Juneau’s 10 biggest news stories of 2024

As an officer-involved shooting on Christmas Day indicates, determining the top 10 local news stories is very much a last-day ranking. But the shooting is also indicative of a common theme for this year’s list: almost all involve complex situations spanning a range of time and issues, rather than single self-contained incidents.

Most of the items have been discussed in past years and will be discussed in years to come, but those making this year’s list did so due to particular notable developments in 2024. Glacial outburst flooding — and it’s hardly a spoiler to say that tops the list — has occurred annually in Juneau since 2011 and caused then-record damage in 2023, but an even worse flood this year and the resulting dominant focus how to address to the danger in future years put the issue at the top of the agenda for most local leaders.

Similarly, the Christmas shooting was part of the larger situation involving people experiencing homelessness. A vote to limit cruise ships that attracted global attention was part of the ongoing debate about an industry that again saw a record number of visitors. Budget woes have haunted the Juneau School District and Bartlett Regional Hospital in past years, but they became particularly ominous and as a result saw drastic corrective actions this year.

This list is considerably different than the list of the 10 most-read stories at the Juneau Empire’s website also published on the last day of the year (to say nothing of the Empire’s 10 strangest stories of the year). While some people will doubtless argue that shows readers and the Empire’s newspaper have different ideas of what’s important, the fact that a reported sighting of the world’s oldest humpback whale was by far the most-read story also suggests what’s interesting to readers isn’t always what’s most newsworthy.

Also, as that story notes, some of the most important stories of the year — such as ongoing flood updates — were posted in full on the Empire’s Facebook page so they were accessible to non-subscribers who otherwise would be blocked by the paywall.

The primary considerations for this list were degree of impact and number of local people affected during the calendar year. That means the November election that returned Donald Trump to the White House, which may well result in news that ranks much higher on next year’s list, is at the bottom of this one because the impacts are almost entirely speculative for now.

Counting down to the top spot, the following are the top 10 stories covered by the Juneau Empire in 2024:

10. Uncertainty about tribal, other local issues as Trump wins White House, Democrats win Alaska Legislature

Mass immigration roundups and deportation camps aren’t likely to be seen in Juneau when Donald Trump returns to the White House in January. But plenty of local people and stakeholders are already preparing for anticipated changes, good or bad, after a November election that also saw Alaska defy a trend generally favoring Republicans by electing enough Democrats to the Alaska Legislature for them to regain control of the majority coalition.

It’s near-certain the Roadless Rule in the Tongass National Forest will again be repealed by Trump, paving the way for more mining and other industrial activity. Republican governor Mike Dunleavy has submitted a wish list to Trump that, among other things, would result in the federal government giving Mendenhall Lake to the state (which could have a major impact on protection measures for neighborhoods vulnerable to glacial outburst floods) and thwart local tribal efforts to gain more sovereignty rights. Some refugees in Juneau from unstable countries such as Haiti and Ukraine are worrying they’ll be forced to depart the U.S.

At the state level the dominant issues of discussion so far among the new leadership are more education funding (of primary importance to Juneau) and energy (less so, since the proposals mostly involve production and facilities further north).

9. Seafood industry struggles as other industries thrive — for now, as big population drop predicted

Tourism employees got 44% more in total wages while seafood industry workers got 26% less in 2023 compared to the year before, even though Southeast Alaska had its largest seafood harvest in a decade, according to a Rain Coast Data study released in September. Those large swings reflected the inconsistencies and uncertainties for a region that had an unremarkable 3% growth in jobs overall during the year.

While another record-high year for tourism had plenty of its own issues (as seen far down this list), all kinds of woes hit all kinds of fishers. The decline in wages during 2023 was due to a huge price drop attributed to “global drivers” such as a glut of salmon from overseas hatcheries. And whatever blessing might have been seen in the largest harvest last year didn’t continue this year, as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports the 101.2 million salmon harvested in 2024 is a 56% decrease from last year.

Furthermore, all of Southeast got an ominous warning in a state study published in early December declaring Southeast Alaska’s population is expected to drop 17% by 2050, by far the most statewide.

8. Eaglecrest Ski Area hit with leadership, financial and operational turmoil

Problems have been building up for years, so it wouldn’t be accurate to say the situation started with the unexpected forced ouster of longtime General Manager Dave Scanlan announced near the end of May. But that action certainly put a spotlight on the ski area’s leaders and operations that remains strong due to a backlog of maintenance issues including a mechanical problem that shut down one of the two lifts to the top of the mountain for the current ski season.

The financial situation at the city-owned resort is also grim as leaders pin their hopes on year-round summer operations based around a used gondola that is behind schedule and well over its original projected costs — and there’s something below 100% certainty the project will be completed within a couple of years as now planned.

An Empire story published Dec. 6 about an assessment by a former general manager (not Scanlan) summarized the findings as: “Eaglecrest Ski Area has poorly maintained facilities operated by an underpaid staff who are managed by mostly new leadership under the direction of board members lacking industry knowledge, according to an assessment by a former general manager of the resort hired as a consultant earlier this year.”

7. Government apologies for destruction of Alaska Native villages

These clearly are contenders for the top overall story of 2024 in the villages of Kake and Angoon, where the U.S. Navy offered formal apologies this fall for bombardments that destroyed those communities during the latter half of the 19th century.

The first on Sept. 21 in Kake was for an attack in January of 1869 where soldiers bombarded and burned the village mostly to the ground, leaving residents there without food or shelter. While the number of people who died as a result isn’t officially known, historians say a large number of children and elders were among their ranks. The second on Oct. 26 in Angoon was for an 1882 bombardment that destroyed the village and killed six children.

Also occurring during the week of that apology was Juneau’s municipal government apologizing for the burning of the Douglas Indian Village in 1962 by officials seeking to build a new harbor. President Joe Biden during the week also singled out the childhood suffering of Sealaska Heritage Institute President Rosita Worl in an apology for the U.S. abuse of Native children placed in residential boarding schools. Yet another apology is expected on Jan. 11, 2025, when the U.S. Army apologies for its 1869 bombardment of Wrangell.

6. Coast Guard icebreaker confirmed for Juneau

It’s been promised to Juneau the past couple of years and likely won’t arrive until 2026 or so, but this year’s announcement the U.S. Coast Guard will homeport a newly purchased commercial icebreaker in Alaska’s capital city is giving local officials something to be optimistic about amidst the area’s long-term population decline.

About 190 personnel and 400 of their family members are expected to move to town when the ship is fully reequipped for duty, and the big question officials are trying to determine is what facilities and services are needed as a result. One answer about the ship that came late in the year is the ship christened as the Aiviq when it was built in 2012 will be given the historic name “Storis.” The name originally belonged to a light icebreaker nicknamed “The Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast” in service from 1942 to 2007 — including being stationed in Juneau from 1948 to 1957 — making it the oldest vessel in the Coast Guard’s fleet when it was decommissioned.

5. Bartlett Regional Hospital’s financial crisis results in program and staff cuts

The city-owned hospital has gone through a brutally rough few years with frequent changes in top leadership, accusations of patient mistreatment due at least partly to a shortage of qualified staff and financial losses that as of earlier this year were averaging $1 million a month dating back to summer of 2020. Meanwhile there’s rampant speculation about the expansion and ambitions of the Alaska Native-operated Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC), with the word “competition” being increasingly and openly used by Bartlett officials.

Hospital management, under interim CEO Ian Worden until he departed in September, came up with a budget-balancing plan that reduced or eliminated several programs — including residential substance abuse treatment at Rainforest Recovery Center and a recently launched crisis stabilization program for adolescents. Staffing at the hospital also dropped 12% between last December and November of this year.

But while the cuts were criticized by many and only limited replacement services took their place, the bottom line is the hospital’s board in December reported six straight months of profitable operations beginning with a turnaround in May. Bartlett also hired as its new permanent CEO Joe Wanner, who has several previous years working as a financial manager at the hospital.

4. Homeless crisis disperses through Juneau, with two people killed in officer-involved shootings

The optimistic assessment, expressed by a few local officials, was it was a bad situation that could have been even worse without some of the policy decisions made during the year.

People experiencing homelessness spent the first part of the year at a cold-weather shelter besieged with problems during its first year of operation that prompted a slew of complaints from surrounding businesses. When the shelter closed for the season in April the occupants were turned out onto the streets under a “dispersed camping” policy the Assembly approved as a preferred alternative to a designated campground where illegal activity was rampant during the previous summer. The result was tent clusters in various locations, along with complaints from businesses and residents nearby.

One person largely unaffected by the developments was Steven Kissack, 35, an unhoused Juneau resident for the past several years who continued living mostly in doorways along downtown streets with his husky/malamute companion Juno. On July 15, Kissack was fatally shot in a confrontation with officers that began when he was questioned about an assault the previous day and ended when he ran in the direction of one of the officers while wielding a knife. An investigation found the officers’ use of deadly force was justified, but Kissack’s death touched off weeks of demonstrations and other events protesting the circumstances that allowed him to be in the situation where the shooting occurred.

Another fatal officer-involved shooting of an unhoused person occurred at about 5:30 a.m. Christmas morning when Ashley Rae Johnston, 30, threatened a person at the Mendenhall Valley Breeze In with a hammer and then approached police while carrying a hatchet. Her mother, in an interview with the Empire the following day, noted Johnston was separated from both of her parents by the age of 2 and had been living on the streets much of her life since the age of 12.

3. Local voters reject Ship-Free Saturday during another record cruise ship season

This would be higher on the list if the ballot measure had passed, or a couple spots lower if not for a startling announcement shortly after the vote was finalized that may drastically reshape future downtown cruise tourism.

More than 60% of voters in the Oct 1 municipal election rejected a proposed ban on cruise ships with capacity for 250 or more passengers on Saturdays and the Fourth of July. That suggests a status quo that saw a record 1.68 million passengers visit Juneau this year will continue at least for the immediate future, with efforts to reduce that number (and/or impacts of the passengers) coming from the city’s efforts to reach voluntary agreements with the industry, such as a five-ship daily limit in effect this year and a daily passenger limit set to take effect in 2026.

The campaign got global headlines that in some instances suggested a prevailing attitude in Juneau favoring strict limits. An aggressive effort to counter such impressions as well as the ballot measure was made by the cruise industry and local businesses that outspent those favoring Ship-Free Saturday by roughly 1,000 to 1.

But just as it seemed the waves of controversy were calming, a huge splash was made by Royal Caribbean Group and Goldbelt Inc. announcing plans for a two-ship private cruise port on Goldbelt land on west Douglas Island by as early as 2027. Angry city leaders said they were blindsided by the October announcement, which could have enormous and unknown impacts (either by taking two of the five permitted daily ships far from downtown, or using the new dock to exceed that limit, for instance).

2. Juneau School District’s historic financial crisis results in consolidation

It was a collective gut punch that left school officials seemingly unable to inhale any life-sustaining air: being told in January of a nearly $10 million deficit needing to be fixed by June even though more than half of its $77 million budget had been spent. In oversimplied math, that would mean slashing a quarter of the budget for the rest of the year starting that night, which everyone in the room agreed was impossible. Furthermore, they were told, similar deficits were ahead without drastic changes.

The result was weeks of tumultuous meetings sometimes lasting well past midnight as the school board and district administrators made a series of short-term cuts, begged the city for millions of dollars in emergency assistance and — most controversially — approved a consolidation plan resulting in one high school and one middle school instead of two of each starting with the current school year. The city took over two former school buildings and the district’s former administrative building, as well as millions of dollars in maintenance costs for facilities used by both the district and municipality.

Anger among some residents about the restructuring resulted in a recall effort of the top two members of the school board that was unsuccessful. More hard feelings ensued when the school year began with complaints about student transportation and parking struggles, large class sizes and a high number of student fights.

But, much like Bartlett Regional Hospital above, the months of drastic actions and harsh feelings allowed school district officials to declare a positive ending to the situation. The final independent third-party audit for the 2024 fiscal year presented to the school board in November was the first in several years that didn’t have a balance sheet in the red and officials are entering the budget cycle for the coming year without the ominous deficit cloud hovering above at this time a year ago.

1. Record flooding from Suicide Basin, again

Traumatic as last year’s record flood was, this year’s even-worse sequel has created a situation that is going to dominate the agenda and spending priorities of local leaders for years to come. The presumption of people in the Mendenhall Valley has shifted from the possibility dozens or hundreds of homes near the Mendenhall River might flood next summer to the expectation it will happen — and the number of residences affected could be in the thousands if the waters rise a foot or two higher than this year.

Nearly 300 homes were damaged by the flooding that peaked Aug. 6 at 15.99 feet, up from the three dozen or so homes affected by waters cresting about a foot lower in August of 2023. This year’s flood exceeded the worst-case prediction of experts, resulting in many residents being caught off-guard in flooded houses in the wee hours of the morning, trying to swim to safety in their sleepwear as they saw pets and possessions being swept away.

A federal disaster declaration is providing some help to residents, although less than the full amount they might be eligible for due to ongoing budget fights in Congress and a huge number of other natural disasters nationwide — many of which experts say are being caused by climate change, including Juneau’s glacial outburst floods. But the latter months of 2024 were dominated by discussions about what assistance and efforts are needed to prepare for floods next summer and beyond.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the initial stages of a long-term project to evaluate and potentially implement a solution, with options ranging from a drainage tunnel through a mountain to blasting the area around Suicide Basin so it fills up with rocks. But any such solution could be a decade or more away, prompting the Corps to recommend a shorter-term solution of placing military-grade Hesco barriers along the Mendenhall River to form a semipermanent levee.

But while the Corps is willing to supply the barriers, the city would be responsible for the cost of installing and maintaining them during the coming years. As such the Assembly is considering establishing a Local Improvement District where owners of 466 properties considered at risk of flooding would have to pay about $6,300 for the barriers. Not surprisingly, some residents are objecting — both because of the cost and because some are worried about the intrusive effect the forced installation of barriers will have on their properties.

City and federal officials have stated there are no other practical and effective remedies capable of being implemented by next summer. A decision is now to a large extent up to the residents who have until early February to formally protest inclusion in the district. If enough do so it’s unlikely the Assembly will approve the measure.

Regardless of what happens with the Hesco barriers, the impacts of this year’s flooding are already being felt heavily by people and organizations throughout Juneau, due in large part to being told by local leaders not to expect extra help with financial needs or other special requests since the city is going to focus all the money and attention it can on preventing future floods that are causing catastrophic sums of damage. Virtually every candidate in the October municipal election named the flood situation as their top issue facing Juneau and that same judgment is made on these pages as the clock runs out on 2024.

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.