Issues pertaining to the Kenai Peninsula Borough were discussed as KSRM’s coverage of Decision 2022 focused on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly District 3 – Nikiski on Thursday evening. Incumbent Jesse Bjorkman is being challenged by Dil Uhlin and Chase Griffith (who was not in attendance for the radio forum). Uhlin and Bjorkman discussed the KPB Assembly Nikiski race that’s to be decided on Tuesday, October 4. The subjects ranged from Mike Navarre being appointed Interim Mayor, the role of an Assembly Member, spruce bark beetle mitigation, election security, and additional representation on the KPB Assembly.
The candidates also talked about their position on the school bond issue.
Jesse Bjorkman:
“The school bond issue is an important one. It’s very much a situation of pay me now for needed maintenance or pay more later. I support the school bond. I support doing needed maintenance to all of our facilities to make sure that our students have an appropriate environment to get educated every day. That bond program very much is that situation where we can do the work now and pay for it now with a bond that’s over time or we’re forced to stretch things out even further – more water gets into buildings causing more costs and then the materials are going to cost more later as well. I am very supportive of the bond proposal. It’s important that we can fix and maintain our buildings in a responsible way. Moving forward we are going to be getting onto a more structured and prioritized major maintenance and capital projects schedule that will take care of our deferred maintenance in a way that makes sense based on the priorities of the buildings.”
Dil Uhlin:
“I have the unique opportunity to be the interim maintenance director and get to see some of the challenges that we have with our school facilities and school buildings and the maintenance program. Though we have the new leadership in house that are looking at things more proactively, this bond is necessary. There are issues with the schools that need to be addressed immediately. They are not just routine maintenance that needs to be done, these are end of life situations that we’re dealing with. If they go unheard, what you will end up doing is running into a situation where we’re in what they call in the maintenance world is a ‘run to failures’ situation and a run to failure situation usually costs two to three times more to repair after the fact versus addressing these things head on. The school initiative is necessary, and I think we should move forward with the bonding.”
Click the player below to listen to the candidate election forum in case you didn’t have an opportunity to: