The Petersburg Borough is being sued by a resident over a request for documents related to a harassment claim the local police chief filed against the borough two years ago. A superior court judge has decided mostly in favor of the resident.
Petersburg resident Don Koenigs is suing the borough because he requested public records and didn’t get them in full.
Koenigs asked for documents related to a complaint lodged by Petersburg’s Chief of Police, James Kerr, against two former borough assembly members.
In the complaint filed two years ago, Kerr alleges that Dave Kensinger and Jeff Meucci harassed him over his public statements against enforcing masking for COVID-19. Borough attorneys then investigated the complaint, and said Kensinger and Meucci’s conduct didn’t qualify as unlawful harassment.
Kerr’s complaint is in the form of a timeline that goes back to the first year of the pandemic, and catalogs Kerr’s view of emails, social media posts, phone calls and meetings about masking, testing and oversight of the police department. The timeline also lists his interactions with other assembly members, as well as officials from the Petersburg Medical and Public Safety Advisory Board.
Kerr then sued the Borough for allegedly slandering him in a statement to local media. That statement was about a records request KFSK filed for his complaint. His case has since moved into the district federal court, and is now a civil rights suit.
A month after Kerr’s initial complaint, Koenigs sent in his records request.
Borough Clerk Debra Thompson responded that some of the documents Koenigs asked for were protected under attorney-client privilege, and declined to fill the entire records request. Koenigs sued for those documents on November 15, 2022.
In June, the court found that Chief Kerr has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his performance evaluation and harassment complaint. But that’s ultimately outweighed by the public’s interest in his workplace activities and treatment by elected officials.
Alaska’s Public Records Act says: “…every person has the right to inspect a public record (…) except records required to be kept confidential by a federal law or regulation, or by state law.” That act applies to all public records in the state — including those kept by municipalities.
In late June — nearly two years after Koenigs’ initial records request — Superior Court Judge Katherine Lybrand ordered the Borough to release almost all of the documents. However, she allowed the Borough to withhold, or release certain documents with redactions due to issues with confidentiality or attorney-client privilege.
Ultimately, the borough released 192 pages of communications between borough officials and attorneys regarding the complaint, Chief Kerr’s January 2022 performance review, as well as his version of the events leading up to his complaint.
This is a developing story.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Don Koenigs has already been awarded attorneys fees. The court has not yet made any determination regarding how much, if any of Koenigs’ attorney fees the Borough is responsible to pay.
