Juneau elections

Candidates running in Juneau’s local election shared their stances on issues that affect Douglas Island residents Sunday at a forum at the Douglas Library.

As they were asked about the maintenance of local graveyards, a potential second crossing over Gastineau Channel and Eaglecrest Ski Area’s gondola plan, several candidates observed that Douglas residents often feel overlooked. 

Answering a question about the still-unpaved roads in Douglas, including one next to Sayéik: Gastineau Community School, District 2 Juneau Assembly candidate Nano Brooks said the roads are an example of the way the City and Borough of Juneau has handled other issues in Douglas, which was incorporated into Juneau in 1970.

“There’s no reason that it’s not paved right now,” he said. “I’ve seen it in so many fields. It seems like Douglas doesn’t get a priority on very many things.”

District 1 represents Douglas Island residents, but the two candidates from that race — Connor Ulmer and Neil Steininger — weren’t there in person. District 2 candidate Emily Mesch and incumbent mayor Beth Weldon also didn’t attend. 

District 2 candidates Dorene Lorenz, Brooks, and Mary Marks attended in person, as well as mayoral candidate Angela Rodell. District 2 candidate Maureen Hall didn’t attend or submit answers. 

The moderators asked candidates about the graveyards in Douglas that volunteers have been maintaining for decades. Most candidates said they should be at least in part taken over by the city, but current Mayor Beth Weldon said via a written statement read by one of the moderators that she doesn’t support the acquisition. 

“I am in a unique position from other candidates, as I have relatives buried in one of the cemeteries,” Weldon wrote. “But with the burden on staff time and the funding involved to resolve ownership, I am unable to support CBJ taking ownership of the cemeteries.”

Several candidates, like Mary Marks, said caring for the graveyards shows respect for Juneau’s ancestors.

“It’s hard, you know, it’s hard to handle death,” Marks said. “And if we have our community working together to help each other handle it, I think it’d be more soothing, and it would begin to heal, heal each other.”

Another question concerned capping spending on Eaglecrest’s Gondola project, and whether the municipally-owned ski area should be self-sustaining after the gondola is up and running.

No candidate offered a hard cap on spending, and most said they would want more information on how the gondola contributes to revenue before weighing in on Eaglecrest’s long-term fiscal plan. 

Rodell said she wants to see the outcome of the vote on “Ship-Free Saturdays” before making assumptions about the gondola’s revenue. 

“That’s going to have an impact on whether or not Eaglecrest can be sustainable in the time frames people are talking about, because it’s going to limit the number of visitors who are going to be able to go out to Eaglecrest,” Rodell said.

Every candidate was in favor of a second crossing that would connect North Douglas to Juneau’s mainland. But they didn’t weigh in on where exactly that crossing should be built.  

Emily Mesch’s written statement commented on the potential environmental impacts.

“I highly value our wetlands area,” Mesch said. “And believe that we should ensure they are affected as little as possible, with the foreknowledge that having a zero effect isn’t possible.”

In a written response, Weldon said the crossing will provide redundancy and added safety for residents of the island, since one bridge leaves them vulnerable in the event of a closure. And Weldon used her answer to give an update: the routes will soon be evaluated by the National Environmental Protection Act standards. 

“The main purpose of the crossing is to provide redundancy and safety,” Weldon said. “After having the bridge hit twice by cranes, we realize our vulnerability with only one crossing.”

Ballots in Juneau’s by-mail election will be mailed out later this week. Voting ends Oct. 1. 

Former Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation CEO Angela Rodell is running for Juneau mayor. 

Monday at 4:30 p.m. was the deadline to get on the ballot for Juneau’s Oct. 1 municipal election. Rodell is running against current Mayor Beth Weldon. 

Rodell filed her paperwork with the Juneau Clerk’s office around 3 p.m. She says her leadership experience and background in finance can help Juneau overcome economic challenges. 

“It feels like we have a lot of big issues right now, and taxes have continued to increase, the valuations — they’re just up and up and up,” she said. 

Rodell has lived in Juneau for over a decade. She led the Permanent Fund Corporation from 2015 to 2021, when the fund’s board of trustees voted to remove her from the role. 

She also served on the Juneau Airport Board for six years and was previously a revenue commissioner for the state. She’s currently the chair of Launch Alaska, a nonprofit tech company based in Anchorage. 

“It was time to get off the bench, as they say, and get back. And I just really want to help move this community forward,” she said. 

Weldon is in her second term as Juneau’s mayor. She’s a retired division chief with Capital City Fire/Rescue and owns Glacier Auto Parts. 

Aside from the mayor’s race, two other Juneau Assembly seats and three school board seats are on the ballot. All seats are for three-year terms. Five candidates had filed to run in District 2 as of Monday afternoon, and at least one had filed in District 1. Candidates must live in the district they’re running to represent. 

In District 1, former Alaska Office of Budget Management Director Neil Steininger and Connor Ulmer were listed as candidates as of 5 p.m. Monday. In District 2, Emily Mesch, Nathaniel “Nano” Brooks, Maureen Hall, Dorene Lorenz and Mary Marks had all been certified. 

At least four people filed to run for school board. Current board members Elizabeth “Ebett” Siddon and Will Muldoon filed to run again. Jenny Thomas, Amber Frommherz, Michelle Stuart Morgan and Jeff Redmond also filed to run. 

More last-minute candidates may be added as the clerk’s office works to certify them on the city website. Candidates have until Friday to withdraw their names if they no longer wish to run.

Write-in candidates have until Sept. 24 to file their candidacy with the clerk’s office. They won’t appear on the ballot, but they will show up on the city’s online candidate list. 

The Juneau Assembly unanimously approved two ballot measures on Monday that could add nearly $23 million to the city’s debt for public health and safety improvements.

If passed by Juneau voters this fall election, the bonds would help fund upgrades to Juneau’s public safety communication system and the Juneau Douglas Wastewater Treatment Plant.  

The public safety bond asks to borrow $12.7 million and the wastewater bond asks for $10 million. Following the Assembly’s vote last night, they’ll both be put to voters on the Oct. 1 municipal election ballot. 

The $12.7 million bond measure will help cover the cost of replacing the radio system used by the Juneau Police Department and Capital City Fire/Rescue. 

Police say the current system is outdated — it was only designed for an eight-year lifespan, and that expired a decade ago. Though it’s still operating, they say it’s causing dead zones and is no longer reliable. In total, the project is expected to cost around $25 million. 

The other $10 million bond measure will help cover the cost of replacing the wastewater clarifier building at the Juneau Douglas Wastewater Treatment Plant. That plant services Thane, Downtown and Douglas. 

City officials say the replacement is needed due to decades of erosion.

An initiative asking voters whether Juneau should ban large cruise ships on Saturdays starting next year has qualified for the local ballot this fall.

The City and Borough of Juneau clerk’s office announced on Monday that the group leading the “Ship-Free Saturday” ballot initiative had secured enough certified signatures to get a spot on Juneau’s Oct. 1 ballot, unless the Juneau Assembly decides to take action on the issue before then.

Karla Hart is one of the activists who led the effort this spring. She said the support the initiative has seen so far goes to show how much people in Juneau want change. 

“I think it says that Juneau really seriously wants some hard stops on cruise industry impacts in their lives, and that they haven’t received that from the city Assembly,” she said. “And that they don’t think that those hard stops are coming unless citizens take action.”

If the initiative is passed by voters, it would ban all cruise ships that carry 250 or more passengers from visiting Juneau on Saturdays and on the Fourth of July. But before it appears on the ballot, the Juneau Assembly has until Aug. 15 to decide whether to take its own action on the issue. 

Though the initiative gained more than 2,300 signatures in support, plenty of people and businesses in the community oppose it, including Laura Martinson McDonnell. 

She owns a gift shop downtown and is on the steering committee for a local advocacy group called Protect Juneau’s Future. The group is behind the orange signs hanging around town that discouraged people from signing the initiative. 

“I’m absolutely voting against this initiative,” she said. “That’s because I would like to maintain the right to control my own business and have a say in how my business is operating.”

Martinson McDonnell said she believes the initiative is being led by a small minority of the community. And, she doesn’t think it actually has the support needed to pass in October.  

Juneau Visitor Industry Director Alix Pierce said the city will likely share information on its website that explains what the initiative seeks to do and the facts surrounding it. But, she said the city does not plan to take a formal stance on the issue. 

“People are always welcome to provide their own interpretation, but our duty as a local government is to provide accurate and factual information to our citizens,” she said. 

Local initiatives similar to this one have popped up in recent years in other parts of Southeast and at other ports across the U.S., but many have failed to make it across the finish line because of legal barriers.

Late last month, a group of residents in Sitka submitted a ballot measure to city officials there. It would limit the number of cruise ship passengers that visit there each season. That initiative is currently undergoing legal review. Last season, Sitka city officials there denied a petition seeking a similar goal, saying the proposed legislation would be unenforceable under the Alaska Constitution. 

An effort to repeal an ordinance that made by-mail voting the default in Juneau has failed to gather enough signatures to get on the local ballot. 

The group of residents behind the repeal needed to get nearly 2,400 signatures to put the question to voters this October. During the initial 30-day signature gathering period, they gathered less than 1,000.  

The group tried to make up the shortfall during an additional 10-day collection period, setting up tables around Juneau with signs and information about their cause. Multiple petitioners declined to be interviewed by KTOO. 

They still fell hundreds of signatures short.

According to documents submitted to the city clerk’s office, the repeal effort took aim at an ordinance the Assembly adopted last year making by-mail voting the default for local elections. 

Only five residents spoke against the idea at the meeting when the ordinance passed. They cited voter fraud and questioned whether it would actually improve voter turnout. Widespread voter fraud has been widely debunked by national experts. 

By-mail voting has been used by the City and Borough of Juneau for the past four elections, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In-person voting is still available at city vote centers.

Even if the ordinance had been repealed, the Assembly still could have directed the city to conduct a by-mail election. 

Ballots will be mailed to registered voters starting on Sept. 12 and must be postmarked or returned by Oct. 1.

Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon has announced that she plans to run for a third term in October’s local election. 

In an interview on Tuesday, she said the decision to run didn’t come easy. 

“It’s been an extremely tough decision to make, especially with my husband, Greg’s, passing,” she said. “But I just come back to the same thoughts that I’m committed to Juneau, and I think I still have some things to offer.”

Her husband died in a motorcycle crash in Arizona in late April. 

Weldon is a retired division chief with Capital City Fire/Rescue and owns Glacier Auto Parts. She has two adult sons and is a lifelong resident of Juneau. 

She’s been mayor since 2018. Before that, she served two years on the Assembly before resigning to run for mayor. She was reelected in 2021 and will finish her second three-year mayoral term in October. 

Weldon said some of her priorities if reelected are supporting child care development, more housing and keeping the city’s spending budget in check. 

She said she thought about not running after her husband died, but ultimately decided to press forward.

“Before Greg passed away, I was going to run anyway. And then that kind of gave me a little bit of pause,” she said. “Then I decided that he would want me to continue to do it because he was a quiet supporter, but he was the type of guy that if I got home late one evening, there’d be leftovers from dinner for me.”

October’s election will also feature five other open seats: two on the Juneau Assembly and three on the school board. There are a few citizen initiatives that could also land on the ballot.

The two Assembly seats up for grabs are held by Michelle Hale and Wáahlaal Gídaag Barbara Blake. Both of them say they don’t plan to run again.

No one else has publicly announced their intention to run for mayor so far, but Weldon said she’d be surprised if she ran unopposed. 

“I’ve always said your voice, your vote, so get out and vote. And I think we’ll see some candidates,” she said. 

The filing period to run for local office opens July 12.