Incumbents win seats in Peninsula Light Company election

Incumbents Paul Alvestad, Debra Ross and Nick Markovich were re-elected to Peninsula Light Company’s board to serve three-year terms, according to a company press release last week.

Out of 31,431 ballots that were mailed for the 2018 annual board election, 5,547 total ballots were returned, yielding a participation rate of 17.65 percent, the company’s release said. Only 12 percent of the ballots needed to be returned to create a quorum to validate the election.

The ballot numbers were;

• Alvestad won 66 percent of the votes, or 3,689 votes.
  
  
• Ross won 60 percent of the votes, or 3,373 votes.
  
  
• Markovich won 52 percent of the votes, or 2,909 votes.
  
  
• Challenger Glen Bertini won 44 percent of the vote, or 2,462 votes.
  
  
• Challenger Dan Merkle won 30.5 percent of the vote, or 1,696 votes.
  
  
• Challenger Lee Smith won 23 percent of the vote, or 1,289 votes.
  
  
• There were 37 write-in votes. The press release did not include the names of the write-in votes.
  
  

Peninsula Light has nine directors on its board and each year, three seats are up for election.

Peninsula Light is a member-owned electric cooperative located in Gig Harbor. Since 1925, the utility has been serving the Gig Harbor and Key peninsulas and Fox Island.

This story was originally published May 15, 2018 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Incumbents win seats in Peninsula Light Company election."