MEA Candidate Questions: Christian Hartley

The Matanuska Electric Association will be accepting paper ballots until 5 p.m. on April 25. Members may also vote electronically via their SmartHub accounts by the same deadline. Members who have not voted by mail or on-line will also have a chance to vote at the MEA Annual Meeting on April 26.

Here are answers from Christian Hartley, one of two candidates running for an At-Large Seat on MEA’s Board. Hartley, a 30 year MEA member, currently serves as Fire Chief for the city of Houston. He has served on numerous Boards and Commission, including six years as the Chair of Houston’s Planning and Zoning Commission and as a member of the Alaska Fire Standards Council. His candidate profile can be found here: https://www.mea.coop/2022elections

Christian Hartley, from his MEA candidate profile.

1. Why do you want to be a MEA Board member?

• I am a career public safety professional and have been serving the public for a very long time and am a second generation first responder. I want to continue to do so by being a member of the MEA Board of Directors. 

• While many people run for the board with an eye on power generation as their primary objective, mine is public safety and to offer my unique experience  partnering with agencies to accomplish shared objectives. 

• I have seen the worst of what short-sighted and efficiency-focused utility planning  can do. I am running because I want to make our infrastructure safer, more in tune  with our landscape, and get us out of conflict with the planet and the community.  

• People have always come first for me – their success, their safety, and their lives.  My entire career has been built around grant writing, partnerships, networking,  and cooperative agreements to achieve safety at the minimum cost to everybody  involved. Let me bring this skill, and my drive for public safety, to the board. 

2. Are there any particular projects or ideas you would champion as an MEA Board member? Are there any you would oppose?

•  I am a strong supporter of burying the lines. Overhead lines are a huge risk of  wildfire during summer windstorms, and they are always at risk of failure at our  most vulnerable time (winter) when snow load stresses them and heavy winds  seem the blow their hardest. The combination of snow weight and high winds drops  a lot of dead trees into power lines in the winter, as proven by the storm that we  began the new year with. There is nothing MEA can do to make a significant dent in  the problem created by the Spruce Bark Beetle, but we can decrease the risk. 

• The price tag attached to doing it right in the first place is always less than the cost to the community if we keep doing it the same way every time. 

• Buried lines are not at risk from wind, or rain, or snow, or spruce bark beetle devastation. 

• Every other utility buries their infrastructure. Tell me why we can’t.

• We can partner with agencies and organizations to seek grants and cooperative agreements.  

• There are fire mitigation grants that could help with this. There are historical  preservation grants. There are education and workforce development grants. We can make this happen with a lot of support. 

• You have to pick between efficiency and resiliency. And when it comes to public safety being on the line, I will always choose the resilient system with redundancies  built in.

3. If you are elected, you would serve a three or four year term. What challenges and opportunities do you believe MEA will face in the next 3-4 years? What about in the next decade?

• The obvious answer is a transition to renewable energy that is not ruinous to our wilderness. 

• The risk of wildfire is HUGE and it is NOW. We need to bury our electrical lines.

• I admittedly have a lot to learn because I do not come from the electric utility side of the table. As a consumer and public safety professional, I want to work toward a more redundant and stable power grid at a consistent and acceptable cost to our member-owners and neighbors. I also believe that we need to stop conflicting with nature with our infrastructure because we will never win, and we have to be ready to transition to renewable resources.
  

4. Do you support the passage and implementation of the Renewable Portfolio Standards legislation (HB 301 and SB 179) proposed by Governor Dunleavy? Why or why not? What does MEA need to do to meet the goals for renewable power put forward in this legislation?

•  I do support the intent and goal of RPS and believe that we can accomplish a transition to 80 percent renewable energy in the next 18 years. Our country went from putting bicycle technology into flight to landing humans on the moon in 5 decades. We can do this, if anyone can. 

• I do not support the concept of penalties for arbitrary deadlines along the path to 2040 and do not believe that one legislature can bind the hands and force fines onto other future legislatures. I support the state setting an objective and allowing us to work toward achieving it, but I do not support the idea of using it as a cash cow if developing technology does not keep up with their calendar along the way. 

• Some people participate in net metering and selling their surplus energy to the grid, but not as many as could due to the low payment paid to those members.

• I propose an increase in the payments made to people who provide electricity to MEA when it comes from a renewable energy source approved by MEA. Having more member-owners returning power into the grid from a renewable source will make a huge impact on the demand for MEA to build a new facility and help guide the progress to the goal. 

• I support wind farms and solar farms, but their technology needs to be improved to decrease costs. Necessity is the mother of invention, so let’s go for it!

5. The proposal for the creation of the Railbelt Reliability Council (RRC) was submitted to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska at the end of March. What potential problems or opportunities will participating in the RRC create for MEA?

• I do support the Railbelt Reliability Council and I want MEA to be the leader of this group, both operationally and strategically. 

• The greatest asset to the RRC will be every utility company along the railbelt being  on the same page and able to plug-and-play (pun intended) and fix fracture infrastructure. 

• The fire service, where I come from, is rife with mutual aid agreements and standard interoperability guidelines. It makes every department stronger knowing that your backup does it the same way you do, and that you know you can depend on their operational guidelines. If we can get the strong personalities in public safety to concur and do this, I know for a fact we can get the professional utility workers to see the value as well. 

• The greatest obstacle for the success of the RRC will be getting everybody to agree to a set of procedures and guidelines. But that obstacle will be nothing more than a challenge and a shining moment for the right leader. I will look to our CEO to champion that cause on behalf of the members so that no matter what agency in Alaska needs help with.

6. Recognizing that the MEA Board does not make the final decision on operational questions, such as the final routing of the controversial Pittman-to-Fishhook transmission project, what role do you think the MEA Board should play in the development of major infrastructure project like this that will have a long-term impact on the community?

• The Board is more than advisory. While it is the job of the utility to perform the day-to-day functions, it is the job of the administration to ensure they are within the  vision of the Board. 

• The Board is elected by the people to speak for them. The board should provide a steering guidance to administration on what we want to see, and the people will elect a board that speaks for them. If the administration will not respect the Board  elected by the member-owners, it’s time for an administration that will. Their job, after all, is to administer the cooperative in a way that reflects what the people want. 

• The Board must listen to the member-owners first, and the administration second, because the community members will feel the impact of every action taken by this utility. Administrations come and go, but impacts on a community are forever.