The City of Sitka is continuing to brainstorm solutions to the island’s childcare shortage. In a special work session Tuesday night (6-16-26), the assembly decided to move forward with an option from a recently completed childcare study. It’s estimated to cost about $1 million a year. 

But assembly members still need to refine what they want in the plan before figuring out how to pay for it. 

Sitka has been grappling with the issue of childcare for years now: There aren’t enough options, it’s expensive for families already struggling with increasing daily costs, and there simply aren’t enough people working in childcare to expand capacity. 

The city decided to do something about it, and in January, hired a regional education nonprofit to write a report about the barriers to childcare and suggest possible solutions. Blue Shibler with the Southeast Childhood Collective released the 30-page report in March, and now the city is figuring out what to do next. 

“I think [Shibler] did a pretty good job of finding answers, or at least giving us some clarity as to what’s available and what isn’t, and some ideas about how we might move forward,” Assembly Member Tim Pike said at the June 16 meeting.

He said the city started its childcare discussion with three main goals in mind: To increase capacity, stop the rise in childcare costs for parents, and maintain the viability of existing childcare facilities in town.  

“My goal tonight is to see if we, as a group, can come up with what Sitka’s plan for childcare looks like going forward, so that we can see whether that matches what the community wants and/or needs, and also [have] a conversation as to how we figure out how to pay for that,” he added.

Eight community members spoke at the meeting, saying there’s a dire need for childcare solutions in Sitka. 

Dr. Kimberly Capp is a local pediatrician. She said childcare centers and programs like Head Start are important for children’s safety and for catching developmental disabilities. She said while the city, the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, and Sitka Tribe of Alaska all continue to have meetings about childcare, no one wants to “own” the issue, and it’s time for that to change. 

“People are willing to pay for childcare, they just can’t pay more than they make,” Capp said. “So count the fees, count the possibility of grant partnerships or things like that, use the resources you have for excellent childcare in the limited spaces that exist, and help them help you expand.”

Patricia Bauder manages Avis Alaska Car Rental at the airport. She said they’ve lost several employees due to the lack of childcare options in Sitka, and it’s negatively impacted their business. She said the city needs to be involved in a solution, and suggested it provide subsidies to both families and childcare providers. She also pointed to a proposal in New York City that would tax high-value second homes to fund city programs, including expanding affordable childcare. 

“It’s difficult to attract people in the business of childcare because they’re not paid enough, and if you pay them what they’re worth, then parents can’t afford the cost of childcare,” she said.

Erin Clay moved to Sitka with her husband in 2014. She said finding childcare has been a continual stresser on her family since their four-year-old son was born, and that it’s affected her ability to work outside of the home. She said the system’s flawed, and suggested funding a career pathway for youth. 

“One of the biggest challenges that we’ve found is the turnover,” she said. “He’s had great caregivers, but they can make more money cleaning Airbnbs, which feels really broken.”

Assembly Member Katie Riley thanked the community for showing up. She said she thinks a “phased approach” is the best way to tackle the issue, and suggested filling Sitka’s existing facilities and stabilizing the system before trying to expand it. 

“There are not many problems that you can just throw money at and they get better, but this really seems like one of them, and that’s a unique opportunity,” Riley said.

Pike said the city could continue to study and study and study this problem, but it’s time for action. He said there are a lot of things the city asks the community to invest in because Sitkans want their lights to turn on and their roads to be paved. He said this is no different than that, and the city is going to ask the community whether or not they want to invest in their kids. 

“Is it going to cost people? Yeah. Is that a question that should be asked on a ballot? Absolutely,” he said. “We want the people of the community to tell us whether or not they want to invest in kids. I think everybody up here says this is good. Everybody in the room here says this is a really important thing, but the community is going to have to step up. It’s going to have to spend money, and they’re going to have to say, ‘This is important.’”

Ultimately, assembly members agreed to move forward with the report’s Program Option 3, a blended model which combines three strategies, including workforce incentives, per-child operating grants, and a family affordability component, which is estimated to cost about $1 million. They also unanimously expressed support for adding a workforce development component for youth into the plan.

The assembly plans to hold another work session on the issue in the coming months to hash out how to pay for it before putting the issue before voters. 

Sitka’s city hall rolled out new public records request software Friday (6-12-26). Up until the launch, city staff managed requests through emails, a spreadsheet, and sticky notes, and they say the update will make the process more efficient for the clerk’s office and the public. 

Deputy Municipal Clerk Holley Bayne said handling requests has become cumbersome in recent years. She said the number of requests has quadrupled in the past decade. In 2017, staff received 54 public records requests. That number grew to 209 in 2025.

“The times have changed from 15, 20 years ago, so we just want to change with it,” Bayne said. “And I think it’ll work out good on both ends.”

In February, the assembly unanimously approved roughly $21,000 for a two-year contract with NextRequest, an online platform designed to manage public records requests. 

Bayne said the software will provide tips on how to narrow down a request, track staff time and the status of a request, and redact documents automatically. She said there’s also an option to make the requests go public facing, which could make it easier for other Sitkans to access information. 

“Once we have our records that are returned to the public, now they’re a public document, [and] we can make a library where someone can search those documents available. They don’t have to do another records request,” Bayne said. “So that would be super helpful if there’s a hot topic that’s happening, you can just search for those records.”

Bayne said Sitkans will still be able to submit a paper request form if they prefer. You can find a link to the new portal here.

Sitka’s police force will see pay increases over the next three years. That’s after the Sitka Assembly on Tuesday (6-19-26) approved the new collective bargaining agreement with the Public Safety Employees Association (PSEA). 

Assistant Municipal Administrator Josh Branthoover said labor negotiations began with the union in late April and the parties reached a tentative agreement in mid-May. 

“Union negotiations are rarely a pleasure, but all things considered, it was a very mutually beneficial session,” he said.

Branthoover said changes include an updated pay scale and leave provisions. Officers will receive a 3% wage increase annually, starting on July 1, 2027. The agreement also includes a one-time $1,000 payment for employees that have been at the Sitka Police Department for at least a year and pass their probationary period, and increases on-call pay to $5 an hour.

“For the first time ever that I’m aware of, step movements were added in,” he said. “This is going to add evaluation-based and time-based step movements with the goal of longevity and rewarding our employees that stay longer.”

Overall, the estimated increased cost to the city is $311,790 over the proposed three-year contract, which starts July 1.

The Sitka Assembly voted to allocate more than $1.1 million in retroactive federal funding to the Sitka School District at its meeting Tuesday night (6-9-26). The money comes from Secure Rural Schools, a program that supports schools surrounded by federal lands which don’t contribute to the local tax base. 

For the past two fiscal years, SRS funding lapsed. Then, last December, Congress renewed the funding for this year, along with retroactive payments for the missed ones. The money can be used for schools or roads, and in years past, the city usually split the money with the district 50/50. But this year, the assembly is going all-in on education. On Tuesday, the assembly voted to dedicate 100% of the federal funding received to schools, adding more than $800,000 to what it has already budgeted for the district. 

In the last budget cycle, some of the federal funding had been earmarked for the Public Works department for street maintenance, but the money didn’t come through until recently. 

“There are needs at the school district, there are needs at the city,” Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said Tuesday. “I could argue the school district’s needs are larger. I could argue our potholes’ needs are larger.”

Municipal Administrator John Leach said the assembly expressed a desire to move the full amount to schools given their precarious funding situation next year. Even with last year’s state funding increase, school leaders say the money hasn’t kept up with the rising cost of education, and declining enrollment over the past two decades has also cut into the district’s bottom line.

The district was already facing a $1-2 million deficit in March, when staff discovered an accounting error to the tune of about $800,000 in unaccounted for expenses. In late April, the board approved a budget that cuts 8.5 positions, half of which are certified teachers. 

Eisenbeisz said this is a one-time disbursement for the district and he doesn’t want schools to rely on the full amount of pass-through funding in future years. He advised the school board to use the money wisely. 

“I understand the crutch is needed to bridge a gap, which may or may not be changing in future administrations at the state, but I don’t want them to become so assured of this and this funding level that that becomes an issue that binds future assemblies and future school boards to an unsustainable level,” he said.

Assembly Member Tim Pike agreed that the move is a rare, one-time occurrence, but said it was important for the assembly to take advantage of this opening to help the district. 

“This is a unique opportunity for the city to support the schools,” he said. “The needs are very large, and the state has not stepped up and done their part. So this is an opportunity to bridge us through into a hopefully better fiscal environment with a governor who would be more amenable to funding education and meeting the requirements for the state.”

Several assembly members said they support a continued push for Secure Rural Schools funding when meeting with Sitka’s congressional delegation in the future, saying the funds are important for both the district and the city.

Ultimately, the assembly voted unanimously in favor of the one-time allocation. It will consider the funding one last time before a final vote on June 23. 

It’s early May, and five gray whales weave between the kelp as they feed on herring eggs in the water around our 20-foot inflatable boat. Researchers are taking photos to identify individual whales and measure how much weight they’ve gained since they arrived in the Sitka area about a month ago on their yearly migration north. 

“These whales are foraging, and it’s probably 10, 15 feet of water right there, and they’ve got their heads down in the sediment, probably rolled over on their right sides, and they’re kind of picking off herring eggs,” says Liah McPherson, a PhD student who is leading the ecological data collection for a research project through the Alaska Whale Foundation. 

McPherson and her research team are looking at the relationship between gray whales and herring around Sitka. The baleen whales have had a massive population decline in the past decade, but their presence in Sitka Sound has skyrocketed in recent years, coinciding with the Pacific herring spawn. Now, the team and community collaborators are asking why that is and what the downstream effects might be. 

“My favorite whale, we call him White Spot,” McPherson says, getting ready to launch a drone into the sky above our boat. “This particular animal I’ve seen in 2023, 2024, 2025, and this year, in 2026, we’ve seen him a couple times as well. So it’s like seeing an old friend. It’s like, ‘Oh, there you are. I’m glad you’re still coming here.’” 

The Eastern North Pacific gray whale population has declined by more than 50% — from roughly 27,000 whales in 2015/2016 to 14,000 whales in 2022/2023 — since a marine heatwave known as “the blob” hit the Pacific ocean about a decade ago. Since then, there have been increases in gray whale strandings along the west coast and widespread reports of whales in poor condition. 

But it appears that some whales are adapting to the ecological change by migrating to forage areas where they didn’t used to go. Around 2019, McPherson says, gray whales started showing up in Sitka in massive numbers, just as the herring spawn got underway. 

“They have always kind of had a presence here, but in very small numbers, like five to 10 gray whales,” she says. “And then local community members, organizations, scientists, they really started to see these numbers spike and go up about tenfold. Now we see about 150 to 200, maybe even more, gray whales coming in between March and May to take advantage of herring eggs.”

Gray whales have the longest migration of any mammal, traveling roughly 10,000-12,000 miles every year from their feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi seas to their breeding grounds off the coast of Mexico. 

Lauren Eckert, a conservation scientist based at the University of British Columbia in the Centre for Indigenous Fisheries and a board member of the Alaska Whale Foundation, says scientists think gray whales are unable to get the food they need to make their long migration, so they’re pivoting to find new foraging grounds and new food sources. 

“The big picture, what we’re seeing is adaptation in a very curious and intelligent species that’s struggling with the impacts of climate change,” Eckert says.

And other new behaviors are being documented. Researchers are starting to see gray whales, who traditionally forage on sea-bottom organisms in the Arctic, , lunge feed on adult fish off the coast of California, and feed on krill swimming through the water.

So, informed by these observations, community experts, Tribal and regional managers, and these researchers are asking: How important are herring, as prey, and Sitka Sound, as a foraging ground, for gray whales? And what impact, if any, are gray whales having on the ecologically, commercially, and culturally important Sitka Sound herring stock?

“These are sort of like canaries in the coal mine, if you will, signaling changing ocean conditions,” Eckert says.

Back on the water, McPherson and her team of interns are continuing their survey using drones, cameras, and suction cup tags to build out their catalog of gray whales coming to Sitka and later extrapolate how much blubber they’re putting on by eating herring eggs.  

Intern Adelle Wilkin climbs a ladder to get a closer look with her camera as a whale comes to the surface, and calls out the names of various seabirds she spots around us. Wilkin is trying to get photos of a specific part of the whale’s side near its dorsal ridge (a series of small bumps between its dorsal hump and tail flukes), which she says makes it look dinosaur-like.

“I started [my work] in acoustics, and I could have gone either way: birds are whales,” she says. “But there is just something about whales. They’re so special and they’re so intelligent, and birds are too, but there’s something about studying such a long-lived group of animals that have so much economic value, and [are] so culturally important in so many places that it had to be whales for me.” 

Wilkin says it’s special to be part of a project that is so important for both humans and whales. 

“Being a part of researching a species as it’s struggling, you are really, really rooting for it, and that’s probably, at the end of the day, why I love gray whales so much,” she says. “They’re resilient and they’re adaptive, and their food is declining in the Arctic, so they feed on fish, and they feed on benthic invertebrates in unique places, and they feed on herring eggs, and they’re just a species that will find a way to survive. They’ll like find a way to make it, which I love about them.”

This is the team’s second full-fledged season out on the water, and even though they’ve only recently started collecting data, Eckert says they’ve had some telling initial findings. 

“We’ve learned very preliminarily that whales, even though they’re in Sitka Sound for a short amount of time, are gaining body mass quite quickly as they’re eating,” she says. “An early estimate puts it at about a bread box worth of body volume a day while they’re in Sitka Sound, each whale feeding. And so that is starting to be the first steps of getting us to understanding how much whales are consuming in order to gain that sort of weight while they’re here, and potentially how important this halfway-to-their-foraging-ground stopover point is for whales that are skinny and struggling.”

The other piece of the puzzle, regarding the impact on Sitka’s herring population, is still far from being figured out. 

Andy Szabo is the executive director of the Whale Foundation. He says the team is slowly building out an energetics model — based on historical whaling data and knowledge about how much energy it takes for a whale to put on blubber — to extrapolate how many herring eggs gray whales are removing from Sitka Sound each spring. In turn, he hopes that data can help inform management decisions moving forward. 

Szabo says they’re studying a really complex system and complex species interaction, and their research and data is one piece of a much larger environmental puzzle.

“There was never any question that the data we were collecting from the moment we started collecting it was important and impactful, and that there was going to be stakes and rights holders who could really use and value the data that are coming from this,” he says. “And that’s not always the case.”

Szabo says they hope to run the study for as long as they have funding and as long as there’s value in the data they’re collecting. 

More than 100 Sitkans gathered at the Starrigavan boat launch Thursday morning for a blessing and send-off of the “Ancestral Echoes” canoe, sponsored by the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, heading to Celebration in Juneau.

Lingít elders Ed Peele and Harvey Kitka offered a blessing accompanied by drumming and singing before the 12 paddlers got into the red, blue, and black canoe to leave on their five-day journey to the capital city. They were accompanied by the F/V Anna, a safety boat that will travel with them the roughly 130 nautical miles as a precautionary measure. 

Lingít artist Weidaaka Yoodooha (Bill Pfeifer Jr.) of the Chookaneidí clan designed the canoe as a visual timeline of Lingít identity and healing, according to a SEARHC social media post.

“The design itself tells a story in three sections,” the post said. “The stern honors the guidance of past masters in red. The mid-section moves through the teal waters of the Quiet Period — a time of colonial suppression — where wave-like forms carry the spirit faces of ancestors who kept culture alive in silence. The bow, in black, belongs to the living generation: forward-leaning, reclaiming, driving the canoe ahead.”

Celebration is a four-day event organized by Sealaska Heritage Institute that takes place every two years. It started 44 years ago as a way for Lingít, Haida, and Tsimshian people to gather and celebrate their cultural survival. This year, the theme is “Enduring Strength.” 

Sitka’s canoe is expected to arrive in Juneau on Tuesday morning along with canoes paddling from communities across the region.

Sitkans will consider amending the city’s Home Rule Charter in the upcoming municipal election. At its meeting Tuesday night (5-26-26), the Sitka Assembly voted to put a question to voters this fall that would give the assembly more discretion over when to schedule a special election.

In Sitka, citizen initiatives can go out to voters in a special election, provided that the sponsors can secure enough signatures. Once they’ve gotten the signatures, the city’s charter requires a special election within the next 40 to 90 days. The new ordinance would eliminate that requirement, and instead give the assembly the authority to decide whether to hold a special election, if it thinks it would be in the best interest of the city. If not, the petition would go before voters at the next scheduled regular or special election.

Municipal Clerk Sara Peterson said if approved by voters this fall, the amendment would bring Sitka more into alignment with other communities across the state. She said the amount of money and staff time it takes to put on a special election is what prompted the proposed change. The 2025 special election that would have capped cruise ship traffic cost the city more than $18,000.

Larry Edwards with Small Town Soul, a local advocacy group that authored the visitor cap proposition, said the group supports the charter’s requirement, and urged the assembly to vote no on the amendment. 

“In practice, democracy sometimes comes with a cost, and sometimes comes with inconveniences, and sometimes both, but those are not reasons to restrict it,” Edwards said. “It is important for citizens to be able to trigger an initiative special election on a major issue that is time sensitive.”

Assembly Member Katie Riley was concerned it could leave petitioners waiting a long time between filing and voting. She said while she isn’t against putting an amendment forward to Sitka voters, this isn’t the amendment she would go with. 

“There’s a lot of fear out there right now, and there’s a lot of fear about changes that are happening rapidly in our country, and that’s very real perceived fear for some folks,” she said. “I think that this is a pretty technical fix, but it’s occurring in a context in which people have a heightened sense of things that are happening around them and how that might impact their personal lives and their ability to make their voice heard.”

Assembly Member Tim Pike said he doesn’t think the change would hurt the democratic process. He said the state statute language is “battle tested,” and he thinks they should put the question to the voters. 

“I think it’s an opportunity for us to hear from the people and see what they’re feeling. We are not the deciders on this, we are just presenting a question to the public, and as such, I think the risk to democracy is quite low, because democracy will speak and decide whether or not this is a good idea or a bad idea,” Pike said.

Ultimately, the amendment passed 4-2, with assembly members Riley and Scott Saline opposed. The proposition will be included on the Oct. 6 election ballot. 

The Sitka Assembly formally accepted the resignation of Assembly Member Tim Pike at its meeting Tuesday night (5-26-26). Pike is a recently retired Career and Technical Education teacher at Sitka High School, who’s served on the assembly since late 2022. He said he’s stepping down due to family needs. 

Assembly Member Scott Saline said Pike would be missed.

“I get all teary-eyed thinking of your leadership that I know rubbed off on my kids, man,” Saline said. “Sorry to see you go.”

Assembly Member Katie Riley, who was elected last October, said she looks forward to hearing Pike’s thoughts on future issues despite him no longer being on the assembly. 

“I didn’t get to serve with you that long, which is my loss, but [I] just really appreciate the perspective and the very careful deliberation that you brought to the table. It always makes me think deeper about the issues that we’re talking about, and lends just a really unique, wonderful perspective,” she said.

Pike’s last day in office will be June 30. The assembly will advertise for letters of interest to fill the vacant seat, and at the July 14 meeting, the group will appoint someone to fill it until the municipal election on Oct. 6. 

A seasonal Sitka worker is breathing easier today. Her brother has been released by Israel after the humanitarian aid flotilla he was part of was intercepted by the military earlier this week. 

33-year-old Logan Hollarsmith, captain of the L’arq, was sailing with more than 400 activists from southern Turkey to Gaza to deliver aid when they were intercepted by Israeli troops in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Video footage from Global Sumud Flotilla, which organized the fleet, showed Israeli soldiers firing shots at ​two of the boats. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement that they fired nonlethal rounds “as a warning” and that “no protesters were injured during these events.”

“He has been doing this kind of stuff his whole life. This is what he does,” said Camryn Hollarsmith, Logan’s younger sister, who works seasonally in Sitka’s tourism industry. “This is something he’s always led with. [He’s] led with his heart.”

Camryn said this was the second time her brother was detained by Israel for attempting to sail through the Gaza blockade. 

“Last year, it was maybe September, October time, he went on the flotilla,” she said. “He started out in Barcelona, went down towards Gaza, carrying humanitarian aid on his sailboat. He was illegally intercepted there by the Israeli government.”

Logan was then held in Ktzi’ot Prison, a maximum security detention center in Israel, for five days before being released. At the time, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi issued a statement urging Israel to release him along with the hundreds of other activists who were detained.

“The right of U.S. citizens to due process and fair treatment under international law must be protected. I stand with the family of Logan Hollarsmith in demanding clarity, accountability, and the safe return of all detainees to their homes,” Pelosi said in her statement.

Camryn said her family thought they would be more prepared this time around. 

“I think we thought that going through these motions we’d have a little bit of thicker skin,” she said. “But on the flip side, knowing what actually happened at the end of it, that there was a lot of abuse and neglect and poor conditions [and] a lot of physical violence — I think knowing that that’s what’s happening this time, and not actually being able to do anything, is hitting a lot harder, a lot closer to home.”

Camryn said friends and family from all over have been calling and emailing their representatives this week to push for Logan’s release. Her family got word Thursday morning that Logan had safely arrived in Istanbul, Turkey, along with more than 400 others. 

The activists are being checked out by a medical team and meeting with lawyers. The Turkish public news broadcaster TRT World reported activists claimed mistreatment by Israeli forces while in detention — allegations that were denied by Israeli prison officials — and that at least three activists were hospitalized. The news organization also reported international outcry after Israel’s national security minister posted a provocative video showing him taunting detained flotilla activists who were handcuffed and kneeling.  

Camryn said despite being scared, this has been a proud sister moment for her. 

“As important as my brother is to me — obviously, he’s my older brother and I care so much about him — he’s doing this on behalf of the genocide that’s happening in Gaza and Palestine,” she said. “If you remove the politics from it, there are people being bombed, there are children being bombed. We need to get aid to them. At the very base of the morality of this is that this is not okay, and why are we accepting that this is okay?”

Camryn said it could still be a few days before her brother gets back to his home in Arizona. She said she’s feeling a “massive sense of relief,” but understands that Logan and others need to continue the fight.

I climb into the large police truck with Sitka Police Chief Mike Hall and we head out on patrol. We drive downtown and then hit the state highway to cover every inch of Sitka’s 14-miles of paved road.

“We have one patrol officer working today, and when I have one, I usually come out and also work patrol so we keep good coverage and give the service needed to the community,” Hall says.  

Hall says he’s looking out for anything out of the ordinary. Things like cars parked the wrong way, speeders, bicyclists on the sidewalk, or people peering in the windows of parked cars. 

The daily patrol here in Sitka is a bit quieter for Hall than his last decade-and-a-half working with the U.S. State Department in countries like Afghanistan, Jordan, Lebanon, and Ukraine. But, he says, this is what he needed.

“After the war in Ukraine, I just was really tired mentally, I was tired physically, the stress — I just had enough,” Hall says. “I had my third war zone in a row without a break, and I was just exhausted. I was tired. I wanted to find a place just to heal.” 

And it sounds like he’s found it. 

“Three or four weeks ago, I told my wife, ‘This is like the most relaxed I’ve been in 17 years, I love it,'” Hall says. “Nobody’s shooting at me. There’s no rockets falling out of the sky, and I get to look at the beautiful mountains and the eagles and the whales and the sea lions and the seals, and I get to walk through Totem Park, and get on the beach and look for stuff. It’s just fantastic. Haven’t been fishing yet, but it’s coming.”

Hall’s been on the job for about two months now. He was hired on as a lieutenant last year and completed his Alaska police certification before being sworn in to the top role in March. 

He’s inherited a police department that’s seen a tumultuous decade, marked by high department turnover, several lawsuits brought by former officers that were settled out of court, and public outcry after police euthanized six shelter animals by gunshot in 2024. 

But Hall says he sees a path forward for the department, and that starts with hiring the right people for the job. He wants to attract more locals to the department, and when hiring from outside, he’s looking for candidates who really want to live in Sitka and become part of the community. 

“I need to see good folks,” he says. “I need to see folks who love each other, [and] want to help each other out. That’s important to me, and I try to instill that to folks who apply here. This is what’s important in life. If you’re out here wanting to fight people, if you’re out here being a police officer because you want the excitement, you’re in it for the wrong reason. If you’re in it to help somebody, yeah, that’s where [it’s] at.”

He says in a town of just over 8,000, it would be easy to overpolice the community, but he doesn’t want to issue a ticket every time someone speeds a few miles over the limit or use jail as a catchall.

“Sometimes you can give a bit of grace, and that grace can go a long way in starting somebody on a new path,” he says. “That’s part of our community policing model.”

Or he says, they could also underpolice Sitka, which could lead to more crime and disorderly conduct. So, he says there has to be a balance.

“We’re trying to figure out what is the Sitka way to police? What is the best way to build trust?” he says. “We go to the same grocery stores, we go to the same restaurants, we fish in the same waters. How do we become part of the community? And I think that’s going to take a little bit while we build that team and figure out a good tempo of how Sitkans want to be policed.”

At the end of the day, Hall says he believes Sitka is small enough with enough good people to accomplish a lot. And although his life wasn’t very quiet before coming here, he thinks he can make a difference in a quiet place.