A 7-2 vote on Tuesday night resulted in Mike Navarre being appointed Interim Borough Mayor for the Kenai Peninsula Borough following Charlie Pierce’s last day. Assembly Member Tyson Cox motioned to appoint Navarre as Interim Mayor stating that he can ‘hit the road running as mayor with as minimal a learning curve as could be asked for in such a position.’
Navarre spoke with KSRM:
“You know, I really just want to help the Borough through this time. After I meet with the different department directors and get a list of the items that are on their ‘to do list’ and things that are sort of at a critical point that need to be addressed, whatever they may be, decisions on the bond packages, decisions on capital projects, decisions on hiring personnel, and then you go right into the budget process. I don’t have any agenda that I’m going in with other than seeing this as a caretaker role and working closely with the Assembly to make sure that the borough stays on even footing during this interim.”
Navarre said the Borough will schedule a special election for the position sometime early next year:
“They’re going to determine when they will hold a special election and when the mayor who wins that, or the person who wins that, will take over the position as mayor. It’s really kind of bad timing there also because early next year, you start on the budget process, you have to start getting the budget together, you have to have it completed about by the first of April and then it goes through the hearing process at the Assembly and has to be passed by June. Handing off the Borough in the middle of that budget cycle is difficult.”
In terms of scheduling, Navarre said:
“Under the best of circumstances, they’re probably not going to be able to have the election until early January. There was talk about moving it to February or early March. That way the new Mayor would then take over at the beginning of April, the budget process would be mostly completed, but the new mayor would have the opportunity to make changes if they so desired, but most of the background work and the crafting of the budget and cobbling and putting the budget together would already be done. That’s something that I think is important.”
Charlie Pierce’s resignation as Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor will become effective at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, September 30, 2022.