WASILLA -- The Matanuska Electric Association Nominating Committee declined to endorse current board president Lois Lester as a candidate in the upcoming utility election.
The seven-member committee on Friday interviewed Lester as well as acting board member Catharine "Kit" Jones and applicant Marvin Yoder, the deputy city administrator for Wasilla. It voted to nominate Yoder and Jones, but not Lester.
Lester can still get on the ballot by submitting by today a petition to run, signed by 50 utility members. In an e-mail Friday, Lester said she plans to do so.
Lester, Jones and Yoder are running for two at-large seats on the board. Votes will be counted at the utility's annual meeting, scheduled for 2 p.m. April 25 at Palmer High School.
Board members serve three-year terms. Lester, a former chemistry professor, has served on the board since 2000 and was selected by board members to serve as its president last July.
By e-mail, Lester said the Nominating Committee's action was déjà vu. The committee refused to nominate her the first year she ran for the board, but she won the seat anyway.
The committee is a seven-member group tasked with reviewing the qualifications of people who apply to be on the utility's board of directors. Nominating Committee members said little in their report about why they didn't nominate Lester.
Patricia Purcell, one of the longest-serving committee members, refused to say exactly why Lester was not nominated. She said their choice had nothing to do with the current conflict between MEA managers and the new utility board majority, of which Lester is a member.
Purcell also refused to say how the committee voted on Lester's nomination. She did say that Lester was the only candidate interviewed via teleconference. Other candidates were interviewed in person.
The process of using a board-appointed committee to nominate board candidates has earned the utility criticism in the past. The bylaws that speak about that committee have been modified numerous times in the past two decades and the committee has stirred up controversy before by declining to nominate seated board members.
Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.
By RINDI WHITE
rwhite@adn.com