The Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly has voted unanimously to immediately remove Darlene Dollimont-Svenson from the borough planning commission.

The motion was put on the Oct. 20 agenda by Mayor Austin Otos and Assembly Member Bridget Mattson, and followed a series of condemnations from members of the public, the borough assembly and the planning commission regarding racially charged remarks made by D-Svenson.

In a letter attached to the agenda, Otos wrote that her comments “suggest an ethnically-based bias which has no place at the planning commission dais, which poses a risk to the integrity of planning commission and the decisions it renders.”

During assembly discussion at a Sept. 15 commission meeting about a parking variance for the Ketchikan Indian Community’s planned S’eenáa Hít Navigation Center of public services, D-Svenson asked: “How much more do white people have to pay for KIC in this community?”

Before assembly members voted 7-0 on the removal motion, Otos told assembly members that he brought this item forward “based on past and current behaviors,” exhibited by D-Svenson during her tenure.

He said the day before the meeting that if policy decisions influenced by “unfair” characteristics “creates mistrust in the local government decision-making process.”

“Elected officials or appointed members sitting behind this dais, representing the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, are held to a higher standard,” Otos said. “And if any of us were to utter these words, I would hope that the same standard be applied to any one of us. The planning commissioner has caused the community harm and the organizational distrust. She belongs nowhere in any level of local government, and I ask that you vote in favor of her removal.”

Assembly Member Rodney Dial said mistakes don’t have to define people if they “accept responsibility and learn from them,” but that in this case, the remarks were “completely unacceptable.”

“I had hoped and prayed that Ms. D-Svenson, realizing the near universal public condemnation of her statements that were further supported by her social media posts, would accept responsibility, publicly apologize, ask forgiveness and resign, and then use this as an opportunity to grow as a person,” Dial said. “But that didn’t happen. A little humility would have put this fire out almost immediately, and it’s sad that it’s gotten to this point.”

The assembly voted to remove D-Svenson using a new procedure the members has adopted into borough code earlier this month in response to her remarks.

Borough Clerk Kacie Paxton explained that “removal is effective immediately,” but that D-Svenson will have 10 days to file an appeal with the clerk’s office.