Status of Palmer Police Chief addressed at city council meeting

PALMER — The city of Palmer publicly addressed the controversy surrounding Palmer Police Chief Dwayne Shelton at the Palmer City Council meeting on Tuesday, though it was not an item on the agenda and no members of the council have any influence over the employment decisions within the city. A whopping 45 members of the public offered their thoughts to the city council via either written testimony or the 20 people who offered their testimony in person.

“According to our charter in section 3.8 there are restrictions of the powers of the council and we are not in a place to direct employment or removal of any administration or officer in employ of the city, that gets dealt with by the city Manager,” said City Councilwoman Dr. Jill Valerius.

Valerius’ comments came on the heels of Councilwoman Julie Berberich also reiterating that acting city manager Brad Hanson made the decision last Tuesday to place Shelton on leave with pay due to comments he made on his personal Facebook page. Though Shelton’s leave and the peaceful protest that took place on Saturday were not directly linked, many members of the public who chose to make comments connected the two.

“He stated his opinions. If you don’t like his opinion, so what?” said Kimberly Waychoff. “This is ludicrous, it’s ridiculous. The man spoke as a private citizen. We either have free speech here or we don’t.”

The council read nearly all 25 letters submitted for testimony during the meeting, with one 16-page piece placed on the table for council members to read on their own time. Accounting for all comments delivered in person and via email, 25 people spoke in support of Shelton and 17 spoke against Shelton with three outliers. While many took a black or white stance on the issue either supporting Shelton or condemning his posts, Kelly Turney pointed out issues in how the controversy was handled by the administration.

“It is my belief that if the city manager made the decision to place Chief Shelton on leave that he and only he should be the one making public comment. Further, more important is the letter written by Chief Shelton to this community the same day he was placed on leave. It is still has not been released even though it is in the city’s possession, why not,” asked Turney. “If anyone employed by the city or any other institution had acted in a similar fashion, they would have to be held accountable. Therefore I am asking for the mayor’s resignation from the council effective immediately.”

Hanson has served as the acting city manager since former manager Nathan Wallace’s departure in April. Hanson’s time as acting city manager will end as former Mat-Su Borough Manager John Moosey will take over on Monday.

“I also want to publicly thank the role that the Department of Public Safety played in this because they were very active they had their commissioner, deputy commissioner and a number of officers in Palmer available out of sight so it wasn’t instigating or inciting anybody but it went off very well, zero arrests, zero cases of vandalism so it was a success,” said Hanson.

Many members of the public were made aware of Shelton’s comments on Facebook last Monday, and Shelton was placed on leave with pay by Hanson last Tuesday after consulting with the city attorney Michael Gatti. Confusion continued later last week when Luke Howard who runs the ‘907 Freedom’ Facebook page posted a video about the peaceful protest on Saturday.

“We’re afraid that the rabble rousers and provocateurs and instigators are going to come in and take away the message that these young people had the courage to stand up and say,” said Howard.

Howard clarified confusion around what he had said about his conversation with Mayor Edna DeVries last week, saying that he had called her. Howard defended the mayor and her leadership.

“No matter what you heard on Facebook, what people thought I did, I didn’t do or whatever, the end result if I can go back to an old saying that my parents had the proof is in the pudding. So the proof is in the pudding that we all did what we were supposed to do and we ended up with a peaceful protest,” said DeVries.

Many of the members of the public that spoke offered their honest opinion of Shelton as an exemplary officer of the law and lauded his two decades working as a law enforcement officer in Palmer before he was named chief in December. Former Alaska State Troopers and Palmer Police Department members rose to offer their support of Shelton and his actions, separating what he had posted to his personal Facebook page from the work he does as a PPD officer.

“I do want to state on the record that I personally am not sympathetic to the values expressed in his personal Facebook page. I understand that there are many people in our community who agree with those sentiments and I also believe that we all have the right to practice our first amendment right to free speech but I also think that a person in a public position and a position of power know that they need to be held accountable for any decisions that they make that would possibly erode the public’s trust in them,” said Councilwoman Julie Berberich.