Election '09: Mat-Su mayoral candidates start their runs

MAT-SU — Voters will have just two choices for the Valley’s highest profile elected official on the Oct. 6 ballot: Talis Colberg and John Leiner.

The candidates for Matanuska-Susitna Borough mayor should be familiar to voters, as both ran to fill the position left vacant by the death of Curtis Menard earlier this year. Colberg won the June election with 2,541 votes, compared to Leiner’s 42.

The profiles are complied from the candidates’ answers to questions posed to each by the Frontiersman.

Colberg is a life-long Alaskan and third-generation Mat-Su resident. After graduating from Palmer High School, he went Outside for his bachelor’s and law degrees and returned for a doctorate from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

He worked as a lawyer for a private practice before becoming Alaska’s attorney general. He has been involved with the state fair, the Alaska branch of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Palmer Rotary Club. He served on the borough assembly for two years and has taught history classes at Mat-Su College.

“I am a reasonable conservative. I think I am well-prepared to continue to represent this borough as the mayor,” Colberg said.

Leiner is a farmer from Palmer. He is an Air Force veteran and has an associate’s degree in law enforcement. He said he is the most experienced private citizen in terms of going to both the Palmer City Council and the borough assembly meetings.

In March, he published a book called “The Great Eruption of Alaskan Corruption.”

“I am very conservative and very diplomatic,” Leiner said.

Leiner said he is running for mayor because he loves the Mat-Su Borough more than any other candidate. He has been seeing what has been going on in the borough, and he has the experience, strength and knowledge to fight the corruption, he said.

“While the current mayor was in Juneau disgracing his name … I was paying the borough $20 cash to get the 2009 budget and going through it,” Leiner said. “He’s way behind. He doesn’t understand how things have changed in the Valley.”

Colberg said, by October, he will have been mayor for just four months. Only serving a third of a year would be pointless, he said. He wants to continue to make the Valley a great place to live, and he understands the reasonable limits of local government.

As mayor, Colberg vetoed an ordinance putting the borough-wide sales tax on the ballot. While his veto was overturned, he remains opposed to the new tax. The sales tax would not be revenue neutral, as its proponents claim, he said. Estimates of the tax’s income are underestimated, and, while the property mill rate will be fixed, the assessments will go up. This will lead to a government growing faster than population and inflation.

“In a recession, we would in effect be instituting a regressive tax increase on people with little or no property to provide temporary tax relief to the largest property owners,” Colberg said. “Two taxes are not better than one.”

The veto was just a political ploy by Colberg, Leiner said. The sales tax as it is written now would hurt more people than help. He said the cities would be hit hard with an additional 3 percent.

“I agree with the people that said either one or the other. Take the property tax away completely, or use the sales tax,” Leiner said.

Asked if the borough is too restrictive on development, Leiner said he would have to say no. The rules are fair on methane extraction and not restrictive enough on gravel.

“We need water to live. Digging into the water table is too destructive,” Leiner said.

Colberg said there needs to be flexibility built into the restrictions. Their are two distinct population groups, and what works in the suburban core might make little sense to the rural areas, he said.

“For example, mining is important, and in most of the borough it should be an option with minimal government interference.” However, Colberg said, “A major mine half way between Palmer and Wasilla would probably not be sensible.”

In response to the calls for the borough to split in two, Colberg said he does not oppose the concept, but it is not very practical and is not likely to happen.

Leiner saw the attempts at splitting the borough as simply a power play by Houston and Wasilla. He said it would not be good for the whole borough.

“I understand there are some people who say there is a rural-urban divide,” Leiner said “But there is a rural-urban even in the core area.”

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.