Cooperative Board Election Preparations in Full Swing
February 27, 2024
By Brian Kassof
The board election process at the four Railbelt electric cooperatives is in full swing. Candidates have been announced at three cooperatives—Chugach Electric Association (CEA), Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA), and Matanuska Electric Association (MEA). Interested individuals can still file to run via a petition process at CEA and GVEA. Applications to run for the Homer Electric Association (HEA) Board are due at the end of this week. Voting in elections will start between the end of March and mid-May, depending on the cooperative.
CEA’s Board is also considering placing two bylaw changes on the ballot—none of the other cooperatives have announced potential bylaw changes, although GVEA’s board may decide to advance a set of changes that it considered last year. CEA once again saw a controversy arise over its nominating process, which led to the resignation of a member of its Nominating Committee.
Chugach Electric Association:
CEA members will elect two directors to four-year terms. The CEA Nominating Committee advanced four candidates to the ballot—incumbents Sam Cason and Mark Wiggin, and challengers Todd Lindley and Dan Rogers. Individuals interested in running can still apply to run via a petition process. Petition instructions are available on CEA Annual Meeting and Election page—petitions are due by 5 p.m. Friday March 8.
Voting will begin in mid-April and run through CEA’s Annual Meeting on May 17. Members can vote three ways—electronically, in person at the Annual Meeting, and by mail. Members wishing to vote by mail need to contact CEA to get a mail-in ballot. CEA board seats are at-large, so all members are eligible to vote. CEA usually holds a candidate forum in early April where members can learn more about the candidates.
CEA’s Bylaw Committee is also recommending two bylaw changes be put before members for approval. One would cap the number of meetings for which board members can be compensated in a given month or year. This proposal is likely intended as a companion measure to the board’s recent decision to increase board compensation per meeting. The second set of bylaw changes are being presented as housekeeping and grammatical changes without any substantive impact. The CEA Board will vote on February 28 whether to put these changes on the ballot.
CEA’s nomination process continues to be the source of some controversy. After a very contentious nomination process last year, which saw several applicants left off the ballot, CEA’s Board reexamined the nominating process and prepared a handbook to guide the work of all its member-committees, including the Nominating Committee. (See this AETP article on last year’s events). The actual nominations were uncontroversial this year--there were only four applicants and all were advanced to the ballot.
But the committee’s process continued to be a focus of debate. According to an account provided to the CEA Board on February 12, 2024 by legal counsel Matthew Clarkson, members of the Nominating Committee voted to conduct interviews and hold their deliberations in closed executive sessions. Interviewees were given the option to have their interviews occur in open session, something that all four candidates opted to do.
One member of the committee, Leslie Ridle, objected to the use of executive session. In a February 12 letter to the Anchorage Daily News, Ridle argued that the nomination process should be carried out with maximum transparency and that the use of executive session for interviews and deliberations was “in direct conflict” with the new committee handbook. RIdle urged the CEA board to strengthen its policies to ensure greater transparency.
At the February 12 meeting, two other members of the Nominating Committee, Patti Bogan and Steve Strait, argued that the committee’s decisions about executive session were in line with the new handbook. Bogan likened the process to job interviews, and said they should not be conducted in public. She said that Ridle had tried to “bully” the committee into taking her position and acted “irresponsibly.” Two members of the board, Directors Rachel Morse and Suzanne Fleek-Green, wondered if the comparison to a job interview was the best way to think of the nominating process. Fleek-Green suggested it was more like a political election, where candidates have agreed to expose themselves to a degree of public scrutiny. Ridle attended the February 12 meeting virtually, but did not address the board.
The February 12 board discussion was held for informational purposes and ended without any action. The CEA Board is scheduled to receive a further report from the Nominating Committee at its February 28 meeting.
More information on the CEA election is available on their website.
Golden Valley Electric Association:
GVEA members in Districts 4 and 7 will elect directors in 2024. GVEA directors serve three-year terms. The District Nominating Committees have advanced two candidates in District 4 and three candidates in District 7. In District 4 incumbent Gary Newman is facing Harmony Tomaszewski. In District 7 the candidates are the incumbent Todd Adams, Cyrus Cooper, and Krista Zappone. Members living in Districts 4 and 7 interested in being candidates can still use the petition process—petition applications are due at 9 a.m. Friday March 1. More information can be found at the GVEA election page.
GVEA has not yet announced the date of its Annual Meeting or when voting will begin. Unlike other Railbelt cooperatives, which announce election results at their annual meeting, in recent years GVEA has held its election after that event, with voting running from early May to early June.
GVEA’s board considered placing several bylaw changes relating to board elections before members last year, but decided to hold off after elections were cancelled in 2023 due to a lack of competitive races. The board has not announced if it will put those bylaw changes to a vote this year. While only members living in specific districts can vote in directors’ races, all members are eligible to vote on bylaw changes.
GVEA’s Election page can be found here:
Homer Electric Association:
Members of HEA will elect three board members, one from each electoral district, for three-year terms. Candidate applications are due by 5 p.m. on Friday March 1. HEA does not use a nominating committee—all qualifying applicants appear on the ballot.
Voting for HEA elections will start on March 29. Members can vote electronically or by mail through May 1. Members will also be able to vote in person at the Annual Meeting on May 2. Although HEA members approved a bylaw change last year that gave the board the option of not having in-person voting at the Annual Meeting, the board has decided to allow it this year.
HEA’s election page can be found here:
Matanuska Electric Association:
MEA members will elect two directors for four-year terms, one representing the Susitna East District and one representing the Susitna West District. Only members living in those districts can vote for each seat. In the Susitna East District, incumbent Bill Kendig will face Darren Kessler and Henrik Wessel. In the Susitna West District, incumbent Maxwell Sumner will face Daniel Baldwin. Voting begins in early April and runs through the MEA Annual Meeting on April 30. Members may vote electronically, by mail, or in person at the Annual Meeting.
More information on MEA’s election is available on its Elections Page.
