Final results in Juneau’s municipal election show two new faces will join the Juneau Assembly while Juneau’s incumbent mayor and school board members were reelected for another term.
Meanwhile, voters overwhelmingly shot down a proposal to ban all large cruise ships on Saturdays and the Fourth of July starting next year.
Turnout was also significantly up this year. This year’s election yielded one of the highest voter turnouts of the last decade.
Steininger and Hall win Assembly Districts 1 and 2
Two seats were up for grabs on the Juneau Assembly this year — a District 1 and a District 2 seat. From the get-go, District 1 candidate Neil Steininger and District 2 candidate Maureen Hall led in their respective races, according to preliminary results.
And, on Tuesday both held their leads through the final count to secure spots on the Assembly. Steininger said he’s grateful to get support from voters and is now eager to start his new role.
“I’m just really looking forward to getting my hands in there, and working with the rest of the group and figuring out what problems it is that we need to address and things we need to work together to solve here over the next year,” he said.
Hall said she is already eager to begin working with other members on how best to tackle the issues she campaigned on.
“Definitely doing my research on what has worked for other communities, for homelessness and obviously the flood mitigation, and making sure that the homeowners that have been impacted are being heard and have what they need,” she said.
The pair will each serve a three-year term. They will replace current Assembly members ‘Waahlaal Gidaag Barbara Blake and Michelle Hale who did not run for reelection.
Weldon wins another term as mayor
Incumbent Beth Weldon won the mayoral race against challenger Angela Rodell.
While both shared similar views on topics like glacial outburst flood preparation, Rodell led her campaign on a fiscally conservative platform while Weldon applauded the work the Assembly has done to give breaks to taxpayers.
Weldon said she’s eager to continue her work on flood preparation, housing and child care.
“I am honored to be re-elected as mayor to this great city, and I’m very proud that I get to continue to do this job,” she said.
Incumbents reelected to school board
The three incumbents running for reelection on the Juneau School Board held strong leads from the first vote count. And in the end, Elizabeth Siddon, Will Muldoon and Amber Frommherz all successfully defended their seats.
All incumbents shared a similar goal of keeping the district on firm financial footing following last year’s whirlwind budget crisis and school consolidation process.
Muldoon said having all incumbents back will mean all board members will be up to speed on current issues, and ready to tackle any difficult decisions ahead.
“We’ve got a tough road ahead, so I think having that institutional knowledge and experience will make things easier,” he said.
They will remain on the school board along with School Board President Deedie Sorensen and Vice President Emil Mackey, who were the subjects of petitions attempting to recall them in this year’s election.
Recall initiative fails
The final results showed that most voters were against removing the pair on the board. The effort was led by a group of residents who wanted to remove them in part due to their votes in favor of the consolidation of Juneau’s high schools and middle schools earlier this year.
Sorensen said she thinks it shows that most voters understood the complexity of the consolidation process and the need for difficult decisions by the board.
“I’m not surprised that the recall didn’t prevail,” she said. “I felt that the people that were most unhappy with the decisions that we were making were a fairly select group of people.”
Mackey agreed.
“It speaks well of our community that they were willing to accept the hard choices that nobody wanted to do, and also recognize that a recall could have a chilling effect on future boards trying to find members to run for the school board,” he said.
Jenny Thomas was one of the leaders of the recall effort. She also unsuccessfully ran for school board this year. She said she had no comment on the results of the recalls.
Ship Free Saturdays fails, public safety and infrastructure bonds pass
There were three propositions on the ballot this year. One was a public safety bond that asked to borrow $12.7 million to replace the radio system used by first responders, and the other was a wastewater bond that asked to borrow $10 million to replace critical infrastructure at the Juneau Douglas Wastewater Treatment Plant. Both passed in the final vote with wide margins.
But, the third — and most contentious — proposition called “Ship Free Saturdays” asked voters whether or not Juneau should ban all large cruise ships on Saturdays starting next year. And the answer from voters was an overwhelming “no.”
Final results showed 4,196 people voted yes on the proposition, while 6,575 people voted no — a 2,379 vote difference.
And, in total, 10,880 registered voters had their ballots counted in this year’s municipal election – that’s 38%. It’s the highest voter turnout in the recent decade.
Amber Frommherz is a member of KTOO’s board of directors. The board has no editorial control over content.
