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HEA Board seeking candidates for 3 seats

Friday is the deadline for those seeking to have their name appear on the Homer Electric Association board of directors ballot. There are three seats available, starting with District 1, Nikiski, Kenai and parts of Soldotna, said Bruce Shelly, the co-op’s member services director.

“Okay, so we have an opening in District 1, currently being served by David Thomas. And then we have in District 2, we have an opening there, that is being currently served by Dave Carey,” he said. “And then in District 3, that is an open seat, left open by the resignation of Don Sked.”

To run, an HEA member must file an application and petition with HEA, which can be picked up in either Kenai or Homer office, or they can be downloaded online. But Shelly says the most important thing to remember before turning the forms back in, is to get more signatures than you think you might need.

“But, a lot of times what will happen, they might reach outside their district, or they might get an non-HEA member signing. So we always highly recommend they get 20-25 signatures. That way, when we go to verify them, they do have the required 15 signatures.”

Though it certainly hasn’t always been this way, the current make-up of the Homer Electric Association board is exclusively white, middle-aged, and male. Shelly says he’s heard great ideas from a lot of members from different backgrounds, and would encourage them to run for the board.

“I did a Facebook Live a couple weeks ago, and you know there’s a lot of people out there that would say, HEA needs to do this or that. But it’s hard to get people to come out and run for that office. I don’t care if you’re a woman, you know we used to have a president for a long time who was a woman, Debbie Devans, (who) did a great job for Homer Electric,” he said. “So I encourage, I don’t care your color, I don’t care your sex, or that, come on out, pick up a package, get it submitted. (We’re) always looking for new ideas and challenges, you know. If you have better ideas, thats what we want.”

The deadline for returning completed candidate packages is the end of business on Friday. The annual HEA membership meeting will be on May 3rd in Homer.

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