Clarise Larson

The Juneau Assembly approved merit and cost-of-living pay bumps to Juneau’s city manager and city attorney Monday night. 

The increases were discussed during an executive session that was not open to the public during the Assembly meeting. Members unanimously approved the increases publicly afterward.

The increase is retroactive to Sept. 8. 

City Attorney Emily Wright received a 3% cost-of-living increase and a 7.75% merit increase to match the former city attorney, bringing her salary to just under $208,665. The city will pay Wright retroactively to Aug. 25.

According to city data, Koester is the city’s highest-paid salaried employee. She’s followed by Deputy City Manager Robert Barr and Port Director Carl Uchytil, who all make above $200,000 as of September.

However, according to data from 2024, Koester isn’t the highest-paid employee when it comes to actual earnings. She was outpaced in actual earnings by four Juneau Police Department officers, who are eligible for overtime pay. 

The manager’s and attorney’s pay boosts come as some city employees are working without a contract. The city is also bracing itself for a looming budget shortfall following the outcome of this year’s local ballot measures. 

The unions representing most police and Capital City Fire/Rescue staff are at an impasse in their wage negotiations with the city. Union officials say Juneau’s wages aren’t competitive with those of other departments and agencies in the state.

The Juneau Assembly appointed two returning members and one new member during its annual reorganization meeting Monday night. 

New member Nano Brooks and incumbents Ella Adkison and Greg Smith gave their oath to the city attorney and will now each serve a three-year term.

There were three seats up for grabs on the Juneau Assembly in this year’s municipal election, but only one race was contested. Brooks unsuccessfully ran for Assembly twice before finally securing a spot this election. He ousted two-term incumbent Wade Bryson from his District 2 seat by nearly 400 votes. This will be Brooks’ first time serving in public office.

Bryson did not attend the meeting. 

Assembly members Greg Smith and Ella Adkison ran uncontested for their seats. Smith will now serve his third and final three-year term on the Assembly, while Adkison will serve her first full term. She was originally elected to the Assembly in 2023 to fill the remaining two years in the term of a member who resigned. 

At the meeting, Assembly members appointed Smith as deputy mayor. He served in the role during his previous term. 

The Juneau School Board will also swear in three new members on Tuesday night.  

A man was escorted out of the Juneau Assembly meeting on Monday night by police officers due to safety concerns.

KC Kregar was asked to leave the meeting because of his alleged repeated harassment of city officials and Assembly members, said City Attorney Emily Wright. He was previously arrested for trespassing after refusing to leave City Hall on Oct. 16. But on Monday he left willingly with officers and was not arrested. 

“He was trespassed for a pattern of continuous harassment and threats towards staff,” Wright said. 

Kregar originally showed up to the meeting at Centennial Hall in a ski mask and goggles. He took the mask off while speaking to the press, saying he came to the meeting to testify and expose wrongdoings and corruption by the city and Eaglecrest Ski Area.

“They’re trying to bury me,” he said to the press prior to his removal. “They should be put in jail for what they are hiding.”

Kregar said he’s a whistleblower and has information about safety violations related to the ski area. 

The meeting was delayed an hour while police confronted Kregar. He shouted as he left. 

“This is wrong. I committed no crime,” he said. “You’re hiding, you’re non-transparent.”

Kregar said he plans to sue the city. 

A project meant to bring more than 70 units of new workforce housing to downtown Juneau is dead before it could even break ground. The developer blames the city for stopping it. The city says the project was a risk to public safety.

In late 2023, the city’s planning commission approved a conditional land-use permit for the construction of a 72-unit apartment building downtown.

The six-story building was set to be located on three vacant lots on Gastineau Avenue, just uphill from the downtown library. It was meant to be workforce housing – all furnished and ready to go by the summer of 2025. 

But it’s been nearly two years, and the summer of 2025 has come and gone. The lots where the development was supposed to be are still empty. Steve Soenksen, the private developer behind the project, said it’s the city’s fault.

“We don’t have a stuck market. We have a stuck municipality — and they’re stuck on saying no,” he said. 

The project was approved by the commission despite several safety concerns brought up by some neighbors, city officials and the fire department because of its hazardous location — an area subject to landslides — and lack of easy access for emergency services. 

But while the planning commission approved that permit in a 7-1 vote, in order to get a building permit from the city’s Community Development Department, he needed to agree that the project could meet the city’s fire and life code.

Gastineau Avenue is a dead-end street, and it’s hard to turn a vehicle around there. The project’s site is also on a downhill slope toward South Franklin Street on the Mount Roberts hillside, close to where multiple landslides damaged homes and displaced residents in recent years. 

“Most every section in the fire code was written because there was some kind of disaster that necessitated it,” said Capital City Fire/Rescue Chief Rich Etheridge.

He said the fire code requires at least two access points for a road that has more than 100 units. The new construction would push Gastineau over that threshold. 

“Housing is needed and we support development as much as we can,” he said. “We do have to hold the fire code — it was written for us to enforce, not for us to decide whether it’s legitimate or not.”

A potential second access point would go through privately owned land south of Gastineau Avenue. Soenksen argues that the city should help create that second access point, but he said it’s unwilling to work with him. He said the secondary access wouldn’t just benefit his project, but the entire street, which is prone to hazards. 

“A big part of our housing crisis is that the city’s been making unrealistic requirements on housing projects for 40 years that I can count,” he said.

Jill Lawhorne, the director of the Community Development Department, said Soenksen was aware of the code requirements throughout the process, and he was the one unwilling to accept the requirements that came with developing at that location.

“Not all land is appropriate for housing if it can’t be made safe,” she said. “I think egress is that bare minimum of safety that we would want to see for housing and for our residents.”

She also pushed back against his allegations that the city is to blame.

“It’s not our Community Development’s responsibility to make a project happen,” she said. “We can help you through the process. We can help you obtain the permits if you meet the requirements of code, but it’s on the developer to bring their development to fruition.”

The project’s planning commission permit has since expired, and Soenksen said he has no intention to keep trying to make the project happen.

“I had plans for over 220 apartments to go in downtown,” he said. “But once they killed this one, I have no resources to try and do anything else, nor desire, because of the treatment I got with the city.”

Despite that, he’s on the hook to repay a quarter of a million dollars from a predevelopment loan he received from the city’s affordable housing fund in 2022.

In this newscast:

• Local advocates have gathered more than 600 signatures in an effort to pause the looming evictions and demolition of the historic Telephone Hill neighborhood in downtown Juneau.
• Alaskans will not receive SNAP, or food stamp, benefits for November, according to the state division of public assistance. That’s unless the federal government shutdown ends before then.
• Dozens of communities in Western Alaska are working to restore essential infrastructure and repair damaged homes after the remnants of Typhoon Halong devastated coastal communities. But one stands out. In Kipnuk, Halong’s high winds and storm surge left a catastrophe. The state Department of Transportation estimates that 90% of the structures in the community were destroyed. Most of Kipnuk’s residents evacuated on military helicopters in the days after the storm.
• Alaska Congressman Nick Begich has a new challenger. Pastor Matt Schultz of First Presbyterian Church in Anchorage launched his campaign earlier this week. 

Local advocates have gathered more than 600 signatures in an effort to pause the looming evictions and demolition of the historic Telephone Hill neighborhood in downtown Juneau. 

The petition is called “Stop the Bulldozers on Telephone Hill.” The city plans to demolish the houses on the hill in December to make way for newer, denser housing in response to the city’s housing crunch. Renters on the hill have until Nov. 1 to move out, but a developer has not signed on to the project. 

Mary Alice McKeen is one of the advocates leading the effort. She said the petition asks for the city and Juneau Assembly to consider postponing the project until they have a more credible plan that includes things like clearer cost estimates. 

“We think they are really putting the cart before the horse. After the buildings are demolished, that is irrevocable,” she said. “So, before we think they should pause what they’re doing until they have a credible plan for the future of telephone Hill.”

McKeen said advocates intend to present the signatures and testify at the Juneau Assembly’s upcoming meeting on Monday night. That’s when its newest member, Nano Brooks, will be sworn in. Brooks openly campaigned against the demolition plan. 

The eviction of renters on the hill was originally slated for Oct. 1, but the city postponed it until Nov. 1 due to a legal hiccup. 

City Attorney Emily Wright said the signatures themselves can’t stop the plan from moving forward — it’s up to the Juneau Assembly.

“In general, the signature gathering push and initiative is fully within the political realm and putting pressure on the Assembly to rescind their action or change where things go,” she said. “But it doesn’t have any weight legally to stop the eviction.”

A majority of the nine-member Assembly would have to be on board with rescinding the evictions in order for a motion to pass. However, at a meeting last month, many Assembly members stood behind their decision.

Demolition is slated to begin in December. City officials say they hope that a developer will begin construction as soon as next summer.