Three New Faces Join Borough Assembly

Brianna Gibbs/KMXT
Unofficial results from Tuesday’s municipal election have some familiar faces joining certain governing bodies and new ones joining others.
In the Kodiak City Council race, Councilmen Randy Bishop and Terry Haines were re-elected for two, three year terms. Haines garnered the most votes with 343 and Bishop received 291. Marnie Leist trailed with 228 votes and David Haught had 106.
There will be no returning faces to the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly. Newcomers Dan Rohrer, Larry LeDoux and Rebecca Skinner will each take a three year assembly seat. Rohrer led the polls with 1,137 votes, followed by LeDoux with 1,121 and Skinner receiving 671. Incumbents Tuck Bonney and Dave Kaplan failed to get enough votes to keep their seats, earning 594 and 440 votes, respectively. Jascha Zbitnoff received 230 votes and Brenda Schwantes had 221.
Proposition 1 passed by a large margin, earning 1043 yes votes and 548 nos.
Borough Clerk Nova Javier said there are still 292 outstanding ballots to be couned. Those include absentee, question, personal representative and absentee by mail ballots. Those could alter the numbers, so results are unofficial until they are counted. For the city, Clerk Debra Marlar said there are 43 absentee ballots and five were sent out by mail, which she said likely won’t influence the city council results.

Boro Seeks Public Comment on New Codes

[listen here]
Brianna Gibbs/KMXT
The Kodiak Island Borough is revamping its codes and regulations and is asking for the community’s input.
Back in 2008 the borough adopted a new comprehensive plan for the future growth and development in the archipelago. Bob Pederson is the community development director for the borough and said it’s common for communities to revisit their land use regulations to help implement those new plans.
Pederson said there are quite a few changes included in the code, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that portions of the current code are outdated.
“Most of the borough code was developed in the lat 60s with the land management aspects and it hasn’t been comprehensively looked at since. There have been a number of amendments and updates over the years – there were a couple of attempts over the years to rewrite the code that didn’t come to fruition. And so in some ways the code is dated. There are terms used in the code that are not defined and then there are defined terms that are not shown elsewhere in the code. Some of the, what I would call, administrative provisions – how you handle and process things – are not clearly spelled out and that’s led to some subjective decision making over the years and sometimes maybe not always the most consistent decision making.”
For instance, portions of the new code deal with regulations for wind turbines and solar panels – things that weren’t around during the 1960s.

Assembly Approves Guard Rail Funding

[listen here]
Brianna Gibbs/KMXT
Despite the strong opinions of some Kodiak Island Borough Assembly members, a new guard rail will be installed on the corner of Monashka Circle and Bayview Drive.
It wasn’t the guard rail itself that some assembly members didn’t approve of, but rather the fact that the borough would be funding it. Assemblyman Aaron Griffin said he felt allocating $18,000 beyond the Bayview Service Area’s budget could set a financial precedent and pave the way for other service areas to ask the borough for additional funds.

Citations Coming to Code Enforcement

[listen here]
Brianna Gibbs/KMXT
The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly approved allowing citations to be issued to code violators within the borough.
During last night’s regular meeting the assembly amended borough code to allow for the citations to be issued on certain aspects of borough code – things like littering, animal control and fireworks, among others.
Borough Manager Bud Cassidy said those are the things the borough gets the most complaints about, and the citation process will allow the borough to more effectively handle those situations. Current borough code violations are handled on a complaint-based system, and typically the code enforcer simply educates violators on the matter. Now, violators can be cited and fined, much like what occurs when people receive speeding tickets. Cassidy said the borough worked with the court system on drafting the citation procedure and feels it is the next step in making sure folks are following the law.

Candidates in Crowded Assembly Race Address the Issues

[listen to full borough assembly forum here]
Jay Barrett/KMXT
The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly Candidate Forum, sponsored by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce and KMXT, is linked above.

Candidates Line Up for Full Night of Debates

Jay Barrett/KMXT
With two weeks until election day, it will be a full evening of candidate forums tonight, as candidates for school board, city council and borough assembly face off in the borough building.
All three governing bodies have a much larger candidate pool than in recent years, especially for the assembly. The unpopular “decorum ordinance,” which the assembly recently repealed, has been cited as a reason for so many people throwing their hats into the ring.
There are five challengers in the assembly race, former school superintendent and Alaska Department of Education director Larry LeDoux, Brenda Schwantes, Dan Rohrer, Rebecca Skinner and Jascha Zbitnoff. They will take on incumbents Dave Kaplan and Tuck Bonney, but not Assemblyman Mell Stephens, who chose not to seek re-election. Three seats are up for grabs this year, and all terms are for three years.
For the school board, there are three candidates for two open seats. Incumbent Katie Oliver is be joined on the ballot by Jeff Stewart and Duncan Fields. The second open seat was once filled by Todd Haley, who left Kodiak earlier this year.
There are two challengers for the two incumbents on the city council. Marnie Leist and David Haught are looking to unseat Terry Haines and Randy Bishop.
There are a number of people running for the various borough service area boards, but they are not part of tonight’s debate.
The municipal election two weeks from today, on Tuesday, October 7th.
KMXT will broadcast all three forums live tonight, starting at 6 p.m.
As a result of tonight’s candidate event, the Kodiak City Council work session has been rescheduled for Thursday, before its regular meeting.