James “J.T.” Sherman will be Nome’s new representative on the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors.

Nome held a special runoff election for the position on Nov. 2. Sherman won the election with 162 votes. His opponent, Addy Aklaasiaq Ahmasuk, received 56 votes, for a total of 218 votes cast out of 2,849 registered voters.

The NSEDC Board of Directors voted in August to remove Adem Boeckmann from his seat as Nome’s representative. The board kept the reasons for the vote confidential, though NSEDC President and CEO Janis Ivanoff told the Nome Nugget, “Per the NSEDC bylaws, a member of the Board may be removed by a two-thirds majority vote of the directors whenever it is determined to be in the best interest of the Corporation.”

Boeckmann was elected in 2018, and his term was supposed to end in 2022. His removal triggered a special election to fill Nome’s seat on the NSEDC board, which originally took place on Oct. 5, alongside Nome’s regular municipal elections. However, none of the candidates on the ballot that day received the 40% of votes required to be elected, so the city held a runoff election Nov. 2 between the two most popular candidates — Sherman and Ahmasuk.

Sherman will finish out the rest of the current term, and Nome will hold another election for its NSEDC representative next year.

Image at top: Polling booths inside St. Joseph’s during Nome’s municipal elections. (Photo by Sean Milligian, 2021)