Petersburg’s municipal election is just a day away. On September 12, KFSK partnered with the Petersburg Pilot to host a candidates forum for the Borough Assembly race. Five candidates are running for two seats on the assembly: incumbents Bob Lynn and Thomas Fine-Walsh, and three new candidates: Marc Martinsen, James Valentine, and Tony Vinson. All of them answered questions about their vision for the future of Petersburg.
Each candidate was given a couple minutes to introduce themselves at the start of the forum. And in classic Petersburg fashion, most of them drew attention to how long they — and their parents and grandparents — had lived in town.
But incumbent candidate Bob Lynn was more game to talk about his eight years sitting on the assembly, and specific projects he wants to see through in a new term.
“We have a number of things that I think that I was part of being successful,” Lynn said. “We have funding coming for three or four projects here in town, including Scow Bay and Banana Point and so forth. I want to be part of continuing that and to bring those to conclusion.”
James Valentine and Tony Vinson are complete newcomers to local governance. Vinson is an employee of the local hospital, which is partially supervised by the borough. But he said he was so motivated to run, he successfully pushed for the borough to change the rules. Last year, the assembly changed municipal code to allow employees of the borough, school district, and hospital to run for offices that don’t directly supervise their employment.
“I’m running for borough assembly because I believe in the future of our town,” said Vinson, “whether it’s improving local services, supporting small businesses, or ensuring that children have the opportunities available to them despite our [remoteness.]”
Many candidates said they held more or less the same position on certain municipal issues. But there was some variation in how informed they were about those issues. And some were forthright when they needed to do their homework.
The local school district is struggling to make ends meet in the wake of stagnant state funding. Most of the candidates were united on contributing the maximum legal amount of Borough money to the school district’s coffers, if requested during the next budget session.
Marc Martinsen, who served on Petersburg’s City Council (when it was designated as a “city”), skirted the question of whether or not he’d give the school district what it asks for.
“When I was on the council, we gave the maximum cap every time,” said Martinsen. “As long as I can remember, we’ve maxed that out. I think we actually gave more because we had extra money. We’re paying for that now.”
According to the Petersburg School District, this year was the first time in at least 30 years that the borough had funded local schools to the cap. Paying above that cap would break state law.
Candidates were also mostly united on keeping a project to rebuild the local hospital at the top of its priority list for state and federal funding. The hospital is falling out of code, and parts of it — particularly its septic lines — are falling into disrepair.
Vinson, who works for the hospital, expressed his support for the project. But he said he’d have to abstain from any votes related to it, due to a conflict of interest.
Martinsen was the sole candidate who said the project didn’t have his full support.
“There’s more questions than there are answers, and I could spend an hour asking these questions,” said Martinsen. “A lot of their problems they have up there — I’ve looked at them, [they] seem like pretty easy fixes to me. Maybe we should move in a different direction than just the standard old hospital — [just] bandage them up, send them out.”
The candidates had several overlapping priorities for economic development: with special attention paid to Petersburg’s harbors, schools, and housing. Fine-Walsh said the shortage of the latter was a huge choke point in developing the local economy.
“We’re all struggling with staffing issues, and I think a lot of that you know arises from the lack of housing here,” Fine-Walsh said. “People want to move to Petersburg, but they can’t because they cannot find housing.”
Valentine said he’d use his seat to help diversify local industry to help Petersburg ride out fluctuations in the economy.
”I’m in the tourism industry, but I do have that fishing background,” said Valentine. “So, I think that as the borough you know, you want to pave the way so that a private enterprise can come in and hopefully build that new industry — not jobs, industry that will then keep families here, that will then, in turn grow the population. I would work with the borough as a team to help figure out what industries [we can] look into.”
But tourism was a stickier issue later on in the forum. Petersburg receives dozens of small cruise ships every summer, but markedly fewer than nearby Wrangell or Sitka. Valentine held fast to the idea of increasing tourism. But, that he only wants what he calls: “good tourism.”
“I want other communities to look at Petersburg and be like: they are doing it right,” Valentine said. “Does that mean limiting boats? I don’t think limiting boats is the vision. I think that if we could do one, 100- to 200-passenger boat a day for five days a week, that would bring a lot of income to the community. It would start businesses. Maybe with more consistent tourism, it might bring a couple families that might stay here and then open up that restaurant — or open up [another] thing that we may want for this community. So, I think that Petersburg is in a very unique situation — in a good situation to have balance.”
Thomas Fine-Walsh said he’s open to the idea of increased tourism in Petersburg, but that he’d like to stand by and see it develop on its own terms.
“We should never be in a position where tour companies are dictating terms to the community,” said Fine-Walsh. “Beyond that, I I agree with the sentiment that the assembly should really not be putting itself in front of private enterprise or interfering with that — neither boosting nor prohibiting private enterprise. I think it’s best left alone.”
Tony Vinson, who didn’t get to answer the tourism question at the forum, later told KFSK that he’s in the middle of the road on the issue — but he’s opposed to large cruise ships making port calls in town. Lynn said that the surrounding landscape might already shield residents from their nightmare tourism situation.
“I think the waters we have around here are going to dictate how much tourism we have,” Lynn said. “I don’t think we could have big tourism. You know, the 200 passenger tour ships are probably in is what we can expect. The question is, could you have more? And my answer is, yes. I think we need more community involvement.”
Lynn suggested reviving Petersburg’s Recreation Task Force and investing in improvements to harbor infrastructure to encourage a reasonable amount of tourist traffic.
Those are just some of the wave-tops of the two hour long candidate forum. You can listen to the whole session, individual interviews with Borough Assembly candidates and information about the four propositions on this year’s ballot here.
The last day for residents to vote in the municipal election is October 1. The polls open from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Activity Room of the Parks & Recreation Center.
Editor’s note: This story has been changed to reflect that the year 2024 was the first time in at least 30 years the Borough increased its contribution to the schools to the state cap.
