Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA -- Deborah Luper, sidelined from politics and strapped for cash, blames the City of Wasilla and its mayor, Dianne Keller, for tarnishing her professional reputation.

Click to enlarge

Luper

Story tools

Comment on this story

E-mail a friend

Print

Digg this

Seed Newsvine

Send link via AIM

Font size : A | A | A

A former political campaign manager and public relations professional, Luper today is a correctional officer. It's a return backed by 20 years in law enforcement, albeit to a lower paying career.

She filed a civil lawsuit May 11 in Palmer Superior Court alleging Keller badgered Luper's former employer, Matanuska Electric Association, until Luper lost her job in public relations.

She said publicity from her fight with the city over the 18 Shetland sheep dogs she keeps at her south Wasilla home made her damaged goods in the field of public relations.

"You have to have a stellar name and no blemishes," Luper said. "Just the ... negative publicity alone was enough to put me in the can. The governor's race went on without me, as did a number of important races that normally I would have been involved in."

In 2002, Luper managed Loren Leman's successful electoral campaign for lieutenant governor. She afterward went to work at MEA, where she managed company relations with its 120 largest customer accounts for more than three years.

Before 2002, she was business director for Eklutna Inc., an Alaska Native Corp., and she also ran a campaign for state Sen. Fred Dyson, a Republican from Eagle River.

After her departure from MEA, she spent 11 months unemployed, liquidated her retirement account, got behind on house payments and watched her credit rating evaporate.

A city lawsuit against her threatens fines of $1,000 per day for violating the three-dog limit. Luper said more than $750,000 in fines hang over her head. No lenders will extend her credit, she said.

Wasilla attorney Tom Klinkner said the fines are hypothetical; the city has never asked the court to collect.

SOURCE OF WOE

In her lawsuit, Luper claims Keller is the primary source of her problems. Luper wants at least $300,000 for punitive damages, intentional interference with her employment and for what her lawyer is calling "abuse of process and malicious prosecution."

"I believe that 99.9 percent of the troubles I've had in the last few years stem from the mayor," Luper said.

Keller is attending an International Council of Shopping Centers conference in Las Vegas this week. Her staff said she had not yet seen a copy of the complaint, which arrived in the mail only Monday.

City attorney Tom Klinkner reviewed the filing Monday but said he could not comment on allegations about what Keller did or said. Allegations that the city treated Luper unfairly are false, he said.

"I certainly believe they have no merit and the city will rigorously defend against them," Klinkner said.

PURSUING A PERMIT

The court battle is linked to Luper's hobby, raising Shetland sheepdogs for show. Several of her dogs are national and international champions.

By all accounts, she takes good care of her dogs.

But she has spent the last two years in court fighting the three-dog limit in her zoning district.

Twice in that time she tried to get a kennel permit. Both times her neighbors rallied against her, citing concerns about lowered property values and contaminated groundwater from the extra pets on her property. Luper appealed the permit denial to the Palmer Superior Court.

BAD PUBLICITY

The city in 2005 sued Luper to force her to winnow her dog pack from 18. The court left Wasilla with authority to seize her dogs. That's not what the city wants, Wasilla Police Chief Angella Long said Friday. The city is waiting on final word from Luper's kennel permit appeal.

"We're not going to take any action until the court process is complete," Long said. "We'd much rather her voluntarily take care of the situation, rather than have to go in (and take her dogs)."

In her lawsuit, Luper charges that the city refusal to grant her a kennel permit is selective. The real dispute is about politics, not dogs, she said.

In May 2005, while managing the Wasilla account for MEA, Luper met with Diana Straub, at the time a city councilwoman, on city business.

Luper said talk strayed to Straub's campaign for Wasilla mayor. Straub asked her to run her campaign, she said. Luper declined.

Luper in her civil filing claims Keller heard about the meeting and presumed Luper was working for Straub. Keller, Luper alleges, called MEA general manager Wayne Carmony at work and at home, asking him to get Luper to work on her campaign.

Luper said the phone calls "upset Mr. and Mrs. Carmony" and resulted in her losing the Wasilla account. Without that account, her job was terminated, she said.

MEA human resources manager Tuckerman Babcock said he didn't know if Keller made any calls to the Carmonys. He pulled Luper off the Wasilla account because of publicity over the dog issue, which occurred about the same time, he said.

FINDING MIDDLE GROUND

Luper's position at MEA was cut in January 2006, but not because of the Wasilla account or the dog controversy, Babcock said.

The job was on the cutting block the previous year, he said. He suggested Luper apply elsewhere in the cooperative.

"It wasn't her, it was the position," Babcock said.

"I'm not saying anything negative about her performance. ... I have high confidence we would have hired her (had she applied)."

Luper said the $300,000 she's asking would not cover her mounting legal fees and the cost of her lost employment.

Her attorney, Ken Jacobus, said Luper wants, more than money, a chance to find middle ground.

"We're still interested in sitting down and settling this. We want to be able to work with the city to have a reasonable number of dogs, which is not three," Jacobus said.

Daily News reporter Rindi White can be reached at rwhite@adn.com or 352-6709.