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Candidate Interviews
(Full transcripts)
Leo Jimmy:
Do you consider climate change to be an important issue for Sitka?
Yeah I do. Been following that a little bit, not so much I don’t hear too much about it here in Sitka but throughout Alaska and farther up North and actually I guess here, most of it has been around the plastic bags and my concern theres is the change in the climate, global warming, and seeing the differences in our weather change from year to year. And I’ve seen over the past 15-20 years change in the temperatures and the seasons. Everything from plants to different areas up north, the polar cap melting. That concerns me because some folks still talk and dont think there's anything going on and it’s not caused from us and that's just not true. I mean it's just obvious it does come from our carbon cars, exhaust, if it’s not change… I think about my future and then my son’s future, he’s 11, to what they're going to have to deal with when they get in their 20’s and 30’s, of the next generation, what’s still going to be there for them to clean up from what's going on in our life time and what were still trying to deal with the clean up to make the world a better place and safer to live in.
What do you think should be done locally to mitigate this crisis?
For climate change? I’m not sure, other than what they're doing, you know, as far as being aware of it, their plastic bag issue, their carbon, I know they tried to go through an electric car thing here some time ago which would've been good but i guess there was controversy about that. Where would they get the cars, they're concerned that some in Juneau and it was an issue of questions like where are they gonna plug it in, but I think we just need to continue to take steps here locally. We have a lot of fishing boats here that run off diesel, and of course we have cars, but that… you know when we were shut down there was a comment made here when we had to go into hunker down, that the bigger cities were noticing they were giving time for the planet to heal. There was no cars going, there was no buses going, there was no trains. Everything that was polluting the air was taking a pause, and they were saying that was probably a good thing for the humans that everything was closed and shut down. Some of them are still shut down as far as New York or wherever, but it's an ongoing issue and I think whatever we can do here still as far as watching what we do, leaving a footprint, to leave it in a better place then we got it. And again, for our next generations, our younger generations.
Do you consider that doing your best to help mitigate this crisis is one of your priorities for your platform?
It’s not on my platform but like I said there's a ton, I couldn't put everything on my platform, so this is something that I know sitka has been working on, I've kind of been following it mostly on the plastic bag issue that went through here a couple years ago and voting on it and the assembly. I won't ever say no to it because it like i said a lot of these issues surround our younger youth group and I always think me, having three sons, my son and the his two step brothers, or half brothers, my step sons, of 16 and 21 , I think about them and about what we can do now to make it a better and safer place for them when they become full adults… but yeah so I'm sure that'll come up when I get seated and then we’ll have to deal with it as best I can with the rest of the assembly members.
Earlier this year our group tried to pass a resolution through this assembly that declared a climate emergency and established a climate task force, just out of curiosity, what would be your vote on that resolution?
I would vote for that. I think I remember a little bit about that coming up but I don’t remember it was you guys. Like I said it's something I talk about periodically from time to time with other folks and sometimes their opinions vary due to like I said either they don’t want to admit there's an issue or they say that it’s not caused from man... but definitely yeah I would vote yes on it if it were brought up again and then see where we can move forward with it.
How do you plan on incorporating youth priorities into your decisions?
[long pause] That’s a good question. I would have to kind of take that step by step as they come, as I know they recently got the cloud going, I’ve kind of been following on that, and I know Jeff Budd’s been a part of that in and out, I don’t know if he still is. He was one of my youth counselors back in the day from Ketchikan so I’d try to keep in touch with him plus work with him on other things like the Grind and stuff which we’re not able to right now. There again, because I have kids it's always on the forefront of my mind about what we can do as far as the community, you know, for youth and go from there.
Because we're a non partisan group, we value unbiased decision making that puts people before politics. How do you plan on increasing community cohesion and do you think devisiness is a problem?
Hmm. That one I’m not sure how I can respond to because I don't really understand a lot of that. I would definitely have to do some more research on that.
Thank you for talking with us today, we value making relationships with assembly members so if you're elected we hope to work with you more in the future.
Yeah, me too. Thank you guys for doing a good job.
Fred Olsen:
What are the priorities of your platform
The reason I'm running is that I come from working people and so I'm trying to support working families in sitka, and I have a lot of government experience. I think I'm the only candidate who has been on a city counsel before. I was also on the SEARHC board. I was the chairman of the board of SEARHC so I have experience with 100 million dollar budgets, things like that, actual experience that other candidates that people might say they would be good at but that remain to be seen. With these tough times, plus we have the pandemic, that is a big concern. I'm also on the Sitka Community Health Council and so I think the experience, my platform is, you know, I’m not running against any of the other candidates, I’m running for the assembly. I do understand what the job is, the assembly works with the mayor but we do have one or two employees, the city administrator and the city attorney. It's interesting, I was the only candidate that actually met, so far with the city administrator. So you tend to see that a lot of people are good at whatever they say they are playing politics. I’m talking about government and so my platform is government and with the support of families. Let's get to some of your other questions. I don't want to just go on and on on one question. I appreciate you not seeming to have a timer. But I'll try not to just go on and on.
Do you consider climate change to be an important issue for Sitka?
Oh yeah, It is an important issue of course for the world. You guys seem very young, you know I'm not that old but I've seen changes in my life. You know, when I was a little kids born and raised in Ketchikan, both my parent also, and with the king salmon derby you know downtown is the salmon capital of the world Ketchikan, you know big neon sign the salmon Derby is a big deal every year and you know it would be a 70 lb or 60 pounder you would be ashamed. If you got a 38 pounder you might just take it home and eat it, you might as well just take it home and eat it, you wouldn't even enter it. Well now, some of the communities like Wrangell for a good number of years now in a row, they haven't even had a salmon derby. What's a salmon derby, you know? Kid growing up, “salmon derby what's that?” When you throw the rubber ducks in the river, you know. They might not even know what that is. That's just one example, you know, we could talk forever about that. That's one thing too that separates me, my actual job is the executive director of the Southeast Alaska Indiginous Transboundary Commission. And that a coalition of 15 of southeast Alaska's federally recognized tribes. We’re working about the issue of, there's some big industrial mining projects in British Columbia/Canada. So they are in another country, but they could affect some of our major rivers that flow into Alaska, like the Taku, Stikine, and the Unuk that’s down by Ketchikan. And climate change is a major issue in that area, just for one reason alone, some of the mines have major wastewater treatment plants that have to literally be monitored for hundreds of years. And so climate change definitely plays a part. We've seen that already, you may have heard of the Mount Polley mining disaster in British Columbia. They had a major, they call it a tailings storage facility, we like to call it a lake of poison, because that's what the result is. It is this huge mass of poison water. Well the damn broke, but long story short that's the disaster. But hey got it going within one year. What used to be a centuries storm is now every ten years or sooner. The dam almost breached again because they got too much rainfall and it was filling up. But luckily it didn't happen but that's just a little bit of, what if, what if there's an earthquake, we live in a very seismic area. In Sitka you see landslides that you maybe haven't seen in generations. The Tlingit people have been here for generations have seen a lot of climate change. It is good with the climate change issue to work with the tribe because the tribe also has federal programs dealing directly with that. And so I have experience working with tribes, this is the point, thanks.
Would climate change be a factor in your decision making on the assembly
Oh definitely right there with you have to consider if the city has the (nand?). And there's a lot of things that come on the table, like affordable housing or supporting businesses, so maybe the city has a property that somebody has a great project proposal for but eeh that in a landslide area, you'd definitely have to consider that. And of course, a tsunami. It is Sitka by the sea by definition. You know things like that of course have to be taken into consideration. Not saying you can't build by the water or something but you'd have to have plans for everything cause yeah its old news. Or earthquakes etc.
What do you think should be done locally to mitigate this crisis?
In some ways you can’t. Like whatever we do we can't tell the sun what to do, or could you be one degree colder, you know we can't do that. And some things the chickens have already been let out of the barn, in some ways. Of course we can personally reduce our consumption of things, reuse plastics, you know there are a lot of things you can do. You know, use reusable bags at the grocery store, but oops now you can't. There's some things that you used to do that now you can't, that you know helped with this. You know the Tlingit people, Haida people were pioneers, very resilient people, and, I know that the assembly does not have the jurisdiction to solve climate change but they can certainly look forward wherever we can to support these kinds of things. In the future we can use reusable bags and the assembly can encourage that and you know, on and on. I guess we shouldn't get too far down in the weeds with this because the sitka assembly can't really enforce a lot of things or can't change climate change itself. But we would like to. As I've already said about my job and how I think, I'm very environmentally conscious. We recycle at home, things like that.
Earlier this year our group tried to pass a climate resolution through the assembly which, unfortunately, was voted down 4-3 but then later on Valorie Nelson kind of sponsored her own resolution that declared a climate emergency and established a climate change task force here in Sitka. We were wondering what your vote would be on that resolution?
I would have to read the resolution but I imagine I would be for that. A lot of things don't need to get, we need to listen to our fishermen and support the fishing fleet. The fisherman aren't the bad guys or something. That's a sustainable job, plus we eat fish, it's not like oh we are supporting something that doesn't also benefit us you know. My dad was a fisherman and, you see, the biggest example is in Ketchikan with the shipyard. But Wrangell has a really nice facility developing, kind of haul out idea. And that's a hot topic now in assembly. And that something I definitely support, I support the fishing fleet. We need to, i don't know about you young people but if your classmates think about getting into fishing. I don't know if they do or not but we need to encourage the next generation to get into some of these professions and stay here. You know, success can be in Sitka. When I grew up, you kinda knew, none of us said this, but you kinda knew that success was somewhere else. You go off to college and some of the kids don't come back. We have a lot of successful people in Alaska but they go off and some come back, you know I'm one of the one that have come back. But you don't have to go off in the first place. We could have some more support for fishing. I know there was a crew apprentice programs and things like that and when you have some of these other things running, especially the haul out, while that's good in itself. Well that guess what, a boat haul out uses more electricity and that's one of the things where the city is in a little trouble with the electric rates is because they had planned with the new dam to be using more electricity but we’re not and so supply and demand, we are not selling it so the rates are higher. So you know, if we were using more electricity, it's not like we have to make new stuff, we have the old stuff, we could put out the electricity we are not selling. And so things like that, so you can support youth and that is sustainable. You can sustain families, you know, you have jobs that are sustainable, that are not boom and bust like you have a ten yer job and that's it. But no, that's the nice thing about so-called “green jobs'' or some of the jobs with monitoring water, you are going to have to keep doing that so these are sustainable jobs. And I don't know if you guys work with the tribe a lot. There’s a lot of federal programs you know working with the EPA to do a lot of these things. And some people go “ooh thats government” but these are jobs, and some of this money just gets left on the table on some desk in Washington, but if we write some great proposal working with the tribe or coast guard, you know these are jobs, it depends how you look at it, ooh federal overreach, well that 5 Sitkans jobs, how do you look at it.
How do you plan on incorporating youth interests and priorities into your decisions on the assembly.
Oh thanks for that question , and now that i'm going to say this every one of the candidates is going to say ah I had this idea. But I was talking with the mayor and I asked him and a lot of groups that I am aware of, like Sealaska, or you know, will have a youth rep, that's on the council. Like the executive council will have a youth rep, seaalska has a youth rep. They are on there right. And I asked the mayor if we could ever have that or you know if the student body presidents ever spoke or had a place on the agenda and he's very knowledgeable, you know. He's Gary Paxton he has got his name on the wall and stuff, but he could really, I’m not trying to throw him under the bus, this isn't my point, but he couldn't really think of that. He would support that. And that's something that I would push for or initiate or work with the mayor on, is to have no force anybody, cause i was they shyest boy in my senior class, so i know what it's like, but, you know, to be not one to talk in public. I’m not trying to force anybody but, maybe have a standing place on the agenda on a month or semester, not all year. We could have the student body president from Sitka High and the Student Body President from Mount Edgecumb High, have a place on the agenda, say five minutes, they can say what they want, i'm not telling you what for them to say, but say five minutes. And if they don't show up oh no problem, but if they do they've got the five minutes. That's a little step for that. I thought that was encouraging that the mayor is for something like that. I will work on that. But then, that's directly to that but the other things I said about supporting families support the youth also.
Because we are a nonpartisan group, we value unbiased decision making that puts people before politics. How do you plan to increase community cohesion, and do you think divisiveness is a problem?
Yeah, really good question. And it is somewhat, and you can see it if you listen to the radio, problem corner and of course if you are on social media you can see people going back and forth. And if you're in your bubble you can see who gets talked about and I'm sure in the other bubble they have other demons that they are talking about. You know there is a lot of that. But im not running as left of right, I can work with anybody, but they might tell you that I'm right or im left or im conservative, I don't even know what that means anymore, or I’m liberal. But i'm not going to tell you that because I’m not that. I’m running for the job of assembly member. I am running for the government. And that was, as I said earlier, I do differ, from some of the other candidates because they will talk about ideas more, maybe they should have been running for mayor. And as far as, yeah I’ve worked with difficult people. You know in meetings or in person. I've met some of the candidates. I know know some people are calling out Mr. Alberson but I’ve met him, I had breakfast with him and he even bought me breakfast. People can be personable. You never know, he can say angry things but that doesn't mean you are a bad person, you know. I can work with anybody and I would really like Sitka to be unified. You have a tribe, there are racists, there can be examples of systematic racism. When we see we see that we need to call it out and act on it because we have a lot of good things we can do in sitka if we work together. That's why I'm not going to go into a room and throw on my superman cape and save sitka, no this is a group effort by definition. It’s an assembly. We have to work together. Definitely. I'm not just talking words, I can talk to these other candidates, I have. I’m not afraid to have a difficult conversation with anybody. I was kind of joking about this but, if you see me around town , I have the cedar hat on, the office hours are open. Come up and talk to me.
Crystal Duncan
What are the priorities of your platform as a perspective assembly member?
Meaning as it relates to environmental issues or just overall?
Overall.
OK I think the reality is there are two kind of items that have been unavoidable at the assembly level so COVID is the biggest one but the previous year to that it was state budget reductions and so that affected Sitka as well so for me it's just trying to get us through this difficult time so COVID is not done, we’re midway through it. We've never had to deal with the pandemic before and then the budget crisis you know we're under an administration that really wants to cut funding and a lot of that is because we can no longer rely on revenues that came from oil. Oil prices dropped and we no longer could sustain that type of state funding that we had and so it was huge budget cuts, so again at a local level you can't shy away from either of those things.
Do you consider climate change to be an important issue for Sitka?
Super important. My stance on Sitka it is that we should be leading from the front not from behind and so I don't know if you guys were able to tune in last night it's obvious that my passion project is issues of social justice and racial equity I'm going to be honest I know much less about environmental issues though I place importance upon that so when it comes to “is this important?” of course it's critical it's a global issue and it's something that here in Sitka we need to be able to lead from the front and how do we do that? We pull in experts and that’s not me. So as an assembly person I know that we have a local chapter that is making recommendations, we have your group, we have people who can weigh in and tell us what direction we need to go, so we just need to know that we want to move there and then we need support from people to help us actually implement and figure out what that looks like 'cause we want to be responsible.
Would climate change be a factor in your decision making on the assembly?
It would. It would and I can tell you honestly I have bachelors in business and a Masters in business and when it comes to environmental issues they tend to be in opposition to one another and that's not who I am. I tried to pair those and mesh those in and find a happy medium so business decisions I get it, oil, also we saw it with our Tongass National Forest we thought why don't we just cut down those trees and profit off of that and now we have basically barren forests that have to regrow. Excellent. We made a lot of money off of that but we got it to what we call a “resource curse” where all of our funding came from this natural resource that we were trying to make money off of and then we said “our economy is so dependent how do we sustain without it?” So I have that business background which allows me to see both sides and for me it's to end up somewhere in the middle because you can't ignore climate change you can't ignore environmental factors. I come from the Alaska native community and we are basically stewards of this land. So what that means is that we need to ensure that we do today will allow us to sustain for the next 7 generations, that's a really big thing in the Native American community and that applies to the people of Sitka as well so I think that's all also that's just kind of a value set that I bring and would weigh into decisions that have environmental impacts.
What do you think should be done locally to mitigate this crisis?
What I’m going to reference is a couple of attempts to address the problem. So we had a llama come here and that was super awesome and he came and he said “Alaska you do a lot of oil development but I want to see how are you leading on this issue” that was something that he really prioritized, but I remember around that same time period there was also Alaska Federation of natives base that we need to declare this the climate emergency. We also had action at the local level so again I'm not going to give you details or actionable items. What I can share is that there are people who have ideas of ways for us to address it and I just need to bring that out of them.
So you mentioned action at the local level, earlier this year our group tried to pass a resolution through the assembly that declared a climate emergency and established a climate task force. We're just wondering what would your vote be on that resolution?
It depends because I haven't read that resolution but I'm wondering what kind of feedback did you get following that? So you said that it didn't pass, did you follow up with assembly members and figure out what it was about the language that made them not want to move forward with it? I guess that's where I would start as an assembly member to try to figure out, because I'm also a community member who has tried to push forward action and we didn't know how it would go, but I think once you know what the hiccups are you can advise strategies around that so I don't know much other than you guys tried to bring it forward and it wasn't successful, but what was the feedback that you guys got?
So the first one [resolution] was actually sponsored by Kevin Knox and Thor Christian, and it failed on a three to four vote. The downvotes were worried at the amount of pressure it would put on the city administrator and just the amount of actionable items that they didn't feel were really reasonable.Then after that Valerie Nelson actually sponsored her own and it was less actionable items and the primary focus of hers was that climate emergency and also the creation of the task force. That one was actually set to pass I think we had unanimous votes on that but unfortunately COVID hit and we haven't had a chance to readdress it at the assembly. That's the main one that we're just wondering what your vote might be on but I totally understand if you feel like you don't have enough information to answer.
Yeah and so I think I'm gonna stay with that, but again you know my position I'm supportive of it I just want to look at the nitty gritty and make sure that I know whatever voting on but yeah.
How do you plan on incorporating youth priorities into your decisions?
I think it's by having conversation with you. So I appreciate that groups like this exist because it funnels you guys into one space where I can basically have access to all of you at the same time, but I'm looking, and I’ll just use my campaign for example, so most campaigns say
‘who votes in Sitka” and it's people that don't look like us and so they will focus their efforts on basically targeting those people to say “I think you should vote for me.” My strategy is different, I know that you guys have a voice that's unheard just like many people in my community, so the Alaska native community, they have a voice that’s unrepresented so I'm trying to go to those places. Sometimes it doesn't feel comfortable; I'll be honest, you guys are kids and I’m not. I'm younger, but I'm not I'm not coming up and I'm not new into this game and so I need to start those conversations and I just hope you guys are open to having them as well because I think you guys bring a lot of wealth that we're not tapping into and so I guess just start the conversations and hope that we start a two way dialogue.
Because we are a nonpartisan group, we value unbiased decision making that puts people before politics. How do you plan to increase community cohesion, and do you think divisiveness is a problem?
It is a problem and I try not to be divisive, but this is coming from the person who basically worked towards getting the Baranof statue removed and that is divisive in itself. So how did I do that? I think you try to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. So I'm on one side, and I'm just talking about the Baranof issue, but what's the other side? What are the concerns there, what am I not seeing, is there a way for me to address this so that we could kind of come to that middle and have a common understanding? So when it came to the Baranof statue, and I’m gonna use that one as an example, there are people who literally said “you need to take that statue and drop it into the ocean.” That's one way to do it, but for me it was to allow dignity to the people who disagreed with us removing it, and I had a whole host of reasons that I wanted the statue to come down, but I didn't want to also further divide. So it was “ how about we move it to a museum where it's still displayed and people can access it but they're going to have the full history in that museum location and the Alaska native community doesn't have to walk by it when they're trying to access their government” because it's pretty hurtful to a good portion of the community. So that’s one example of where I know it was a divisive issue, I know that there were people who felt strongly on both sides of that, and it's just about finding that common group and recognize that we’re all neighbours and that were all going to continue to be neighbors so we need to continue to work together.
Marshall Albertson:
What are the priorities of your platform as a prospective assembly member?
Um.. the priorities of my platform first of all- I know it’s easier to say make something affordable again, but that is truly my platform, to try to make Sitka affordable again, because, you know, it’s out of control and part of my main focus here is the youth because you know they’re coming out of high school and even if they have a good job and get a good job or get a good job with someone like me or something like that, you know, making like starting off at something like 15 17 18 dollars an hour, they still can’t go out and rent an apartment or a house or anything and sustain themselves on one job, they have to get 3 or 4 roommates. Now one thing I have done and I have been doing or year is I have an apprenticeship program in two of my three businesses, in absolute tree care, I have an apprenticeship program in which we take a young person, we teach them the trade, my main main forte is high voltage clearance- cutting trees where there are high voltage lines and people don’t know, but we are the ones that keep the power on. Because trees are a direct path to the ground, they are the number one cause of all power outages, so obviously it’s a needed trade, it’s a hands-on trade more than anything else and a lot of youth don’t need to go to college. Me- I was never built for college, I was built for work and I knew these hands are what was gonna get me though life. And I got into, in ‘85 I believe, I started the tree business cutting trees for high voltage lines- I’ve been in it for 35 years, I have trained... I can’t tell you the countless amount of young men.. the- my last great success story was (Briton Sheets???) he’s now in up north running his own company- he has his own tree business- and he started out in my apprenticeship program I’m all about the trades because right now- you know, the computer world obviously everybody except me is really adapt to it, and you know now everything in life is done though computers and stuff but the market was flooded so bad by people going to college for computers and the tech industry that you know, literally right now we have a couple of people with college degrees here that are working at McDonald’s you know but they just cannot find the good jobs you know because the market has been flooded for the last ten years or so with tech market… well, we’re kinda forgetting about the trades as far as I’m concerned what I see out there ou know the plumbing, the mechanics, the uh machinists, the welders, the tree men, you know, stuff like that and I (want to get?) around and talk to all these businesses I’ve already talked to a few and they’re very well open, very much open to the idea of starting an apprenticeship program in their businesses as well also and I think that’s one way of we could start retaining our youth- because they’re leaving in droves, you know, along with a lot of the businesses so- I don’t mean to drone on about it I apologize but that’s kinda for the youth that’s something I’m really looking at because we’re losing them. I come from a small town in Oakridge, Oregon... It was a logging town much like this and when it was logging and everything it was booming and great and I watched that town just slowly shrink I still own two homes there, my dad lived in one of them I’ve seen that community shrink orm about 8 thousand where we’re at now that 8 thousand was the highlight of Oakridge, Oregon where they have the mills you know the mills were going, 8 thousand now the community is down to less than 3 thousand people, It’s basically a retirement community you’re retired you have your elderly retired that have money, you have your servants that serve them at McDonald's Restaurants and then you have people that are on assistance because they cannot afford to do anything there an the jobs aren’t there because the town kinda just slowly went by the wayside and I see Sitka doing that, you know if it wasn’t for our tourism, we wouldn’t have anything uh because our city does not, I feel, propriate the funds to a lot of the things they should to help Sitka as a whole all the way from our youth to our elderly, and uh my whole platform is to try to turn that around and make it where… none of my employees make less than $15 an hour- hire them at 15 bucks an hour to start even at munchie mart and we need to raise the minimum wage and which I’m a firm believer in if you’re not making a minimum $15 an hour you probably can’t feed yourself here in town. And uh I would like to see where you know these youngsters are making 18, 20, 22 dollars an hour in my apprenticeship programs you know they start from the ground level at $15 an hour but you know I got employees making $34 an hour. My one employee that just left he was- I paid him $37 an hour. He was such a great employee and a great apprentice that I gave him his own one of my extra bucket trucks, you know, $125,000 vehicle, you know used, and so it was probably worth about $30,000 but I gave that to him, I stocked the whole truck with saws, saddles, everything and sent him on his way up to Anchorage- Wasilla-area where he now has his own company, he’s doing great, you know, and uh he nks me all the time and we stay in contact and I’d like to do that for more youth here in Sitka.
Do you consider climate change an important issue for Sitka?
You know, I- good question. I- I’m a proponent of keeping our environment beautiful, keeping it clean, getting the plastics, I even donate to the groups that pick plastics up out of the oceans and stuff- I think climate change has been pushed- I think it is uh has a real political agenda behind most of it, I know that’s not favorable with a lot of people but there are- there’s also a lot of science out there that you know goes the other way, you know, are people here- well all these.. Uh… readings they’ve got from all these instruments in the last few years and you know there was that big controversy two years ago where the instruments weren’t in the places they thought they were and the ice pack wasn’t being decimated as quickly as they said it was because the instruments weren’t in the right position. Well, there’s a lot of that stuff that gets politicized and gets shoved down the American people’s throats. To make a long story short, I do believe that we need to be great stewards of our environment- uh I don’t believe the existential threat of uh climate change, now you know it was, when I was growing up, it was the- we’re going into a deep freeze, and then it switched to global warming, and then you know, now it’s uh, it’s all everytime the narrative changed, which, you know, climate changes every morning and every evening as the sun rises and falls but I am a proponent of being good stewards of our land, absolutely and you know I don’t want our cruise ships dumping waste into our oceans, I don’t want people, you know I don’t like the idea of us barging our plastics and everything over to India and Indonesia and stuff and then they taking it out to sea and just dumping it in the ocean, I’m against all that, I will be a proponent against that but climate change s a whole, like I said, I guess I’m just a proponent of being a good steward of our land and people gotta remember we are nothing like we were you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago you know, we have came a long long ways and what fails to get put out there I believe is how far we have came. You know, there’s rivers and stuff, especially like in New York and stuff and that you know is just filth and vile and horrible you know all these places are getting cleaned up. Do we still have more work to do? Absolutely. But uh I won’t drone on anymore but uh yeah I believe in being good stewards, I do not believe in the existential threat that the world’s gonna end in ten years if we don’t, you know, totally destroy our way of living at this point in time. Thank you.
Would climate change be a factor in your decision making on the assembly?
Well, yeah, I mean if it's good for the environment and it makes sense and it's not putting thousands of people out of work or whatever you know what’s- which a lot of these things do. I’m for common sense uh ‘cause common- use our good common sense when we approach things and uh, yeah I would absolutely support something that's good for our environment but not that’s gonna so far out there that it’s gonna cause more harm than good, you know. So but yes I would it would definitely influence my decision making and you might be surprised it’d probably influence it to the cleaner side of things you know I not just because I hear somebody is a proponent of climate change doesn’t mean I just wanna dismiss them I’m gonna listen to what they have to say and I- if nothing else I have common sense I feel, uh, my wife may not always think I use the best judgement but I think I got common sense and uh I’m gonna take each issue as it comes, I’m gonna take it as face value and I’m gonna do my research and I’m gonna give it honest thought.
What do you think should be done locally (if anything) to mitigate this crisis?
Uh… Well I I think one of our biggest problems around here which I hope it is being addressed and I hope it is gonna start getting cleaned up and and being dealt with in an honest way and verifiable way uh I think one of the biggest things is uh out Cruise ships, you know, coming around here and dumping their waste and everything you know whether it's around Juneau or around here or anywhere else and you know I think that's a huge thing, I think we do pretty darn good as a community around here to- I think we go over and above to uh... try to do everything we can to not necessarily go green per se but to be smart about what we do and I don't always feel that you know the City Assembly and the hierarchy always makes the best decisions uh you know that dam project that was uh for the growth of sitka and you know upgraded everything, was gonna make it run more efficiently and be better for the environment and everything but you know and also threw us into a tailspin spiral of 125, 150 million dollars whatever over budget. I think we do a good job here in Sitka, I don't see where anything's a real existential threat here myself if I'm missing something and you want to bring it to my attention and uh I would definitely like to hear what you have to say myself but I just don't believe in the existential threat first of all that everything is gonna go to pot in ten years if we don’t you know just change everything in the world and get off fossil fuels and everything else. Right now being totally independent with our energy programs and has to do with fracking and fossil fuels and coals and clean energy, wind power, solar power, and everything else I uh I think a combination of all this is what we need. I don't think we need to get rid of fossil fuels I think we need to as we’re using our fossil fuels and- and another thing people don’t mention like with our fossil fuels- I know I’m getting off track from right here and Sitka- but with our fossil fuels the dirty coal we used to burn was horrible for the environment, I think we can all agree with that- left, right, center, I think we’d all agree. But you know what, it’s not that way anymore. And people failed they failed to put out the true information or they failed to look it up in find and do their own research to get that information but you know the burning of coal nowadays it burns so clean and they have made such high end roads and it’s not the big ugly dirty monster that it used to be. But as far as Sitka goes, I say we just, you know we live in a beautiful environment, we keep our city clean, keep our oceans clean and that’s all I have to say on that as far as Sitka goes.
Earlier this year our group wanted to pass a resolution through the Sitka assembly declaring a climate emergency and establishing a climate task force. What would be your vote on this resolution?
Uh I would have to do a little more research on it but you know if uh I think if the consensus of the assembly was that we needed to do something I- if I truly feel that it's something it's going to help Sitka because remember at the end of the day I think we all want the same thing, we all want the best for Sitka we want the best for our kids I mean I know you're young but I have nine grandkids you know four from around here in Sitka. And uh I want the best for them I want them to grow up and show their kids Denali and you know Yellowstone and just America as a whole- if you travel across the country it’s the most beautiful place in the world- and I want the same beauty and stuff for them so you know I’m definitely not saying I would not vote for it and I would listen and if they’ll feel like Valerie Connor and uh Mosher and stuff, they did some pretty decent ideas, uh I think there’s gotta be some validity there and I would look it over and you know, there's a good possibility I would vote the same way they did.
How do you plan on incorporating youth priorities into your decisions?
Well as a father of 5- or 4, one of my sons passed away a year and a half ago but still, as a father five and nine grandkids I want the youth is more important to me than almost anything else because nobody loves- everybody always says that nobody loves their kids more than I do. You know my grandkids and I got them from one year old to 17 you know I got them getting ready to get out of high school to get into the workforce and I got them also just starting to crawl and walk so and everything in between and every day that comes up that has to do with the youth play the truth bring me you and the refrigerator the youth is going to get my vote probably 80% of the time because I believe in you guys I believe you are our future and I want the best for you because I want the best for my grandkids.
Because we’re a nonpartisan group, we value unbiased decision making that puts people before politics. How do you plan to increase community cohesion and do you think divisiveness is a problem?
Oh absolutely divisiveness is a problem and and I know might as well let's go ahead and face this 800-pound gorilla in the room right now which is me and I'm sure you guys have seen some of my Tik Tok videos and whatnot that are out there and YouTube, uh, I'm a very passionate human being I've never done anything on social media in my life until just a few months ago and when all these rioting and looting everything is starting- cracking up I can see but uh- then I got on social media for the first time in my life because I, I was so mad that everybody else wasn't mad about you all the rioting and looting and everything going on that somebody showed me how to use Tik Tok and make a 60 second video so here in the privacy of my own home after uh seeing some absolutely horrific- well actually the first- i think one of the first videos I made was about George Floyd. And uh, and it’s still on there, you could all go and see it, if you haven’t already, and i start off the video talking about what a damn shame it was that that officer did that to Mr. Floyd. And how it broke my heart, it broke my entire family’s heart, it brought, it literally brought tears to our eyes. My wife can contest, she’s sitting right here. And it broke our hearts and uh and so Right when that happened, I think America was united like it never has been since 9/11. And that was the moment of cohesion and coming together that the country needed. But then, within an hour or two, everything- all hell broke loose- windows are being broke out, cars are being burned you know, people are being beat up, uh stores are being looted you know, robbed, firebombed, Mr. ???, 77 some year-old retired police officer you know gets a bullet in the head, and, we went from a moment of cohesion to a moment of absolute anarchy and division in a matter of about 3.6 seconds. And that’s what inspired me to make my video, back to the george floyd video, I start out saying what a shame it was and how we, and the rest of america was with the Floyd family and it was a shame, but then I addressed, I said how then you guys go and start robbing and looting and killing and burning, and as a businessman myself I have three businesses in this town, as you all probably know- Munchie Mart, absolute Tree Care and guns of Alaska. I started all these businesses and for anybody who’d never started a business it might be a little bit more difficult for them to comprehend but when you started a business you're taking a chance and you're risking (firstly?) everything you own including the home you live in and everything to start this business and get it off the ground. Ok and then you hope you get the employees, ok so you spend money, you get the employees, you open this business, you get all the products coming in, but you got at least another two years of not making any money whatsoever I mean money just going out going out but that’s part of being a business. Well I've done this three times I have 20 employees and to see other people with no disregard for all the hard work and stuff you know and if it was going to be about black lives matter- which it wasn’t, black lives matter is a marxist organisation and that's not my words that's their words from their Founders and if anybody goes and looks up their agenda and everything, it’s out of their own words. They’re using the black lives matter as like a jumping-off platform in this George Floyd deal to do all this Anarchy that they’re doing. That’s not my personal opinion, that’s fact, and I’d back every bit of it up. But, that being said, we definitely need to get to a point we need to bring the country back together again and my Tik Tok videos yeah I use harsh language and I said the rider to be put down like rabid dogs cause that's what I believe. When you see what was going on and The Killing and everything I got so mad for all the Thousands or maybe millions of other people out there that were not getting mad at what we were seeing. And then you have politicians pushing it, saying you know nothing is happening here when it has been over a hundred days of rioting. But yes I will do everything in my personal life, there's nobody out there that can say, I've been in every yard just about in this city from doing my tree business for 22 years and I have had interactions with just about everybody on this island and there is nobody that could say having interactions with me on a personal level I was anything but respectful if they called me- if they were a liberal or conservative whatever and they call me to give a bid if you work at their house I treat them like they were gold, like they were the only person that mattered at that moment, every time I left it was with a handshake and friends. People didn't start hating me until the newspaper here in town started lying about me about the Floyd George Floyd vigil saying I was there the counter-protester which was an absolute lie that's why I made him print a retraction two days later and of course they finally did on the front page I wouldn't let him hide in the back page. They printed a retraction I was not there as a protester I was there to make sure nobody did anything to our city building because in one of the posts before that George Floyd vigil that day somebody posted bring your backpacks and Hammers and then- the post ended up getting deleted but I got screenshots of everything and I got it saved- I could show it to you- it had a picture of the purge but and you all know what the purge movies are and so I made a quick little statement saying I love the fact that you were doing the vigil and I think it's great I believe in peaceful protest I've marked on the Capitol Washington DC twice myself and uh totally peaceful. I said but if you’re coming here to start anarchy and burn our city, I will not let that happen and so me and my wife my daughter her boyfriend in another man wife we stood across the for the Floyd vigil, stood in front of the building you know just stood there watching- matter of fact, there was cops, we were interacting with the cops and and other people walking by cause I know most of them, and are there was no incidents, no nothing, you know the paper was trying to say I was out there with guns and being (great?) There was no guns exposed no guns out nothing. Well then the paper the next day said that I was a protest in the vigil. And then the phone calls started at my house, my wife can attest to it, the the chief of police can attest to it in their police reports, and I started getting death threats. They started threatening to rape my wife and kill her, poison my dogs and this all started because of the article in the newspaper. And so then they printed a retraction and said they were wrong, and they had the story all wrong and they print a retraction in the lower right-hand corner and uh- but even though people read that they were still being just intellectually dishonest by not reading that- saying oh, ok, he wasn't out there for what we were told he was 2 days ago in the paper, he was out there just to protect because he’s got businesses downtown too, he was out there to make sure no craziness occurred. I know my videos aren't appealing to a lot of people but I wasn't doing it was my way of venting and getting out in the privacy of my own home using my words not actions, not going down and burning and looting and killing people like what's going on everyday- I use my words in my own house and you know, somehow, that makes me the bad guy not the looters and robbers. But, anyhow, I won’t go on anymore… next question please, I’m sorry.
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Well thank you and I could provide testimony from a lot of youngsters that you know me and my family have helped and even if it's- you know, I have employees that I'm paying for their lawyers right now for their divorce, their child custody you know that's how much my employees and the youth mean to me. I thank you for the time I appreciate you guys I know I'm a conservative and I'm a grumpy old man it seems like it seems like and my videos… but I promise you all I will be an advocate for you and I will stand for you and for lack of better words I am one of the only one that have the cajones to stand up for what’s right, and you bring me something, the youth and i promise all of you I will stand up for you I will fight for you and I will be your voice. And I am pro youth 1000%, thank you very much.
Diana Dapcevich:
What are the priorities of your platform as a prospective assembly member?
So, um, my priorities, um, I, of course, like I really- I know like affordability is a huge issue right now for everybody, um, the thing is, I believe that everything is like kind of connected, right? Like the environment, economy, health, and safety, um culture, community, everything. And I think there’s like really is a way to balance everything, um, to really like improve Sitka and really just like improve life everywhere in general. Um, obviously it requires like a willingness to learn to like work and learn, um, to listen and collaborate and so that’s really what I’m about is really, um, building like- I guess just protecting and promoting sustainability of the history and culture and the environment of Sitka. I think, um, because I think that really will strengthen our community and I think it will actually I think like definitively it does drive our economy here in Sitka especially. Um, so I really wanna work on just like building community and business and collaborating all around.
Do you consider climate change to be an important issue for Sitka?
Oh, absolutely. Um, I think like I mean we’ve seen obviously the landslide of something that has been like very personal, I went to school with those kids that were lost at the landslide there, um, and that obviously I believe that had a huge, um, that was hugely influenced by climate change. We’re seeing a lot of things now we’re living in a really interesting moment obviously like the pandemic, um the landslide, we see- my family is in Seattle and has been for the last fifteen years like what’s going on there is insane, um, and its- it’s like yeah its, uh, it’s incredibly important, I’m sorry I kinda like lost your question there, but, um, yes climate change is incredibly important. It’s important to our health and safety as we have seen like this year and in the past years especially and, um, its important for our economy too, I mean if we don’t have- if we’re not taking care of our planet like we don’t have the industries that we do, we don’t have like people coming here to like witness the beauty of Sitka if it’s not beautiful, if we’re not taking care of it. Um, we don’t have the fishing industry if we’re not taking care of it and, like, keeping it sustainable, so um it’s like incredibly important especially in a place like Sitka.
Would climate change be a factor in your decision making on the assembly?
Yes, it would. Um, so I- I think one of the things I’m kind of like you guys where I’m like, I’m younger, I’m a younger candidate here, um, and I feel really frustrated that a lot of the things that are happening right now were avoidable and, um, have been predictable also, that’s a huge thing, um, I think like we really need to like take this seriously and think about the future. A lot of, um, we know certain things are coming if we don’t take care of the planet, we know it and then it happens and it’s devastating. I think a lot of the people on the assembly and just, um, people in power in general lack that foresight and lack like the action to actually do anything about it, and so now like here we are so, um, yeah we’re seeing it like affect us in so many ways I think its incredibly important to actually like have/use the information we have about climate change and about how we affect the environment to like really plan for the future. And I think like as a young person too like I am more inclined to think about the future because I don’t know what the future looks like if we don’t like if we’re not planning for it, like- like we haven’t really been.
What do you think can be done locally and what steps can you take on the assembly to help mitigate this issue?
Um, so I well I think like just education awareness is a great step and like, really getting people to, you know, I think its kinda weird that its like some people don’t think its important, to me its weird, um, I think like one thing is like educating people in a way that so that it helps them see that environmental protection can and often already does equal economic security, um, and kinda like start a different had like- appeal to like different perspectives, um, I definitely think, you know, in terms of like sitka growing and I know we’re like we’re developing that, uh, the road out HPR and everything and I definitely think, um, as far as like growing Sitka and developing on land and everything I really wanna push for more like developing like within what we already have in Sitka, rather than like sprawling out more, cause its gonna like cost us its gonna save us money in the long run and, um, and also like preserve more of the wilderness that we have here, um, I obviously like encourage like biking um the routes, I know like the seawalk has been something that has been talked about so that, um, there’s more like opportunity for pedestrians and bikers to have, uh, more like safe space to go through town. Um, and then, uh, I definitely would like to see a plastic bag ban, to be honest- um, when I went to school in Bellingham and, um, there was a plastic bag ban while I was down there and I thought it was a great idea and I think it was a very positive thing and it actually, like, the community really embraced it there too, um, and I think that could definitely happen in a place like Sitka. And, yeah, I mean overall just like having a vision for the future, just always thinking about the future.
Earlier this year our group tried to pass a climate resolution through the assembly which, unfortunately, was voted down 4-3 but then later on Valorie Nelson kind of sponsored her own resolution that declared a climate emergency and established a climate change task force here in Sitka. We were wondering what your vote would be on that resolution?
Um, I am all about it. Um, I actually didn’t realize that that was Valorie Nelson that, um, wanted to create a task force- I would actually like love to be a part of it, a climate task force, to be honest. So, yeah I fully support and embrace that.
How do you plan on incorporating youth priorities into your decisions?
Um, so I definitely, I would love to like- I love the fact that you guys have this group that like kind of combines like different schools and everything too. Um I, I just want to really like collaborate. Um, I think that’s super important, especially when we’re dealing with something like we’re kind of like focusing on something that really does impact everybody in some way, um, and so I’m- I just wanna like focus on like really collaborating, listening to people, listening to all different perspectives and like figuring out, okay, what is important to different groups, um, and how can we kind of like appeal to their, their needs in a way that like really does help everyone’s future here. And I think that, yeah, the young youth voices is like- obviously super important for that because you guys are the future here.
Because we are a non-partisan group, we value unbiased decision making that puts people before politics. How do you plan to increase community cohesion and do you think divisiveness is a problem in Sitka?
Um, yes. So, uh, kind of like going back to like my last answer really just like listening and collaborating. Um, there’s always ways to find incentives for any group in my opinion, um, and I think, you know, I did mention like I do think like everything really is connected, there is a way to like balance everything, um, and everyone’s needs in a way that like is (attainable/sustainable?) just in general. Um, I’m sorry what was the second part of your question again? Do you think divisiveness is a problem in Sitka? Uh, um, yes. Uh, a little- I kinda do, uh, I think its also like an opportunity at the same time because I mean you- I think you can learn something from everyone. There’s always something to learn, so as long as we’re like actually listening, that’s totally key. I have been a little bit concerned with some of the like divisiveness especially on the assembly and I think, um, just kinda coming back to like being willing to listen and collaborate is really important, but, um, yeah, it can be divisive in times. I think- it’s really been interesting to see like younger voices though because I do think like- they seem to like see that divisiveness it doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked, so, um, yeah, I think its, uh, its something we can definitely improve on here.
Rebecca Himschoot:
-important for everywhere, but if what you’re driving at is- is there- are there mitigations on a local level, I believe there are.
Do you mind expanding a little bit as to what those mitigations might be?
Um, I haven’t gone in depth yet, but I’ve gotten a copy of the- I actually had it open here earlier- um there’s a group in Sitka working on climate change. This thing is mitigating climate change with local electrification, and so that document has a lot of ideas in it, um, so I can’t say specifically, but I think there’s a lot of things we can do from both directions, there’s always the directive where we change code and say you have to retrofit and you have to do these things to make your buildings more efficient. Um, but if we only do that, it just drives the wedge in deeper I think, so if we can find other solutions that help businesses, you know, I keep looking for upsides from the pandemic, um, can we come back from this pandemic and reinvent the way that we do things? So what are things we can do differently in Sitka, um, that- that aren’t just telling people what they can’t do, but rather what they can do and, um, supporting people to do the things that would be helpful. So, I don’t think I’ve been very specific, but I- I think what I’m trying to say is, I see lots of room for this city to do a lot of things that would be, um, punitive or costly to individuals and businesses, but there’s also a lot of room to just tighten up our own practices and- for example, when we send our garbage south, are we absolutely full? you know, as a small thing to look at but that’s the kind of thing where it's- lets not burn all that fossil fuel, um, and when I talk about garbage, uh, can we reduce the amount of packaging coming into Sitka? can we collectively as a community look at ways to do that? So those are the kinds of things, um, I want to be really careful not to make any promises if I am on the assembly, um, it’s gonna take me a full year to even kind of get my feet on the ground and then another couple years to try to get things done, so I would ask for patience if I do get elected, but I- I don’t want it to be, um, something where we’re always telling people restrictions and requirements, but what are the things that we can support people to do? For example, when the city had the, uh, heat pump rebate. If we can do things like that again, I think that’s a really positive direction. That was a long answer, sorry.
Would you consider doing your best to mitigate climate change one of the priorities on your platform?
Um, I’m not ready to prioritize my platform specifically, but climate change I think is something that has to be an underlying foundation for all other decisions. So, when a decision is made, it shouldn’t be made without considering climate change. So, um, I would call it a top priority in the it will-be-a-part-of how I make every decision.
One of the projects that we worked on earlier this year, as I’m sure you may have heard, was trying to pass a climate resolution through the Assembly that declared a climate change emergency and also established a climate change task force here in Sitka. We’re just curious what your vote would be on that resolution?
Could you read the resolution to me?
Um, I don’t have it in front of me, but I can send it to you and we can answer that question later if that’s more comfortable.
Yea, and, uh, I remember that it did not pass and do you remember what the comments were? i’m sure you do, what were the objections people had?
So, there were actually two. The first one was the one that did not pass and people felt kind of similar to what you were saying, it was just putting too much pressure on people and taking too many things away. So, the second one, was less action items. The main thing was making that climate change task force, so the second one was actually drafted by Valerie Nelson and then I think it was seconded by Kevin Mosher, so that one was going to pass but then the covid crisis happened so we haven’t been able to get that one through yet.
Uh huh.
The comments on the first one were also, um, mainly the opposition was because they put a lot of the tasks on the city administrator, which they felt was unfair since it was like his first week in the job.
Well it didn’t mean he had to take on those tasks in his first week did it? like the timing of it shouldn’t come at a cost to you guy. So, I wanna be careful how I say this because fundamentally absolutely climate change is- is an emergency, um, like I can be very clear about that and I think that that’s a very, um, that that position is founded on data and information so, um, I am willing obviously, not only to acknowledge but to say forcefully that climate change is an emergency. As far as the resolution and the exact specifics of it, I’m not going to be able to commit to it without looking at it, um, and then I feel like I’m being wishy washy which is not where my heart is on this issue, um, I’m only one vote and I think it’s important to look at what is realistic to do, um, and you guys are running out of time so this constant conversation about “it’s not realistic-” I think idealism can be our enemy because we put our idealistic ideas how there about what we think needs to be done and, in the case of the climate crisis, the idealism and the reality are coming closer and closer together, but the idealism, if we just want to call it that, has to be our North Star, that’s where we are headed, that’s where we need to get to. And I’m just another old person saying “how do we get there and how can we do it without it being painful?” the fact is, it’s gonna be painful if we don’t do it and it’s gonna be painful if we do it. So, um, I can’t speak exactly to the resolution without seeing it but I would be a supporter of both the task force, um, too often are task forces in Sitka do a lot of work and then we end the task force and there tends to not be a lot of action that comes out of the task force. I’ve seen that over and over and over again, one of the things that I want to do is have a task force, but their job doesn’t end at whatever plan they make, the continue to collaborate with the Assembly, um, to see the things of the task force put into action, so yes, I would be a yes vote on the resolution written in a way that gives us the latitude to do what we need to do but also binds us to do it. So, I would hesitate- sadly I would hesitate at specific timelines, um, but I can say I would commit to looking for changes and mitigations, absolutely. Another long answer.
How do you plan on incorporating youth priorities into your decision?
I’m going to make that into the plural, decisions, uh, one of the things I said to Raven Radio when I did my interview with them, which hasn’t- I’m scared of what’s going to come out of that because I’m not great at this kind of thing, um there will be a Raven interview this week I think and that interview was over a week ago and I think Katharine Rose was surprised when I said we had to get youth voice at the Assembly table. Um, so my plan, if I’m elected, is to I’m already kind of creating a group of, so to speak, advisors that I can go to about the issues I don’t know enough about and in that group, as much as possible, younger people, um, and when I say that, um, I don’t exactly have a group in mind, but its- I’m not going to wait for young people to come to me to say what they think, I intend to come out and ask you, “hey guys, what about this, what do you know about this, what do you think about this?” So, all of my decisions, I hope to have maximum input from a lot of places and if I’m not getting the input I’m going to go look for it. Does that- does that answer it?
I’m going to go ahead and volunteer YSF to be one of your advisors.
Everyone of you, you know, I could reach out to your group specifically. If I’m on the Assembly I would like to be able to do that.
I’m sure you could do that anytime and we’d be happy to do that. Because we’re a non-partisan group, we value unbiased decision making that puts people before politics. How do you plan to increase community cohesion and do you think divisiveness is a problem?
Well, uh, the decision to run wasn’t an easy decision for me and, um, I made the decision while I was riding my bike up north in Alaska and, um, I think that gave me the time and the brain space to decide to do this, to attempt to get on the Assembly and, um, I’ve lost my train of thought, will you say your question again?
How do you plan to increase-
Oh, the cohesion thing and trying to bring us together? Yea, that was- part of the problem is that I, um, I have two overarching goals if I do serve on the Assembly, and my number one goal is to bring experience and decorum to the Assembly, and then that leads to my secondary goal, which is to make the Assembly a place people want to serve, so that we have really good options down the road. Um, and we have a number of Assembly members who already do that, but we have some Assembly members who, um, I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, anyone who volunteers to serve should be honored for their service for sure, um, but I do feel that the national divide is becoming a local divide and I don’t think we have room for that in Sitka. We are too small a town, it’ll tear us apart at the seams, so my exact plan, I can’t say that I’ll have a, you know, one two three step this is how we are gonna do it, I do know that allowing us to slide down that dark tunnel of, um, divisiveness is gonna take Sitka a place that we don’t need to go and shouldn’t go. So, I’m committed to- but with that commitment, I want to be really clear, that to the community coming together and one reason I’m willing to serve on the Assembly is that it is a non-partisan body and I think I’m registered undeclared- I should check that, independent or undeclared, but that's because I don’t want to belong to a party and so when I say I’m committed to that, I’m struggling in my own mind how to, um, how to deal with it when someone comes with information that is not factual, that’s problematic. But also, we have to understand, um, whatever side I fall on an issue, the people who see it differently are every bit as valuable and if continue to let us and them- it’s like the two worst words in the English language, us and them, soon as you start talking about them you’re in trouble and so, um, I’m committed to not going there, into the us and them, and, uh, as much as I can I want to heal the risks that are in the community before they get even worse. Did that answer it?
Yeah. Alright, well that’s all the questions we have for you, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us and hopefully, if you’re elected to the Assembly we can continue to collaborate.
I would love that, we could even schedule regular input sessions or something like that, but let’s see if I’m elected first. And how many candidates will you get to talk to? How many responded?
We are hoping to get all eight, we are on our second interview and we have a couple more lined up for this week, so we’re hoping that by the end, you know the next couple of weeks, we should get all eight in.
Awesome. Thank you guys, take care. Bye.
Bye.
Amy Bethune:
What are the priorities of your platform as a prospective assembly member?
Sure so um, priorities... Right now I am running with the intent to help Sitka weather this economic downturn- I am pro-business and industry; sustainable business, responsible business and industry and I would really like to see Sitka help- I would really like to see them recover strongly from this lockdown and the harm that’s it’s done economically to the city. Um obviously you know we have you know a lot of our economy is out of our hands but whatever we can do to help the city recover- and that’s some specific ideas, you know those- there are incentives that can be created if we have a willing assembly that can help businesses, new businesses that are getting established, like maybe giving them a discount on their taxes for the first year or two so they can build their business and build capital, we can work with the city and city staff in order to reduce any development barriers that might be identified, and sometimes in the past that’s been a really slow process, so whatever we can do to help those who want to improve our community, the business community, and help provide living-wage jobs, I’m interested in that. The other thing I’m really interested in right now is, well as we look to budget for the future, one of the problems is of course we don’t have the money we need for everything we need to do, which includes the dam, rehab, and some of those things that are coming up some of the infrastructure fixes that are needed- when we look at the budget next year there I am foc- my my focus is to focus on core services so that would mean Police and Fire, Public Safety, Emergency Services, education is one of them, and um, the infrastructure again, ofcourse. So those things are kinda the financial, economic piece, and then also, just the protection of civil rights is important to me and in defending the US Constitution and the protections that we have for free speech, 2nd amendment and everything the constitution affords us in America, that’s important to me as well. So. I don’t see that there’s been a huge issue with that in Alaska but we do see that across the country in certain places. So that is something that- I just view government as having, perhaps, a more limited role than a bigger role, um, and I think that I just would like to see government have a light hand, and I’ve used that phrase in my campaign, so.
Do you consider climate change an important issue for sitka?
Uh- I consider Climate change important I think I'm not convinced that it's caused by man or that it can be controllable by humans, you know. I say man, I mean humankind. So I think it’s important, personally, I’m all for minimizing our footprint on the earth, I'm in favor of Environmental Policies as long as they don't harm the economy or cost people a lot of extra money, I think that, you know, just personally even, I’m, um, in favor of, you know, using the heat pumps that are available that um- instead of burning diesel, perhaps, you know, don’t idle your car, if you can help it, you know in the mornings, when you start, no wI used to live in fairbanks, I will tell you,so I’m sorry, you know our cars up there are like ice cubes, we plug them in at night or overnight so they actually start in the morning so there is some idling I see that needs to happen up there in order just to drive if you don’t have a garage. Um but uh you know personally before covid I chose to use cloth bags at the store um, that’s important to me, I’m part of the Sitka food co-op and I know organic food is important to me and some of those kinds of things. Um I will say I wasn't for the bag mandate though, and the reason for that is i think that should be left up to people- I think that's- My desire for smaller government means that we allow people as much freedom to choose for themselves some of those things I think in Sitka too, on plastic bags- we aren’t a source of the plastic bag problem in the oceans, from what I understand, and so I think think that- and you know, we rai- it rains a lot here, you know, and we have people taking groceries from the back of their truck to their fishing boats, some of these kinds of things, there’s a practical reason, and purpose for plastic bags, people use them in their homes, um i like people to have the choice to use them or not, I think that if we were to do something related to cloth bags, for instance- which this is a very small piece of this question that you’re asking me I realize. I think it would make more sense for the- to incentivise that with the grocery stores, so maybe you get credit if you bring a cloth bag or something, and maybe that can be grant funded through some organizations that are working towards that, so that’s kinda my view of some of those things, um yeah. Happy to answer your other questions though.
Would climate change be a factor in your decision making on the assembly?
I think that, like for example when you know there's some of that is already- if there’s a way to promote efficient use of our resources with out you know that doesn't involve what's the word I'm looking for you know it doesn't damage the air or the environment I am absolutely in favor of that as long as it doesn’t add a huge cost burden, um I think that there's already things from what I understand for example, builders, local builders even right now are recommending to people that they um you know, install these heat pumps that heat through electricity instead of - instead of diesel. Um there’s also, you know, some of the ways that you can do that now, they recommend increasing the (R?) value of your insulation so you home is more efficient and so it pays for itself really quickly and so I’m certainly in favor of those kind of things you know weatherization programs, we've taken advantage of that and I used to live in Prince of Wales and Craig and we were we to qualify for the weatherization program there and we were able to make our home more efficient in that way. And so I can’t at this moment can’t picture an exact issue which I could explain or apply that but in general I am absolutely for minimizing our footprint and I think that if we can do that affordably, that doesn’t add cost burden to people or to the city, that’s a positive thing. So, yeah, thanks.
What do you think should be done locally to mitigate this crisis?
Um, you know I don't know what we can do because because I don't I don't know if it's really is something that can be controlled by us or is caused by us I know there's a great deal of scientific dissent, although I definitely know that the prevailing narrative is that there’s a crisis right now. Um we have had- when I was a college, which was 25 years ago, almost, at UAF, you know I remember learning about- I have a science degree- so I remember learning about you know when they have drilled ice- you guys probably know more about this than I do right now but you- they drilled ice core samples which have have thousands of years of data of what's happened in the earth over time and that there is repeated Heating and Cooling periods on the earth just naturally and that was before you know the Industrial Revolution so um I may be off as far as the number of years you could track looking at ice core but but it's just I think in general anything that we can do I mean there could be a marketing push toward just helping educate the public on handling our garbage responsibly for you know how to minimize your trash output, how to, you know, recycling and reusing containers, you know, composting it and growing a garden- food security so that we're not shipping at all in you know as much as possible and using fossil fuels that way I think yeah. You know, we can choose electric cars I know that electric cars have their own issues- it uses a lot of energy to create some of the parts on those cars I understand that there maybe you know the battery components like Cobalt are mined right now or at least have in the recent past been mined by kids you know in the countries- in Africa- that they’re coming out of. So, while on the face of it, electric cars seem like a good idea, there are some problems still with those. And so, um, you know, there are some things I think we can do- I don't- beyond that I don't have ideas at the moment, but I think you know just minimizing our personal output is where we can start
Earlier this year our group wanted to pass a resolution through the sitka assembly declaring a climate emergency and establishing a climate task force. What would be your vote on this resolution?
Yeah I wouldn't feel comfortable answering until I can see the language of the final resolution, so yeah, sorry.
How do you plan on incorporating youth priorities into your decisions?
Oh, sure. Well I would absolutely welcome any of your voices, collectively or individually, um on the- um as we, you know, take up issues that may- that impact you. And so, you know, there’s a testimony period, many of them during the assembly meetings, and you know, we welcome that. And I would welcome to meet with you, too, if you had issues you wanted to be considered as we look at different initiatives that come up or situations that come up. So, you’re part of Sitka, part of the future of Sitka, and we want to hear what you have to say! So, yeah
Because we’re a nonpartisan group, we value unbiased decision making that puts people before politics. How do you plan to increase community cohesion and do you think divisiveness is a problem?
Sure I think- how do I plan to increase community cohesion. Well one of the things that I’ve said throughout the campaign- my campaign is I want to hear from- I can work with anyone, I want to hear from all sides, doesn’t matter, I would bring a tone of respect to the assembly table if I were elected and I want to hear from voices and no matter what people have to say whatever their opinion is, however they say it, even if it’s in a divisive tone, you know, my goal would be to calmly and respectfully respond. And I think that even just leading that way helps bring a tone of cohesion to the table. Um I think that- yeah i think that divisiveness has obviously been an issue, I’ve never in my life seen it as divisive in this country and this election locally even has had a good deal of divisiveness in it and that that has (great? Idk what she’s saying here) to me yeah I think that I think that the best way to do that is to lead by example and there are voices on the assembly already who are doing that and um and if I'm elected I would I would also work toward that and..
Steve Lee:
What are the priorities of your platform as a prospective assembly member?
My platform is to have communication with the people here in Sitka to build the bridge because there's no communication, people are really upset, and the assembly by itself is divided, as you know. Like I said, I'm a person that is a special tool for the community and my platform for running for assembly is to have to have a rehab. I know we have SEARHC that has a rehab facility and I work at the Sitka counseling. We do have a facility for a person that is in addiction and the safety here and the future of Sitka.
Do you consider climate change an important issue for Sitka?
Um climate change is very important everywhere, not in Sitka but all over the world. I believe it is, you know, getting involved into that climate change. I will agree a hundred percent.
Will climate change be a factor in your decision making on the assembly?
No
Okay, next up so we're talking about climate change obviously. Do you can't think there are any steps that can be taken locally to address climate change and the issues that it may present for Sitka?
Like I said, you know, I'm not familiar with climate change because we're focused on the crisis right now with a pandemic and George Floyd. Right, that's going on down south. I'm really interested in keeping the safety here in Sitka to be saved. That's my more platform for this year than last year because we need to focus on what's damaged in society.
Earlier this year our group wanted to pass a resolution through the Sitka assembly declaring a climate emergency and establishing a climate task force. What would be your vote on this resolution?
Like I said the most important is the voice and the connection and communication and the bridge. We need to communicate what you guys want. We try to do our best to solve that solution. Like climate change, we've been talking climate change every single year. And, like you said, you need someone who can pass that vote and I'm that person who can strongly encourage the assembly to think this climate change is very important to us too. Not everything but most part of big thing that needs to change. Like I said, I'm that voice. And I will carry it on to the assembly table and say hey, we need to put climate change and vote yes to pass it. Do you agree?
Yeah, That’s good to hear.
How do you plan to incorporate youth priorities into your decisions?
Like I said, right I’m not familiar to the climate change but I like to learn and listen and I know climate change is very important to us and that needs to change and get that passed vote.
Like I said you guys are youth of the future and we have to think about the new generation, am I correct. And, like I said, we're getting old. I'm getting old too so when time passes really quick. So my picture is for the future. For the youth. For the new generations.
That's great to hear.
Because we're a non partisan group, we value unbiased decision making that puts people before politics. How do you plan on increasing community cohesion and do you think divisiveness is a problem?
Right now, as you know, in Sitka we have racism. I don’t know if you agree or not. The way I see it, I'm thinking we do have it. We need to communicate and understand opinions because you know we are all stubborn, right. So we have to hear what that person's opinion is all about and figure out the solution instead. Like we have Black Lives Matter. People ask me if I support and I say I support all matters, all lives matters. The reason why because we have to include all international. As an Asian person that lived in California, I’ve been criticized from all over: white, black, Chinese, or anywhere, any international. I’ve been criticized. They'd call us changs, we smell like garlic, and stuff like that. But, like I said, we need to communicate and understand, and say we are all human beings. You know, same body, you know, same eyes, same ears. Why can't we treat the same person as you are instead of judging others, instead of judging myself. So the most important tool is for me to communicate; say hey, this person, that person, you criticize a lot, buy them dinner, buy them coffee and say hey, we have to understand we have different opinions but we're living in the same place, we have to communicate. We can't always pass by and look at them, you know. So I think I can be a strong person and say hey, let's talk about it and solve the solution still criticizing people. Because we all live here together, it's a small island.
Okay well thank you so much. Thank you for joining this call. We really value forming relationships with possible future assembly members and if you are elected we really hope we can continue to work with you and communicate with you. If you want any more information from us please feel free to let me know. Good luck. Thank you so much.
I’m going to keep my promise, I don't promise because I can't “do it” but I make sure I promise that the climate change I bring you guys will represent, I will invite you guys to the meeting and say hey they are from Youth for the Future and we need them because, you know, we are getting old, our thinking is old time but we need someone new that can change this world, the future. So I promise you one thing: If I’m elected I guarantee and do my best and all my part and all my wisdom to get that vote passed.
Thank you, and thank you so much for meeting with us Steve. All the best.
Thank you and you guys have a good day, it's a beautiful day.
Yes it is. Enjoy it.