Council has difficult task to earn trust

Now saying they want to look ahead to working with the Dianne M. Keller administration for the last few months of the Wasilla mayor’s term, city council members are bracing themselves for what could be a difficult time for city politics.

By declining the council’s request to resign, Keller has assured the good people of Wasilla that the city will not only be led by a lame-duck mayor, but one who’s goose has been cooked as well. The culmination of months of investigation into Keller’s and the city’s dealings with a developer led an independent law firm to conclude Keller and several key members of her administration acted to benefit a developer at the expense of existing small business owners.

The conclusions reached a head this past week when Keller showed her true colors by pointing out that, as mayor, she has the power to vindictively call upon the Wasilla Police Department to harass and intimidate the patrons of a business because she has a personal ax to grind.

Not so, and sadly, an example that she’s learned nothing from the investigation and findings that her actions were wrong and misguided. We are sympathetic for the many good, upstanding residents who work for the city who are given a black eye by Wasilla’s top administrator.

Missed in the hubbub of Keller’s inflammatory implied threat to exercise police power she doesn’t have is the unexplained vote from Deputy Mayor Kristopher Larson. Since winning a seat on the council last year, Larson has been Keller’s only ardent supporter on the council, so his vote to not ask for the mayor’s resignation was not unexpected, but it is disappointing. It shows Larson hasn’t accepted the findings of the independent investigation, a probe he fought in the first place, and will make the next step more difficult for this council as it moves forward.

Last week’s confrontation and vote to ask Keller to resign is just the beginning of another, more important process for Wasilla City Council. Now, we hope the group takes up the challenge of examining where the city’s process can be improved. Specifically, a stronger and less ambiguous ethics code to measure the conduct of city employees, administrators and, yes, even councilmembers, is needed. Although the Denali Law Group’s investigation didn’t find anything wrong with Keller accepting an expensive meal in Las Vegas from the same developer she later worked behind the scenes to help, it doesn’t pass the smell test.

The council has taken a good first step in not backing down or hiding its head in the sand over this development debacle. Now it needs to follow through in an election year when trust in Wasilla city government is scraping bottom. The only way to earn back the trust of residents is by continuing to do right.