Fairbanks, AK - Fairbanks North Star Borough voters went to the polls on Tuesday to cast their ballot on issue ranging from the tax cap to air quality. According to the unofficial results, voters reelected Mayor Luke Hopkins to a second term, but the assumed win didn’t come quickly. Mayor Hopkins trailed opponent Norm Phillips for over an hour as results trickled in. The Mayor called the race a nail biter. “Well yeah," he smiles, "when you come in and I’m down by 400 votes and now I’m up by 900, so in that transition of course you wonder what’s going on.”
Hopkins says he’s looking forward to a second term. “I want to make sure we continue to protect the programs and services that we have. Our hockey rinks, our libraries, our buses…” he says.
But the Mayor says his priority is making energy more affordable. He plans to continue work on his municipal energy utility plan. “There’s more and more unity in what a plan might be and that’s just what the community needs to do, so gas distribution and what the borough has out there is part of it," he says.
The race for Borough Assembly Seat A between Van Lawrence and Joe Blanchard was also close. Affordable energy also tops the list presumed winner Lawrence says he plans to focus on over the next three years.
“I’ll tell you the truth, dealing with affordable energy is by far the biggest issue. I’ve always had an interest in recycling and will pay attention that and I think education is our future and will work hard to support the school district any way I can," says Lawrence.
Voters elected Kathryn Dodge to Assembly Seat F. She’s also planning to focus on energy-related issues.
“Well certainly energy efficiency and saving energy through increasing efficiency through the borough and school district buildings is a good way to go," says Dodge.
But Assembly Seat G winner Lance Roberts says he’d like to work with the Mayor on next year’s budget and he plans to focus on a list of ordinances he finds too restrictive. “I’d like to free up some of the Title 17 restrictions," he says. "I think that’s one of the things that really needs fixing a lot in this Borough is the fact that nobody can subdivide their land and the Borough can’t subdivide their land and sell it profitably because of all the incredible restrictions on it so we need to get some relief from that.”
Ballot Propositions 1 and 2 which deal with the tax cap and the composition of the Borough Assembly come up every two years and they both passed easily. A ballot proposition aimed at stopping the Borough government from regulating heating devices also passed. Maria Rensel helped write some of the language for Proposition 3. She says its passage reinforces a citizen’s initiative regarding air quality that passed two years ago. But unlike Ballot Propositions 1 and 2, she doesn’t think air quality needs to become an issue that continues to come up every two years. “It’s the individual versus the collective," says Rensel. "If we have a whole bunch of people living in this borough that believe that the government regulations and fines and imposing punishments is the answer, than this will keep coming back. But if we have more population in the borough that just believes in the individual being the solution to the problem then this won’t keep coming back.”
But Mayor Luke Hopkins says regardless, the Borough Government will still be involved in mitigating air quality. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I get a call from EPA and Environmental Conservation tomorrow because they were waiting to see what happened," the Mayor says. “That they’re probably gonna have to sit down with us and find out what kind of state implementation plan they can be putting together, because that’s what we they were waiting for. They were waiting for this ballot measure.”
According to the municipal clerk there are approximately 1000 absentee ballots and 700 question ballots that have not been counted. Election results will be finalized early next week.