Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce spoke to KSRM, offering a look back at 2020, as well as observations about his administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Kenai.
After Governor Mike Dunleavy’s initial wave of health mandates began to impact businesses throughout the state, the Mayor was quick to take to social media in the spring and declare the Kenai Peninsula “open for business,” a phrase that has become synonymous with Pierce in 2020. As nearby Anchorage saw skyrocketing COVID rates and increasing closures of economic sectors, Pierce promoted the idea of Alaskans making a trip to the Kenai to do business.
He believes this decision helped keep the region afloat in what could have been a disastrous time: “Obviously, business – the exchange of goods and services – generates the livelihood for many people. It sustains us, and we have to have that. I recognized that early-on and said that we were open for business, and we’re still open for business. I would just say, you can look and reflect. In Anchorage, do a drive-through Anchorage and see how they’re suffering, the hardships those folks are going through. I feel for everyone of of them. I think they’re all essential. I know if I were mayor there in Anchorage, I’d have a different plan. I think businesses would be open and we would have a different strategy. I’m thankful that we were able to sustain the open policy down here on the peninsula and keep it that way. I think we’re all better off for it.”
Mayor Pierce also expressed gratitude for the state’s efficient utilization of vaccines, thus far, for front-line health care workers, but also advocated for the essential nature of all residents: “I think that we’re all essential, too. Somewhere along the way in the next month or so, we should all be placed on that list and given a priority – an option – to receive [the vaccine] if you choose to receive it. So, that would be my goal now.”
He also said that he feels this is the “worst time” to tax anyone on the Kenai, and that he plans not to do so, but hopes to have the Borough Assembly’s support in keeping that goal alive: “What that’s going to require is all of us to do a little bit more with less.”
