By JOE GELDHOF
The decision by President Joe Biden to remove himself from the current presidential election was momentous.
Biden’s decsion to withdraw from the current presidential race has an analog in Juneau.
Juneau also needs new leadership at the top of the ticket.
For too long, Juneau has wobbled along politically, spending funds freely and not really taking are of obvious issues that need attention.
Juneau needs new political leadership. The sooner the better.
This October, voters in Juneau will decide who will be our mayor and elect two members to the Assembly. Juneau needs leaders committed to fiscal responsibility. Whether Juneau gets leaders committed to spending public funds wisely is the big issue this election cycle.
For far too long, Juneau has borrowed and spent public funds unsustainably.
The local Assembly sometimes avoids spending on critical needs yet pursues activities outside the core functions of local government.
The current Assembly has failed, in various ways, to seriously increase housing. Juneau’s streets and public areas, both downtown and in the Mendenhall Valley, have increasing numbers of individuals with afflictions who routinely engage in belligerent and socially unacceptable conduct. Is Juneau better off than Anchorage in this regard. Probably, but is that standard to apply?
The situation with the increasing numbers of unhoused individuals in Juneau who present a danger to themselves, and the public is obvious. Significantly, this concern has not been satisfactorily addressed by the Assembly.
Juneau’s Assembly has also failed to address obvious issues related to large-scale cruise tourism. The result is an ill-conceived initiative that would harm Juneau’s economic well-being and likely result in litigation based on constitutional provisions.
As someone who has drafted and worked on enactment of local and state-wide initiatives in the past, make no mistake about what drives citizens to go through the hard work that the initiative process requires. At bottom of almost every initiative is a failure by elected officials to address legitimate concerns on the part of the electorate.
Juneau’s population is flat, and our school enrollment is shrinking.
Juneau property assessments have been needlessly inflated based on dubious methodology that radically escalated taxation in a way that deviated from actual property values.
All of which calls into question not only the local Assembly but the leadership of Juneau’s current mayor.
Beth Weldon has had six years as the Mayor of Juneau to demonstrate she is up to the job. She’s failed.
Under Weldon’s tenure, as Mayor she attempted to ram through a new City Hall that was twice rejected by the voters.
Mayor Weldon is part of a process where some staff are selected based on connections instead of competence.
Weldon and the Assembly have not made meaningful progress addressing seemingly mundane but important issues like where Juneau will dump our trash in a landfill that will soon be full.
Instead of sticking to the basics Juneau residents need, Mayor Weldon and the Assembly adopted a new voting system that is expensive, takes longer to produce results and increases the possibility of voting abuse. This move to ditch the tried-and-true voting system that worked for decades in Juneau was enacted with little public notice or opportunity for the public to comment during the pandemic.
Discretionary spending in our community is increasing, even as some core services are cut or held below minimal standards. And now, Mayor Weldon is leading the charge to borrow funds (via issuance of bonds), to replace a portion of the infrastructure at the sewage treatment plant that should be paid using user fees.
Borrowing for maintenance instead of using user fees is an odd form of transaction in this case, an obvious indication of fiscal irresponsibility and reason enough to question the Mayor’s financial acumen.
Juneau needs a mayor committed to addressing actual problems and someone prepared to get essential tasks completed instead of fooling around with discretionary spending on activities that don’t always support the basic needs of citizens.
At present, and for several years, the CBJ has been sitting on millions of dollars of tax revenue that could be used to lower property taxes or dedicated to vital services. The mayor and her colleagues on the current Assembly have created a significant slush fund in excess of customary reserves necessary for efficient governmental operations.
The mayor and her colleagues on the Assembly seem content to hold on to these funds for future spending on projects and programs that are not necessary to meet the actual needs of Juneau residents.
Juneau needs and deserves new leadership — the kind that is committed to meeting the essential needs of this community in a fiscally competent and responsible manner.
The end to the fluff and silliness that is characteristic of some city hall spending will only come about if the voters wake up and provide genuine leadership.
If Juneau is going to be an affordable, safe, and enjoyable place to live, we need a new mayor who will thoughtfully deliver what we need and can afford.
Vote for change – real change – in October.
Joe Geldhof has been a resident of Juneau since 1979.
Nice article but a few problems arise. Our voter turnout is typically around 30%. Combine this with a very active, well funded, and often belligerent far left influence and we know the direction we’re headed. The Assembly has implied they want to be like Seattle including a recent call to defund the police. Juneau’s population is growing but the new citizens may still embrace the ideologies they’ve fled from.
Juneau’s human population is not growing. And, if you count the folks who live here on a full time basis, the numbers dip a bit more.
No, it’s growing. We have a construction boom going on, commercially and most recently residential with an emphasis on high density. Traffic (not just seasonal) volumes of people out, and more crowded stores like Costco. School enrollment has dropped by that’s parents getting their children out of public schools.
I’ve seen the construction, but it seems to me more like CBJ finally addressing the chronic housing shortages. I know more families that have left than new people coming in.
I know it’s non scientific, but it’s been my observation.
I agree with Joe 100%, the only change I would make is that it’s way PAST time. Let’s get the mayor replaced with Angela and get Nano voted onto the assembly. Get Juneau moving back in the right direction.
Joe, your just not paying your fair share.
And what, pray tell, would a fair share be, for me or thee?
read this ‘https://ecommons.cornell.edu/items/dc80addd-bf47-4772-9e3f-8204b209e284
“Abstract
Reflecting on a decade of radical and progressive coalition politics led Berkeley Citizen’s Action (BCA), a group of activists affiliated with elected councilmembers John Denton, Loni Hancock and Ying Lee Kelley, and organized as the Community Ownership Organizing Project, describe potential and actual programs that would effect a transition to community ownership for the City of Berkeley, CA. Topics covered include Charter and other reforms achieved by voter initiative designed to redistribute power to popular forces; housing policies like rent control and community ownership, public acquisition of electric power, cable television and telephone service; revenue producing enterprises such as banking, recycling and insurance; taxation and capital budgets; city employment policy, transportation and social services.” 1976
This is how the Marxists set up their grift at a city level.
All of this is true. It also ignores a stark reality. The voters keep re-electing left of center candidates with a track record of failure. But it’s the government we vote in.
Add in the absolute incompetence of the AKGOP, mounting a credible challenge is near impossible.
Even in this article, the author shows he’s inadvertently part of the problem. CBJ doesn’t have an issue with “ unhoused” people. CBJ has a problem with homeless vagrants who do not even attempt to follow the law.
Using the lefts inaccurate, politically motivated terms gives validity to the left. It doesn’t deal with reality.
You’ve provided a lot to dig into Joe. I will attempt to do so with only one point: homelessness. You say, “The situation with the increasing numbers of unhoused individuals in Juneau who present a danger to themselves, and the public is obvious. Significantly, this concern has not been satisfactorily addressed by the Assembly.”
Its obvious the only way government knows how to “address” this issue is to throw money at it. When that fails, they double-down and throw more money at it… again and again. They just cannot see the reality that, like the school district, the more money they throw at these problems the worse they get.
To the Masked Dude. I did use the contemporary term “unhoused” intentionally. Perhaps I ought to have put this newish nomenclature in parentheses.
I do appreciate your willingness to critique my thoughts but do wish you spent a tiny bit of your efforts positing solutions instead of endlessly going on in your endlessly predictable and cynical manner.
There is a choice for Mayor in Juneau this October. Wher do you stand on this choice? And are you going to do anything to promote your choice or just keep whining?
Joe, you really don’t want to cross swords with me. You’re not up to it.
But since you asked…
I won’t make a decision anytime soon. I want to see more.
How we, even if there is a change in mayor it won’t matter until the voters bother to change the assembly. Which they have shown no inclination to do, despite the abuse the citizens receive. So the obvious conclusion is this is the government CBJ wants. Deal with it.
Why don’t I offer solutions? I used to, but gee gosh, it requires people face reality and get off their asses and do things. I saw excuses, justifications, rationalizations out their backsides. But no actual effort. I did get more than a bit of butthurt from our useless GOP for pointing out pie in the sky – like you are doing- is useless.
All you did was say we need a new mayor. Next will you July was wet? I didn’t see your list of actionable steps to get there.
I don’t whine, I point out hard reality people like you can’t seem to face. The whining comes from your end.
Or out of it, possibly.
Let it go, Joe. You’re out of your league here.
I saw a video, ‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yokbgZKF5pk, of a leftist middle-aged woman criticizing a “doctor” who was rendering aid to the man who was “unalived” (killed) at the Trump rally. The doctor was wearing a MAGA hat. Our culture is in full collapse.
Masked Avenger, sometime back I figured out who you are, you’re Vizzini the Sicilian character from the movie Princess Bride. Yeah, Joe shouldn’t cross swords with you ever, I mean you are a Legend… in the Dirty Harry kind of way.
Bob: You are too funny messing with The Masked Dude.
You may well be right about him.
To me, he seemed kind of like some guy living in mom’s basement playing video games and nostalgic about his old Zorro Halloween costume but with n reflection, I’ll go with your take.
Just remember, you do want to cross swords with him.
In summary, I commend those in this exchange who use their real name rather than taking the cowardly approach of hiding behind a fake label. A root cause of the decline of our republic is the lack of courage among timid patriots to speak truth boldly in the face of retribution from the driven herd.
Wayne, enough of your harsh , punitive comments castigating those enlightened free spirits who employ a nom de plume. Really, I believe it reveals your complete lack of imagination and curiosity.
But that ok pally, I still love you!
We need voter turnout, how to spur that I don’t know.
Jim, indeed I don’t know either. Perhaps promising them free stuff like the leftist communists do (albeit earned by the sweat of your toil).
I have a better proposal. We trade everything south of yakutat for the Yukon Territory. Canadians get more ocean access we get rid of Juneau.
Juneau is actually Seattle north.
I have a better proposal than that. Trade Anchorage to Gaza. The muni will get the leadership it actually wants, and the Politburo will suddenly find out what actually happens to queers for the mythical state of Palistine
Now THAT was a great post! It can never happen but hey, a good idea is a good idea!
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