Vote fix sought

August 7, 2005

DARRELL L. BREESE\Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

That sums up what Wasilla City Council Member Diana Straub hopes to accomplish during tomorrow's council meeting.

Straub said she will ask council members to right a possible Alaska Open Meetings Act violation caused by the use of secret ballots in the recent appointment of Verdie Bowen to fill a vacant seat on the council, by identifying their ballots and reading their votes into the public record.

"We might be getting five gallons of lemonade rather than a quart," said Straub, who is running for mayor this fall. "But this is a serious issue, and it is up to us on the council to correct it."

Controversy first ignited when council members used an anonymous secret ballot at their regular meeting July 25 to select one candidate from four who applied to fill a vacancy left on the council by Lowe's resignation in late June.

Council members rated, in order of preference, their top four applicants to fill the vacancy but failed to disclose the results of the vote during the meeting.

Straub wants the council to take corrective action before a lawsuit is filed forcing its hand.

"It needs to be the first order of business the council considers Monday," Straub said. "There may be others on the body that would prefer for a lawsuit to be filed before taking corrective action. But that is not responsible governing, in my opinion."

She recalled a similar incident that occurred in Cordova during the late 1980s that ended up costing the city more than $1 million in legal fees before the court ordered the city to correct the problem.

"I believe that everyone on the council wants to handle our meetings in the open," Straub said. "I can only hope that the other members feel the same way and are willing to address the issue at the beginning of the meeting. If we wait for a lawsuit, it could end up costing the taxpayers in legal fees."

Will Straub's request be enough to remedy the possible Open Meeting violation?

According to Anchorage attorney Gordon Tans, maybe not. In a pamphlet entitled "Alaska's Open Meeting Act: A guide for local governments and school districts," published by the Alaska Division of Community Advocacy, he stated that according to the 1993 Alaska Supreme Court case Cool Homes, Inc. v. Fairbanks North Star Borough, simply reading the votes into the record after the violation, instead of completely redoing the vote, might not be a sufficient correction of the error.

Another possible problem with Straub's proposal to have the council members read their ballots into the record stems from the fact that copies of the ballots provided to the Frontiersman have no identifying marks on the ballots indicating how each member voted during the July 25 meeting.

City attorney Tom Klinkner has stated that, according to Robert's Rules of Order, the council vote cannot be undone because the council has officially sworn in Bowen. Calls to Klinkner's Anchorage office were not returned.

Straub said she believes the council needs to take the action to erase the appearance of wrongdoing.

"Sometimes you don't have to break the law to lose the people's trust," Straub said. "And that is what has happened here. We need to take the self-correcting action to undo any violation of appearance of wrongdoing and to regain the people's trust in their government."

Contact Darrell Breese at

352-2267 or darrell.breese@

frontiersman.com.