‘Affordability’ measures will cost Juneau residents dearly
- Guest contributor
- 57 minutes ago
- 5 min read
By Justin Pahl
A recent opinion article by Scott Spickler highlights the hypocrisy and disingenuousness of the Affordable Juneau Coalition. Mr. Spickler wrote that he wants “to help young people starting out in life”…but then goes on to say that the financial break he’s giving them is “small.”
No offense to Mr. Spickler, whose Juneau home is estimated to be worth more than $800,000, but $1,000 a year isn’t going to help someone afford a home in a city where the average single-family home costs $510,000. It would take 102 years of saving Mr. Spickler’s “small financial break” to afford just the down payment on such a home.
Affordable Juneau and Mr. Spickler also seem profoundly confused — or, if one is being cynical, dishonest — about the nature of Juneau’s affordability crisis. What’s really hurting families in Juneau? I’ve already mentioned the cost of housing; child care is another enormous burden facing working families. The average monthly cost of child care in Juneau? $2,600. A month. Mr. Spickler’s “small financial break” won’t even pay for two weeks of child care.
In a Sept. 2, 2025, letter to the editor, Mr. Spickler wrote, “Maybe it’s time to stop using glacier flooding as a rationale for keeping taxes high.” Mr. Spickler was either ignorant or lying: Juneau’s tax burden, even before last year’s ballot initiatives, was below average. Our property tax rate was lower than the rates in Anchorage and Fairbanks; and our overall sales tax rate was significantly lower than the national average. Mr. Spickler might not appreciate paying his fair share on his nearly $800,000 home, but feelings are not facts—and Mr. Spickler’s facts have consistently been wrong.
But then, why would Mr. Spickler or any of Affordable Juneau’s public-facing members or donors understand the problems of actual working families? The movement’s active members consisted almost entirely of older, wealthy Juneauites. Some prominent members and donors included:
Angela Rodell. Ms. Rodell works in a senior position for an investment company with over $4.5 billion in accounts and owns a home valued at more than $750,000. In her role as CEO of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. she was compensated to the tune of nearly $400,000 per year; she is nearly 60 years old and a failed mayoral candidate.
Win Gruening. Mr. Gruening was a senior VP for Key Bank’s statewide services and owns a home valued at more than $750,000. Mr. Gruening is in his late 70s.
Frank Bergstrom was Affordable Juneau’s chair. He owns a mining company. His home is estimated to be worth slightly more than $600,000.
Robert Jacobsen, the founder of Wings of Alaska, now runs Taku Investments, another major donor and whose address is based out of a Juneau home estimated to be worth more than $1.1 million; another house, owned by the Jacobsen Family Limited Liability Partnership, is worth more than $700,000. Mr. Jacobsen is in his 70s.
Joe Geldhof, a former attorney and one of the biggest donors to Affordable Juneau. He’s in his mid 70s and a failed Assembly candidate.
Mr. Spickler is retired and owns a home worth just shy of a $800,000 dollars. He’s lived in Juneau for more than 66 years.
(In the interest of fairness, my wife and I own a home valued at $433,000—less than Juneau’s average. I’d also be happy to pay even more in taxes if it means keeping pools and rec centers open and am not openly campaigning for my fellow citizens to lose their jobs.)
These are not working class people with working class concerns. These are older, wealthy Juneauites who have benefitted for decades from Juneau’s lower-than-average taxes and abundant services and are now seeking to pull the ladder up behind them. They shed crocodile tears about “affordability” for young Juneauites, but their “solutions” will barely make a dent in the actual affordability crisis facing Juneau — and will likely lead to a drastic reduction in services that benefit families.
Now, the same people who blew a hole in Juneau’s budget have the gall to complain about the city’s response to this crisis! In his same disingenuous article, Mr. Spickler laments that the city is seeking to “punish residents that voted for the propositions.” This is akin to the arsonist who burned down your house complaining about how you choose to rebuild it.
Mr. Spickler’s “proposals” for savings include privatizing Eaglecrest; right-wingers — and Affordable Juneau was a who’s who of failed right-wing candidates and cranks — love privatization. Let me ask my fellow Juneauites: how has privatization worked out at our dump? The minimum charge to drop a load of household waste at our private dump? More than $150. The minimum charge at Fairbanks’ publicly owned dumps? Free. Privatizing our dump has made life dramatically more expensive for Juneau residents; privatizing Eaglecrest would do the same — though I’m sure most of the members of Affordable Juneau wouldn’t have a problem paying the increased lift fees.
Mr. Spickler also suggests cutting media staffers from the city manager’s office. Surely, this approximately $150,000 in savings will be enough to balance the city’s budget. (It won’t, but it will put some fellow Juneau residents out of work — let’s hope they’re not young people starting out in life, since Mr. Spickler seems to care so deeply about them!) He proposes taking this kind of comb through all the city’s departments. No one in their right mind opposes efficiency, but putting younger, working-age people out of work is not going to close the budget gap or fix Juneau’s affordability crisis.
What it will do is drive young families out of town and make the city less effective at delivering much-needed services. What Mr. Spickler proposes is individual pain instead of communal pain. He wants his cake, and to eat it, too. He wants to lead a campaign to gut his city’s budget and then advocate for his fellow residents to lose their jobs — all while getting to keep all the services he likes.
Mr. Spickler and Affordable Juneau ran a campaign that ignores the communal bonds and institutions that make Juneau strong. Living here has always been expensive, but the city and its modest tax revenues are not to blame; in fact, the city’s ability to provide services far beyond our size makes Juneau’s high cost of living almost bearable.
None of this is to excuse some frankly baffling decisions by the Assembly. The gondola always seemed like a boondoggle, and the Assembly’s decision to prioritize it when Juneau was already facing a housing and childcare crisis was, frankly, offensive. (Though we should also remember that the same voters who voted for last year’s ballot initiatives also voted to fund the gondola.) The Assembly has consistently failed to take proactive steps to address affordability, instead playing it safe when aggressive action was needed — and, in the instance of the gondola, playing it fast and loose when restraint was the best path. But despite the Assembly’s foibles, Juneau has consistently delivered a high quality of services for a city of its modest size—and the city’s many employees should be applauded for that, not demonized.
There’s an old American saying: elections have consequences. Mr. Spickler and the other wealthy members of Affordable Juneau got exactly what they wanted. Their ballot initiatives succeeded. The cuts the city is now facing? This is exactly what Mr. Spickler and his ilk voted and campaigned for. If they don’t like the consequences of their actions, they could at least do the rest of us a favor and stop whining about it.
• Justin Pahl is a longtime Juneau resident.
