LETTER: Dissatisfaction with North Lakes Community Council president

To the editor:

With no opportunity for the public to vote on the matter, the president of the North Lakes Community Council arranged for the Mat Su Borough to earmark nearly $40,000 of taxpayer money to build a park within his own subdivision. Of this, $6,000 has already been spent. At the January council meeting he admitted he had done this without a public vote. When a motion was made to revisit the allocation of public funding, the president blocked the motion. Should the public have no vote?

With no permission from the subdivision which owns the lot, the NLCC surveyed the lot. At 2 public meetings, President Farnsworth promised to visit the neighboring home owners to let them know about his plans for the project, but never did.

On 1/26/2017 without proper notice, Farnsworth held what he termed a “board meeting.” He created no agenda for the meeting, posted no public notice didn’t mention it when publicizing the general meeting. He only invited a select group, cherry-picking the members of the public who would attend. Board members who pointed out that the meeting required public notice and refused to attend were criticized.

At the public meeting on 1/26/2017, President Farnsworth refused to call for approval of the agenda. Instead, he announced that his new policy (adopted by himself) meant that he will no longer be calling for any vote to ratify agendas before meetings. He will unilaterally draft and approve all agendas himself, giving no opportunity for the public to modify or add agenda items.

In violation of council bylaws, Farnsworth recently began rewriting meeting minutes to change the record of what happened at the meetings. Initially, he ordered the secretary to do this. When the secretary refused, the president took over. No past meeting minutes are posted on the council webpage. In January, he recruited members of his church ward to vote to approve modified meeting minutes for a meeting they had not even attended.

President Farnsworth has refused to allow any other board members access to the web page or to the mailing list. He controls the webpage, all emails received or sent by the NLCC, the entire agenda and now meeting minutes. Anyone living within the council’s boundaries who is concerned about how their public dollars are spent should consider getting involved.

— Michelle Latham

Wasilla