The Monday evening radio forum featured candidates competing in the race to fill a three-year term seat. Heath Smith spoke on issues impacting the Borough as well as the Kenai Peninsula at large in advance of the General Election on Tuesday, October 3rd. Kelly Cooper, who is also running for the District 8 seat was unable to attend the forum.
The subjects discussed included new marijuana regulations recently signed by Lt. Governor Nancy Dahlstrom, transgender athletes competing in Alaska high school sports, the debate over a salt brine mixture used on peninsula roads in winter, and the issue of flooding in residential areas along portions of Kalifornsky Beach Road.
Smith also shared his personal view on the role of a public servant;
“Well, ultimately, I think that your biggest charge is to listen because you’re elected to represent the voice of the people, not your own voice. And so there has to be a relationship that you can develop with those people that elected you so that you can act in their stead from the table. And, if you look across the Kenai Peninsula, it’s very different from Homer to Nikiski to Soldotna. So, we all need to have that voice at the table, but we need to be available, and we need to be willing to be open minded in order to find reasonable solutions to the challenges that we face.”
Click the player below to listen to the candidate election forum in case you didn’t have an opportunity to: