Voters favor sales tax exemption, reject seasonal sales tax in early results; Bryson and Brooks even in Assembly race
- Mark Sabbatini
- 19 hours ago
- 5 min read
Whitney, Johnson and Cullum lead among five school board candidates with about 6,000 ballots counted; CBJ estimates 40-50% of ballots remain to be counted
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
This is a developing story.
Juneau residents appear to be sending a penny-pinching message to its leaders, with preliminary results from Tuesday’s municipal election showing a sales tax exemption for food and utilities passing with about 70% of the vote, while a seasonal sales tax that sought to shift a greater burden of the city’s costs onto tourists is losing decisively.
In the only competitive Assembly race, District 2 incumbent Wade Bryson is losing by three votes to challenger Nathaniel "Nano" Brooks (2,740-2,743).
Steve Whitney has a solid lead in retaining his Juneau Board of Education seat with 3,197 votes. Competing for two other seats are challengers Melissa Cullum with 2,428 votes, Jeremy Johnson with 2,366 and Jenny Thomas with 2,302. Board President Deedie Sorensen, who filed as a write-in candidate after mail-in voting started, has 1,317 votes.
"I was hoping to make the top three," Cullum said Wednesday morning. "I have a pretty good network in town, so I would have been surprised had I not made it."
The 6,073 ballots tallied so far out of 28,017 sent to eligible residents include all ballots received and verified through Monday, according to the City and Borough of Juneau’s official election website. To be counted in the election, ballots needed to be cast in person or at a drop box by 8 p.m. Tuesday, or postmarked by that date.
"Based on the trends of previous elections, the preliminary unofficial results now posted are expected to represent approximately 50-60% of the final and total ballot count," the website notes.
"Ballots cast on Election Day at Vote Centers, placed in Ballot Drop Boxes, or mailed and postmarked by Election Day are still being processed. A second set of unofficial results will be posted on Friday, October 10, with additional updates to follow as needed until certification."
Cure letters are being sent to voters whose ballots are missing necessary information or signatures, according to CBJ. The Canvass Review Board is scheduled to certify the results Oct. 21, but "certification may be delayed by up to three days on a case-by-case basis as may be required."
A total of 10,880 ballots from the 28,113 sent to eligible residents were cast in last year’s local election.
Preliminary vote totals published at the CBJ election website just after midnight Wednesday show:
• Proposition 1 (lower mill rate cap to nine instead of 12): 3,104 yes, 2,920 no.
• Proposition 2 (exempt food/utilities from sales tax): 4,731 yes, 1,867 no.
• Proposition 3: (seasonal sales tax of 3% from Oct.-March, 7.5% April to Sept.): 2,514 yes, 3,534 no.
• Roughly one-third of the ballots tallied do not include votes for two uncontested Assembly candidates. Deputy Mayor Greg Smith has 4,092 votes in Assembly District 1 and Ella Adkison has 3,924 votes in the Areawide race. Brooks and Bryson, in comparison, have a total of 5,483 votes cast between them.
Brooks, in a brief interview Wednesday morning, said the results on the ballot initiatives are encouraging even though the outcome of his race in particular is far from decided.
"I think it's a good testament of what the people are looking for, as far as finding savings and stuff with the citizens' initiatives," he said. "But it's far too early to get a real solid sense of exactly how everything's going to play out. The gaps have closed on preliminary results as more votes have come in in the past, so it's just stand by on idle currently."
Propositions 1 and 2 were placed on the ballot via signature-gathering efforts by the Affordable Juneau Coalition. Leaders of the group said their intent is to force city leaders to make more responsible budget decisions, including paring back some non-essentials, so residents facing the city’s high living costs are paying less in taxes on vital things such as housing, food and utilities. Coalition members also opposed the seasonal sales tax, saying it amounted to an overall increase compared to the current 5% year-round rate.
"Obviously we're thrilled," Angela Rodell, treasurer of the Affordable Juneau Coalition, said Wednesday about the initial results. "We're cautious — ballot measure one still looks close, but we're happy with the trend (although) it could still move. Ballot measure two feels like it is obviously what we wanted to have happen. And ballot measure three is kind of interesting — it looks like the voters rejected that, so we're cautiously optimistic about that too."
"We're just thrilled to see that the voters turned out, that there was a good turnout on these ballot measures, and you can't thank enough all the volunteers and neighbors, and everybody who came and really led to this conversation, such an important conversation for the community. And if these results hold we'll have to get to work helping the Assembly figure out how to manage this and how to think about these things going forward."
Rodell said past trends suggest the uncounted ballots are likely to lean more conservative than those tallied so far "because conservatives tend to want to vote on Election Day…they also are more likely and have a desire to vote more in person."
The incumbent Assembly members seeking reelection, as well as some other city officials, said the passage of Propositions 1 and 2 may cost the city $10 million to $12 million in revenue, which will mean significant cuts in a total municipal budget of about $200 million. City leaders also said the property tax cap will hinder the ability to raise rates if money is needed for an emergency or other unexpected situation.
Cullum, as a potential new school board member, expressed similar concerns.
"I'm a little worried about the funding situation for our city, especially since the school district does rely on the city for a substantial amount of its budget," she said. "So when we are cutting our ways to generate revenue that means we're going to be cutting services and that's kind of scary."
The city, as in past years, is providing the maximum allowed under state law to the district, which is about $35 million for the current fiscal year’s budget.
Assembly members put the seasonal sales tax on the ballot hoping it would essentially negate the revenue loss from Proposition 2 — and lower the overall tax burden on residents while requiring cruise visitors to pay a higher share. Other communities in Southeast including Ketchikan and Skagway have implemented seasonal sales, and Haines voters were deciding on a measure similar to Juneau’s on Tuesday.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
