Juneau Assembly candidates pledged greater collaboration with the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska at a forum on Friday.
Several candidates pointed to the city’s sale of Pederson Hill property at a discounted rate to the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority as an example.
“In some of the activities you do, there should be cooperative and shared power with the City and Borough, particularly in the areas of delivering housing,” said District 1 candidate Joe Geldhof.
Ten of the 14 Assembly candidates attended the forum in person at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall, and Geldhof joined on Zoom. Areawide candidates JoAnn Wallace, Emily Mesch and Jeff Jones did not attend.
Areawide candidate Ella Adkison, a Curyung tribal member, noted that Tlingit and Haida is working to address a lot of the same issues as the city. The tribe offers services for elders, child care, Head Start and other education programs.
“I think there’s a lot more room to connect those efforts and work together to maximize these for these shared constituents that we have,” Adkison said.
Areawide candidate Laura Martinson McDonnell said Tlingit and Haida’s job training programs are important for Juneau’s workforce.
“We have a really huge problem with skilled labor shortages,” she said. “If we can provide that kind of training to our own local people here, that’s going to be a huge problem solver for housing and development.”
Areawide candidate Ivan Nance spoke about opportunities for Alaska Native people in Juneau to get involved in city government. He’s a member of the city’s systemic racism review committee, which the Assembly created in 2020.
“We’re looking into how to get more people involved in the committees and the processes that the city has,” Nance said. “How can we reach out and get people from every community involved?”
District 2 incumbent Christine Woll said strengthening the relationship between the two governments is an important part of building trust.
“I think CBJ has done work to improve relations with the Native community here in Juneau, but I think we have a lot of work to do still,” Woll said. “If I’m reelected, my promise is that I’ll have an open door for ideas on how we can be better partners to the tribes, to the corporations, to the other Native organizations and community at large.”
Tlingit and Haida is Alaska’s largest federally recognized tribe. In May, President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson announced the tribe would withdraw from the Alaska Federation of Natives, citing the tribe’s ability to manage relationships with the state and federal governments on its own. They’ve received a state-tribal education compacting grant, and have worked to return ownership of traditional lands in the Aak’w Village District.
Friday’s forum came the day after ballots were mailed to registered voters. Election Day is Oct. 3.
