Terry Courson, a firearms instructor and retired police officer, is running for borough mayor. Though he declined interviews with KSTK and the Sentinel, he has posted flyers around Wrangell outlining his stances and experience.
Courson served on the borough assembly from 2020 to 2021. He is a fiscal conservative and plans to vote no on the bond issues on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot, which would finance repairs at the schools and Public Safety Building.
Officials believe that the borough can cover the annual debt payment on the $3.5 million in school repair bonds using higher sales tax revenues and federal aid — not property taxes. If the Public Safety Building repair bond is approved, homeowners would pay an estimated $112 more in annual property taxes per $100,000 of assessed property value, according to borough figures.
Courson supports moving borough property into private ownership. “I intend to get borough-owned real estate back into other hands and back on the tax rolls,” he said in his flyer.
He believes Wrangell’s most important industries are tourism and fishing and would like to identify “new innovative sources of revenue” to diversify the borough economy. He called the Wrangell Medical Center and the U.S. Forest Service “tertiary industries” that he will try to support as well.
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