Economy

Dozens of residents attended the Juneau Assembly meeting on Monday night to protest the city’s plans to evict all residents of the historic downtown Telephone Hill neighborhood in less than two weeks.

The topic wasn’t on the Assembly agenda, but more than 20 residents testified at the meeting and held disapproving signs in the audience. Many people were also there to criticize the Juneau Assembly’s general spending in recent years. 

Mendenhall Valley resident Dawn Hammond called the city’s redevelopment plan for the neighborhood unacceptable. 

“I think this is a ridiculous proposal,” she said. “I think it’s offensive. I think it’s a terrible thing to do to people that have lived in this community for a very long time.”

All the people living on Telephone Hill are renters, and have been since the state took ownership of the neighborhood in the 1980s. It was originally intended to be redeveloped to build a new Capitol complex there. That didn’t pan out. 

The state transferred the land to the city in 2023. In 2024, the Assembly voted to redevelop the neighborhood and add more than 100 new housing units there in response to Juneau’s ongoing housing crunch. 

This June, the Assembly approved spending roughly $5.5 million in city dollars — pulled from a few different sources — to fund the first phase of demolition and site preparation for the area.

The total project cost is estimated at $9 million. They gave residents living there an Oct. 1 deadline to move out. That’s despite the city not having secured a developer to construct new housing there. Telephone Hill resident Paul Burke said there’s still time for the Assembly to reverse course. 

“It’s just a shame that people don’t listen to what the people have to say — the history in this town is just precious,” he said. 

The Assembly could have chosen to rescind the eviction notices sent to residents at the meeting. It requires a two-thirds vote of approval. But Assembly members did not do that. Instead, multiple members like Alicia Hughes-Skandijs shared why they stand behind their decision to evict Telephone Hill residents. 

“I love that neighborhood too, but I truly believe in my heart that to take a property that has a smaller number of houses on it and trade that for more dense housing is a right move for us, for where we are in our housing crisis,” she said.

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

This year’s Permanent Fund Dividend will be exactly $1,000. Payments to more than 600,000 Alaskans are set to begin Oct. 2.

The $1,000 PFD is the lowest in five years. Adjusted for inflation, it’s the smallest in state history. Last year’s dividend was roughly $1,700.

The Department of Revenue announced the $1,000 figure in a news release Friday afternoon, but it’s not exactly a surprise. Lawmakers approved the amount when they passed the state budget in May.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy proposed dividends of roughly $3,900 in his budget. That would have drained more than half of the state’s main rainy-day fund. Plunging oil revenue and uncertainty about the future led legislators to cut back on both state services and the dividend this spring.

Alaskans have received annual dividends from the Permanent Fund since 1982. The state started drawing down 5% of the fund’s value each year in 2018 to help pay for dividends and other state spending. Today, the fund totals more than $86 billion.

Alaskans who applied electronically and requested direct deposits will be included in the first round of payments. People who filed paper applications or requested a physical check can expect their dividends starting Oct. 23.

Alaskans can check on the status of their PFD application at the Department of Revenue’s website.

Voters will decide this fall whether to adopt a seasonal sales tax to make the most of the more than a million cruise ship passengers who visit Juneau each summer.

Some residents are wary of the idea.

It was a rainy September day on Thursday, but the wet sidewalks and streets were still lined with cruise ship passengers donning thin plastic ponchos and holding shopping bags.  

Mickey Hall and her friends, Russ and Pat Genzmer, stood outside the Alaska Shirt Company in downtown Juneau. They were all holding the store’s iconic, bright red shopping bags. 

“I got a sweatshirt, and my grandson got socks,” Hall said, laughing. 

They were in Juneau for the day, visiting off the Nieuw Amsterdam cruise ship. Without looking at their receipts, they couldn’t say how much they paid in local sales taxes on the souvenirs they just bought. 

“What is the sales rate?” Hall asked.

“I thought it was free,” Genzmer said, laughing. “I thought they had no sales tax in Alaska.”

That’s half true. While Alaska has no statewide general sales taxes, many municipalities have their own local taxes. In Juneau, that’s 5% on goods sold year-round. But that could soon change. 

Juneau voters will decide this October whether the city should implement a new seasonal sales tax system. The city would bump its tax rate up in the summer when tourists are in town to 7.5%, then lower it to 3% in the winter to give locals a break.

The change would apply to most residents, with a few exemptions. Advocates for the system say it’s meant to take advantage of the summer tourists while also giving some winter relief to year-round residents. Juneau Assembly member Neil Steininger supports the idea. He’s an economist and previously served as director of the Office of Management and Budget for the state.

“We have a lot of out-of-town visitors, and we have a lot of economic activity from non-residents in the summer, and so it allows us to shift some of that tax burden away from residents, making it even more affordable for individual residents in Juneau,” he said. 

While cruise ship passengers Hall and the Genzmers say they won’t lose sleep over the tax increase, not everyone is on board. 

Juneau resident Wayne Coogan is co-owner and general manager of Coogan Construction. He said he’s worried that implementing a seasonal tax structure in Juneau will disproportionately affect construction spending. 

“Everyone knows that the construction industry, to a great degree, goes to sleep in the wintertime,” he said. “They bed down and wait for the weather to come back for what’s called the construction season. And so the heavy spending occurs in the summertime.”

While Juneau’s city government does offer some sales tax exemptions for construction materials, it doesn’t cover everything. Coogan said the seasonal change will make buying goods in the summer more expensive, which will eventually trickle down to consumers.

But other locals, like Joel Ferrer, said he sees the logic behind the system. He lives in Juneau year-round and owns a tourist shop downtown. He says he is willing to try it.

“The bottom line is, like, there’s no perfect system. There’s always going to be a glitch, or some people will be affected in a positive way. Some will be a negative way,” he said. “No one’s going to be totally happy with whichever.”

Other Southeast Alaska tourism towns like Ketchikan, Sitka, Craig, Pelican and Skagway have already adopted seasonal tax structures. All of them see a significant amount of summer tourism. 

Ketchikan implemented a seasonal sales tax structure within city limits in 2023. The borough has a population of about 14,000 year-round residents, but it sees more than a million tourists each year. 

Ketchikan Mayor Bob Sivertsen said the tax structure just makes sense.  

“The reality of it is, the community sees our resources being used, our streets being crowded,” he said. “I think they see this as a positive way for the community to utilize the economy that we have, which is the seasonal economy, in the best interest of the community.”

The additional revenue the city takes in from the new system goes into its general fund and has paid for things like wage increases for city workers. Sivertsen said he hasn’t heard much backlash from the community about the system. 

“We all understand that we have to pay for the services we get, but if we can get the visitors to pay for a larger portion of that in a short period of time, it makes sense,” he said. 

Janice Walker runs Madison Lumber and Hardware in Ketchikan. She said while the new system hasn’t dramatically changed her business, it does cause some headaches. 

“It’s just something every six months we have to do, and then they also have a sales tax-free day down here, so you got to do it for that day,” she said. “Anyways, for the retailer, it makes it a little more difficult.”

She said she supports the change as long as the revenue that the city takes in goes toward services that benefit year-round residents. 

In Juneau, the sales tax boost in the summer is intended to offset another ballot question that would exempt essential food and residential utilities from local sales tax.

The cruise ship passengers on Franklin Street, Hall and the Genzmers, say go for it. 

“Good for you guys,” Hall said. “People live here — they deserve a break.”

But it’s not up to them. Juneau voters will decide.

The last day to vote in Juneau’s by-mail election is Oct. 7. Ballots will be mailed to registered voters on Friday. Completed ballots can be returned by mail, in city drop boxes starting Friday, or to city vote centers starting Monday. 

More information about when and how to vote can be found at juneau.org/elections. 

Find the latest local election coverage at ktoo.org/elections.

Watch this story above or listen below:

Juneau’s 2025 municipal election is just around the corner. Candidates for Juneau Assembly and school board are on the ballot this year, alongside three questions.

Ballot propositions one and two aim to reduce the tax burden on individual residents, but officials say that will come at a cost to the city’s coffers. Ballot proposition three attempts to boost city tax revenue by increasing the sales tax rate when cruise tourists are in town, then lowering it again in the off-season. 

Christine Woll is a longtime Juneau Assembly member and chairs its finance committee. 

“I actually think this is probably the most consequential election we’ve had locally in the 15 years I’ve been here in Juneau,” she said. “Each of these will have a big impact on the city’s budget and ability to fund services in our community.”

An advocacy group called the Affordable Juneau Coalition gathered enough signatures this spring and summer to place propositions one and two on the ballot. Angela Rodell is the treasurer of the group and formerly ran the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. She said the propositions are designed to make Alaska’s capital city more affordable. 

“We have a very high cost of living, and that impacts almost everybody, except, obviously, the wealthy,” she said. 

Proposition 1

Proposition 1 seeks to cap the local property tax rate, also known as the mill rate. One mill is equal to $1 per $1000 in property value. 

“Everyone who owns property in Juneau pays property tax to the city based on the value of their property,” Woll said. “This would be capping the rate at which the Assembly can charge them for that.”

Right now, the city caps the mill rate at 12 mills. But, if voters pass Proposition 1 this election, that cap would be lowered to nine mills. 

Now, that change could lower property taxes for property owners. But it also means the city would take in less revenue each year. For each dollar the city collects in property taxes, a bit more than 50 cents goes toward education and a little under 40 cents goes toward city services. 

The rate cap wouldn’t be immediately devastating to the city’s roughly $140 million in annual discretionary revenue. But, Woll said over time it could substantially influence the city’s ability to fund the services residents usually expect. 

“It results in about a $2 million loss to city revenue every year, which is significant,” she said. “But when I think long term, it’s maybe less about the money and more about the city’s ability to respond to changing environments.”

The city estimates that owners with property assessed at half a million dollars or less would save about $80 per year in property taxes if the proposition passes and their home value stays the same. 

Woll said the proposition’s passing will be most beneficial to Juneau’s wealthiest residents and large commercial land owners — not low income people.

“That’s kind of the question that’s being asked this year is, ‘do you think we should be focusing on making this a community that has services for our lowest income people, or do you think that we should cut taxes for the wealthiest in the community to make things more affordable?’” she said. 

Rodell disputes that, and argues the change will force the Assembly to focus its spending on needs versus wants — something the Affordable Juneau Coalition thinks it hasn’t been focusing on. 

“I think we can figure out how to tighten that belt a little bit,” she said. “I think it’s really imperative that the city show its residents that they care about affordability and want to really focus on the things that make this community very livable.”

Proposition 2

Proposition 2 would also shrink the amount of revenue the city brings in each year. The proposition would exempt essential food and residential utilities from local sales tax. Right now, the city taxes food and utilities like just about everything else – at 5%. But if the initiative passes, it would drop to zero percent for everyone, regardless of their income. 

Economists say that taxes on food hit low-income people the hardest. Juneau Assembly member Neil Steininger is an economist, and he supports the concept. 

“We don’t have the supply chains that can provide us lower-cost food, like a lot of areas down south do,” he said. “That really impacts your day-to-day living, because you got to eat every day.”

But, he warns that the current 5% tax on food and utilities brings in a combined $10 to $12 million in revenue to the city annually. He said removing that tax would leave a serious hole in the city’s budget. 

“That’s more than just a little belt tightening, you know, that’s more than just, you know, buying less paper clips and buying less Post-it notes,” Steininger said. “That’s really looking at the overall spectrum of services we provide and choosing some to not provide.”

Proposition 3

That potential cut to services is why the Assembly put Proposition 3 on the ballot. It asks voters whether to implement a new seasonal sales tax system next year. They’re hoping it would recoup some of the revenue lost if the property tax or food and utility tax propositions are passed by voters. 

“The seasonal sales tax, basically will make up for that $9 to $12 million revenue loss by shifting the tax burden from residents to our summer visitors,” Woll said. 

This proposal would raise sales taxes in the summer months and lower them in the winter. It’s aimed at taking advantage of the roughly 1.7 million summer cruise ship tourism visitors that come to town each year. Other nearby Southeast towns like Ketchikan, Sitka and Skagway have similar seasonal tax structures in place already.

Juneau currently charges 5% in local sales taxes. That’s made up of both permanent and temporary taxes. They help pay for general government costs, voter-approved projects and community interests.

If voters pass Proposition 3, shoppers would instead pay a 7.5% tax from April through September and a 3% tax from October through March. 

“We have a lot of out-of-town visitors, and we have a lot of economic activity from non-residents in the summer,” Steininger said. “It allows us to shift some of that tax burden away from residents, making it even more affordable for individual residents in Juneau.”

But Rodell said she’ll be voting no on the measure and the Affordable Juneau Coalition is advocating against it. Her opinion is that it won’t actually save money for year-round residents and businesses. 

“It needs to go back to the drawing board,” she said. “They need to do a better job about defining how it’s going to help the residents of this community.”

The last day to vote in Juneau’s by-mail election is Oct. 7. Ballots will be mailed to registered voters Friday. Completed ballots can be returned by mail, in city drop boxes starting Friday or to city vote centers starting Monday. 

More information about when and how to vote can be found at juneau.org/elections. 

Find the latest local election coverage at ktoo.org/elections. 

In Alaska, a state famous for abundant salmon and huge, cold-water-loving crab, another type of fish is making a splash: tuna.

Incursion of warm waters into Southeast Alaska coastal areas off Sitka and Baranof Island created a brief tuna jackpot earlier this month for sport fishers.

One of the first of those anglers was Troy Tydingco, who happens to be the Sitka sportfish area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

He took a day off from work when conditions were just right to search for tuna, a type of fish suited to more southern latitudes: beautiful weather, with calm waters and water temperatures that reach 60 degrees.

About 30 miles offshore, the search was successful. Tydingco and his six companions caught 44 albacore tuna in all. Other fishers followed.

“I think this is probably the first time sport anglers have really successfully targeted them and harvested them out of Sitka,” he said.

Another successful Sitka tuna angler was Adam Olson, operations manager at the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association.

What makes it fun, he said, is that it is “incredibly unique and unusual.” It is a big change for Sitka, he said. “We’re very salmon-centric here in Southeast Alaska,” he said.

Olson enjoyed eating the tuna as well as catching it, grilling it with a little salt and pepper. “It was phenomenal,” he said.

Tydingco said there is no precise count for the tuna haul. Based on anecdotal reports, social media posts and general talk around town, he estimates that there were 200 caught out of Sitka.

Anyone with a sportfishing license is allowed to harvest tuna in Alaska, as long as they use legal means. Most anglers use rod-and-reel gear that would typically be used to catch salmon. It is also legal to use a spear gun, which one man employed successfully to get a skipjack tuna in the Sitka harbor.

Commercial opportunity?

The Sitka tuna flurry generated enough interest to prompt the Department of Fish and Game to issue an advisory on Friday laying out the rules for a commercial harvest.

There is no federal fishery for tuna in Alaska, so it is up to the state to regulate catches if they occur, said Rhea Ehresmann, a Sitka-based groundfish project leader for the Department of Fish and Game.

Though no one may have tried it yet, commercial tuna fishing is legal in Alaska. There are requirements for permits, gear types and record-keeping. Trolling and jigging gear, which uses hooks to catch fish, is allowable for tuna, but nets are not.

So far, the department has issued a couple of permits to interested fishers, Ehresmann said.

Any commercial catch of tuna – whether deliberate or accidental bycatch during a harvest targeting another species —  is required to be reported to the state. There had been no such reports as of Monday, said Grant Hagerman, a Sitka-based troll management biologist for the Department of Fish and Game.

The Sitka tuna bounty may be new. But the occasional presence of tuna in Alaska waters is not.

Up to now, Prince of Wales Island, at the far southern tip of Southeast Alaska, has been the site of most of the state’s tuna fishing, Tydingco said.

There are also isolated cases of tuna catches farther north, such as a skipjack tuna fished off Yakutat in 2015.

History indicates that the presence of tuna in Alaska waters is ephemeral. They might linger for a few weeks if waters are warm enough, then swim south.

Excitement over tuna in Alaska and rumors of their appearances date back to the 1920s, according to a 1949 report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There was a Ketchikan-based commercial harvest in 1948, though that tuna appears to have been caught off British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Island, according to the report.

Whether tuna fishing will become a trend in Alaska is yet to be determined.

Tydingco said this year’s successes are likely to encourage more fishers to look for tuna, but that people should not count on having tuna-friendly conditions every year.

“That warm water temperature doesn’t even always make it up this far,” he said.

There are signs that Alaska will be more hospitable to tuna in the future, due to warming waters caused by climate change and other factors.

While sea surface temperatures have increased in almost all of the world’s marine areas, temperatures in the North Pacific Ocean are rising faster, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists. That includes the Gulf of Alaska, which has had recent marine heat waves.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced this summer it was moving to rescind the Roadless Rule, a 2001 law that protects large swaths of National Forest land from development. 

That includes more than half of the Tongass National Forest, where Juneau is located. On Saturday, more than 100 people gathered in the state capital to protest the move. 

It’s not the first time protections for the Tongass have been in question. The first Trump administration repealed protections for the Tongass National Forest specifically, which were reinstated by the Biden administration.

The USDA’s announcement called the Roadless Rule “burdensome, and outdated.” It said the rule threatens livelihoods and stifles economic growth. 

Alaska’s Congressional delegation unanimously supports the rollback of the Roadless Rule. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has said that most of the Tongass would still be protected without it — the parts of the forest that are already designated as wilderness. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said rescinding the rule would open the door for economic growth in rural Alaska, and U.S. Rep. Nick Begch said the rule inhibits local management of forests. 

But protesters say Alaskans have more to lose in risks to the land and waterways than what they have to gain through further development. Lingít elders and fishing and tourism industry experts took the mic Saturday to deliver a message: the Roadless Rule should be left alone.

Kaatssaawaa Della Cheney told the crowd her mother had protested clear cutting on Haida Gwaii in Canada in the 1980s. She said when young people stepped up to form a blockade, their parents and grandparents came too. 

“The elders showed up with their regalia and put the young people aside and said, ‘We are going to form the line to keep machines away from our lands, our trees, are ways of life,’” Cheney said. “And that’s what they did.”

Now Cheney said, as an elder herself, she is speaking up in favor of keeping the Roadless Rule. 

Seikoonie Fran Houston is Áak’w Ḵwáan, who originally lived in Juneau. She said development threatens sacred salmon runs and Lingít burial sites.

“This was our territory, and it was taken away from us,” she said. “And now hundreds of hundreds of years later, here I am standing on the grounds of my ancestors fighting to try and protect what they had.” 

Houston said the damage to sacred land isn’t worth the potential financial gain.

And others said the financial math doesn’t actually add up in favor of rescinding the rule. 

Kate Troll has worked in fisheries and climate management in Southeast Alaska for more than 30 years. She says old growth logging, which the rule limits, is a very small piece of Alaska’s economy. And the rule protects resources the tourism and fishing industries rely on, which make up a far greater piece. 

“If doing right by the numbers — right by our economy — was the real objective, we wouldn’t be having this debate,” she said. “If facts really mattered, the Trump administration would realize there’s absolutely no overall economic benefit to be gained by tossing the Roadless Rule out.”

She said the forests serve as irreplaceable carbon sinks, which combat the effects of climate change.  

Xaawk’w Tláa Yolanda Fulmer advocated for the codification of the Roadless Rule, which is being considered by Congress. She said she wants the future of the Tongass to be guaranteed for her grandchildren. 

“So we don’t keep going back and forth with this whiplash politics that keeps happening to us, where one day we’re feeling safer and we’re feeling protected,” she said. “And the next it’s being ripped from us, just like our trees are being threatened.” 

Fulmer referenced a comment Rep. Begich made last month, saying that he’s heard Southeast Alaskans asking for the timber industry to be revived.

“You’re not listening to the people I’ve been talking to from Kichx̱áan all the way to Yaakwdáat that says, ‘Stay out of our lands. Leave our trees alone. Find another way,’” she said, using the traditional names for Ketchikan and Yakutat. 

The public can comment on the proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule through Friday, Sept. 19 at federalregister.gov.