The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly chose not to enter an executive session to discuss two pending lawsuits after borough staff said recent developments removed any immediate need for closed-door legal-strategy discussion.

Assembly President Ribbons asked borough staff for a recommendation, and Mr. Kelly, a borough staff member, told the body that because of recent publicly available developments he did not believe an executive session was time-sensitive. "I recommend not going into executive session today," Mr. Kelly said, citing statute-authorized grounds for executive session to confer with legal counsel.

The cases identified for the possible closed session were Urege v. Kenai Peninsula Borough (case no. 3KN-24788 CI), described in the litigation status report as a quiet-title action filed in the fall; and Connor v. Kenai Peninsula Borough (case no. 3KN-224-920 CI), a district-court complaint by plaintiff Nicholas Connor seeking equitable relief and $50,000 in damages related to the Kenai River Center’s appointment-only policy and restroom access. Mr. Kelly said the borough had filed counterclaims and a third-party complaint in the Urege matter and had filed motions for judgment on the pleadings; he said new counsel for Mr. Urege has filed a motion for an extension to respond to outstanding pleadings. "There may be a need to discuss potential out-of-court resolution options in the future," Mr. Kelly said, but for now "there is no time of the essence."

On the Connor matter, Mr. Kelly said the borough filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and argued the Kenai River Center is not a separate legal entity that can sue or be sued. He said the judge assigned to that case requested recusal and a new Anchorage-based district court judge appears to have been assigned; Mr. Kelly said a possible status hearing on Jan. 16 was unclear. Given those developments, he recommended waiting for further court direction before scheduling an executive session.

With no questions from assembly members, President Ribbons said, "Hearing and seeing none, we will not be going into executive session," and adjourned the committee of the whole at 1623.

The assembly did not take formal, closed-door action on either case; Mr. Kelly said staff would bring the matters back if a time-sensitive need for executive session later arises.