Aleutians

After half of Unalaska’s municipal races were too close to call on Election Day, the results for mayor, commercial marijuana and more will come down to 82 absentee and questioned ballots.

City officials will canvas the outstanding ballots on Friday.

City Clerk Cat Hazen said the votes could have a big impact once they’re all counted.

“There’s a significant number of ballots that’ll be canvassed,” Hazen said. “Certainly enough to make a difference in the final results.”

In the mayor’s race, those 82 ballots will decide whether incumbent Shirley Marquardt wins her fifth term outright or faces former mayor Frank Kelty in a runoff.

Marquardt earned 39 percent of the vote, and she needs just one vote beyond 40 percent to clinch victory without a runoff.

The same goes for the race for City Council Seat C, where incumbent Roger Rowland holds 38 percent of the vote.

If Rowland doesn’t earn enough of the outstanding ballots to keep his seat outright, then he’ll meet challenger Jeff Treannie in runoff.

While those races might require another round of voting in November, Friday’s canvassing will decide the final outcomes of the commercial marijuana referendum and the contest for school board Seat D.

With 53 percent of the vote, Unalaskans who want to repeal the city’s ban on pot businesses hold a modest lead over the voters who want to keep the ban in place. That means the city’s stance on commercial marijuana could be decided by about 40 votes.

The margin is even smaller for the school board race, where roughly 20 votes could decide whether incumbent Denise Rankin is re-elected or unseated by challenger Harriet Berikoff.

City officials will canvas the outstanding absentee and questioned ballots at City Hall on 10 a.m. Friday.

Final election results will be certified at the City Council meeting on Tuesday, with any necessary runoff elections set for Nov. 1.

Unalaska’s director of Parks, Culture and Recreation has resigned after a decade on the island.

The City of Unalaska is looking for a new director to replace D. Tyrell McGirt, who arrived in Unalaska in 2006.

“It’s time,” McGirt said. “I’m moving into the next chapter of my life, I’m getting married in December, and my fiancée and I are looking to start the next chapter of our lives in a place that’s new and different for both of us.”

Originally from North Carolina, McGirt served as the aquatics manager and the recreation manager for the Department of Parks, Culture, and Recreation before landing the top job.

He also is president of the board of directors for Iliuliuk Family and Health Services.

McGirt and his fiancée are headed to Tucson, Arizona, but he says he’ll miss working with the kids of Unalaska and living in the tight-knit community.

“I say it over and over again — Unalaska has been good to me and good for me,” he said. “Everything about being here on this tiny island at the end of the world has been very moving and very much appreciated.”

McGirt’s last day as PCR director is Nov. 2.

The city has posted the job opening online.

The polls have closed, but it’s still too close to call for half of Unalaska’s municipal races.

Tuesday’s election set a new record for voter turnout. But with about 80 absentee and questioned ballots outstanding, City Clerk Cat Hazen said several races could go to runoffs, including mayor and City Council Seat C.

“There’s a significant number of ballots that’ll be canvassed on Friday — certainly enough to make a difference in the final results,” said Hazen.

In the five-way race for mayor, incumbent Shirley Marquardt holds a strong lead with 39 percent of the vote. She needs more than 40 percent to win a fifth term in office, which means she could claim victory without a runoff if enough outstanding ballots go her way.

But if not, the race will come down to Marquardt and former mayor Frank Kelty, who earned second place with 29 percent of the vote.

The runoff election, if necessary, would take place Nov. 1.

The other five-way contest for City Council Seat C could come down to a runoff as well.

Incumbent Roger Rowland holds 38 percent of the vote. If he doesn’t earn more than 40 percent after canvassing, then he’ll face second-place candidate Jeff Treannie, who took 25 percent of the vote.

Whether or not those highly contested seats go to runoffs, Unalaska resident Lori Gregory said she was glad to see so many names on the ballot.

“I’ve seen a lot of elections here and lot of uncontested races, so I’m very grateful there are actually contested races this time,” Gregory said. “I see more and more as the years go by, and I’m just grateful.”

Two other races also were too close to call.

In the ballot referendum, 53 percent of Unalaskans voted to repeal the city’s ban on marijuana businesses, while 47 percent voted to keep the ban in place.

The initiative needs a simple majority to pass, so Unalaska’s stance on commercial pot will be decided Friday after canvassing is finished.

The race for School Board Seat D will also be decided then.

Incumbent Denise Rankin earned 55 percent of the vote to hold off challenger Harriet Berikoff — at least, for now. Berikoff took 47 percent of the vote, but she could win if enough outstanding ballots come back in her favor.

Meanwhile, four races ended Tuesday when the polls closed.

Killian Baker failed to upset incumbent David Gregory, who won City Council Seat D with 68 percent of the vote. John Waldron was also re-elected to the City Council after running unopposed, as were Cherry Tan and Frank Kelty on the school board.

In all, Hazen said the record turnout brought about 700 Unalaskans to the polls, or about 36 percent of registered voters.

The outstanding absentee and questioned ballots will be canvassed at City Hall on Friday at 10 a.m.

Election results will be certified at a City Council meeting next week, with any necessary run-off elections set for Nov. 1.

Police are investigating an explosion that damaged the Westward Seafoods plant Monday night.

No one was injured in the blast, but the Unalaska Department of Public Safety estimates the building sustained more than $100,000 in damage.

Public Safety Director Mike Holman said thirteen responders arrived at Westward about 6:45 p.m. to find smoke pouring out of the plant.

“There was heavy smoke and steam coming out of the fish meal area,” Holman said. “The sprinklers were going off, and fire alarms were going off as well. But they did not find a fire.”

Responders ventilated the building as they searched for the cause of the smoke, Holman said.

“The best guess is that there was some type of an explosion caused by the fish meal dust being ignited in a confined area,” he said.

Westward’s Plant Manager Dan Le said a seawater line broke around 6:30 p.m. on Monday. Holman said that burst pipe could have ignited the dust and caused the explosion, but police are still investigating.

“It could have been the pump or something else,” he said.

Meanwhile, Le said the plant is still operating but a section has been closed because of the  damage.

The state’s plan to build a new ferry for Southwest Alaska has been fast-tracked.

Originally, construction was scheduled to start in 2019, but now contractors could begin building the new ship as early as next year.

Communications Officer Jeremy Woodrow says the Alaska Department of Transportation wants to replace the Tustumena ferry as soon as possible.

“It’s more than 50 years old, it runs in one of the more harsh climates in the world, and it’s shown its age more than other vessels in the fleet that are around similar age,” said Woodrow.

The Tustumena was built in 1964 as one of the original four ships in the Alaska Marine Highway System fleet, and it has one of the longest routes of any state ferry. It travels from Homer to Kodiak to Unalaska, stopping at 13 ports along the way.

While the original vessel is still safe to operate, Woodrow said it’s become very expensive and time-intensive to maintain. In 2013, the DOT actually stopped all ferry service to the Southwest, so shipyard workers could repair the Tustumena’s corroded steel.

That’s why state officials have sped up the timeline to replace the vessel.

Woodrow said the DOT is waiting for the next legislative session to get funding approval from lawmakers. Building the new ferry will cost around $240 million, but the state only has cover 10 percent, thanks to federal funding.

Meanwhile, the final designs are complete. The new Tustumena will look similar to the original ship, but it’ll be 50 feet longer to carry more passengers and more cars.

“It’s also going to have better sea handling,” said Woodrow. “The Tustumena is known to have quite a roll to it, but the new vessel is going to be better designed to handle rougher seas.”

In the meantime, Woodrow said the current ferry has operated well this summer despite its age.

“The original Tusty is going about business as usual,” he said. “A lot of the users who use the Tustumena frequently do love this ferry, and I know some people will be sad to see it go.”

The next legislative session is set for January, and the DOT will open bids for the construction project in the next year.

A forklift punctured a shipping container filled with fish oil in Unalaska on Thursday, spilling it across a shipyard. Fish oil is considered an environmental hazard, but far less damaging than crude oil. Some of the bright orange oil flowed into a storm drain and into the ocean. Resolve Marine stopped it from spreading more by plugging the drain with gravel and dirt.

A couple hundred gallons of the 5,700-gallon bladder made it into the ocean. But U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Andres Ayure said because fish oil is biodegradable, it’s not too hard on the environment.

“Technically, in large quantities it could be seen as a marine pollutant. But in the quantities that we saw and with the weather we had, it will disperse, emulsify very quickly, and not harm the environment,” said Ayure.

Calm seas made it easier to contain and clean up the fish oil. If it had not spilled, the fish oil would have been shipped off the island and processed into products like fish oil supplements.

Shipping company Matson is responsible for the spill and for the cleanup, which Ayure said can be costly. The Coast Guard is also putting together a report on the incident and Matson could face fines and further penalties.