Candidate profile: Paul Kelly, Juneau Assembly Areawide incumbent

Juneau Areawide Assembly Member Paul Kelly. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Independent)

By Mark Sabbatini

Juneau Independent

Paul Kelly: Juneau Assembly Areawide member (first term)

Age: 42

Occupation: Application developer

Length of residency in Juneau: Nine years

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

Q: You were one of three Assembly members who proposed making the five-ship limit for cruise vessels mandatory rather than voluntary, and said you believe that limit should be citywide. What do you tell downtown business owners concerned about losing 40% of their cruise ship visitors if two ships a day start going to Goldbelt Inc.'s planned private dock in West Douglas?

A: "I think the approach that we need to have is we need to continue to focus on capacity. If Goldbelt does something to increase capacity, if there's infrastructure that can be built with passenger fees, then maybe capacity can be increased. But until then, just because somebody else is building a dock is not a good enough reason for going above our capacity, for taking on more than what the people of Juneau have said they can handle."

Q: If Goldbelt says its intention is to keep a significant percentage of its private dock passengers at the site and on the company’s tours — and thus away from downtown — does that increase capacity issues enough for you to be comfortable with seven ships a day?

A: "I'm skeptical because I don't think that people are paying to come to Juneau to come to the backside of Douglas. I think people are going to want to see more, and so I think we're going to need to still have the infrastructure in place to support the additional traffic that might have to go onto North Douglas Highway — or if they want to do boats and completely bypass that, that could that could work too. But we also need to think about whatever impacts they might be having. So if they're having impacts on the whale watching, and people trying to make a living because they might park their fishing boat out of Auke Harbor, or these people who decide that they want to go hiking we need to have that."

Q: Do you feel the impacts on Juneau with five ships daily are under control?

A: "I think people could make different points to argue for and against that point. For instance, the people in Thane were recently saying that they had an ambulance that was delayed in getting through because of all the traffic on the road. So in that case it doesn't sound like they would believe that we have things under control. I think I think people who live in those neighborhoods that the helicopters are flying over, I think they might say that the noise pollution is out of control. And people kind of feel that congestion downtown isn't really under control."

"Personally, I don't mind a whole bunch of people. I also need to think about what matters to my constituents. There are certain things I don't think are under control like people — usually tourists — randomly crossing the streets. I think we're doing things to help mitigate a lot of different situations, like the crossing guards there. I don't believe we have it completely under control and I think there's still some more work that we can do."

Q: Some of this year’s candidates have discussed which groups of residents they feel they most represent and general guiding principles about governing? What is your guiding principle?

A: "I think it might be the same thing that I say when I'm going to a lot of the different things that go around downtown: ‘I'm here to listen.’ I think my guiding light would be probably around making Juneau a better place and building community." Q: Another candidate said they felt their role was to find out what a majority of people in Juneau want and vote that way. There is also a common argument made that elected leaders have to do what they believe is right even if it is not popular. What are your thoughts about those two arguments?

A: "When I was on the school board the governor imposed the mask mandates on us…but whenever the school district might have made an unpopular decision (about masks), such as when Bridget Weiss didn't send the basketball team up to the Mat-Su Valley because there wasn't any masking up there, I supported that for two reasons. One, it was really too late for the school board to overturn without an emergency meeting. And two, it was about the health and safety of our students."

"I think people don't just elect us for what we say we're going to do; they elect us for our judgment. And I think even if you are in a position where you are forced to make an unpopular decision because you have the information and you know that this is what is best for the community, it's your job to have a dialog with people and to communicate that with the people. And that's kind of what I try to do with my office hours and with trying to be approachable, and out and about in the community."

Q: Can you name an example during your first term on the Assembly where your vote did match what a majority of people told you they wanted?

A: "I don't know if it's the best example…but that was eventually voting in favor of the LID (requiring property owners in flood areas to help pay for HESCO barriers). I thought it should be something that was community-born because that potentially affects everybody. I was able to compromise and manage to persuade other members on the Assembly to do a 60-40 split for the LID, and eventually we did get rid of it. But when it came down to the LID or not protecting the Valley, I voted in favor of the LID."

Q: Right now the Assembly is being asked how the city should pay for a long-term flood solution, and that largely comes down to whether residents in affected areas and/or the city as a whole will pay. What do you favor?

A: "I think the burden is too great to ask the people of the Valley to bear on their own. This is something that has potential to affect everybody in Juneau and so it would be my intention to spread that out, and I haven't decided what that looks like yet. That could be a tax district that's focused just on the flood. That could be a tax district that's focused on emergencies — natural disasters in general. That could be a bond that people might feel a little more sure about because once it's done and paid off, then it's gone. So it would be my intention to spread things out."

Q: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is pursuing an approach it says will hopefully be faster and cheaper than the traditional regulatory process, but will also involve some unknown risk. Do you believe that tradeoff is worth it?

A: "I would say I don't have enough information because I need to know what it is…I will look carefully at what is being proposed, but I would be excited to hear about something that can be done less expensive and quicker."

Q: After last year’s election where voters passed significant tax-cut measures the Assembly took several "cut-back" actions such as canceling the Eaglecrest gondola, delaying the redevelopment of Telephone Hill and reducing the scope of remodeling planned for where the City Hall offices are being relocated to. How would you characterize those actions — responding to voters, a fiscal necessity and/or other reasons?

A: "I think it's a little bit of both. I think the gondola, in that example, we had fewer resources, but it was also that the estimates kept ballooning higher and higher. And a majority of the (current) Assembly wasn't a part of that decision anyway. So I think we were not going to get lost in the sunk-cost fallacy with that one. As far as the tax revisions, I think that has all been really stymied by — I think it's very openly and probably on the record somewhere — because we are in the situation that we're in now with the less revenue."

Q: Juneau is a city experiencing long-term outmigration and workforce shortage issues, and along with the rest of Southeast Alaska is the region expected to see the largest drop in population statewide during the next 25 years, according to an official state study. At the same time many officials and residents talk about needs such as more housing and essential services. What is your leadership mindset for those two contrasting realities?

A: "To not resign myself to that. Just because that has been the trend doesn't mean that the Assembly or government is not in a position to try and reverse that trend."

Q: How much can the Assembly actually do, given that many of the factors for the long-term decline extend beyond the control of local government?

A: "There are opportunities like the (Coast Guard icebreaker) Storis and that will bring people in. And for that, we are going to continue to need to invest in housing. We need to do we can to make sure that the services that people need are available, whether we're declining or not. Our population is getting older and so we need to invest in the services that people need in order to stay here, so they don't have to fly down to Seattle or up to Anchorage. I think we're going in the right direction as far as housing because of the trend that I've heard is that while housing is expensive in Juneau and costs continue to rise it's actually rising faster in the rest of the country. So if we can do more to try and make it more affordable for younger people to live here and stay here after they get their education then I think that can help to slow our downward decline."

Q: How do you think Juneau’s homeless situation is faring since the Assembly decided to discontinue the dispersed camping policy that was in effect the past two summers?

A: "I think things are getting better, but they're not where I would like to see them yet. I think now we have a place for people to stay because I worked really hard on this over the last year or over the winter. I took a lot of personal leave to work with a bunch of a bunch of nonprofits and agencies, and even a church leader. That helped keep our cold-weather winter shelter open year-round so people had a place to stay and so the police were re-empowered to enforce our no-camping ordinances. But people still don't have a place to stay over the evening. In some cases, people either don't have access to the services or they're not aware of the services."

"Obviously, there is not just one solution to this and I don't think I can come up with one on my own. I continue to work with — it's not quite the same group of people — but the Housing and Homelessness Coalition is kind of reforming its goals and its priorities, and we've had conversations about getting people the resources they need when they're available…I don't know if that's completely up to the city. I think a lot of that is our nonprofit partners."

Q: Do you think the Assembly will need to take definitive action for the landfill and/or a future disposal site during the next three years, should you be elected to another term?

A: "I have my own personal view on how it should move forward. I think the best solution is that we move in a direction where we have more control over our hours, over our pricing, so that way we can do things like maybe have community days where people can come and drop off their stuff for free or whatever. I think if our dump does indeed run out of capacity before we can license and build another dump — which we haven't decided we're going to do yet and we need to make that decision — regardless we're going to need the transfer station that we currently have planned…I think we'll have to, if our dump reaches capacity, use that transfer station to ship things down south until a new dump can be built. But I think the solution is going to be a new dump because the price of fuel continues to rise and it's going to be our ratepayers here in Juneau who are going to have to foot that cost if we are shipping all of it down south. Whereas if we had our own landfill facility here we're more in control of those costs."

Q: What other issues do you feel are important for voters to pay attention to in this election?

A: "(For Telephone Hill’s redevelopment) I think it's going to depend a lot on the new members of the Assembly. I guess there's a couple different directions I can see it going. If we do need more housing there, I can see maybe see a scaled-down proposal like what the mayor proposed. I can see selling the properties individually. guess the only thing I've felt strongly about is that we shouldn't make commitments before we have a better idea of the outcome. And so when we're talking about evicting people or we're talking about demolishing buildings, we should have a very clear-eyed idea of what resources it's going to take for us to get there. Are we going to end this situation better than where we started?"