In addition to all the candidates on the upcoming Nov. 6 ballot, voters will decide two questions, Bond Proposition A, and Ballot Measure 1.
Proposition A asks voters whether they want to approve up to $453 million in state general obligation bonds for various transportation projects.
Most of the projects are further north. The largest include a $50 million expansion for the Port of Anchorage; $50 million to reconstruct parts of the Glenn Highway near Anchorage; and $30 million for the Port Mackenzie rail extension in the Mat-Su Borough.
There are no Prince of Wales Island or Metlakatla projects on the list. The single Ketchikan Gateway Borough project listed is $19 million to build the Shelter Cove Road. That proposed project would extend the Ketchikan Road system from the end of Revilla Road near Harriet Hunt Lake to Shelter Cove on Carroll Inlet.
The new road would be 20 to 24 miles.
According to DOT, the road would increase the public’s opportunities for recreation, subsistence hunting and gathering, tourism, and economic development.
The proposed road would be a 14-foot-wide, single-lane, gravel surface designed for speeds up to 20 miles per hour. It would not be maintained in the winter.
The cost of construction alone is estimated at between $14.7 million, and $17.2 million, depending on the route eventually chosen. The preferred alternative would cost an estimated $15 million.
That route would follow a short existing U.S. Forest Service road from Revilla Road to the White River Road, and then would utilize the existing White River
Road through Cape Fox Land. It then would follow existing logging roads through Mental Health Trust Land around Leask Cove. New road would be constructed along the north end of George Inlet and the Salt Lagoon, connecting with the existing Shelter Cove Road.
Also on the state ballot is Measure 1, asking voters whether they want a constitutional convention to review and potentially revise Alaska’s Constitution.
Every 10 years, the same question appears on the ballot, as required by the Alaska Constitution. In 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002, voters have said no.
