Soldotna City Council members will continue to convene at 6 p.m. after killing a proposal that would have bumped their regular meeting time up by half an hour. The proposal was introduced and postponed at the council’s June 11 meeting.
Council members Jordan Chilson co-sponsored the proposed change. But during last week’s [6/25] meeting, he ended up voting against his resolution.
“At the time when this was conceived, I assumed that this would be a routing change that would have benefited everyone pretty well unanimously,” he said. “But based on the feedback, that doesn’t clearly seem to be the case with some of the concerns that were shared.”
In pitching the change, Chilson had argued the new time would align with that of Soldotna’s other elected groups, like the Planning and Zoning Commission. But other council members worried earlier meetings could make it harder for people to participate in local government.
Dave Carey, the proposal’s other sponsor, said he changed his mind after another council member said earlier meetings could dissuade people from serving on the council.
“The idea that it could make it more difficult for someone who would like to serve on the council to serve because there’s not enough time from when they’d get off work to be here – that to me was more than enough to say I can’t support this,” he said.
Council members unanimously killed the resolution.
