IRV for board of directors elections?

Using a ranked choice voting system to elect our board members (in district) might help avoid an issue of concern to the recent District 2 nominating committee, whereby apparently eight candidates for the seat were whittled down to two so that there would be no risk of one candidate not getting the required margin to win (for example, a three- or four-way tie) and then having to go for a whole new shiny expensive runoff election.

Having elections using IRV would make it a lot easier to give us a wide choice of candidates, but it would mean amending the bylaws. What do you think? Is this something we should do?

Might help avoid dodgy-appearing problems in the future as well as save money.

I ran into Dan Osborne the other day

and he told me that yes, in fact, the margin required on the G&T was not the 1.25 minimum required by the Regulatory Commission, it was higher, as they had presented, because of GVEA's own requirements. He thinks the membership made an error in voting the G&T down; I disagree--there were other things about the proposal that I didn't like, aside from the margin weirdness. My question to him was, if there was a requirement within GVEA to keep the margin higher, then why didn't anybody tell me this when I asked them, or explain the seeming discrepancy by telling me where the requirement came from? He wasn't able to explain that, but then, we only discussed it briefly and in passing.

Anyway, we are going to get together and he'll tell me all about it then. I'm hoping he can explain this business here, too. Even though the whole thing was rejected by the membership, I think it's important to know what happened and why, because a lot of people I've talked to feel like the board was attempting to get one over on the membership. That's not a good thing.

News-Miner interviews of District 5 candidates

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner has interviews with the candidates, too, asking them about upcoming priorities. According to the article, the priorities break down like so:

•Bartos - taking greater advantage of alternatives to petrochemical power generation: alternative fuels, using state and federal programs that encourage alternative fuels
•Berg (the incumbent) - hiring a new manager, improving communications
•Pieczynski - maintaining infrastructure (looking at renewables on the way, even if not currently cost-effective), working on easements, adding more members to the grid (through greater transparency)

But read the full article.

Interviews complete

Jeanne Laurencelle interviewed all six candidates for the two open seats on the GVEA board of directors at the annual meeting, and the article will appear in the May Republic. The questions she asked (on the G&T issue and how it was handled; renewable energy; and domestic partner benefits) and the answers they supplied will supplement those found at the GVEA website.

article forthcoming

My intrepid reporter has interviewed each of the board candidates and will be preparing an article for the next issue of the paper. I, like a numbskull, completely forgot about the annual meeting, and didn't go. Sigh.

director interviews

I may have found a person who will interview the GVEA candidates for the May issue (comes out May 15) of the Republic. If anyone has questions they'd like asked, information they think might be worth finding out on a candidate's stance, please comment here, and I'll check back.

director elections

Information taken from the GVEA website:
(here's the current board, for comparison.

Candidates for district 5

Candidates nominated by committee:
Ron Bergh, incumbent
David Pieczynski

Candidates nominated by petition:
Hank Bartos

Candidates for district 6

Candidates nominated by committee:
Karen Cedzo, incumbent
John Sloan

Candidates nominated by petition:
Brian Corty

It would be nice to have a little more information on these people other than their answers to GVEA's questions. The ballots will be mailed May 4, but it's not clear when they'll have to be sent back and when they'll be counted (other than the 6/07 rough date).