Former Assembly member Dave Johnson resigned from his seat last month on June 25. He and his family are relocating to the Lower 48. That led the Kodiak Island Borough to open a two-week application period for interested candidates to fill his seat, from June 27 – July 11.
Applicants needed to be qualified voters and residents of the Kodiak Island Borough for a minimum of one year as well as not hold any other compensated borough office, borough employment, or elected position in the state or federal government to be eligible for the borough assembly, according to Borough code.
Mark Anthony Vizcocho, Shawn Brekke, Kaleb Callahan and Alexander Sweeney threw their names into the ring by the application deadline. Thursday night, July 16, the Borough Assembly spent one-and-a-half hours interviewing and voting on the four candidates in the assembly chambers before selecting a winner the same night.
"Mr. Vizcocho, four votes and then Mr. Brekke, one vote. So we have a majority vote for Mr. Vizcocho," Borough Clerk Nova Javier said as she shared the results on Thursday.
Assembly member Steve Ames was absent during the July 16 special session and regular meeting, so the two rounds of ballot voting only included five votes total per round.
Mark Anthony Vizcocho is the president of the Filipino-American Association of Kodiak, the vice president of the Kodiak Booster Club and the president of the PTA for East Elementary School.
Before the assembly made its decision, multiple community members had already voiced their support for Vizcocho during public comments, including the City of Kodiak’s Fire Chief Rich Gonzalez.
“I’m here to offer my wholehearted support for the appointment of Mark Vizcocho to the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly," Gonzalez said. "I’ve had the privilege of working alongside Mark in several capacities and when Mark commits to something, he gives it everything he has.”
Vizcocho was immediately sworn in as a borough assembly member during the July 16 meeting and will temporarily fill the seat until the municipal election in October. Vizcocho told the Borough Assembly that although he will only be joining them for roughly three months, he plans to use this experience as a steppingstone to launch his bid for a three-year term on the assembly during the fall election.
Fellow Assembly member Jeremiah Gardner congratulated Vizcocho. On behalf of the whole assembly, he also encouraged the other three applicants, Brekke, Callahan and Sweeney, to try again during the fall election.
“For those of you that weren’t nominated, everybody up here would like to beg you to please put your name in the hat again," Gardner said. "It was really hard to choose.”
Aug. 1 marks the start of the filing period for qualified Kodiak Island Borough residents wanting to run for any of the four borough assembly seats up for election this fall. Caroline Roberts’ one-year term expires this October, after she was appointed to fill the seat left vacant by Ryan Sharratt in 2025, so that seat with a three-year term will be up for grabs.
Both Bo Whiteside and Steven Ames’ three-year terms are also ending in October. Vizcocho’s seat will be added to the ballot as well since there was still one year remaining in former assembly member Johnson’s term when he resigned.
The borough assembly’s next regular meeting is scheduled for Aug. 6. And for transparency, Borough Mayor Jared Griffin is also the general manager at KMXT. Per KMXT’s policy, he does not have any editorial influence over news stories and he did not review this story before it was aired.
