The City of Kenai may become the latest peninsula government to move its local election day from October to November. The move would keep city and Kenai Peninsula Borough elections aligned, saving some money.
During a work session last week, city council members were for the change. But under Kenai’s charter, residents have to make the change through a ballot question. That means holding a special election, or waiting until next October’s regular election.
Kenai City Clerk Shellie Saner is in charge of running city elections. She says without the change, regular elections would cost about $33,000 to run. Realigning the city’s election with the borough’s would slash the cost of regular elections to about a third of that.
“It was a convenience and it was also a cost savings to the city because we got the ballot quantity printing discount that the borough was getting when they ordered it,” she said. “They used their equipment to program our elections and it was an overall convenience for everybody within the borough and the city to do this together.”
Holding a special election would cost the city about $25,000.
Deborah Sounart is one of multiple city council members who favors a special election.
“It’s just cost prohibitive to try and run $32-$33,000 and upwards on our own year after year,” she said.
At the borough level, the change to November was popular. Almost two-thirds of borough voters supported it on their ballots in October – their last October ballots. Most voters in Kenai precincts supported that move, too. The ballot question was the result of a citizen initiative. Proponents wanted to align local elections with state and federal elections, which they think will help boost notoriously low local turnout.
The Soldotna City Council recently voted on their own to bump their city’s elections to November. Soldotna doesn’t require a ballot question to make the date change. The Kenai council also floated asking voters to amend the charter so that future changes to the election date could be made by the council.
Although Kenai council members generally favored a special election, one won’t be held until they pass legislation setting the date and allocating money.
