Two candidates for the city’s top job advanced to a second round of interviews last week. In two public interviews, the Sitka Assembly dug deeper into the backgrounds of municipal administrator candidates Steven Dahl and Jenny Alber to consider how they would fit in with the city government team.
Dahl, who has worked as a city administrator in Oregon, said he has conducted more research on Sitka since his first interview. He said, if he gets the job, he would want to collaborate with Sitkans to develop a solution to balance tourism and the needs of locals, but he’d have to learn more first.
“What exactly [is it] that people who don’t want tourism [in Sitka], what they really don’t like about it? Is it more people invading their town? They don’t feel like they can go shopping on a Saturday, or they feel limited about that, or they feel like their hometown is being invaded?,” says Dahl. “I need to understand that part of it before I can come up with a good solution for that.”
Collaboration was also a recurring theme in Alber’s interview. Alber, who currently works as the deputy director for the City of New Orleans department of safety and permits, said harnessing local institutional knowledge is essential to best plan for emergencies like natural disasters.
“Probably being as isolated as Sitka is, I’m sure FEMA can’t just show up tomorrow with trailers. So I think it is very much all hands on deck. Here’s the community. Who’s essential?,” says Alber. “I think those are all things that you really have to take the time and prepare for, and have the hard conversations, and get the right people in the room, and then go to your community and say, ‘Okay, do you have a plan?'”
Over the course of each two-hour interview, assembly members took turns asking the candidates questions from how they would approach the job’s responsibilities, to solutions for issues like housing, education, and navigating city budgets.
The assembly convened behind closed doors in executive sessions after both interviews to discuss each candidate. After the final interview on Friday (4-24-26), Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said the assembly will take more time to consider Dahl and Alber, before getting back to both of the candidates in due order.
