. Spread that out over four board candidates and all you really need to float to the top in this election is a little over 2,200 votes. If you care about protecting your community from coal-fired generation and disabling a dictatorial MEA management team, then you care about defeating the likes of Jordan, who has led the board during MEA’s voting irregularities and its rush to build a coal-fired generator in the Valley.  

Please vote. I plan to vote for Peter Burchell and Janet Kincaid.

Michael Janecek is a Meadow Lakes resident, a retired teacher, a former MEA board director and former board director for Friends of Mat-Su.