Lone applicant for Kenai Peninsula Borough's vacant District 7 seat faces Sept. 1 interview

Nathan A. Berga is the only person who applied for the vacant District 7, Central Peninsula seat on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly, and the assembly could seat him Tuesday, Sept. 1.

The seat opened when the assembly accepted Michael Hicks's resignation. Borough Clerk Michele Turner wrote that applications ran from Aug. 5 to Aug. 19 and that one came in.

The Committee of the Whole is scheduled to review Berga's application and interview him at 3 p.m. in the Betty J. Glick Assembly Chambers at 144 North Binkley Street in Soldotna. A clerk's note on the agenda says an executive session may be held. The full assembly takes up the same item when it convenes at 6 p.m., and the agenda's next line reads "Swear-In Newly Appointed Assembly Member."

Being the only applicant does not make it automatic. Turner wrote that Berga must win a majority of the remaining members; if he does not, the assembly will have to decide how to proceed. If he does, he takes office immediately.

On his application, Berga listed two years at Boise State University, a term on the Kenai Harbor Commission from 2021 to 2022, the Peninsula Piranhas swim team and the Alaska Salmon Alliance.

The assembly has been operating with eight members. The agenda lists President Ryan Tunseth, Vice President Kelly Cooper, Willy Dunne, Cindy Ecklund, Dale Eicher, Brent Hibbert, Lenora Niesen and Sarge Truesdell, and then "Vacant, District 7." An appointment would return the body to its full nine districts.

District 7 covers the Central Peninsula, with boundaries drawn in borough code around landmarks including Echo Lake Road and the Sterling Highway. The appointed term runs only to November 2026, because the seat is already on the borough's Nov. 3 ballot for a two-year term expiring in November 2028.

Public comment is taken at the Sept. 1 assembly meeting.