The Soldotna City Council may schedule a special election for May 9th to ask residents whether or not they support the creation of a home-rule charter commission.
Linda Hutchings is the prime sponsor of the citizen’s initiative which would place the decision before voters again. At the February 10 council meeting she testified that a special election will be better than putting the question on this fall’s regular election ballot.
Hutchings: “Because it’s in everybody’s mind right now, we’ve lost our sales tax, the rest of the borough decided what our city should do which I feel very upset about, because the people in the City of Soldotna voted to keep our sales tax.”
Hutchings was referring to the Borough-wide non-prepared seasonal food tax which was voted down last October, taking revenues away from the City of Soldotna.
At that last meeting, Soldotna resident Daniel Lynch opposed a special election, saying it’s nonsensical to have another special election just over a year after the city’s last one on the same topic that voters failed.
Some council members and Hutchings stated that the public was not educated well enough during the 2015 special election, despite $5,000 allocated for public education materials during it.
The upcoming special election is estimated to cost around $5,900. An ordinance up for introduction Wednesday will request just $3,400 from the General Fund for the special election since there is $2,500 left over from 2015’s Regular Election.
Soldotna City Council will consider these at their regular meeting that begins at 6 pm, February 24, in the Soldotna City Hall.