2024 Juneau Municipal Election
What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau Assembly?
- What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau Assembly?
- The city is asking voters to approve adding nearly $23 million to the city’s debt for public health and safety improvements. What are your thoughts on the two ballot initiatives?
- Do you think the Ship-Free Saturday ballot initiative will benefit Juneau residents? Why or why not? If so, how?
- Juneau has now experienced record-breaking glacial outburst flooding events two years in a row. What role should the city play in mitigating damage to residential property in the future?
- The city is moving forward with a redevelopment plan for the Telephone Hill neighborhood in the coming years. How should the Assembly balance the need for more affordable housing downtown with the costs the city may have to shoulder to get those requirements in place?
- What do you think are the most important issues facing Juneau right now?
- School Board
- What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau school board?
- What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the Juneau School District right now?
- Last year, the district had to solve an abrupt multimillion-dollar deficit in a matter of months. Not all residents were happy with the decisions made and it prompted a recall effort this election for two of its current members. Moving forward, what role does each school board member play in ensuring that the district remains on firm financial footing?
- The school board voted to consolidate Juneau’s high schools and middle schools this past winter. And, with the uncertainty about education funding in the state and the district’s declining enrollment, do you think more school consolidation will be necessary in the future? If so, how will you tackle that situation?
- With hundreds of more students at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé this year, issues with the lack of parking have been a hot topic. What more could the district be doing to mitigate that?
- Is student achievement where it should be in Juneau? What can the district do to improve reading and math scores as students grapple with major shifts in their school environments?
District 2 Assembly
Dorene Lorenz
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
I make a great candidate for the Juneau Assembly because I have experience, not only experience in running a city that’s very similar to Juneau. I was a member of the Seward Assembly, which has very similar services that we offer to our constituency that Juneau does. But, it also gives you a good opportunity to see if you actually have the tenacity that it takes to research the issues and find out good answers and not rely completely on a staff that normally is overtaxed with things to do and enough time to do real research and finding innovative solutions.
Emily Mesch
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
I have a vision for a prosperous Juneau and I believe in a prosperous Juneau. I want to see that vision come to fruition. I want to make the difficult decisions, have the difficult conversations that ensure that everybody in Juneau has a say in how the city is run. That, in the end, everybody has a chance to prosper here.
Nano Brooks
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
I’m a lifelong Juneauite and was born and raised here, and have devoted my entire life to doing everything I can in the community to make sure that everyone has the best possible quality of life. I’ve worked in very many fields around the community, anything from child care to trades to service, and it’s given me a diverse experience for providing the best possible representation for the community.
Mary Marks
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
I believe that it’s important to listen to the community when they have concerns because every neighborhood has different needs, and they’re seeing things that I don’t get to see as a Juneau assembly member, and I think it’s important that we not hold back and allow them to speak because this is their feelings, and this is what they want to express, and we should be able to listen and be open-minded to their needs and finding a solution.
Maureen Hall
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
As a retired school nurse and as someone who has raised a family here in Juneau — my four adult kids are here living in Alaska too, raising their families here. I’m a longtime volunteer for a major nonprofit in our community, serving the most vulnerable people. And, I feel like health care as a school nurse, I’m right at the intersection of health and education, which are two very big issues in front of the Assembly, and as well as the vulnerable population, the unhoused. I feel that I am right on the front lines of a nonprofit that is trying to address those issues in a very compassionate way. So, yeah, that’s why I decided to run.
District 1 Assembly
Neil Steininger
Candidate for District 1 Assembly
I have a lot of experience in the public sector, finance and budgeting and administration. I spent about 12 years at the state. Most of that time I spent at the Office of Management and Budget working on fiscal issues for the state, state finances, as well as working on kind of that back end of how government works.
I’ve learned a lot about what policy decisions are effective in functional government. And I think I can bring that viewpoint to the Assembly, and work with the other Assembly members to kind of bring in some of those ideas and concepts and knowledge that would help as we try and move the city forward.
Connor Ulmer
Candidate for District 1 Assembly
I believe my experience working at Tlingit and Haida with our executive council, which is our governing body outside of our tribal assembly, and my time at Sealaska as the board youth advisor and on the Tlingit and Haida Juneau Community Council has all kind of helped push me forward to run and bring in another Native voice to the Assembly and also just a younger perspective to everything.
Mayor
Beth Weldon
Candidate for Mayor
I think one of the things that I bring to the Assembly is my ability to build relationships. I get along well with the Assembly members, even the first time I was on just the Assembly before I was mayor. I think I’ve been a good catalyst for getting the different viewpoints together and able to work through solutions together, build collaboration.
And then outside the Assembly, I think I’ve been able to build relationships with a variety of groups of people, all the way from our state delegation to our federal delegation to the tribe. It was the first time last month that SEARCH [SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium], the city and BRH [Bartlett Regional Hospital] met together. So those are the kind of things I think I bring to the Assembly, along with six years of experience as mayor.
Angela Rodell
Candidate for Mayor
I think I would make a good candidate because I do have a background. I lived in this community for 13 years. I have a background in finance. I’ve worked with municipalities the entirety of my career, for the last 30-plus years, and I think we need to get back to basics and really focus on our spending priorities and what our community needs to keep our young families and our senior citizens here and make Juneau affordable.