Candidate lists set

MAT-SU — The filing deadline for all Valley municipal elected offices passed Friday, setting the candidate slate for the Oct. 7 election.

Mat-Su Borough

Two seats are up on the borough assembly. Steve Colligan, representing District 4, Greater Wasilla, has filed to keep his seat. He didn’t draw an opponent.

Meanwhile, the race for District 5, representing Big Lake and Knik, doesn’t have an incumbent. Darcie Salmon apparently didn’t file to run again.

Vying to replace him will be Bill Kendig, currently a member of the Mat-Su Borough Planning Commission, and James D. “Dan” Mayfield, who is active in the community of folks who build and promote trails in Big Lake.

Mat-Su Borough School Board

The school board, which is often a stepping stone to the state legislature — both Sen. Mike Dunleavy and Rep. Lynn Gattis went from the board straight to Juneau — is actually going to be the least flashy of this year’s races.

Two incumbents are up in October: former jail superintendent Ole Larson and the board’s youngest member, Tiffany Scott, who got her seat through appointment when Erick Cordero resigned. Neither drew a challenger.

City of Palmer

Both candidates who filed for seats this year are going to end up on the council in a walk. There are two seats up for grabs and only two candidates filed: Elden C. Tritch, who last attempted to gain a seat on the council in 2012, and sitting council member Linda Combs.

An absence is the most interesting aspect the Palmer races. Tritch will replace Brad Hanson, a former Palmer High School hockey coach and current assistant football coach who has been a fixture on that body more-or-less continuously since 2002.

City of Wasilla

For some reason, this always happens in Wasilla. Five candidates are running for city council but four of them are in one race, causing a pile-up on that side of the ballot.

The city doesn’t have districts, so candidates could have chosen to run against the incumbent, Colleen Sullivan-Leonard, but none did.

Which of course means that Tim Burney, Daniel Dahl, Stu Graham and Allison Sacco will duke it out for the right to replace Leone Harris.

Probably the big surprise after the filing deadline, though, was that deputy city administrator Bert Cottle drew an opponent. Cottle, a former cop and former mayor of Valdez, is right hand to the current mayor, Verne Rupright.

Sullivan-Leonard had been planning a run but backed down, leaving the field seemingly open to Cottle.

Enter Loren Means, a city planning commissioner who cast the lone dissenting vote on a proposed ban on the use of ATVs in city limits.

City of Houston

The city’s candidate list had not been posted to its website as of press time. Gina Jorgenseon and mayor Virgie Thompson occupy the seats that could be contested. Houston selects its mayor from among its council after each year’s election, so Thompson is also a council member.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.