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Incumbents, school funding voted down in Tuesday elections

 

Borough voters roundly rejected a bond measure to pay for a new school in Kachemak-Selo during municipal elections Tuesday.

Residents had lobbied hard for the bonds, and students made several trips to the borough building to try and convey the dire conditions of the 30-plus year old facility to assembly members and the mayor. The bonds would have covered a third of the $15 million cost of the new school in the remote, Homer-area village. The state would have paid for the remainder, but that was contingent on Tuesday’s proposition passing. However it failed, by almost 1,500 votes, 60 percent to 40 percent, and the borough could be on the hook for the entire cost.

On the Kenai City Council, incumbent Councilman Bob Molloy survived the challenges to his reelection, on which he has served since 2005. With two seats available and the candidates running at-large, Robert Peterkin II had almost 39 percent of the vote, while Molloy had 32 percent. Challenger Teea Winger trailed by just 49 votes to gather 28 percent of the vote. Molloy will be re-seated and Peterkin will assume the seat being vacated by Councilman Tim Navarre who did not seek re-election to the council.

Navarre, however, did seek another term on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Board of Education, but he came up 43 votes short, losing his District 2-Kenai seat to Matthew Morse.

He wasn't the only incumbent who had a rough night in school board elections. Marty Anderson had been seeking reelection to the District 5 seat, but lost in a five-way race by a wide margin to Greg Madden, 48 percent to 19 percent. Madden will now represent the Sterling/Funny River area.

Moving the boundary between Central Peninsula Hospital and South Kenai Peninsula Hospital's service areas proved popular by a 2-to-1 margin, while expanding the Homer-area hospital's boundaries passed with three-fourths the vote.

In Soldotna, none of the three candidates for city council faced a challenger and all three will be elected by comfortable margins over "write-in."

Full results here.

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