Welcome Beck, Sykes and their new ideas

For all the things echo chambers are, they are not useful tools for producing new ideas or information.

You can’t just shout a question and have the echo reply with the meaning of life, this week’s lotto picks or the answer to another of life’s persistent mysteries.

Too often at the Mat-Su Borough Assembly table lately, we see this type of echo chamber in play in local governance. Rather than engage in out-of-the-box problem solving that might benefit residents, we see a rubber-stamp brigade of men who are happy to advance a narrow agenda that may not always be what’s best for the borough at large or the quality of life here.

When a dissenting voice is raised that challenges this agenda — no matter how germane the suggestion — the majority will shoot down the measure in unison. Why? The answer here likely has much more to do with petty party politics than good governance. And that is never a good thing.

Since the last election, Assemblyman Warren Keogh often cast solitary votes in the face of an otherwise united assembly. We thank Keogh for his service to the residents of the Mat-Su Borough, for those many lonely votes and for his leadership and insistence that the men seated alongside him behave with the grace and dignity befitting the elected offices trusted to their care.

Two new faces appear to have been added to the Mat-Su Borough Assembly following the Oct. 1 election; results are set for certification tonight.

Filling the District 1 seat on the assembly is Jim Sykes. He looks to be another man who sees himself as a representative of the people, not a puppet of a political party or special interest group.

In talking with voters ahead of the election, reading their letters to the editor and online comments, we saw people repeatedly sum Sykes’ skills this way: he listens.

We expect Sykes will be the sort who doesn’t just “listen” to other voices in the echo chamber that agree with his. From our experience, Sykes is a man who listens to everyone’s ideas, then formulates a plan.

We applaud this sort of listening and declare it the hallmark of good leaders and the bedrock for strong local government.

Between Sykes and new assembly member Matthew Beck, we hope the era of the rubber-stamp majority on the assembly is at an end.

Beck won election to District 2 over incumbent Noel Woods. It was a deal Woods tried to push through the assembly regarding a piece of farmland his family still held the note on that introduced us to Beck.

He and his neighbors pushed back against the move by the assembly to buy 36 acres of farmland for a school site in what amounted to a favor from the assembly to the private landholder. In this case, the people prevailed and defeated the move.

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly meets at 5 p.m. tonight to certify the election and swear in new members in its comfortable new chambers in the borough building.

We welcome the new ideas and energy Beck and Sykes bring to the assembly and the closure of that well-worn echo chamber that too often has trampled the good of the people in favor of narrow benefits for just a few.