Incumbent Daniel Volland is one of three candidates running for Anchorage Assembly District 1, representing North Anchorage. We asked each candidate the same five questions and gave them 90 seconds to answer each one. Read the transcript of Volland’s answers below and click the play button above to listen to where he stands. Find the rest of the Anchorage municipal election candidates’ Q&As here.
1. Why should people vote for you for Anchorage Assembly?
Well, thanks for the question. I am currently one of the District 1 Assembly members, kind of wrapping up my first term. So I'm the incumbent, and I feel like I've worked very hard to advocate for the neighborhoods that I represent and to try to drive investment, whether that's parks or trails or infrastructure, driving that investment to my district, to the benefit of my constituents. I've worked very hard, and I want to continue to do so.
2. What is the single biggest issue facing the city and how would you address it?
When I am speaking with constituents, whether that is on the phones or at the doors, I'm hearing two consistent themes come up: One is homelessness and the public safety issues that are associated. And the other big challenge is education, right now. I think that that is something that a lot of parents are stressed about. You know, the cuts that we've seen in terms of state funding, or at least that flat funding. You know, we're not seeing increases with inflation. We're not seeing an increase in the base student allocation. The Assembly does play a role in supporting education, and historically, we typically give the max local contribution that we're allowed under state statute. However, we've also taken steps to try to support that sector, whether that's the ACE fund, Anchorage Child Care and Early Education Fund, using marijuana tax proceeds to support early education and child care. That's something that's very expensive for young parents that I talk to, child care, those costs. And also, I've consistently supported early literacy programming. I brought forward amendments through the Imagination Library, or to support the Imagination Library, which sends out books to families. And I've been very encouraged to see Mayor LaFrance in her first proposed budget, continue funding for that program.
3. What do you see as the best way to reverse Anchorage's trend of outmigration in recent years?
That's a wonderful question. Part of the reason I ran for Anchorage Assembly in the first place, and why I'm running for re-election, is because to me, Anchorage represented a place of professional opportunity, to the point where I uprooted my life in the Pacific Northwest and moved here to buy my optometry clinic. That's my other job is that I am a optometrist. I own a little clinic downtown, so a small business owner. And I want other people to be able to see Anchorage in that light, that it's a place they would want to bring their family or start a business. I think housing cost is certainly top of mind when it comes to what is causing people maybe not to stay rooted here in Anchorage, particularly young working professionals. The cost of child care, as I mentioned earlier, energy cost. So we need to find out ways that we can make it more affordable to live here and be a good climate for business, as well as continue to make those quality of life investments. We all love our parks and our trails, and helping Anchorage be a vibrant place to live is something I'm very passionate about.
4. How would you reduce homelessness in Anchorage?
Yes, that is a great question, and is one of the prominent challenges that we're facing. I think expansion of housing and shelter certainly, so folks have somewhere safe to go. I've spent a lot of my time in my first term working on behavioral health resources. I helped convene the Complex Behavioral Health Needs Task Force, which brought together state entity leaders as well as local elected officials, community partners, members of the public, to explore solutions for supporting behavioral health needs, and we put together a report which had recommendations that then I was able to subsequently bring forward amendments to help fund those recommendations. So behavioral health, I think, is a key piece, and then public safety, and that does include abatement at times, when necessary, whether, you know, that's parks going in and being able to clean up our parks and our trails and take care of some of the ecological degradation that can happen there. I'm very supportive of the work that the mayor has done in starting the HOPE team under APD, so police officers can go into the camps and establish a regular contact and relationship with the people there, and the continuing outreach to get people the resources that they need.
5. How would you improve public safety in Anchorage?
Well, I think that it starts by creating the conditions where we retain the police force that we have as well as, you know, we need to be able to do better recruitment. So, you know, we're not down 50-something sworn officers. So building up APD and giving them the resources they need to do their job effectively, I think, is critical. There's things that we can do locally to support that. Also calling on our state legislators to return our public safety workers to a defined benefit retirement system would be very helpful. One of the things that we're contending with is, you know, we will train folks here, and then they leave to Tacoma, you know, whether that's our police officers or our firefighters, because they're able to have more competitive benefits. And so we need to do what we can to keep our good public safety responders here in Anchorage and in Alaska.
Read the candidate Q&As with Volland’s competitors: Daniel George and Nicholas Danger.