Juneau Assembly candidate profile: Wade Bryson, District 2 incumbent
- Mark Sabbatini
- Sep 20
- 8 min read
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
Wade Bryson: Juneau Assembly District 2 incumbent (completing second three-year term)
Age: 51
Occupation: Business owner
The following questions and responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: What is the single most important issue of this election?
"I actually think it's Juneau's level of frustration right now. We came out of the pandemic — that was a divisive issue — and as soon as that ended we rolled into a glacier outburst flooding. Anytime you're running into large problems like this, the government solution is going to be very narrow, and everyone's expectation is going to be across the spectrum. And so as we're given solutions, they're pretty like ‘this is the solution that we're giving,’ and the community is frustrated right now and I don't blame them. There's so many overwhelming topics: glacier outburst flooding, the trash landfill coming to an end. We really thought we had a five-cruise-ship limit, with Huna Totem being the last cruise dock, and then Goldbelt throws in a wildcard factor to it that is still unknown to this time period. The community really was asking for housing over the last seven years, more than anything else. And then now we have Telephone Hill, which was a giant step forward in getting housed and developed, running into yet another extremely controversial issue. And so there's so many deep, important topics. Everyone's upset about one of those big issues. And so hearing the community's frustration, that is the uniting factor right now. And I did say that I'm responsible and so folks are holding me responsible for the very large issues that we're taking on."
Q: Which of those issues are you in a position to try to address during the next three years if you’re reelected?
"City Hall is a big one. I had been working on the City Hall issue for going on four years now. We've gone through a couple of variations of what our solution would be, and we're going down the list, and we kind of settled on this solution of having a city-owned building that we didn't have to pay a mortgage on. People are mad, but this is like the fourth variation — we keep trying to solve it…And then so the complaints that I'm getting is that they feel like the city just moves forward on whatever topic they're upset about, and that becomes the challenge because we're not because we are actively doing things for all of these topics. I don't expect that everyone would agree with every single decision we've made, but at least in my case, I'm going down to the core issue. What's the real problem? What's the real issue that we're trying to solve? And then I try to have like real-world answers that aren't necessarily left- or right-leaning. If this is the solution, solving City Hall is not a partisan issue. We're in business forever, we're going to need a City Hall forever, it's bad business practice to rent City Hall."
"What I base my decisions on is I'm going for the public good, the best decision. And the frustration that people are feeling, I'm being criticized because my decisions are not matching all of the different emotional reactions that are coming up. People want me to be mad or fight with the Assembly about every topic, you just pick it. And the answer that I've been given a lot back is I could fight them, but it wouldn't do anybody any good. Instead, I participate in the conversation. I collaborate with my colleagues. We come up with a solution that is as center-based as we possibly can."
Q: Your opponent says "we can’t keep blindly defaulting" to the status quo and you are part of that. You have called yourself the Assembly’s most conservative member, but also favor votes on ballot measures that keep city tax revenue steady, and say residents generally favor programs and services currently provided. So what are your thoughts on being called part of the status quo?
"It shows me the lack of understanding of the process. This has been a more liberal, left-leaning Assembly, and I was entrusted to provide some balance. Being realistic about the situation, my goal was to bring people to the center, because if I thought or tried — or even attempted to cajole or plead with my colleagues — to go a full conservative side, I'm marginalized…But when I work with everybody and collaborate on where are the nine of us going to be able to land, I have way more input on the outcome than if I stand on my soapbox and tell them that they're doing it wrong. And my lack of fighting the Assembly is one of the things that I'm being criticized for right now."
Q: On the three ballot propositions: You oppose a lower property tax cap, and favor exempting food/utilities from sales tax as long as a seasonal sales tax also passes to offset the revenue loss. Describe Juneau’s economy in five years if that occurs vs. the economy under your opponent’s preferences (favor property tax cap and sales tax exemption; oppose seasonal sales tax).
"Juneauites will actually have a little bit of an easier financial time in the community (with the sales tax exemption and seasonal sales tax). Proportionately, the lower the socioeconomic scale that they're on, the bigger a break it'll be for them. So we will be able to help out the more vulnerable populations and it helps our senior population. Sales tax off of food and utilities, that's going to make a difference for those that are just getting by. I like that. I'm not a proponent of seasonal sales tax because I have a bike shop and a sandwich shop that both do the majority of the business during the summer. It puts an extra burden on me during the time when I'm trying to make my money. (That’s) another great reason for collaboration. Seven members of the Assembly were absolutely going to put a seasonal sales tax question on the ballot. I could have fought against it, or I could have had input. I chose to have input and that's why our seasonal sales tax question actually is separated from the sales tax exemption question…(Both combined) would come out to a slightly higher sales tax, and the larger burden of sales tax would be placed on our visitor industry, which is stagnant right now, but with Goldbelt, could potentially continue to increase. That would give a break to Juneauites and it would also allow us to do things like help invest in the Coast Guard investment. So that way housing really does come along…We can't build more housing until we get our water and wastewater up to where we need it to be. We would have money for that."
"If the mill rate cap came in at nine and the rest of the restrictions also came in, we then would not have savings that we could be socking away into future projects. So every project, including emergency projects like HESCO barriers, would have to go to a bond vote. So you would delay everything in town. Every project would be 100% financed. So, you'd increase the cost of every single thing that we do, and because there's such a hole in the revenue, everything forward-facing, everything public-facing, and everything fun would have to be eliminated. We would have discussions that would put police and fire services competing for money with Eaglecrest or a library — who's going to win that fight?"
Q: Goldbelt’s planned private cruise dock may mean 1) two of five ships daily are redirected from downtown to the west Douglas Island port or 2) seven ships arrive in Juneau daily, compared to the current voluntary five-ship limit. Which is preferable and why?
"I think that the community is looking for a plateau of visitors. I think the community was relatively pleased with the daily cap in the five-ship limit. The alternative is that we have two different industries. Everybody calls it the one industry and it's two. We have a billion-dollar international cruise industry that comes to town and gives us money through port development fees, dockage fees, marine passenger fees. They buy electricity from AEL&P and they buy water from us. That's all the cruise industry really does. Then we have the local tourism activity providers, which are 99.9% locally owned people, come into town for summer work…The community has a tendency to lump everybody into one group, and I promise the guys doing the bicycle tour on North Douglas are nowhere in the same category of a cruise line."
"I don't think Goldbelt has to check with us. So my hope would be that Goldbelt’s project comes with enough infrastructure development so that the community could handle any level of tourism activity. So if we need a bench road on Douglas, I see Goldbelt’s development as the only way to get the bench road built. The North Douglas crossing spreads out and reduces the amount of traffic on North Douglas. Having Eaglecrest be developed pulls people from a couple other areas of town…So the more infrastructure that we have as a city, the better we'll be able to absorb the number of visitors."
Q: If given sole authority, how would you resolve Juneau’s homelessness problem?
"No one's going to like my answer: more rules. Rules are not the enemy here. We have people who don't want to behave by the rules and that has got us into the predicament we're in…Every single person living in a tent (on Teal Street) has been offered services by the Glory Hall. They've also been offered services from other organizations and always is given the answer, ‘No, we don't want your rules.’…Juneau has more beds for homeless or vulnerable populations than any other city in Alaska per capita…and the folks that we're trying to deal with right now have refused the rules that would allow them those services…Allowing them to stay like that is a failing of our city, so trying to come up with a place for them to camp only admits defeat over the problem."
Q: What else do you want Juneau voters to keep in mind when voting?
"Trash is still the number one looming problem that connects every business and every household. We do not have an active trash solution at the moment when this landfill closes. We're working on a sustainability campus. We're working on composting. We're absolutely trying to come up with waste diversion tactics, which would then get us the most life on our landfill…And then another problem with trash is that any solution that we have going forward is going to be more expensive than we do now, and so that should be part of the consideration."
Q: If that’s the problem, what’s the solution?
"Do not decimate the city budget. If you want the city to have real solutions, then if you want sales tax exemptions, pay for it with the seasonal sales tax. If we don't have the money to do things like build a sustainability campus, then what will happen is they will close (the landfill). We'll probably get a year's notice, maybe six months' notice…And an assembly will have to direct the city manager, if we don't have an alternative solution at that time, they'll direct the city manager to begin negotiations for transporting our trash down south and what facilities will we need to purchase to accomplish that?…If we think that we're getting shafted now and getting a hard time from our landfill, imagine what it will be like when you just have haulers that go to a transfer station that then load the trash up into specialized containers (for shipment)…Trash is going to be the unifying problem for all Juneauites in a 10-year period and we need to be working on that now."
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
