Assembly to decide mayor vote timeline

PALMER — The question of how the Mat-Su Borough will go about finding resigning Mayor Talis Colberg’s replacement is still up in the air, but it looks like there are two potential options.

“We don’t have Mr. Mayor’s resignation yet,” said borough clerk Lonnie McKechnie. “So, really it’s based on what he decides.”

Colberg has said he intends to resign in order to take a job running Mat-Su College. He said neither he nor his new employer thinks the two jobs are compatible. But Colberg also said he’s waiting to resign until he has a read on how it can be done in the most orderly fashion. Toward that end, he is consulting with Mc- Kechnie and borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos.

McKechnie said that if Colberg resigns soon she could conceivably compress the timeline enough to get the borough mayor position on the regular election ballot for Oct. 5. Between now and then the clerks would have to get packets together for the potential candidates and put out a public notice of the election, as well as provide enough time for the candidates to fill out forms and return them.

McKechnie could do it, she said, but the decision to proceed that way would have to be made very soon.

The other option is to call a special election for after the October general election. McKechnie said a decision of which way to proceed falls to the borough assembly.

That body meets tonight, but likely won’t make a decision then since the question of Colberg’s replacement came up only recently. There hasn’t been time to put a resolution together, provide for proper public notice and schedule it for tonight’s agenda.

“They may mention it, but they won’t be making any decisions tomorrow because no legislation is on the agenda,” McKechnie said Monday.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.