A special election that will ask voters whether the planning commission should be elected will be held June 6.
Tom Morphet and nine other sponsors of the petition garnered 317 of the required 260 signatures to get the question on the ballot. A positive vote would make the seven-member body elected to three-year staggered terms. Because the petition was approved 75 days before the next general election, a special election is required.
The Haines Borough Assembly will determine how the election will be held.
A controversial planning commission meeting last December motivated Morphet to seek turning the commission into an elected body after the seven-member commission, operating with only five members, voted 3-2 to permit a heliport at 24 Mile Haines Highway and recommended filling two vacant seats with incumbent commissioners over two professional engineers. The decision to permit the heliport was later overturned by the assembly.
Morphet circulated a petition in 2018 that got on the ballot a question about whether or not voters wanted to elect members of the planning commission, port and harbor advisory committee, public safety commission and tourism advisory board. The initiative failed 592 to 277.