What did it cost?
- Michelle Bonnet Hale
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
By Michelle Bonnet Hale
As I muse on my disappointment over the recent local election, I find myself wondering, “What did that cost?” What was the cost of the campaign to convince Juneau voters to implement a lower property tax mill rate cap? What was the cost to the backers of this mill rate cap to lower their own property taxes?
Proposition 1, which lowered the mill rate cap to nine mills, was approved by a slim margin in the Oct. 7, 2025, municipal election. It passed with 5,163 votes in favor and 5,006 votes against, a difference of 157 votes out of a total of more than 10,000 votes cast, or a 1.5% margin.
That’s hardly the decisive victory being claimed by proponents. But a vote is a vote, and it’s what we in our City and Borough must live with now.
Campaign disclosure reports in the online Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) database indicate that costs of the campaign by Affordable Juneau for both the mill rate cap and the removal of sales tax on food and utilities have been about $32,000. The list of campaign donors found in the APOC report reads like a who’s who of well-heeled property owners in Juneau. I recognize that this may seem to border on ad hominem, but frankly, it needs to be said.
Most of the Affordable Juneau individual donors already qualify for the senior sales tax exemption. This does raise the question, why is this group of people who could hardly be labeled socially progressive suddenly so intent on the food and utilities tax break for the rest of Juneau residents? Why was Proposition 2 important to this group when eliminating a regressive sales tax is most often a liberal cause?
Proposition 2, exempting food and utilities from sales tax, passed by a wide margin, with 7,099 Yes votes and 3,100 No votes. There is a huge difference in the results of the two ballot measures: a 157-vote difference on Proposition 1 and a 3,909-vote difference on Proposition 2.
I suspect that the Affordable Juneau coalition thought that the tax exemption on food and utilities would be popular. Juneau is such a liberal town! Did this group link the two measures with the hope that the mill rate cap would ride to success on the coattails of the sales tax exemption?
It has been said in debates that the Affordable Juneau Coalition originated as a group of concerned citizens that sat around trying to come up with a way to make Juneau more affordable for families. This combination of ballot measures, the mill rate cap and the sales tax exemption, would do that, they said. I would posit that rather, a group of people sat around and cynically wondered how they could sell the mill rate cap and came up with this “affordable Juneau” combination.
They were successful. Their $32,000 campaign with its glossy mailers and vague claims got them what they wanted. One way of looking at it is considering the cost of their donations relative to the 157-vote difference between the Yes and No votes. That’s $200 per vote that tipped this measure in their favor, a pretty good deal for the backers of the measures.
This is not to say that votes were “bought,” but rather that lower future property taxes were bought and paid for by this wealthy group and their campaign.
The election was not a mandate to the Assembly to change its ways, as backers and columnists have claimed. The only thing crystal clear about the results is the desire to remove sales tax on food and utilities, a proposal that the Assembly had considered in the past, but had never been able to push across the finish line because of the $10 million revenue loss the exemption would create. And has now been created.
Rather than a mandate, the last election involved three ballot measures, the combination of which was wildly confusing. The Assembly’s attempt to compensate for the potential revenue loss sadly only made the matter worse. In the days and weeks leading up to the election contradictory opinion pieces flew as people attempted to make sense of ballot measures that were about as clear as mud. I’m pretty darn familiar with the Assembly budgeting process, and I didn’t even know how to vote on Measures 2 and 3, flip-flopping right up to filling in those ovals on my ballot.
It's hard not to become cynical, but we are who we are as individuals and as a community. Juneau will pick up and make this work, but the Assembly’s hard job just got harder. The effects of the loss of revenue will fall most heavily on the lower-income members of our community, as they always do. I’m resisting cynicism, but I am sad for my community.
• 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.
