Kenai city elections: unopposed, unopposed, and unopposed

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Turnout might be light for the fall municipal election in the City of Kenai, which has three seats up for election on the Oct. 1 ballot.

As with four seats in Juneau’s City and Borough Assembly elections, Kenai’s slate is filled with incumbents who are unopposed:

Jim Glendening, a retired oilfield operator, is seeking his second term on the City Council.

Glenese Pettey, a financial adviser, is also seeking a second term on the City Council

Mayor Brian Gabriel, a road foreman for the Alaska Department of Transportation, is also the only candidate running for his current position.

The Oct. 1 ballot will also have two propositions:

Prop. A would change the city charter to eliminate a requirement that candidates running for mayor or city council submit a nomination petition that has 20 signatures of registered voters. The city charter was approved by voters in 1963.

Prop. B would amend the city charter to change the time prescribed for the beginning of a council member’s term from the second regular Council meeting after their election, which is the meeting in which the election is certified, to the Monday following certification of the election.

[Read: Juneau Assembly election is four-for-four seats]

Voters have until Sept. 1 to register with the Division of Elections for the Oct. 1 municipal election. Absentee ballots will be available Sept. 16.

In the Oct. 2, 2018 Kenai municipal elections, the turnout was 27 percent. That election had a three-way contested city council seat and a school bond. With no bonds on the ballot and no contested seats, the turnout in Kenai may be “meh” for this cycle.

[Click here for the City of Kenai Election page at the City Clerk’s Office]

3 COMMENTS

  1. The late General George Patton is reputed to have said: “If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn’t thinking.” Similarly, a noted German – as it turns out, a communist – icon, Rosa Luxemburg, said “Freedom is always the freedom to think differently.” (The latter quote inspired the collapse of East Germany in 1989.). My view is that uncontested elections are a complex signal that something in our system is not working as it should. I invite other views.

  2. Ed, “triple dipper”…what do you mean? I’m new in town so though we’ll be voting (even if everybody is unopposed) I don’t know any of these candidates. Makes me nervous though watching the Gary Knopp situation who also ran unopposed.

    • Dave, in this case you won’t be voting because the governor chooses the replacement for the late Sen. Birch. There will be a re-election during 2020. -sd

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