Why I support Karla Hart for Assembly

Downtown Juneau on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Independent)

The Juneau Assembly Committee of the Whole decided on Aug. 31 against advancing an ordinance proposed by Assembly members Alicia Hughes-Skandijs, Christine Woll and Paul Kelly to codify the five-ship-a-day cruise ship limit.

Assembly members Mayor Weldon, Deputy Mayor Greg Smith, Nano Brooks, Neil Steininger, and Maureen Hall voted against advancing the proposed ordinance for a vote. Their excuses ranged from waiting for a report from the Visitor Industry Task Force to the old “it’s too soon to make that decision.”

I applaud Assembly members Hughes-Skandijs, Woll and Kelly for trying to make the daily ship limit law rather than an unenforceable agreement with the cruise ship industry. However, the problem is not a five-ship-a-day limit. In my mind the problem is that five ships a day are too many ships.

Five ships are the reason local fishermen cannot fish safely in Auke Bay because of the wakes from whale watching boats. Five ships a day is the reason we have housing shortages because businesses are buying homes to house summer crews. It’s also the reason for the maddening noise caused by helicopter and fixed wing aircraft, the air pollution caused by the burning of toxic bunker fuels, our overcrowded hospital, overcrowded city buses, the rental car and tour bus traffic crowding our roads, and residential neighborhoods that have become cruise passenger playgrounds.

What Juneau needs is one person on our Assembly who will confront the foreign-flagged cruise industry, an industry that pays nothing in U.S. taxes, an industry that takes over ports of call as if it owns them. That person is Karla Hart.

I have worked with Karla over the years trying to limit the ills of the cruise industry. She is the most knowledgeable person about the industry that I know.

Karla will push for real information about how much it costs Juneau to host the industry. I am also hopeful that she will question whether we can expand the use of passenger fees to cover costs throughout the borough for the impacts on our city and its infrastructure caused by the industry.

It’s time that we elect someone who cares about those of us who are trying to live here.

• Kimberly Metcalfe is a lifelong Juneau resident who currently lives downtown. She has hosted an official fundraiser for Karla Hart’s Assembly campaign.