Borough candidates define their identities

WASILLA — The four candidates vying for two borough assembly seats took full advantage of their last public opportunity to contrast with their opponents at the candidates forum presented by the Greater Wasilla Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

Ted Leonard and Pat Hogan, going head-to-head for the District 4 seat being vacated by the term-limited Steve Colligan, and Clayton ‘Mokie’ Tew trying to oust incumbent Dan Mayfield in District 5 made sure to clarify and simplify what their candidacies stood for.

Leonard touted his years of local business experience and stuck to his guns, pointing to economic growth as the solution to all that ails the Mat-Su, from a lack of good jobs to crime. His opponent, Hogan, a nurse of more than 40 years, highlighted her experience in the medical field as an example of how investments in public health and education efforts can foster good solutions.

Leonard pointed to Colligan, as an example of the business-friendly leadership he’s hoping to continue in the outgoing assemblyman’s seat.

“We need a borough that can work with business to grow the economy,” Leonard said. “That will give us our tax base and allow us to fund schools. But we have to work with businesses to grow that tax base.”

Hogan said the most important issue in her district is ‘harm reduction.’

“It’s the ability to reduce incidences of poor health, poor lifestyles, opioid overdoses…” Hogan said. “As a nurse, you always try to prevent issues rather than trying to address them as they occur.”

Hogan and Leonard continue to express fundamental differences. When asked whether the borough can get by on its current level of revenue-generation, Leonard said it could, and the audience on hand at the Grand View Inn and Suites agreed with him overwhelmingly when polled by moderator Stu Graham.

“We have to grow the economy,” Leonard reiterated. “That’s what we have to do long-term, and not just look at ways of taxing existing residents… You have to grow the tax base through that mechanism.”

Though her viewpoint was not that of the room at large, Hogan said it was important for the borough to continue to generate revenue.

“Additional revenue does need to be raised,” Hogan said. “The borough is growing at 3 percent and we still need to be able to provide good roads, good sewage.”

Hogan added that that didn’t have to mean raising property taxes.

“The tourism and bed tax could be used to raise that revenue,” she said. “We need to diversify our tax base so the property owner isn’t bearing the burden of all the bills.”

While Hogan and Leonard were finding differences aplenty, Tew and Mayfield weren’t so nearly far apart in their philosophies.

Squaring off in the battleground in and around Big Lake, both were bullish on development of the area to include growing Knik-Goose Bay Road, with Tew adding support for Port MacKenzie and railroad traffic in the area.

Both believed the borough can work within its present budget, with Mayfield pointing to his experience having done so in his first three-year term in the assembly, and Tew pointing to his years as a local small businessman, including 17 as a contractor with the borough.

“For 17 years I’ve been watching contracts go out that shouldn’t go out,” Tew said.

Mayfield pointed to reductions the borough has made in his first three years on the assembly.

“Yes we can operate under our existing revenue cap,” Mayfield said. “We do need to start planning our CIP (capital improvement) projects. This last year we cut $2.6 million from our operational budget and we cut another $6 million in CIP. We do that every year, and I might add, before the state does.”

Election day borough-wide is Oct. 3.