Alicia Hughes-Skandijs

What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau Assembly?

I think I’m a strong candidate for Assembly because I’ve been serving in this position for the last four years and change. In that time, I definitely got battle tested. I was on the Assembly during the pandemic, so I learned really quickly how to navigate within the system and how to work well with other people. I think that’s one of my strengths that I bring as a candidate – I’m good at reaching consensus and working with people who may not agree with me. I think as somebody who’s really invested as a young person in the community, I’m bringing a perspective that will serve Juneau well in the time to come, focusing on those issues that are really important for us to address.

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

I voted to put the question to the voters again, and I had supported it last go around. I’m really supportive of a new city hall because it’s just something the city needs. The city hall building that we have that needs all those repairs only has some of our city employees in it. We’re renting spaces all over town. There’s not really a commercial real estate space that exists that we could repurpose that would fit all the employees. I wouldn’t have gone so out quickly again if the cost of the repairs needed wasn’t going to be so expensive. It feels like it’s going to be a waste of city money if we remodel rather than building something that’ll serve us for the next bunch of years. And hopefully, by putting some one-time monies toward the project, we’ve made the cost more attractive to voters.

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

I would say making sure that cruise ship tourism is working for our year-round residents as well as it is for our economy and for our businesses that depend on it is one of the top three reasons that I’m running. I’m really excited by the five-ship limit. We don’t have that in place right now, so it can feel like, well, we did this thing and yet we know we’re having a really big-feeling season. 

So I think it’s important that we follow the principles of, things we can do by collaboration with the industry rather than legislation are generally neater and more long-lasting and better for all involved. But we should let things come into place and then go by that temperature. Once we make that change, does it feel like we need to make more changes? Then let’s do it.

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

We’re actually doing a lot right now, even though it may not feel like it. Housing is, for me, my number one issue. I think we need to do a combination of things. We are using our affordable housing fund, that’s back on the streets right now, and we’ve been spending from it. We need to continue really aggressive subsidization until we can kind of catch up with the state of the crisis that we’re at. 

We need to really rip into our land use zoning code. I think everyone agrees it’s not great, so find those things that are kind of a hindrance to development, see what we can do about those. Some of the projects we have in the pipeline with our additional dwelling units, making those sorts of changes. The city also has a couple of key parcels downtown that I would like to see us, with a public-private partnership, develop ourselves.

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?

This has certainly been something we were thinking about just earlier this week. We took a look at the hazard maps, and one of the options got forwarded to the full Assembly so we can hear public testimony about it. 

I think the way I’m approaching it is, we know that a lot of Juneau is in one kind of hazard zone or another, so we have to be mindful of that, that we’re taking care, that we’re not creating regulations so stringent that we don’t have anywhere we can live, especially when we know we need to develop more housing. So that’s one side of it. The other side of it is, I think you do have a responsibility to notify people and let people be aware of the fact that they are taking some personal risk by what kind of hazard they’re living near so they have the information, what they need to be watching.

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

I think it’s housing. I really do. It’s something we all agree on, it’s something we have been working on, but it’s something we need to turn up the heat on and do even more to affect it. It affects Juneau in so many ways. Right now, we have a situation where people can’t find a place to live. That affects every employer. It affects the hospital. It affects cruise ship excursions because they can’t staff because they can’t get anyone to move here. It’s affecting the state. It affects our economy in a real way. And then just from the quality of life perspective, it’s affecting – if you can’t stay here, we’re not going to be able to keep young families here, and if we do that, we’ve already got an aging demographic. It will solve a lot of Juneau’s long term issues if we can fix our housing problem.