A digital trail shows that the Peninsula Clarion, the local newspaper for the Kenai Peninsula, already had its story queued up in advance of Tuesday night’s Kenai Borough Assembly vote to appoint former mayor Mike Navarre as interim mayor, when Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce steps down later this month.
In fact, the Clarion had started on its story a full day before the vote was taken by the Assembly on a matter that was “lay down,” a term to describe a last-minute item that has not been added to the normal agenda. Lay downs are for things that are considered emergencies. Evidently appointing an interim mayor without public knowledge is in the emergency category. The Assembly has known about Pierce’s resignation since Aug. 26.
The vote to make Navarre the interim mayor was passed, 7-2, with no public comment and no public notice. But the newspaper knew.
Whenever Google scrapes a website, it shows when the story was started. A search for the story on Sept. 7 at 5:21 pm shows the story was started on Sept. 5, one day before the Sept. 6 meeting.
The following coding shows backend information from the story that is available through the Chrome browser. It gives another view of when the story was started, highlighted for MRAK readers. It’s like a fingerprint for the story:
There is at least some indication of coordination between Assemblymen Jesse Bjorkman, Tyson Cox, Cindy Ecklund, Lane Chesley, Mike Tupper, Brent Hibbert, and Assembly President Brent Johnson, who said during the meeting that everyone already had the information, that multiple people had sent in names, and that time was of the essence.
The Assembly majority knew it had the votes, and Mike Navarre himself appeared at the meeting for the first time in many years. Another person who seemed to know the fix was in was Soldotna City Councilwoman Linda Hutchings, who plans to run again for Borough mayor. Such collusion by the Assembly, if proven, would be prohibited under the Alaska Open Meetings Act, which requires transparency in government decision making.
Assemblymen Richard Derkevorkian and Bill Elam were the two elected officials who voted against the resolution. Those two wanted to appoint a mayor on Sept. 20, which would have given the Assembly more time to involve the public.
“We just wanted to accept applications. I was going to encourage a few people to apply, but Tyson acted like no one else was qualified,” Derkevorkian said, mentioning that former Borough Chief of Staff James Baisden had applied and is very well qualified, but was not considered. The purpose of not including the public was to prevent protests against Navarre, he said.
The original story follows:
