A petition banning large cruise ships in Juneau on Saturdays and the Fourth of July has enough signatures to be on the Oct. 1 municipal election ballot unless the Juneau Assembly enacts a substantially similar measure by Aug. 15, the City and Borough of Juneau’s municipal clerk’s office announced Monday.
Supporters of the “Ship-Free Saturday” initiative met the 2,359-signature requirement to put the question on the ballot, Municipal Clerk Beth McEwen wrote in a letter to lead petitioner Karla Hart dated Monday. The certification of signatures was presented to the Juneau Assembly on Monday night, where City Manager Katie Koester she hopes to post an FAQ “intended to provide the public with neutral and factual information” at the CBJ website by the end of the week.
A memo by Juneau City Manager Katie Koester lists possible items to include in a city-published FAQ about a ballot initiative banning large cruise ships on Saturday and the Fourth of July. (City and Borough of Juneau)
Still pending are two other petitions for the fall ballot, seeking to recall Juneau Board of Education President Deedie Sorensen and Vice President Emil Mackey. Supporters of those petitions turned in their signature books late Monday afternoon — a second 10-day effort after their initial 60-day collection period came up short — and the municipal clerk’s office will have 10 days to determine if there are enough valid signatures.
The wording of the “Ship-Free Saturday” initiative states “No cruise ship with a capacity of 250 passengers or more shall be allowed to dock, moor, or disembark passengers within the City and Borough of Juneau boundaries on any Saturday or July 4.”
While extensive — and possibly expensive — opposition to the measure is expected from cruise industry and many local business leaders, Hart said Monday she believes gathering enough signatures was the challenging part compared to getting a majority of people voting in the election to vote in favor.
“Every person in Juneau is an expert on their story of how they are impacted by the cruise industry,” she said. So regardless of the campaign spending by opponents “if I can’t enjoy my home in my community for whatever number of reasons people are impacted by the cruise industry it’s not really going to offset that.”
A similar effort failed in 2021 that involved three measures imposing restrictions, but Hart said that campaign was impaired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, she said, the ship-free Saturdays proposal was the most popular of those measures during the signature-gathering process.
Opposing the measure is the group Protect Juneau’s Future, whose co-chairs are McHugh Pierre, president and CEO of Goldbelt Inc., and Craig Jennison, vice president of tours and marketing for Temsco Helicopters. In an opinion column published by the Empire on May 9, they argued “in 2023 alone the cruise industry contributed a whopping $375 million in direct spending to Juneau’s economy.”
“This spending supported not only those directly employed by the cruise lines, but also numerous other jobs in local businesses that benefit from visitor spending, like tours and retail shops,” they wrote.
In a statement issued Monday, the group expressed disappointment about the measure qualifying for the ballot.
“We are aware the measure has been certified and while we had hoped for a different outcome, we are confident that once voters are armed with good information, they will choose to vote no,” the statement notes. “We look forward to a fact-based campaign that lets voters make an informed decision about how this measure will hurt the local economy and reduce city revenues.”
Protect Juneau’s Future was also the group opposing the 2021 initiatives. A list of contributors provided by the group to KTOO included Goldbelt, Sealaska Corp., the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska, and nearly 30 other businesses and organizations.
Cruise industry and local business leaders have emphasized that, in addition to the economic losses to residents and the city’s coffers the ban on this year’s ballot measure would cause, ongoing efforts to reduce the impacts of mass cruise tourism are already being implemented. Those involve voluntary agreements for five ships per day that took effect this year and a daily limit on passengers set to take effect in 2026 — although it’s uncertain if those could be affected if the Saturday cruise ship ban takes effect.
Hart said the Ship-Free Saturday group is planning on “a campaign that doesn’t rely on spending a lot of money, or even much money at all.”
“If it’s going to be a battle of who can spend the most we’ve lost already,” she said.
The Saturday ban could also face legal challenges if it passes, similar to a U.S. District Court case involving a 2022 referendum passed in Bar Harbor, Maine, that prevents more than 1,000 cruise ship passengers a day from disembarking. A federal judge ruled in February the ordinance is valid, but business owners in the area are appealing on the grounds the ban is unconstitutional.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to interstate travel, which led local officials to conclude an ordinance putting a cap on the daily number of cruise ship passengers would be legally problematic, resulting in the subsequent voluntary agreement.
Some residents in Sitka are also trying to put a measure on that town’s ballot that would establish a daily limit of 4,500 passengers and an annual limit of 300,000. That proposal is currently under legal review.
Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon, when asked if the Assembly is likely to consider passing a “substantially similar” measure by Aug. 15, replied in a text message “I would hope not.” No Assembly members raised the possibility during Monday night’s meeting.
Hart said she would prefer the issue be decided by voters, since an Assembly ordinance could contain provisions limiting its effectiveness such as a delayed enactment date.
A memo presented to Juneau Assembly members Monday by Koester states possible FAQ items will include economic impacts to CBJ and the community, details about negotiated agreements with the industry and how they might be affected by the ban, and legal issues that might arise. She noted CBJ published a similar FAQ for a ballot measure in 2022, which passed by a 53%-47% vote, repealing an ordinance requiring the prices of property sales to be disclosed publicly.
The previous FAQ, as well as a $50,000 advocacy campaign approved by the Assembly last year for a bond measure funding a new City Hall, provoked criticism from some residents and stakeholders in the two ballot measures. Koester said providing neutral information on the cruise ship initiative can be done free of charge, while advocating for or against the measure would require an Assembly appropriation that would have to be reported to the Alaska Public Offices Commission.
Assembly member Christine Woll expressed concern about the preliminary wording of the 12 items on the FAQ memo presented by Koester, saying she hoped to talk to staff working on the list before it is published.
“Looking through these questions I definitely think some of them you can be objective on and then there are a few in here that I think would be hard to answer objectively, even if you try your hardest,” she said. “People are going to take issue with how you would characterize these.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
