In the final forum of this election season, hosted Monday by the Homer Chamber of Commerce, the two Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly candidates defined themselves on local issues including funding borough services, new revenue generation and supporting borough residents.
Theo Noomah, born and raised in Homer, returned with his family in 2024 after spending some time away to attend college and start his career. Holding a background in business analytics, he also currently serves on Homer’s Economic Development Advisory Commission.
Larry Anthony served as a law enforcement officer in Arizona for more than 20 years and founded a nonprofit to support youth sports. Since moving to Homer with his family, he now works for a local law practice and coaches Pop Warner football.
Both candidates are vying for a three-year term on Homer’s District 8 seat on the assembly. Incumbent Kelly Cooper is not running for reelection.
If elected, Anthony said that over the next three years he wanted to listen to his constituents and advocate for the issues they bring to his attention. Noomah focused on funding education, tackling deferred maintenance and said in the next three years the borough “desperately” and proactively needs to pass regulation on the data center industry.
In their responses to questions posed by chamber director Brad Anderson and by the media panel, Noomah and Anthony appeared to agree on several issues in a general sense, but differed in their specific approaches.
On increasing revenue to support borough services, both said they would prefer options other than creating new taxes. Anthony said he would analyze the budget and provide for essential services first. Noomah said the budget “is already fairly lean” and looked to increasing economic development or changing the borough’s $500 sales tax cap to generate additional revenue.
Neither candidate supported a proposal before the Alaska Legislature to limit annual increases to taxable property assessments.
“Doing so would create a two-tier tax system system where one generation of homeowners is assessed at a lower tier and the younger, upcoming generation of homeowners would be assessed at a higher tier, and that would go forward in perpetuity,” Noomah said. “We should keep a simple, even and fair property tax system because it’s an important revenue stream and because it’s important to have young people be able to get a home in this community.”
Anthony pointed to higher property taxes as a factor in increased cost of living but said he would explore other options.
“What can we do to bring more homes in (and) create more housing, and then what can we do with the taxes?” he said. “We need to go through and work with legislators on other options.”
On education, both candidates supported funding Kenai Peninsula schools to the cap. KPB mayor Peter Micciche has repeatedly said the borough cannot realistically afford to provide maximum funding for education year after year, and that the burden for adequate funding should be placed on the state.
Anthony said he wanted borough funding to help support extracurricular programs like ceramics, music, woodworking or sports in addition to core classes. Noomah said he would look at test scores, graduation and truancy rates and teacher retention rates to evaluate students’ needs and where the borough should direct funding.
The KPBSD reported last month that enrollment numbers are almost 3% short of the district’s projections for the 2026-27 school year, and district enrollment is projected to continue declining over the next 10 years. Each candidate was asked what they would do to maximize limited school funding or help the district prepare for additional school consolidations.
“I would do whatever I can to keep our current schools open and make sure the kids are getting a good education with a low teacher-to-student ratio,” Anthony said.
Noomah called Alaska’s declining population a policy choice and pointed to the economy and lack of housing as primary drivers.
“If we wanted to, we could have a growing population — even a growing school-age population — but that is not currently the trend we are on. If we ever end up consolidating schools again … it has to be done with a real plan on how to keep outcomes at least level for the students who are experiencing the consolidation,” he said.
At the same time, both agreed that the borough needs to address deferred building maintenance and adequately fund its workforce to keep pace with inflation.
While the South Peninsula Hospital Service Area Board has elected to wait until January to decide whether to ask the borough assembly to form a task force to evaluate the hospital’s governance structure, both candidates said they would support creating that task force. Noomah and Anthony each spoke to a desire for more transparency from hospital leadership, though they declined to commit to specific reforms until a task force could provide concrete answers to questions and concerns recently raised by the community.
Last year the assembly formed a Tourism Industry Working Group to evaluate whether the borough should capture additional revenue from the tourism industry through means such as a bed tax or a seasonal sales tax structure. In its final report, the group recommended either no action or the seasonal sales tax over implementing a bed tax.
“I don’t necessarily at this time support a bed tax unless we have some sort of reason to fund something,” Anthony said. “We need to think about how that’s going to affect the community.”
Noomah didn’t entirely agree with the working group’s findings.
“I think there is a real need for more investment in this community. I think the tourism industry, while very valuable, does also put a lot of burden on the infrastructure we do have, and it’s reasonable for us to ask (tourists) to pay just a little bit more,” he said.
On other issues such as affordable housing and the Homer Harbor expansion, Noomah and Anthony debated the extent to which the borough could or should be involved.
Regarding housing, Anthony said the borough could look at creating incentives and making more land available for new home construction. Rather than building housing, however, Noomah said he thought the borough’s role should be to “set clear rules and a fair tax structure and let the private sector do the rest.” In a similar vein to Anthony’s incentives suggestion, he also pointed to House Bill 13, passed in the Legislature this summer, which allows municipalities to offer additional property tax breaks to first-time homebuyers, homeowners renting to low-income families and certain long-term rentals.
Both said the harbor expansion could boost economic development for Homer, but agreed they didn’t want the burden of financing the project to fall on local taxpayers. Anthony said the assembly should seek additional support from state and federal legislators.
Watch the full Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly candidate forum recording on the Homer Chamber of Commerce website.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Early voting is open at Homer City Hall through Nov. 2.
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