Supporters of an Anchorage tax cap initiative said Wednesday they gathered nearly 11,000 signatures to put the measure on the April ballot -- about twice the amount required.
Former Mayor Dan Sullivan and former Assemblyman Don Smith, who authored the tax cap three decades ago, turned in the signature booklets to the city clerk's office Wednesday afternoon. The signature-gathering efforts, coordinated in part by the Alaska branch of the national conservative advocacy organization Americans for Prosperity, started Jan. 18.
"It was an amazing effort, in just a couple weeks' time, to get over double what was needed," Sullivan said shortly after turning in the signature booklets.
The initiative is aimed at reversing an October 2015 vote by the Anchorage Assembly that changed the starting point for calculating the city's tax cap. The change set the base for the calculation as the amount levied in the previous year by the Assembly, allowing the city to collect an additional $1 million in taxes.
The city clerk's office now has 10 business days to certify the signatures before the measure officially goes to voters.
Alaska Dispatch News photographer Bill Roth contributed to this report.