Kenai Borough Assembly to consider move to manager-style government

By
Suzanne Downing
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4

INVOCATION IS BY ‘FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER PASTAFARIAN’

Another lively meeting is in store for Tuesday in Kenai.

Kenai Borough Assembly members Hal Smalley and Kelly Cooper are introducing an ordinance to get rid of the mayor’s authority at the regular Assembly meeting, which convenes at 6 pm at 144 North Binkley Street.

The ordinance in question would remove the mayor’s position as the chief executive and install a manager-style form of government for the borough.

Currently, voters decide every three years on who the administrator is for the borough. That person is currently Mayor Charlie Pierce, who succeeded Mike Navarre after Navarre was term-limited out of office.

Pierce has been a fiscal hawk and recently has vetoed items that raised the ire of some. In the spring, he vetoed $2.4 million in supplemental spending for schools in the borough, and the effort to override his veto failed, 3-6, with Cooper, Smalley and Willy Dunne the three voting to override the veto.

Pierce wrote a memo to residents of the borough in May explaining his thoughts about the extra spending for schools, and he mentioned the likely cuts of state funding as a major reason he wanted to be cautious about overspending in the current fiscal year.

If the Cooper-Smalley ordinance proceeds through the Assembly process, it would likely be referred to a committee and public hearings would be held before it’s put on the October ballot, when Kenai voters would make the final decision.

And if a manager form of government is established, then five people — a majority of nine on the Assembly — would be making that decision. This item has been brought before voters before and soundly defeated.

Read the ordinance at this link:

Ordinance 2019-16

In other Assembly business, the elected officials will take up an ordinance that would end the pre-meeting invocation. The invocation  at Tuesday’s meeting will be given by Greg Anderson, representing the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarians, as they call themselves. During the last meeting, Iris Fontana a member of the Satanic Temple gave the invocation, causing several people to walk out.

According to the Pastafarianism website, “We believe religion – say Christianity, Islam, Pastafarianism – does not require literal belief in order to provide spiritual enlightenment. Much of the transcendent experience of religion can be attributed to the community. And while some members of religion are indoctrinated True Believers, many are not. There are many levels of Belief and each is no more or less legitimate than the other.”
The Assembly agenda is at this link:
The issue of the invocation has been testy, after Fontana last year gave a Satanic “blessing” that ended with the words “Hail Satan.”

 

 

4 COMMENTS

  1. You forgot to mention that when Charlie Peirce was an assemblymember, he voted in favor of moving to a borough manager.

  3. They are also expected to vote to remove the sales tax cap and vote to remove a vote currently required by the public to do so…yep elected officials voting to keep the public from voting.

  4. A perfect picture of a “fine feathered flock of fools”. They’ve gone so far left, they’ll need a compass to get back. To think, these are supposed to be Alaskans.

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