Palmer Mayor recall will go before city voters

What you need to know:

• Palmer voters will decide in May whether to recall Mayor Steve Carrington.
• Recall proponents say Carrington should be removed because he overstepped his authority by hiring an outside attorney to draft a separation agreement for former City Manager Stephen Jellie without consulting the City Council. Carrington said he ordered the agreement to give the council a simple way to end Jellie’s contract following allegations that Jellie had violated labor laws and rumors of his planned cuts to the city’s public safety budget.
• An official election date has not been set. If Carrington is recalled, the City Council will appoint a new mayor to serve until the city’s next general election in October.

PALMER — Palmer voters will head to the polls in May to decide whether to recall Mayor Steve Carrington.

Proponents of the recall say Carrington should be removed because he overstepped his authority by hiring an outside attorney to draft a separation agreement for then-City Manager Stephen Jellie with “legal elements detrimental to the city of Palmer” without first consulting the city council, according to a recall application.

Those elements included a $75,000 severance payment, a clause prohibiting the city and Jellie from suing each other and a nondisclosure agreement limiting what Palmer officials can tell Jellie’s potential future employers about the circumstances of his departure, according to the application.

Jellie resigned after a tumultuous 53-day tenure marked by allegations of labor law violations and rumors of planned cuts to the city’s public safety budget. It was his third such exit from a city in less than two years, with previous payouts totaling $200,000.

Carrington commissioned the contract, known as an overlay agreement, to give the council “a simple option in writing to end Mr. Jellie’s contract,” he said in a November statement. The terms in the overlay were standard for terminating a contract, he said, and were consistent with Jellie’s original employment agreement, including the large payout.

Palmer law requires the mayor to get council approval before signing a contract, City Attorney Sarah Heath said during a meeting late last year.

The council unanimously approved the separation agreement following a heated, hours-long closed session with Jellie on Oct. 9. Multiple council members, including Victoria Hudson, who was sworn into office the previous day, have since said they felt pressured into approving the agreement and did not have time to fully review it before the vote.

An official recall election date has not yet been set. It will be held by mid-May, according to a memo submitted to the council by City Clerk Shelly Acteson during a city council meeting Tuesday. State law requires a recall election to be held within 75 days of the petition’s presentation to the city council, a timeline that runs out May 25.

The election will cost the city about $18,000, Acteson said in an interview. That total includes the cost of recall petition application legal reviews, she said.

The recall ballot will ask, “Shall Steve Carrington be recalled from the office of mayor?” and provide “yes” and “no” choices, as required by state law. The ballot will also include the full grounds for recall as stated in the petition application and may include a statement of 200 words or fewer submitted by Carrington, according to state statute.

If Carrington is recalled, the council will appoint a new mayor to serve until the city’s next general election in October, according to state law.  

Palmer residents Paula Pettijohn and Cindy Hudgins filed the recall application late last year with 10 additional residents listed as sponsors, a requirement under state law. Acteson approved the application after a legal review by a contracted attorney with Anchorage-based law firm Munson, Cacciola & Severin LLP.

Signature petitions were first issued on Dec. 18. Acteson certified the recall petition March 6, according to city documents.

Carrington’s recall petition required 71 signatures from registered Palmer city voters, equal to 25% of turnout in the last general election for the office and a threshold set by state law.

Hudgins and petition application sponsor Andrew Hudson collected the recall petition signatures, according to city documents. Hudgins previously helped lead the 2022 council member recalls; Andrew Hudson is married to City council member Victoria Hudson.

Two petition booklets containing 82 signatures were submitted to the clerk by Hudgins on Feb. 10, but only 66 were verified, according to the clerk’s certification submitted Tuesday. State law requires printed names and addresses to be legible for verification.

Andrew Hudson picked up a third booklet on Feb. 27 and submitted it later that day with an additional eight signatures.

The combined petitions contained the necessary 71 verified signatures, the clerk’s certification states. 

An earlier recall application filed by Pettijohn and Hudgins in late October was rejected for being legally insufficient.

Ketchikan-based attorney Scott Brandt-Erichsen conducted the October application review on behalf of the city. Brandt-Erichsen also drafted Jellie’s overlay agreement and was contracted by the city for a legal review of a 2022 recall of three Palmer city council members.

Carrington said he plans to campaign against the recall but has not filed official documents or registered a group with the state’s public offices commission, which oversees political spending. He does not plan to spend more than $5,000 and has been advised to go door-to-door to speak with voters, he said.

Spending for the 2022 recall of three Palmer City Council members exceeded $25,000 as groups campaigned for and against the effort, according to state campaign finance reports.

Carrington was first elected mayor in 2022 after serving a year in the role following the resignation of former Mayor Edna DeVries, who stepped down after being elected Matanuska-Susitna Borough mayor.

Carrington was elected to the council in 2013 and served for eight years before becoming mayor. He previously served on the council from 2001 to 2005.

-- Contact Amy Bushatz at contact@matsusentinel.com