Wrangell to hold second SEAPA seat on 2018 board

Wrangell's mayor chose the community's new voting and alternate member on next year's Southeast Alaska Power Agency board.

Based in Ketchikan, the regional power provider services that community, Wrangell and Petersburg. The three member utilities pool production from their hydroelectric facilities and collectively purchase power from the agency through 25-year power sales agreements, with the current agreement extending through 2034.

Decisions guiding the agency is overseen by a governing board consisting of five voting directors, appointed annually by the three communities' mayors, with each seat having an alternate. The largest of the three, Ketchikan permanently maintains two seats on the board, with Petersburg and Wrangell allotted one apiece. For sake of balance, the fifth seat rotates between the three communities each year, meaning Wrangell last held two board seats in 2014.

Mayor David Jack reached his decision during last week's Borough Assembly meeting. Representing Wrangell on the board since his initial appointment in 2014, Assembly member Stephen Prysunka was again selected to sit with SEAPA as a voting member. Wrangell's current alternate member, Municipal Light and Power superintendent Clay Hammer, was also appointed to sit as a full voting member for next year's board.

Jack had three further names to consider for the two alternate seats, selecting Kim Lane and Lee Burgess, the city's clerk and finance director, respectively.

"I think it's good to have the staff involved in what's out there too," Jack reasoned.

The current board, which sits three members from Ketchikan and one from Petersburg, is due to meet for its final meeting on December 13 in Petersburg. Who the other members of next year's board will be is yet to be announced, and will likely be made public at next month's meeting.

New membership will convene for its first meeting in Ketchikan next year, likely in early February.

At its last meeting in Ketchikan this September, the board learned that power sales for SEAPA had set an all-time high during the 2017 fiscal year, at 186,768 Megawatt hours. While a boon to the agency, it was noted that sales can swing significantly from year to year, one of the reasons it issues an annual rebate to constituent communities. At its previous meeting the board had approved a rebate to member utilities for the 2017 fiscal year in the amount of $2.7 million, pending the results of its annual audit. The rebate gets divided between communities as a proportion of its total usage, which for Wrangell is roughly 15 percent. It was expected the local utility would receive just over $606,000 back.