Juneau Assembly candidates discussed the need for affordable housing, more child care and competitive wages for public safety employees at a forum hosted by local police and firefighters Thursday.
Staff shortages, wages and child care were common themes in the questions, which were submitted by public safety employees and first responders. The Juneau Police Department has 14 unfilled jobs – a 23% vacancy rate.
“Increasing wages is probably the fastest way to deal with some of those vacancies,” said District 1 incumbent Christine Woll.
Last year, Juneau police received the same 5.5% wage increase as all other city employees and a 5% increase to their employer health contribution.
Areawide candidate JoAnn Wallace said more recruitment within the local community could also help.
“If you could recruit them right out of high school and send them through scholarship programs to get trained, as an alternative to college, I think it would be a great way to keep kids that are already in our community in our town and into these great jobs,” Wallace said.
Some candidates said the police and fire departments need more city funding.
“We need to find a way to make sure the fire department is funded appropriately, without an increase in property taxes or sales taxes,” said areawide candidate Jeff Jones. “We need more transparency within the city. We need to know where the money is going.”
Public safety employees also asked the candidates what they would do about the child care shortage. Areawide candidate Nano Brooks said the city can help the industry through subsidies and grants to help providers expand their facilities.
“Also, supporting local programs like RALLY, which made a huge difference in my life,” Brooks said, referring to the Juneau School District’s child care program.
Burnout, depression and other mental health challenges were also concerns for firefighters and police. Areawide candidate Ella Adkison said diverting some of the workload to other kinds of workers, such as mental health providers, could help.
“If we can have a new program where non-police people take calls that are non-violent, such as mental health and addiction crises, that way we can save our police officers for the truly violent calls that they need to be on, such as domestic violence and assault calls,” she said.
Thirteen out of 14 assembly candidates attended the forum. Ten candidates are running for two areawide seats, two are running for a District 1 seat and two are running for District 2. District 2 candidate David Morris did not attend.
Thursday’s forum was the first of several opportunities for the public to hear from municipal candidates. The Juneau Chamber of Commerce will host a forum for school board and District 1 and 2 candidates on Thursday, Sept. 7. The Juneau League of Women Voters, KTOO, the Juneau Empire and KINY will co-host forums on Sept. 12 and 13. The Chamber will host an areawide candidate forum on Sept. 14.
Juneau residents can register to vote or update their addresses through Sunday, Sept. 3. Election day is Oct. 3.
