Council member's return renders teleconferencing issue moot

March 25, 2005

KATE GOLDEN/Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - City council member Diana Straub won't be teleconferencing from Juneau after all. From now on, she'll attend meetings the old-fashioned way:

in person.

"I said that if my council position was being jeopardized by my choice to work in Juneau, then I would resign either my council position or my job in Juneau," she said. When a heavy midsession workload threatened her scheduled returns to Wasilla, she resigned.

Straub took the job as a secretary in the office of Rep. Mark Neuman, R-District 15, she said, to experience the nitty-gritty of the Alaska State Legislature's inner workings.

"So much happens behind the scenes that we're not aware of," she said. "The learning curve is straight up, and there's no real forgiveness in it."

It was Straub's job to work the front desk, get coffee - "and so much more," said Rex Shattuck, Neuman's chief of staff. "Every person in the office goes 100 mph all day long."

Neuman, like Straub, had no legislative experience before winning a seat this term. Straub said his freshness made her experience more valuable.

"He has a lot of noble characteristics, and he's not jaded yet," she said.

Shattuck said that Straub was "pleasant" and "energetic," and that he sympathized with her dilemma when things started heating up in Juneau.

"It was tough," he said. "I don't envy her position."

Straub's resignation comes just two and a half months after she began working there. Six weeks remain in the session.

Neuman wasn't left with a gap for long. Straub's duties will be taken over by Lynn Collins, who once worked in the Records Department of the Legislature.

"With the things heating up here in Juneau, not having somebody in that position would really have hurt us," Shattuck said.

Over five months, Straub's plan was to teleconference on the first council meeting each month and fly to Wasilla for the second.

But Straub came under fire in January when council member Rob Sande introduced an action to request her resignation.

City ordinance states, "Teleconferencing may not be used as a regular form of participating for regular meetings of the council."

Straub was also likely to be gone from Wasilla for more than 90 days during the legislative session. Such a lengthy unexcused absence would allow the council to declare her seat vacant.

In a written report before the Jan. 24 vote, city attorney Tom Klinkner advised the council that city code forbidding teleconferencing by council member conflicted with state law, which supersedes city codes: It allows unlimited teleconferencing by council members.

Council members Howard O'Neil and Rob Sande voted to ask Straub to resign. Mark Ewing, Noel Lowe, Ron Cox and Straub rejected the action against her.

After Straub announced her resignation to the council at her end-of-meeting comments, council members congratulated her on her choice of Wasilla over Juneau.

"Congratulations," Sande said. "That means more time with your family, too."

One might suppose he meant the city council.

Contact Kate Golden at 352-2284 or kate.golden@frontiersman.com.