Juneau is not the same place it was when former city manager Kim Kiefer began working for the city 32 years ago. It still looks more or less the same. But during the past three decades Kiefer has observed a “night and day” shift for the better in the city’s attitude toward the LGBTQ community, of which she is a member.
“I think the community has come a long way,” she said. “For me to be able to introduce my wife and say, ‘This is the person who has supported me through 21 years of my 32 years with the city,’ I think that’s huge.”
Kiefer doesn’t take credit for this change or even many of the smaller victories more easily attributable to her. But for many people in the LGBTQ community, Kiefer’s efforts to make Juneau a more hospitable place for all of its residents — gay, straight, abled, disabled, no matter what — are inspirational.
That’s why the Southeast Alaska LGBTQ+ Alliance, known by the slightly different acronym SEAGLA, made Kiefer the first recipient of the Mildred Boesser Equal Rights Award.
The award honors the life and achievements of Mildred Boesser, a Juneau resident and ally who fought for gay rights and marriage equality for decades. She died a year ago at age 90.
“We wanted to remember some of the really hard work that’s gone into getting Pride to where it is today — where we can simply get together and have fun, and Mildred and Kim were a big part of that change,” James Hoagland, chair of Juneau Pride, told the Empire. Hoagland helped create the award and selected Kiefer as its first recipient.
Throughout her entire career in city government, which ended when she retired from her post as city manager in April, Kiefer was open about her sexual orientation.
“I just lived my life,” she said. “It wasn’t a proclamation. When I first started with the city, people knew, but I’m somebody who is more passive with how I go about things.”
But Kiefer wasn’t passive when it came to fighting for equal treatment for city employees. She was instrumental in shaping the city’s domestic partner benefits program, which the Assembly passed in 2003.
Thanks to the work of Kiefer and a small team of cohorts, Juneau became the first city in the state to provide health insurance benefits for same-sex couples. And when the state followed suit two years later, it lifted the language Kiefer had helped draft to codify the change, she said.
Kiefer wasn’t in town on Saturday to accept the award, which SEAGLA presented at the opening celebration for Juneau Pride in Northern Lights Church. She’s currently on vacation.
When Juneau resident Lin Davis, an out lesbian and gay-rights activist, accepted the award on Kiefer’s behalf, she said that Kiefer’s work on the domestic partnership benefits program “opened the gates for LGBT human rights across Alaska.”
“Having Juneau be the first city to award same-sex domestic partner benefits was huge,” she told the Empire in a phone interview Tuesday.
Huge though it was, it wasn’t easy. Kiefer said that the Assembly meetings pertaining to domestic partner benefits were some of the more difficult she had to endure.
“Those discussions were very painful and very hard,” she said.
Not everybody welcomed that change, like many others in the ongoing battle for LGBTQ equality. Some city employees launched a petition against the change, calling it immoral and a drain on taxpayers. Other city employees launched a counter petition, supporting then-city manager Rod Swope’s decision to extend benefits to domestic partners.
Kiefer said she was never “pushing an agenda.” She was just doing what she thought was right for everybody — a priority that guided her actions regardless of whether the LGBTQ community was involved.
During her time with the city, she also worked to bring Juneau into compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements wherever she was able. She even worked on several ADA compliance projects with Mildred Boesser’s daughter, Sara.
“For me, I look at the LGBT work like the ADA work I did with the city,” Kiefer said. “Everybody deserves the right to have equal opportunities in life.”
When Davis first moved to Juneau with her partner (and now wife) Maureen Longworth 23 years ago, she said she was disheartened to learn that the city didn’t have a pride parade. She was even more dismayed to learn that many members of the LGBTQ community were afraid even to walk in the July 4 parade.
Like Kiefer, however, she has noticed a hopeful turn for the better. This year’s Juneau Pride, she said, is a testament to a “new upwelling of support” for honoring people for who they are.
“It’s just a love sonnet, in a way, to see how much things have changed since we first got here, and Kim has been a big part of that,” she said.
Though her time with city government is over, Kiefer said that her job making the city a better place is still far from finished.
“There’s still a lot to be done in the community whether its LGBT or First Nations or whatever,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work that we have to do in accepting and supporting each other.”
• Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or at sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.
