James Baisden, currently a Kenai City Council member, is running for the District 1 seat representing Kalifornsky on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly. He faces no official opposition on October’s ballot.
On Friday, speaking to the Clarion, Baisden said he’s lived in Alaska for more than 30 years, after moving up with his wife while serving in the U.S. Air Force. He spent 13 years as the fire chief for the Nikiski Fire Service Area, worked as a chief of staff for former Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce, and spent the last three years on the Kenai council.
He said those experiences, especially at the borough and on the council, mean he’s ready to hit the ground running — to work with the assembly and with the borough mayor and “get things done.”
“I’m trying to give back,” he said. “The Kenai Peninsula has been a great place for me to raise family. We love it here.”
Baisden said he wasn’t initially planning on throwing his hat in the ring, nor even running for reelection to city council — “I was almost thinking I was done.”
When the candidate filing period was unfolding and there wasn’t anyone running, he said, people asked him if he would consider it. He says he decided that there’s value in bringing his experience to the table.
Because of that, Baisden says there aren’t issues at the forefront of his mind to tackle when he likely arrives on the assembly next month. He said he’ll be a reliable and proven “conservative voice.” That means, he said, seeking efficiencies and not asking for more tax revenue while still completing the projects that need to be done.
“I want to see us do the typical jobs, that we have to do, for the least amount of money,” he said.
The borough will “probably continue” to fund education at or near the cap, he said, “because the school district needs funding.”
Seeking legislation that either aids or expresses gratitude to veterans, Baisden said, is also something he’s personally interested in. On the city council, he sponsored 2023 legislation allowing U.S. veterans a one-time opportunity to purchase residential land in the City of Kenai at a discounted rate and added funds to this year’s budget for construction of a new veteran’s columbarium in the Kenai Cemetery.
Baisden said he’s opposed to a proposed bed tax, which the assembly last week created a Tourism Industry Working Group to explore. He said that the bed tax conversation is only about bringing in revenue, rather than about reducing the burden on taxpayers. Visitors, he said, are paying sales tax on rooms, fuel and everything else they purchase.
The assembly last week also received an update on a bond package approved by voters in 2022 that described $65.5 million in maintenance projects. They were told by borough administration that the estimated cost of those projects has now ballooned to $83.4 million. Baisden says he wasn’t supportive of the package because it contains too much new construction and not enough maintenance. He looks to repairs and renovations of Soldotna Preparatory School as a better use of that funding than reconstruction of Soldotna Elementary School.
“We have too much construction in the school district right now, and none of this money is flowing to help the kids or the teachers in the school,” he said.
Discussing how the borough can support new and existing businesses and how the borough can respond to a looming shortage of natural gas, Baisden’s answer was the same — “get out of the way.”
Baisden said the borough can best serve both businesses and industries by letting them do their work, without implementing more taxes and without adding more regulations. The borough should consider instead giving incentives for such development, he said. That development is important, he said, to avoid relying on imported gas while sitting alongside the stores in Cook Inlet.
“I won’t be writing up any ordinance or anything to get in their way,” he said. “If anything, my goal would be to look at what we can do the other way.”
The borough needs to work both at drawing in new people — both to live and to visit — and find incentives for younger people to get involved in government, Baisden said. He said the borough should work to ensure the Kenai Peninsula is the first place that comes up when someone searches online for “Alaska.”
The borough can also improve voting turnout by aligning its elections with the state, but Baisden said in the face of low turnouts he’s more interested in giving credit to the people who do show up. Voting is a civic duty, he said.
“We Americans take our system for granted, and we need to engage more in it,” he said. “I’ve never missed an election. You’ll never see me miss an election.”
The municipal election will be held on Oct. 1, and more information is available at kpb.us. Early voting starts on Sept. 16. More information about Baisden and his campaign can be found at “James Baisden 2024 – Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly.”
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
