States in the Deep South traditionally vote Republican in every presidential election. However, a string of “blue” counties curve through Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. And the reason for this political anomaly seems to lie with ancient oceans and dead plankton.
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Obama’s Secret Weapon In The South: Small, Dead, But Still Kickin’
The City and Borough of Juneau Canvass Board on Tuesday certified results of last week’s municipal election.
Turnout was 32 percent – 7,864 of the city’s 24,565 registered voters cast ballots. The Lynn Canal precinct had the highest turnout at 33 percent, followed by North Douglas at 30 percent. Two downtown precincts – Juneau 2 and Juneau 3 – had 29 percent turnout.
The lowest turnout was Lemon Creek at 19.8 percent, with the Mendenhall Valley 1 polling place second lowest at 20.7 percent.
A handful of absentee ballots were added to Friday’s initial tally of absentee and questioned cards. But not enough to change any results.
In the closest race, Proposition 1 still comes out on top. The $25-million bond initiative to fund a variety of capital improvement projects passed by just 73 votes – 3,898 to 3,825.
Newly-elected Mayor Merrill Sanford and Assembly members Loren Jones and Jerry Nankervis will be sworn in next Monday. School board winners Andi Story, Phyllis Carlson and Destiny Sargeant will take the oath of office next Tuesday.
Merrill Sanford can officially be called Juneau Mayor-elect.
Friday’s count of absentee and questioned ballots from the municipal election gives the former Assemblyman 4,099 votes to Cheryl Jebe’s 3,440, or 54 percent to 45 percent of the vote.
Sanford returns to the Assembly after a year away due to term limits. He says he wants local government to focus on reducing the cost of living and bringing jobs to Juneau.
“We probably need to have that up front in our mind every time we vote on something that’s going to increase the cost of government in our town, to either our taxpayers, or our tourists coming in, or to our business people,” Sanford said. “We need to take that into consideration.”
Heading into the absentee/questioned ballot count, Proposition 1 trailed by nearly 60 votes. It made those up and more, and has passed with 3,888 votes to 3,815. The measure allows the city to sell $25-million in general obligation bonds to pay for various capital improvement projects.
Another capital improvement funding package – Proposition 2 – also passed on a vote of 4,545 to 3,211. Prop 2 is a five-year extension of the city’s temporary 1- percent sales tax.
Sanford opposed both measures during the campaign, but now says they’ll help put people to work.
“Those projects can start immediately in the next year,” said Sanford. “So that’s a good thing for our community, because it’ll mean some more of our contractors and business people are busy and our worker bees are working.”
Newly elected Assemblyman Loren Jones supported both measures. He says a provision to use $10-million from the sales tax revenue to pay down debt on the bonds for the first five years should keep property taxes from going up.
“I think it funds some good projects in town,” said Jones. “I might have done it differently, but there’s a lot of nuance to deciding which went into which package. So I think it alleviates a lot of questions over the next year or two. We can move on with the budget, we can get these projects going.”
Other winners in Tuesday’s election remain the same. Jerry Nankervis wins the District 2 Assembly seat, and Phyllis Carlson, Andi Story and Destiny Sargeant were elected to the school board.
The CBJ Canvass Board will meet next week to certify the results. The newly elected mayor and Assembly members will be sworn in Oct. 15. School board members will take the oath of office a day later.
Sunday is the last day to register to vote in the November general election.
Regional Division of Elections offices will be open around the state both Saturday and Sunday.
Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell has been on the stump this fall encouraging people to register.
He says it’s often hard to tell how many people are not registered, so Alaska uses Permanent Fund Dividend lists.
“When we compared that list to our voter list, we found about 20,000 people weren’t registered to vote, so that’s pretty good,” Treadwell says.
The Elections Division has been sending Happy Birthday post cards to young Alaskans turning 18, reminding them to register to vote.
Treadwell also has been speaking to high school students across the state, including Juneau, to encourage 18-year-olds as well as those who will be 18 before the Nov. 6 election to register to vote.
“We want to make sure that Alaska’s one of these places where there are no impediments to getting you to register to vote,” he says. “We do have a 30-day requirement and I think that’s important because that allows us to make sure what goes on the books is accurate. We do want to know who you are when you show up to vote, but the voter ID we send out doesn’t have picture on it and you can vote without an ID if you’re known to election officials. You can do a questioned ballot anytime and we’ll check it out later.”
Treadwell says the Division of Elections will be cleaning voter rolls to eliminate those who have moved out of state or are deceased.
Elections Division offices in Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Mat-Su and Nome will be open on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday, from noon to 4 p.m.
Registration forms also can be submitted by mail, fax or e-mail to the Division of Elections. Regional office mailing addresses and fax numbers can be found by clicking here.
Merrill Sanford has the inside track to be the next mayor of the City and Borough of Juneau.
The former assemblyman out-polled Cheryl Jebe 55 percent to 44 percent in Tuesday’s municipal election. With about 1,400 absentee and questioned ballots still to be counted, Sanford holds a 660 vote edge over Jebe – 3,334 to 2,674.
“If everything falls as it has in the past with absentee ballots and everything, you probably split those,” Sanford said. “And I think that probably, well, I think that I’ve won.”
However, Jebe said she’s holding out hope that the outstanding ballots will break heavily in her favor.
“I’m just going to wait until they do the absentee ballots on Friday. It’s quite possible that it will continue at the same rate, but you never know,” she said.
Both candidates said they’re proud of their campaigns, and credited each other with running a clean race.
Jebe – who didn’t declare her candidacy until just before the August 13th filing deadline – said she ran for mayor to bring “new energy” to Juneau. She thinks she would have benefited from more time to reach out to voters.
“It took me some time to get going,” Jebe said. “If I had another month, I think the numbers would have been different. I would have had more time to talk to individual people.”
Sanford on the other hand announced his run for mayor in March. After serving on the assembly from 2002 to 2011, he took a year off due to term limits. If his lead holds following the absentee and questioned ballot count, Sanford says his top priority as mayor will be creating a business friendly environment in Juneau.
“I want to try to present the mayor’s office as a pro-economic business climate in Juneau,” he said. “We want people to come here and we want people to open stores here – no matter what the store is – and we want jobs here.”
Sanford said he’ll do that by advocating for better economic planning by the Assembly and by listening to and promoting local businesses.
Juneau voters on Tuesday agreed to an extension of the city’s temporary one-percent sales tax, ensuring at least $34-million in capital projects will be funded borough-wide through 2018. But a $25-million bond proposition to fund another package of projects is still in doubt.
With absentee and questioned ballots still to be counted, Proposition 1 was failing by the narrowest of margins – 3,094 votes against to 3,037 in favor. Meanwhile, the yes votes for Proposition 2 enjoyed a nearly 1,000 vote advantage – 3,573 in favor to 2,599 against.
Assemblywoman Karen Crane chaired the Finance Committee, which crafted the ballot measures. She said she’s not surprised by the too-close-to-call result for Proposition 1.
“The bond issue, I thought that was 50-50 going into that,” said Crane. “I think people took a long hard look at it, and it’s going to be close.”
Assemblyman Jesse Kiehl thinks advocates for specific projects did a good job informing voters about the propositions, especially the sales tax measure. Kiehl said the assembly’s decision to ask voters to approve two funding packages came out of a desire to fund a variety of needs despite limited revenue.
“The attempt was to make them both balanced in terms of basic infrastructure, quality of life improvements, and some economic development improvements,” said Kiehl. “And so the assembly spent a long time working out what would go in which package, and submitted them to the will of the voters. And it looks like at least the bond was a very close call. We’ll see where the voters come down.”
The one-percent sales tax extension will take effect next fall when the current fee is due to expire. Revenue from the tax will pay for nearly 30 projects over a five year period, including $4.7-million for a new Mendenhall Valley library; $4-million for a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Facility at Bartlett Regional Hospital; and $3-million for Sealaska Heritage Institute’s Walter Soboleff Center.
Juneau residents have approved the so-called “project tax” for nearly 30 years, and Crane said the assembly worked hard to make this extension attractive to voters.
“There was a good mix of projects in there and that helps with the one-percent,” Crane said. “So, I’m really pleased that the public’s going to continue to support that.”
If Proposition 1 passes, $10-million in sales tax revenue would be set aside to pay down debt on the bonds, thus avoiding the need to raise property taxes. If the measure continues to fail, that $10-million would go toward upgrades at Aurora Harbor and deferred maintenance at Centennial Hall.
