Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- The Matanuska Electric Association Board of Directors agreed on Monday to send a letter reprimanding new board member Janet Kincaid for "inadvertently" discussing information revealed in an executive session with her son.

MEA manager Wayne Carmony on Sept. 4 released to board members 134 pages of information compiled in a month-long investigation into Kincaid's actions. Carmony's report alleged Kincaid violated the utility's bylaws by discussing private cooperative business outside the boardroom and repeatedly flouted board policies by speaking to senior MEA managers, and not the general manager, about personnel concerns.

In the report, MEA managers outlined Kincaid's wrongdoings. Most egregious among them was the claim that she discussed with her son, David Kincaid, matters talked about in a closed-door board meeting.

"By releasing this confidential executive session material, Director Kincaid provided her son, David Kincaid, with tangible, useful strategic inside information, not available to any of his competition in the electrical contracting business," Carmony stated in his memo.

To prevent further disclosure of private information, the board discussed Kincaid's bylaw violation in executive session.

Kincaid said Tuesday that the disclosure was "inadvertent." Her son owns an electrical contracting company, Utility Construction of Alaska. She said he does not do business directly with the cooperative, but is frequently at the company headquarters as part of his job installing subdivision power lines for local developers.

Kincaid said that in August, she asked her son a question about an MEA-related issue.

"I didn't remember it having been discussed in executive session," she said. "I asked him a question about what it was. It was inadvertent."

The motion to send a letter of censure to Kincaid -- stipulating that her violation was inadvertent -- passed unanimously, including with Kincaid's vote. The board opted, by a split vote, however, not to reprimand Kincaid for speaking to senior MEA managers about personnel concerns.

Board members Larry DeVilbiss and David Glines voted in favor of censure. Board members Lois Lester, Katie Hurley, Peter Burchell and Kincaid voted against it.

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.

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