Candidate profile: Malachi Thorington, Juneau Assembly District 2 challenger

Juneau Assembly District 2 candidate Malachi Thorington. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Independent)

By Mark Sabbatini

Juneau Independent

Malachi Thorington: Juneau Assembly District 2 candidate

Age: 43

Occupation: Electrician, commercial fisherman, salvor, commercial diver

Length of residency in Juneau: 25 years

The following questions and responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Q: Assembly members were asked at a recent meeting to provide the city manager with their opinions for how to pay the city’s share of a long-term flood solution. What suggestions would you have offered?

A: "Say that essentially we need to resolve the solution regardless, and the funding and the intention of the community to support that funding sounded like that was a part of what engaging with federal interests and how they would want to fund it. So I would default to putting it out to the tax base, essentially. A single mill rate across the board, which is far more substantial, or having a local tax district as pursuant to the Valley area. And offhand I would say that putting it to a committee to look closer at that as far as legally what's available, and then putting it to voters to seeing what voters would support."

Q: What if voters reject both options?

A: "I would say if I have any capacity I have to influence it being a Juneauwide tax because we have facilities in all corners of Juneau, whether it is Eaglecrest or pools that we all pay for, but we don't all utilize. And if there is some damage that happens to other parts of Juneau — whether it's a harbor or an avalanche, what have you — it seems common sense that the community as a whole would support rectifying that situation. And when times are good and there's money aplenty, money gets spent into things that benefit the community as a whole."

Q: What is your opinion of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pursuing what they call an innovative approach for a long-term flood solution that hopefully will be quicker and cheaper, but will involve unknown risks? Is that an acceptable tradeoff?

A: "Yes. Fundamentally, I think this is long overdue. I think there should have been some equivalent of this done three years ago, four years ago. It blows my mind that this wasn't brought to the table four years ago, especially at the low cost that it was…the concept of bringing in as many entities as possible to look through as many different lenses as possible to resolve the problem."

Q: What would you say to a homeowner who says they’re not comfortable with the risk?

A: "Right now we are living in a scenario of constant uncertainty. Every single fall it is a roll of the dice whether or not the HESCOs hold, and what the volume of water coming out is. Last year we were very very fortunate with the way the conditions played out that we didn't overtop the HESCOs. It came very close. So there is going to be a certain element of risk, and mitigating that risk as as effectively as possible is what CBJ (and) the Army Corps, are trying to do. And as residents, especially as a resident that is right at the front of the flood, I encourage them to act upon that risk mitigation, but moving forward, the whole enemy of the good is perfection."

Q: Whatever the cost is, the city already has a multimillion budget gap. If you are elected to the Assembly how would you favor addressing the shortfall?

A: At this point, CBJ's first priority is to maintain living infrastructure for the community, first and foremost. So, obviously it goes without saying that maintaining our our water roads and critical infrastructure is paramount. And then after the after that it comes down to community sentiment as far as what recreational facilities (to fund)."

Q: That’s what the current Assembly said this year and there is still a deficit. Where is that approach not working out?

A: I think the revenue streams that CBJ had cut are largely due to the voter base being so frustrated by the projects they've seen CBJ taking on such as Telephone Hill, such as Eaglecrest, such as the City Hall move. There has been a lot of voiced frustration and opposition from enough folks that that led to the ballot proposition that that cut off a substantial amount of our tax revenue, and has led to this the deficit that we are currently in."

Q: City leaders in those cases said there were reasons for those actions — more housing by redeveloping Telephone Hill, making Eaglecrest financially viable with year-round tourism, and the existing City Hall costing more to remain at than moving to a new site. Do you believe the city acted responsibly in any of those instances, even if the decisions weren’t popular?

A: "All three of those required large investments of capital upfront, including Telephone Hill, and they all remain to be seen. City Hall is moving forward, so at least there will be some return on investment for that. But Eaglecrest being another example of very far-flung hopes with no guaranteed end result."

"The impression that I've had, and I think the community sentiment, is that there's been too much of the ’If we build it, they will come’ mindset, and that's literally what Telephone Hill has been embodying — if we lay the groundwork, then we can get somebody to come in and do something amazing and well, it'll all come back to us. I do not believe that that model fits Juneau because of our geographic isolation (and) diminishing population."

"Eaglecrest requires massive influx of cash, and (a) specialty and outside developer to take an interest in this. Same thing with Telephone Hill. That requires a substantial interest from a very large entity, as opposed to doubling down on trying to better shore up what we already have. And Eaglecrest, for example, it has confusticated me no end why, over the decades of living in Juneau, I've never once received a mailer talking about an Eaglecrest donation fund or Eaglecrest gala where people can come up and donate."

"City Hall, back-to-back years where they tried to shove they had they had the capital and whatnot to try to shove a City Hall down the community's throat, but they were offering wasn't what the community wanted, and they didn't offer other considerations other than ‘This is how we're going to put it. This is how we want to do it.’ There did not seem to be a better developmental process that would inspire community confidence or engagement. With the whole restructuring of the school systems, I still find it hard to believe that there would not have been a substantially viable consideration for moving City Hall and city offices into one of the existing school buildings."

Q: The Assembly cancelled the Eaglecrest gondola, put Telephone Hill on hold and scaled back its City Hall project after last year’s election. Do you see that as responding to voters’ concerns?

A: "I think the reactions since the election in the last year are better than what they had going in, and I I think that is because they are gun shy from the backlash that the city has experienced, especially pursuant to the tax cuts. So right now I think that they are backpedaling, trying to regain community support and faith. To be fair to the Assembly, I think that they were put in a series of very awkward positions. I think that what they could have done to improve their situation was that they could have instructed the city manager's office to explore more options and considerations, and very likely do more of their own research going forward."

Q: What do you think about the recent proposal to have third-party management of city recreation facilities to help control costs?

A: "I've definitely seen concerning ways that third parties treat facilities because they very often don't have a stake in the physical structures and the mentality is ‘use it and abuse it, and the city will handle it at some point, or we just walk away.’"

Q: What if it’s that option or having to close some facilities?

A: "I would say a more visceral conversation is what it takes to sell them off. If the city doesn't find a very reliable entity to take over these entities with some kind of relatively ironclad agreements, that the next option is selling them off…That is really the scary conversations that are going to be had, especially if we don't see the revenue streams return."

Q: Your official candidate statement talks about local land auctions or raffles to promote development. Nano Brooks was unsuccessful in getting a majority of the Assembly to consider land lotteries during the past year. What makes you think there might be more support for such ideas in the future?

A: "It is a complicated process, and it does need to have some legwork put into it. And I don't think that there was enough groundwork laid to support it…Regardless of how the election shakes out, I look forward to engaging with some of our CBJ lands operators. Not just having a raffle in Juneau, but essentially opening up lands similar to what they've already done out northwest Douglas, where they punched a road and (are) opening up parcels to individual buyers — land that cannot be subdivided…When I've mentioned this to the city manager's office, the pushback is, "Oh, we can't afford the infrastructure to get out there. It's too expensive and Juneau is already so spread out.’ And they're right in that regard, but they're wrong in that the city doesn't have to offer those infrastructure services. We have well technology, we have water catchment, we have septic systems with UV sterilization…something to that effect that really tries to encourage community engagement and longevity, as opposed to high-density housing, which we need as well. But that has been the only thing that CBJ has been focusing on now for 10 years or more, and that requires large-scale developers to be the crux of the whole thing."

Q: What are your thoughts about making the limit of five cruise ships a day mandatory rather than voluntary?

A: "I think I agree with the looking more carefully at the proposal, primarily from the litigious consideration. The cruise ship industry has demonstrated a willingness to lash out at CBJ, and I would be concerned that if we didn't have a little more into our t's crossed, i’s dotted, and potentially more dialog with the industry, for the very real concern of them coming back at us because their resources legally are way stronger than ours, and we already saw this happen with the Seawalk funding. I really like the concept of maintaining the five ship limit. The methodology for maintaining that does require, I think, some very careful planning from the concern of backlash from the cruise ship (industry)."

Q: What should be the limit if Goldbelt Inc. builds its proposed two-ship private dock in west Douglas?

A: "Seven with conditions, meaning that I would like to see not so much the ship limit, but a population limit downtown. The ship limit used to carry weight, but I think it's a little it's a little obtuse now because ships are getting bigger, carrying more passengers. So, basically, setting up (a policy) so you can only have so many tourists downtown."

And to be fair, I don't know what that would look like, but I have heard references that the last law, the one lawsuit that was recently run on the East Coast, I believe it was in Maine regarding cruise ships, where they set a passenger cap because the community couldn't safely hold that volume of people in place with its facilities. I think that would be the angle, and I think that is what they're looking at right now, why they delayed voting on it?

Q: What other issues do you feel are important to call to voters’ attention? A: "My stump speech for why I think that I would be more suitable right now than my opponents is my background being more on city infrastructure as hands-on, whether it's wastewater plant upgrades or museum improvements, or building the (state library) or street lights, roundabout, building the new harbors that we've had upgraded over the years. I think I have a much better understanding of the inner workings of what keeps Juneau going at a mechanical level, and I've heard from various CBJ employees over the years about concerns of oversight, deferred maintenance that are part of what is really killing our our budget. And I don't think we have enough people on the Assembly that have hands-on mechanical understanding understandings to be able to ask additional questions or show up at a facility and see what they are talking about, and be able to articulate to that to their colleagues on the Assembly why this is so important to get this $3 million bond now, otherwise it's going to cost $15 million if we kick the can down the road another couple years, which is what we are kind of in the throes of now."

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.