I am encouraging everyone on the Kenai Peninsula to get out and vote on Tuesday in our local borough and city elections. It is easy to lose track of the fact that we have a local election on October 1^st because so much attention is being placed on the presidential election coming up next month. However, important issues will be decided, and borough elections often suffer from meager voter turnout, which tends to favor the political left. Here in Homer, we will choose a new mayor, and the southern Kenai Peninsula will decide on a funding bond to expand the South Peninsula Hospital.

In most borough elections, only 10-20% of registered voters turn out to vote. For some reason, Homer typically has a high voter turnout for presidential elections and delivers solidly conservative results. However, there is less enthusiasm for local elections, and voter turnout is usually very low, so the town supports left-of-center candidates and issues. That is how we have ended up with a liberal town council representing a town with a conservative majority.

There are two significant issues to be decided by Homer voters this year. First is the mayoral election. I have previously written about the choice between Jim Anderson and his opponent, Rachel Lord. Anderson is a registered Republican. He has leadership experience working for major corporations and brings a conservative worldview. He would make a great mayor for Homer. I will vote for him on Tuesday. 

We need Jim Anderson because the Homer city council leans to the left, with only one conservative council member among them. A conservative mayor would provide balance and better represent the views of the majority of the voters in our community. I believe that Anderson is the mayor Homer needs.

The second major issue to be decided is a bond proposal to expand the South Peninsula Hospital in Homer. This is Proposition No. 1 on the borough ballot. Voters living in the South Kenai Peninsula Hospital Service Area, which extends from Ninilchik to Seldovia and includes Homer and the Russian villages out East End Road, can vote on this bond. 

Prop 1 contains $38.5 million for hospital expansion. Unfortunately, the ballot language doesn’t provide much detail about how these funds will be used. Critics of the proposition say the money will not be spent on the hospital’s core mission of providing quality health care but on trivial items not needed to serve the community. They say the funding includes unnecessary items, such as building a daycare facility for the children of hospital staff and building staff housing when other alternatives are available.

There may be good arguments for spending such a significant amount of money on these items, but the need for them has not been well explained to the public, and the cost is substantial. If this proposition passes, the property tax rate for residents in the hospital service area will be increased by 0.67 mils. To put this in more understandable terms, using the price for the median home in Homer, Proposition No. 1 will raise the local property tax for each homeowner by $235/year. In these days of high inflation and people struggling to put food on the table and gas in their cars, that amount might be more than some people can afford.

This issue of hospital expansion was discussed in detail on Chris Story’s Top of the World radio broadcast. Chris interviewed Dr. Paul Raymond, a physician who has experience working at SPH for many years and who can speak with knowledge about the issue. In this interview, Dr. Raymond provides an excellent explanation of Prop 1 and the reasons he is opposed to it. Voters may wish to listen to the broadcast to get a more complete understanding of this issue.

I encourage all conservative residents of the Kenai Peninsula to vote on Tuesday. For readers in Homer, I suggest you vote for Jim Anderson for mayor and vote no on Proposition 1. 

Also, simply voting and thinking you have done your civic duty is not enough. To make a real difference in this election, we must get every conservative voter to turn out. As soon as you finish reading this post, please send all of your conservative friends a text or call them and remind them to vote on Tuesday. If they can’t make it to the polls, then tell them to use early voting to vote at city hall today. A low voter turnout favors the left. Conservatives in Homer need a high conservative voter turnout to win this election, which I am confident we can do.

The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.

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