Updated Aug. 19
The borough clerk’s office has approved three ballot initiatives for October’s election. All three seek to reverse previous initiatives voted into law in recent elections.
One of the approved initiatives is mayor Tom Morphet’s effort to cut the senior property tax exemption from $300,000 of exempt property value to $200,000 of exempt property value.
That would partially roll back a change from the 2024 municipal election, when residents voted to increase the exemption from $150,000 to the current $300,000. That vote passed by a margin of 654-543.
The second approved initiative, organized by resident Kimberly Rosado, would return the planning commission to being an appointed, rather than elected, body.
Voters approved making the planning commission an elected body in a 2023 special election, and have chosen planning commissioners at municipal elections each year since then. Previously they were appointed by the mayor and approved by the assembly. Rosado believes the change has led to a less effective body.
“We need people on the planning commission who know what they’re doing,” she said. “The planning commissions that were selected by the mayor were the best we’ve ever had. They followed code, they did their homework, they knew how to read plans.”
Rosado argued the mayor would be more likely than voters to select commissioners based on professional expertise in industries like construction that might be relevant to the planning commission.
The last petition, organized by Barbara Nettleton, would roll back the seasonal sales tax that voters approved in last year’s election.
Nettleton’s petition was the only one, at the borough’s initial Aug. 12 deadline to fall short of the required 297 signatures to get on the ballot. Nettleton said Thursday the clerk’s office counted her effort as 22 signatures short, and gave her another week to collect signatures.
In an email Wednesday, deputy clerk Kiersten Rowley said when reviewing signatures she had been surprised at the number of longtime residents who had signed, but were not listed as registered voters, and thus couldn’t count as a valid signature for the petition.
Rowley contacted the state’s Division of Elections, who said the invalid signatures may have been due to the division’s actions this summer removing voters from active voter rolls using Department of Motor Vehicles data. The move continues to be heavily controversial, with more than 600 citizen voters erroneously marked by the division as non-voters and removed from active voter status. The state legislature’s legal counsel wrote in a memo this month that the division’s actions may have violated federal law.
Rowley also cited borough code section 11.24.050, which expressly allows the clerk to return petitions and reaccept with new signatures until the statutory deadline on Aug. 22.
Rowley then called all three petitioners and offered them extra time to circulate their petition, she said.
Going forward, borough staff plan to update language going forward so petitioners have to hit a “target date” for submission rather than the “deadline” as is currently written. After that target date the clerk will process the petition and “allow people to cure deficiencies in their petitions so long as they meet the statutory deadline of 45 days prior to election day,” Rowley said.
“I believed then, and I still believe, that protecting citizen’s rights to petition their government is a fundamental right,” she added in an email. “We have heard concerns about how difficult it can be for citizens to place questions on the ballot… we are committed to helping citizens understand and navigate the process while ensuring that the applicable requirements and deadlines are followed.”
In the extra time given by the clerk, Nettleton successfully collected the required signatures and her petition was certified for the ballot Tuesday.
New candidates file
Since last week, new candidates have declared for assembly, planning commission, and school board races.
On the assembly side, Debra Schnabel, Beau Bradley, Anne Marie Palmieri, and Lee Robinson join Diana Lapham in a race for two open seats.
Schnabel has served multiple terms on the assembly and served as borough manager from 2017 to 2020. Bradley and Robinson are local business owners; Bradley co-owns The Bookstore on Main Street, and Robinson owns the Rusty Compass. Palmieri is a program manager in the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation’s contaminated sites program and previously served on the school board.
There are now two candidates running for the four open seats on the planning commission: incumbent Nathanael Reams, who won a one-year term last year, and George Campbell.
For the school board’s four open seats, incumbents Michael Wald and Kevin Shove are running for reelection, joined by Cara Gilbert, Jenn Walsh, and Carlos Jimenez.
Jan Hill and Doug Olerud remain the only two candidates for mayor.
The deadline for candidates to file is Aug. 20.
Original story
The borough clerk’s office has approved two ballot initiatives for this October’s election, and a third will likely be approved this week.
All three of the initiatives seek to reverse previous initiatives voted into law over the past half decade.
One of the approved initiatives is mayor Tom Morphet’s effort to cut the senior property tax exemption from $300,000 of exempt property value to $200,000 of exempt property value.
That would partially roll back a change from the 2024 municipal election, when residents voted to increase the exemption from $150,000 to the current $300,000. That vote passed by a margin of 654-543.
The other approved initiative, organized by resident Kimberly Rosado, would return the planning commission to being an appointed, rather than an elected body.
Voters approved making the planning commission an elected body in a 2023 special election, and have chosen planning commissioners at municipal elections each year since then. Rosado believes that has led to a less effective body.
“We need people on the planning commission who know what they’re doing,” she said. “The planning commissions that were elected by the mayor were the best we’ve ever had. They followed code, they did their homework, they knew how to read plans.”
Rosado argued the mayor would be more likely than voters to select commissioners based on professional expertise in industries like construction that might be relevant to the planning commission.
The last petition, organized by Barbara Nettleton, would roll back the seasonal sales tax approved by voters in last year’s election.
Nettleton’s petition was the only one, at the clerk’s Wednesday deadline, to fall short of the required 297 signatures to get on the ballot. Nettleton said Thursday the clerk’s office had counted her 22 signatures short, and had given her another week to collect signatures.
All three petitioners would’ve been given the same opportunity had they been short, said Haines Borough administrative assistant Margarette Cowan.