Nisiski Days
Man of the community
My Family
Kenai Peninsula Fair
Vote October 4th, 2011!
Enjoying Alaska!

Hello Kenai Borough,

Well, it was a case of throw the hat in or the towel. The current mayor opted not to run for re-election. After months of vetting ad fretting, it became clear that this is the right thing to do. It wasn’t an easy decision (my wife, Linda, predicted months back I would toss the hat). Because so many of you had been asking for months what my intentions are, was a huge help. It showed a real interest. Yes, there’s a ton of work on the campaign trail ahead but the dynamics of this race are so enticing, we’ve got to believe there’s a clear shot at the mayors’ seat this year.

Superman is a name that’s been in this community for many years. We are business owners and I have been a builder my entire adult life here locally. My kids were all born and raised here, went to North Star and graduated Nikiski Jr./Sr. High. They have chosen to stay here and put down roots. Nothing could make me happier than to have them close by; our first grandchild is due in the fall. But as young adults I’m concerned that they do not have so many of the robust opportunities I had at their age to make a stake. The Peninsula has given me a life and a lifestyle I only dreamed of as a kid growing up in Long Beach, California.

I’ve been blessed in many ways and had the privilege of serving of the KPB Assembly for four terms perhaps because the folks in Nikiski had a bit of faith in me. I like to think that after twelve years I earned some trust as I always took the position seriously and worked diligently with the Service areas and individuals to address their requests, complaints and budget developments. Needless to say, I was not always successful and never will be. But through those twelve years I garnered a thorough grasp on the mechanics of borough government, an understanding of KPB politics and economics and an ability to work with and communicate to the diversity of peninsula people. These are the attributes I will build upon from day one as Mayor. Please consider voting Superman on Oct 4.

Thank you for your support.

Gary Superman

D.O.B. 2/10/1951

Family:

I have been married to Linda 34 years and have 3 children

Levi (31)
Sarah(29)
Amy(23)

Business: (with Linda)

Hunger Hut Bar and Liquor
Nikiski Inn Motel
Woodfitters Gen. Contracting through 2007

Residency in Nikiski since 1975

Education:

Long Beach Polytechnic H.S. 1969
3 years college
Union Carpenter apprenticeship

Associations:

Kenai Peninsula CHARR President 2003-present
Alaska State CHARR Board member 2002-present

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Political:

Nikiski Community Council founding member
KPB Assembly (1989-1992, 2001-2010)
KPB Vice President 2002-2004
KPB Assembly President 2004-2005
KPB Finance Committee Chair 2005-2007
KPB Reapportionment Committee 2011

Hobbies and Interests:

Golf, Music (guitar player)
Politics
Talk radio (hosted Sound Off)
Building-sawmilling-woodworking
Travel

Superman enters mayoral fray

Former assemblyman from Nikiski makes it a five-way race

Posted: June 17, 2011 – 8:00am Peninsula Clarion Former borough assemblyman Gary Superman announced that he’s joining the pool of potential borough mayors this week, bringing the number of declared candidates to five.

Dale Bagley and Fred Sturman, both of Soldotna, Debbie Brown, of Kasilof, and Seward’s Ron Long are also running for the position. Superman said the decision wasn’t made instantaneously.“I’ve been I guess chewing on it for months here,” he said. People have been asking if he’d run since he was term-limited out of the assembly last year, he said. And he actually ran in 2005, when he finished third. “Quite a few folks have said they’re glad to see me throw in finally, so it was the right thing to do,” he said. Superman, who served on the assembly for 12 years, said he wants to help smooth out the relationship between the assembly and borough administration. He also wants to see open lines of communication between them. That is what is best for morale and for efficient government, he said. “I think a lot of that friction came from the administration and that’s not good for the borough as a whole,” he said. Like other candidates, he’s also concerned with the economy and the borough’s budget.

Dale Bagley and Fred Sturman, both of Soldotna, Debbie Brown, of Kasilof, and Seward’s Ron Long are also running for the position. Superman said the decision wasn’t made instantaneously.“I’ve been I guess chewing on it for months here,” he said. People have been asking if he’d run since he was term-limited out of the assembly last year, he said. And he actually ran in 2005, when he finished third. “Quite a few folks have said they’re glad to see me throw in finally, so it was the right thing to do,” he said. Superman, who served on the assembly for 12 years, said he wants to help smooth out the relationship between the assembly and borough administration. He also wants to see open lines of communication between them. That is what is best for morale and for efficient government, he said. “I think a lot of that friction came from the administration and that’s not good for the borough as a whole,” he said. Like other candidates, he’s also concerned with the economy and the borough’s budget. As a business owner in Nikiski, he said he’s in-tune with the oil and gas industry’s effects in that area. “The mayor needs to step in and take a more activist position,” Superman said. He said Homer Electric Association’s co-generation facility was the first sign of increased development, but more needs to follow. “It’s nice to hear a glimmer of hope come from the pipeline project,” he said. An economy needs more than just one driver, he said. Tourism and fishing are other sectors to track. Supporting non-departmentals is one way the borough has driven the economy, he said, referring to not just the Kenai Peninsula Tourism Marketing Council, but also the economic development district and other programs that have been funded for years. “I think there’s a little more depth to these non-departmental fundings than what meets the eye,” he said. Ultimately he said the non-departmental discussion seemed bigger than the chunk of the budget allocated to the agencies merited. “The big items, let’s focus in on ‘em and try to contain them,” Superman said. But, he said, “the borough isn’t in dire straights. The future’s not perfectly rosy, but it is not all doom and gloom either”, he said.

CPH is not simply government-run

Posted: Monday, September 06, 2010

By Gary Superman

Clearly, the Clarion’s Sunday editorial “Central Peninsula Hospital: Government Run Health Care” (Aug. 29), strays from the mark. This evocative, thinly veiled chide slinks by a gamut of associated issues and then summarily announces: If you really believe: “No government-run health care” then Central Peninsula Hospital should be privatized.

Why the libertarian outcry after all these years? Conversely, “Is the Clarion really opposed to National Health Care?” Would they support an outright sale of the facility? For that matter, would they support the sale of our schools, roads, solid waste facilities? That would be much closer to a free market exercise than what’s proposed. The current proposal devises a new emanation of a corporate-quasi public enterprise (the LHP Joint Venture model). The good folk of the Central Peninsula Hospital Service Area will simply have to ante up their accumulated and remaining asset, once the expansion bond is paid off ($36 million) to a new non-profit which will sit in as the new capitalized player in the JV. The KPB (i.e. taxpayers) ends up with $0. Why give our chips to a new player and walk away from the game simply because he says he can do better?

Our hospital is not government run health care. Quite simply, it’s ours. We have, as a matter of necessity, built and expanded a facility for the use of private practitioners. No private entity came forward through the years to build one for us. There was no competition primarily because of market demographics. Much has changed and the hospital is finally operating in the black, hence the interest. Through five decades the taxpayers of the service area have always met the call for new and expanded facilities. What has changed in this demographic that assumes the people will not capitalize any further needed expansion of the facility? It’s not really a question of philosophy, it’s the questioning of a long history of control, commitment, and ownership.

We know our model has worked for us. Granted, we are a unique success in a sea of failures elsewhere by which we are being compared. Does that mean we too are absolutely doomed losers in some out year? The argument from the Hospital Board has been far less than compelling, and this recommendation, is a bridge too far.

Our hospital is not government run health care. Quite simply, it’s ours. We have, as a matter of necessity, built and expanded a facility for the use of private practitioners. No private entity came forward through the years to build one for us. There was no competition primarily because of market demographics. Much has changed and the hospital is finally operating in the black, hence the interest. Through five decades the taxpayers of the service area have always met the call for new and expanded facilities. What has changed in this demographic that assumes the people will not capitalize any further needed expansion of the facility? It’s not really a question of philosophy, it’s the questioning of a long history of control, commitment, and ownership.

We know our model has worked for us. Granted, we are a unique success in a sea of failures elsewhere by which we are being compared. Does that mean we too are absolutely doomed losers in some out year? The argument from the Hospital Board has been far less than compelling, and this recommendation, is a bridge too far.

The information gathered and disseminated by the board will be invaluable to the new Assembly in the months ahead. Some structural governing changes should occur if we are to maintain or enhance the current situation. That would include but not be limited to how the Board is appointed, length of lease term, provisions to JV for certain hospital operations (i.e. cancer treatment, cardiac care) etc. The no change option would eventually bring us out of the black and into the red. We might be just as well off to sell the hospital outright, cash in our chips and exit the game if the ensuing consensus decides for the status quo. Not a philosophical statement, simply a wise business choice.

Gary Superman represents Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly.

Peninsula can’t have it both ways

Posted: Monday, May 03, 2010

By Gary Superman

We have become a society that wants to have our cake and eat it too. At all levels of government we refuse to come to terms with the reality of looming consequences entwined with our business as usual attitude. On the federal level, we just print more dollars (or borrow from the Chinese) to finance our grand Great Society schemes. In Juneau, we depend way too heavily on that federal coin and act as if the Pipeline will eventually, miraculously, fill to the brim, thereby allowing us to go on our merry way. At the local level, we vote to cut our taxes (sales), with no mind to effect on the only recipient of that revenue and blissfully assume funding will continue to incline it’s way up the graph line annually. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your orientation, some of us are getting the drift; and it’s not because we watch and listen to too much Fox News or talk radio.

I am no doomsayer, but I know that if the tracks are greased too well the machine will derail. A recent op-ed piece was correct in one sense: what the Assembly did with the School Funding Resolution was a paradigm shift. But it was wrong, dead wrong, in pronouncing that the majority acted “arbitrarily.”

Are we really exercising some kind of tyrannical power over the district after so many years of playing the benevolent dictator? Sustainability has been a buzzword within the District for a number of years. That sustainability has and will continue to be a priority on the south side of the administration building that the KPB occupies. Last year, we spent close to $3 million in fund balance. This year, with the mayor’s proposed budget we would be spending over another $6 million of that balance and the out years show a consistent $2-3 million dip in that account. Funny thing is, those out years are promulgated with a 20 percent mill rate increase and we are still projecting to be below Fund Balance Policy levels. Guess what those deficits are going to fund.

I know the explanation for District designated fund balances is a work in progress but the amount and very existence should not have come as a revelation. The fact of the matter is that we now have to be ever conscious of KPB fund levels if we are to sustain the District. Oh, I forgot something, there’s a bond issue to be floated for major maintenance at several schools this fall to the tune of at least $10 million. In FY 08 Local share for education was $37 million plus. In a couple of years that number will be pushing $50 million under the mayor’s proposed budget scenario. It is unproductive to claim we acted arbitrarily. To not respond to the aforementioned realities would be, well, acting like Congress.

We have no printing presses or pipeline to sustain us. We only have taxpayers and they must be taken into the equation. Likewise, taxpayers must come to terms with how we raise our revenue. Think, before you vote. Even though some would like to see the District and Borough dismantled, the vast majority of us do not. In this economy at this time, do you want your property taxes increased even more? With fund balances on both side of the building at current levels we temporarily have the ability to sustain ourselves but only if hard decisions about direction be made.

So please, don’t go shootin’ the messenger, just because you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Gary Superman represents District 3-Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly.

Nisiski Days

Man of the community

My Family

Kenai Peninsula Fair

Vote October 4th, 2011!

Enjoying Alaska!