Keyboard Cabal: Palmer recall election is now under way

By
Suzanne Downing
-
18

The City of Palmer is holding a special election on April 19 to determine if three members — known by some as the “Keyboard Cabal” — of the Palmer City Council should be recalled. The three are progressives who campaigned on their liberal credentials: Sabrena Combs, Brian Daniels, and Jill Valerius.

The three are accused of holding secret discussion groups in violation of the Alaska Open Meetings Act. They were meeting online in a closed Facebook group for several months. Anyone in the group who disagreed with them in the group was removed and anyone who questioned the legality of the discussions was also removed.

The front and back of the ballot is in this image:

Whenever there is a majority of a body gathering to discuss business that can be heard before the public body, it must be noticed, the public must have right to be there, and there must be a recording of the meeting, as well as an opportunity for the public to speak to speak. That is the foundation of the Alaska Open Meetings Act.

The fourth council member who engaged in the secret discussions was former council member Julie Berberich, who was subsequently unelected from the City Council. Now the three remaining are subject to recall after a petition gathered enough signatures, which were certified by the city clerk in January.

The group being recalled was discussing things like mask mandates, use of Covid-19 relief funds, how to get more progressives on boards and commissions, and an anti-police ordinance. These and other items that come before the council were discussed without the knowledge of the other council members.

The council members in question have said that the conversations were innocent and that they meant no harm. Voters will be deciding whether the offenses were egregious enough to remove the three remaining from office.

Early voting is already open at City Hall. Absentee ballot applications are due on Friday, April 8. Palmer does not conduct a mail-in-only election, but uses the traditional in-person method of casting a ballot, and absentee ballots, which must be actively requested by a voter.

absentee_by-mail_application_2022-special.pdf 

Secret meetings by three Palmer City Council members has led to a recall petition, and question will now go to voters

18 COMMENTS

  1. Similar to Jamie Allard and Dave Bronson with Save Anchorage. Recalls typically fail and are a waste of taxpayer money

    • Ya……we should just let the degenerates do whatever they want without saying a word.

    • There’s nothing about this similar to Save Anchorage. True , most recalls typically fail though they do result at least a closer look at the next election, which results in failure for re-election. Finally, you pay zero state taxes. How much of that was wasted on this recall?

  2. I pray for the people of Palmer to do the next right thing. These four people should not be on the council. Oh we didn’t mean to do harm or it was innocent are not excuses for doing wrong. Kind of like a child pushing boundaries.

  6. I can’t believe the people of Palmer voted for these libtards. I know there are better people than this to sit on the city council.

  7. It does not matter if they meant harm or not and its not up to them to decide if the conversations were innocent. The fact of the matter is that they should not have been having those conversations in the first place.

  8. Palmer has it right, don’t allow vote by mail and if you want to vote by mail you must ask beforehand or vote in person, Anchorage would do well to follow their lead.

  9. Once again, MRAK proves it can hunt out a good story. The photos actually tell it all. One with purple dye in her hair. The guy wearing a lady’s head band. And the other reminds me of the actor in the commercial for Husqvarna chainsaws. Palmer must be hard pressed for regular folk.

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