What you need to know: 

• The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly will fill the vacant District 4 seat through a series of interviews and votes. Applications are due Sept. 27. Applicants must be residents of District 4. 
• The Assembly will review candidates during a public meeting Oct. 1. They will interview candidates and vote on a final selection during a public meeting Oct. 3. The selected candidate will be sworn in immediately.
• The seat was vacated earlier this month when former Assembly member Rob Yundt abruptly resigned after moving outside the district. He said he was unaware of the requirement to live within the district.

PALMER -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly will select a new member for an open District 4 seat through a series of interviews and votes scheduled for early next month.

The seat was vacated last week after Assembly member Rob Yundt abruptly resigned following his move several miles outside the district. Yundt said he was unaware he was required to live within the district he represented.

The process for choosing the new District 4 member was decided during a regularly scheduled Assembly meeting Tuesday, the first since Yundt's resignation.

Because Yundt resigned months after the deadline for open seats to appear on the November ballot, a new Assembly member must instead be chosen through public interviews and votes by the current Assembly.

Borough officials said the interview process will closely mirror one used in 2022 to select Assembly member Dmitri Fonov for the District 6 seat after former Assembly member Jesse Sumner resigned to assume a role in the state legislature.

To be considered for the seat, an applicant must be a registered Mat-Su voter and a resident of District 4, officials said. District 4 includes the city of Wasilla and part of the greater Wasilla area. Residents can determine if they live in District 4 by searching for their address via a Mat-Su Borough Assembly map portal.

How to apply for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough District 4 Assembly seat

Interested individuals can apply online, borough officials said. Applications must be delivered to the clerk's office at the borough administration building in Palmer by 5 p.m. Sept. 27. 

Applicants will be reviewed during a special Assembly meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. on Oct. 1, with candidates selected for interviews through a series of votes. Part of the initial review will take place in a closed executive session, during which Assembly members will discuss candidates' qualifications and formulate questions for the interview process, Borough Attorney Nick Spiropoulos told the Assembly on Tuesday. No votes can be taken or final decisions made during that session, he said.

Those selected for interviews will be asked to appear before the Assembly at 6 p.m. on Oct. 3 to answer a series of questions. Assembly members and Mayor Edna DeVries will each ask one initial question and one follow-up question. The Assembly and mayor will then enter a closed executive session to discuss the candidates. Candidates can request that any discussion about them be held in an open, public session instead, Spiropoulos said.

When the closed session ends, the Assembly will take a final public vote to select the new member. In the event of a tie, the mayor will cast the deciding vote. The mayor can also veto the selection, Spiropoulos said.

The person selected will be sworn in immediately by the borough clerk and will attend their first public meeting as a member of the Assembly on Oct. 8.

While no financial documents are required during the application period, the newly selected Assembly member must file a public office financial disclosure form with the Alaska Public Offices Commission within 30 days of their appointment, as required by state law, Spiropoulos said. Two Mat-Su Borough candidates were removed from the November ballot this week after failing to file that form by the August deadline required for regular elections.

It is unclear how many residents will file for the open seat, but recent data suggest interest could be low. The District 4 seat was uncontested in the 2023 election, with Yundt as the only candidate on the ballot. In 2022, only three people applied to the borough for the open District 6 seat.

-- Amy Bushatz can be contacted at abushatz@matsusentinel.com.