Ketchikan Assembly ordinance would set process for removing borough appointees

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly listed Ordinance 2122, which would create a process for removing appointed members of borough committees, boards and commissions, for introduction at a special meeting Monday, Sept. 28. It amends Title 2 of borough code, which covers officials and boards.

Under the draft, an appointee could be removed "for good cause" by the mayor with Assembly approval or by a two-thirds vote of the Assembly. Removal could be appealed and would wait on the Assembly's decision. Good cause would mean "unfitness to hold a position of public trust, or a lack of competency or performance to the detriment of the public interest."

The agenda names no Assembly sponsor, but Borough Attorney Glenn Brown's memo in the packet gives the reason: "Recent events involving comments uttered by an appointed Borough official during a Planning Commission meeting have rendered manifest the need for a defined process."

A week earlier, the Sept. 21 regular Assembly agenda carried a motion to condemn the discriminatory comments of a planning commissioner and urge the Planning Commission to adopt a motion of censure, a formal rebuke, against Commissioner Darlene Dollimont-Svenson. At the commission's Sept. 15 meeting, Dollimont-Svenson said, "How much more do white people have to pay for KIC in this community?" adding that the question had come from "seven different sources" and "I said I would ask," according to the Assembly memo. KIC is the Ketchikan Indian Community. That agenda also listed a work session on a borough code of conduct, sponsored by Assembly members Sharli Arntzen and Bridget Mattson and postponed Aug. 3 and 24.

The Planning Commission met Tuesday, Sept. 29, with one item of regular business on its agenda: a resolution censuring Dollimont-Svenson and calling for her resignation. No minutes or action records for either meeting had been posted when this was written.

The mayor appoints commissioners, and the Assembly confirms them each year at its first meeting in March. The ordinance would reach appointed members across borough committees, boards and commissions, not only the Planning Commission. The agendas list no date for a public hearing on the ordinance.