Election Fills Two Seats on Assembly and School Board

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Preliminary results came in yesterday for the Kodiak Island Borough and Kodiak City municipal elections.

For the two seats of three years on the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly, Scott Smiley won 1079 votes and Matt Van Daele won 1042 votes. They were running against Monique Lewis, who got 685 votes, and there were also 148 write-ins.

Smiley, who had been appointed to the assembly this summer to replace Mel Stephens after his resignation, said running for the position this time was an experience.

“If you have never done it before, you have no idea how painful the task is, and you’re – at least I was – riddled with insecurities all the way through it, so finding out I won was really quite good.”

Meanwhile, Van Daele is new to the assembly, and said he’s excited to get to work.

“And I can’t wait to start getting to know my colleagues on the assembly and all of our counterparts on the city council and working too with Mr. Powers to bring in the borough staff into this dynamic team that we see coalescing. It’s really exciting. It feels like we’re gonna be able to accomplish a whole lot together.”

Another competitive vote was for a seat of three years on the Kodiak Island Borough School District Board of Education. Julie Cain Hill won with 1152 votes and her competitor, Kelly Bell, received 467 votes. Hill was at home with a group of friends when they got the news of her win.

“I feel good. We’re very happy. I think it was a good outpouring of community support and I’m gonna give it my darndest to give it the best I can to support people and support what they want to happen in the schools.”

She also thanked Bell for running and said she’s gotten the chance to work with her in the past. Another position open on the assembly was the three-year seat for borough mayor, and Dan Rohrer ran unopposed. He will replace Borough Mayor Jerrol Friend and leave behind his seat on the assembly.

There was also an advisory question on the ballot. It asked voters whether or not the Kodiak Island Borough and the City of Kodiak should consider consolidating, and the Kodiak community voted yes on that with 1076 in support and 789 against.

As for the Kodiak City municipal election, current Kodiak City Councilmen Charlie Davidson and John Whiddon ran unopposed for two seats of three years on the council.

And for the service areas, Mike Dolph was elected to one seat on the Fire Protection Area No.1 Board, Craig DeHart and Dennis Symmons were elected to two seats on the Service Area No. 1 Board, Jim Carmichael and Peter Ivanoff were elected to two seats on the Bay View Road Service Area Board, Thomas Lance and Randall J. Spivey were elected to two seats on the Monashka Bay Road Service Area Board, and a couple of write-in candidates decided to run last minute for two seats on Womens Bay Service Area Board. They were Christopher Windnagle and Jason Chandler.

One result still up in the air is Proposition One, which asks voters whether the city should recognize the right of its public employees to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. While 369 people voted yes and 353 voted no, there are 119 outstanding ballots, which is enough to sway the outcome. Those votes will be tallied next Wednesday at the election canvass.