Palmer Manager moves on

PALMER — Palmer City Manager Nathan Wallace gave his final report as Palmer’s Manager on Tuesday and the City Council approved Action Memorandum 20-028 hiring current Mat-Su Borough Manager John Moosey to become Palmer’s next manager.

Wallace began the meeting with his report as he has done over the last four years and detailed a $50,000 difference in building permits and fees when comparing the months of March 2020 and 2019. Despite economic instability for much of Palmer’s economy in the retail sector, Wallace believes that the government funds for the city will be stable through the COVID 19 pandemic.

“At this point in time the city is still in a good position financially. Again, when I say the city, it’s the government portion of the city. The rest of the city is not necessarily in good shape. The government will continue we have enough in savings to get us through this I believe,” said Wallace.

Wallace showed that the city’s finances are on track to be at 23 percent of expenditures through the quarter mark of the year and announced that Palmer’s airport will receive $30,000 in Federal funds for airport operations through the CARES act. The grant will completely fund the airports grant fund program. Wallace also discussed the possibility of enacting measures similar to those implemented in Anchorage where permit fees were reduced during the pandemic to increase commerce for those essential businesses.

“Anything we can do to encourage to help others meet their needs, we’ll do that. So I suspect we’ll have that ready by the first meeting in May as a resolution to temporarily waive or suspend certain portions of our fee and fine schedule,” said Wallace.

Wallace informed the council that with former Palmer Police Chief Lance Ketterling retiring at the end of 2019 and Dwayne Shelton promoted from Commander to Chief, PPD has been able to fill the two vacancies created. One of the new hires is finishing his time at the Department of Public Safety Academy in Sitka and the other is a homegrown product. Wallace said that Valley grown Tyler Larimer will return from the Fairbanks Police Department with his trained K9 Diesel to join PPD. Wallace thanked the community for his time in Palmer and each council member spent time during their comments to tell Wallace they would miss him. Wallace has accepted a position as Deputy State Director with the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management. Among those to wish Wallace well was Palmer Chamber Executive Director Ailis Vann.

“I’ll miss your crazy ties and your year round cowboy boots,” said Vann. “Thank you for your leadership.”

Moosey’s contract was approved after an amendment to change severance pay from a six month amount of the expected $145,000 salary to a two month portion failed. Moosey explained that he had been a manager at six previous local governments and has never received severance pay. The main motion to approve Moosey’s contract was approved unanimously.

“We want to make the moose and the Moosey’s proud,” said Moosey.

City Clerk Norma Alley was a featured part of Tuesday’s meeting, discussing citizen initiatives and possibilities of changes in elections. Alley had attended a teleconference with the state division of elections illuminating possible changes.

“The state legislature did give the authority to the state division of elections to run a vote by mail election for this year. That includes the primary and their November general election. The state is not willing to make a decision at this point on what they are going to do. They have not committed on how they are going to move forward,” said Alley.

Alley said that a $3,000 proposal by the same company that helped Anchorage pull off a vote by mail election and is currently helping Kenai was available and requested to be placed on the May meeting agenda by Councilwoman Jill Valerius. Alley said that Clerks statewide are encouraging absentee by mail ballots to reduce crowding at polling places and fears the loss of the Mat-Su Senior Services building as a polling location.

“I think us consolidating down in October, if this is still a threat then is a good idea,” said Councilwoman Sabrena Combs.

Alley detailed two citizens initiatives that had passed subject matter restrictions tests by City Attorney Michael Gatti and was approved in form by Alley. The first referendum petition would repeal Palmer Municipal Code 5.32 relating to marijuana retail facilities in the city of Palmer.

Petition books were distributed on April 3 and the sponsors have 90 days to collect signatures to get it on the October ballot. A separate initiative petition on term limits was issued booklets on April 9 and has until July 8 to collect the necessary signatures. However, the Council’s Resolution 20-010 on term limits that sprung from last fall’s vote by the citizens would supersede the current citizens petition. Resolution 20-010 was placed on the agenda for the first meeting in May.

“We concluded that the initiative application by the citizens and councils ballot proposition to amend the charter were substantially similar, so it is our opinion that if the council adopts resolution 20-010 and it’s approved by the voters, it would supersede the citizen term limit initiative because they are substantially similar,” said Gatti.

Gatti said that despite changes in the time period of the term limits, the measures were substantially similar and passed a three part test from an Alaska supreme court case. Alley added that the term limits still must apply to both the Mayor and council member positions. The council unanimously passed both it’s items of business. The Council unanimously passed resolution 20-011 which raised the maximum violations for penalties to $1,000 from $300. The council amended the request by the Mat-Su Running Club for $2,000 for the Who Let The Girls Out 5K down to $750. Wallace said that organizations that have already had their grant applications passed and have postponed events such as the Green Day Gallop are having their funds withheld by the city until their event is scheduled. The council has awarded more than $8,000 in grants thus far with under $4,000 left to grant.

We want to encourage as much activity when the restrictions are done and these type of events bring people to Palmer and that’s what we need to have,” said Wallace.

The council also passed unanimously the amended $750 grant to the Mat-Su Running Club. At the start of the meeting, Councilwoman Valerius pointed out a typo on the previous meeting’s minutes, noting that Councilman Best had not been excused from the last meeting and would be counted for an unexcused absence. During public comment, David Fuller asked about the letter that Best wrote to the council that has not yet been released to the public in relation to his ‘unorthodox request’ to the Palmer Police Department on January 10.

“What is in the letter? Did he feel his actions were in keeping within the proper etiquette of an elected City Official? Does he feel that this is no big deal like his past social media postings, now deleted, indicate or does he actually offer remorse,” said Fuller. “Mr. Best, please summon the fortitude to be an adult and explain your actions. Ignorance will not make this go away.”

After Coucilwomen Berberich, Sabrena Combs and Valerius had called for a statement from the Mayor, she spoke out about the incident on Tuesday.

“I feel that we are a team and that is the way I am personally handling it and so that is the way I will leave it up to councilman Best how he wants to handle it,” said DeVries.