Candidates line up for borough mayor

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough has released its official list of candidates for people seeking the job of borough mayor.

The election is scheduled for Jan. 11. It is the second special election in a row called to fill the mayor’s chair. The first came after then-mayor Curt Menard succumbed to cancer. The man who filled Menard’s shoes, Talis Colberg, resigned to take the helm at Mat-Su College.

The list of candidates includes some familiar faces and some new ones.

In alphabetical order, they are:

KEN CLARK

Ken Clark is retired after a 40-year career in the telecommunications industry, during which time he worked for the Anchorage Telephone Utility and GCI and in Budapest, Hungary. He has lived in the Valley since 1995. This is his first run for public office. He said he thinks the borough is due for an injection of new blood.

“It seems like we have the same families or people running time after time after time and it’s getting to the point where I don’t think that everybody really has the best interest of the borough taxpayers in their sights,” he said. “I’m trying to give people a choice.”

LARRY DeVILBISS

Larry DeVilbiss is a farmer and no stranger to the borough.

He served on the borough assembly for six years and for two terms on the Mat-Su Borough School Board.

He was also once a Road Service Area Supervisor back when that was an elected position and has chaired the Lazy Mountain Community Council.

Currently he’s on the board of directors for the Matanuska Electric Association. He said his campaign slogan will be, “open for business.”

“There are three things that I think we pushed out of the borough,” he said. “One was our own electric generation another one was the NPI — the chipping company that was rejuvenating our over-mature forest lands — and I think another one we passed up was the ski development on the south side of Government hill without which that ski run is never going to do anything.”

He said he would like to be an active mayor, both by being a public face and and through his veto pen. Though he’s never seen a mayor wield the power, his reading of borough code is that he would have line-item veto power.

“Probably the attorneys will set me straight but I don’t know what else that could mean,” he said of the veto language in the borough’s code.

KURT JARMER

Kurt Jarmer works at the Palmer Senior Center and helps out each year with the Christmas Friendship Dinner.

He is a former firefighter with the Central Mat-Su Fire Department.

“Everything’s just getting out of hand and the borough just seems like it doesn’t care,” Jarmer says of why he’s running. “The taxes are not right. Every time they say they’re lowering taxes, taxes don’t get lowered. They find another way to get to it.”

He said he’d also like to see the borough do a better job of promoting job creation here. He’d also like to see the community do a better job taking care of its elderly.

“The seniors are a big issue with me. They put in their time and everybody just kind of pushes them aside and that’s not right,” he said.

Jarmer has an ongoing dispute with the borough that has landed in court. The borough filed a lawsuit against him for having too many things in his yard. He doesn’t feel he’s been treated right.

“A man can’t have what he wants in his yard anymore,” he said of his lawsuit. “If I can’t beat these guys I might as well joint them and figure out how I can fix it.”

JOHN LEINER

John Leiner is another candidate who has had issues with the borough. A Palmer farmer, he was a regular attendee at borough assembly meetings over the past several of years.

He would generally use his allotted time to testify about a gravel pit that had punctured an aquifer and flooded his land.

He said he’s running because he thinks he could do a better job than anyone who’s done the job recently and takes issue with Colberg resigning.

“It’s a duty and an honor to the voter and to do that; to leave the voter high and dry, that’s breaking their trust,” Leiner said.

He said he supports charter schools and wants to see action on a gravel ordinance that has been languishing for over a year at the assembly.

He would be a responsive mayor and take the time to meet and work with lower-eschelon borough staff.

He ran in the election that seated Colberg and for borough assembly in this year’s election against Pete Houston and Noel Woods. Woods won that spot.

BRIAN SULLIVAN

Brian Sullivan is an Army Major and a combat veteran whose military service ends in December.

He is also a former state representative from Washington state where he represented Fort Lewis-McCord and a part of Pierce County. He was a member of the Mat-Su Borough school board until it became clear that as an Army officer he was not permitted to hold such an elected position.

He says he wants to help working families in the borough and describes himself as a conservative.

BRUCE WALDEN

Bruce Walden also ran in the election that seated Colberg and for borough assembly this year. He’s a retired Green Beret and a resident of Butte.

“I’m a working stiff. I work in Anchorage now and I have to commute back and forth every day,” he said. “That makes me desire even more to get some commerce going in the Valley.”

Jobs are one of Walden’s signature issues. He wants high-paying jobs here, rather than service and retail jobs.

“Nobody is going to retire out of Fred Meyer. We need some real honest-to-god industry,” he said. “There’s not an industry here in South Central that we can point to and say I will retire from that job.”

JEFF WARD

Jeff Ward was the youngest person on stage when candidates for Wasilla City Council met earlier this year to debate.

He works for the Southcentral Foundation, which provides health care to Alaska Natives.

He said in his run for Wasilla City Council that he wants to make the Valley the most attractive place in the state to raise a family.

DAVID WILSON

David Wilson works for Alaska Primary Care Associates, helping run their operations and support their community health centers.

“I just thought that it was a good opportunity for me to give back to my community,” he said of his run for mayor.

He said he thinks his expertise and education — he has degrees in education and psychology and a master’s degree in business — will be an asset to the borough.

“I have some experience with emergency planning and management,” he said.

He said he’s big on public safety and wants to make sure borough residents are kept safe. He wants to bolster education and find revenue streams for the borough to utilize instead of relying solely on property taxes.

“I want to bring jobs back to the borough so our residents can find work instead of doing the commuting,” Wilson said.

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