For a clear view of what ails the Willoughby District, a trip to the State Office Building for a bird’s-eye view might put things in perspective. Spread below, looking toward the Gastineau Channel and Douglas Bridge, is a patchwork of jumbled uses. Some buildings seem to be temporary structures, blocky offices loom — and sprinkled throughout this district are seas of asphalt.

All of that is wrapped into what planners call two “super blocks” that are not as pedestrian friendly as they should be.

The popular Zephyr Restaurant at Second and Seward regularly rings with live music and the sounds of popping corks, but the city’s Finance staff has asked the city Human Resources Committee to consider a recommended protest of the business’ liquor license renewal.

That move follows a similar threat of protest earlier this month against owner Haydar Suyun’s Sprazzo restaurant on Franklin Street. In a letter dated March 15, Deputy Clerk Beth McEwen urged Suyun to attend the hearing.

The reason: back taxes owed to the city totalling just over $10,000.

It began as a curving arc of pristine waterfront that became a Native village. Then its waters were buried last century by mine tailings to create cheap, flat lots.

In one such former parking lot rises the State Library Archives and Museum (SLAM), a state-of-the-art museum and preservation site for Alaska’s precious historical archives. This sign of progress, of change and growth, is an isolated and hard-won project that is not yet fully funded.

Elsewhere in the district, small projects have bloomed, but more like crocuses exploring the early spring.

That could change.

Banking on the likelihood that the state Legislature won’t raise the amount of money paid per student, the Juneau school board Monday heard a first reading of a budget that contains $1.7 million in budget reductions.

The Administrative Team’s 2014 budget does not restore two full-time nursing positions as requested by the JSD budget Committee March 5, but does restore middle and high school Pupil to Teacher Ratios to the Fiscal Year 13 levels and adds back half of the district drug testing program.

The total proposed budget is $77,055,207.