Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Haines Borough Assembly candidate Karen Hess said she was consulting an attorney following a 4-2 assembly decision Tuesday to certify the election of former police chief Greg Goodman. Hess had 10 days to appeal the decision to Superior Court.

Members Daymond Hoffman, Norm Smith, Steve Vick and Joanne Waterman voted in favor of certifying Goodman’s election, with Jerry Lapp and Scott Rossman opposed. Goodman replaced Smith on the assembly Tuesday and is set to serve a three-year term.

Goodman defeated write-in candidate Hess in the Oct. 5 election for assembly seat "E," 575-456. Hess maintains Goodman did not meet borough residency requirements.

Hess said she "wasn’t surprised" by Tuesday’s assembly vote in support of Goodman. "Right now, I’m in touch with an attorney," Hess said. "That’s basically where I’m at."

The assembly’s decision follows an investigation by borough staff, including attorney Brooks Chandler.

Chandler, who attended the meeting, wrote in a memo "the facts developed during the investigation could be interpreted to either sustain the election challenge or uphold the original election results," so "we are not able to recommend whether the Assembly should vote to uphold the election challenge."

Chandler referred to a charter requirement that candidates must have "resided continuously within the borough for a period of at least one year immediately preceding the election," but said intent would be a top consideration for the assembly.

"I do think the charter does include intent, so, for instance, if somebody went to Hawaii on vacation for three months, you could also say, ‘Well, they’re not residing here. They went over and they rented a condo,’" Chandler said. "But they intended to come back, so the evaluation you have to make is, ‘Did this person intend to come back?’"

Goodman moved to Anchorage in 2008 for employment at Everts Air Cargo.

"We never intended to be gone permanently," Goodman said at an Oct. 15 interview in the Haines Borough Public Library. "We always intended to come back."

Goodman said his Haines house and cabin had been put on sale to downsize, "with the intention of whichever one sold first, we were going to keep the other one, because we always planned on coming back here."

In the memo, Chandler said Goodman’s words, "if found credible by the Assembly, would meet the ‘intent’ required to maintain residency in Haines during a period of temporary absence."

In a 10-minute interview with acting manager Jila Stuart in the library, Goodman said he rented in Anchorage and had an airplane, boat and two cars registered there. He also changed his voter registration to Anchorage. Goodman used his Anchorage address when applying for his 2010 Permanent Fund Dividend.

"There are facts inconsistent with the stated intent of Mr. Goodman," Chandler wrote. "The most significant is his change of voter registration from Haines to Anchorage. Under state law, he could not be a ‘resident’ of both Anchorage and Haines simultaneously."

Registering to vote there is evidence that Goodman no longer considered Haines his "habitual, physical dwelling place," Chandler wrote. Goodman registered in Anchorage in March 2009. In the borough interview, he said he returned to Haines in July, but said he’d made two other trips here since October 2009. Goodman changed his voter registration to Haines on Aug. 2, 2010.

Also in the memo, Chandler said that whether a person "intends to maintain his dwelling place in that area" is a factor to be considered. One example Chandler provided is that temporary work sites are not dwelling places.

"We have many people who are residents of Haines who are registered voters of Haines that intend to come back to Haines next year," Smith said. "They’re gone now. They vote absentee. They also qualify for Permanent Fund checks."

Smith said he left Haines decades ago to work on the pipeline for a year, but considered Haines his home during that time.

"I think the intent is there in this case, and if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have a candidate with 54 percent of the vote," Smith said.

Earlier, Hoffman had said he was "reluctant to undo the expressed will of borough voters without very strong evidence."

Waterman cited Goodman’s library interview and said he had a house sitter, paid the monthly bills and didn’t rent out his Haines property while he was in Anchorage.

Lapp referred to an article in the Chilkat Valley News on Goodman’s 2008 exit as police chief to explain his vote.

"There wasn’t an intent to stay at that time," Lapp said. "It said, ‘I’m leaving for 10 years to be in Anchorage.’"

Chandler said the assembly would have to determine how long Goodman had planned to return to Haines.

"It is pretty clear that we have a one-year residency requirement, and so the fact that somebody who hadn’t thought they were going to move back here moved back sometime after October (2009) isn’t necessarily enough to meet the qualifications as set forth in your borough code," Chandler said.

"They had to have been planning to return here as their primary place of residence as of October 2009 in order to meet the one-year requirement."

Rossman said he evaluated the issue "at face value," and said Goodman "didn’t reside here" one year before the election. Rossman said the assembly needs a more clear definition of "resident" for future elections.