Southeast’s northernmost community has a new mayor.
On Oct. 18, Ralph Wolfe defeated David Stone for Yakutat’s top elected position, 94-85. The result was confirmed Thursday with the counting of absentee and questioned ballots.
Yakutat, alone among Southeast communities, holds its election on the third Tuesday in October. All but Metlakatla (which holds its election in November) have elections on the first Tuesday of October.
Wolfe is a former Sealaska employee who now works for the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe and is a member of the Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. He was the highest vote-getter among the independent candidates who ran for Sealaska’s board of directors in 2015 and served on Yakutat’s borough assembly before running for mayor.
Herbert Holcomb (112 votes), Paul Harding (72) and James “Jimmi” Jensen (71) were elected to two-year terms on the borough assembly. Ray Sensmeier also ran, receiving 33 votes.
Adriana Preciado (71 votes) and Tim Hann (25) were elected to three-year terms on the school board. Curt Holcomb (10) also ran as a write-in. Casey Mapes, with 133 votes, was elected to serve the remaining year on an unfilled three-year school board term.
Yakutat is a city-borough that geographically is one of the largest cities in the United States. It has about 615 year-round residents.
Correction: The first name of Casey Mapes was misspelled in the first version of this story.
