Ketchikan voters decide council races, $25 million bond and library

Ketchikan-area voters face two overlapping local ballots Tuesday.

City voters will choose four City Council members and decide whether to authorize up to $25 million in electric-utility revenue bonds. Borough voters will choose three Assembly members and two School Board members and decide whether the borough should take on areawide public-library powers.

Polls are open from 7 am to 8 pm.

City ballot

Seven candidates are running for three three-year City Council terms: Jack Finnegan, Tommy Haugum, Ashley Snyder, Sven Westergard, Michael Fitzgerald, Riley Gass and Judy Zenge. Finnegan, Gass and Zenge are incumbents. Two candidates, Spencer Strassburg and Jai Mahtani, are running for one one-year council term.

City Proposition 1's bonds, for Ketchikan Public Utilities electric projects, could run for up to 20 years and would be repaid solely from KPU revenue, not taxes. The ballot lists work tied to the Bailey generator, the Port West, Bailey, Mountain Point and Ward Cove substations, and the Electric Division Service Center.

KPU estimates the full electric-infrastructure program could cost up to $83 million. The city says this proposition covers the first $25 million in high-priority work. Approval would authorize borrowing as projects proceed, not require borrowing the full amount at once.

The city's finance director puts the estimated maximum effect on electric rates, if the full authorization were used, at 1 cent to 1.25 cents per kilowatt-hour. The actual effect would depend on how much is borrowed, financing terms, grants and project timing.

Borough ballot

Four candidates are running for three three-year Assembly seats: Sharli Arntzen, Dan Ortiz, Kathy Bolling and Timothy Montgomery. Arntzen, Ortiz and Bolling are incumbents. Four candidates are running for two open three-year School Board seats: Rob Holston, Vicki O'Brien, Frances Klein and Marissa Medford.

The borough proposition asks whether the Ketchikan Gateway Borough should take on areawide public-library powers. Citizens petitioned it onto the ballot, the borough's voter guide says.

The City of Ketchikan currently owns and runs the Ketchikan Public Library. The borough already holds nonareawide library powers and taxes property outside the cities of Ketchikan and Saxman to help fund the library through an agreement with the city.

If voters approve it, library assets and responsibility for operations and funding would shift from the city to the borough. Library operating costs and the remaining construction-bond debt would become an areawide borough responsibility, covering Ketchikan and Saxman too. The borough says annual debt service runs $340,000 and the bonds are expected to be paid off in 2031. The Assembly would decide the level of library funding and taxation, the guide says.

The measure must win separately among voters outside Ketchikan and Saxman and among voters inside the two cities, whose votes will be combined for that count. If either group rejects it, the borough keeps its current nonareawide library power and could keep negotiating with the city over funding.

Voting

The City of Ketchikan election page links the city sample ballot and detailed bond information. The Ketchikan Gateway Borough election page links the borough ballot, voter guide and polling-place information.

Borough Transit is offering free rides to and from the borough's seven polling places Tuesday for riders who tell the driver they're voting.

Results stay unofficial until canvass and certification, which end Oct. 15 in the city and Oct. 20 in the borough.