Michele Stuart-Morgan

What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau Assembly?

I’ve lived in Juneau for 31 years. I lived 20 years in the Valley and I now live in Douglas. I’m running for the Assembly because I’m seeing, coming out of COVID, we’re having a lot of changes. I don’t take contributions, I don’t have any ulterior motives. I care about the families. My sons and my adopted nephew live here, I live here, and I want to make sure that we keep this a great place. This is really at a juncture. Juneau is my home. This is the longest I’ve lived anywhere.

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

I think we need a new city hall. If you’ve been in the old city hall building, you know. I read the article Rorie Watt put out. He’s been the city manager for 30 years. I agree with that. I would like to see the specific proposals for the monies, but I think if we’re going to keep going forward in Juneau as a great place, city hall is a great place to start. I just think it’s wild that we are the city and we rent city hall.* I think it would be a good investment to build a new city hall and some other things downtown.

*Editor’s note: The City and Borough of Juneau owns the city hall building at 155 South Seward Street but rents office space in four other buildings downtown.

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

I think tourism is a great thing for Juneau. Cruise ship tourism and tourism can be split up into different scenarios. I know that in 2024 we do have a cap coming that’s five ships a day. I think that’s a good idea. I think our infrastructure is busting already. I would like to see our tourism push for more individual tourism. Maybe we can educate them on the other things that we have here in Juneau – Sealaska Heritage being downtown, the Soboleff Building, our beautiful scenery, the things to do – so we can educate those people before they come up so they would want to see more than just our glacier or our downtown. Our entire area is gorgeous, and that’s something you can’t build. It’s nature. I think that would be something I’d like to see.

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

That is one of the reasons I am wanting to be on the Assembly. I would like to work with people who have been looking at this. I would like to look at other ways. I own a home and I also own a rental, and I know on both sides of that that our taxes have gone up. I know what it costs to maintain a rental – the utilities and all those things. I also have my two sons who don’t own a home yet, and I see their struggles. I don’t think I have the answer by myself but I think I’m the type of person that would work with other people. I do focus in, I do like to get things done, and I think that’s one of the things I’d like to focus in on the most. We can’t grow our housing market and our tourism and our business without looking at those individually and then putting them together. You can break them down into small pictures and that would be the way to tackle that.

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?

What happened on Mendenhall River is going to continue to happen. We cannot just bury our head and say if we don’t deal with this it will go away. The next time we have an erosion issue, the next time we have a mudslide, we have an avalanche, people will die. That can’t be balanced with your property values. There has to be a way to look at this and do a preventative measure instead of waiting and doing a knee-jerk reaction after something horrible happens. When the towers went down at Snettisham, AEL&P built barriers. In other countries, they have ski resorts and they build barriers and they work together with the environment to protect those buildings and manmade things. There has to be ways to do that and we have to look at that. We can’t just look away and say it will ruin my property. It’s going to ruin it, and it’s going to take lives. So let’s get proactive on that one now.

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

We do have climate change. We have erosion. We still have our addiction problem. Fentanyl is still killing many of our residents, and it’s rampant. It’s going up, it’s not going down. In 2015 and ‘16, I tried to help and worked with a lot of people to get Narcan – with our nonprofit Juneau Stop Heroine Start Talking – and we got that bill passed and we got Narcan, Naloxone, out in people’s hands. And that helped save lives, but that fight is not over. The dignity of our people, we need to make sure we address that. Our tourism. I think Centennial Hall and JACC, there’s many, many things. I’m the kind of person that wants to focus and break them down and look at them one-by-one, not just glaze them over and push them under a rug. I think that’s something I’m good at doing. Our seniors, our schools, our housing, you could go on and on. I don’t have the answers. I would work with other people – federal, city, everyone – to break those down and address them individually.