I’ll say this much for the move by some borough assembly members to overturn the Two Rivers fire service election—this is not about election irregularities, a mistake in a newspaper story or any of the other excuses offered as reasons to discount the vote to create the service area.

This is about the right-wing majority on the Fairbanks assembly catering to people who don’t like the election results and want to reject a clear decision by Two Rivers voters.

The vote wasn’t close. In other circumstances it would be hailed as a landslide. The voters approved creation of a new fire service area on a 149-92 vote Nov. 15. The borough publicized the election in advance and people in the neighborhood knew the circumstances.

But the right-wing members of the assembly are prepared to take the first step to abolish the newborn service area even before there is a chance to make it work by holding an election on whether the service area should be eliminated.

Tammie Wilson, Barbara Haney, Brett Rotermund and Jimi Cash competed for the support of the crowd at a December meeting and were eager to overturn the vote based only on who showed up at a meeting to complain. I expect Aaron Lojewski will go along with those four and call for a new election.

It was only after a lot of arm twisting and many hours of debate over two days that the assembly voted in December to certify that the election was legally held.

There is no legal or political justification for a second election, but Cash is proposing a new election because “numerous property owners have expressed a desire for another election” and object to the results, according to his proposed ordinance. The document mentions no reason why the vote was flawed because the vote was not flawed.

None of the exaggerated claims made by Don McKee in a court complaint about misinformation and deception are repeated in the ordinance, which is a sign about their lack of merit.

McKee told KUAC News that the property tax rate for the service area, which has yet to be determined, “will put me completely out of business.”

At a December meeting, Wilson and Haney went on at length about how an error in a News-Miner story about the day of the election was enough to toss out the results. The borough had a legal ad with the correct information in the paper on the same day.

“Just knowing one person came on Wednesday to vote because they saw that ad in the paper,” was enough to justify overturning the election and holding a new one, said Wilson.

It wasn’t an ad in the newspaper, it was a news story that was corrected. The date was correct in all the legal notices and the election was heavily publicized. Haney repeatedly said the News-Miner is a “legal paper of record” and falsely claimed that getting the day of the week wrong in a news story has legal significance.

Using this new election do-over logic, we will never again hold an election without having to hold a second election because the people on the losing side of an election always think they could have won.

The ordinance for a new election is to be introduced Jan. 12, with a public hearing later in the month.

You can email the assembly members through this page.