Sitkans are one step closer to paying for parking at the local airport. That’s after the Sitka Assembly directed the city to submit a bid to the state to lease a lot for paid parking at the Rocky Gutierrez Airport at its meeting Tuesday night (10-14-25).
Parking at Sitka’s airport is free, but as the airport undergoes a multi-million-dollar expansion project, city staff say operating the new facility could put the airport’s enterprise fund in the red. City staff estimate the annual shortfall to be between $400,000 and $500,000 by 2032.
Addressing the Sitka Assembly at its meeting on Oct. 14, Airport Terminal Manager Joseph Bea said that paid parking aligns with the “user pays” principle. He said it helps ensure that residents with limited airport use don’t subsidize operations through city-wide taxes.
“We want to pay for the airport with the users of the airport,” Bea said. “We don’t want to ask people who may not be using the airport infrastructure to pay for the operations there.”
Bea said parking fees could help offset operating costs of the newly renovated airport and bring Sitka in line with other Southeast cities like Petersburg, Ketchikan and Juneau.
“A lot of these different expenses that we knew were coming are starting to hit, and we have worked through the process with the state moving towards paid parking, and now we’re ready to come to the assembly and ask for direction/decision on moving forward,” he said.
Assembly member JJ Carlson said per city code, the airport needs to pay for itself.
“The way the airport is structured, it has its own pot of money, and we can do nice things with it from other pots of money, but it needs to pay for itself, just like the electric department pays for itself with its rates, and the water department pays for itself with its rates,” Carlson said. “So the users do need to, by hard written code, pay for the operations of the airport.”
While the city owns the airport building, the state owns the runway, ramp and parking lot. The state is seeking bids to operate a parking fee program in Sitka.
Bea said if another bidder scores the contract, rather than the city, the rate structure would be at their discretion, and the revenue would be collected by the state instead of being retained locally in Sitka.
City staff estimate that a paid lot could generate anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 annually for the city, depending on the fee structure, usage, and enforcement.
Assembly member Thor Christianson said when the city renewed its contract with the state nearly two years ago, they knew something like this was coming. He said it’s one of the reasons many assembly members weren’t happy with the contract. He called paid parking a “necessary evil,” and said if the city has control over its implementation, they can make it as friendly to Sitkans as possible.
“Regardless of whether we do this or not, from my understanding, it’s coming,” Christianson said. “The only difference is, do we want the money to stay in town, or do we want it to go to the state? And do we want any control over what it is?”
Bea said the details of a city-run parking program, including the price tags for weekly, daily or hourly parking, will be addressed at a later date. For now, the city will move forward with the bidding process.
