With early voting now underway in Fairbanks for local elections, the League of Woman Voters of Tanana Valley held its candidate forum for the School Board, Borough Assembly, and mayoral candidates on Friday.
The candidate forum can be heard on KUAC here.
The “hot button issues” that were notable for the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly candidates involved fiscal issues, public testimony, and property rights.
Miguel Ramirez, Tammie Wilson, and Jimi Cash kept the focus on supporting the tax revenue cap, and also mentioned the lack of decorum by some current Assembly members during public testimony, and the importance of private property rights.
The decorum issue has been raised by current members of the FNSB assembly and school board earlier. At the heart of the matter is that citizens come into the Assembly or School Board chamber and spend hours testifying to on issues of the day, only to have members of the elected bodies ignore them. One member — Kristen Kelly — uses Assembly time to badger and argue with the public member who is testifying.
During the candidate forum, Assembly members David Guttenberg, Kristen Kelly, and candidate Garret Armstrong favored eliminating the Assembly time set aside for asking questions of testifiers. All three lauded the assemblies in Anchorage and Juneau for putting strict sideboards on public testimony.
In contrast, Ramirez and Wilson said that people in the borough felt their testimony was routinely ignored and that they were made to feel like criminals by certain Assembly members, such as Kristen Kelly.
Ramirez, Wilson, and Cash highlighted that the Assembly has repeatedly ignored public testimony.
For instance, there had been extensive testimony against the recent special election to raise taxes, yet the Assembly voted to hold the election anyway.
There had also been significant testimony by veterinarians and animal rights activists on the cost and actually harmful elements of the animal shelter replacement project (aka puppy palace), and yet more money was allocated to the project.
Three Assembly meetings were dominated by public testimony opposing forming a committee to study mail-in voting. Finally, the Assembly voted down the resolution, pushed by Assembly Presiding Office Savannah Fletcher, after key members of the community made it clear the public was tired of being ignored.
Ramirez, Wilson, and Cash also took the current Assembly to task over fiscal matters. All three emphasized the bloated budget for the $33 million animal shelter replacement project, a facility they say will not meet the needs of the community and which has been opposed by both fiscal conservatives and animal rights groups.
Jimi Cash, who is in commercial construction, stated the cost of the proposed project is ridiculous, and Ramirez agreed the animal shelter price tag is excessive.
Kristen Kelly, David Guttenberg, and Garret Armstrong support the project. Armstrong talked about how his friend’s driveway was expensive and that costs may be escalating for the animal shelter if it doesn’t get built soon. Kelly supported expansion of borough services into pickleball courts, trails, and other leisure activities.
Kelly, Guttenberg, and Armstrong are not supportive of private property rights. In her closing statements, Kelly specifically stated that property rights are “fringe politics.”
Guttenberg, in his closing statements, repeated Kelly’s points, stating that borough governments should not be operating on political ideologies.
Armstrong echoed their sentiments and mentioned his support for running trail easements through private property. Under the current policies in the FNSB, trail easements are required for those who wish to subdivide, even if there is no demand for a trail in the area.