Alaska Elections

Only 25 percent of Juneau’s registered voters cast ballots in yesterday’s municipal election. They elected three Assembly and two school board members, and clearly rejected two controversial measures.

Of the three Assembly seats, one result was never in doubt, one was in the bag almost as soon as ballots were counted, and the third is still up in the air.

With all precincts reporting, Carlton Smith unofficially leads Loren Jones by a slim margin – 2,282 votes to 2,229 – for an area wide seat. Geny Del Rosario is a distant third with 761 votes. But with nearly 14-hundred absentee and questioned ballots to be counted on Friday, either Smith or Jones could come out on top.

Smith expressed confidence that the final tally would break his way.

“Just gratified that this has been a clean campaign,” Smith says. “It’s about Juneau’s future, it’s about being optimistic, we’ve got a team going forward, and I’m going to be a productive part of it.”

Jones said he’d wait until all ballots are counted before conceding the race. He said he knew it would be close going into Election Day.

“As it went on, and as Carlton and I and Geny did the various forums, I could tell it was pretty close all the way around. And Juneau always has at least one close race, and I’m sorry it’s mine, but it is,” says Jones.

City Clerk Laurie Sica says there are 1,020 absentee ballots and about 370 questioned ballots.

“So we’ll be reviewing those Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and then we’ll cast those through the machine Friday afternoon for unofficial results, and then on Tuesday next week we’ll be certifying the election,” Sica says.

Even with those outstanding ballots, the race for Assembly District 1 appears to have gone to Jesse Kiehl, who unofficially finished with 3,535 votes – more than twice the number of his opponent, Brad Fluetsch, who had 1,630. A first-time candidate, Kiehl won every precinct.

“I did not expect as strong a showing as I made, so that was both humbling and heartening,” he says.

Kiehl says he’s anxious to get to work on the assembly, and if humanly possible would serve on every committee. But with a number of big projects on the horizon, and a looming budget deficit, he says he’ll consult with other assembly members to see where he can best fit in.

“I’m going to need to narrow it down a little bit, and talk with some of the folks who are on the assembly now, and start setting those priorities,” he says.

Joining Kiehl on the assembly will be Randy Wanamaker, who’s no stranger to city politics. He previously served three consecutive terms on the assembly, which is the limit. He sat out a year, as required by city law, before deciding to run again this fall. Wanamaker was unopposed for a District 2 Assembly seat. He received 3,510 votes.

It was no problem to convince Juneau voters to approve the 3 percent sales tax extension.

Proposition 2 passed on a vote of 4,286 to 1,722. The sales tax funds essential services – police, fire, ambulance service, street maintenance and snow removal as well as road and sidewalk improvements, sewer and water, and youth activities.

Some of it is also saved in the Budget Reserve as a rainy day fund for emergencies.

The 3 percent tax would have expired in July of next year. Now it will be collected until the middle of 2017. The year before it is set to expire, the city will put an extension on the ballot again.

CBJ sales taxes are made of a permanent 1 percent tax, a temporary 1 percent, and the temporary 3 percent.

Juneau voters continue to be strong supporters of education and youth activities, passing two school bond propositions on Tuesday’s municipal election ballot.

Proposition 3 authorizes the sale of one-point-four million dollars in general obligation bonds for a new ground-source heat pump at Auke Bay Elementary School. Proposition 4 authorizes nearly one-point-two million dollars in bonds to replace the 11-year-old artificial turf field at Adair Kennedy Park in the Mendenhall Valley.

Juneau School District Superintendent Glen Gelbrich says both projects are investments in the community’s future.

“One is an investment in a lower cost heating system for our schools, which lowers our costs over time, which is a good investment for us to make as citizens and taxpayers,” Gelbrich says. “The other one is just so typical Juneau, to support facilities that host student activities and to keep kids engaged.”

The annual property tax impact of the school bond measure is about one-dollar and 21-cents per one-hundred-thousand dollars of assessed value. For the turf field, it’s approximately one-dollar and four-cents per one-hundred-thousand dollars.

Both projects qualify for 70 percent reimbursement through the state education department’s debt reimbursement program. In addition, Gelbrich says interest revenue from current projects will be used to pay down part of their cost.

“Just seemed like good fiscal management to make sure that we put the funds that we had to use immediately, and it could mean a bit of break for our taxpayers, and that’s a great thing,” he says.

The unofficial results show Proposition 3 passed with 4,432 yes votes to 1,585 no votes. Proposition 4 had 3,642 yes votes to 2,348 votes against.

Juneau School Board President Sally Saddler was the only candidate to appear on the ballot for two open seats.

She says there are plenty of ongoing issues to tackle, and she’s happy to come back to take them on.

“None of this happens quickly, and I think if there’s anything it’s having the fortitude and the patience and the persistence to keep at it,” says Saddler.

She noted that the board recently held a retreat, where it developed a set of student performance indicators to track how well their policies are working. Those include student achievement and progress in the classroom, attendance, and graduation rate.

Besides Saddler, voters cast 1,280 write-in votes for school board. Former member Sean O’Brien registered as a write in candidate after nobody filed to run for the second open seat. As City Clerk Laurie Sica explains, that guarantees O’Brien will win the seat.

“The only ones that are going to count are Sean O’Brien’s, because he’s the only one who submitted papers to become a declared write-in candidate,” says Sica. “So, although other people probably got write-in votes, they won’t be counted, because they haven’t said they’re willing to run and will serve if elected. That’s a big part of it.”

O’Brien served on the school board from 2005 to 2008. He decided to step down to spend more time with family, and had planned on running for the board again next year. When only one person filed, he moved it up a year, but not in time to get his name on the ballot.

Voters rejected a proposed tax on plastic shopping bags, as well as a Juneau Assembly proposal to opt out of state financial disclosure reporting rules for public officials. Two school bond measures passed, as did an extension of the CBJ’s temporary three-percent sales tax.

Jesse Kiehl and Randy Wanamaker won seats on the CBJ Assembly. A third race is too close to call, with Carlton Smith holding a 53 vote lead over Loren Jones for an area wide seat, and Geny Del Rosario in distant third place.

Click here for unofficial results from the CBJ website.

To read our story on the assembly races, click here.

To read about the school board races, click here.

For more on Propositions 1 and 5, click here.

And for more on the sales tax and school bond initiatives, click here.

Southeast Alaskans head to the polls on Tuesday, October 4th. They will choose city and borough leaders and voice opinions on a variety of ballot measures.

The more-than-a-dozen measures include taxing plastic bags, funding hydropower projects and dropping a senior-citizen exemption for a tax on booze and smokes.

One of the most controversial is in Juneau, where a local group put a 15-cent-per-plastic-bag tax before voters. It would only affect customers at larger retailers, such as Fred Meyer and Walmart. (See Juneau’s sample ballot.)

Supporter Dixie Belcher says the goal is to encourage people to give up plastics and instead bring reusable reusable bags.

“It’s something that is just a habit, and we can just as soon get into a habit of taking our own reusable bags. They do that in many other parts of the world. Because of their impact on the ocean they’re banned in 25 percent of the world, and they’re taxed in many other parts of the world. And generally the taxation lowers the use of plastic bags by about 90 percent in the first three months,” Belcher says.

The ballot measure faces strong opposition from many businesses and public officials. Resident Geri Swanson thinks the proposal won’t have the intended effect.

“Personally, I own several reusable bags and I always forget to bring them with me when I go shopping. I recycle those small shopping bags in my garbage in my bathrooms and some I even take to the recycle center. So, I think 15 cents is just a silly idea for the city,” Swanson says.

Juneau has four other ballot measures. One would continue a temporary 3 percent sales tax that funds police, fire and ambulance services, as well as road, water and sewer repairs. Another would pay for an energy-efficient ground-source heat pump at an elementary school. Yet another would replace artificial turf at a local ballfield.

One more would pull Juneau out of state-mandated campaign-disclosure rules and replace them with its own.

Mayor Bruce Botelho says changes made a few years ago have scared off potential candidates. That’s because they require too much information on earnings.

“The 2007 amendments require not only the disclosure of the source of the income in excess of $1,000, it does require you to state the amount,” Botelho says.

He says Juneau’s proposed rules only require the income source be reported. Critics say the current system works and keeps candidates honest. Many other communities have already pulled out of the state requirements in favor of their own.

Ketchikan voters face three measures in the October 4th election. (See the city of Ketchikan’s ballot information.)

The city ballot has a bond issue providing $15 million for the Whitman Lake hydropower project. The state already has chipped in $11 million and the ballot measure would bring the total near what’s needed.

Ketchikan City Mayor Lew Williams says it’s an important part of keeping the price of electricity low.

“Right now we pay only 9.5 cents a kilowatt and it’s really helped our growth down here, especially in some industries. And then we have a lot of homes switching over to hydro. It’s so much cheaper than fuel right now. So we’re just pushing for every little project we can and Whitman’s on the board,” Williams says.

Another city ballot measure would change the candidate filing period to match that of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough’s. (See the Ketchikan Gateway Borough’s sample ballot.)  The borough ballot has one measure, asking whether assembly members should continue to be elected at-large, rather than by district.

Petersburg voters face three measures. (See Petersburg’s election information.)
One would sell $1.5 million of bonds to fund a new library. Another would allow the city council to declare up to two sales-tax-free days each year.

A third would repeal a sales tax exemption on the sale of alcohol and tobacco to seniors.

Mayor Al Dwyer says passing the measure would lessen impacts on government services.

“Alcohol and tobacco are very expensive for municipalities to deal with, medically,” Dwyer says.

But some worry the measure will lead to removing other senior exemptions.

Councilor Dan Hickman says it should stay in place.

“My argument from the git-go is that by the time you get to 65, if you want to continue killing yourself you earned the right,” Hickman says.

Sitka has one ballot measure that would raise the property tax limit from 6 to 6.5 mills. The increased revenues would be used to fund improvements to municipal infrastructure, such as the hospital, and its maintenance. (See Sitka’s sample ballot.)

Haines has two ballot propositions. (Link to the Haines sample ballot.) They ask voters to recall a pair of assembly members. Backers claim they violated borough law by failing to appoint a new member to an open seat.

Skagway and Wrangell have no measures on this year’s municipal ballot.

Tuesday is Election Day in Juneau. The polls open at 7 a.m., but voters can still cast absentee and early ballots today (Monday) at City Hall downtown, or the Mendenhall Mall polling station.

Early voting for the municipal election has been steady, but slow, according to City Clerk Laurie Sica.

She says the last count was done on Wednesday – when 175 fewer voters than last year had cast early and absentee ballots.

Three Juneau Assembly and two school board seats are up for election. One citizen’s initiative and four other measures are on the ballot.

The Assembly Areawide seat is the biggest contest with three candidates: Geny Del Rosario, Loren Jones and Carlton Smith.

Two candidates – Brad Fluetsch and Jesse Kiehl — are running for the District One seat, and Randy Wanamaker is unopposed for District Two.

While Juneau Assembly districts mirror the city and borough’s seats for state House, the Assembly is elected areawide.

“Every voter can vote for every candidate on the ballot, there’s no restriction,” Sica says. “Candidates must live in the district it was the idea of the assembly when they wrote the charter that they’d have some assurance that not all the candidates came from downtown, valley or Douglas. So that was just one way to make sure there was some representation from different parts of the community.”

Five issues are on this year’s ballot: Proposition One would change financial reporting requirements for Juneau public officials: Assembly, School Board, and Planning Commission as well as the city manager. Instead of filing with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, they would file less detailed forms with the CBJ. A major difference is that the amount and source of income over one-thousand dollars would not have to be reported.

Proposition Two calls for an extension of Juneau’s three percent sales tax. It covers police, fire and ambulance service, street maintenance and improvements, as well as some city operations, public services and youth activities. Some of the tax also goes into a savings account.

Proposition Three would authorize the sale of one-point-four million dollars in general obligation bonds for a new heating system at Auke Bay Elementary School. A ground-source heat pump has been determined to be the most energy efficient system for the school, and will reduce operation and maintenance costs over the long-term.

The annual property tax impact would be about one-dollar and 21-cents per one-hundred-thousand dollars of assessed value.

Proposition Four calls for just under one-point-two million dollars in bonds for a new athletic field at Adair Kennedy Park in the Mendenhall Valley. The artificial turf was the first installed in Juneau. After 11 years of heavy use by school athletic teams, it is old and worn out.

The annual impact to property taxes for the turf field bonds is approximately one-dollar and four-cents per one-hundred-thousand dollars of assessed value.

Both propositions three and four qualify for 70 percent reimbursement by the state education department’s debt reimbursement program.

Proposition Five is a citizens’ initiative aimed at reducing the use of plastic bags. It would impose a 15-cent tax on each plastic shopping bag provided by Juneau’s largest retailers — Safeway, Walmart, Home Depot and Fred Meyer.

The polls open tomorrow at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Election Central this year is at City Hall Assembly Chambers.