Borough assembly loses attorney to Anchorage

MAT-SU -- The Anchorage Assembly announced Tuesday its plans to offer longtime Mat-Su Borough attorney Michael Gatti a $90,000-per-year position as assembly counsel.

Gatti, during attorney comments at the Mat-Su assembly meeting Tuesday, offered his resignation, effective in November. He will be relinquishing a position that paid out $100 short of $100,000 last year.

After announcing that an assistant attorney, a position created under the new budget cycle, had been hired, Gatti thanked his staff and announced his decision.

"I'd like to recognize the staff who provides tremendous support to myself and the borough," Gatti said, "I don't think people recognize how hard they work. They're going to have to work a little harder because I'm going to be giving you a notice of my resignation this evening."

Gatti, who has provided legal service to the borough for 18 years, did not mention the job offer in Anchorage or say he had agreed to take the position.

But Anchorage Assembly chair Dick Traini said Wednesday the body had, through a 9-2 vote, passed a memorandum extending Gatti the offer and thought he had accepted the position.

"I think he has," Traini said, "We're looking forward to having him come down here."

Traini said Gatti would serve in a newly created attorney position -- legislative counsel for the assembly. He added that Gatti was one of nine who applied, but was clearly the most qualified.

"We had an advertisement in the newspaper and he was one of the attorneys that applied," Traini said. "We went over the resumes and it was hands-down who I wanted. He filled our needs."

The memorandum extending the position to Gatti cites his nearly 20 years of experience in municipal law, his experience as a two-term president of the Alaska Municipal Attorneys' Association and his service as a member of the Alaska Municipal League board of directors as further qualifications.

At the meeting, Gatti explained that, by contract, he is required to give the assembly 60 days notice. The November date, he said, would allow him that 60 days, with a few to spare -- extra days he said he'll need to take care of personal matters. Gatti left the assembly meeting immediately afterward, handing the attorney's reigns to acting borough attorney John Aschenbrenner.

Later in the meeting, Assembly member Sara Jansen requested that the borough's human resources department bring forward a hiring process to find a replacement to fill Gatti's position.

Before he left, Gatti had a few words of instruction for the assembly -- and the audience who addresses the assembly on occasion.

"You, as the assembly, have some very challenging issues to confront. Planning and zoning is not the least of which of those issues," Gatti said. "I think it's important though, that the debate remain issues-oriented and not personal oriented … I've tried to be professional, courteous and responsible to litigants even if they're challenging the borough, and I think citizens of the borough and others that come before the assembly should recognize that it's issues and not personalities that really drive change on the borough and, while people may not agree, they certainly can [dis]agree respectfully and courteously."