Nome’s city elections are Tuesday, Oct. 7, and voters will decide on two seats each for the utility board, the city council, and the school board. All candidates are incumbents and all are running unopposed, except for one race which now has a write-in challenger.
Outside the political races, there’s one other big issue for Nome voters to decide on Tuesday: a “yes” or “no” vote on Proposition 1, which would raise the sales tax on alcohol and tobacco from five to eight percent.
Fred Moody and Carl Emmons are both seeking to keep their position on the utility board and face no opposition. At the city council, incumbents Tom Sparks and Louie Green Sr. are in a similar position, with both seeking another term unchallenged.
It’s the school board where the write-in candidate has entered the race. Less than a week before election day Charles Pullock said he’s launching a write-in campaign for School Board Seat B, a seat set to be vacated by Barb Nichols, who has chosen not to run for re-election.
Pullock is a Nome-Beltz graduate with a bachelor’s degree in rural development from UAF. Though he doesn’t have any kids, he said his education and background with the King Island village corporation gives him the experience he needs for the board.
In an interview Friday morning, Pullock said he’s troubled by what he sees as too many students seeking education opportunities outside of Nome.
“Last spring there were about 15 kids from Nome Public Schools that applied to go to Mt. Edgecumbe,” Pullock said, referring to the state-run public boarding high school in Sitka. “That’s about 15 kids that wanted to move away, their families wanted them to pursue high school education at Mt. Edgecumbe. And if you’ve got 15 kids, 15 families, that don’t want a part of the school system, you know, there’s something wrong with the school.”
Information provided by Nome-Beltz High School office staff confirm Pullock’s numbers of those seeking education at Edgecumbe.
Brandy Arrington filed to run for Seat B by the September 15 deadline, which means hers is the only name voters will see for on the city ballot Tuesday for that particular position. A mother of two, Arrington said she brings 20 years of accounting experience to the school board, most of which has been with the Alaska Commercial Company in Nome.
“Budgets [are] what I deal with. It’s my life,” she said Thursday. “I’m always having to work with what I have, and be creative and find ways of making it work. I know budgeting has been some issues in the past [for the school district] and most recently, and I think I could help the budget and make it work.”
Jennifer Reader remains unchallenged as she seeks reelection to her School Board Seat A.
Even with Pullock’s write-in effort, City Clerk Tom Moran said the winner in Tuesday’s election will simply be whomever gets the most votes.
“It’s called a plurality, which is 50 percent, plus one,” Moran explained. “So if 600 people voted, you’d need 300 and one [votes]. It’s not 51 percent, it’s 50 percent plus one vote, which is less than 51 percent.”
That plurality is harder to reach if the pool of votes is split by more than two candidates. If one candidate doesn’t heave a clear plurality, that requires the city to hold another vote, a one-on-one runoff between the two candidates with the most votes.
A somewhat common feature of past Nome elections, this year Moran said the scenario is unlikely.
“In this election, there only being two options, the candidate plus a write in, it is most likely that everybody would get a plurality and we would not need a runoff election this year.”
Voters can cast their ballots Tuesday, Oct. 7 at Old St. Joe’s in Nome. Polls open at 8 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. A rough approximation of the ballot provided by the city, which includes the language of the Proposition 1 sales tax issue for tobacco and alcohol, is available online.
