By DARRELL L. BREESE
Alaska Star

The Matanuska Electric Association board of directors has a meeting scheduled for noon April 2 at the Bella Vista Restaurant in Peters Creek. The meeting announcement on the utility’s Web site says, “The meeting is closed to the public.”

Lois Lester

Aaron Downing said the current board held illegal closed meetings and the April meeting would also be in violation of the state’s open-meetings laws.

“The fact that advertisement for the meetings on the utility’s Web site states the meetings are ‘closed to the public’ is in direct violation of the open-meetings law,” he said. “Meetings should be open to the public because the law requires it to be whenever a majority of board members are present.”

MEA board president Lois Lester said the meetings in question are not a violation of the open-meetings regulations because they were not board meetings. She added that nothing illegal took place.

Downing filed a whistle-blower complaint with the utility about two previous meetings: one when the board members met with a management consulting firm in February and the second when they met with the board of directors for the Homer Electric Association early this month. In both cases, a majority of board members - four or more - were present and they were advertised as being closed to the public.

Alaska state law governing board meetings for utility cooperatives, such as MEA, requires meetings to be open to members anytime a majority of board members is present.

MEA’s bylaws include a similar provision, stating, “All meetings of the board of directors are open to the membership except as otherwise provided.”

Both state law and utility bylaws allow for the board to enter into a private executive session to discuss financial matters, legal strategy and subjects that could jeopardize the reputation and character of a person. However, before entering an executive session the board must start every meeting in open session and then vote to enter a private discussion.

Downing said cooperative members suffer because the board is holding closed secret meetings.

“There’s no agenda and no minutes from those meetings,” he said. “I think the board is acting outside its bounds and is keeping the members in the dark. We have no idea what the board is doing, if they’re holding closed meetings.”

Downing also alleges that board president Lois Lester has polled board members on the phone on several occasions, and then sent directives to the utility administration based off the vote taken during those telephone calls.

“This practice is clearly an open meetings violation,” Downing said. “I’m afraid we have a situation where the board is trying to exert its authority, but it is forgetting that the ultimate power rest with the utility members, who are being kept out of the loop with these closed meetings and telephone polls.”

Lester said the meetings in question had nothing to do with MEA business and as such were not official board meetings.

“Any claim that we are holding closed board meetings is false,” she said. “I am irritated by the people talking about us holding secret meetings. The meetings we held were not board meetings. They had absolutely nothing to do with MEA or board business. They just don’t know the facts.”

Lester said the meetings were wide open if any cooperative members wanted to attend, but no one showed up.

When asked about the meetings being advertised as “closed to the public,” she said there was an error in announcing the meetings.

“The (MEA) Web page just got it wrong,” she said. “There was no reason to keep the public away from the meetings because there was absolutely no MEA business discussed.”

Lester went on to say that the meetings were part of an ongoing management audit and board alignment review being conducted by consultants.

“The meeting in February at Bella Vista Restaurant in Peters Creek and the April 2 meeting were set up for the consultants to interview board members as part of the audit,” she said. “They were not, and are not, official board meetings.”

Despite Lester’s assertion that the meetings were not board functions, she and the rest of the board accepted compensation from the utility for attending the Feb. 27 meeting at Bella Vista. The board members that attended the joint meeting with Homer Electric also accepted compensation. Board treasurer Peter Burchell was the only board member who did not attend that meeting.

According to the utility bylaws, board members are paid $283.33 for “each day of attendance at a meeting of the board.”

Lester refused to comment when questioned further about the meetings or the compensation.

She did say, “Any utility member who wants to attend the April 2 meeting is welcome to do so.”

Reach the reporter at darrellbreese.@alaskastar.com.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, March 26, 2009.