Clerk denies Keogh recall

PALMER — An application for a recall petition against borough assemblyman Warren Keogh has failed to pass muster with the Mat-Su Borough clerk.

The application for a petition to recall Keogh was submitted about a week ago in the wake of his vote against an assembly resolution supportive of Usibelli Coal Mine’s application with the state to renew its coal mining permit for the Wishbone Hill area between Sutton and Palmer.

In a four-page memorandum distributed Friday, borough clerk Lonnie McKechnie cites two main reasons for denying the application. First, she writes, there weren’t 10 sponsors on the application and there were no residential addresses listed for the sponsors it did have. Second, the petition lacked sufficient grounds for recall.

“The application alleges that Mr. Keogh ‘never disclosed his affiliation as founder and agent of Castle Mountain Coalition to the public while running for office.’ Even if true, actions or inactions before being elected to the Assembly cannot form the basis for a recall petition,” McKechnie wrote.

Other claims in the recall petition she found insufficient for other reasons. The allegation that Keogh should have declared his affiliation with the coalition — an affiliation that Keogh says no longer exists — isn’t alleging a violation since assemblymen only have to report gifts or financial relationships and it’s not clear if Keogh had any such stake in the coalition.

Another allegation was dismissed on grounds of vagueness.

“Under state law, petition sponsors are required to write the allegations in the application with enough specifics to allow the elected official to respond in writing to the charges,” McKechnie wrote.

She attached to her memo an eight-page legal opinion drawn up by Anchorage law firm Boyd, Chandler and Falconer.

Keogh has said previously that the recall was politically motivated.

“As far as I know, simply disagreeing with an elected individual’s position or vote on any issue is an everyday occurrence, but it’s certainly not grounds for recall,” Keogh wrote in an e-mail to the Frontiersman last week after the recall application was filed.

In an email following the clerk’s rejection of the application to recall him, Keogh asked that people in District 1 and others with opinions on the possible Wishbone Hill Coal Mine to contact him directly with their concerns.

None of the people who signed the petition contacted him with concerns, Keogh said. “I wish they had,” he wrote.

He said that a lot of the allegations in the application are false. For example, the applicants accuse him of continuing to be a member of the Castle Mountain Coalition — which opposes the project — after he was elected to the borough assembly and of not disclosing his association with them prior to his election.

Wrong on both counts, Keogh said. He did disclose that association on his resume, which he made available during the campaign. And he said he resigned from the coalition before he filed to run for assembly. State records don’t reflect that but he has worked to clear up that discrepancy, he said.

“So far as I knew, I severed all ties with these organizations. Apparently, no one changed my status as registered agent. When I discovered this in May of 2011, I notified the state of my earlier resignation,” Keogh wrote in the e-mail.

When the assembly considered the resolution, Keogh was the lone assembly member who voted to continue public testimony until everyone who had signed up had a chance to speak.

“We can’t all agree all the time on every issue,” he wrote in an email Saturday. “However, everyone should have the opportunity to be heard whether on a personal basis or before the assembly. As an elected official, I defend every one’s right to free speech, which is one of the fundamental attributes of our society.”

He closed his note with a plea for civility.

“Let us all exercise our free speech to the extent we choose, but let us do so with civil and mutually respectful dialogue that can help us find common ground and solutions to volatile issues, such as coal mining in the Matanuska Valley.”