FAIRBANKS — News-Miner Managing Editor Rod Boyce testified Thursday that an interview with a former borough mayor and an anonymous letter heightened the newspaper’s interest in the work history of former U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller.

Boyce was questioned during a two-hour deposition as part of a lawsuit Miller has filed against the Fairbanks North Star Borough and former Mayor Jim Whitaker. In the lawsuit, Miller accuses the borough and Whitaker of improperly releasing his private information before the 2010 general election.

A handful of borough employees and political blogger Andrew Halcro have also been deposed in the suit in the past several weeks. Miller’s lawsuit is an outgrowth of a media claim that sought release of his personnel records during his time as a part-time borough attorney.

Boyce refused to answer most questions about sources asked by Miller attorney John Tiemessen, citing a state law that gives news organizations protection from revealing informants.

He declined to discuss whether any potential sources were former or present borough employees, elected officials, their relatives or their friends. He also declined to confirm that such sources even existed.

Boyce did, however, discuss two sources that had previously been made public.

He said a document anonymously delivered to the News-Miner was the catalyst for a Sept. 28 public records request for Joe Miller’s employment records at the borough. That document included questions about whether Miller had used borough equipment “for partisan political purposes or activities.”

Boyce said the typed, one-page document was dropped off at the News-Miner front desk and that he didn’t know the author’s identity. Columnist Dermot Cole subsequently submitted the document to the borough as a public records request.

Boyce also discussed a pair of on-record interviews with Whitaker in the month before the election, which were the basis for articles about discipline Miller faced from the borough in 2008 for misusing borough computers. Whitaker said at the time that Miller had violated the borough ethics policy by secretly using other employees’ computers to vote in a poll in an attempt to unseat Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich.

About two weeks after Whitaker’s initial interview, a judge granted a wider release of Miller’s personnel record following a lawsuit by several media organizations, including the News-Miner. That release confirmed the 2008 computer incident.

Boyce is the second person to decline to discuss sources during the depositions, using the privilege given to news organizations to withhold such information. Halcro, who wrote about Miller’s borough work history on his blog in 2010, offered the same refusal last week. Halcro did say, however, that no present or former borough employee was his source.

Borough attorney Rene Broker is scheduled for deposition Feb. 14 in the lawsuit.

Contact staff writer Jeff Richardson at 459-7518.