Local Government

Juneau voters rejected a ballot proposition that would have banned all large cruise ships on Saturdays in this year’s municipal election.

But supporters say it’s not the end of the local grassroots effort to address the impacts of tourism growth. And now, plans for a new cruise ship dock on Douglas Island are complicating things.

This year’s municipal election season was packed with candidate forums and campaign signs. You couldn’t scroll on social media without seeing an ad.

Most of the time, they all centered around the most contentious issue on the ballot — whether Juneau should ban large cruise ships on Saturdays? Final election results showed just over 60% of registered voters were against the idea.

“It’s too hard a line just to say no ships on Saturdays,” said Juneau voter Heather Ramseth on Election Day. “I think trying to be more nuanced about our approach is important, and continuing to have conversations, even though it’s hard.”

Karla Hart is a longtime activist against tourism growth and one of the community members behind the initiative.

“I think that the fact that 40% voted yes is very telling,” she said.

She thinks most people in Juneau want to see real change to slow down the expansion of tourism, but she wasn’t surprised the initiative failed. That’s because of how much money the opposition group, Protect Juneau’s Future, threw at its campaign.

According to a campaign finance report from late September, the group raised nearly $500,000. On the flip side, Ship Free Saturdays only raised $380.

“We didn’t advertise, because it was clear that we were never going to win a campaign on advertising,” Hart said.

One of the loudest voices against the initiative was McHugh Pierre. He’s the president and CEO of Goldbelt Incorporated, an Alaska Native corporation based in Juneau, and was the chair of Protect Juneau’s Future. One of the group’s bigger donors was Royal Caribbean Group. The cruise line also sent a letter to the city threatening a lawsuit if the initiative passed.

Then, just a day after the election results were certified, Goldbelt and the cruise line announced a partnership to develop a new cruise ship port on the backside of Douglas Island.

“This is the very beginning,” Pierre said in an interview after the announcement. “There’s a lot of communication that needs to happen now and a lot of feedback, but what’s really important is that we wanted to start the conversation. We’re excited for the long-term prospects of opening up this area for our use and for the community’s use.”

City officials said they were blindsided by the announcement.

“I’ve heard, personally from McHugh Pierre, that this is the beginning of the dialogue. But you don’t start a dialogue with the press release the day after a contentious election is certified,” said Alix Pierce, Juneau’s tourism manager.

Pierce said the timing erodes the trust people have in the city to fairly manage tourism.

“It makes the city look like we were somehow in on it, and I can assure the public that we were not,” she said. “I’m just so incredibly disappointed in the approach that they took and the way that this was handled.”

Hart was also taken aback by the news.

“I think it’s indication that Goldbelt and Royal Caribbean are entirely tone-deaf on what’s going on — it just is entirely tone-deaf,” she said.

According to City Attorney Emily Wright, a proposition similar to Ship Free Saturdays can’t be on the ballot again for at least one year after the election is certified, which rules out a repeat initiative next year.

But Hart said she and other advocates plan to continue to make noise by attending city meetings about tourism, speaking with Assembly members about future ideas and speaking out against the proposed Douglas port.

Pierce said the city also wants to ramp up public outreach on what residents want to see change in Juneau’s tourism landscape.

John Garner stood at the corner of Franklin and Front Streets in downtown Juneau on Wednesday. He had a shopping cart filled with clothing and camping gear.

Garner had a rough night. A security guard asked him and his friend to leave an outdoor location where they were sleeping. So he didn’t know where he would sleep that night. 

Garner has lived in Juneau for 12 years and has been unhoused for about a year. He said he’s been trying hard to find a place to live before winter. 

“It’s been pretty difficult,” he said. “I’m on the list for Housing First, trying to get there, and it’s like a big waitlist.” 

Soon he won’t have to worry about where he’s going to sleep during the cold nights ahead. On Tuesday, the City and Borough of Juneau will open its cold weather emergency shelter for the winter season. It’s the second year it will be located in a warehouse in Thane, about a mile from downtown. It will operate through mid-April. 

Garner said he relied on the shelter most nights it was open last year. And, he said he’s grateful to have somewhere dry to sleep soon. 

“It’s somewhere warm, and it works pretty well,” he said. “I mean, they’re all respectful,  everyone gets along.”

Hanging out nearby was Jeremy Williams. He’s also been unhoused for a few years now, but he said he’s trying to get back on his feet after struggling with addiction after the death of his daughter. 

Most nights this summer and fall, Williams said he’s slept outside. But, he plans to head to the shelter as soon as it opens. Last year he said he heavily relied on it to survive the cold.

“Every night possible, they help out a lot,” he said. “But I don’t like being around people who use drugs and whatnot.”

The shelter accepts nearly anyone who comes to its doors as long as they’re not disruptive. It is meant to be a last resort for unhoused people to go to when the weather gets cold. 

Last winter, nearby businesses complained about an increase in thefts and break-ins in the area since the opening of the shelter. 

Dave Ringle, the executive director of Juneau’s St. Vincent de Paul chapter, said people are relying on the shelter more and more as Juneau continues to grapple with a housing shortage.

“I am concerned. Housing has not gotten cheaper in Juneau,” he said. “Every day at our office, we get people who are in danger of being evicted, and we get people who are struggling.”

Last year on an average night, about 50 people stayed at the shelter. Ringle said the warehouse probably has enough space to likely accommodate more and he’s worried that might be needed.

“This is a Band-Aid — we have to keep people alive. And I think in the winter months, a shelter is providing the bare minimum to keep people alive,” he said. “The real solution is to get more housing and more affordable housing.”

Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the shelter costs the city roughly $250,000 per season to operate. Last budget cycle, the Assembly approved ongoing funding for it.

The warehouse has heating, insulation and electricity and this year the city installed interior plumbing and indoor restrooms for staff and patrons to use. Barr said he feels confident that patrons are in good hands with St. Vincent de Paul’s staff, but getting the shelter up and running is no easy task.

“I would say that the cold weather emergency shelter is always a little bit tenuous in terms of operations. It’s a hard operation to run and manage,” he said. 

The shelter will be open every day starting October 15 from 9 p.m. until the early morning. St. Vincent de Paul will provide meals. There will also be free shuttle transportation from the Mendenhall Valley and downtown to the shelter.

According to Juneau’s short-term rental program, there are just under 400 registered short-term rentals in Juneau — 391 to be exact. But Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said that number is hard to pin down.

“There probably hasn’t ever been a city program where we’ve had 100% compliance rate, so it is likely that the number is higher,” he said. 

The Assembly put the program in place one year ago hoping it would ensure that people with short-term rentals paid sales taxes. It doesn’t cost anything to register a rental. And it would provide the city with more data on the actual size of the market in Juneau. The plan was to then use that data to shape potential restrictions or regulations as Juneau continues to grapple with a housing shortage. 

But a year has gone by, and so far nothing has been put in place or even considered. That’s too long, according to Assembly member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs.

“I’ve been disappointed that it has taken so long to sort of get moving on this piece. For me, I’m motivated to see some common sense regulations be put into place,” she said. 

Before the program began last year, the city didn’t have a clear way to know how many short-term rentals there actually were and how much of the market they were taking away from long-term renters.

According to a recent study, Juneau ranked fifth in the state for the highest average rental costs for a two-bedroom, at $1,561 a month. That’s a 5% increase from the year before.

Previous analyses of the market have given the city mixed results. In 2022 the Assembly hired an independent firm to do a point-in-time study of the market. It found that Juneau had nearly 600 active and intermittently active short-term rentals. A Juneau Economic Development Council study in 2022 found there were between 300 and 600 short-term rentals.

But now with the data from the city’s program, Hughes-Skandijs said the Assembly doesn’t need to keep stalling. It has what it needs to begin making decisions on what should be done about the industry. 

“We know it’s not the only thing that’s affecting our housing. It’s not like this magic bullet, but, it’s a piece of it,” she said. “We have to give consideration to the person who can’t find a place to live because of a short-term rental.”

Juneau wouldn’t be the first community in Alaska to put regulations into place if the Assembly decides to do so. Communities around the state — and country — have already taken robust measures to curb the increase in their markets. 

In Sitka, short-term rental owners are required to live on the property for half of the year. And Wasilla only offers 75 short-term rental permits per year. Vacation destinations in states like Colorado have also put into place similar laws.

Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon doesn’t think Juneau is ready yet to impose anything similar. 

“I don’t think we are at a position at this time with the information we have to decide if we’re going to do regulations or not,” she said. “I think this task force will help us figure out if we do indeed need to start with regulations right away.”

She said that the Assembly needs more input from the community and stakeholders to understand the gravity of the decisions they’d be making.

That’s why she is leading the charge in forming a task force to tackle if — and how — rentals should be regulated. 

Once the Assembly approves the task force, its members will start hosting public meetings to review regulatory options, and what may or may not work in Juneau. The goal of the task force is to advise the city manager and Assembly about potential regulations while also considering the impacts on different sectors of the community. 

“I’m confident that this group will work well with the short-term rental people in town and those people that are having issues with the short-term rental and try and find some good solutions that we can work with from the Assembly on,” Weldon said. “Whether or not we’re going to make regulations, and if we do make regulations, what’s going to work best for the community.”

Weldon handpicked the members. They include people like current short-term rental operators, a planning commission member and a former Assembly member.

The task force will meet for roughly the next six months and is scheduled to complete their findings and offer recommendations to the Assembly by March of next year. 

Incumbent candidates for mayor and school board widened their respective leads in Juneau’s local election on Friday, while Juneau voters’ rejection of the Ship Free Saturday ballot initiative became even more pronounced. 

Mayor Beth Weldon now leads opponent Angela Rodell by more than 1,800 votes, according to the latest ballot update from the City and Borough of Juneau.  

Neil Steininger widened his lead for the District 1 Juneau Assembly seat, as did Maureen Hall in District 2. 

For Juneau School Board, incumbents Elizabeth Siddon, Will Muldoon and Amber Frommherz all have substantial leads over the other three contenders. 

The Ship Free Saturday ballot initiative, which would have banned large cruise ships from visiting Juneau on Saturdays and the Fourth of July starting next year, appears to be soundly rejected. 

The two bond initiatives related to public safety and infrastructure are also poised to pass. 

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the recall petitions for School Board President Deedie Sorensen and Vice President Emil Mackey.

Friday’s count included 9,633 ballots, bringing voter turnout to 34%. That’s more than last year’s turnout, and there are still more than 1,000 ballots received on Election Day or by mail since Tuesday to be reviewed and processed. 

The city will post another updated count next Friday before the Canvass Review Board meets Oct. 14 and 15 to certify the final results. 

New and re-elected Assembly members will be sworn in at the Oct. 21 Assembly meeting. School Board members will be sworn in to their new terms at the Oct. 22 board meeting.

This story has been updated with the status of the school board recall petitions. 

Find the latest election news at ktoo.org/elections.  

In a special Assembly meeting Thursday, the City and Borough of Juneau introduced phase one of its flood fighting plan.

This comes after August’s record breaking glacial outburst – also known as a jökulhlaup –damaged nearly 300 homes in the Mendenhall Valley. 

The Assembly approved an ordinance that will allow the city to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the installation of flood protection barriers along the Mendenhall River. 

The barriers are made by a company called HESCO. They’re Army Corps–recommended and relatively easy to install, according to City Manager Katie Koester. They’re essentially stackable heavy duty sandbags, which are about 4 feet tall and 3 feet square. 

“Those HESCO barriers are what we would be lining the river with to protect life and property in the event of the next jökulhlaup,” Koester said.

The Corps will donate the barriers free-of-charge — enough to eventually line up to four miles of riverbank — along with 60,000 sandbags for individual homeowners. But the city will be responsible for distributing the sandbags and installing the HESCO barriers at key places along the river. 

Phase one installation will focus on the stretch from Marion Drive to Killewich Drive to Meander Way. Those locations were selected because that’s roughly where the water first breached the bank in August. Later on, the makeshift levee might be extended along the remainder of the developed side of the river, as well as on River Road and View Drive. The city would take on responsibility for the maintenance of the flood barriers, which typically last for about five years. 

It’s unclear what the total project budget will be, but the first phase may cost up to $2 million dollars. The Assembly will discuss ways to come up with that money at a regular meeting on October 21, 2024. 

City leaders hope the barriers can be installed over the next few months. In previous meetings, they’ve discussed more long-term solutions to minimize or prevent flooding altogether, but those solutions will be time-consuming, costly and legally thorny. They’ll require a more in-depth study by the Corps. That study has not yet been approved, but Governor Dunleavy and the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska have  requested it and the City and Borough of Juneau have preemptively set local money aside to fund it.

The flood barriers are a more immediate solution, Koester said, though they’re not perfect. 

“They’re ugly, they’re large. Again, they’re designed for a five year lifespan,” Koester said. “And while we will be expeditiously looking on long term solutions, we really don’t know what that looks like until, until that study has has been done.”

Most of the barriers will also have to be installed in people’s yards, and about 75 homes may be asked to put barriers on their private property. Koester said the city will start outreach to those homeowners this week, but members of the public who showed up to testify expressed support for the plan. 

Some, like Clinton Singletary, who lives in the affected neighborhood of Center Court,  also reiterated the need for long-term solutions. 

“These events will continue happening as the glacier retreats, and from the research I’ve seen, they’ll likely only get worse each year until effective mitigation is in place,” Singletary said. 

Suicide Basin, which is dammed by the Mendenhall Glacier, is bound to flood the valley again. And it’s already refilling, which raised concerns about the possibility of another major flood this fall.

But Aaron Jacobs, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service who attended the meeting, said the basin is only about halfway full and levels in the Mendenhall River are currently low. If Suicide Basin drained right now, it would cause a moderate flood, bringing the river to about 10.5 feet – much lower than record-breaking 15.99 feet during August’s flood. 

As freezing temperatures kick in, Jacobs said the possibility of another release in 2024 will wane. 

“We’ve never seen one over the wintertime — not saying that couldn’t take place — but just in the past, we have not seen one take place in November, December, January,” Jacobs said. “If it doesn’t release into the fall time, what that will tell us is that we could just see a fuller basin a lot earlier next year.”

The city also plans to welcome the Army Corps of Engineers for a public meeting this fall to provide technical advice for homeowners trying to protect their homes from flooding, but the Corps has not yet confirmed that plan and specific dates have not been announced. 

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the word “levy.” 

A new roundabout in the Mendenhall Valley got approval to move forward from the Juneau Planning Commission earlier this week.   

Commission members voted 4-1 in favor of building a roundabout where Mendenhall Loop Road intersects with Valley and Mendenhall Boulevards. That’s despite receiving a number of public comments — including one from a member of the commission — asking them to shoot it down. 

On Tuesday, four commissioners recused themselves from voting on the project. That included commissioner Lacey Derr, who cited a conflict of interest because she lives near the intersection. But, in a written statement, she voiced concerns over hazards and congestion another roundabout could bring to the area. 

But some residents showed support for the project. Heidi Stears wrote to the commission that a roundabout at that location would improve traffic flow and reduce accidents.

According to a city report, the intersection has seen a series of accidents with minor injuries since traffic lights were added in 2004. It says the purpose of the roundabout is to improve the safety of the area for both vehicles and pedestrians.

Once constructed, the project would be the third roundabout on Mendenhall Loop Road. It’s estimated to cost $8.5 million and is scheduled to begin construction next April. The project is being done through the state’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

Despite approval from the commission, the project could still face one more hurdle before being greenlit. The Juneau Assembly can choose to take up the issue if members want to voice opposition or modify the project. They have until Oct. 24 to do so.