Juneau Mayor Ken Koelsch will not run for re-election, he announced Friday morning.
In an interview with the Empire, Koelsch said he had been holding off on making a final decision about re-election until he knew if others were going to run for the seat. He said he was ready to move on and spend more time with his family, but would have run again if he thought there wouldn’t be multiple mayoral candidates.
“I wanted to make sure that we had potential choices,” Koelsch said. “I got the indication that there would be a couple choices, so I was satisfied to move on and open up some room.”
After Koelsch’s announcement, Assembly members Norton Gregory and Beth Weldon both announced that they will run for the seat. Saralyn Tabachnick, the executive director of Juneau’s emergency domestic violence shelter, Aiding Women in Abuse and Rape Emergencies (AWARE), declared her candidacy in June.
[Assembly members Gregory, Weldon announce candidacy for mayor]
Koelsch, 74, said he won’t be endorsing anyone else to succeed him, adding that he trusts the community to make a good decision. In a press release announcing his intention, he said he’s hoping to give leadership to “the next generation.” Candidates looking to run for office in the Oct. 2 election can officially sign up between Aug. 3 and Aug. 13.
Koelsch won a special mayoral election in March 2016 after former mayor Greg Fisk died one month into his tenure. Koelsch was a member of the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly before his mayoral term, and he worked as a teacher at Juneau-Douglas High School from 1968-1996. He said he will remain involved in the community.
Looking back at his two-plus years as mayor, Koelsch said the hardest decisions are the ones that stood out.
“The highlights are always with solving problems,” Koelsch said, “whether it be on a large or small scale.”
He pointed specifically to the issue of annexing parts of Admiralty Island and the mainland, which the Assembly applied to do earlier this year. He has previously mentioned the votes about the city’s camping ordinance in early 2017, as well as the 2017 ordinance supporting the Juneau Access Project.
Koelsch, who has lived in Juneau for almost 50 years, said the issues of homelessness, housing, affordable and available child care, and economic growth will still be major focuses for the Assembly moving forward. He pointed out the drop in school enrollment, the loss of jobs and the declining population in recent years, and said city officials need to be able to figure out a way to weather the ups and downs of the economy while not pulling too much from savings.
“I think you can’t offer an adequate safety net for our social services if you don’t have a thriving economy, or at least an adequate economy,” Koelsch said.
Koelsch said he’ll miss the job but is looking forward to the next phase of his life.
“It will be weird to turn off the lights in my office for the last time and leave some things unfinished, but that is the nature of the job and life,” Koelsch said in a release. “When I leave for the last time, it will be to go home to my wife of 50 years, Marian, and our children and grandchildren. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.
