Election talk ramps up

PALMER — Candidates converged on the Palmer Senior center Thursday evening for a mass candidate forum.

Candidates for three assembly districts and the mayoralty gathered to debate numerous political issues — not all of which fall within the purview of the borough assembly, like when district 3 candidate Bob Doyle used part of his forum with sitting appointee Barb Doty to speak to Medicaid expansion — and answer audience questions. Candidates discussed the budget, healthcare expansion, the M/V Susitna, development at Port MacKenzie, and numerous other issues the winners of their respective races will likely face in the months ahead.

Mayoral candidates largely stuck to conventional positions throughout the debate — all of the mayoral candidates said they support Smokefree Alaska and supported a previously passed property tax cap — though a few distinctions emerged among the mayoral contenders. For example, asked how various issues should be prioritized in the face of budget pressures, incumbent Larry DeVilbiss was demure.

“Actually, those powers are prioritized for us,” he said.

The Mat-Su Borough is a second-class borough, meaning it lacks law enforcement, full transportation, and health powers. That puts education at the top of the list by default, followed by emergency services and road construction and maintenance, DeVilbiss said.

“A lot of things we might want to do, especially in the context of some of these health issues are outside of our power,” he said.

Transportation should top the list, mayoral hopeful Rosemary Vavrin said.

“We need to be able to get to and from,” she said.

The relative scarcity of reliable public transportation affects participation in cultural, economic and political events, Vavrin said.

“Transportation is very important,” she said. “Transit is one way of doing that. Transit also keeps a lot of cars off the roads, it also cuts down on pollution.”

Mayoral candidate Vern Halter also put education at the top, saying roughly two thirds of the borough’s property taxes go toward schools, and said recent increases in enrollment showed the need for a continuing emphasis on education

They also touched on whether or not an expected population boom among senior citizens should be referred to as a “tsunami.”

“I heard someone say earlier ‘silver tsunami,’” said Vavrin (who turned 70 Friday) in her opening statement. “It used to be ‘gray tsunami.’ Well I’ve got arctic silver hair, but folks, the word tsunami implies pain and suffering. The weather people always tell us when it’s coming. It’s not a tragedy for seniors who want to live in Alaska and definitely not a tragedy to want to live in the most beautiful part of Alaska, the Mat-Su Borough.”

Given a chance to underscore those priorities with a closing statement prompt focusing on a single must-have initiative, Halter and Vavrin seized the opportunity.

The most important thing to focus on is the port, Halter said.

“I guess I’d be frustrated if we couldn’t complete the railroad project in very timely fashion as soon as we possibly could to keep our port operating,” he said.

Halter also claimed to have been instrumental in the comparatively low 2015 property tax mill rate of 9.662.

“I was one of the chief architects of that mill rate, if not the chief architect of that mill rate,” he said.

Vavrin pushed toward transit, which she said should reach beyond the core area and into rural communities in the Susitna Valley and the Glenn Highway north of Palmer.

“I want to be a cheerleader for the Mat-Su borough,” he said.

DeVilbiss took the opportunity to thank the organizers, and said he thought lateral thinking and charity might help work through the budget crunch.

“I believe I’m in a position to collaboratively pull together some of these resources, especially in the faith network,” he said. “As things tighten up, we are going to have to work together on a lot of these areas, especially those areas that are outside the borough powers that are delegated to a second-class borough.”

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.