On second thought, Fairbanks Assemblyman Brett Rotermund has decided he won’t resign from the Fairbanks North Star Borough.
Last week, Rottermund resigned after a vote was taken by the Assembly to censure one of the conservative members of the Assembly, Barbara Haney, after a citizen associated with the Assembly’s Presiding Officer Savannah Fletcher had filed a complaint about an opinion column that Haney had written in the local newspaper, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.
Rotermund at the time he resign last week said he would not be part of an unconstitutional action to violate someone’s First Amendment rights.
After the weekend had passed, however, Rotermund had heard from many people in Fairbanks, from both sides of the political spectrum, asking him to rescind his resignation. He did so in an email to the Borough Clerk.
The resignation, after all, would not be final until the Assembly meets again on Aug. 8 and votes on whether to accept it. Now, the Assembly won’t have to do that.
Assembly Presiding Officer Savannah Fletcher, who started her career with Black Lives Matter and who is an attorney for the radical Northern Justice Project, has worked to smack down any opposing voices on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly and across the state. She has gone after conservatives, such as Rep. David Eastman, Rep. Kevin McCabe, Sen. Lora Reinbold and the MatSu Borough Library Committee.
Rotermund said that in hindsight, he should have just announced that he could not participate in the unconstitutional action, and leave it at that. But hindsight is 20-20, he said on Monday, as he began his work day after chilling over the weekend at his cabin.
The people of Fairbanks rallied for him, he said, and he realized he can’t fight corruption if he walks away. The Assembly, Rotermund said, needs to have a dissenting voice.