By a more than 2-to-1 margin, voters in Wednesday’s special election turned down a ballot proposition to limit cruise ship visitation in Sitka.
The vote was 773 in favor and 2,071 against the proposition that among other requirements would have limited cruise visitors ashore to 300,000 annually, and 4,500 daily; required at least one day a week with no cruise visitors; and implemented a permit system for cruise ships visiting Sitka.
The election night unofficial results were from the more than 1,100 ballots cast election day and the 1,735 cast during early voting. The city issued 138 absentee ballots, and will count the ones received on June 2.
About 20 members of the public and a few city officials were in the Centennial Hall auditorium at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday to watch as the vote totals were announced and posted on a screen. Earlier in the day voters in both of Sitka’s election precincts cast ballots at Centennial Hall.
After the election day and early voting results were read Wednesday night, the reaction in the auditorium was fairly quiet. Larry Edwards and Klaudia Leccese, the initiative sponsors, congratulated Chris McGraw, chair of Safeguard Sitka’s Future, which campaigned against the ballot measure.
Safeguard Sitka’s Future members said they were pleased to see the final results, and the high turnout for the election. At the same time, they acknowledged that more work needs to be done to reconcile differing views about the right size of cruise tourism for Sitka.
“I think it shows the community didn’t feel the ordinance was the right solution,” said McGraw, who is also owner of the cruise ship dock on Halibut Point Road. “That’s not saying that the community doesn’t feel that there’s issues, because I’m the first to admit there has been and we’ve been working on them.”
He cited replacing old shuttle buses with newer, smaller models, as an example. He also mentioned the memorandum of understanding between the dock and the city as an improvement since it will result in reducing the number of days with more than 7,500 cruise visitors in town..
“There’s still 700-plus people in the community who feel 300,000 is a good number and we need to continue to address issues we have,” McGraw said. When he was asked what message he takes from the election results, he said, “It showed that the number of people that are touched by cruise tourism has increased. If there had been a vote in 2023, I don’t think the numbers would be what they are today.”
Teal West, co-chair of Safeguard Sitka’s Future and president of the Sitka Local Merchants Association, said the group was relieved with the results.
“We’re just feeling like we can take a breath and bring the community back together again, stop the divisiveness and move forward with cooperation and balance,” West said. “At the end of the day we’re all neighbors and that’s what’s important to me, that we remember that.”
She said as a member of the business community, she felt supported by those who voted against the measure. When asked what she felt resonated with voters, she said she felt voters realized that the “trickle-down effect is far greater reaching than just seeing business owners operating, and that we are truly providing numerous jobs to our community, our students; we’re creating a community where kids can come back and live.”
Initiative co-sponsors Larry Edwards and Klaudia Leccese said they had expected a closer result, and Edwards called it “a mirror image of a vote we had decades earlier.”
“This vote was something that had to happen and it is what it is,” he said. “But I think there’s still questions out there that are yet to be answered, and that is: what do people really think about the MOU and we really don’t know that. What do they think about the MOU approach versus a regulatory approach, and would they still accept something as regulatory rather than an MOU which is voluntary and unenforceable. And what should the numbers be on the MOU – those are questions that need to be answered.”
The MOU between the city and the cryuise dock sets criteria for cruise visitation, including an agreement that ships of more than 1,000 visitor capacity will not use city docks if that would increase the number of visitors in town to more than 7,000.
Leccese said the result was “in some ways a surprise,” but that Small Town Soul was working with a “small group of people, small amount of money,” to propose an ordinance they felt would work for Sitka.
Edwards commented, “This cruise boom was sprung on the town. If we had gone through a process of trying to decide what we wanted and had some way to exercise that in 2021 or 2022 the outcome could have been very different than what we had tonight. The town never really got a choice, and there’s been some economic entrenchment in the years since then.”
City Administrator John Leach said the vote shows voters’ opinions on the cruise limitations in the petition ordinance that was on the ballot.
“But it also tells us as of right now 27 percent of the community thinks there needs to be some work done on tourism, and we’re committed to making sure we get to a resolution that works for the community, and works for the industry, and works for our local business partners,” he said. “However the numbers come out it shows us where we need to focus our efforts.”
Election night results:
Precinct 1: 162 Yes; 404 No. (29% – 71%)
Precinct 2: 155 Yes; 388 No. (29% – 71%)
Early voting: 456 Yes; 1,279 No. (26% – 74%)
Total: 773 Yes; 2071 No. (27% – 73%)
The turnout of up to 2,982 voters was high for a special election, and higher than the last regular local election. The highest special election turnout in the last 30 years was in 1997 when 3,244 turned out on two questions related to clearcutting timber on public lands.
• This story was originally published by the Daily Sitka Sentinel.
