Bingo! The winner is …

Watching the Mat-Su Borough Assembly and mayor reach agreement is sometimes like observing numbers pulled from a rotating drum in a bingo parlor. Sometimes players have to listen to a lot of choices before seeing a winning combination.

At recent meetings most of the various borough boards’ new members were confirmed unanimously. But not the planning commission. There, candidates compete against one another for the prize — assembly members’ votes. The mayor’s recommendations have not quite found the right combination.

Leaving bingo aside, the real question is about the basis for application, nomination and approval or rejection of nominees. There are some precedents, but the borough code is pretty broad: The mayor nominates, the assembly confirms — or not.

Therein lies the rub. If you read the vacancy reports for the last few months, a strange dance is revealed. Names appear as applicants in a first column. One may move to the second column, warning that they will appear for a vote. But sometimes the nominee moves backwards and another name appears. At least in bingo a selected number remains until a winner is found.

The discussions about the planning commission seats have included references to a need for a fresh viewpoint and concerns about lobbying of the mayor by individuals from particularly one organization, the Friends of Mat-Su.

If the mayor is reviewing applications in the quiet of his office it would seem useful that he have some additional information (e.g., opinions of the assembly member from whose district the planning commissioner is being selected, community councils, individuals or even non-governmental groups with interest in planning). It seems reasonable to ensure that the public is aware of what criteria are used to choose a nominee and who has had influence.

There is one more thing revealed by this process: the idea that a commission made up of individuals chosen because of their strong positions from left, right, up and down, east or west, will be better than a commission made up of individuals who have demonstrated an ability to work with people of diverse views. Let me think, has that extreme posture worked well in other forums, such as the Congress debating health care?

I believe the myth that pro-development or pro-environment extremism dominates the planning process is just that, a myth.

What appears more often is that the complexity of the issues and need for action pushes individual board members to leave the presumed safety of an, “I don’t care what you say, my mind is made up,” attitude, and make decisions based upon the merits of the case.

Before the next round of borough nominations and voting takes place, more detailed information about how a nomination is made would be helpful.

Otherwise we may be looking at a long cold spring trying to randomly pull the right combination of numbers out of the rotating drum.

Mike Chmielewski sits on the Palmer City Council.