Clarise Larson

A District Court judge has dismissed the eviction cases against three tenants refusing to vacate their rentals in the historic Telephone Hill neighborhood in downtown Juneau. 

Instead, a Superior Court judge presiding over a lawsuit filed by tenants against the city late last month will decide the outcome. The lawsuit seeks to stop the city’s demolition of the historic neighborhood and stop the evictions. The city plans to demolish the houses on the hill later this winter to make way for newer, denser housing to combat the city’s housing crunch. 

The court hasn’t yet scheduled any hearings for that lawsuit. 

City Attorney Emily Wright said it’s unclear if or how the dismissals may impact the city’s plan to move forward with demolition of the homes this winter. She said the city is disappointed in the District Court judge’s ruling and plans to ask that the lawsuit in Superior Court be expedited. 

“We’ll work with the tenants and their attorney in the other superior court case to look at the best options for them and for the city. But once you’ve moved into court, it can be a very long process to get a resolution,” she said. 

The tenants’ lawsuit, which has three plaintiffs, claims that the city improperly evicted people on the hill, illegally phased the redevelopment and that the project fails to comply with federal and state historic preservation acts. The city denies these claims.

Joe Karson called the eviction dismissals a win. Karson, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and one of the tenants who hasn’t vacated,  said he plans to continue to live in his apartment on the hill as long as possible. 

“I want to stay in my home, of course,” Karson said. “Just because you rent doesn’t mean that it’s not your home, and that’s my home.”

Fred Triem, the tenants’ attorney, said the tenants continuing to live in the old homes as the weather gets colder helps preserve them.

“Our ultimate goal is to preserve the old buildings, especially the telephone switchboard and that building constructed in 1882,” he said. “That’s the short of it — historic preservation.”

Under the Alaska Uniform Residential Landlord & Tenant Act, the city cannot take retaliatory action against the tenants, like turning off the utilities, while they wait for the outcome of the lawsuit. 

Before Thursday, when you would grab some groceries or pay your utility bill, Juneau’s city government taxed most residents at 5%. But now, that tax has dropped to zero percent for everyone, regardless of their income or age.

That’s because of a ballot measure that was approved by voters during this fall’s election to remove the local sales tax on essential food and residential utilities.

Phil Gouveia was buying groceries at Foodland IGA on Wednesday afternoon. He said he’s excited for the changes and to see some extra cash back in his pocket. 

“Yeah, it’s gonna help me. I’m 70 years old. I’m on a pension, so groceries keep going up, but my pension doesn’t,” he said. 

The exemptions officially take effect on Thursday, 30 days after the fall election results were certified. The proposition passed with nearly 70% of voter approval. 

Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the roll out of the exemptions should be pretty hands-off for most residents. He said the city is working with businesses on implementing it, but it may take some time before all retailers are under the new system. 

“Our goal was to implement this in a way that was as easy for residents as possible, so most residents shouldn’t have to do much, if anything,” he said. 

The exemptions apply to the same food items that qualify under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps. That includes foods like fruits and vegetables, meat and dairy, bread and cereals — and cookies and ice cream. But it doesn’t cover hot food — like a rotisserie chicken — or meals from restaurants.

“What qualifies as food is largely groceries, things that you would buy from the grocery store and prepare at home, or things that are intended to be consumed off-site,” he said. 

The utilities exemptions apply to residential electricity, heating oil or propane, water and sewer and garbage and recycling. 

Alec Mesdag is the CEO of Alaska Electric Light & Power, or AEL&P, Juneau’s sole electricity provider. It serves more than 16,000 customers. Mesdag said the logistics of rolling out the exemptions are challenging and complex due to AEL&P’s large number of customers and having to verify which accounts are for residential use versus commercial. 

Despite that, he said the company is actively working with customers to ensure those who are eligible receive the exemption as soon as possible. 

“What we intend to do is go through our list and apply the exemption as broadly as possible, but excluding certain accounts that appear to us to be highly likely to be not eligible to receive the exemption,” he said.

Mesdag said AEL&P is sending out letters to customers to inform them which accounts have received the tax exemption and which have not.

While the exemptions are expected to put some extra cash back into residents’ wallets, it in turn means the city is expected to face a $6.4 million hole in its budget this fiscal year. And, each year moving forward, the city will face an estimated $12 million revenue loss from both the tax exemption on food and utilities and the separate cap on the city’s property tax rate that voters also passed.

City officials and the Juneau Assembly will be grappling with potential service cuts in the coming months.

A district court judge has delayed the pending eviction hearings of three tenants who have refused to vacate their residences in Juneau’s downtown Telephone Hill neighborhood until at least Friday morning.

That’s so the judge can review a motion filed late Tuesday by the tenants’ attorney. 

The motion asks the court to delay the evictions pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by tenants against the city. The lawsuit seeks to stop the city’s demolition of the historic neighborhood and reverse the evictions. 

The city had given the tenants living in the homes until Nov.1 to move out. The city plans to demolish the houses on the hill later this winter to make way for newer, denser housing to combat the city’s housing crunch. However, some tenants are refusing to leave and the city earlier this month filed legal action to evict them. 

At the courthouse on Wednesday morning, John Ingalls, one of the tenants who hasn’t vacated and is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he’s going to fight tooth and nail to stop the evictions.

“They’re just gonna make people pissed off at them. They’re gonna make people angry because I don’t think they have what’s right on their side, and I think people are going to stand up for what’s right,” he said. “I’m not worried about it. If they want to take my stuff. Fine, take it. Go ahead. If you want to be really ugly, let’s get ugly.”

An attorney from the city’s law department argued that the late filing of the motion was an intentional delay tactic and requested that the judge proceed with the hearing. The judge instead pushed Wednesday’s hearings back till Friday morning at 8:15 a.m. 

City Attorney Emily Wright said if the evictions are approved on Friday morning, the city plans to take swift action. She said the city gave the tenants more than enough notice and time to move out of the homes before taking legal action to force them out.

“If the city were given immediate possession of the homes on Friday, we would change the locks,” she said. “We would take possession of the homes, and we would work with the tenants to get their belongings out of the homes as soon as possible.”

In response to the tenants’ lawsuit, the city denies the claims that it improperly evicted people on the hill, illegally phased the redevelopment and that the project fails to comply with federal and state historic preservation acts.

The man who was slammed to the ground by a former Juneau police officer this summer is suing the City and Borough of Juneau and the officer in civil superior court. 

Christopher Williams, Jr. filed a lawsuit last week against the city and former Juneau Police officer Brandon LeBlanc for allegedly violating his civil rights during the arrest. The violent arrest knocked Williams unconscious. He was later medevaced out of town.

The lawsuit comes just over a month after the state’s Office of Special Prosecutions cleared the officer of criminal charges. Video of the July incident recorded by a witness circulated widely online and prompted a public outcry.

Jeff Barber is an attorney representing Williams. In an interview, Barber said the lawsuit seeks to hold the city and LeBlanc accountable. 

“It’s dehumanizing to see the way Mr. Williams was treated in this case by police, and so I think more people should be aware of these kinds of actions,” he said. “It represents an assault on human dignity when you see someone act like that.”

The lawsuit asserts several allegations of wrongdoing by both LeBlanc and the city. It claims that LeBlanc acted with “intentional malice” when arresting Williams, and that his actions led Williams to suffer severe and permanent physical injury. It says LeBlanc intentionally failed to render aid to Williams after he was injured. 

The lawsuit also claims the city is liable for hiring LeBlanc and failing to reasonably train and supervise the officer, who was previously sued by a man for excessive force and battery while he served in Louisiana. The jury in that lawsuit found LeBlanc not guilty. 

After Williams’ arrest in July, Leblanc was placed on paid administrative leave. He later resigned from his position just a day before JPD released the body-worn camera footage of the arrest. In his statements to the Office of Special Prosecutions, he denied any wrongdoing and said he acted out of fear for his own safety during the incident.

Juneau Police Chief Derek Bos defended the department’s hiring of LeBlanc during a presentation to the Juneau Assembly in late September, saying LeBlanc is “a good officer who made a very bad mistake.” 

Barber, William’s attorney, disagrees. 

“Yes, we’re seeking money damages from the entities that are responsible —  all the way from the top on down,” he said. “So if it looks like the City and Borough of Juneau shouldn’t have hired this guy in the first place, we’re going to hold them accountable for that.”

The lawsuit does not specify the amount of damages Williams seeks. 

Juneau’s City Attorney Emily Wright said on Tuesday afternoon that the city had yet to be served with the complaint and could not comment. 

The Juneau Assembly officially killed a proposal to locally implement ranked choice voting on Monday night. The body unanimously voted to indefinitely table the ordinance to adopt a ranked-choice voting system for municipal elections beginning next year. 

The decision came after multiple people testified on the topic at the Assembly’s regular meeting, almost all against adopting the change. Roger Calloway said he doesn’t think the decision should be up to the Assembly.

“I’m here to testify against adopting this ordinance. I believe it’s wrong for you, the Assembly, to decide how we, the voters, get to cast our votes,” he said. 

Alaska already uses a ranked choice voting system for statewide elections. In local elections, Juneau voters choose one candidate in single-member races, like Assembly seats. With ranked choice voting, voters would have instead ranked candidates by preference.

Juneau’s recently retired city clerk, Beth McEwen, testified against the change. She said that while she supports ranked choice voting at the state level, she argued it’s unnecessary for Juneau and would confuse voters. 

“I think it was a good decision for state elections, not for local elections,” she said. “Local elections are nonpartisan. The state has a partisan system — and we have primaries and general elections at the state — we don’t have that at the local level.”

Assembly member Ella Adkison originally introduced the ordinance earlier this summer. She made the motion to table it indefinitely on Monday, which means the proposal is dead. A similar ordinance could still arise in the future under a new Assembly.

Adkison said it is not the right time to implement the change as the city faces more pressing issues like budget cuts following the results of the recent local election.

“We are going to have to cut services, and we are going to have to lay people off, and that is a thing we are going to work together as a community to get through,” she said. “But it’s going to be a really tough time for Juneau, and we’re going to have to spend a lot of time and energy as a community getting through that hard time.”

According to data from the state’s Division of Elections, Juneau voters favored ranked choice voting at the state level. Juneau overwhelmingly voted against a repeal effort on the ballot last election, which only very narrowly failed statewide. Advocates have already filed new initiatives in an attempt to repeal it in the 2026 state election.

The Juneau Assembly is slated to decide on Monday night whether Juneau should adopt a ranked choice voting system for municipal elections beginning next year. 

Alaska already uses a ranked choice voting system for statewide elections. In local elections, Juneau voters currently choose one candidate in a single-seat race. With ranked choice voting, voters would instead rank candidates by preference.

If adopted on Monday, Juneau would become the first major city in Alaska to adopt ranked choice voting for municipal elections. But other cities across the U.S., including New York, San Francisco and Minneapolis, already use the system in local elections.

The Assembly was originally supposed to vote on the topic in August, but decided to delay the decision until after the fall local election. Assembly member Ella Adkison proposed the change. During a meeting earlier this summer, she said she thinks voters will support it. 

“It really is good for races where there are lots of candidates in one seat,” she said. “And I think Juneau, in general, likes having lots of candidates in races, because it means that the person that they feel represents them the most is the person who actually gets onto the Assembly.”

But not everyone agrees. During public testimony on the topic this summer, Juneau resident Angela Rodell questioned why the change is necessary. Rodell unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2023 and led the Affordable Juneau Coalition in advocating for tax cuts this fall. 

“At a time when public trust in our local election process is being tested, this ordinance does not move us towards greater transparency, confidence or affordability,” she said. “Instead, it is the opposite. It proposes a fundamental change to our voting process without first answering a critical question, ‘What is the problem we’re trying to solve with this?’”

According to data from the state’s Division of Elections, Juneau voters previously appeared to favor ranked choice voting. Juneau overwhelmingly voted against a repeal effort on the ballot last election, which only very narrowly failed statewide. Advocates have already filed new initiatives in an attempt to repeal it in the 2026 state election.

Juneau residents have the chance to testify on the ordinance in person or online before the Assembly votes on Monday. People who want to testify online must notify the city clerk by 4 p.m. before the meeting. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at Centennial Hall.