Ivan Nance

What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau Assembly?

I’ve lived in Juneau for a little less than 20 years. I’ve been involved in a variety of activities in the community. The one that’s closest to city and borough government is the systemic racism review committee, that I’m a member of for basically the last year and a half. And that got me more aware of people who work for the city and borough and issues going on with the city and borough. So that leads me here.

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

I think the idea is basically good, basically I give it a thumbs up, although I’m not sure about the financing at this point. But it needs to be explained better, otherwise it probably would have passed the first time. But I’ve gone down and been in the building that we have now, and I can see that it really doesn’t match what I think a 21st century city office should be. So I’m in favor of the new city hall, but I think it needs to be presented better and more clearly to the people of Juneau. And in particular, I want to know more about what happens to the existing facility – what value do we get out of that?

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

I think it should be limited, and I think there are proposals in the works right now* to limit the number of ships.* That’s a good idea, because people I talk to are stressed by the amount of tourists. I know someone who was on one of the trails a few weeks ago and almost got run over by a tourist on a bike. So it just needs to be more well-managed. We’ve got the big attraction here. The cruise ship industry has to be making money or they wouldn’t be doing it, so let’s make it good for the people who live here and the tourism industry.

*Editor’s note: The city and cruise industry agreed this spring on a limit of no more than five large ships in port per day starting next year.

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

I talk to people who basically cannot afford housing on the wages that they make here. And that’s in particular during the summer. So somehow we need to match the housing with the resources the people who need housing have. It’s going to require government assistance, government involvement in the planning and putting together a plan. And then it’s going to require some type of public funding.

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?

Number one, you’ve got to look forward and have some kind of a reasonable expectation for what’s going to happen. What’s it going to be like next year, or in the next 10 years, with the snow and the runoff that happens? Certainly, this event up where some houses got washed away because of glacial runoff is different. And that’s because of the climate change that’s gone on. So it needs to be not exactly studied, but a good current set of knowledge put together to make the basis of plans.

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

I think it’s how to take the assets that we have and transform, develop the future in such a way that we maintain the assets we have and capitalize, market or bring businesses here that appreciate those assets. I have a quote from one of my favorite people, Will Rogers. Will Rogers said, and this is back in the ‘30s, ‘Be glad you don’t get all the government you pay for.’ So we’re talking about, with this city Assembly, one of the things that I’m interested in is making it as productive and efficient city government as it can be. All the issues that you brought up, they’re specific, but overall we need to give people a good value proposition for their taxes.