Crime and SB91 in the crosshairs of first borough assembly candidates forum

WASILLA — The four candidates running for two spots on the Mat-Su Borough Assembly participated in a candidate forum, hosted by the Mat-Su Convention Visitors Bureau at Evangelo’s Restaurant on Friday.

With the debate being hosted by the borough’s tourism department, many of the topics surrounded support of the CVB, especially in light of last year’s decision to not increase a 5 percent bed tax. All of the candidates stressed the importance of the tourism industry and voiced their support for it, and all but District 5 first-time political office-seeker Clayton ‘Mokie’ Tew vowed they would support such a tax. Tew said he would support such a tax if the business community — citing Princess Cruise Lines specifically — were on board with it.

Tew, who has more than 40 years of running business operations in the Valley, and had the contract for road service maintenance for the borough in the Big Lake area until that contract was voided last October, is taking on incumbent District 5 assembly member Dan Mayfield.

Mayfield said that crime, and an insufficient law enforcement presence in the Valley, is the most common concern he hears from constituents while out on the campaign trail.

“It doesn’t really matter how many police you have on the ground, with SB91 all (many criminals) get is a slap on the hand; they’re not seeing the harm in doing crime,” Mayfield said. “The first thing I’m going to do is sponsor legislation at the assembly level and speak to legislators, because this really needs to be changed. Hopefully the public will get in on that and we’ll begin to see some changes in Juneau.”

Pat Hogan, a longtime health care worker, running against Ted Leonard, a veteran businessman and husband of District 7 State Legislator Colleen Sullivan-Leonard, for the fourth district seat being vacated by Steve Colligan due to term limits, noted that while crime is a serious issue she hears about, SB91 is not all bad.

“SB91 is very controversial and we do need to modify it, but there are some very good points to it,” Hogan said. “We need to support our judicial system… but we don’t need to put people (who are victims of the opioid crisis) in jail.”

Leonard pointed out that, as a second-class borough, the Mat-Su doesn’t have the authority to establish its own police force.

“We don’t have the public safety provision but we need to ensure we have a seat at the table and we need to work with the state and give the borough’s opinion on SB91,” Leonard said. “We should work with cities to see if we can utilize their resources and work with staff to make sure we support police — both the state troopers and city police.”

That quandary led into another question asked of all the candidates as to whether they would support the borough petitioning to become a first-class borough, which would bring with it capabilities to establish a borough-wide police presence, and adopt a mayoral-based, rather than manager-based, system.

Mayfield said that he didn’t think Mat-Su voters were ready for such a change and that it would wind up costing taxpayers too much.

Tew agreed that it would likely cost too much, but the District 4 candidates were more receptive to the idea.

Leonard said he would need to research the particulars more, but did note that his experiences in Wasilla, which has a strong mayoral system and where his wife served on the city council, were positive. He said a mayor, having to earn the approval of voters, as opposed to a manager who needs only to keep a handful of council members happy, is necessarily more accountable.

Hogan pointed to the cautionary tale of her previous home in St. Louis County, Missouri, where she moved here from four decades ago. She said many of that county’s problems with cronyism and corruption could be traced to not having a strong mayoral system.

The candidates are scheduled to participate in another forum Sept. 29 at noon at the Grand View Grill as part of the Great Wasilla Chamber of Commerce’s weekly meeting.