Polls open today at 7 a.m. for the municipal election and close at 8 p.m. There are three open seats on the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly, as well as two school board seats for the Juneau School District. There are also five ballot measures.
Candidates for Assembly are:
District 1
Brad Fluetsch and Jesse Kiehl.
Fluetsch is a registered investment advisor and ran for mayor in 2006. Issues he would like to work on if elected are increasing energy capabilities, increasing and retaining legislative representation, efficient and expanded transportation and increasing and maintaining jobs.
Fluetsch is the grand treasurer for Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand Camp, a past president of ANB Camp 70 and has served in other capacities. He served on the Mayor’s Fiscal Taskforce in 2000 and Mayor’s Economic Diversification Workforce in 2006. Fluetsch is a past board member for Juneau Economic Development Council and was on the Alaska Real Estate Commission for four years.
Kiehl has been a legislative aide for 10 years, currently working for Sen. Dennis Egan. He has lived in Juneau for 13 years, having grown up in Anchorage. If elected, Kiehl said he wants to work on the garbage issue, the city sewer system — finding a solution for sludge, affordable housing and making more transportation and access improvements to keep Juneau as the capital.
He has served on the Juneau Human Rights Commission and Board of Equalization.
District 2
Randy Wanamaker is running unopposed in District 2. He served on the Assembly for three terms up until this year, when he termed out. This is the first opportunity Wanamaker has to run again. Wanamaker also has served on the school board, Alaska Water Resources board and with other groups. He also served in the Alaska National Guard, is a past president of the Tlingit and Haida Community Council and is a Goldbelt, Inc., chairman.
Wanamaker, if elected, intends to work to maintain property values, stabilize the city’s economy, maintain and grow jobs.
Areawide
Loren Jones, Geny Del Rosario and Carlton Smith are running for one Areawide seat.
Jones served two times on the Bartlett Regional Hospital Board of Directors, is retired from working with the state as a legislative aide and internal auditor and director of the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. He also served on the Hospice and Home Care Board and Catholic Community Services board. He has lived in Juneau for 35 years.
If elected he said he wants to work on the problems with the city landfill and look at improving recycling. Jones also wants to work on increasing and maintaining jobs and decreasing the cost of living.
Del Rosario has lived in Juneau for six years and is a small business owner. She also is a licensed child care provider.
She serves on the Juneau Human Rights Commission and is a member of the League of Women Voters. She also serves as the Juneau Filipino Community public relations officer and volunteers at AWARE, the Alaska State Museum and many other organizations.
Del Rosario wants to focus on alternative energy sources for the city to address rising costs. She also wants to help programs that focus on public safety, education, a stable and welcome business environment and affordable housing.
Smith is a commercial real estate broker and has lived in Juneau for 22 years. He has served on a number of boards including the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, chairing the Salvation Army Alaska Division in Anchorage, and was a founding officer of Sealaska Institute and is a trustee of the SEARHC Foundation. He has served as staff to the Local Boundary Commission and officer and board member of Sealaska.
Smith wants to focus on preserving stability in jobs and promoting growth. He also wants to maintain Juneau as the capital and create a stable economy.
School board
Incumbent Sally Saddler and past board member Sean O’Brien are running for two open seats.
Saddler is also involved with the Downtown Juneau Rotary and Big Brothers Big Sisters. She wants to continuing working to get all “students to take responsibility for their education and build success after high school.”
Saddler said the district needs to create and sustain the best faculty as a means of supporting the needs of students.
O’Brien is a write-in candidate. He intended to run for school board next year, but no others filed along with Saddler before the deadline, so he’s running to fill an empty seat.
O’Brien served on the school board from 2005-2008, has three children who graduated from the district and two more going through it. O’Brien wants to improve academic and vocational success of students, invest in programs that lower the dropout rate and implement the district’s strategic plan.
Ballot Measures
• Voters are being asked to approve a measure that will allow the city to opt-out of state law regarding public official financial disclosures, administered by the Alaska Public Offices Commission. If approved, the city would enact its own ordinance requiring elected officials, and others who must file, to abide by APOC’s pre-2007 rules. The older rules, with few exceptions, are less invasive to the filers, but provide less information to voters as well.
• Extension of the temporary 3 percent sales tax is up. If approved, it would give the city funds for core government functions. It is split into single percentages, which accounts for about $8 million per percentage point. One percent is spent on emergency services and libraries and snow removal. One percent is spent on roads, drainage, stairs and other related capital improvement projects. One percent is allocated by the Assembly annually, on various capital improvement projects, youth activities and emergency budget reserve.
• The Juneau School District is asking for voters to approve $1.4 million in bonds for Auke Bay Elementary School to upgrade the planned heating system. Voters recently approved bond funds to renovate the school, and now the district wants to change to a more expensive heating system. The system is ground-source heat pumps, and costs more up-front, but is estimated to cost significantly less annually in heating and maintenance costs than traditional systems. This project is eligible for state reimbursement of 70 percent, with the citizens paying 30 percent. In return, the district will use revenues from past bonded projects to pay down debts.
• JSD also is asking voters to approve $1.2 million to replace the turf on the field at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park. The turf is past its useful life and can no longer be spot repaired. This project also qualifies for the 70/30 state reimbursement. The district also intends to use interest revenues from past school bonds to pay down debts.
• A citizen initiative also will appear on the ballot, asking voters to approve a 15-cent tax on non-reusable plastic bags provided by some retailers. The ordinance would impose a tax on customers at the point-of-sale per plastic bag used, but only at retailers that earn $15 million gross revenue or more per year. Seniors with a tax-exempt card would be exempt. Funds raised through the tax would go to the city general fund. This initiative was brought forth by the Turning the Tides group.
• Contact reporter Sarah Day at 523-2279 or at sarah.day@juneauempire.com.
Comments (27)
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Time to vote! I'm looking forward to seeing the results to some of these ballot measures.
Out of curiosity, wasn't the 3% sales tax extension designed to be a temporary tax? Does anyone know what it was initially for, what year it was voted in and how many times it has been extended?
Way too long ago and way too
Way too long ago and way too many times. I dont even remember what it was voted in for in the first place. It has since become "essential" funds. Voting no across the board.
education
Obviously kpawsuh doesn't have children in the district. If you have ever had a child in the district then you know that you are helping students and Juneau. Think really hard before you vote!
No, I homeschool my children
No, I homeschool my children because the district is so broken. Still voting no on all. The city is too used to us just handing them a fistful of cash and not expecting any accountability. They can throw money at all these worthless wants, but when it comes to needs the budget is too tight. But dont take away the "temporary" tax or all these essential services will be inpacted, we'll still build whale statues etc but you wont have a fire dept or police force. They have forgotten what their jobs are. Its time to remind them the only way they understand. Take away the money.
And you must have gone to
And you must have gone to school in Juneau. Everyone I have talked to has said that that school needs so much more than just a new heat source. It really needs to be replaced. Instead you advocate putting a brand new million dollar heat system in a school that will most likely be replaced in under five years.
Not sure:
I may be wrong but wasen't the tax for the new cop-shop?
How to avoid taxation...........
We all have to concede the fact that our local, state, and federal governments operate predominently on taxation of citizens. We have created a government and infrastructure that needs to be maintained (although perhaps not on the current level and expanse in scope). That said, in my opinion it is ill informed and ignorant to ask people at every election event to vote "no" on taxation. We need to operate in a fiscally responsible manner but we do need to operate. Asking for tax cuts or elimination creates immediate consequences for all parties involved. Scaling back or eliminating services is typically how that accommodation is made. Do we really want to entertain the possibility of scaling back on education when our nationwide graduation rate is so low? Do we really want to scale back on infrastructure funding such as road maintenance, building expansion or upgrades, or school maintenance? The CBJ local government does a very good job at funding and maintaining this city and keeping us relevant and in the forefront of Alaskan tourism and industry. Support those projects that make sense. Vote only when you are well informed and making decisions based on facts rather than inflammatory, ill informed rhetoric.
We surely need to replace the capricious and undisciplined politicians. We also need to examine the funding source of the services we benefit from daily before we ask for tax cuts or tax elimination. Its time to learn how government works and operates before we crimp off the money sources.
Am thankful to be able to vote
I am thankful for the opportunity I have to vote. Thank you America!
Milspec...
Thanks for responding to my question. If I remember correctly, that was one of the extensions. Talk about local contractors defrauding our city, let's not get into debating the new cop shop that came in at something crazy like over double budget.
Police Station
The Police Station in Lemon Creek was built with funds from a 1% temporary sales tax increase. When I was a kid, there was only a 4% sales tax in Juneau which made figuring out your sales tax before you got the candy/toy to the register really easy; for every quarter of goods it will cost you a penny in tax.
The additional 1% increase was supposed to be for special infrastructure and capital improvement projects, which raised our sales tax rate to 5%.
Certainly Jesse Kiehl over
Certainly Jesse Kiehl over Brad Fluetsch!
Loren Jones over Del Rosario or Carlton
and too bad a pied piper for mining labor camps is unopposed.
So?
I'm having a hard time voting yes to any tax after AEL&P and CBJ sewer/water went up. There is one project listed I believe deserves funding, I'll be voting the rest down.
If CBJ lost its sales tax, would they jack up our sewer/water again?
web page addresses
web page addresses
@ Wren
The very first thing CBJ would do is raise the mill rate for property owners to the maximum. After that, they would probably start firing people, which would have a serious multiplier effect on our local economy. Not approving the 3% tax would result in about a 28% reduction in our total tax revenues. If the City was lucky and could manage to keep 90% of its employees after a cut like that, it would still amount to about 65-70 people who would be out of work. There aren’t enough private sector jobs in this town to absorb those kinds of numbers. People would either have to go on unemployment/assistance or move, which is not only painful for those families, but for all of the businesses in town that rely on those customers.
I started asking around and, for what it is worth, the antidotal report from all of the old-timers I talked to is that the original 3% sales tax was only set as a temporary tax so that voters would vote for it. The idea that a 3% tax would be permanent didn't sit well with people. Paying extremely high property taxes also didn’t sit well, so a “temporary” sales tax was the compromise. From the very beginning people understood that the 3% temporary sales tax was intended to go into the general fund and support programs that aren’t at all temporary in nature, aka police/fire/roads.
For those of you interested, this is where our tax revenues currently come from:
Local Support:
Taxes:
Property $ 42,213,400
Sales $ 40,200,000
Alcohol $ 846,000
Tobacco Excise $ 1,465,000
Hotel $ 1,090,000
Total $ 85,814,400
RE: Auke Bay School
We already approved funding for renovations to Auke Bay (http://abes.juneauschools.org/announcement) and as it stated in the article above:
"Voters recently approved bond funds to renovate the school, and now the district wants to change to a more expensive heating system. The system is ground-source heat pumps, and costs more up-front, but is estimated to cost significantly less annually in heating and maintenance costs than traditional systems. This project is eligible for state reimbursement of 70 percent, with the citizens paying 30 percent. In return, the district will use revenues from past bonded projects to pay down debts."
This is a good use of funds, imo, and will save the district (and us taxpayers) in the long run.
daffy - thanks
....for the info.
BTW - you meant "anecdotal"
@ Swimmergirl
Indeed I did - but since I can't spell either on my own, that is the one I ended up with after auto-correct worked its magic :)
So the financial wizards with
So the financial wizards with CBJ should be fired. If it is a temporary tax, then you would be stupid to count on it for essential services.
No need. The FDA and ACA
No need. The FDA and ACA would never let a cure through anyway. There is no money in healthy people.
Temporary in name only
"Temporary in name only" it seems, was the point of the tax originally. If anyone should be "fired" my suggestion is the framers of the original ordinance for calling it a "temporary tax" to begin with, if that wasn't the intent - but that might be hard to do as I am pretty sure that none of those people are still with the City or on the Assembly.
I am really interested to see how the election in Ketchikan goes regarding the repeal of the Senior Sales Tax Exemption for alcohol and tobacco products. I was shocked to learn that Seniors in this town are also exempt from those taxes as well. I wouldn't mind seeing a repeal like that in Juneau as well!
no to tax
I don't think the city will cut any cops like fear monger grim reaper is saying. Maybe they will cut the guy sweeping the pine needles off the bike path to just once a week. The reason the tax always passes is because all the old farts ,tax-exempt, keep voting it in.
The "temporary" tax should be
The "temporary" tax should be - fool me once and you know the rest.
Don't you like how the politicians always threaten to go after the police and firemen and roads when there's worry that a tax increase won't be approved by the voters? Call their bluff and then fire the politician next chance you get.
"The city expects to be facing a $7 million deficit in the next two fiscal years."
So with your logic, daffy, how high should the proposed tax increase be next election?
It's more like, start cleaning up the budget deficit mess now, rather than kicking the can down the road for our kids. It's not all about us at this moment in history. Boo hoo for the bloated city public employee rolls. Sorry, but, that's one of the reasons why this country is in the trouble it's in. Too many at the government trough.
Ohhh, I hate that. While I"m getting the "perfect"(!!) post together, someone else says it better and then mine is redundant. Oh, well...
Semantics
It seems a bit silly to spend time talking about whether it's a temporary tax or a "temporary" tax. The fact is, we fund city services from sales tax receipts. Because we do, the thousands of visitors that come to Juneau help pay for the services they use while here (nice roads, police, EMTs, garbage pickup, water/sewer facilities, etc.). If we vote down the sales tax, they will contribute much less but still use the services.
I think the saying goes something like this "Don't cut off your nose just to spite your face."
I like
I like Spiff!