Borough mayor overturns assembly vote to file redistricting lawsuit

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough won’t file a lawsuit against the state over its recent redrawing of state House and Senate lines after assembly members failed to overturn a veto by Mayor Larry DeVilbiss.

Although the assembly voted 6-0 June 21 to bring a lawsuit against the state over its redistricting of state legislative districts, DeVilbiss apparently was convincing in his argument that the borough made out just fine. After a Tuesday executive session that was made public, the assembly debated its decision to file a lawsuit and voted 4-3 to override the mayor’s veto. But because a super majority of five votes is needed to overturn a veto, it stands.

While the assembly’s original vote to bring the lawsuit was unanimous (Assemblyman Mark Ewing had to leave that meeting with an illness before voting), DeVilbiss said he wasn’t surprised three of those votes went his way to uphold his veto.

“No, I wasn’t surprised, because I brought what I thought was sound logic to the table,” he said. “I don’t count the votes before I make a veto, I just try to do what’s right.”

What’s right for the borough in this case is to keep the new redistricting plan in place, DeVilbiss said.

“I believe the borough is very well served with the redistrict plan the way the state came out with it,” he said. “We asked for five representatives and we got six. We asked for two and a half senators and we’ll have four.”

The mayor may think the borough should stand pat, but that’s not the consensus of the assembly. Speaking from Florida, where he’s on vacation, Ewing said he attended Tuesday’s meeting electronically, as did assemblymen Ron Arvin. Warren Keogh was present at the meeting, though the Frontiersman previously reported he participated electronically. By not filing a lawsuit over redistricting, the borough risks not having its interests protected as the issue makes its way through the courts, Ewing said.

“I think dividing up the pie and putting the people from Palmer that live on Palmer-Fishhook in with Valdez is a problem,” he said of the district that includes the Palmer-Fishhook area and stretches into Valdez. “How do you represent the Valley and Palmer and the people of Delta? How do you fairly do that? That’s my concern. I’ve been a borough resident for 42 years. My job is not to just watch out for the people of Wasilla, it’s to look out for the borough as a whole.”

By not overriding the veto and moving forward with a lawsuit, “we don’t have a dog in this fight,” Ewing said. “We don’t even have a cat in the fight. All we wanted was an iron in the fire.”

Although he voted to override the veto, Ewing said he was initially against the lawsuit because the motion to file a lawsuit didn’t include a spending cap. On Tuesday, he proposed a $100,000 cap, which sparked a short exchange with the mayor.

After Ewing made a motion to amend the override to include the $100,000 limit, DeVilbis called his motion out of order.

“I think that’s inappropriate until the override is taken care of,” the mayor said.

“Well, then I’m going to vote for the override,” Ewing countered.

“If you override, then you can adjust the dollar amount,” DeVilbiss said. When reached for comment Thursday, the mayor said Ewing’s threat was hollow, because “he was going to vote for the override anyway.”

Ewing wasn’t alone in questioning DeVilbiss’ veto. Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine supported a spending cap and questioned the mayor’s assertion the borough made out well with redistricting.

“I think we really need to be at the table to protect our interests,” she said. “I don’t have any affiliation that I can go get advice regarding this, it’s just that all I have is I have five years of paying attention to capital improvement budgets, and other than a couple years when our senator was the Senate president, we have not done that well.”

Assemblyman Ron Arvin, attending the meeting via Skype from China, wanted to know if the borough had any valid reasons for bringing a lawsuit.

“I would like to opine to remind everybody what it was when we first decided to bring the suit,” he said. “We were grappling with what issues are valid. I have a question for the attorney: What issues in the redistricting plan are valid for filing a lawsuit for?”

Borough Attorney Nicholal Spiropoulos said there are several legal arguments that could be made. One is that House District 6 and Senate District C have been expanded at the Mat-Su Borough’s expense. Another is that the drawing of those lines could be interpreted to have diluted the borough’s influence. Having districts follow natural boundaries is another.

Those don’t hold water with DeVilbiss, however.

“It was filing a lawsuit to be at the table, and that is kind of a poor way to spend money,” he said. “If we had a legitimate grievance, sure. You need to do what you gotta do. But to spend money just to be at the table is bad logic, in my thinking.”

That doesn’t mean the borough wouldn’t take legal action if it becomes necessary, the mayor said.

“We will be monitoring on a day-to-day basis the lawsuits that are filed,” he said. “If we see our interests are being worked against, we’ll take action then.”

To do otherwise, he said, risks the borough losing what it gained through redistricting.

“Our lawsuit is as bad a threat to us as anything else,” he said. “If something challenges our position, we can do a couple of things. We can get on board and support the state plan or we could get on with somebody else’s lawsuit.”

Overriding the assembly’s original decision was more about party politicking than protecting borough interests, Ewing said. It started by calling the meeting when three of the seven members were out of town and continued by the mayor trying to hold it in executive session.

“They got into things that needed to be in the public eye,” Ewing said. “I made a motion to come out of executive session that was totally ignored by the mayor. I was told I was out of order. But 20 minutes later and after a lot of discussion and my complaint that the public needs to be a part of this process (Assemblyman Noel) Woods made the same motion and it was allowed.”

Ewing said he “was not originally” in favor of overriding the veto, “but Larry pissed me off. … I’ve served under three mayors. I actually voted for Larry. Mayor (Curt) Menard was fair and just. Talis Colberg was fair and just. I vote conservatively 99 percent of the time, but Larry DeVilbiss is all about Larry DeVilbiss and what the Republican Party can do for the Mat-Su Borough.”

While some on the assembly say the borough needs a dog in the legal redistricting fight, DeVilbiss says he prefers to let this sleeping dog lie.

“That’s right,” he said. “Don’t wake him up.”

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