Three candidates vie for one of two open seats in Oct. 7 election

WASILLA — A bartender, a construction worker and an employee of the local telecom cooperative are vying for one open seat on the Wasilla City Council.

Two seats are open this year but only one is a contested race. Colleen Sullivan-Leonard, a business owner and council member since 2010, is running for re-election unopposed.

The contested race is for the seat Councilwoman Leone Harris is vacating.

Candidates were invited to speak at a forum hosted by the Greater Wasilla Chamber of Commerce Tuesday.

Tim Burney

Burney is a U.S. Navy veteran who has worked in construction for 20 years. He’s an Anchorage commuter and a father who said he’s excited and nervous to make his first run for public office.

Asked at the Chamber forum Sept. 16 why he was running, he drew a big laugh from the audience when he quipped, “for the $500 a month.”

He said that he wants to serve on the council to bring people together. As a councilman he would not do his work via e-mail, he said.

“You do it at the table, you do it face-to-face,” Burney said.

He wants to see Wasilla grow but doesn’t want “to see Wasilla be a little Anchorage,” he said.

Burney said that he thinks it’s great the city has a strong planning commission and a strong chamber of commerce.

Stu Graham

Graham works for the Matanuska Telephone Association and is active at the Chamber of Commerce where he usually moderates the candidate debates. He told the chamber that he thought it was a good thing they were talking to candidates.

“Not all of you are going to vote for either one of us,” he said, referencing Burney and the fact that a good percentage of chamber members live outside city limits. “But what the city council does affects you and your business.”

Graham grew up in New Mexico, the son of a father who was both a physicist and a hay farmer. He flew C-130s for the Air Force for 12 years and moved to Alaska in that capacity in 1987, eventually rising to the rank of inspector general of Elmendorf Air Force Base.

“I have good listening skills and good investigative skills,” he said.

He said he moved to Wasilla to take advantage of city services and is running for the office because he believes it is the next step in his public life.

“We are the commercial center for the Valley and will undoubtedly remain the commercial hub of the Valley for some time,” he said. “I would like to see us move the city forward but while we’re doing that we need to make sure we’re financially stable.”

Allison Sacco

Sacco is a bartender who didn’t manage to get to the council forum due to what sounds like a pretty harrowing experience with a spider bite.

She said that she’s running on a budget of $99 and actually gave a dollar back to the fifth person that gave her a $20 donation. She wanted to make a point that she could run for office on less than $100.

“I don’t think that dreams have income restrictions or requirements and I wanted to prove that anyone can do this; $99 can do this,” she said.

Sacco said that she has looked into the city’s downtown plans and likes what she sees.

“What they’re trying to do is make this a more pedestrian-friendly and more shop-friendly city,” she said.

Sacco said that she believes public safety is a big issue in the city. She said she sees a Valley drug problem that leads to an unemployment problem and to a theft problem.

“One thing I’m not in favor of is the ATV ban. I think that there’s more pressing issues than enforcing an ATV ban,” she said, referencing a topic that has been a lightning rod at the city council lately.

She said that she is in favor of fiscal responsibility.

“I believe in a balanced budget,” she said. “We have to balance budgets down to a penny nowadays.”

And, she said, she knows that’s not easy with rising costs for things like natural gas and electricity.

“That’s kind of a tricky balance there, isn’t it?” she said.

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