Taxpayers would fund non-ocal, high bid contract

Every bidding process has a winner and a loser.

This was Wasilla Mayor Dianne M. Keller's curt explanation to the publisher of this newspaper, Kari Sleight, after her low-bid offer for the city's public-notice advertising contract was dismissed in favor of a more costly bid from the Anchorage Daily News, despite similar circulation numbers.

The city's taxpayers, who would foot the bill for this decision, should be troubled by such a questionable stewardship of their tax dollars. Doubly so given the mayor's position on the Greater Wasilla Chamber of Commerce, whose "Shop the Valley" campaign is designed to promote local businesses and a robust local economy. Buy-local advocates are fond of saying that money spent locally will be re-spent locally up to seven times on goods and services supplied by people who live and work in the community.

Irrespective of price, this should be reason enough to keep the advertising dollars in the Valley. But, sadly for Wasilla taxpayers, reason and policy-making are not constant companions.

For years, all city notices about upcoming meetings and other public information that the city is required by law to publish could be found in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. This is only natural. After all, since 1947, this newspaper has been the Valley's hometown source of news and information.

But times change. As the Valley has grown, so has its allure as a revenue source. This has brought in the big-city carpet-baggers, who care less about community news than they do about community dollars.

The mayor loves to point out that the parent company of this newspaper, Wick Communications, is based out of state. At the same time, she professes ignorance of the fact that the Anchorage Daily News is part of the massive California-based McClatchy Company. As a billion-dollar publicly traded corporation, the media giant's primary interest is making its bottom line look as attractive as possible to its shareholders and its $2.2 million-a-year CEO, who probably lick their mercenary chops at bid awards like this one.

Regardless, what makes a newspaper truly local is its commitment to the community. The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman employs around 40 people, the vast majority of whom live, work and spend their money in the Valley. The same cannot be said of our larger competitor from Anchorage.

The city's puzzling decision is slated to be taken up by the Wasilla City Council at its Monday night meeting. No doubt all manner of "facts," figures and statistics will be trotted out again and spun to dizzying effect, as they were when the matter first went before the council two weeks ago. But the only numbers that really matter are these: Last year, the total amount paid to this newspaper by the city for all of the public notices it published was $18,047. Under the rates quoted to the city by the Anchorage Daily News on its winning bid, the same advertising bill would have rung in at $61,055.

As much as we don't want to lose the city's contract, we do agree with the mayor that, inevitably, every bidding process has a winner and a loser. We just don't share her belief that the real losers should be the taxpayers of Wasilla.