Vote ‘yes’ in October

Michelle Bonnet Hale

By Michelle Bonnet Hale

My career has been in water quality, split between chemistry lab work and field sampling, and water quality management for the state. I also did a stint on the Assembly and at some point I realized that my attraction to working in government was driven by the same curious part of me that led me to a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. 

I love systems. I love the way that components are put together and the forces of nature, or the laws of physics or the sets of rules and laws spit out the product on the other end. I love the process and I love the products.

Plant a seed in watered soil and its seedling will poke out of the ground and reach for the sun. Leave water pipes unprotected in sub-zero temperatures and by golly, they will burst. (Well, maybe I don’t love this one, but I love the physics of it). Put a group of people who want our society to function better in a room, and they will propose and argue and negotiate and come up with a solution that helps solve a problem for people.

Present tribal, local, state and federal governments (and a dedicated cadre of local volunteers) with the huge challenge of an annual glacial outburst flood, and they will all come together to protect homes and hearts and families from a flood tearing through their lives yet again.

Having served on the Assembly for six years and having chosen not to run for a third term, I am the first person to acknowledge that systems of government don’t work in the same predictable way that physics or chemistry work. 

But they do work. As for our system of government, democracy is messy, but it beats the alternative. As Winston Churchill put it, “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Barack Obama said about governing in a democracy, “If you make one person happy, somebody else is unhappy.” Paraphrasing, he went on to say that then that person who was happy about something you did becomes unhappy about your next action.

You see this a lot at the level of local politics. People who were pleased with the Assembly’s response to the COVID crisis later became “single-issue voters” about Telephone Hill or the cruise ship industry. “Vote ‘em out” became the slogan. Perhaps, that single-issue voter has said, we should defund city government until they do what we want.

We hear this approach on both sides: Some are unhappy about the city’s past support for a new arts and cultural center. Or about moving City Hall. These examples were offered in support of drastic funding cuts that were on the ballot, and passed, last year.

As hard as disagreement can be, if I like every single thing that our government is doing, then there will be a whole swath of voters who hate those decisions. That means that our government is not providing balanced representation.

Unhappy with government, you can cut government funding, which sounds good in the abstract. But money is very specific, as we learned in the 2026 budget process. You can’t make the actual budget cuts in the abstract. 

If you cut government funding every time someone is unhappy with government, eventually there will be no funding or government left.

Which brings me to the three propositions on the CBJ ballot for Oct. 6, 2026. Proposition A is the recurring and very important measure on the 3% sales tax. Proposition B, proposed by citizen initiative, restores the property mill rate tax cap to 12%, the cap in place before last year’s election. Proposition C, also a citizen initiative, is a proposition for a seasonal sales tax of 1% with revenue intended for indoor and outdoor recreation in Juneau.

I strongly advocate for a Yes vote in October on all three ballot propositions. The combination of these still won’t fully restore funding to pre-2025 levels, but it is a big step in that direction.

The Assembly heard Juneau voters. They passed a budget this year under the new funding levels. It was a hard budget process that left many people unhappy with the cuts. It will only get harder if we don’t restore funding.

As readers of this column may have noted, I’m quite displeased with our state Division of Elections and its recent decisions around our current state election. I’m also very concerned about national politics. You will not hear me argue that we should defund state or federal government.

We do not need to defund. We need to govern better. 

We, the people, do that through elections. We do that through ongoing civic engagement in the system. 

We have a system. It is a representative democracy. At its best, it is a beautiful example of how we can co-exist with others who have wildly different philosophies of life. At its best, it can serve as a lesson in how to live life. 

Let’s make that system work and not continue careening down this wrecking ball path. 

• Michelle Bonnet Hale’s roots go deep in Juneau and Southeast Alaska. She and her partner share their household with various relatives and three dogs. She served for six years on the Juneau Assembly.