There will be a Kenai Peninsula Borough election on October 7th, which will include filling three seats for the Homer City Council. A candidate for one of those seats is Michael Jones, who is running against an 11-month incumbent by the name of Bradley Parsons.

Local elections like this aren’t well covered in the local news, making it difficult for conservatives to know who they should vote for. However, a recent candidate forum held by the Chamber of Commerce allowed the candidates to better define their positions on the issues. When you take a close look at the choices in this election, it is clear that conservative voters should choose Mike Jones.

Mr. Parsons got his seat on the city council in 2024, filling a vacancy left after Rachel Lord won the mayor’s election. Vacancies on the city council are filled by a vote of the council. At present, four of the six council members lean to the left of center. Since Mr. Parsons was elected by a left-of-center city council, that alone might be an excuse for conservative voters to oppose Mr. Parsons and vote for Mike Jones, but there are more valid reasons to do so based on the comments they gave in the candidate forum debate held on September 16. Both candidates were asked a series of questions, and afterwards, it was clear that Mr. Jones is the more conservative of the candidates.

Mike Jones is an individual with a proven record of fighting for fiscal responsibility and election integrity.

In his comments, Jones clearly defined who he is and his reasons for seeking a seat on the council. Mike is a professional engineer and has a master’s degree in business administration. He spent his professional career working as a mechanical engineer in the power industry. He has had experience not just with the design and operation of complex mechanical and electrical systems, but also with leadership on teams of technical staff who operated and maintained those systems. In the candidate forum, it was clear that Mike would bring those same technical skills when working on local issues.

Mike has provided frequent written and oral public testimony to the city council, city commissions, Regulatory Commission of Alaska, and the State Legislature. He has been instrumental in helping to revise the 2045 Homer Comprehensive Plan Update.

For those unfamiliar with this document, every 20 years the city prepares a planning document known as the comprehensive plan. This document outlines a development plan for our city and the specific items the council should work on to achieve that goal. Mike Jones applied the skills he honed as an engineer to review the comprehensive plan, which resulted in correcting deficiencies in this document before it is adopted by the city next month.

Another important issue that illustrated the difference between the candidates was the issue of housing. The candidates were asked how to make more affordable housing available in Homer. Mr. Parsons supported the concept of lot splitting, which enables larger lots to be split into two smaller lots, enabling the construction of more homes and increasing housing density in Homer. Mr. Jones said that this concept may increase housing density in town to the point that it could destroy some of the charm found in Homer. Instead, he proposed using zoning changes to promote the construction of homes on the large amount of undeveloped acreage in town. There were clear differences in their answers on this issue that will matter to voters.

For those interested in hearing the remainder of the responses to questions posed to the candidates in the public forum, you can watch the video here.

Mike Jones is an individual with a proven record of fighting for fiscal responsibility and election integrity. He has worked in a technically demanding industry and is better prepared for the challenge of being on the city council than his opponent. Seward’s Folly endorses Mike Jones for Homer City Council. Conservatives living in Homer should be happy to support him in the Borough election on October 7th.

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

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