“Information is one thing, but weighing in on an election is another.”
– Assembly member Michelle Bonnet Hale, Aug. 1, 2022
During a specially held meeting on June 26, the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly unanimously set aside $50,000 to “advocate for and provide public information regarding the need for a new City Hall.” This action follows the Assembly previously having signaled their intention to place a $27 million bond issue on the upcoming October municipal ballot to partially fund the construction of a new City Hall. The ordinance authorizing the bond issue is set to be formally approved at the Assembly’s next meeting on July 10.
The $50,000 expenditure is included in the city’s budget approved weeks ago, the largest budget in Juneau’s history. This latest approval maneuver was necessary because the municipality, by law, may not expend funds to influence an election about a ballot proposition unless funds are specifically appropriated for that purpose by ordinance.
While the authorization of both these ordinances gives the Assembly legal cover, it is an affront to voters who declined to approve funding for the new City Hall last October. First, the Assembly decided to re-introduce the idea of a new City Hall rejected by voters without engaging the electorate or considering any changes. The location, design, and estimated cost all remained the same. It is an identical project to the one voters turned down.
The only difference this time is that the Assembly appropriated an additional $10 million (after previously appropriating $6.3 million) in general funds that allowed the bond issue to be lowered to $27 million. In doing so, they have front-end loaded the $43 million project with over $16 million in public funds without voter approval. City Manager Rorie Watt suggested that voters may have voted down the project because they objected to the size of the bond, his tenuous theory being that voters were OK with the project, but would rather pay cash.
Next, to further insult voters’ intelligence and circumvent their wishes, the Assembly will fritter away $50,000 of taxpayers’ money to “educate” voters on the purported benefits of the project. A municipal campaign is needed, apparently, because our Assembly believes voters were unable to grasp the necessity of this project in spite of the publicly available information provided.
Perhaps voters did not agree with the Assembly’s rationale for a new City Hall, or they objected to the cost, the location, or the design, or a combination of all of those. But without any clear explanation other than “obviously the voters don’t understand why we want this” and throwing more cash at the project, the Assembly has completely dismissed voters’ possible concerns.
Their intention to influence the election is even more aggravating given the Assembly’s reluctance just 11 months ago to employ propaganda such as this. In a meeting held two months before last year’s failed bond proposition, the Assembly voted down an ordinance that would have funded $25,000 to advocate for the City Hall project. In that meeting, according to a Juneau Empire news story, several Assembly members questioned the city’s role in advocating for a ballot issue to influence the outcome of an election. Assembly member Maria Gladziszewski stated then that there were still ways for the Assembly to provide issue context to voters without advocating.
“All I want out there are facts, if we can just present facts, facts would be enough,” she said. “Putting out facts is not advocacy, and we have good facts.”
Other members, such as Michelle Bonnet Hale, questioned the ethics of the city influencing an election. Ultimately, that ordinance failed 6-3.
Today, voters must wonder how funding advocacy for a bond issue wasn’t ethical then, but the same Assembly can vote unanimously that it is perfectly ethical now. This is a perverse use of situational ethics, at best.
Adding to concerns, Juneau residents receiving property tax bills this week will be in for sticker shock. My taxes went up 24% over last year and 41% since 2021.
Taxpayers may want to ask themselves just who should be guiding our spending priorities — voters who have spoken or out-of-touch Assembly members who snub them?
• After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for KeyBank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular Opinion Page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
