Recall of Palmer mayor fails by hefty margin

An effort to recall Palmer Mayor Steve Carrington failed by a hefty margin in the final tally of votes cast in a special election.

Voters casting “no” votes to the recall totaled 222 against 176 casting “yes” votes. The count to keep Carrington in office was 54.5% of votes cast compared with 43.4% for removal.

The results were a vindication for Carrington, a long-serving member of Palmer’s city council and now mayor, over a campaign to oust him brought by a group of local activists unhappy with the mayor for a variety of reasons.

The final results included absentee and early voters. In the early count of results from votes cast at polling places Carrington was running behind by two votes, with 99 voting yes for removal against 97 voting no.

Carrington was first elected to Palmer’s city council in 2001. He became deputy mayor on 2021 and served as mayor when former mayor Edna DeVries won election as mayor of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Carrington won his own election as city mayor in October, 2022, to serve a three-year term.

Cindy Hudgins, a Palmer resident active in politically conservative issues, spearheaded the campaign to remove Carrington. The removal campaign cited issues with Carrington’s hiring of an outside legal counsel on matters related to the resignation of former city manager Steven Jellie, although the attorney retained, who is in Ketchikan, had done work for the city previously as an outside counsel.

“I’m pretty happy with the result. I get to be mayor for four more months,” Carrington said.

His term ends in October, although he has filed a letter of intent to run again.

Carrington said he always has doubts about how special elections can turn out with a typically low number of voters casting ballots, a situation where a group of people can have an outsized influence. In this case Palmer voters rejected Hudgin’s campaign by a large margin, however.

While the outside counsel issue was cited as a reason for the recall some of the city council’s newer members were irritated by the mayor’s sticking to procedures particularly in handling delicate issues.

“They were frustrated because I wouldn’t allow the process to be short-circuited,” in reaching conclusions, Carrington said.