Just days into the candidate filing period for October’s municipal election, it’s already shaping up to be a much more exciting election compared to last year’s uncontested races.
The candidate filing period — which started Friday and runs until 4:30 p.m. Monday, July 24 — will determine who will be on the ballot for the Oct. 3 local election to fill four Assembly seats along with two spots on the Juneau School District Board of Education.
[Candidates file for this fall’s local election]
As of Tuesday morning, five residents have been certified as candidates for the various open positions on the Assembly. However, no candidates — including incumbents — have been certified or pending certification so far for the two board of education seats.
The four seats opening on the Assembly are to fill positions currently held by members Maria Gladziszewski (areawide), Alicia Hughes-Skandijs (District 1) and Christine Woll (District 2), and recently resigned Carole Triem (areawide) whose seat is temporarily filled by previous Assembly member Loren Jones until the election.
The two seats opening on the district’s school board are currently occupied by Brian Holst and Martin Stepetin Sr.
As of Monday, certified candidates Paul Kelly and Ivan Nance are running for the two open areawide seats on the Assembly, while incumbent Alicia Hughes-Skandijs remains the sole candidate running for the District 1 seat. Incumbent Christine Woll will have at least one person competing to take her current District 2 seat on the Assembly with candidate Dorene Lorenz filing her bid.
“It’s early in the filing period so it could be a wide-open field,” said City Clerk Beth McEwen. “We’ve had elections where none of the races are contested, we’ve had elections where we’ve had 12 candidates in a particular race — so you never know from one year to the next what you’re going to be looking at for candidates.”
McEwen encouraged any interested residents who want to run for candidacy to do it sooner than later in the filing period.
“We encourage anyone that is interested in running for office to get their paperwork in as soon as possible so we have the opportunity for any anomalies to be worked out before the deadline,” she said.
• Contact reporter Clarise Larson at clarise.larson@juneauempire.com or (651)-528-1807.
