As campaign season creeps toward the finish line on October 3rd, the issues atop the minds of candidates for borough offices are becoming clear. Mostly, it’s the budget.
Specifically, a budget shortfall. Much of the conversation there has been about how to cut spending to get the borough back in the black. But both Dan Castimore and Brent Hibbert, running for the Assembly in District 1, think it’s time to focus on taxes.
There isn’t a wide gulf separating the two candidates on the major issues that have emerged this year. Both are trying to bring a common sense approach to balancing the borough budget and planning for the future. The incumbent, Brent Hibbert, owns Alaska Cab and has served on the Assembly for a little less than a year. He was appointed to replace Gary Knopp. He says simply cutting spending isn’t the answer to the borough’s financial woes. The budget has grown by little more than the rate of inflation the past few years.
“I think what’s really affected us in our shortfall is our grocery tax; we went from 12 months to three months. The revenue sharing from the state is down. So, we’re going to have to tax something to close this gap. Hopefully the voters will decide (in) this election. Or when it comes back to the Assembly if they don’t, we’ll figure out something," Hibbert says.
He's hoping that voters approve Proposition 2 on the ballot. That would bump the sales tax cap in the borough up from $500 to $1,000 and raise about $3 million annually.
That’s similar to the stance of Dan Castimore. He currently serves on the district school board and is the IT manager for the city of Kenai. What he doesn’t want is for the borough to rely on more tourism to fund operations.
“Kenai has never been a tourism economy and that’s where I grew up," Castimore says.
"I moved to Homer for five years and I finally got to see what a tourism economy looks like. In a tourism economy, everything closes on Labor Day. People come in, work and leave. I don’t think that tourism is an economy I want. I want an economy that’s stable. I want an economy that weathers through all kinds of problems. The city of Kenai, in the 37 years I’ve been here, the only time we’ve ever had a financial crisis was when K-Mart closed and it was for one year. We’ve got a stable economy because it’s not based on one specific industry.”
And that’s probably the biggest difference between the two candidates; Hibbert would like to see more tourism and by extension, more tax dollars coming from outside the Peninsula.
“I support tourism just for the simple fact it supports schools. We have some great schools and some great teachers and administrators at these schools. If we don’t have tourism, that’s 25 percent of our tax base and that all goes to schools so then the borough’s got to come up with something else, another way our taxes are going to go up," Hibbert says.
The two find some common ground again on the other ballot proposition getting attention, the cannabis question. Hibbert says regardless of how the vote goes, the borough will be charged with carrying out the rules either way and he’s fine with that. Castimore says he doesn’t really have a dog in the fight, but will be voting to keep the industry intact in the borough.
"I’m not sure it’s a great thing, to be honest, for our community," Casitmore says.
"But I also see a lot worse things out there when it comes to alcohol and substance abuse and other drugs that we’re dealing with. The bottom line is that it has created some jobs in our community. If we ban it, will the entire economy crash? No, it won’t. It would make me uncomfortable to tell businesses who have established themselves in the borough for several years now you have to close. But at the same time I think if you got into that industry and you read those regulations, you knew the risks and you get to make the money based on those risks.”
Castimore and Hibbert made their comments on the most recent edition of the Kenai Conversation.
###