Joe Geldhof: Juneau’s affordability depends on “yes, yes, and no” votes for October’s ballot measures

By JOE GELDHOF

And so, it begins. The City and Borough of Juneau Assembly has embarked on a fear campaign to convince Juneau voters to vote against their obvious financial well-being.

Assembly members are floating the notion that passage of the initiative that would eliminate sales tax on groceries and utilities will hurt their ability to provide essential city services. They also suggest that capping the millage rate on property taxes will somehow cause fiscal chaos down at city hall.

None of these fears is true.

The best way to make Juneau more affordable is to adopt the two sensible ballot measures put forward by the Affordable Juneau Coalition. These common-sense proposals to make Juneau more affordable were endorsed by a large segment of Juneau’s population who had finally had enough idle talk about affordability and petitioned to put real change on the ballot.

Having failed to make Juneau more affordable, the mayor and Assembly decided to put a gimmicky shape-shifting seasonal sales tax proposal on the ballot. This ill-conceived measure will actually increase local sales taxes. Not only that, it makes permanent a portion of the tax that was up until now subject to periodic voter approval.

The current Assembly has failed to deal with our community’s fiscal realities. Juneau is a great place to live but faces challenges. We are a community with a decreasing population and one that is increasingly elderly. Transportation and freight rates also make it expensive to live in Juneau.

There is no question that Juneau needs to maintain essential services. We do. And we can and will continue to meet our public safety requirements, provide clean water, and take care of sewage. That’s a given, although how we do this efficiently is an open question.

Everyone is facing rapidly rising utility bills for water and sewer in the next few years. It’s fair to ask why those rates are suddenly rising and why wastewater was not a higher priority than other less-important budget items.

Why is it that the CBJ Assembly created a situation where utility costs are skyrocketing? It’s simple. Because they keep fooling around with discretionary funding and handing out grants for activities far removed from taking care of core governmental tasks.

Juneau has excellent access to the outdoors and all it offers a myriad of recreational activities, some of which are facilitated by CBJ. That need not change. But our community also wastes a significant amount of public funds on organizations and for activities that provide the average citizen with little to no benefit.

The CBJ Assembly routinely ignores public sentiment when it comes to spending. Twice, the Assembly has ignored the public mandate not to go big for a new city hall.

The recent acquisition of the Burns Building using millions of your tax dollars is but one example. The renovation and outfitting for this new acquisition and the need for more parking at the new city hall will cost millions more from all of us.

Or how about spending upward of 10 million local tax dollars to rip down housing on Telephone Hill? This destruction takes place with no plan to actually redevelop this historic area in Juneau. Any sensible person would ask how we can afford this kind of silliness.

It’s time to make Juneau more affordable. In fact, it’s past time. There is not much any of us can do to fix the obvious disconnect between Assembly actions or inaction and an affordable Juneau. What we can do is vote for affordability this October. Vote YES on Ballot Measure 1 that keeps property taxes from being jacked up by the CBJ Assembly without your vote.

Vote YES on Ballot Measure 2 that will eliminate sales tax on your groceries and essential utilities.

And definitely vote NO on the wacky Ballot Measure 3 that creates a shifting seasonal sales tax formula that only politicians and the bureaucracy could cook up. YES, YES, and NO is the way to go this October.

Joe Geldhof has been a resident of Juneau since 1979. He is the principal author of the local cruise passenger measure and the statewide cruise ship taxation initiative that were both enacted via citizens’ initiatives, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into Juneau’s local government coffers. Joe isn’t averse to taxation, but he’s wearied of the waste and wanton spending habits exhibited by the CBJ in the last decade.