Mayor Charlie Pierce of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, was not forced to resign, as has been alleged by a leftist political entertainment blog.
Accusations that he was forced to resign are wrong, the borough’s attorney said. He voluntarily resigned. There is no settlement agreement causing him to resign. There is no monetary settlement. There are no signed agreements.
“I cannot comment on threatened or pending litigation, including the existence or non-existence of threatened litigation, except to say that the KPB has not been served with a publicly filed quasi-judicial administrative or judicial complaint related to any of the allegations raised in Alaska Landmine story (or any other similar news stories on this), wrote Borough Lead Attorney Sean Kelly.
Kelly expanded on the allegations made by the blogger, who had been cooking up a controversy for days prior to Pierce resigning in order to focus on his campaign for governor:
To address your question below, please know that I do not intend to engage in further back and forth on this, and will not waive attorney-client privilege. However it does appear that some clarification is necessary. In my role as Borough Attorney this constitutes the extent of information I can provide at this time:
I cannot comment on confidential internal investigations, except to say that there is not an ongoing investigation. In the interest of transparency, however, on July 14, 2022, the borough did engage the law firm of Ashburn & Mason to conduct a confidential, internal investigation. That investigation was completed in July. Any internal documents or memorandum prepared for the purpose of or regarding the investigation are covered by attorney-client privilege, or attorney work product doctrine, or constitutional individual privacy protections, and cannot be released absent court order. Accordingly, and to protect all borough employees’ privacy rights and participation in internal investigations, I cannot, at this time, confirm or provide any individual names concerning the investigation. It would be inappropriate on my part to infer otherwise.
Mayor Pierce voluntarily resigned. There is no settlement agreement that required or called for Mayor Pierce to resign. There is no applicable settlement agreement. There has been no monetary settlement. There are no signed agreements.
I cannot comment on threatened or pending litigation, including the existence or non-existence of threatened litigation, except to say that the KPB has not been served with a publicly filed quasi-judicial administrative or judicial complaint related to any of the allegations raised in Alaska Landmine story (or any other similar news stories on this).
Typically, we do ask that you submit a public record request for any contracts or public documents, but to save some hassle I am attaching the KPB’s contract with Ashburn & Mason.
As stated on Friday, the KPB Legal Department will release a memorandum next week regarding succession. The KPB Legal Department will not comment further on any speculation surrounding Mr. Pierce’s resignation.
Thank you,
Sean Kelly
Kenai Borough Lead Attorney
Kpb attorney, the assembly members,and all employees with any knowledge of this matter are being closemouthed. Nothing stated above denies any wrongdoing by Pierce. Let us wait and see how things shake out. To prematurely state his innocence would make this blog appear to be a right wing entertainment blog.
“……..Nothing stated above denies any wrongdoing by Pierce………”
And there is nothing to indicate any wrongdoing by Pierce.
If there is an affirmative to win, sue the leftist. Teach them the leftist medias a lesson about running their mouth telling tall tales. The leftists always bringing litigation against
everyone,time for everyone with a case they can win to sue the leftist.
The many and continuing lawsuits by the Dunleavy Administration totally blows your argument out of the water. Dunleavy went so far as to create a new position specifically to identify where the Federal government can be sued using State resources
Disgusting! What liberals will do to win! When did Alaska turn dark money Blue ?
Facts don’t matter. The truth is not important. Their path to power is paved with wild, unproven accusations. All you have to do is repeatedly throw enough slime to sway a small group of undecided voters.
This worked well for the left in 2020, after four years of every imaginable allegation tossed at Trump.
With RCV, of course the leftists want Pierce to resign and pursue governorship. The more Republicans you have running, the lower their individual vote percentage will be. They share the votes. Now, the Democrats can have one of their candidates drop out, unexplained, at the last minute. Now they have only 1 candidate who will get all Democrat votes. All by design, Alaska is falling.
Frankly, I’m not sure how conservative Pierce is.
The KPB has very high property taxes, a high sales tax, and an incredibly bloated Peninsular government. There is even a new bond issue (to replace a fire hall that any other fire department in this state would be proud to have) being presented that would raise property taxes further.
I’m not so sure that he’s the kind of “conservative” people think he is…
Having read all of the blogs on this one, I really think we must just wait and see. Maybe the real reason is to limit the number of votes that Pierce would get. Dunleavy should still get out and confront Walker on his record, and what he had to do to fix things. Meanwhile, if Pierce isn’t involved and is still accumulating votes, assuming he isn’t eroding Dunleavy’s base, he is still helping if people remember to put Dunleavy one or two. All of this is beginning to look like ways to stop a second republican from getting enough votes to add to Dunleavy’s to put Dunleavy over the top on the second round. The Walker camp is so full of ways to snake things up their way that Alaskans must be careful.
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