Kenai Peninsula voters decide on school board term limits

Kenai Peninsula Borough voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to limit school board members to two consecutive terms. If it passes, nobody is kept off a ballot by it until 2032.

The limit would work like the one the borough mayor and assembly members already face. After two consecutive full terms, a member could not run again until 180 days had passed. Time served by appointment, or filling out someone else's unexpired term, would not count toward the two. The clock starts with the members elected this November, which is why the first election it touches is six years out.

The assembly sent it to voters on a 9-0 vote Sept. 1.

Voters approved school board term limits once before, by citizen initiative in 2007, and the Superior Court struck them down the following year. Assembly Member Dale Eicher, who wrote the sponsor memo, said that ruling turned on state law not allowing boroughs to impose the limits rather than on the policy itself. The assembly asked the Legislature to change that in 2023, and this year it did: Senate Bill 143 passed both chambers without a recorded no vote and became law in August without the governor's signature.

Eicher argued term limits prevent influence from concentrating in one office and bring new people into public decisions, calling public office "service for a season, not a permanent parking spot." He noted the measure would not shorten any current term or remove anyone now serving.

At the public hearing, Tyson Cox of Soldotna spoke against it and later raised questions about how the ballot summary was worded. Liz Hubbard of Sterling spoke in favor. No school board member or district representative appears in the record.

The members elected this fall would be the first counted toward the limit, and most of those races have already been settled by the filing deadline. Todd Brigham in Nikiski and Charlie Redfern in Central are unopposed. The Soldotna seat is contested between Jon Watson and Laura Rhyner.