Jenny Neyman

Spectator capacity at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex will remain at 80 for the time being. The Soldotna City Council discussed increasing that limit in a work session Wednesday but ended up not taking action on the matter during the council meeting.

High school hockey and other winter sports have been postponed and the Kenai River Brown Bears Junior A hockey team is starting its season in Minnesota. The soonest a decision will be made whether to move to Soldotna will be December.

The youth Kenai Peninsula Hockey Association is on the ice but the most spectators they tend to get for games is 40 to 60 people. The COVID-19 risk level on the central Kenai Peninsula is currently high. Given all that, Council Member Justin Ruffridge advocated holding off on making changes.

“I don’t necessarily want to rush making decisions while things are in a very difficult situation,” Ruffridge said. “… I think this would be a pertinent thing to maybe let sit as is for the time being. Knowing it’s going to be something that we have to address prior to anything occurring, once we hear if high school hockey is coming back.”

Election results as of 9:30 p.m., with 29 of 29 precincts reporting:

Mayor Charlie Pierce leads Linda Farnsworth-Hutchings 59.53 percent to 36.39 percent, with Troy Nightengale garnering 3.74 percent.

For Borough Assembly District 2 Kenai, challenger Richard Derkevorkian is leading incumbent Hal Smalley 48.67 to 37.75 percent, with Jim Duffield at 12.94 percent.

Voters in the city of Kenai will have three choices for two city council seats Oct. 6. Incumbents Henry Knackstead and Tim Navarre are running for reelection. Challenger Teea Winger is running her second campaign for a council seat. The top two vote-gets will be seated for a three-year term.

All three grew up in Kenai. Knackstead is a civil engineer, Navarre is a business owner and Winger is a full-time mom.

At a Kenai Chamber of Commerce forum held Sept. 16, Knackstead and Navarre said they would continue the positive progress made to better promote the city, improve the financial outlook and free up airport and other city land for development. Winger said she’d bring new voices to the council.

“I am definitely a lot younger, trying to engage people more my age and the younger voters,” Winger said. “So that’s definitely what’s going to set me out is I can bring fresh new thoughts and ways of doing things to the council.”

There weren’t any huge disagreements between the candidates, though. All three are on the same page with the importance of completing the city’s decades-long push to stabilize the bluff in Old Town.