Mayor's veto of funding stands

PALMER — Borough Mayor Talis Colberg is now 1-1 in his veto record.

    At the Mat-Su Borough Assembly's regular meeting Tuesday, the body decided in a 4-2 vote to side with the mayor in his decision to veto a resolution that would have granted $100,000 to the Renewable Energy Alaska Project for an energy conservation campaign.

    In vetoing the measure, Colberg said, essentially, that the borough has other, more important priorities.

    Most of the assembly members who opposed the grant on its first vote back in September seemed to think the campaign was a good idea, but worried about the cost. Those members also noted the plan was for a campaign targeting all of Southcentral Alaska, but no other municipal body or other organization had chipped in.

    Assemblyman Pete Houston, who has supported the grant all along, and cast one of Tuesday's two losing votes, said he hoped the assembly could revisit the idea in a form more palatable to his colleagues.

    The assembly overrode Colberg's last veto that would have shot down an ordinance putting a proposed borough sales tax to a vote. That tax later failed at the polls by about a 3-1 vote.

    In Tuesday's vote, Houston was joined in voting to override the veto by Assemblywoman Lynne Woods. On the prevailing side were members Ron Arvin, Cindy Bettine, Mark Ewing and Verne Halter. Jim Colver was absent.