Wasilla City Council recognizes Veterans Day and Lung Cancer Awareness Month

WASILLA — The Wasilla City Council recognized Veterans Day and Lung Cancer Awareness Month during its regular meeting, Monday, Nov. 8.

During the meeting, Deputy Mayor, Nikki Velock quoted Wasilla Mayor Glenda’s words from the two proclamations, starting with Veterans Day, “On Veterans Day, we honor the men and women who have answered the call to duty, selflessly sacrificing to serve our country and protect the rights of all Americans... Alaska joins the rest of our nation in recognizing our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coastguardsmen who have valiantly defended American values throughout our country’s history… We remember all who have given their lives in defense of freedom and we promise to honor their memory, never taking our freedoms for granted.”

The second proclamation recognizes November as Lung Cancer Awareness Month, indicating that lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and Alaska comes in at 18.6 percent of cases caught in the early stages, significantly lower than the national average of 22.9 percent.

Council members discussed a variety of topics throughout the meeting. There was a public hearing for accepting and appropriating costs associated with the annual United Way Youth Courts of Alaska Conference. The motion was passed unanimously by the Council.

“This is truly an opportunity for someone that has committed a mistake or two to actually get a second chance by dealing with their peers instead of dealing with the formal court system,” Councilmember Stu Graham said. “They can tell you this is a huge, huge benefit and we are certainly grateful this Mat-Su Youth Court exists and I’m very proud that the City of Wasilla helps support this and is working with United Way to continue this.”

City of Wasilla attorney Holly Wells presented a slideshow about an ordinance that would present a code of ethics to the Council.

A code of ethics is about the city government’s accountability to the people they’re serving and giving them clear guidelines so they hold you up to a high standard, but you’re going to make sure you know what that standard is and we’re going to make sure it’s clean and clear a regularly applied,”

The Council moved to have further discussion on the code of ethics ordinance before presenting it to the public.

“This was brought forward many years ago… Here we are 12 years later. We’re still at the table working it out. It’s a new group working on it. I appreciate our attorney’s input on this and the administration. Hopefully, we come to a good, strong consensus on this and get it to move forward,” Councilmember Colleen Sullivan-Leonard said.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com