2 already in race to be Wasilla’s next mayor

WASILLA — Election day may be more than six months off, but a pair of candidates have already tossed their hats in the ring to be the city’s next mayor.

Wasilla City Councilwoman Colleen Sullivan-announced filed a letter of intent last August to run for Wasilla mayor with the Alaska Political Offices Commission. In January, the city’s deputy administrator, Bert Cottle, also filed the paperwork for his campaign and is gearing up for an active 2014 political season.

“I think it’s going to be a good year, quite honestly,” Sullivan-Leonard said. “I think Mr. Cottle certainly serves our community well, and I think I do as well. I think it’s going to be a good, clean race. … I think there are enough issues that Wasilla’s challenged with that I don’t need to sling mud.”

Both bring name recognition, deep family roots to the race and extensive experience in local government to the race.

Sullivan-Leonard is serving her second stint on city council. She was first elected in 2000 for a three-year term, then spent time off and on for about a decade on the Wasilla Planning Commission. She said she could run for re-election to the council this year as well, but said she wants to focus on the mayoral race.

“My intent truly is to run for mayor, and that’s been my intent for the past year and something I’m moving forward with,” she said.

Cottle was raised in Wasilla and is a 1972 graduate of Wasilla High School. He spent more than 22 years as an officer with the Valdez Police Department, including eight years as police chief. After retiring from the police force, he spent 11 years on the Valdez City Council, including 10 as the city’s mayor.

But Wasilla is home, Cottle said, and he moved back to live out his retirement here three years ago when he took the job as the city’s deputy administrator.

“This is home,” he said. “I came home to retire, I’m not going anywhere. I was born and raised here. In fact, my office (at city hall) where I work here is where I went to in seventh grade. It’s great to be home.”

As for pending issues facing the city, both say transportation is Wasilla’s No. 1 concern.

“When you talk to residents, some of the biggest issues I hear is traffic and the congestion with traffic in and around Wasilla,” Sullivan-Leonard said. “That’s the biggest issue.”

One of the main ways the city can help alleviate that congestion is to create more access points between Knik-Goose Bay Road and the Parks Highway, she said.

“There are no arterial routes that are built between the two,” she said. “The only one that’s on there, and it’s taken 10 years to do it, is the Mack Road extension. As you pull the traffic off between the two, that will help with that congestion exponentially.”

That congestion is a very real problem, Cottle said, adding that a grid within two miles of the KBG-Parks interchange sees more than 60,000 cars a day. He also said it’s a priority to make sure the city’s tax dollars are used wisely.

“We have to make sure we’re fiscally responsible,” he said, adding that doesn’t mean being cheap, it means making sure that when money is spent, it’s done in a responsible way.

“Have you ever seen anyone say they’re not fiscally conservative?” Cottle said.

For Wasilla, that means taking a hard look at the city budget as sales tax revenues continue to grow at a slower rate than inflation.

“I just ran the number, and right now 26 percent of all business licenses in the borough come out of Wasilla,” he said. “But with those (flat sales tax revenues), the biggest thing facing the city right now is fiscal uncertainty.”

How growth has affected the city’s crime rate and economic development are also high on Sullivan-Leonard’s list of priorities for Wasilla, she said.

“Crime is another thing we’ve seen an increase in, and a lot of that has to do with drugs,” she said. “My third issue has to do with economic development and jobs in Wasilla.”

She cited a recent influx of health care industry jobs in the city as an example of good economic development, as those are typically high-paying jobs.

Sullivan-Leonard also said she believes the city needs a change in leadership, and that because Cottle has been current mayor Verne Rupright’s right-hand man for the past three years, voters can expect similar views on city policy from Cottle.

“You’re not going to work for a city mayor if you don’t follow his way of thinking,” she said. “That’s why I’m running. Part of it is we need new energy, new passion and some consideration — consideration for our community and having a good, strong working relationship with people. … We don’t need to go backwards, we need to move forward.”

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.