The three Palmer City Council members who were subject to recall this week have been officially ousted by the voters. The final tally, as of Friday, was:
Sabrena Combs: 499 yes, 371 no.
Brian Daniels: 498 yes, 373 no.
Jill Valerius: 493 yes, 373 no.
The latest tally shows a 20.1 percent turnout, and includes the absentee and questioned ballots from Tuesday’s special recall election.
The three were accused of having had secret meetings in private chat groups on Facebook, a violation of the Alaska Open Meetings Act. The secret meetings often centered on topics that would come before the Palmer City Council, where four members of the group served as elected officials. One, Julie Berberich, has already left the Palmer City Council and was not included in the recall.
The results are subject to certification on May 3 by the council. It’s unclear if the members who have been recalled may attend that meeting to certify their own recall. The newly empty seats are to be filled by the four members of the city council who were not recalled. The four will review applications, review them, and vote on temporary council members.
20.1% turnout..?♂️.. although the final vote results are encouraging, that percentage leaves little doubt as to why brouhahas like this even happen in the first place.
Many piss and moan about stuff like this yet remain oblivious and noncommittal to the importance of turning out to vote to prevent it from happening in the first place…Opinionated non-voters are an embarrassment and shameful to those that fought, bled, sacrificed, and died to give them the right to vote..disgusting turnout for such an important vote..yet, a good result in spite of..
Your point is well taken. Had citizens made an effort to be involved and informed and got out to VOTE, the results might have been punctuated with !!!!!!!. In the least, Palmer residents are thankfully rewarded with a WIN, unlike the non responsive voters in Anchorage, who will suffer thru another round of communist governance.
An election history for Palmer was very hard to piece together through a web search. What I did find told me that in 2020, Brian Daniels was behind by a narrow margin on election night, only to wind up winning by a narrow margin once all the votes were counted. Shades of state primaries that year, where candidates who were ahead by ten or more points on election night ended up losing in the end. Comparing this story with the story of several days ago, anti-recall forces only bolstered their margin by about 75 votes in each case between election night and the reporting of final results.
Amen !! I grew up in a household where voting was very important. It was kinda like going to church . Even tho my parents were divided in their political beliefs , they voted !
Would love to meet some of the no voters, ask them why they think the behavior is acceptable.
If we dumped these insane “nonpartisan” elections we’d see less of these shinanigans.
Additionally, if all elections tool place in November at the same time as federal elections, you’d see more than 800 people turn out.
Where I currently reside (New Hanover County, North Carolina), the elections structure has been set up for the exclusive benefit of two political parties (Dogmacrats and Replundercans), who combined comprise 59.7 percent of total voters. Looking at the Alaska Division of Elections website, those two parties combined comprise only 36.1 percent of total voters in Palmer city limits. With all the complaints of low voter turnout, could it be that whether or not people vote boils down to whether or not they desire to be told how to vote by party bosses and the MSM? If people were as fervent about opting out of taxes as they are about opting out of voting, we could make some real progress, but that’s an argument for another day. Anyway, switching to November elections would have the same effect as on the state level: with an abundance of one-size-fits-all 24/7 national news, people will dutifully vote in presidential election years because that’s how they’re gaslighted by those news outlets. It will be pure luck if many of those people vote in any other years.
Its a small victory to say the best. Just as anchorage it reveals palmer clergy(pastors, elders, deacons,and wives) need to revist jn 21:15-17 and jn14:15. i see the conversations between jesus and simon peter and talk to those whom feel, think, God led them into christian service. Which there are too many ‘lambs and sheep’ neglected, malnourished, unattended by Gods chosen leaders and servants. Which i see affects voter turnout. You know! There are limited times to politically canvasse but no limit for church toknock on doors and know who lives around the church and what they may need and if they
are a believer and need some
Bible instruction by friendship with a church leader. I think this iswhat jesus was telling peter about feeding and tending his
‘lambs’ and ‘sheep’ while he is
away. You know people who are jesus followers, not fans, when it comes to political views they can’t help but lean right and take the more conservative approach. So are you freedom loving atheists agnostics
You ought to encourage the christian church
to grow
In your community instead of being a hinderance.
See the thread I replied to directly above. This week’s Bible study ended at Mark 9:40, where Jesus says that anyone not against us (“us” meaning Jesus and His disciples) is for us. Compare that to the current state of polarized partisan politics, where partisans are of the attitude that anyone not for us (“us” meaning party or other specific cause) is against us. “Even Stevie Wonder can see” that there’s a huge difference between those two stances.
Guilty as charged. I wonder who they will have eye contact with when they go into the local grocery store?
Just when one thinks maybe just maybe Jesus has to come back to fix this mess because there are just to many oath breakers to right the ship here. Look who comes to the rescue same as usual the citizens with integrity, citizens citizens citizens. Shameless oath breakers exposed to all, so help you GOD they swore, now it’s into GOD s hands with them we got to clean this mess up citizens. Congratulations citizens
Policy and procedures should be in place for an immediate ousting by the board itself, not sure why this had to come to a vote.
Bad idea if that were the case one party would always rule.
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