Mayor recuses Christianson from funding discussion

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The Sitka Assembly on Tuesday postponed a measure to give some advance money to the Sitka School District. But the conversation began with Mayor Cheryl Westover removing the measure’s sponsor from the conversation.

This story begins a few weeks ago, at an informal meeting between the Assembly and the Sitka School Board. State and federal lawmakers are still figuring out education funding this year, and likely won’t finish their work until after the Sitka school district needs to finish its budget.

So, Assembly member Thor Christianson made a suggestion: Why not pledge money to the schools, just in case the funding efforts in Washington and Juneau don’t work out in the school district’s favor?

Christianson’s wife teaches first grade, and he had just visited her classroom as a volunteer. He said keeping up with that many kids is a big task, and that he wanted to help keep the class sizes low, and therefore make sure the school district had the money it needed to keep teachers in those classrooms.

Westover said she was uncomfortable with putting specific proposals on the table during an informational meeting.

This week, Christianson moved to discuss the measure at the regular Assembly meeting and Westover asked him to recuse himself.

“And I don’t like to do this,” Westover said during Tuesday’s meeting, “but the reason I’m doing it is at a work session with the school board, he was discussing spending the day with his wife and in the classroom, and she was complaining how many kids were in (the) class, and bugging him that she has too many kids in (the) class. I feel all of our citizens deserve an unbiased discussion on something like this.”

Christianson says he doesn’t remember exactly what he said at the work session, and there are no recordings of his remarks available. He protested Westover’s ruling.

Thor Christianson: “Making an observation that the class sizes are big or unruly … I didn’t say that my wife was bugging me about it, I said that it was obvious, and …”
Cheryl Westover: “Mr. Christianson, I’m going to stop you right there…”
TC: “And I think, I think…”
CW: “Those were your exact words, Mr. Christianson. You said your wife was bugging you about how big her class is.”
TC: “I really think this is motivated by my support for the school district and not anything else.”
CW: “And I’m not going to worry about that, because I was concerned that that would be said.”

Assembly member Mim McConnell said she was surprised by Westover’s decision to remove Christianson.

“I was not alarmed when he said that,” McConnell said, referring to Christianson’s remarks at the February meeting.

Westover reiterated her position.

“When you say that and move right into talking about how we’re going to forward fund the school, it concerned me a great deal and I think I said at the time, I’m very uncomfortable with this conversation,” she said.

McConnell along with Assembly member Phyllis Hackett voted to overturn Westover’s ruling but that failed, and Christianson left the discussion.

The Assembly will be having numerous conversations about school funding in the weeks to come, and Assembly member Mike Reif asked whether Westover’s ruling would preclude Christianson from participating in any conversations about school funding. Westover said no, she was just removing him from the discussion about forward funding.

“I think that shows just how purely politically motivated this is,” Christianson said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. “I feel like I’ve been personally singled out here because of my support for the schools and no other (reason). Right now I’m weighing my options.”

Christianson said he’s contacted an attorney, but hasn’t decided on a course of action.

His family affiliation with the school district has been ruled on before. In discussions last year, it was determined that he could participate in Assembly conversations about the school budget, because the school district is a large enough entity that recusing everyone with a connection to it would be impractical. And in fact, Assembly member Pete Esquiro is also married to a teacher in the district.

But Westover says the difference between then and now is that Christianson showed “extreme bias” by talking specifically of his wife’s working environment, and then proceeding to discuss money.

“When you use a family member and show extreme bias with the people’s money,” she said, “I’m going to probably overrule you on anything you vote for, when it comes to the money.”

In the end, the conversation didn’t tie up any loose ends or reveal much new information about where Assembly members stand on the school budget. They’re expected to revisit the issue during their March 27 meeting. The date is after the School Board’s planned final vote on the budget.

School board members, hearing of the postponement during their own meeting occurring simultaneously, said they would discuss whether to change date of the final budget vote.