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View Drive is the street hardest-hit by Juneau’s annual glacial outburst flood, and remains unprotected by the city’s temporary levee. The Juneau Assembly is hoping to avoid paying a portion of the cost for a federal program that would offer buyouts to those residents.

A federal buyout for View Drive would pay residents to leave, demolish their homes and transform the land into a park. But first, the city has to decide whether to sponsor it. At this point, it’s not clear if the Assembly will vote to do so. 

Mayor Beth Weldon was cautious at Thursday’s special Assembly meeting, where experts presented the city’s options.  

“I don’t think anybody’s ready to commit to anything tonight,” she said.

Brett Nelson is Alaska’s conservation engineer at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS. The federal agency oversees a recovery buyout program. At the meeting, he explained that the City and Borough of Juneau would be responsible for 25% of the cost. 

If all 18 eligible properties participated, it would cost an estimated $25 million. That means the city would be on the hook for up to around $6 million. But he says it’s unlikely every household would take the deal.

The Assembly voted unanimously to request a waiver to pay. Nelson said it’s worth making the request, but he’s not sure it’s realistic that NRCS headquarters would approve it. 

“I’ll say this: it is not very often used,” Nelson said.

If the cost is not waived, the city could seek funding from other sources besides Juneau taxpayers, such as nonprofits. But there is one restriction on the city’s portion:

“The 25% cannot be from another federal source unless that other federal source comes with congressional language specifically indicating that it can be used as a match for federal dollars,” Nelson said.

He said it would take around a year to complete the process and that the agency would prefer to offer the buyout option to residents before the next flood, which is expected next summer. 

“This is an emergency program and we’d like to move as expeditiously as possible,” he said.

If the city does take on the project, NRCS will appraise the 18 homes on View Drive and then residents will choose whether to take the deal or stay. Nelson says there are two appraisal options: they can be done based on the value now, or as of the day before the 2024 flood — and the agency is leaning toward the latter.

That appraisal decision will apply to every eligible property and affect the overall price tag of the project, since homes are worth more before they’ve been damaged by repeated flooding. 

Engineers say that while a couple of properties on View Drive might benefit from a barrier, the whole street can’t be protected by the HESCO barriers that make up the temporary levee protecting most other Valley neighborhoods.

Mike Records is a hydraulic engineer at the Army Corps. He compared the hazard of putting HESCO barriers on View Drive to the danger of a mariner taking a dinghy across Lynn Canal during a storm. 

“View Drive basically sits on a moraine from the retreat of the Mendenhall Glacier, so that moraine is extremely porous,” Records said.

He said that means water would seep under a temporary levee and form a pool. That’s what happened to a property at the end of the street where residents decided to erect their own berm ahead of the flood this August.

“You’re building a reservoir — potential reservoir  — with homes in the middle and no way out,” Records said, referring to how View Drive is a dead-end street with a single entry and exit point.

He said he recognizes that it’s unfair not to protect View Drive residents who’ve faced flooding over and over, and that they’re in a “horrible situation.” But from an engineering perspective, he said the only way to protect households that decide to stay is to implement a long-term flood solution. 

Nelson says parcels that get bought out become restricted from development forever, so households that participate in the program couldn’t return to their former properties — even after a long-term solution is built. He says NRCS has already determined View Drive is eligible for a buyout and that federal funding would likely be available soon after the government shutdown ends, if the city decides to sponsor it.

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday that it will pay the full cost to extend and repair Juneau’s temporary river levee meant to protect almost all Mendenhall Valley neighborhoods from glacial outburst floods in the near-term. And it will expedite its process to choose a long-term solution that will protect the entire Valley. 

The existing temporary levee is made of HESCO barriers — steel and mesh baskets filled with sand. It protected hundreds of homes from flooding by a slim margin during the record-breaking glacial outburst flood in August. At a special Juneau Assembly meeting Thursday, members signed an agreement accepting assistance from the Army Corps to enhance the temporary levee. 

After signing the agreement, Mayor Beth Weldon referenced a quip Assembly member Ella Adkison made moments before. 

“The Army Corps is going to do phase two and pay for it. So we truly appreciate the assistance, and as Miss Atkison says, there’s no take-backs,” Weldon said.

The agreement expands the levee both upstream and downstream, protecting many more homes and businesses along Mendenhall River. Phase 2 will go from Back Loop Bridge to just before Juneau International Airport. The city estimates the expansion will cost around $19 million to build. The agreement means the city will no longer have to debate controversial ways to pay for construction.

Daryl Downing, program manager at the Seattle District of the Army Corps, says the agency will cover HESCO design and installation, as well as armoring the banks. 

“What is not covered is going to be any sort of outreach the City and Borough of Juneau will need to do to secure rights of entry or any permitting requirements for these efforts,” Downing said. “Once the Corps installs these measures, they get turned over to the City and Borough of Juneau for operations and maintenance, and then removal as well.”

The Army Corps will also help repair the existing stretch of the flood barrier, which leaked and slumped during the flood this summer — sustaining about a million dollars in damage — and build it higher for the next flood. 

The agency aims to complete that work by July 15, 2026. For reference, the glacial outburst flood has struck during the first two weeks of August in each of the past three years. 

None of this funding will retroactively cover the cost to build Phase 1 of the levee — which is estimated at around $6 million. The Assembly passed a controversial funding scheme called a local improvement district, or LID, earlier this year to split 40% of the cost among more than 400 homeowners in the flood zone. 

At Thursday’s meeting, the Assembly voted not to close out the Phase 1 LID. The only Assembly member who objected was Nano Brooks. He asked if it would be possible to use some funds from the recently reappropriated $5 million that was pulled from the Capital Civic Center to reduce the residents’ portion. 

City Manager Katie Koester said that money could be used to care for future repairs and maintenance of the HESCO barriers. 

“In the end, it’s really your decision how much you want to use taxpayer dollars versus property owner dollars,” Koester said. 

Long-term solution in sight

The Army Corps made another major announcement Thursday.  It aims to finish its technical report, recommend a long-term flood solution, and design it by the end of May 2026. That’s several years faster than the process agency staff outlined at a public meeting in July.

John Rajek is the chief of the geotechnical and engineering services branch at the Alaska District of the Army Corps. 

“We plan on developing a preliminary design of the preferred flood control alternative, we’re going to prepare a planning-level cost estimate that’s going to help everybody understand the financial implications and basically help make informed decisions on the path forward,” Rajek said. “And then the third element is, we’re going to complete a draft environmental assessment of that alternative.”

Those options are a dam, a permanent levee, a bypass channel along the river, a tunnel to drain Suicide Basin or relocating buildings from the flood zone. 

Rajek says that in December, the Army Corps will hold a charette — a major planning meeting with federal and local agencies — to discuss the options and pick one.

Anonymous sources engaged in the agency’s process told KTOO that a tunnel through Bullard Mountain to drain Suicide Basin looks like the preferred option at this point, but Army Corps staff refused to comment. 

The Army Corps is seeking public comment on the long-term solution, which closes at the end of next month. The public affairs office requests comments to be submitted to public.affairs3@usace.army.mil.

Renters living in Juneau’s Telephone Hill neighborhood have until Saturday to vacate their homes before the city evicts them.  

That will clear the way for the city’s plan to demolish the houses in December and redevelop the area to build newer, denser housing there in response to the city’s housing crunch.

The evictions were originally slated for Oct. 1, but the city postponed them until this Saturday due to a legal hiccup. The evictions come after outcry by local advocates, who asked the city to halt them until it produces a clearer redevelopment plan. Right now, a developer has not signed on to the project. 

Advocates collected more than 800 signatures opposing the redevelopment plan ahead of the Juneau Assembly meeting on Monday. There, more than a dozen people testified in hopes of persuading members to reverse course and save the historic downtown neighborhood. However, no action was taken on the topic. 

The Juneau Assembly is slated to discuss the project and next steps for the redevelopment at a committee meeting on Monday at 6 p.m. The discussion will include the timeline for demolition and finding a developer, and will address several other questions about the project brought forth by advocates. 

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.

Juneau plans to expand its temporary levee along the Mendenhall River, in part by using money originally intended for a new arts and culture center. 

An ordinance passed unanimously at Monday’s Assembly meeting will allow the city to help protect more homes and businesses from annual glacial outburst flooding by pulling $5 million from the proposed Capital Civic Center. 

The current levee is made of HESCO barriers — steel and mesh baskets filled with sand. It protected hundreds of homes from flooding by a slim margin during the record-breaking glacial outburst flood in August. 

Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said at the meeting that $4 million of the reallocation will go toward Phase 2 of the levee project. 

“These funds would contribute toward ongoing overall protection costs like site preparation, armoring, environmental installation and legal for HESCO barrier installation along (parts of) the Mendenhall River that do not currently have barriers,” Barr said. 

Phase 2 would expand the levee both upstream and downstream, so it would stretch from Back Loop Bridge to just before Juneau International Airport. The city estimates the expansion would cost around $19 million to build. 

The other $1 million pulled from the Capital Civic Center will be used to repair and maintain the existing stretch of HESCO barriers, which leaked, slumped and lost sand during the flood. 

The Capital Civic Center is a proposed project that would replace the current Juneau Arts & Culture Center. Juneau voters rejected a ballot proposition to fund the new civic center in 2019, but the city appropriated funds to a slightly altered version of the project anyway. 

Barr said those funds were meant to be a match for a federal or state grant, which hasn’t materialized. He said that money was originally allocated from the hotel bed tax fund and the general fund.

The Assembly will discuss how to fund the rest of the HESCO barrier expansion at a special assembly meeting on Thursday.

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.