Election flier rattles nerves ahead of Big Lake vote

BIG LAKE — Voters here will decide Oct. 27 via mail whether or not the community will become the Valley’s fourth incorporated city.

The vote is still more than two months away, but has already caused at least one minor controversy among local residents. The ballot questions concerning incorporation will have to be reformulated after what incorporation petitioners said was unclear wording on the original. Alaska Division of Elections officials said they would mail a new notification including new wording today.

Petition representative Jim Faiks said organizers have pushed to keep information about the move neutral, though he and other organizers support incorporation.

“What we’re trying to do is make accurate information so people can make a good decision,” he said. “That’s what was so upsetting about what happened last week when, just all of a sudden out of the blue everybody gets this yellow piece of paper and it says that taxes are going to go up 3.09 mills.”

The flier failed to mention the mill rate increase would happen at the same time as a borough mill rate decrease of 3.09 mills: tax rates are designed to remain exactly the same before and after incorporation, Faiks said. Big Lake residents began contacting the borough and Faiks to ask about what appeared — incorrectly — to be a roughly 33 percent tax increase.

Faiks, who has spent four years working to get incorporation improved, was crestfallen.

“You know that old adage, ‘the first impression’s the lasting impression?’” he said. “We were able to get the Division of Elections to re-do that, but a lot of damage has been done, and we’re just going to have to, like people say, make lemonade out of lemons.”

Incorporation could give Big Lake residents control over how their tax money is spent, and provide them with a voice to manage booming residential development in the area, Faiks said. The miscue played right into the hands of the opposition, many of whom had said incorporation would be too much, too soon for the area.

“We already have some people concerned that this is too much government and taxes,” he said.

The new ballot will contain information explaining the mill rate, will contain the word “amended,” and will be printed on a different color flyer than the original, said acting Division of Elections director Lauri Wilson.

“As soon as the Division of Elections was notified of the petitioners’ concerns, our office reviewed the information with the Department of Law and came to the conclusion that we could amend the language,” she said.

If a majority of Big Lake residents vote in favor of the mill rate and incorporation, Big Lake will join Houston as the borough’s second second-class city. Palmer and Wasilla are first-class cities, which play by different rules (for example, taxes in second-class cities must be raised by voters, not the city council), Wilson said.

A deadline for potential Big Lake City Council candidates to file is Aug. 28. Voters will select up to seven city council members at the same time they are deciding whether or not to incorporate.

Organizers plan an informational campaign to clear the air over the change and other election concerns, Faiks said. Planned forums include:

• 6 p.m. Friday, August 14 at Floater’s restaurant and bar, 2990 South Big Lake Road. The bar will close for about an hour while the forum is being held, organizers said.

• An informational kiosk at Saturday’s (August 15) Big Lake Farmer’s Market from noon to 5 p.m.

• 6 p.m. Aug. 20 at the Big Lake Library, 3140 South Big Lake Road.

This fall’s efforts constitute the third time the community has held an election to decide the question. An effort in 1974 required two separate polls, and incorporation ultimately lost by seven votes in the second election. Voters rejected a second effort in October 1987 by 149 votes.

Contact Reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.