The Kenai Borough Assembly president wants three votes to carry the assembly

Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly President Ryan Tunseth is sponsoring an ordinance that would let three votes carry the assembly instead of the five required now. Two of the nine members who would vote on it were appointed by the assembly within the last month, both on resolutions Tunseth sponsored.

The ordinance, up for introduction Tuesday, adds one sentence to the rules governing assembly meetings: "Unless otherwise provided, actions of the assembly are adopted by a majority of the quorum." Quorum stays at a majority of the membership, five of nine. A majority of five is three.

State law provides that actions of a governing body are adopted by a majority of its total membership, which for nine seats is five. The Kenai Peninsula Borough is a second-class borough with no charter, so it operates under that statute. The statute lets a body set its own procedural rules by ordinance, but only to the extent the law otherwise allows.

Tunseth's sponsor memorandum does not mention the statute. It says the change "codifies the default rule under Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure," a rulebook for running legislative meetings that the assembly follows. A later section of the same ordinance strikes Mason's Manual from the assembly's rules, leaving it neither adopted nor controlling. Borough Attorney Sean Kelley has not said on the record whether the statute permits the change. In August, he and Borough Clerk Michele Turner advised in writing that filling a vacant seat required five votes.

The two appointees arrived through vacancies Tunseth moved to declare. The assembly declared the District 1 Kalifornsky seat vacant July 7 after Scott Griebel resigned, and District 7 Central vacant Aug. 4 after Michael Hicks resigned. Brent Hibbert was appointed to District 1 on a 5-1 ballot and sworn in Aug. 18. Nathan Berga, the only applicant for District 7, was sworn in Sept. 1. Both serve through Nov. 15. Voters in the two districts choose replacements for the unexpired terms on Nov. 3, and Berga is the only candidate filed for his seat.

The same ordinance also shortens the guaranteed public notice before assembly decisions, from roughly 11 days now to a binding minimum of 48 hours. Sponsors would still file 10 days out and the clerk would aim to publish seven days out, but only the 48 hours would be required. The sponsor memorandum does not say the interval changes.

A companion ordinance set for introduction the same day rewrites how vacancies are filled. It extends the window in which a vacancy goes to voters rather than to appointment from 45 to 90 days before a regular election, adds a one-year district residency requirement the memorandum does not mention, and loosens the deadline to fill a seat from the second meeting after a resignation to 60 days, against a 30-day state default. Applied to this year, the 90-day window would have changed nothing: the Hicks vacancy was declared 91 days before the election.

Both ordinances go to the Policies and Procedures Committee at 4:15 pm Tuesday and to the full assembly for introduction that evening. The public hearing on both is set for Oct. 20, two weeks before the election, with the sitting assembly deciding. Neither requires voter approval.