Loren Jones is collecting voters’ signatures for his CBJ nomination petition. He intends to file for the Assembly District One seat on August 3rd, the first day of the filing period for the October municipal election.
Jones ran for the areawide seat last year and lost to Carlton Smith by 73 votes.
Since then, he’s rarely missed a regular or special Assembly meeting, or an Assembly committee meeting. He says public service is where he believes he can do the “most good.”
Jones says he also was encouraged to run because term limits prohibit the incumbent, David Stone, from running, and “running last time I found a real positive experience. I really enjoyed it. So I thought I’ll give it one more shot, see what happens.”
Jones is retired from the state of Alaska, where he worked for the Department of Health and Social Services for nearly 30 years. He served on the Bartlett Regional Hospital board for many years, and still goes to meetings. He’s also been a member of several other local boards.
He says he finds debate on the current Juneau Assembly lacking, and believes he would add an intelligent voice.
“I think that the public is owed a pretty lengthy discussion, or a very short discussion, based on what the issues really are. I think part of it has to do with making sure that everything’s understood early on,” he said. “It just seems that either, there’s no debate to it at all, or it sort of gets sidetracked off on side issues.”
The municipal office candidate filing period is August 3 to 13. This year Juneau mayor, two Assembly and three school board seats are up for election.
Filing a letter of intent with the APOC – as Jones has done — allows candidates to begin raising campaign money prior to the CBJ filing period.
