Soldotna City Council discussed becoming a home rule city at their August 27 meeting, giving administration direction that they would like to move forward.
Council member Pete Sprague said tentatively the process will begin by presenting a resolution to the council on October 29.
Sprague: “We’d have to establish a commission to begin the process and explore exactly what we’d like to see in a charter for a home ruled city and so the process would start in the end of October and if everything goes as scheduled and we do decide to continue to move forward the charter would be approved by voters next October.”
The steps to become a home ruled city like Kenai or Seward can be daunting and in the short discussion last night, some council members addressed that.
Sprague: “There were concerns about how daunting the process would be but Council Member (Linda) Murphy did say that other cities have done this so there may be templates and models that we can follow rather than reinventing the wheel but it will be a rather lengthy process with a lot of involvement so there will be ample opportunity for the administration, the council and most importantly the public to weigh in on it as we go forward.”