Victoria Askin sits in the Peninsula Clarion offices on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021 in Kenai, Alaska. (Ashlyn O’Hara/Peninsula Clarion)

Victoria Askin sits in the Peninsula Clarion offices on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021 in Kenai, Alaska. (Ashlyn O’Hara/Peninsula Clarion)

Election 2021: Kenai City Council candidate Victoria Askin

Askin said Kenai’s finances are one of the city’s greatest strengths.

Victoria Askin is running for one of two vacancies on the Kenai City Council. Askin currently serves on the council, to which she was appointed in December of 2020, and works as an I&E technician for Hilcorp Alaska, LLC. She previously served on the Kenai Harbor Commission and on the Kenai Planning and Zoning Commission. She also served on the Kenai Peninsula Local Emergency Planning Committee for 12 years.

Askin said in a Sept. 16 interview at the Peninsula Clarion’s Kenai office that she has always been interested in government, but that she didn’t feel she had the time to devote to public service until after her children had grown up and moved away.

Though Askin was appointed to both the Kenai Harbor Commission and to the Kenai Planning and Zoning Commission, Askin said she was “surprised” when she was appointed to the city council last year.

“I thought that was quite an honor,” Askin said. “I didn’t expect that. There were two former council members that were trying and there were a couple others that were very charismatic that I figured would probably (be appointed). I was surprised, I didn’t think I would get on, but I did and I really enjoy it.”

Askin described serving on the council, as compared to her previous positions with the city, as “more visual” because city council approval is the last step in the process for many city operations. For her, serving on the council is a way to give back to the community and encourage civic engagement, she said.

“I just always have strongly felt that as a citizen, we have to be engaged,” Askin said. “We can’t sit back and complain. We have to be engaged if we’re going to affect a change or make something better.”

Something Askin said sets her apart from the other candidates running for council is the fact that she currently sits on the council. She said during a candidate forum at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce last week that it will allow her to hit the ground running if elected. One of the biggest learning curves for her, she said, was the city’s budget process.

“Numbers and I aren’t best friends, and so it’s amazing to me,” she said. “It was almost overwhelming at the very beginning to see all the different accounts that we have, the state that the city is in and where we get grants from.”

Kenai’s finances, Askin said, are one of the city’s greatest strengths currently. On the flip side, Askin said she’d like to see the elimination of credit card fees associated with paying city utilities and continues to be concerned about how the city handles homeless people.

“Fiscally, we’re in amazing shape,” Askin said. “The city is very solid — much more solid, I think, than a lot of cities even in Alaska.”

Though Askin said she supports personal choice as it relates to the wearing of masks and vaccinations to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, she is willing to work toward compromise. That compromise, she said, begins with people respecting one another’s opinions, even in a disagreement. A willingness to work toward agreement and be “fair,” she said, is one of her strengths as a council member.

“There’s always a piece of common ground you can start from,” Askin said.

The municipal election is on Oct. 5.

Reach reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at ashlyn.ohara@peninsulaclarion.com.

More in News

One of three recently admitted harbor seal pups is seen at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, Alaska. (Photo courtesy Kaiti Grant/Alaska SeaLife Center)
3 harbor seal pups admitted to SeaLife Center

All three came from the Copper River

Poster for Return of the Reds. (Photo courtesy Kenai Peninsula Food Bank)
Poster for Return of the Reds. (Photo courtesy Kenai Peninsula Food Bank)
Return of the Reds returns after several-year hiatus

The Kenai event celebrates the start of the 2023 salmon season

Middle schoolers practice fly casting into the Kenai River during a kids camp put on by Trout Unlimited on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, at the Donald E. Gilman Kenai River Center in Soldotna, Alaska. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Learning to love the watershed

Kids camp teaches fly fishing, ecology

Alaska State Troopers logo.
Seward man arrested on drug charges gave false identification, troopers say

Kevin Hakala, 42, was pulled over by Seward-based troopers on Saturday

Poster for 100% Alaska Town Hall & Family Day (Photo courtesy Change 4 the Kenai)
100% Alaska Town Hall to share assessment results, discuss state of ‘vital services’

The project is composed of four steps: assess, plan, act and evaluate

Division of Forestry & Fire Protection engines responding to the Charland Fire on May 21, 2023, near Soldotna. (Photo courtesy Kenai-Kodiak DOF)
9 fires reported on Kenai Peninsula since start of May

The largest local fire was the Charland Fire, which was reported on Sunday

File.
4 days in July set for Ninilchik razor clam harvest

The abundance of adult clams is below the threshold necessary to open the fishery in Clam Gulch

Most Read