Haines Borough Mayor Stephanie Scott apologized to members of the assembly and the public Nov. 12 for the administration’s failure to have the election investigation report publicly available for an adequate amount of time.
“Two hours was too short to have that document on the street,” Scott said. “It was certainly not intentionally withheld.”
Scott said the investigators, including borough attorney Brooks Chandler, interim manager Julie Cozzi and interim clerk Michelle Webb, got “caught up in the details” in an attempt to put out a “perfect” document.
“They, and I as well, lost track of the time needed to absorb the information, probably because we were so caught up in the work,” she said.
Scott said to fix the problem, she will promote a policy establishing a minimum time between when an important decision-making document is available and when that decision is scheduled to be made.
She also introduced nine points of election reform, which have been forwarded to the Government Affairs and Services Committee.
The points to be discussed include policies regarding the programming of the Accu-Vote machines, training of poll workers and frequency of oversight of the polls by the borough election official.
The committee will also discuss Scott’s proposed code changes, including changing the “vote for” instructions on the ballot, the conditions for election contests and the determination of costs for contests.
Scott also recommends changes to contest investigation procedures, such as how the investigation team is composed, the adequacy of the public notification of the contest, and the time between the publication of the investigation report and the time action is required by decision makers.
The Government Affairs and Services Committee meets at 6 p.m. Dec. 3.