2025 was a year of progress for the City of Sitka, according to Municipal Administrator John Leach, who presented the annual State of the City report to the public on Wednesday (1-28-26).
The report provides an overview of the city’s work over the past year, including progress under the strategic plan, major milestones, and a look at priorities moving forward.
Leach told KCAW that last year was a big one for Sitka, with the opening of the marine haulout and wrapping the first phase of the multi-million-dollar airport expansion project. He also said it was a big year for public safety and community services.
“Our police and our fire department did an incredible amount of work this last year,” Leach said. “Our police department handled over 21,000 calls this last year, and our fire department responded to over 1,500 calls, and most of those were EMS related. And what’s important to understand is that behind every one of those calls is a real person needing help. And it’s our community members serving our community members.”
The Sitka Public Library also saw nearly 90,000 visitors, the Parks and Rec program had more than 1,500 enrollments, and Animal Control had 113 animals come through its facility — 60 pets were adopted and 31 reunited with their owners, according to the report.
Leach said looking forward, in addition to finalizing the second half of the airport expansion, city staff hope to address two of Sitka’s biggest barriers to retaining young people: childcare and housing. As for the former, the Sitka Assembly gave final approval at its meeting Tuesday (1-27-26) to fund a childcare needs study. And as for housing?
“We’ve completed phase one of land suitability and feasibility study for housing, which identified some areas where we could look for development,” Leach said. “And that was just to kind of define what those areas are. But now we need to move into phase two, and that’s going to be the deeper dive into what engineering and design and planning that sort of thing looks like. So big, big things happening on the housing front.”
Leach said the city also wants to improve communication with Sitkans moving forward, and asked them to fill out a survey on the city website by Feb. 7.
Leach joined KCAW for the Morning Interview to give the highlight reel from the report. Listen to the conversation here:
