Monday, April 13, 2009

MEA Board Orders Carmony to Terminate Tuckerman Babcock and Bruce Scott, and Sets to Buy Out Carmony's Contract

According to MEA consumer advocate Kevin Brown, at a Matanuska Electrical Association board meeting Monday night:

The MEA Board voted to order [MEA General Manager Wayne] Carmony to fire Tuckerman Babcock and Bruce Scott. Both have also been suspended with pay until that termination takes effect (2 weeks). They also voted to instruct Board Counsel Robin Brena to prepare notice to terminate Carmony for cause, and to begin negotiations to end his employment (in other words, buy him out or fire him).

Tuckerman Babcock is "Assistant General Manager. He manages the company's engineering, operations and human resources divisions, as well as its environmental health and safety functions."

Bruce Scott is "Director of Information Technology. He manages the company's Information Service, Geographical Information Technology and Information Technology functions. He also is MEA's Webmaster."

Update - Tuesday 8:45 a.m: MEA has posted the audio of the Monday evening board meeting HERE.



images - Tuckerman Babcock, upper left; Bruce Scott, lower left

7 comments:

Dan Heynen said...

YES!!! After experiencing 35 years with Chugach Electric, the last 3 years with MEA has been a major disappointment. Bring in some new players!

Philip Munger said...

Dan,

PA has scooped the ADN and Frontiersman on this by at least 1/2 a day. In a way, that makes me very sad.

They had nobody there.

HarpboyAK said...

About time that sneaky weasel Babcock got the axe! That anti-union scab, BTW, is responsible for the horribly gerrimandered Bush legislative districts we now have. He led the Repuke reapportionment effort, and did his best to screw Democrats out of seats by moving district boundaries to shuffle Dem precincts into Repuke districts.

GOOD RIDDANCE!

Anonymous said...

The board saw their doom coming in the election on April 25 so acted quickly to do as much damage as possible while they still have the votes. That's the way the world turns.

holikachuk

KWBrown said...

For eight months the MEA Board has worked to attempt to salvage the relationship with Management - often against the advice of their constituents. But, they did what they could to bring management in line with the Board's direction, because that's what responsible Directors do - try to work the small changes so that drastic changes don't have to be made at a greater cost. Management fought them every step of the way.

They uncovered financial mismanagement and disobedience to the Board, but they still tried to avoid taking the steps they have taken. For example, it was discovered that Management was giving out MEA vehicles and gas to 11 members of the "management team" at a cost of $60-100k per year in ratepayer money and in direct violation of a Board policy dating back to 1991. It took four months and fear for his job for Carmony to finally correct this. I think, finally, the Board realized that the situation was never going to change unless they made it change.

I was proud to support Kit Jones and Lois Lester before, just was I was proud to have supported Janet Kincaid and Peter Burchell last year. Now that the Board is finally taking the steps that we the members of this co-op have been calling for for so long, I am even more proud. They did the right thing, and the necessary thing. It may kill them in the polls, but like Kit Jones said to me this morning, "We don't get to stop doing our jobs because it may cost us votes. Some things are just more important than winning elections."

That's exactly the kind of person we should have representing us. Please vote for Kit Jones, Lois Lester, and against the Friends of MEA sponsored Bylaw Proposition 1 intended to remove Janet Kincaid from the Board as well. And visit www.itsyourcoop.org to find out more.

Unknown said...

The valley does not really need hockey does it? The least bloody spot in the Mat Su Borough is center ice.

Unknown said...

Regarding PA scooping ADN on this story, Google on stock symbol MNI, McClatchy Newspapers, and look at the 24 month chart. Really grim. They are down to $0.54 per share. ADN is not long for this world at that value. I can't even hear the mimeograph, er, paper land on the porch anymore.