Borough assembly votes to move ahead with TBPA negotiations

The borough assembly voted 5-0 in favor of a motion authorizing negotiations over the Tyee Lake power facility.

The vote was taken on May 7 in open session after a roughly two-hour closed-door executive session with borough attorney Bob Blasco. Assembly members declined comment on the motion or the executive session, saying they were legally constrained from open discussion on the proceedings.

The vote comes after a seeming impasse over the future of operations and maintenance at the facility stemming from an April 4 cease-and-desist order issued by Thomas Bay Power Commission president James Stough on Thomas Bay Power Authority letterhead. Stough was present and voted for the most recent assembly move.

The motion in its entirety, as moved by assembly member Daniel Blake and seconded by member Julie Decker, authorizes “negotiations with (Southeast Alaska Power Agency) and the borough of Petersburg to transfer operations and maintenance responsibility for the Tyee Lake project to SEAPA and to authorize the borough manager to conduct those negotiations on behalf of the borough in the manner he determines best serves the interest of the borough.”

SEAPA staff, acting on a motion from the SEAPA board made by Wrangell alternate member Don McConachie, have devised and submitted an offer for the future of maintenance at the plant, according to a public notice for the special meeting, which makes reference to a “SEAPA offer sheet.” The vote at the April 14 SEAPA board meeting was unanimous, according to SEAPA staff.

Contention over the Tyee Lake hydropower project dates back to divestiture from the post-state-ownership era, when Wrangell, Petersburg, Ketchikan, Kodiak and Valdez were members of what was then called the Four-Dam Power Pool Agency. After Kodiak and Valdez withdrew Wrangell, Petersburg and Ketchikan were members of what became the Southeast Alaska Power Agency.

The latest round of debate about the future of the Wrangell-located Tyee Lake hydroelectric plant (Wrangell and Petersburg formed the TBPA by ordinance to manage the project they shared), which provides electricity primarily to Petersburg and Wrangell, but also to Ketchikan, stems from the decision by the Petersburg borough in summer last year to withhold a portion of the TBPA’s funding, leaving Wrangell alone with the portion known as the net non-billable.

An informal discussion of SEAPA’s intentions started after SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson made an informal verbal offer to a joint meeting of the Petersburg and Wrangell borough assemblies in September 2013. Debate about the issue essentially amounted to either SEAPA taking over operations and maintenance or Wrangell retaining control. The Wrangell assembly approved a resolution in early December 2013 approving negotiations.

Stough was elected to the TBPA presidency earlier this year.

No Thomas Bay Power Commission meeting has yet been scheduled for May.

At an April 22 meeting, assembly members had cited two different sections of the same ordinances relating to the TBPA, claiming they vested either the Commission or the borough assembly with power to negotiate. It wasn’t immediately clear if the borough attorney had decided the issue or not. It was also not clear why the assembly would vote to approve by motion what they had already approved by resolution.

City attorney Bob Blasco was unavailable for comment Tuesday.