With nearly all votes counted in Anchorage city election, 3 Assembly incumbents are retaining their seats

Nearly all votes have been tallied in the Anchorage city election, and outcomes of the races for Assembly and school board remained unchanged Wednesday after 368 more ballots were counted.

In Wednesday’s results, Assembly incumbents Forrest Dunbar, Kameron Perez-Verdia and Meg Zaletel were winning in the race for their seats, beating a group of challengers backed by Mayor Dave Bronson. With the incumbents retained, the Assembly’s majority will have enough votes to override the mayor’s vetoes.

South Anchorage’s John Weddleton last week conceded in a competitive race to challenger Randy Sulte. Sulte, who also had Bronson’s support, had a 749-vote lead over Weddleton.

Kevin Cross is winning outgoing Eagle River/Chugiak Assembly member Crystal Kennedy’s seat with 62% of the vote. Kennedy did not run for reelection.

Two bond proposals continued to fail, including a $111 million bond package to upgrade school district buildings. The school district bond was behind by 1,180 votes on Wednesday, with 51% voting no.

“Our plan was for this bond to pass; unfortunately, it appears that it will not,” the Anchorage School District said in a statement Wednesday. “The District has started the process of researching next steps to address the important safety, restoration, and maintenance needs Proposition 1 addressed. Part of the research is also to understand why it didn’t pass.”

Election officials have counted 70,139 ballots, representing about 30% of registered voters.

As ballots trickle in by mail, election officials will update results on Friday by 5 p.m. The Anchorage Assembly is set to take up the certification of the vote results on April 26, according to the elections calendar.