The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly elected new leadership during their meeting Tuesday night, following the municipal elections at the beginning of this month and the certification of three new assembly members.

After an invocation lead by George Holly, Jr. of Kenai and approval of the consent agenda for the evening, the assembly voted on which members would serve as the president and vice president for the 2019-2020 session.

Kelly Cooper, representing District 8 in Homer, was the only person nominated to be president and was approved unanimously by the rest of the assembly.

Cooper had previously served as assembly president three years ago and said on Wednesday that she was pleased to be able to serve again.

“There were conversations during the elections earlier this month about the assembly being stacked a certain way, but I think this new body is very diverse in terms of people’s backgrounds and stances on the issues,” Cooper said. “Obviously I’d like to see more women serving on the assembly, but I expect to see a lot of healthy debate this year.”

The assembly president is responsible for facilitating each meeting by ensuring that the rules and regulations of the assembly are being followed. The president also assists the borough clerk in setting the agenda for each meeting, prepare the assembly for the annual budgeting process and assigns a chairperson to each committee within the assembly.

Cooper said that she typically enjoys engaging in debate and swaying other assembly members to agree with her on issues, but she will be doing less debating and more moderating while serving as president.

The role of Vice President for this session will be filled by Hal Smalley, representing Kenai in District 2. Smalley was nominated along with Brent Hibbert of the Kalifornsky area and Kenn Carpenter who represents the Eastern Peninsula. Smalley won with 5 of the 9 votes.

Smalley said on Wednesday that he was looking forward to working with the new members of the assembly and has served as Vice President twice in years past and president once. The vice president assumes the role of president when the president is absent from meetings or is recused from discussing certain topics due to a conflict of interest.

The assembly votes on new leadership every year after municipal elections are certified and new assembly members are officially sworn in. Previous president and vice president Wayne Ogle of Nikiski and Dale Bagley of Soldotna termed out of their seats this year and were replaced by Jesse Bjorkman and Tyson Cox, respectively.