A third candidate has entered the race for an East Anchorage seat on the city Assembly, a week after incumbent Paul Honeman said he would not seek re-election.
Don Hadley, 73, a former schoolteacher and Alaska Air National Guardsman, filed paperwork Wednesday with the Alaska Public Offices Commission that allows him to start accepting campaign donations. The city election is April 2016.
Hadley said in a phone interview Thursday he hadn't planned to run for Assembly. That changed when he heard Honeman was stepping down.
He said he plans to focus on lowering taxes, boosting affordable housing and doing what he can to improve education.
"We want people to have jobs and housing...and a good education system," Hadley said. "We need the community thriving and we don't get that by increasing taxes."
Hadley moved to Alaska with the U.S. Air Force in 1967. He taught high school for nearly three decades and also served 22 years in the Air National Guard.
In 2012 and 2014, Hadley ran as a Republican candidate for state House. On Thursday, en emailed flier touted Hadley as "our conservative candidate."
Anchorage city races are officially nonpartisan, though party politics sometimes becomes a factor in fundraising and support.
A second candidate in the East Anchorage race, Terre Gales, ran in the 2012 Republican primary against Rep. Don Young. Gales filed with APOC in September to signal his run for the East Anchorage seat.
Gales, 33, is an Air Force veteran who works as a health and safety officer for the city's Public Works Department.
In a September interview, Gales said his top priorities as an Assembly member would include affordable housing and efficiency in city permitting processes, education and parks in East Anchorage. He's the father of three children; he and his wife also care for a nephew.
Gales also spent 18 months as a police officer in Arizona prior to settling in Alaska permanently in 2012, and said he'd like to focus on police staffing and community policing.
He said Thursday he sees himself as "middle-of-the-road" in terms of political ideology.
In addition to Gales and Hadley, Forrest Dunbar, an attorney in the Army National Guard and the 2014 Democratic candidate for U.S. House, is running for the East Anchorage seat. Dunbar's announcement came last week, and like Hadley's, followed Honeman's surprise decision not to seek a third term.
Honeman said last week he is planning to endorse Dunbar, and that he felt it was time to step aside.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Forrest Dunbar's job. He is in the Army National Guard, not the Air National Guard.