Palmer mayoral hopefuls meet Thursday

PALMER — Four Palmer residents seeking to take over for the outgoing Mayor John Combs will meet in a forum Thursday at the Palmer Train Depot.

The forum is the first of two scheduled to take a look at candidates for municipal office in Palmer. Next week will feature candidates for city council.

Palmer has a city manager, which means the mayor does not, as he does in Wasilla, run the city’s day-to-day operations. He’s also not quite the figurehead he is at the borough. Palmer’s mayor is a voting member of the city council, though he doesn’t have veto powers like the borough mayor. The city election is Oct. 5. Four people — two of whom currently serve on the council — are hoping to be elected mayor. In alphabetical order:

KEVIN BROWN

Brown has been on the council since 2008 and his term isn’t up until October 2011.

He describes himself as a small business owner and runs Strange Bird Consulting in downtown Palmer. He deals mostly in in computer training and advertising.

Brown is president of the board of directors for Valley Community for Recycling Solutions, which runs the recycling center on 49th State Street. He’s served on the board of the Palmer Arts Council and will soon join the board for the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce.

He said he thinks he can be a good spokesman for the city and therefore a good mayor. Palmer is at a crossroads now and needs a good leader to shepherd it through the changes that are coming, such as building a regional wastewater treatment plant, installing a new city manager and developing the city’s industrial sector.

“We have the opportunity to move forward or not,” he said.

MIKE CHMIELEWSKI

Chmielewski also sits on the council and has a term that ends this October.

According to his city bio, he was born in Connecticut and holds degrees from Brown University, Boston University and the University of Vermont, and is an Air Force veteran and retired school counselor who worked for the Mat-Su Borough School District.

He is also a former Mat-Su Borough School Board member and president and has served on the Valley Hospital Board.

Currently, he is a member of the Palmer Rotary, Friends of Mat-Su and RadioFreePalmer, the organization working to bring a radio station to the area and broadcasts on the web.

EMIL “BUTCH”

FONDAHN

Anyone who’s spent much time in the Valley’s boxing community probably knows Fondahn pretty well.

Fondahn is a former boxer and current fight promoter. He ran for borough mayor back in 2009 in the race that saw Talis Colberg installed in that seat.

At a candidate forum around that time, Fondahn described himself as a registered Democrat and pro-union.

DELENA JOHNSON

Johnson describes herself on her campaign website as a Republican and a 43-year resident of the Valley whose parents brought her to Talkeetna in 1967 when she was 3 years old.

Johnson is the director of the Palmer Museum of History and Art and of the city’s visitor’s center.

Her website proclaims her to be disappointed with the city officials’ “lack of concern” for local business.

“I think it’s absolutely crucial right now to have the right mayor,” Johnson said in an interview. “We can define what it’s going to be in the future or we can go on with business as usual.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.