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Neil Steininger: Juneau Assembly District 1 candidate
Age: 40
Occupation: Consultant
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What should the Assembly be doing this fall and beyond to deal with the concerns of people whose homes have been damaged by flooding from Suicide Basin, and are concerned about the same thing happening next year and beyond?
“It’s a big question because if you have solutions that could take place on just city land, — like that idea of creating some cut-throughs, create additional flow when it gets to a certain level, which I think are great ideas — would be something that just us as a city would be able to work on. But you also have state lands and you have federal lands involved…So obviously there’s working closely with the federal delegation to try to get relief money, for one. Then some of these solutions on the city (level), like doing a cutthrough, or something along those lines, that are probably a little more feasible than some of those bigger pie-in-the-sky ideas of like drilling through the mountain.”
Is there anything you feel the Assembly could have done after last year’s flood to prepare for this year, but didn’t?
“I don’t think so. You’ve got 20-20 hindsight that this was worse than last year, but nobody thought it was going to be worse. We knew it was going to be or it had the potential to be bad. But even in the days leading up the projections were cresting like a half a foot below last year…If you look at the response after the flood it was just night and day better this year than last year…Last year it was a lot less responsive, people seemed to be caught a little more flat-footed. This year was very clear that the city, the National Guard and the state were all pretty prepared to respond.”
Housing is a major concern of people affected by the flood, who say there is a shortage of workers and supplies to repair damaged homes as well as a scarcity of vacancies for people to move into. What suggestions do you have for addressing such shortages that are already a major ongoing issue?
“It seems like as long as Juneau has been around, there’s been a housing problem in Juneau. It ebbs and flows in its severity for sure. I think in a lot of ways the city needs to be letting land developers do what they do best and that’s develop the land. Get land that the city is sitting on that could be developed into the hands of people capable of developing it. And I think that’s a big piece. Plenty of private companies in this town that are capable of doing that.
“You’re not giving it away by any means, but making it easier to get it out of the city’s hands…Basically finding the right people that actually have the capability of developing it because we have a lot of folks here in town and not trying to do every piece of the process.”
How do you find people to do that development, given that workforce shortages are a widespread problem in Juneau and beyond?
“If you get land into the hands of developers that can build on it those developers will be trying to find people to work on it. That’s the economic activity you’re talking about, that’s going to draw people. We do have a lot of people come into this town wanting to live here that ultimately a lot of them leave because there’s a lack of housing.”
What kind of economic engines do you think the Assembly should be trying to grow in Juneau?
“I think that we really shouldn’t be looking at penalizing the industry that has been growing: tourism. I think that there’s good intentions of people’s hearts in terms of wanting to see a balance between visitor traffic and living in our town, but I think things like Ship-Free Saturday are kind of too much of a knee-jerk reaction to it. There’s ways you can partner with that industry to make sure that it continues to be thriving, continues to be able to employ people seven days a week who want to work hard through the summer, and that brings in a lot of young people into this town.”
What other industries can be economic cornerstones?
“We have the mining industry. Fishing is definitely on a downturn, unfortunately, just due to stock of fish. Obviously, there’s government services and that’s kind of dropped down. (But) just because something’s declined doesn’t mean it’s going away completely. On the government side back in 2014 when oil crashed that really was kind of the start of that downturn. We saw a lot of state jobs go away statewide and then we haven’t really seen those come back here in Juneau. And then also telework has changed that dynamic for downtown businesses and, in particular, lunch spots aren’t as busy as they were…”
“I would like to see a return of more state jobs as the state rebounds…We probably can’t rely on that happening over the next two years, (but) hopefully after that, we might see some jobs return to Juneau.”
Where do you think the city spends money wisely and unwisely?
“I see we’ve got a lot of really good services that we are delivering here in Juneau. You look at our access to recreational services and it’s pretty great compared to towns of 30,000. I think sitting down with the city offices and bringing some of my more analytical in-the-weeds detail work will really help me figure out where we can make changes, if changes need to be made, or support things that need to be supported. It’s not all about inefficiency versus efficiency. It’s about outcomes. Because really, in government, what you’re looking at is the product of the service you’re delivering to the constituents.”
What are your thoughts about the city’s current property assessments and mill rate?
“My biggest issue in that process is lack of transparency on the assessment side. Two years ago I, like many others, had my property assessment go up dramatically — I was about 25% to 26% — so pretty significant year over year. And what I found most frustrating wasn’t necessarily that change in the primary tax bill, it was that there was no explanation of why my property was being deemed to have gone up that much…Something that I want to address if I get on the Assembly is to bring in city code that requires more transparency in that process that requires more of an explanation.”
Juneau has a city-owned hospital with a financial crisis, a school district that just had a financial crisis and other city entities like Eaglecrest Ski Area that are seeking help. Given that the Assembly is being asked to provide that additional help, what is your assessment of the city’s financial situation as a whole?
“Both (the school and hospital) are a mix of external factors and internal factors. For example, at the school district you have a declining student-age population in Juneau, we have this demographic shift towards older residents. And you know that drives that input variable for how much funding we’re even allowed to get. And then you have, you know, the flat funding from the state over the last decade, roughly. And that exacerbates any smaller problems within the management side. And I think there’s been a lot of work done by the school board — really, really difficult work to address the pieces that they actually can address.”
”If you look at hospitals throughout the state, all the privately- and municipally-run hospitals that aren’t run by tribal organizations that aren’t part of (Indian Health Services) have been having a hard time. And so Bartlett’s not unique within the hospital ecosystem.”
A local economic study presented last year says Juneau’s population is expected to decline in the years to come. What issues of concern does that raise and how should the Assembly address them?
“Economists are called the dismal science for a reason. They’re not paid to be optimistic. They’re paid to just give kind of these facts, without necessarily looking at what kind of policy changes or what kind of other forces are happening. So I do not think that’s inevitable. I think it’s something we need to be aware of. I think if Juneau continues on that trajectory in 20 years things will not be looking too great, but I think we do have the opportunity to encourage people to come to town, to encourage some of the in-migration that we need.”
“We’ve got a lot of young people investing heavily in town. Just on this block that we’re sitting on here you’ve got the Crystal Saloon, that’s a fairly young guy putting a ton of money into a downtown business. Deckhand Dave’s, a ton of money…We have people putting money into downtown, they’re making those gambles assuming that this problem will reverse and that alone gives me confidence that the problem will…Really it’s finding the housing to put them in and then after that finding the childcare to keep making Juneau affordable.”
What about the homeless camping downtown and elsewhere throughout Juneau — what is your assessment of the situation and what should the Assembly be doing about it?
“The city’s investing in Housing First, which I think is a great concept and a great plan, shown to work other places. We’ve got the new Teal Street Center that has gone up to operational level. We have a lot of organizations in town that are that work with this population, but they’re still out there. I would love to see this as a problem that could be completely solved, but to an extent we just need to support the industries, nonprofits and the groups that serve this population so that they can help the ones that have solvable problems that lead them to homelessness, that have things where intervention can help.”
“And then also we need to look at the upstream or downstream causes. Look at how do we deal with mental health education in our schools? How do we deal with identification of people that might have some of these issues that may manifest later as homelessness, and try and do more preventative work? Whether that’s within the school district and partnering there. Whether that’s looking at things like childcare, which actually can be very helpful because if you have disadvantaged individuals that have no access to childcare their children aren’t necessarily getting the kinds of wellness checks that some families might get if you have better access to some of these things at an earlier childhood level.”
What else do you want voters to know?
“The primary reason that I’m running is that I want to see Juneau work through the demographic challenges that we’re going to have for the next 20 years. But I want to see Juneau figure out how to attract young families because we’re not going to have the replacement rate required to take care of the grand population. So I want to see in Juneau young people establishing roots here and forming that next generation. And that’s why that’s the problem I think that Juneau needs to solve for the long term. And I think that my experience working in the kind of behind-the-scenes side of public administration, and budgeting and financial analysis and economic analysis, that I can bring a lot of skills and knowledge and problem-solving ability into the Assembly to work with the rest of the members.”
