Election Profile: Borough Mayor Candidate Dan Rohrer

logo-w-sunburstKayla Desroches/KMXT

A new borough mayor will take over following the election in October – it’ll be current Borough Assemblyman Dan Rohrer, who says he’ll exchange one position for another because he’s running unopposed.

Rohrer grew up in Kodiak and has lived on island for most of his life. He bought Kodiak’s chain of two Subway restaurants soon after earning his college degree, and says he returned to the community directly after graduation to do that. Since then, he has owned various other businesses including KFC, Taco Bell, and consulting service AEM Enterprises. He’s also served on the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly since 2014.

He says when he assumes the borough mayor position, he’ll resign from his current assembly member seat, but explains his desire to serve remains the same.

“It’s kind of like when I ran for the borough assembly. People said, ‘Well, what’s your agenda?’ and I said, well, I don’t have an agenda. I’m a long-term Kodiak resident who passionately loves Kodiak, and I want to see Kodiak [be] a better place for all of our involvements. And so I’m willing and [desiring] to commit time towards that effort.”

Rohrer says his management experience has prepared him for the role of borough mayor.

“I have spent all of my adult life working with employees that are my employees that I have to interact with and a lot of that is managing their interactions together. For those of you that are employers, I think all of them would agree that it feels like half the task sometimes is just keeping employees on the same page with each other and making sure that there’s positive interactions there together.”

Looking forward to the challenges ahead, Rohrer says the borough’s fiscal situation is a top concern.

“For those people that know me, I enjoy a financial puzzle, a financial challenge, a problem opportunity, and so I think it’s an important time to have people in place that are willing and able to have in-depth financial discussions about how do we as a borough maintain a level of service that people are accustomed to, but in some ways having to figure out how to do that more efficiently because we’re certainly gonna be in a time of declining revenue.”

Rohrer will replace Jerrol Friend as borough mayor. Friend has served as mayor since 2013.

The election is next Tuesday, and polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

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