Colberg to head Mat-Su College

PALMER — Talis Colberg will step down as mayor this month and step into a new role as director of Mat-Su College.

“You’re talking to a very happy man today,” Colberg said when reached Friday, just a day after he heard the news.

Colberg was one of four finalists whose names the college forwarded to University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor Fran Ulmer earlier this past week. He said the chancellor called him Wednesday to say he was her tentative pick. She made it official Thursday after conferring with college officials.

Colberg said he has been a part of Mat-Su College since the 1970s when he was in high school. Colberg has been a math tutor and an adjunct professor of history at the school and estimates he’s taught thousands of students there in his time.

“It’s been a wonderful opportunity and I hope to make it a great opportunity for other people like it’s been for me,” he said.

The soon-to-be-former Mat-Su Borough mayor is also an attorney who has practiced most recently in the worker’s compensation field. He served as the state’s Attorney General under former governor Sarah Palin.

Colberg said he plans to start work Aug. 16. Asked about the college’s immediate future, he said folks there should expect a smooth transition.

“Nothing’s going to immediately change,” he said.

Whether the institution is morphing into something akin to a traditional college that grants mostly four-year degrees, Colberg said he expects that will be the case.

“It eventually will happen,” he said. “It won’t happen overnight. Nothing like that happens quickly. It may not even happen in my lifetime.”

But, he said, that sort of change at this point seems inevitable. In his time there, he’s seen the college grow from a student body composed primarily of middle-age adults to one composed primarily of traditional, straight-out-of-high-school students.

Those students have brought with them, “the desire to do things on campus that normally middle-age adults wouldn’t want to do,” he said, such as start clubs and organize events and activities like college students do at other institutions.

“More and more (people) are going to see that as a reasonably priced place to get a start and maybe finish,” Colberg said.

As to his soon-to-be former life as mayor, Colberg said he’s enjoyed his time in that position but the chancellor was clear that the two jobs don’t mix. It’s not that Colberg or Ulmer suspect he would have a conflict of interest, just that there might be the appearance of one and it would be hard to separate the two jobs.

“Talking to a legislator, am I talking to them as a mayor or am I talking to them as a university director?” he asked rhetorically.

Colberg said he agrees with Ulmer to step down as mayor, which is also the right move for him personally.

“The mayor’s job was going to end at any event at the end of the term and the college is a career opportunity.”

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

How to choose a new mayor?

MAT-SU — With Mat-Su Borough Mayor Talis Colberg stepping down as mayor to take a position as head of Mat-Su College, what comes next for the borough?

Turns out that question isn’t such an easy one to answer.

“We’ll have to look into it and see what our options are,” Deputy Borough Clerk Cheryl Marino said Friday.

It’s a process the borough has been through relatively recently when mayor Curt Menard died in March of last year. In that instance, the borough called a special election because Menard’s death came more than 180 days prior to the next regularly scheduled election. The seat was on the ballot again that October, when Colberg won a full term as mayor.

This time around, things might not be quite that simple. The next election is Oct. 5, which is inside that 180-day window found in borough code.

So, no special election.

But there’s another wrinkle here because on the general election ballot, voters will also decide whether to drastically change the duties of the mayor to take on most of what the borough manager does now.

Because of that, Colberg said he hasn’t quite decided on how he will proceed, including when he will officially resign.

“I’m talking to the clerk and I’m talking to (the borough’s) attorney about the way to do this with the least disruption,” he said.

He said if the so-called “strong mayor” initiative passes, he likely would have had to reassess his position as mayor and might very well have resigned to clear the way for voters to elect a new mayor.

—Andrew Wellner