The campaign for Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor has been especially thorny this year.
A runoff vote next Tuesday will decide whether Charlie Pierce or Linda Farnsworth-Hutchings will hold that office next. But the two sides, if not always the two candidates, have been trading barbs back and forth for weeks, culminating in a cease and desist letter sent to Hutchings last week.
The lettersent from Pierce’s attorney, Robert Sano, reads, in part, “we have evidence that one of your surrogates specifically called Mr. Pierce a wife beater...There is no factual basis for your claim...if you continue spreading your claim...you will be exposing yourself and the surrogates...to potential liability for defamation.”
The wife beating reference stems from a charge of domestic violence against Pierce by his first wife 17 years ago. That charge was dismissed and Pierce has addressed it publicly. But a perception lingers, at least among Hutchings and some of her supporters, that Pierce is a bully. Hutchings has used the term, as has outgoing mayor Mike Navarre.
“Mike Navarre can just as well be a bully, too. And I said (to him) ‘Mike, I wouldn’t have felt so bad about being called a bully by you had you prefaced it with ‘well, you know, I can be bullish at times, too," Pierce said.
Navarre and Pierce sat behind the assembly dais together for three years until Pierce was term-limited off the assembly in 2014. And few observers of those meetings would likely say that either is shy to stepping onto the proverbial soapbox to share his thoughts and views.
But only one of them is running for office now. And Pierce says he finally enlisted the help of a lawyer because his calls to keep old family business out of the campaign fell on deaf ears.
“The reason I went out and got some legal representation was because it continued. And it continues now. And you can’t do anything about it.”
While attacks on Pierce have focused on personal matters, Hutchings has been defending her business record. She’s been running on a platform of sound business management experience, but GM dealerships her family owned shut down several years ago.
“When General Motors closed 2,600 dealers across the United States and Canada, we had two of those stores, because they looked at air miles from Soldotna to Anchorage as 60 miles. So we didn’t have any choice. We layed off 62 employees, paid them their wages, paid our vendors. It’s been darn tough, but I know how to work in tough situations. This was in 2009.”
Now, in 2017, another tough situation. With both candidates claiming the high road, voters will decide who has stayed far enough above the fray to earn their votes in the runoff next Tuesday. In-person voting is open now at clerk’s offices in Seward, Seldovia, Kenai and the borough. The borough annex office in Homer is also open for early voting.