Ship-Free Saturday is losing decisively, Mayor Beth Weldon has a solid lead in her bid for a third term, Neil Steininger and Maureen Hall are leading in the two Assembly races, and all incumbents on the Juneau Board of Education are holding onto their seats so far, according to early unofficial results from Juneau’s municipal election.
Two municipal bond measures totaling nearly $23 million also show strong margins in their favor.
The 6,525 ballots tallied as of about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday night represent 23.21% of those sent to voters, and includes only those mailed or dropped off before Election Day. Official results are scheduled for release Oct. 15, but can be postponed up to three days on a day-to-day basis if necessary, according to the municipal clerk’s office.
Initial results released during last year’s municipal election represented 18.72% of registered voters. The official final voter turnout was 33.98%. None of the results for candidates and the lone ballot measure changed significantly between the initial and final vote.
Ship-Free Saturday losing 60%-40%
The highest-profile item on the ballot, attracting international media coverage, is Ballot Proposition 2, which would ban cruise ships with room for 250 or more passengers on Saturdays and the Fourth of July in Juneau. It was being defeated with 2,586 votes in favor and 3,873 against in the first batch of results released Tuesday night.
Opponents of the measure, led by cruise and other tourism entities, waged an expensive campaign, with $750,00o in total expenditures reported as of a week before election day. Supporters of the measure, meanwhile, reported raising $380.
While spending against the measure was significant, “I think at the end of the day people are going to vote with their hearts,” said Portland Sarantopoulos, campaign manager for the opposition group Protect Juneau’s Future, in an interview after the first results were released.
“People are going to vote with what is going to impact them, and their families, and their neighbors in the most positive way,” she said. “So regardless of what was spent, regardless of what was sent out, regardless of anything, people are going to vote with what makes the most sense for them and their neighbors.”
In addition to emphasizing the economic impacts of cruise tourism in Juneau, an emphasis was also placed on voluntary agreements the industry has reached with the city such as a five-ship per day limit starting this year and a daily passenger limit starting in 2026.
“It’s clear that Juneau voters are really trying to give the current plans to manage tourism and manage the growth of tourism a chance,” Sarantopoulos said.
But Karla Hart, one of the lead advocates behind the petition drive that put the question on the ballot, said the lopsided money fight clearly influenced the results seen so far.
“I think that there was an extremely fear-based campaign — if you vote ‘yes’ you’re going to destroy the community, you’re going to put people out of work, you’re going to have to pay more on your property taxes, you’re going to give up public services,” she said. “But there’s no real knowledge that that is what would happen, or how it would play out. But they had the money to create that narrative.”
Hart said both the money spent by opponents as well as the widespread attention the ballot proposition received shows the concerns raised by Ship-Free Saturday supporters still need to be taken seriously.
“We’ve demonstrated that the industry knows that there’s a really serious problem by how hard they worked to defeat this measure,” she said.”If indeed, as they had been saying for a lot of the time, that it was only a few disgruntled people in the community then they would have had absolutely no reason to wage this massive campaign…Hopefully this will lead to the city leadership taking steps to understand better the community issues, to acknowledge those issues and to address them.”
Mayor and Assembly races
Weldon had a nearly similar lead as the ballot proposition with 3,795 votes compared to 2,512 for challenger Angella Rodell. Steininger had an even larger lead over Connor Ulmer for the District 1 Assembly seat with 3,561 and 1,940 votes, respectively. Hall, who led all Assembly candidates in fundraising a week before the election, was ahead of four other District 2 Assembly candidates with 2,172 votes, followed by Nathaniel (Nano) Brooks with 1,770 and Emily Mesch with 781.
Juneau Board of Education
Incumbents Amber Frommherz (2,586 votes), Will Muldoon (3,171) and Elizabeth Siddon (3,526) were well ahead of three challengers, with the closest being Jenny Thomas with 1,875.
Thomas was also a lead petitioner for recall efforts against school board president Deedie Sorensen and vice president Emil Mackey. The vote to recall Sorensen was failing 2,062-4,091 and to recall Mackey 2,175-3,982.
The initial results favoring incumbents came as a shock based on her discussions with people during the campaign, Thomas said in an interview Wednesday morning.
“Everybody wanted change and accountability, even the people that didn’t want the recall,” she said. “But yet nothing changed.”
Thomas launched her campaign and the recall efforts due to the district’s budget crisis revealed in January that led to the consolidation of schools that resulted in Juneau having one high school and one middle school apiece instead of two. The process was highly controversial and some significant problems have been reported during the first part of the school year, but many students and educators have said they understand the need for and are adapting to the changes due to the district’s shortfall of funds and long-term decline in enrollment.
“I’m ecstatic with the vote and very pleased that the early voters of Juneau rejected by extremely large margins a false narrative that we did not understand or properly react to the largest budgetary crisis that the school district ever faced,” Mackey said Wednesday morning.
Long-term planning under the new realities the district is facing needs to remain the school board’s main focus as it resumes meeting following the election, Mackey said.
“We need to determine what kind of a district this community wants because we can’t be everything to everybody,” he said. “Do we want every kid to be college and career-ready? I do, but does the rest of the community? Do we want to shuffle around grades again, not next year, but sometime in the future, in order to focus more on community schools? Or do we want to really shift schools to be more academically focused where you can choose a school to go to based upon its academic specialty, rather than it just being a neighborhood school?”
Thomas, when asked if the vote means there isn’t as much dissatisfaction with the decision-making process of school district leaders as she thought, said the question in her head right now is “what am I missing?”
“I haven’t heard any answers to any just simple question,” she said. “So I guess I’m just confused. I probably would be able to swallow everything a little bit better if I had facts that said ‘this is why we did this.’”
She said she plans to remain involved in local education issues, but likely directly through schools with efforts such as organizing parents to volunteer rather than trying to affect policy through the board process or running for office again.
Municipal bonds for public safety and wastewater projects
A $12.7 million bond to upgrade emergency communications equipment for police/firefighters was favored in initial voting 3,858-2,554, and a $10 million bond for wastewater treatment upgrades ahead 4,281-2,083.
Turnout highest in Lynn Canal, lowest in Lemon Creek
Following a pattern seen in the August statewide primary, initial results show widely varying turnout in Juneau’s 13 precincts. Lynn Canal has the highest so far with 41.09% (581 ballots cast among 1,4,14 registered voters), while Lemon Creek had the lowest at 12.64% (313 of 2,476 registered voters). Those numbers will increase as more ballots are received and tallied during the next two weeks.
Among other precincts, initial turnout in Auke Bay was 32.09%, Juneau No. 3 29.63%, North Douglas 28.73%, Juneau No. 2 28.13%, Juneau No. 1 24.03%, Mendenhall Glacier 22.75%, Douglas 22.71%, Melvin Park 21.3%, Thunder Mountain 19.6%, Juneau Airport Area 17.1% and Glacier Valley Area 15.69%.
There were no questioned ballots on the initial listed totals.
While Juneau’s 28,113 total registered voters seems at odds with its adult population of about 25,600 (according to 2022 census figures), Alaska’s voter registration process — including automatically offering the option to all people receiving driver’s licenses and PFDs, and a removal process that can take years after somebody moves away — means the state has a voter registration rate above 100%.
Updated counts scheduled next two Fridays, final certification Oct. 15
The next set of unofficial preliminary results is scheduled to be published by the municipal clerk’s office on Friday, according to a statement released Tuesday night. Another update will be published a week later on Friday, Oct. 11.
Updated counts will include ballots cast on Election Day, as well as mailed ballots postmarked by Oct. 1.
“Part of the review process includes sending out cure letters to voters to ensure any missing information or signature remedies are addressed so those ballots can be approved for counting,” the statement from the clerk’s office notes. “Voters are encouraged to watch their mail and respond as soon as they receive a cure letter to make sure their ballot can be counted.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
