Adelyn Baxter

Three new school board members will be sworn in at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting.

Elizabeth Siddon, Paul Kelly and Kevin Allen ran unopposed for three open seats on the board in last week’s municipal election.

They will replace board members Josh Keaton, Emil Mackey and Andi Story.

Story is running for state House District 34 in the November general election.

The new board members will jump right in by electing officers and hearing a presentation on the district budget.

The district budgeted for 4,625 students this school year, not including preschool. A final count will be made at the end of October.

District-wide enrollment determines how much money the state gives the district each school year.

Enrollment has declined for the most in recent years, though last year saw a small boost in intensive needs students.

That helped cover funding gaps left by lower-than-projected enrollment numbers.

The board will also discuss forming a superintendent search committee.

In August, it appointed Director of Student Services Bridget Weiss to serve as the interim superintendent through next June. The board selected her shortly after Superintendent Mark Miller announced his resignation.

The goal is to hire a permanent replacement by next July. That could end up being Weiss, or another candidate depending on what the search committee decides.

Wade Bryson appears to have won a seat on the Juneau Assembly.

Though some mail-in ballots could arrive before the results are certified Tuesday, the latest unofficial results show Bryson with a 128-vote lead over the next closest opponent, Garrett Schoenberger.

That’s six votes wider than the initial election results on Tuesday night.

For much of Friday, six Canvass Review Board members sat in an upstairs conference room at City Hall verifying the 2,500 early, questioned and absentee ballots. Once they finished, the ballots were run through a machine to get the new count.

Five candidates competed for two seats in District 2. Michelle Bonnet Hale won the most votes, securing a three-year term.

If Bryson’s lead over Schoenberger holds, he’ll win a one-year seat on the Assembly replacing Mayor-elect Beth Weldon, who resigned in August to run for mayor.

The new results also give Mayor-elect Beth Weldon a wider margin over runner-up Saralyn Tabachnick.

Carole Triem won a one-year areawide seat in the election.

Incumbent Loren Jones ran unopposed for his District 1 seat.

Total voter turnout also rose to 35.5 percent with Friday’s results.

The review board meets again Tuesday to certify the election results.

The new mayor and assembly members will be sworn in at City Hall on Oct. 15.

The Juneau Chamber of Commerce hosted a legislative forum Thursday to hear from local candidates for state office.

All of Juneau’s legislative seats are in play in the Nov. 6 election: Sen. Dennis Egan is retiring and Reps. Justin Parrish and Sam Kito III are not running for re-election.

Thursday’s forum coincided with the day permanent fund dividends were set to appear in Alaskans’ mailboxes and bank accounts.

That made it a good time to ask candidates where they stand on using Permanent Fund earnings to pay for state services.

“If elected, do you believe the earnings of the PFD should be used to fund government? And if so, should some sort of dividend still be paid to Alaskans?” asked moderator Mike Satre, president-elect of the Juneau Chamber of Commerce.

All of the candidates said they agree with the Legislature’s permanent fund draw and felt it aligned with the original intent of the fund. Each also stated their support for continuing to pay dividends to Alaskans.

Democrat Jesse Kiehl, who’s running for Senate District Q, said the state will need to continue to draw on the earnings reserve to pay for services going forward, but it must be sustainable.

“We need, however, a constitutional limit on that so that the Legislature can’t avoid the effects of inflation, the way it did the last two years,” Kiehl said.

Kiehl’s opponent, independent candidate Don Etheridge, pointed out that the state no longer has a savings account to rely on when oil prices drop.

“We need to diversify our income and use part of that permanent fund while we’re doing so in order to pay for government that we want,” Etheridge said.

Satre also asked candidates to share their ideas for a sustainable fiscal plan.

Chris Dimond, who is running as an independent in House District 33, said Alaskans need to share the burden with an income tax. But, he said, there need to be limits.

“There should be language attached to that income tax that says when our revenues are up and we’re doing OK, that we can roll that tax back so it’s not a permanent fixture for us,” Dimond said.

Democrat Sara Hannan, also running in District 33, echoed support for an income tax.

“When we have 30 to 40 percent of our seasonal workforce being non-residents, it is a way for us to make sure that we are all paying and contributing for services that we want,” Hannan said.

Andi Story, a Democrat running in District 34, said the Legislature need to look at all options, including following the recommendations of efficiency audits and potential taxes.

“If we do more cuts, we know Juneau will take the hit of it because we’re a big public government town … and it creates so much uncertainty,” Story said.

Story’s opponent, Jerry Nankervis, is the only Republican running in Juneau.

He said he does not support an income tax, because Alaska is already an expensive place to live.

In his closing statement, Nankervis made the case that Juneau needs a legislator inside the Republican caucus.

“It’s wise politics to have somebody in each caucus,” Nankervis said. “A vote for me is like an insurance policy paid for by the voters who choose to elect me.”

Satre also posed three yes-or-no questions to candidates.

• All of them supported a second crossing to Douglas Island.
• All but Kiehl and Hannan raised their hands in support of a Juneau access road.
• Only Hannan raised her hand in support of Ballot Measure 1.

The deadline to register to vote in the general election is Sunday.

With the departure of the Westerdam and the Norwegian Pearl yesterday, Juneau’s 2018 cruise season has come to an end.

The industry projected about 80,000 more passengers this year compared to the year before. This summer also saw the arrival of the Alaska’s first mega-ship, the Norwegian Bliss.

Kirby Day, the port manager for Princess Cruises and the Holland America Group in Juneau, said final industry numbers and projections for next year will likely come in the next week or two.

“We coped quite well with the situation and the growth this year,” Day said. “That’s not to say it was perfect, but I think that looking forward toward next year and probably another 12 to 13 percent increase, we have to pay close attention to those impacts.”

Cam Byrnes, who works as a tour guide in the summer, testified at a Juneau Assembly meeting in September that the local tourism industry is already strained under the increased number of visitors. He said bus fleets and road capacity are maxed out. Short stays are another complaint — not enough time for passengers to do tour excursions.

“Between the crowds and the shorter stays, the complaints about Juneau are increasing,” he said. “I hear them every day. The last thing we want for our city, is our guests going home and complaining about the less-than-stellar experience they got here,” Byrnes said.

Byrnes also said the Bliss routinely left late due to the large number of passengers it had to load and unload each week.

Day said things got easier as the season went on.

“Everyone was concerned about 4,500 to 4,700 passengers moving on and off a ship and it was only here from I think 6 to 1:30,” Day said. “But most of the time, they were within 15 to 20 minutes of their departure and it didn’t throw their schedule off.”

Next year, several more ships like the Bliss will arrive in Southeast Alaska.

Its sister ship, the Norwegian Joy, arrives next summer with a similar carrying capacity.

The Royal Princess, a Princess Cruises ship, will carry around 3,500 passengers and Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas will have around 4,000.

Correction: An earlier version of story overstated the industry’s growth projection for cruise ship passengers. It projected about 80,000 more this year over last year, not 1 million. 

Three new members have been elected to the Juneau School District Board of Education.

Kevin Allen, Paul Kelly and Elizabeth “Ebett” Siddon ran unopposed for three open seats on the board.

This was Allen’s third run for the board. He’s a 2016 graduate of Thunder Mountain High School who previously served as a student representative on the board.

He now studies at the University of Alaska Southeast.

Kelly works as an analyst programmer for the Alaska Department of Transportation and previously worked as a legislative aide.

He’s getting married next July, and said he was partly inspired to run to help ensure a strong education for his two stepdaughters-to-be.

Siddon is a fisheries biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

She has served on the Alaska Early Childhood Coordinating Council and on the Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education’s Early Intervention Committee.

She also co-founded Southeast Exchange, a group that connects STEM professionals with science teachers to bring real world science into the classroom.

The seven-member board meets monthly to make decisions about the district budget and educational offerings for Juneau students.

The new members will be sworn in at the next school board meeting on Oct. 9. They’ll replace outgoing board members Emil Mackey, Andi Story and Josh Keaton.

Beth Weldon will be the next mayor of Juneau.

Four candidates faced off in this year’s mayoral election. Unofficial results from Tuesday show Weldon with 3,431 votes.

Weldon is a small business owner. She retired as a division chief after 20 years with Capital City Fire/Rescue.

She previously won a seat on the Juneau Assembly in 2016 but resigned in August to run for mayor.

“I think the difference in why we did pretty well is we walked a lot of doors in a lot of neighborhoods that people said wouldn’t be for me, but we just walked them anyway,” Weldon said Tuesday from City Hall, where she watched results come in with fellow candidates and supporters. 

Saralyn Tabachnick was the next closest candidate with 2,745 votes.

Tabachnick is the executive director of AWARE, a local organization that provides shelter and services to victims of domestic or sexual violence.

“This whole process was so humbling to me,” Tabachnick said. “People who had never registered to vote or voted before, registered to vote for my campaign, because they wanted to vote for me.”

Also in the race was Norton Gregory, who earned 687 votes. Gregory is the director of housing services for the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority.

He was elected to the Assembly in 2016. He also resigned his seat in August to run for mayor.

Political newcomer Cody Shoemaker also ran, but did not make appearances at candidate forums leading up to the local election.

Weldon said crime and affordable childcare are some of the first issues she plans to tackle as mayor. She also thanked her competitors for a fun campaign.

“We kept it to issues and I’ll enjoy talking to them and getting their viewpoints on issues in the future,” she said.

Weldon replaces Juneau’s outgoing mayor, Ken Koelsch. Koelsch has served since 2016.

He won the special election to replace Mayor Greg Fisk, who died of natural causes less than two months after winning election in 2015.

Initial voter turnout was 26 percent. That will change as the remaining ballots are counted.

City Clerk Beth McEwen said about 2,500 early, questioned and absentee ballots still need to be counted. The city plans to certify election results next Tuesday.

“As of last Thursday, we’d exceeded last year’s early voting numbers and it has been a pretty good turnout, not only in early voting, but at the precincts by the looks of things,” she said.

The new mayor will be sworn in at City Hall at an Oct. 15 Assembly meeting for a three-year term.