• Age as of Oct. 3, 2023

    23

  • Family (immediate/those you live with)

    Parents, Milo and Kimberly Adkison, little brother, Kade Adkison.

  • Occupation

    Legislative Aide

  • Previous relevant experience or community involvement

    Board Member, Juneau World Affairs Council; member, Juneau Youth Court.

  • Highest level of education

    B.A. in International Affairs

  • Do you support ballot proposition 1?

    Yes

  • What's your favorite spot in Juneau?

    Kaxdigoowu Heen Dei (Brotherhood Bridge) Trail. I love to run there with my dog.

  • What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau Assembly?

    In my day job, I’m a legislative aide for one of Juneau’s legislative delegation, and so I’m very familiar with the legislative process and advocating for policy, as well as working with people who my views don’t necessarily align with and still coming up with a really cohesive solution. I’ve also worked with the city in some capacities, especially on education issues, as I’ve been staffing my boss on education. So I feel like I bring a lot of that baseline foundation to the Assembly. Whatever the differences in municipal and state government are I think will be pretty applicable and easy to pick up. I feel like I have a lot of experience I bring to the table.

    Compare candidates' answers

  • The city is asking voters to fund a new city hall through a $27 million bond. What are your thoughts?

    We absolutely need a new city hall. The current setup is unsustainable, paying nearly $1 million in rent in perpetuity – hopefully Juneau is going to be here forever – and also we have city employees in places that aren’t ideal for them to work and are taking up potential housing spaces for our community. A new city hall would also congregate all of city services in one place with parking, which makes the city and the Assembly and everything you need to do with the city much more accessible to Juneauites. We’re at this nexus where we either need to invest a lot of money in a city hall that’s old and really not working for us, or we spend that money on a better city hall that will be there forever and suit Juneauites’ needs.

    Compare candidates' answers

  • Do you think the city should limit cruise ship tourism? Why or why not? If so, how?

    I think that we’ve seen a huge bounce back of cruise ship tourism since COVID, and there is definitely, I think, room for improvement. The city made a great first step when they negotiated the five-ship limit, and I think we need to continue that process and continue that relationship, whether that looks like spreading out some of the tourism impacts, whether that’s certain times of day, only certain ships can dock. Maybe that is establishing a carrying capacity, so that we only have a certain amount of people in per day. But as we negotiate that, we also really need to be mindful of local businesses here in Juneau who really do rely on that tourism, and make sure that we’re not hurting our local businesses by limiting cruise ship tourism. So I think there’s a balance we can strike, but we do need to move forward on that for sure.

    Compare candidates' answers

  • What do you intend to do about Juneau’s housing crisis?

    Housing in Juneau has been a crisis for many, many, many years, and it’s certainly not going to be solved by one Assembly. But I think we can push a lot harder on the housing issue than we have been. First step to that, I think, is making use of the little land that we have. That’s the biggest problem, that Juneau doesn’t have a lot of land to build on. That might mean really higher-density housing in certain areas and looking at the zoning for residential. Also applying that to our current projects, like Pederson Hill and Telephone Hill, and be sure that we’re making the best use of that land of our community. And if you want to look to the future, I think the Douglas second crossing will be really vital to that, which will open up more land and expand our limited resource there for residential and commercial use.

    Compare candidates' answers

  • City-hired experts produced hazard maps for avalanches and landslides — how should the city balance responsible development with the needs of community members already living here?

    That ties back into our housing issue, right. I would venture to say there’s probably little place in Juneau that doesn’t have some risk associated. We’re right against mountains, and mountains, they move. We have avalanches, we have landslides. Rivers move. But while I think it’s really important for the city to regulate those areas that have a super high risk – where people really could die – or not sell city land that would be a really hazardous place for people to build, but at the same time, I think that limiting people from building in those sort of moderate risk areas is not the right way to go, because there’s quite a lot of that space there. I do think that people need to be informed, and the city needs to inform them when they have that risk, but then let people make an informed decision instead of limiting it all outright.

    Compare candidates' answers

  • What do you think is the most important issue facing Juneau right now?

    I think that the current issue we really are facing is our education issue, and making sure we can fund our schools as much as possible. We’ve had some attacks on our ability to fund our education system by the current administration, and it’s really important that we educate our kids. It’s important so that families will come live here, so young people come back and start work here. People aren’t going to start up new businesses in a place that doesn’t have a good education system. And we’ve done a really good job up to this point to funding our education, and it’s really great the relationship we have with the school district and the assembly. But we need to continue that, we need to fight that, and make sure that that continues.

    Compare candidates' answers