Leaders in mayoral, Assembly races cautiously ponder issues ahead as more ballots tallied

Mayor Beth Weldon appears well-positioned to serve a third term and Neil Steininger even more likely to become a newly elected member of the Juneau Assembly. But the five-candidate race for the other Assembly seat is close enough Maureen Hall is merely “cautiously optimistic” about her lead, while Nathaniel (Nano) Brooks isn’t giving up hope yet as her closest challenger.

Weldon is leading challenger Angela Rodell by about a 60%-40% margin (3,795 votes to 2,512) in the first batch of ballots released Tuesday night, representing 6,525 of 28,113 registered voters. Steininger is leading Connor Ulmer by 64.7%-35.3% (3,561 votes to 1,940) in the District 1 Assembly race.

Hall is leading the five-candidate District 2 Assembly race at 37.3% (2,172 votes), followed by Brooks at 30.3% (1,770), Emily Mesch at 13.4% (781), Dorene Lorenz at 10.8% (628) and Mary Marks at 8.2% (476).

Additional ballots — including those cast in-person on Tuesday’s Election Day and arriving by mail if postmarked by that date — will be tallied and updated results released this Friday and next Friday before final certification which is scheduled Oct. 15.

Although Weldon was the only incumbent on the ballot in the mayoral and Assembly races, the initial vote tally shows residents supporting a continuation of the status quo. All three incumbents on the Juneau Board of Education were decisively ahead in an open race for three seats against three challengers, recall petitions for the top two school board members are failing by a significant margin, and a ballot proposition to ban large cruise ships on Saturdays and the Fourth of July is losing by about a 60%-40% margin.

Mayor

Weldon, in an interview Wednesday, said she’s estimating a few thousand ballots remain to be tallied and as such isn’t quite yet feeling secure about serving a third term — although the outlook should be far more certain when the next updated count Friday is released.

“I would guess almost all the races are still preliminary, mine included,” she said. “I would guess Neil Steininger can probably be OK, but especially District 2 there still could be some change up there, and perhaps mine and perhaps on the vote on Ship-Free Saturday.”

Most of the initial results aren’t surprising, although Weldon said she was hoping the vote against Ship-Free Saturday would be more decisive.

“The ones that really surprised me and pleasantly surprised me were the recalls,” she said. “I think people understand that’s not a way to do business.”

Rodell ran for mayor in her first attempt at public office after serving in leadership roles including CEO of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp and commissioner of the Alaska Department of Revenue. She raised significantly more money than Weldon, had backing from local conservative leaders, and said Wednesday she’s disappointed by the initial returns in her race.

“I’d like to think it’s not over — and technically it’s not over — but it feels like a pretty steep hill to overcome,” she said.

Many of Rodell’s backers also opposed the Ship-Free Saturday proposition and she said following some of their strategies — notably a stronger social media presence — might have helped her campaign strategically. But she said she felt the substantive aspect of her campaign was strong.

“We ran a campaign focused on issues that we were hearing about: affordability; economic development; creating a community for the future, for kids, for young families; ensuring our health and safety,” she said. “And so I’m really proud of raising those issues. And I hope that the city and that the mayor takes note of these issues, and that they don’t continue to work as they always have, and that we see a lot more accountability and transparency going forward.”

The biggest impression Weldon said she has from this year’s election is “we just need to figure out how to let people know what’s going on.”

“It’s been really frustrating during this flood — people want us to be out in the public more, but it takes a while to have information,” she said, citing the threat to homes posed by record glacial outbursts from Suicide Basin. “I don’t know how many times they want us to show up and say we don’t know anything new, but maybe they want us to hear that. And then the other thing is, we just need to figure out how to educate people on property taxes. People still think we have a lot to do with assessments and we don’t have anything to do with assessments, but you know people get their news from different sources and not all the sources are factual.”

Assembly District 1

Steininger, a financial expert who was Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget director until being fired in the spring of 2023 due to policy differences, will take over the Assembly seat being vacated by Barbara ‘Wáahlaal Gíidaak Blake if his lead in the initial vote tally stands.

One of the biggest takes from the initial results, Steininger said Wednesday, is that while the apparent rejection of the Ship-Free Saturday proposition is encouraging, the issues that caused the intense debate about it need addressing.

“I think there’s definitely work once I get on the Assembly to make sure that we work towards the spirit of what the people that were sponsoring that ballot measure wanted, and that’s responsible management of the industry,” he said. “And I think that’ll come with having the Assembly work directly with the partners in tourism to make sure that we have a livable balance between tourism and living here in Juneau.”

Also encouraging is the rejection of the school board recall petitions in early results, which ”I think really show that Juneauites have an understanding of the hard work that government does,” Steininger said.

Among other issues Steininger said should be early priorities if he’s on the Assembly during the coming months is “finding ways to attract new people to move to Juneau.”

“That really encompasses so many different things that impact the city,” he said. “Whether it’s the cost of housing, whether it’s dealing with the unhoused population in town and providing places for them to go, whether it’s working with the industries that work here in town to make sure we have balance, whether it’s looking at how we’re actually collecting taxes from people.”

Steininger said one of the surprises of the campaign was the diversity of community groups that play a role in municipal matters.

“I don’t think I had my eyes quite as open to how many of these groups there are to go get input from, and through the process learning about who’s got these groups organized and what they represent,” he said. “I think that is going to be a great resource as I sit on the Assembly when an issue comes forward, knowing that there are these organized groups out there to help understand the issues.”

Assembly District 2

The winner of the District 2 race will fill the seat being vacated by Michelle Bonnet Hale, who is also serving as deputy mayor until her term ends. Hall said Wednesday she’s keeping to a regular schedule as she waits for more results — including visiting family in Haines and attending a Southeast Regional Eldercare conference in Juneau as part of her nonprofit work — but also will be mindful of how some of those activities may be applicable to her work as an Assembly member.

“I definitely see the workforce issues as being pretty prominent,” she said. “We’ve got an aging population and not the workers coming in to replace those retiring. So I see that. When I started out (the campaign) it was stability for the healthcare system and the education system, which is still right up there. But now we’ve got the flood and also workforce shortages all over town, including in our construction industry, and all the people needing their homes repaired after the flood.”

Also, the Ship-Free Saturday vote “opens up the conversation on balance needed with the tourism industry and how we can support initiatives that keep our tourism industry thriving, but also try to be very aware of the impacts on the locals and work to mitigate those impacts,” Hall said.

Brooks finds himself in a similar situation as his first Assembly campaign last year when he trailed Ella Adkison by about 200 votes in the initial tally for the second of two open areawide seats, but narrowed the gap to about 115 votes in the final tally. This year’s initial gap is about 400 votes, but Brooks said he’s undeterred about his future plans regardless of the final tally.

“Regardless of the outcome I’ve got Plan A through Z to help the community and the people here, and only one of those plans requires that I be on the Assembly,” he said Wednesday.

Brooks, an entrepreneur with several businesses in Juneau, said his other plans include projects such as affordable housing with other private partners “and getting some of my renewable energy tidal generators into production so I can propose it as supplemental energy for the dock electrification that should be going on around the community as well.”

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