That’s because borough code stipulates ordinances need a majority of the full body to be adopted. The assembly consists of nine members, so five votes are required at minimum.
Assemblymembers Scott Crass and Mindy O’Neall were absent Thursday, leaving seven members to vote.
The ordinance would have added three new sections to code and tweaked some of the existing language. Ultimately, though, much of the debate hinged on a single word, “shall,” and its proposed substitute, “may.”
The two words appear frequently in legal contexts to indicate when action is required versus when action is permissible.
For the assembly, the word choice dictates whether they shall impose a penalty or may impose a penalty when the borough ethics board finds that an assembly member has violated the ethics code.
Ethics board member Diane Hutchison said the board supported the change to “may” that would grant the assembly more discretion.
“We thought that was a great suggestion because it gives you, the assembly, the leeway in what penalty to impose or not impose, based on the severity of the infraction,” she said.
Assemblymembers Brett Rotermund, Tammie Wilson, Nick LaJiness, and Barbara Haney echoed that sentiment with their comments and with their votes.
But three of the elected officials were hesitant to loosen up the code, worrying that the change could enable assemblies to ignore later ethics violations, if they so wished.
Assemblymember David Guttenberg was one of those three.
“If somebody is found guilty by the ethics committee and they recommend something, we should listen to it and not dismiss it,” he said.
He was concerned that opening up the assembly’s options to include imposing no penalty when the ethics board has deemed something a violation could allow those assembly deliberations to become a “popularity contest.”
“And that, to me, is the line,” he said.
Guttenberg was joined by assemblymembers Liz Reeves-Ramos and Kristan Kelly in voting down the ordinance.
Thursday’s vote is the latest tick in timeline of an ethics saga that began earlier this year.
In June, the borough’s board of ethics found that assemblymember Barbara Haney committed a violation in February when she sent a letter to the editor published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that did not state her opinion was personal and not that of the assembly.
Borough resident Kristen Schupp filed the complaint against Haney in response. Months later, the ethics board acknowledged that Haney’s conduct was technically an ethics violation, but recommended no penalty.
Per borough code, though, the assembly had to take some punitive action. They opted to issue a public censure and fine Haney $1.
Assemblymember Brett Rotermund initially resigned his seat in response to the assembly’s decision but rescinded that resignation three days later.
Soon afterward, Rotermund introduced the first version of the measure revising the ethics code, with Crass later joining on to help pen the substitute ordinance that failed Thursday night.
Haney is still in the process of appealing the penalty in Fairbanks Superior Court. She is defending herself in the case and has spent about $1,000 in court fees, records show.