Assembly member Greg Smith is a self-described “hometown kid,” which is a big part of what drove him to run for public office.
His love for his hometown and the support it has offered him is the reason he wants to continue in his position as an assembly to give back.
Smith is seeking reelection in this year’s City and Borough of Juneau municipal election along with four other candidates in the running for assembly and school board positions, which all remain uncontested. Coming into his second term on the assembly, Smith said he’s more confident in his knowledge of city processes and said it will benefit how he thinks and makes decisions in his coming term.
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There isn’t one singular goal he wants to tackle in his coming term he said, but rather he is excited to continue to see through assembly projects and ambitions that are already underway and being chipped away at.
“I think Juneau is a really special place,” he said. “There’s a lot of great potential and a lot of great stuff happening now so thinking about how we can keep those great things and then keep enhancing those things.”
He continued: “We really do live in a great place with great people. Yes there are issues, but we can keep working on them together in a civil, respectful and solution-focused way, we can make incremental progress.”
He said fixing major issues in Juneau isn’t going to happen overnight, but he does think incremental and strategic policy is the best way to develop stability in the long run.
He said heading into the next term he wants to keep the Assembly’s momentum going on a list of its priorities like facilitating more housing development, lowering the cost of living, focusing on sustainability and enhancing the district’s education.
“I know it’s not pretty, but if we continue to keep going we can continue to move forward and make people’s lives better and the community better, but it takes time,” he said.
He said he’d like the Assembly to highlight some of the city’s bigger priorities and use community feedback to gauge the best steps forward.
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“I know some people don’t agree with our priorities, but I think we do a decent job of pushing things forward that are generally good for most people and reasonable,” he said.
He said as the election continues, he urges people to reach out to him and the assembly to voice opinions or ideas they’d like to see happen in Juneau. He said he thinks the Assembly has a “good pulse” on what the community would like to see but said there are always things that they aren’t aware of and he wants to know them.
“We can’t be aware of everything. Sometimes it takes people to write in and ‘hey here’s a problem,’ and I think we’re pretty good at being responsive and trying to address it — but we can address it if we don’t know about it,” he said.
• Contact reporter Clarise Larson at clarise.larson@juneauempire.com or (651)-528-1807. Follow her on Twitter at @clariselarson.
