Evidence of snack time lingers on a couple of desks in a Xóots Elementary School classroom. First grader Justin is cradling what could be a tiny cheese puff in the cup of his right hand. A closer glance reveals the petite orange ball is translucent, punctuated by a tiny black dot the size of a pen tip.

Justin is holding a salmon egg, a highlight of today’s lesson on the salmon life cycle. The course is part of a near decade-long program, a partnership between local schools and the Sitka Sound Science Center

One day the egg will hatch. And years from now, when he’s a bit older, Justin will get to touch many, many more salmon eggs. For now, this egg is heading back to its incubator at the science center.

Buckets filled with hundreds of thousands of eggs like Justin’s line the walls of the hatchery’s incubation room. In the center of the room is a large metal box, full of removable trays. This is the incubator keeping millions of pink and chum salmon eggs warm and safe.

Haley Jenkins manages the science center’s hatchery. She’s wearing beaded salmon egg earrings today as she leads a group of students in the high school counterpart to the first grade salmon cycle class. This one is scaled up. 

“This field science class gets to see it the whole process, and we don’t make up a lesson for them. Like, they’re doing what we’re doing when they come here. We take them on the net pens to feed fish with us,” she says. “They feed our Coho fry with us…they really get to be hands-on.”

Sitka High School science teacher Stacy Golden, donning matching salmon egg earrings, says the year-long salmon aquaculture course introduces students to salmon from a different angle.

“A lot of them are surprised at how much hatcheries actually do for our state. They’re surprised that this much science goes on with a hatchery,” Golden says. “And a lot of them remember their elementary adventures at the hatchery, but don’t actually remember what a salmon hatchery does.”

So what is the hatchery doing today? Jenkins says until fertilized   eggs have developed their eyes, they’re incredibly fragile. Once that little black dot appears, they go through a round of hatchery processes to ensure they stay strong and healthy. Next to the incubators, two students are “shocking” the salmon eggs. Not with electricity, but with impact.

They pour the eggs from a bucket, a six inch drop into a metal box below them.

Jenkins says that impact shock will literally make or break them.

“If they’ve developed properly genetically, they’re going to be fine,” Jenkins says. “If they didn’t develop properly, or they didn’t fertilize, or whatever, they’ll break.”

Around the corner, Sitka High School senior Carter Conatser is manning one of two “egg pickers.” He pours a scoop of eggs into a hopper on top and the picker begins to spit eggs out into a plastic tub on the floor below.

“It’s picking out the bad eggs that make it through the machine, and just making sure we’re only left with the good eggs,” Conatser explains.

Conatser runs his hands through the eggs. He says they feel like the sensory children’s toy “Orbeez,” little balls that expand with water.

“I think it’s kind of satisfying,” Conatser says. “I think I’d enjoy it better if my hands weren’t freezing, though,” he adds and laughs.

After the good and bad eggs are separated, which prevents the spread of fungus, it’s time for a math lesson.

“We are picking up dead eggs and putting them on a tray to be weighed,” says Logan Schrantz, as he carefully measuring out a handful of pink salmon eggs. The weight he records will help the team determine the number of eggs that survived.

Schrantz visited the hatchery as a first grader over a decade ago, when he was the same age as Justin. And he vaguely remembers seeing the eggs and the salmon runs. But catching Cohos, his favorite salmon? Those memories are crystal clear. He points out the pier behind him where he recalls snagging salmon as a middle schooler.

While Schrantz and other students in the class may have salmon catching skills, Golden says that’s not a prerequisite. 

“A lot of times, I get students in the class that love salmon. They love being outside. They love Sitka, and this is totally their jam,” Golden says. “But what I really love is when a student’s like, ‘I don’t know if I should be in this class or not, because I don’t have any experience with fish,’ and I think those are the students that I love to see the most in this class because they’re the ones that are getting exposure to something totally different and outside their realm.”

Once the eggs have been shocked, sorted and weighed, the good eggs go back into the incubators. They’ll eventually hatch, and then continue to develop here until they’re transferred to net pens, and eventually released into the wild. While the students may graduate and move away, these salmon will certainly be back here one day to spawn.

And there’s one final step after that. Death. And that’s part of the class too. 

A week after the high schoolers processed eggs at the science center, they’re digging up potatoes at the community garden up the street. These potatoes grew thanks, in part, to the carcasses of the returned salmon, which was turned into fertilizer. Emunah Voluck is digging up spud after spud, which she says is fine, but perhaps not fishy enough.

“I think for me, I want to do more fish activity because I didn’t really get that because I didn’t grow up here,” she says, then adds “But I do like gardening,” as she shoves her trowel into the earth, and pulls up another potato.

“Ooh, that’s a big one. Get wrecked, Logan!” she laughs.

From a tiny eye peering out of an egg, to the eye of a potato, the salmon life cycle is now complete.  

Data centers are proliferating in rural areas across the United States to support the rapidly developing artificial intelligence (AI) industry. And proposals to construct them in Southeast Alaska have recently cropped up in Wrangell and Petersburg.

While there aren’t any public proposals to build data centers in Sitka yet, city code does not currently include language to address them. So the Sustainability Commission and city staff have proposed updating the city’s zoning code to define and regulate the facilities at the local level. 

At a Planning Commission meeting on October 21, Sustainability Commission Chair Aurora Taylor said they wanted to get ahead of it.

“We are really hoping to establish a pathway for local regulation and local input, so that we don’t end up in a situation where private developers have just built a data center slipped through the cracks because our zoning and general code does not have a clear definition,” Taylor said. “So this is the Sustainability Commission trying to get ahead of these concerns, given, especially in Sitka with hydroelectric, how water use and energy are so interconnected.”

The proposed amendment would allow data center construction only with a conditional use permit. That would make any new proposal for a data center subject to community review, and would require Planning Commission approval.

But at the public hearing, many Sitkans urged the Planning Commission to instead recommend that the local assembly ban them outright. Lisa Sadlier-Hart urged the commission to drop the conditional use section in favor of prohibition.

“They require a tremendous amount of energy. We have a limited amount of energy, and we need to really direct it towards what matters most, and this, to me, doesn’t matter most. We also know that they increase noise pollution horrifically, as well as air pollution, and my other concern is water,” she said. “So I don’t think this is at all a good fit for our community, and I think it would take away from the quality of life that’s in this community, and we need to say no. We need to say it loud, and we need to say it now.” 

Around a dozen Sitkans shared similar sentiments, with concerns about energy and water use, the cost to residents, and the potential impacts to quality of life.

A handful spoke about the potential benefits of data centers and a willingness to be open to the possibilities. Dmitry Rudas discouraged the commission from banning data centers when there are many different uses and applications– he felt those sized to Sitka’s electric loads should be considered.

“The dose makes the poison right? There is a major difference between like a one kilowatt home lab that somebody’s running, which by that definition would still fit the data center aspect of it, You know, between a one megawatt data center and a one gigawatt hyper center, a hyperscaler data center, right?” Rudas said. “The the size makes a huge difference, and that’s why I think we have to be careful about verbiage like banning everything outright, just in name only.”

For the most part, planning commissioners shared the community’s concerns. Margaret Frank said there are still too many unknowns, and was in favor of prohibiting data centers outright, rather than allowing them to be considered under the conditional use process. 

“Because I think, in line with our comprehensive plan, we’ve been prioritizing building housing on land. That’s limited buildable land, and we should avoid sacrificing opportunities to address our housing needs in favor of the data centers,” Frank said.

Commissioner Jacquie Foss said she wasn’t opposed to allowing data centers through a conditional use permit, but until they have defined the parameters for the permits, like energy consumption or impacts to air quality, she said they should press pause.

“I see conditional uses as an opportunity to allow things that may be beneficial to the town of Sitka while denying things that don’t have that same benefit, and I think for things like data center(s), there might be places where there’s they can be a benefit for the community,” Foss said. “But at this time, I don’t know how to address those conditions to ensure that at least we have an idea of it.”

Ultimately the Planning Commission unanimously agreed to recommend defining data centers in city code and prohibiting them in all zones. The commission’s recommendation will go to the Sitka Assembly for consideration at a future meeting.

A committee directed with making recommendations for improvements at the state run boarding school in Sitka has delivered its findings to the Alaska Board of Education and Early Development.

It’s been nearly a year since a group of parents, educators and alumni sounded the alarm about conditions at Mt. Edgecumbe High School to the Alaska Board of Education and Early Development. With concerns about mental health, aging facilities, and a significant enrollment drop-off, the board tasked an ad hoc committee with investigating the issues over the past summer, and making recommendations for improvements. 

At the board’s quarterly meeting in mid-October in Sitka, student Xander Swanson called last year “a hard one”, citing everything from leaks and worn out beds, to inconsistent rules and poor communication. But he and others said some conditions have gotten better – with infrastructure improvements, a re-written student handbook, and new administrators.

“One change that’s seen is the communication with students and staff is on another level. This matters more than you might think,” Swanson said. “When students feel heard, we show up differently. We take ownership of our school.” 

Superintendent David Langford also told the board that things are looking up with millions of dollars to put toward facility improvements– $24 million over the next few years including around $10 million for dining hall renovation. Langford said the cafeteria food has improved already, and the school is offering more than quadruple the student activities available last year. 

While enrollment was down to 350 students at the start of this year, Langford said the number of students leaving campus is substantially lower than this time last year.

“I’ve been emphasizing with all the principals and teachers, everybody on the campus, that really what we’re interested in is keeping the students we have long term, and, to-date, the students that are leaving Mount Edgecumbe up to this point is 65% lower than it was a year ago, so I think that speaks to everybody working together at a whole new level for students.”  

But former school staff member and parent Blossom Teal-Olsen said some of those improvements don’t tell the full story. Cuts to mental health support and staff and teacher turnover need to be addressed. 

“Our children need mental health support at a time when there’s no mental health support given, and there’s been cuts to those positions. And historically, if anyone, and I’ve been a former worker there, if you ever make a wave, you are out,” Teal-Olsen said. “So look at look at how many teachers have left. Look at the turnover within the dorms. Look at the how the nursing staff interacts with administration. That’s the true story. There. That’s where change needs to happen.”  

Reviewing and strengthening mental health supports for students is on a list of 22 recommendations the ad hoc committee delivered to the state board later at the same meeting.

The committee developed the list after reviewing roughly 250 survey results from students, parents, and staff. It touches on everything from improving dorm room policies and communication with parents, to establishing a process for collecting information from students who withdraw from the school. 

Paul Reid is a project coordinator with the Office of Education Advocacy, and he facilitated the ad hoc meetings. Board Chair Sally Stockhausen asked him whether they were ready to discuss the plans for addressing the recommendations. 

“I kind of viewed that as ‘This is going to be handed off to the to the admin and to the staff and the students here’ to assure that some of that these recommendations are considered, as they continue to develop,” Reid said.

Stockhausen said she could hear a lot of the recommendations already reflected in both Langford’s report and at a recent school advisory board meeting. However, she wanted to keep tabs on future improvements with a regular report to the state board.

“I would like it to stay in the forefront of our minds and not become another thing that we put on the shelf [and say] ‘Well, that was nice that we did that,'” Stockhausen said. “So I would like to see in in a format that addresses these at our meetings, that we get a regular update on what has been done so far.” 

And board member Kimberly Bergey said the update should be digestible so students and families have a roadmap for where the school is headed. 

“The student voice in this process is going to be critical to the long-term success of the school,” she said. “And so, figuring out how we can make sure that that student voice is included in the the next steps in the process is going to be critical.”

The board did not take formal action on the recommendations at the quarterly meeting. 

In Sitka’s zoning code, all commercial docks are treated the same– it does not differentiate between the size or type of dock, whether it’s a dock for charter fishing boats or cruise ships. And commercial, waterfront and industrial zones currently allow commercial docks by right.

At a meeting on September 29, Planning and Community Development Director Amy Ainslie said that means cruise ship docks could be developed in Sitka with little to no public process involved.

Before an audience of around 30 Sitkans, Ainslie gave an overview of a draft ordinance that seeks to plug that hole, which was identified by the tourism task force several years ago. It would create a permitting process for new or expanded cruise ship docks – existing docks would be grandfathered in. Ainslie said the goal is to ensure there’s a public process and review for approving a new dock is comprehensive. 

“We know that cruise ship docks have an impact on our whole community,” Ainslie said. “Typically, in zoning hearings, you’re looking at the impact of a use on a particular property, and just a narrow kind of window around it. But we know that this is an industry that impacts our whole community. We want to make sure that our review is comprehensive, and we also want to make sure that decisions we make under these regulations are sound and defensible.”

The planning and tourism commissions have been working on the ordinance for some time– The ordinance is in draft form right now. Ainslie said now is the time to get feedback. 

“And so, we want to hear more from you. Are we on the right track? Does this solve the community’s concerns when it comes to regulating cruise ship dock development?” Ainslie asked. “We also want to know: Are there potential consequences of taking this action, whether intended or unintended, good or bad?”

After Ainslie’s presentation, she and members of both the planning and tourism commissions took questions from the audience. One speaker, who did not identify himself, said he did not understand why the city was looking to regulate cruise ship docks if Sitka hasn’t had a lot of interest in building them, and said the city shouldn’t add more regulations to address something that isn’t really a problem. Planning Commissioner Wendy Alderson said she sees the ordinance more like housekeeping than regulation. Larry Edwards with Small Town Soul said the city should instead develop an ordinance prohibiting future cruise ship dock construction. Private cruise dock owner Chris McGraw asked if future updates to the draft ordinance could clarify how the city would define a dock expansion under the new regulations.

“The ordinance talks a lot about ship sizes and it uses numbers of passengers, but you have, you know, the Ritz-Carlton ship that I think has sometimes 300 passengers on it, yet it’s 800 feet long. So that’s something to take in consideration,” McGraw said.

Jim Steffen said the city’s current agreement with McGraw’s dock doesn’t address Sitkans’ concerns about cruise traffic growth and hoped any updates to city code would include some teeth. He was glad the proposed ordinance would also come with an amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan, which was developed before the community saw a big jump in cruise tourism. But he said updates to that plan should come first.

“It’s really the only document that’s going to give guidance to all these questions about impacts on our community, and I believe the comp[rehensive] plan is woefully inadequate in this area,” Steffen said. “And so I’m glad to see an interest in updating the comp plan as regards pretty much anything that this would affect– quality of life, our services, our roads, our, you know, jobs, housing. These are all things that would be affected.” 

Assembly member Scott Saline, who was in the audience, asked if there was an appetite for asking voters to weigh in on whether future cruise docks should be built in Sitka. Planning Commissioner Robin Sherman said she preferred a regulatory approach and finding compromise when addressing a divisive issue like cruise passenger limits. 

“I do not think that we have consensus. I think we have a diversity of opinion, and when that is the case, I can speak for myself personally in looking for a compromise that makes nobody completely happy,” Sherman said. “Because when you have very, very different opinions, if you make one contingent very, very happy, somebody else is very unhappy. So I personally strive for some kind of a balance.” 

It’s not the last time the public will have an opportunity to give feedback on the proposed cruise dock code update. A joint work session between the planning and tourism commission will take place in October along with a legal review of the ordinance. After commission feedback is folded in, a new draft of the ordinance will be posted to the city’s website for a 30-day comment period. Then it will go before both commissions for approval, and finally to the assembly for consideration- a culmination Ainslie said is still “many months away.”

View the draft ordinance here or learn more here

A Coast Guard crew from Air Station Sitka rescued a man earlier this week after his fishing boat sank near Murder Cove, on the southern tip of Admiralty Island.

A statement published by the Coast Guard on Wednesday (9-30-26) said the man was in stable condition. The fishing vessel Tyee had departed from Sitka on Friday, and was expected to arrive in Ketchikan after the weekend. 

On Monday, the Coast Guard received word that the boater hadn’t been heard from since early Sunday morning. After unsuccessful attempts to contact him over VHF radio and by cell phone, the Coast Guard launched a helicopter from Air Station Sitka and the Petersburg-based Cutter Pike.

Around 3 p.m. a good Samaritan vessel found an ice chest and a life raft in Murder Cove. Around 5 p.m. the Coast Guard found the man on the shore of Admiralty Island, two miles east of the cove. The crew hoisted him aboard the helicopter and brought him back to Sitka. According to the release, the survivor told the crew that when the boat started taking on water and sank on Sunday, he put on a survival suit and jumped into a life raft. When the raft began taking on water, he swam to shore. 

In the release, Coast Guard Commander Rianne Troutman said the man’s survival suit “extended his survival time and gave our search crews the fighting chance needed to bring him home safely.” Troutman said the Coast Guard cannot overstate the importance of carrying proper survival gear, ensuring that equipment is accessible and filing a float plan before an emergency occurs. 

Access to a popular outdoor recreation area near Sitka just got a bit easier thanks to a grant-funded trail rehabilitation project that wrapped this summer. 

Kruzof Island, about 13 miles west of Sitka, is home to miles of multi-use trails that were once logging roads. Two U.S. Forest Service cabins, Shelikof and North Beach, are popular destinations, but people hunt, hike and bike, ride ATVs and recreate across the area – all national forest land.

Ben Hughey is the executive director of Sitka Trail Works. He says in recent years, accessing the Twin Lakes area of the island has become more challenging. 

“These two really beautiful low elevation lake, so, in trees and somewhat close to the coast, surrounded by some interesting terrain…were getting to be almost inaccessible because of brush overgrowth,” Hughey said. “We know we live in a rainforest; stuff grows pretty well here, and alders love to take over gravel roads, and basically they had grown to the point where they were closing off branches from both sides, had met each other in the middle, and to ride or hike or bike, you were just pushing through branches.”

Hughey said a few years ago, the Sitka Ranger District reached out to the nonprofit, and asked them to help with trail maintenance on Kruzof by applying for an Alaska Department of Fish and Game grant that the federal government isn’t eligible for.  

“In an ideal world, this would be a part of the Forest Service’s annual maintenance funding, and they would be able to take care of this work and keep these public access points open all the time for us, without having to go through a competitive grant process and scramble and find money,” Hughey said. “But they are so reduced in capacity, reduced in funding that we had to step in, and we’re grateful to be able to do that.”

Trail Works scored the grant and began the project with contractor Island Enterprises this summer. In addition to the brushing, they replaced decking on bridges that were beginning to rot, and repaired an eroding section of the Twin Lakes road.

Hughey says Trail Works’ mission is to provide public access to public lands, and he’s excited to help make more of that land accessible. 

“We have so much land in the Tongass, and it’s hard to get around and bushwhacking in the rainforest. And so, being able to get out on a road, get some distance from town, and explore new terrain is really essential,” Hughey said. “So I think that’s the biggest impact, is right now people can spend the fall and get out into a lot more terrain.” 

Hughey says the project, which wrapped just in time for fall hunting season, cost $150,000. 75% of the funding was covered by the state’s hunter access program. 

Kate Thomas is Wrangell’s economic development director. She was one of three panelists that addressed conference goers about the role of local government in the industry. 

“The community definitely wants us to sort of puppeteer the size of ship, the population of visitors that come in, their behavior on the streets when they’re in town, those things I don’t have as much control over,” Thomas said. “So we try to work with Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska and advocate for the type and style and size of ship that we like. But we also understand that we play a role in the larger configuration of the industry, and so we give and take a little bit.”

Cruise traffic in Wrangell was at roughly 70,000 this summer, up from 40,000 in 2025. Thomas said the city has worked with the industry to keep the 2000 to 3000 passenger ships to a “sprinkling,” keeping port revenue rolling without inundating the public. 

 
Skagway Borough Manager Emily Deach said she feels the government’s role is to set people up to succeed within the industry.

“So we’re receiving sales tax revenue, we’re receiving port revenue, and we need to make decisions that allow others to prosper, I think,” Deach said. “So we’re providing streets that you can walk, boardwalks downtown that don’t have big holes in them, or we’re providing policies where businesses or construction companies, everyone there can sort of can thrive from the industry.”

Deach says there’s a large tract of land in the middle of Skagway that the community wants opened up for housing development. However, it’s also home to an RV park, and displacing those would remove an opportunity for independent tourists to visit. Deach says figuring out how to strike a balance between the needs of the community and the visitor industry is central to her role.

Laurie Booyse is Ketchikan’s tourism manager. Booyse, who previously worked for Visit Sitka, says as a former business and non-profit employee she’s used to getting things done. Now, in her first job with a municipality, she recognizes that the “speed of government” is a real thing. 

“I think a lot of what we do, people don’t see, because we’re making it easier, safer, and better for our whole community as these tourism management entities,” Booyse said. “We’re like the guy behind the curtain pulling the strings, and out front are the the tour operators and, you know, all the people who get to shake hands and kiss babies while we tend to keep everything standing up.”  

Booyse said she doesn’t think it’s the government’s role to limit commerce through something like a cruise passenger limit. She said the city’s role, ultimately, is to maintain safety for everyone in the community, and build a climate for citizen success. 

Southeast Conference wrapped in Ketchikan on Thursday. 

“This one’s a hard one because we also like Harbor Brewing Company a lot, and it was an unfair position to be put in. That being said, I’m here tonight to stand up for my business and for my twenty-some employees that I employ all year round,” she said. “Approximately 70% of our sales are food. We are not proposing to build a food program around a beer and wine license. You know the reason why we want this license is because we need to continually add to our business in order to provide the employment that our staff needs.” 

This would be Highliner’s first and only license to serve alcohol. The brewery already has licenses to serve beer and wine, but a restaurant license would offer the business more flexibility in its serving limits and operating hours. 

Emerald Hagy is the brewery’s assistant general manager. While she said the assembly should approve both applications, she said giving AMCO local perspective is crucial. Otherwise the decision could be left up to chance, like when the brewery was competing for the community’s lone distillery license last year. She said at that time the board “explicitly expressed frustrations with the lack of weigh-in from the local governing body.”

“The decision ultimately came from drawing a name out of a dirty coffee mug,” she said. “This was disheartening, not because our name wasn’t chosen, but because our elected officials had failed to advocate in any fashion what was in the best interest of the community and allowed that decision to fall to the state.”

While state law allows the local assembly to express a preference for one applicant over the other, city staff recommended the assembly approve both businesses for AMCO’s consideration. Municipal attorney Rachel Jones said if the assembly did want to recommend one business over the other, it had to be intentional. The assembly could only weigh things like sales tax records, the number of jobs the business provides, or public safety as factors when making its decision. 

“If you make any recommendations-based public policy, it can’t be arbitrary and capricious, which would be personally liking one business more than the other, or ‘I go to this one more often. My kids like that one the best.’ That’s personal reasons, that’s not public interest reasons,” she said. “You would be wanting to distinguish between applicants on the basis of things you, as the governing body, have authority over.” 

That put the assembly in a tough spot. With friends involved in both businesses, Chris Ystad recused himself. And Scott Saline said they should just ask for more licenses.

“We should make a motion right now and tell AMCO, ‘Hey, you dudes are creating a division in our town. We’re trying to keep it together as it is. We need more,'” Saline said. “Anybody want to back me up that we vote on this right now and just get onto the next thing?” 

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said they could ask for more licenses, but the question would need to return to the group for consideration at a future meeting. He and other assembly members, including Kevin Mosher, agreed that approving both was the right move. 

“Both businesses are great and worthy businesses,” Mosher said “But I will point out that AMCO…they’re involved with alcohol all the time. We’re not. I know we have the right, but I do feel uncomfortable just trying to pick one over the other. So I would prefer to stick with the staff and forward it on as is.” 

The group briefly considered a proposal to table the item, but ultimately voted 6-0 to approve both applications, sending them to the AMCO board for a final decision at its November meeting. 

In the past year, Sitka gained 150 new jobs and $37 million dollars in wages. When Meilani Schijvens of Rain Coast Data presented her annual update on behalf of the Sitka Economic Development Association, “The State of Sitka’s Economy,” she said it’s a new record. 

“I have a question mark on this slide, but I’m going to say this with absolutely zero question mark. You are at your peak jobs ever in the history of Sitka,” she said. “You have more jobs now than you have ever had before.”

Schijvens said jobs are up across many sectors this year, including seafood, healthcare and tourism, the three industries that make up half of Sitka’s economy. 

She said wages are up and rising at a rate faster than inflation, which is good for workers, and the community’s housing supply has increased. And it’s not the only thing that’s up. 

“I often will have good news about Sitka, and then I have to tell you your population is down, but not this year. This year your population is up by 10 new residents,” she said. “It’s the third time that’s happened in a dozen years. So it’s a small number, but I’m very happy to be reporting it to you.”

Still, Sitka is not immune to the region’s larger population trends. Schijvens said in about the last decade, Sitka has lost over 875 residents of “prime workforce” age and nearly 600 kids [590], while gaining almost 400 [380] senior citizens as Sitkans age in place. She said those demographic shifts have put pressure on the workforce. 

“So altogether, we’ve lost 975 residents, nearly 1000 residents, but we’ve gained 270 jobs. So there’s jobs, but it’s really tough to find people to fill those jobs, and so that’s why those wages are going up at a faster rate than inflation,” she said.

So what do you do when you’re losing people and adding jobs? Hire from outside. Not counting self-employed Sitkans or Coast Guard, Schijvens said about 40% of Sitka’s wage-earning workforce are non-residents. They only earn about 16 percent of the total workforce earnings, but also put pressure on the housing market. 

Housing access is a concern across Southeast, but Sitka is adding more supply to the pool than other communities. Schijvens lauded the community for developing over 400 new housing units in the past 15 years.

“I’m assuming a lot of these are snowbirds. I’m assuming some of them are vacation homes,” she said.”

However, she said the number of vacant homes has increased by nearly the same amount. While she said the American Community Survey data should be taken with a grain of salt because they don’t actually survey that many respondents, she pointed to Sitka’s property tax rate as a possible incentive for the trend.  

“You’ve got a just a much lower mill rate when we compare it to other communities. Six points compared, you know, Valdez is 20,” she said. “It almost incentivizes people to have a home here and then have a home someplace else as well.” 

Still, Schijvens said in a recent business survey, Sitka earned the best quality of life rating of any community in Southeast Alaska and a majority of business leaders felt the economy was either “good” or “very good.” 

After her presentation, Schijvens took some time to answer questions from the audience. The city’s Planning and Community Development Director Amy Ainslie asked if Schijvens had a more detailed wage and earnings breakdown to better understand how money is moving through the community.

“In local government we’re hearing from citizens a lot about economic stress in this time, and at the same time, we hear these kinds of presentations that jobs are up and wages are up, and the economy has a really bright outlook,” Ainslie said. “I’m wondering if we have a better sense of how those wages and earnings are getting distributed…throughout our economy, and to see you know what percentage of our households are not experiencing the kinds of gains that the economy is overall.”

Pat Alexander felt the data didn’t reflect many Sitkans’ experiences.

“You know, as I watched your presentation, I wondered, ‘Where is this magical place? I want to live there. I want to move there,'” she said. “But do you ever include any reality from the people who live in the place about what their perspective is?” 

Schijvens agreed that the business indicators don’t necessarily paint the full picture.  It doesn’t really factor in affordability, which she says is key to Sitka’s outmigration. 

“People are struggling in this community, absolutely,” she said. “There’s that divide between economics, between how the overall economy is doing and then the household economy, how how individuals and people are doing.” 

Schijvens acknowledged that while those experiences weren’t a part of her presentation, they are part of the fabric of Sitka. “It’s a good point,” she said. 

This year, voters will decide a three-way race for mayor, and choose two new assembly members and three school board members. This year’s ballot also includes one proposition. Voters will be asked whether to update the city’s charter to adjust the triggers for a special election. 

Currently, if a citizen petition gets enough signatures, it will require a mandatory special election. That’s how Small Town Soul’s citizen initiative to limit cruise visitation went to a special election in May of 2025.

“That was the first time that this provision of the charter had ever been triggered, and I had several questions from the public,” Municipal Clerk Sara Peterson said in an interview on September 18. “I got questions from the assembly. People wanted to know how much a special election is, and so I decided to to to bring the topic forward to the assembly and ultimately the voters.” 

Peterson said the new charter language would align with state law and how most other municipalities handle special elections. If voters approve the amendment, it would change how citizen initiatives are handled in the future.  

“If the amendment passes, then the initiative or referendum would be placed on that upcoming October ballot,” she said. “And at the same time, when I notify the assembly and say, ‘Hey, we got this. It’s going to go on the October ballot unless the assembly wants to hold a special election before then on the motion.'”

Early, in-person voting is available at Harrigan Centennial Hall on weekdays from 8:30-4:30 and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon through October 5. Sitka’s municipal election is Tuesday, October 6. 

KCAW partnered with the Daily Sitka Sentinel this year to produce our election hub, which is now live. There, you’ll find early and absentee voting information, candidates interviews, questionnaires, and forum audio. 

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct that early voting is available on Saturdays, not Sundays.