Lance Roberts takes obstructionist talents to statewide level

Lance Roberts, appointed to the Alaska Local Boundary Commission by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, has used the opportunity to show his penchant for obstructionism on his very first case.

Roberts played the leading role in blocking a plan by the City of Soldotna to amend its boundaries through action by the Legislature, neglecting boundary commission regulations and processes that have served Alaska well for 60 years.

The City of Soldotna says he’s a hypocrite. And that he has started a court fight that will waste many thousands of dollars.

The city is right.

Roberts, an engineer at GVEA, opposes any and all instances of government expansion and wants to apply his rigid opinions upon others. He wants to make government less effective and reduce the level of services wherever possible.

Dunleavy has placed Roberts in a position where he now has an inordinate statewide influence on limiting the boundaries of municipalities.

Roberts is running against Kristan Kelly for the borough assembly in Fairbanks.

Unlike the borough assembly, where opinions usually rule the day, the LBC is supposed to follow rules, regulations and precedents.

Roberts doesn’t seem to understand that part of the job, which is why he should have never been placed on the commission, an agency created by the Alaska Constitution.

The City of Soldotna followed the usual process for annexation, which is supposed to culminate in acceptance or rejection by the Legislature.

Roberts opposed the annexation, saying the level of development was not consistent with what exists inside the city. Commissioners who know the area corrected him.

Unable to stop the annexation any other way, he switched tactics and said a local option vote was needed, despite the wishes of Soldotna. He got two other commissioners to agree with him on a 3-2 vote taking this out of the hands of the Legislature and putting it in the hands of voters in the small area to be annexed.

Unless the court blocks the boundary commission move, the approach Roberts is pushing may make it impossible in the future for any local government in Alaska to amend its boundaries and add territory by annexation. This is because voters in an area to be annexed, who don’t pay the cost of local government, are not going to volunteer to pay taxes for services they already get for free.

“This is not a commissioner who genuinely believes voter approval is in the balanced best interests of the state of Alaska and the City of Soldotna,” the city said in its court appeal.

The Alaska Constitution established the boundary commission as a means of setting boundaries for local government jurisdictions by taking statewide issues into consideration. The time-tested process works.

In 1960, Soldotna had 332 residents in an area of 7.4 square miles.

Today, Soldotna has 4,333 residents in an area of about 7.5 square miles.

It has a three percent sales tax that provides about half of its revenue. But there are businesses just outside the city limits that don’t charge that tax, though the businesses and their customers benefit from city services.

It’s understandable that those businesses and the 147 voters who lived in those 2.63 square miles would like to keep getting city services without paying.

Following a long-established review process, Soldotna residents have worked for more than five years to amend the city boundaries.

After repeated studies and hearings, the Soldotna City Council proposed adding 2.63 square miles to the city. The new territory includes the city water source, the local high school and an extensive trail network.

The city opted to use the legislative review process under which the five-member Local Boundary Commission reviews the proposal and forwards it to the Legislature for approval or rejection.

This option grew out of a desire to prevent small groups in an area up for annexation from blocking proposals that are in the community’s interest. Regulations developed over the past six decades have created a sensible system.

There are 147 voters in the 2.63 square miles, voters who are enjoying services provided by the city.

The staff of the Local Boundary Commission supported the annexation through the legislative review process and completed an analysis in 2020.

Business owners in the area to be annexed spoke out against annexation, saying they did not want to have to start charging a sales tax to their customers.

But none of the people who opposed annexation lived in the area to be annexed. The only people who lived in the area to be annexed who testified supported the proposal.

When the commission met to consider the annexation, Roberts moved right away to block the annexation without looking at the standards required for review.

The commission went through the applicable standards of the proposal and Roberts objected without providing details.

Roberts failed to convince the other commission members to oppose the Soldotna plan.

“The commission agreed annexation was in the best interests of Alaska,” the City of Soldotna says in its appeal. The commission also agreed, upon reviewing the standards, that it would be appropriate to have the Legislature accept or reject the annexation.

The commission concluded that all of the regulatory standards had been met.

At that point, Roberts began trying to reduce the area to be annexed by cutting out specific sections of land, but none of his various motions received a “second” and failed.

“Again, Commissioner Roberts expressed no hesitation in having the LBC rather than the voters determine whether certain areas should be included in the territory to be annexed,” the city said in its appeal.

But Roberts then ignored decades of established procedure by saying the petition should be converted to one in which the 147 voters in the area to be annexed should have the final say.

He launched into a lecture, saying a “super majority of those residents—and they have expressed the desire to have it done with local action . . .this is one of those abilities to vote that somebody in an annexed territory, um, uh, should have. And so, um, my motion is that we allow them to vote on it and let them decide if they feel they need the services provided by the city of Soldotna. . . I think it’s the perfect thing to do.”

The Roberts plan ignored constitutional history and Supreme Court precedent that municipal boundaries can best be amended by having the Legislature consider the statewide implications.

The system of allowing legislative review is to prevent small groups from blocking action that any outside review would show to be in the community’s interest.

Based on typical turnout rates in local elections, the Roberts plan would have about 30 people deciding an annexation question of vital importance to a city with more than 4,300 people.

Roberts managed to get two other members to agree with him and the LBC called for a local election on a 3-2 vote.

The dissent by commissioners John Harrington and Larry Wood said the ruling “is extremely detrimental to all future municipal petitions for annexation by the legislative review process. It essential destroys the legislative review process as a functioning annexation alternative.”

The Roberts plan will clearly cost many thousands of dollars in wasted staff time and legal expenses. The Soldotna annexation met boundary commission standards, but did not meet the impossible standards of Lance Roberts.

The LBC standards are likely to prevail in court.

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