There won’t be a vote on limiting the number of cruise passengers in Juneau during this fall’s municipal election since an initiative petition failed to get enough signatures by Monday’s deadline, according to the author of the measure.
The “Cruise Ship Limits” petition would have set a daily limit of five ships with capacity for 950 or more passengers, plus a daily limit of 16,000 “lower-berth capacity” passengers Sunday through Friday and 12,000 on Saturdays. It also set an annual limit of 1.5 million passengers, and restricted cruise ships with room for 250 or more passengers to arrivals between May 1 and Sept. 30.
Karla Hart, the author of the measure who has led previous efforts to restrict cruise tourism, said she didn’t know how many total signatures were collected during the 30 days since the petition was certified since she hasn’t seen all of the signature books. But she knows it is short of the 2,720 valid signatures from registered voters that Juneau’s municipal clerk needed to receive by noon Monday.
“We probably could have gotten enough, but it meant giving up this sunshine that we had last weekend and sunshine that we may have in June to do so,” she said. “And when it came down to it none of us, including myself, wanted to do that.”
Part of that reason, Hart said, is she didn’t see the same interest from residents that occurred last year when she was among the advocates that put a “Ship-Free Saturday” on the ballot last year. That measure, which attracted international media coverage, was defeated in last October’s municipal election by a 61%-39% vote.
“Ship-Free Saturday offered a real, tangible relief once a week from the impacts of cruise ship tourism,” she said. “So it was something that, for people, you can see, you can feel, you can understand that it would give you relief that you could benefit from. Whereas locking in numbers that many — most of us — feel are already way higher than we wanted just out of fear of having bigger numbers didn’t really excite people a whole lot.”
Hart said while she doesn’t see trying a similar measure in the future, she’s not ruling out remaining active in ongoing local cruise policy issues as well as future election efforts.
“Based on the feedback I got from a lot of people…I might go for ‘Ship-Free Sundays’ and really loop in the Christian communities in Juneau,” she said. “I had many people who were like, ‘If it was Sunday I would have signed, why wasn’t it Sunday?’ because we are a predominantly Christian culture and Sunday is predominantly a day of rest among the Christian culture.”
Petitions are still circulating for three other proposed ballot items that would lower the cap on the mill rate, exempt “essential” food and utilities from local sales taxes, and make in-person municipal elections the default instead of by-mail. Signatures for those measures, all backed by a group called the Affordable Juneau Coalition, are due May 30.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
