2020 Juneau Municipal Elections
Pandemic response
Do you think the city’s response to the pandemic has been adequate?
Do you think the city’s response to the pandemic has been adequate?
District 2 Assembly
Derek Dzinich
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
I do think that the city’s response to the pandemic has been adequate. In a recent forum, I give them an eight out of 10. And this seems to kind of generally fit with what current members of the Assembly said. Obviously, these circumstances could not have been foreseen. And obviously, when people joined the Assembly, ran for the Assembly, they could have never foreseen that they would be dealing with a public health crisis. And given that fact, I think that the City and Borough of Juneau, the Assembly, they did a good job of taking into account Juneau’s unique status as a semi-isolated community. They were proactive, they made science-based decisions and the policies they implemented really did have an impact, especially when you look at COVID transmission rates and death rates in the rest of the country. I think that going forward, there are things to improve upon — more speedy test results, more cohesive policy with travelers. But I think that given their response, I think that it was adequate and I think that it was a good response.
Lacey Derr
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
There is no playbook for this anywhere. And the Assembly has done a fantastic job, taking both science and public comment, putting things together and making hard decisions for Juneau that has kept us in a position to where we have not been overwhelming our health care. As we’ve seen in the recent weeks with the new pop-up testing center and the outbreak from bars, we’re looking at this just overwhelming — everything is changing moment by moment — and I really think that the Assembly has done a fantastic job to get in front of this, to be proactive instead of reactive and Juneau’s numbers have reflected that, that proactiveness and safety. And I think that they have done the best they can with what they have, and I’m proud of the work that they have done.
Robert Shoemake
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
I think it’s been adequate. When we look back on something, I think there’s always things we can do better. The matrix, to me, that they have established to say what we’re supposed to do a different steps — it doesn’t have a zero. It doesn’t have “How do we get back to normal?” I think any plan needs to have a zero and it needs to have worst case scenario, and I think they’ve left that out of the plan.
Christine Woll
Candidate for District 2 Assembly
I think that the city has done a good job up onto this point. They have, their process has been very good. Their priorities have been right. I think we need to be using public health expertise to guide our decision making, because I think that’s what we need to eventually get back to work and get our kids back to school. I posed this question to my husband who’s a firefighter — and so he’s on the front lines — and he also agreed that, given all the circumstances, their decision making has been spot on. And I think we can see that in the numbers.
District 1 Assembly
Alicia Hughes-Skandijs
Candidate for District 1 Assembly
The decisions that we made, we really tried to keep centered by following the science and going on the recommendations of the experts that were available to us. We partnered with the state early on and they were really great to partner with and made public health officials available to us. We’ve tried to be aware of the associated effects from the pandemic, the effects that had on small business with the small business grants, the effects that it had on just residents and (their) ability to pay rent with the rental assistance. So, I think we’ve done a good job so far. And of course that is also on the individual actions of the community member.
Kenny Solomon-Gross
Candidate for District 1 Assembly
We’re really not going to know what the outcome of these responses are going to be for six months to a year, two years down the line. I think the mayor’s economic stabilization task force coming into play and helping our local businesses. I think the schools have done great in responding. (Superintendent) Dr. Weiss has been wonderful. Our school board has responded very well to the pandemic. And I really believe that our hospitals were set up — you know, being a member of the Bartlett hospital board — we were ready, we were able to mobilize quickly. I think that (Capital City Fire/Rescue), our fire department and our police have been great. I believe that setting up our command center has been good. Testing needs to get better. You know, we need to keep doing testing, more and more and more. So, there’s a lot that we did really well there’s a lot that we can do more of.
Areawide Assembly
Maria Gladziszewski
Candidate for Areawide Assembly
Well, someone asked actually the other day, what grade would I give the Assembly? And I said, “An A for effort.” I think we’ve worked quickly with ever changing information — imperfect information — always with the health and well–being of Juneau in mind. But we actually won’t know until this is over how Juneau comes out in the end. And we have done everything we can to make sure that when someone writes a book in five years about communities and navigating the pandemic, that Juneau is on the “did a good job” list and not on the “did not do a good job” list. So, so far, I think we have done everything we could. We tried to listen to public health guidance and it’s ever-evolving, because the science is ever-evolving. And we also established an economic task force to help guide some of the economic responses as we have tried to navigate some of the, more the health responses. So I think we’ve done everything we can.