Greg Goodman has lost his seat on the Haines Borough Assembly following an appeal from write-in candidate Karen Hess, according to a posting Wednesday at the Juneau Superior Court website.
A Wednesday docket entry at http://www.courtrecords.alaska.gov said “the position of Haines Borough Assembly member for Seat ‘E’ is declared vacant” and “the Assembly is ordered to call another election.”
When contacted Wednesday evening, both Hess and borough manager Mark Earnest said they were unaware of the court’s decision.
“I can’t give you any comment, because I haven’t heard a thing from my attorney,” Hess said.
The decision would reverse the assembly’s October vote to certify Goodman’s election. Hess challenged that Goodman did not meet borough residency requirements after his move to Anchorage for employment at Everts Air Cargo.
Borough charter states each assembly candidate must be “a resident for at least one year immediately preceding the election” and defines a resident as a person whose “habitual, physical dwelling place is within the area in question and who intends to maintain his dwelling place in that area.”
Z. Kent Sullivan of Baxter, Bruce & Sullivan in Juneau and borough attorney Brooks Chandler filed briefs in the case.
Chandler argued Goodman, a former Haines Police chief, was in Anchorage only for a “temporary relocation” that should not prevent him from serving on the assembly.
Sullivan, on behalf of Hess, said Goodman registered to vote in Anchorage and did not return his voter registration to Haines until Aug. 2, 2010, about two months before the election.
“Were the Court to accept the Borough’s arguments about the importance of a candidate’s intent to the exclusion of all other facts or criteria, then perhaps no actual physical residency would be required at all, and a simple profound fondness for Haines in one’s heart in conjunction with residency in the distant past might suffice to make one eligible to run for Assembly in any given election,” Sullivan wrote.