At the last assembly meeting, KPB Mayor Navarre introduced Ordinance 2016-24 to eliminate the KPB senior citizen property exemption. The mayor’s proposal attempts to create inter- and intra-generational warfare by turning the KPB community against seniors and also turning current seniors against future seniors.
Mayor Navarre has asserted that he believes there are currently too many seniors residing on the peninsula creating a financial “burden” to the community. Mayor Navarre has a long term bias against seniors and tried many times to raise taxes on KPB senior citizens.
What is the mayor’s goal?
Is the mayor trying to make it impossible for seniors to retire in place?
Is the mayor trying to force seniors to leave the borough?
Is the mayor attempting to discourage other Alaska seniors from relocating to the KPB?
Whatever his goal, all of the above will be accomplished if his anti-senior ordinance is passed.
Targeting seniors and encouraging them to leave the peninsula will have a negative ripple effect throughout our entire economy that cannot be recovered, reversed or absorbed.
Our senior community is an economic engine that contributes vast amounts of financial benefit to the KPB community. The Alaska Commission on Aging, McDowell report survey of Alaska’s senior citizens, estimates that 37 percent of senior citizens will move if the senior exemption is eliminated.
The KPB has been attractive to Alaska seniors because of its climate and senior exemption. The original intent of the exemption was to encourage resident seniors to stay on the peninsula and other Alaskan seniors to relocate here. We should be seeking retirees to the borough, not deem them a burden, as suggested by Mayor Navarre.
Ordinance 2016-24 fails to mention the monumental loss of millions of dollars to area hospitals, the medical community, and loss of revenue to local merchants, builders and services providers.
People and families of all ages and generations who are working and receiving salaries and wages benefit from the longevity economy. This ordinance will not only hurt Seniors, but will have a devastating impact on the entire peninsula.
Stop this ordinance, contact your assembly representative and tell them to vote no on Ordinance 2016-24. Go to: http://www.kpb.us/assembly-clerk/meet-the-assembly and send your message
