Council to hold public hearing on election date change

Published 8:30 am Friday, March 6, 2026

The Homer City Council introduced an ordinance during their last regular meeting on Feb. 23 to amend several sections of the city’s elections code. Ordinance 26-16 will return for a public hearing and second reading at the next regular meeting on Monday.

Historically, the City of Homer operated under a Memorandum of Agreement with the Kenai Peninsula Borough. which provided for intergovernmental administration of city and borough elections, and collaborated with the borough on local elections, including sharing costs for ballot programming, ballot printing, election equipment and election workers. When a majority of voters approved a ballot measure last fall to move the borough election date from October to November to align with the state election, that agreement was subsequently terminated.

The ordinance notes that if Homer chooses to maintain holding city elections in October, the city’s costs to administer local elections would increase significantly.

“While the City could continue to hold elections in October, the cost to hold an election would increase significantly without the cost-savings associated with collaborating with the KPB on sharing election workers and election equipment,” a Jan. 29 backup memorandum from City Clerk Amy Woodruff to the council states. Additionally, Woodruff wrote, per the January 2026 letter terminating the MOA with the borough, KPB clerk Michele Turner wrote that if Homer does change their election date to November, the borough intends to “explore entering into a new elections administration MOA” with the city.

“I also think it probably would pretty dramatically further reduce voter turnout, which is already way lower than it should be for any of our elections,” Mayor Rachel Lord said. “But when we’re decoupled from the borough as well, I think that deflates a little bit. Not everyone is as excited about local governance as we are.”

Ordinance 26-16 proposes changes to move city elections to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and would make additional changes to city code sections pertaining to election expenses, declarations of candidacy, voting procedures and runoff elections. The ordinance also updates language pertaining to prohibitions, questioned ballot procedures and absentee ballot eligibility.

Homer City Code 4.01.100, “Expenses,” currently states that the city will pay election officials a similar hourly rate to officials for state elections. Under the ordinance, this would change from “state” elections to “borough” elections.

City code 4.10.010 previously set the filing period for declarations of candidacy to open on Aug. 1 and close by Aug. 15. If the ordinance passes, the candidate filing period would open Sept. 1 and close by Sept. 15.

HCC 4.40.020 currently allows for runoff elections, if required due to the outcome of a regular election, to be held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Under Ordinance 26-16, runoff elections would be held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in December.

Find Ordinance 26-16 in full at www.cityofhomer-ak.gov/citycouncil/city-council-regular-meeting-357.

The next Homer City Council regular meeting will be held Monday, March 9 at 6 p.m. in the Homer City Hall Cowles Council Chambers and via Zoom.