A lengthy delay in delivering Sitka’s official position on the proposed “Roadless Rule” exemption to Congress has left some residents wondering if city hall hoped to downplay the resolution. Recently-released public records indicate that, initially, only one member of Alaska’s delegation received the “No Action” resolution following a vote by the Sitka Assembly last fall, and it was delivered with a letter that had not received assembly approval.
The Sitka Assembly, in November, passed the resolution on a 5-1 vote. Its message was clear, the group wanted no action on a recent proposal to exempt the Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Rule. Mayor Gary Paxton was the sole dissenter. Right before the assembly voted, he said he’d spoken to Sitka Conservation Society Director Andrew Thoms.
“He has written a letter to Senator Murkowski asking on some proposals on how to get things done short of removing us from the Roadless Rule,” he said. “I will ask staff to make an endorsement of that to come back to the assembly for your review and your approval and we’ll send it.”
That piqued Sitka resident and conservationist Larry Edwards’ interests. The former GreenPeace activist asked for a copy of the letter after the meeting. When he didn’t receive it, he made a public records request from the city, for every email with the word “roadless.”
When the municipal clerk delivered the pages of records, Edwards learned that Mayor Paxton had forged ahead with getting Thoms’ letter included with the assembly’s resolution, which was sent to Senator Lisa Murkowski’s office on November 29.
Edwards thinks Paxton never brought the letter back to the assembly for public review, because he intended to muddy Sitka’s position on Roadless:
“On the morning of the assembly meeting on the 26th- he said he expected the assembly to cave on this issue,” Edwards says. “And then he asked- ‘What am I going to do?'”
The letter from Thoms, a copy of which was obtained by KCAW, does not support the exemption. Rather, Thoms states his frustration that the exemption debate would only fuel litigation, and serve to distract the efforts of the Sitka Conservation Society to develop smaller, more sustainable timber industry — work that is generally not supported by GreenPeace and other like-minded environmental groups.
But — perhaps more importantly — what Edwards’ records request also revealed was that copies of assembly’s resolution weren’t sent to the other two members of Alaska’s congressional delegation until almost a month after-the-fact. The oversight was first noticed by Linda Behnken, the director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, who discovered that some congressional staffers in Washington were unaware of Sitka’s position on the Roadless exemption. Behnken emailed assembly member Kevin Knox, who reached out to city staff, who reported that the letter had only been sent to Murkowski’s office, not Sen. Dan Sullivan or Rep. Don Young. Once that became clear, city staff immediately sent the resolution to both offices on December 18.
Read copies of emails and letters obtained through Edwards’ public records request here
Looking back, Mayor Paxton says he made two mistakes, and acted too quickly.
“First of all, I messed up,” he says. “I should have gone to the assembly and gotten their tacit support of what Andrew was pursuing. We should have done that under a separate letter of transmittal.”
Paxton said Thoms’ letter shouldn’t have been included with the assembly’s resolution. He did not intend to bury the assembly’s “no action” message.
“I in no way intended to diminish the assembly’s support of the community’s desire,” he says.
Thoms with the Sitka Conservation Society says his letter was intended to outline his organization’s collaborative work with Tongass stakeholders, and was not intended to dilute the assembly’s position on Roadless.
“It was my assumption that the letters that I provided to the mayor were going to go before the full assembly and that the assembly would send a letter along with the resolution to all of the delegation,” says Thoms.
Larry Edwards, however, isn’t satisfied with the process. He wants the assembly to do a more thorough investigation.
“My feeling is that it’s unethical and it’s not good government. The city or the assembly should explicitly make sure with the congressional delegation, the governor, the commissioner of DNR, whoever else that Paxton may have communicated with giving his view on where Sitka stands on stuff,” he says. “We need to get this straightened out.”
There’s no formal grievance process for members of the public to file with the assembly. If a complaint like Edwards’ is lodged, the assembly can decide how to proceed.
KCAW reached out to all assembly members for comment. Member Kevin Knox says he was disappointed by the mayor’s actions, but after further clarification, he doesn’t think an investigation is warranted.
“I think most of the information is out there and on the table. I don’t think there’s really more to dig into. It’s unfortunate the way it happened,” he says. “I don’t really feel like the mayor really had any nefarious intent. I know that he wasn’t necessarily in favor of the resolution but I don’t think that Mayor Paxton meant to undermine the message.”
Member Valorie Nelson says she is looking for a co-sponsor to make Paxton’s actions a discussion/direction item at the next assembly meeting. “I don’t think it should be brushed away,” she told KCAW over the phone. “It’s just not right for the mayor to speak on behalf of the whole body.”
