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:

The city will pay a regional nonprofit $25,000 to conduct a childcare needs study as part of an effort to address the growing issue in Sitka. 

At the Sitka Assembly meeting Tuesday night (1-13-26), several members of the public said it was an important step toward solving Sitka’s childcare shortage.  

Annette Evans sits on the Health Needs and Human Services Commission, and co-authored a report last year that outlines a community-driven strategy to improve childcare access. 

“Sitka’s childcare availability, affordability and even quality remains in a time of intense difficulty and important decisions must be made,” Evans said. “Collaboration is necessary.”

Childcare is a top priority in the city’s strategic plan. Last fall, assembly members Tim Pike, Kevin Mosher, and Thor Christianson began a deep dive on the issue. In a memo, they said they met directly with local childcare providers and other stakeholders to better understand what providers believed would “meaningfully address capacity, staffing, and affordability concerns.”

They concluded that the childcare issue is complex, and can’t be fully addressed using city money and staff time alone. So they decided to get outside support from the Juneau-based Southeast Childhood Collective, which will be doing the study.

“The two biggest issues in Sitka is housing and childcare,” Mosher said Tuesday. “How many times have we heard that people have been offered a job for this or that, and they can’t come here because, one, they can’t get a place to live. And then two, they don’t have a place to put their kids. I think making childcare available through these methods — and of course, this is just a study — will have a very big positive effect on this.”

Assembly Member JJ Carlson said condensing all available information into a study that says what will work best for Sitka is what the community needs. 

“We don’t have that next town over to help us with things,” she said. “We don’t have that group that can form in a valley or in a regional area to assist us with needs in this area. We are on an island on the outer coast, we have to do it for ourselves. We can learn from others, but we can’t really lean on others, [like] a lot of other towns can. We see that this is a problem throughout the state, throughout the nation, throughout the world, but finding the solutions that fit us is really imperative.”

The Southeast Childhood Collective’s proposal aims to provide Sitka with a clear understanding of the current childcare landscape and a set of program options that can “strengthen provider stability, support higher wages, improve workforce retention, and promote sustainable growth without increasing costs for families.”

The assembly unanimously approved the $25,000 study, which will be paid for with reserves from the city’s general fund. Sponsors said they anticipate delivery of the report by the end of March.

In other business, the assembly pushed Municipal Administrator John Leach’s resignation date from May to December to allow for more time to hire a qualified candidate for the top role. Leach announced his intention to resign in late October after six years on the job. 

The assembly negotiated an annual salary of $230,000 with Leach. Most recently, he was making $170,000. 

The move to amend the employee agreement with Leach was proposed by Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz and assembly members Tim Pike and Kevin Mosher. In a memo, the sponsors said hiring a new administrator is rarely a speedy process, and looking back at past administrator hirings, the city often employed an interim administrator to cover the needs of the city during lengthy hiring periods. They said Leach agreed to stay on to give the city enough time to hire a quality candidate and bring them up to speed. 

In the memo, sponsors said the assembly has negotiated an annual salary of $230,000 with Leach. Most recently, he was making $170,000. 

In other business, the assembly will consider approving a contract with Element Agency for the city’s visitor services contract. It will also consider allocating $25,000 towards a childcare needs analysis study. 

The Sitka Assembly meets at 6 p.m. tonight. Raven News will broadcast the meeting live, following Alaska News Nightly. 

It is notoriously difficult to find childcare in Sitka. Fortunately, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska has recently launched a new childcare program that compensates family members or providers to look after their children in their homes. Melonie Boord and Kathleen Adams join KCAW to talk more about this new program, as well as upcoming two-step dance lessons.

Sitka’s athletic facilities could get a major upgrade if a proposal the Sitka Assembly is considering gains traction. Sponsors of the initiative to build a sports and recreation complex have identified funding that could support its construction, but freeing up the money will require a vote of the people to amend the city’s Home Rule Charter. While it’s an exciting proposition for some, others wonder whether it’s the best use of the funds. 

Sitka has one artificial-turf ballfield that was built with state money. Building a new one is a costly endeavor. That’s why assembly members Chris Ystad and Kevin Mosher have proposed that the city take on bond debt to cover construction costs and use the excess revenue from a fund dedicated to the former city-owned hospital to cover payments on those bonds.

Right now, the money is set aside to cover retirement costs for former employees of Sitka Community Hospital, which was sold to the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in 2019. The fund also takes in money from the tobacco tax, and city staff anticipate in the coming years there will be a surplus.

At the Sitka Assembly meeting on July 8, one member of the public and several assembly members wondered if using that surplus for sports and recreation was the best use of the money.   

Lauren Wild is with the Early Childhood Coalition. She said more than a year ago, they identified the tobacco tax as a possible fund to subsidize child care in Sitka. And while she said she supports youth athletics, she feels let down by the city.

“We’re losing kids primarily due to lack of child care and housing,” Wild said. “This body is working on housing, but shows little interest in childcare. Childcare centers need subsidies to operate if we do not invest in it. Now, you’re not going to have any youth left in this community to use the athletic facilities and recreation facilities you want to build and fix with the Sitka Community Hospital Fund.” 

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz referenced last year’s State of Sitka’s Economy report, in which local business leaders were asked to rank the importance of issues in creating a vibrant business climate. Childcare and attracting and retaining a workforce aged population topped the list. Recreation was at the bottom.

Eisenbeisz said it’s not that the business community doesn’t want recreational facilities, but that those facilities are already sufficiently serviced. 

“We have many fields, we have pools, we have cabins, we have trails, we have playgrounds, but I don’t think there’s anyone at this table that can say that we have sufficient teachers, daycare facilities, and youth education facilities,” Eisenbeisz said. “I have a child in this community who’s going to be a user of athletic facilities, but I think the critically important task right now outweighs the ‘nicer to have’ task for me.”

Several assembly members said while the issue of childcare is incredibly important, there won’t be enough money in the fund to address an issue that large. And, they said, the money won’t be available for years.

“It’s going to take too long,” said assembly member Ystad. “Childcare needs something now, and this is going to be something where there’s not really a decent amount of funding to really make a good impact with childcare for quite some time. But recreation and athletic facilities, they can wait. It isn’t such an urgent thing. We can plan.” 

Assembly member Mosher agreed with Ystad and said sports and recreation facilities will be a major driver in retaining families in Sitka. 

“That’s a very crucial thing that people are interested in,” he said. “They want their children to have things to do.”

Ultimately, after making several amendments to the initiative, including changing the language in the ordinance from “athletic facility” to “athletic and recreational facility” to broaden the use and funding for the facility, the assembly approved it on a 4-2 vote with assembly member JJ Carlson and Mayor Eisenbeisz opposed. It will consider the item again at its July 22 meeting.

If the assembly approves the initiative, it will go before voters in the municipal election this October.

In other business, Lincoln Street will remain open for the rest of the summer. The Sitka Assembly agreed at its meeting Tuesday to keep the street open for the remainder of the cruise season — a decision in line with the most recent recommendation from the city’s tourism commission. 

“We’ve continued to see an improvement in passenger flows in and out of town,” said Amy Ainslie, Planning and Community Development Director. “We have not had any incidents regarding vehicles and pedestrian interactions. And I think the institution of our pedestrian safety guards here at Harrigan [Centennial Hall] has definitely helped with the jaywalking issue.”

As of July 1, Sitka has experienced 29 days with more than 5,000 cruise passengers this season, according to a city memo.

For the past several years, the city closed the downtown thoroughfare on days with high cruise traffic, but the closure policy saw pushback. So this summer, the city began the season with the street open in a two-month trial run. On Tuesday, the assembly extended that trial run through the end of the summer season.  

Assembly members weighed both the pros and cons of keeping Lincoln Street open for the summer, and expressed a desire to review the data after the season wraps up before making a recommendation for next year.

“I’m really, really impartial on this. I see benefits both ways. I see the pros and cons, and I think that they’re both equally important,” Eisenbeisz said. “The one downside, I will say, of keeping the street open is a traffic flow concern that I’ve seen.”

Lauren Wild grew up in Sitka, where she’s now raising her own family. A marine biologist, Wild brings a researcher’s sensibility to the problem of childcare. It’s not just about the struggle young families face, it’s about the numbers: Between the town’s two childcare centers, there is only enough space for 10 infants out of the 120 babies living in Sitka; and for 18 of its 120 toddlers.

That adds up to a 7-to-8 percent coverage rate for infants, and a 14-percent coverage rate for toddlers. Statewide, the availability average is almost twice Sitka’s. Nationally, there is childcare available for almost half of children in these age groups.

This shortfall is a major factor, Wild suggested, for anyone starting a family in Sitka, and plays a role in the decision to stay.

And the problem doesn’t end at home.

“Our school district is feeling this crisis in that they’re experiencing really high rates of children entering kindergarten that are not kindergarten ready,” said Wild, “and our district is spending more money on individual one-on-one care — paras (paraprofessionals), social services, etc., to meet the needs of children that are increasingly entering the public school system behind and not ready. So we’re experiencing these increased social, developmental, and behavioral delays with children.”

Wild is a member of the Early Childhood Coalition. She and other coalition members comprised the seven-member panel during a lunchtime event hosted by the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on October 9 – one of six planned through December. In survey work conducted by the Chamber, the lack of childcare and the lack of affordable housing alternate between the top 1 and 2 concerns of employers in Sitka.

This is nothing new. Former SEARHC Hospital administrator Frank Sutton, speaking from the audience, recalled a time in the 1990s when he struggled to recruit staff – especially nurses.

“We had any number (of nurses, especially), I recall, turning us down because ‘I don’t have childcare, I can’t do it,’” said Sutton.

SEARHC’s solution was to establish an on-campus childcare center licensed for 44 children, under the direction of Becky Workman, who also sat on the panel. Sutton said it was an uphill battle to convince SEARHC management to agree to the facility, even though costs were partially covered by fees, which could run up to $3,000 a month for two children in all-day care.

SEARHC closed its childcare center in 2013, (but as recently as 2020 told KCAW that it hadn’t ruled out reopening another) and Sitka’s two other childcare centers were strained, but absorbed the added demand.

Lauren Wild thinks that pressure has increased  over the last 10-15 years with the changing social structure of the country, especially the prevalence of two-income households. Wild said it may not be affordable for a family to have a stay-at-home parent, and in some cases “it’s not a preference,” she said.

One of the two organizations anchoring Sitka’s childcare services is the Betty Eliason Childcare Center, which opened in the early 1980s. Board president Joel Markis spoke on the panel, and described the unsustainable business model that affected childcare across the country: It doesn’t pay.

While Markis said Betty Eliason had been buoyed by Covid money, and exceptional support from the Sitka Tribe, which had allowed it to double its infant capacity, the center had high fixed costs regardless of enrollment, and was insolvent.

“We are very aware of the glide slope that our current financial situation has us  in,” he explained.

Markis said the center looked forward to engaging with the community to make the changes needed “to keep the organization,” including municipal support, utility relief, rent-free land (which it leases from the Russian Orthodox Church of Alaska, and will be renegotiated in 2036), and other strategies that SEARHC used during the two decades it operated its childcare center.

Nevertheless, there is some progress in the state that is hopeful for Sitka. Panelist Annette Evans, who manages the new therapeutic preschool for Sitka Counseling, said that Anchorage last year decided to allocate revenue from a marijuana tax to early childhood efforts.

“They have $8 million,” she said. “They’ve mapped out how they’re going to spend it, and there’s definitely a trend:  they’re going towards retaining, recruiting, retaining, and supporting current providers and innovative pilot projects.”

Likewise, Valdez and Juneau were looking to innovative solutions for childcare. Evans added that Sitka’s Health Needs and Human Services Commission has been tasked with making recommendations to the Sitka Assembly on the issue by next January, and she suggested that anyone interested check out the commission’s work on the City of Sitka website.

The next in the series of panel discussions on Sitka’s Childcare Initiative will be hosted by the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, October 30.

Jill Lecrone and Jule LeBlanc from Baranof Elementary School joined KCAW’s Erin Fulton to discuss the event. Listen here:

Read the full report here

For at least a decade, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska has provided assistance to Tribal citizens with children in licensed childcare, and directed federal funds to providers through a Child Care and Development Fund block grant.

“However, once the pandemic hit, the number of tribal children attending licensed care plummeted,” said STA’s director of social services Melonie Boord.

“So we were kind of at a loss, what did we do?” Boord said.

At the same time, the Tribe received an additional funding boost through the American Rescue Plan, so Boord said they used the extra money to commission an in-depth study examining childcare needs and gaps in Sitka.

What the study found supports what many parents and childcare providers have been saying over the last few years. It’s the perfect storm: Even with eight licensed facilities in Sitka, childcare remains expensive and difficult to access.  Most of the facilities are operating at around half capacity. The main reason these childcare providers can’t fully open up is staffing. That leaves families without options, and providers struggling to keep their doors open.

Iris Matthews leads the Stellar Group, the research and consulting firm that conducted the study.

“The waitlist is over 100 long, and that’s probably not everybody looking for care, because a lot of people,” said Matthews. “They called [centers, and] they didn’t even bother to put their names on the list, because they’re going to be number 49 or 50. And they need care now.” 

If a child can get in the door, the cost is high for parents – around 16 percent higher than the state average, and it’s high for providers too. 

“None of them are getting rich on these rates either,” Matthews said. “As challenging as it can be for families to pay for care, that is the great balancing act that comes out too– it’s really hard work for providers too.”

There are resources to support the cost of childcare, both provided by the state and the Tribe, but Matthews said enrollment in those programs isn’t high.  

“We have over 1200 kids, and fewer than 44 are accessing any form of childcare assistance. That’s not very many,” Matthews said. “And we did ask, especially for tribal child care assistance, in our survey, folks were aware of the program, and about half were and, and of those, I think about three quarters thought they were probably eligible, but they weren’t necessarily taking advantage of it for, you know, lots of different reasons.” 

By comparison, about a third of Sitka kids are eligible for free and reduced lunch in schools.

Sitka isn’t the only community in Alaska that’s experiencing childcare woes. Matthews said it’s caused enough economic disruption that the business community is paying closer attention. The Alaska Chamber of Commerce published its own research on childcare last year. 

“That chamber survey found that 77% of parents have missed work in the last three months because of childcare issues,” Matthews said. “They equated that to $165 million lost dollars to our economy [annually].” 

All of this may be affecting a family’s decision to have children. Sitka has about 800 fewer residents in 2021 than in 2011 but that population dip is largest among young children. 

“The population in Sitka declined by just under 10%. The population of children 0-12 was down by 29%. We don’t really know why that is,” Matthews said. “One thing we do know is Sitka has a fairly low birthrate in comparison to the rest of the state.” 

She said there’s speculation that this decrease could be tied to the high cost of living in Sitka and the availability and cost of childcare. The majority of survey respondents in the Tribe’s study cited the high cost of housing and basic needs in Sitka as the number one challenge to raising children here. Number 2? “A hard time finding childcare.” 

Matthews says advocacy at the state level is a crucial next step. But at the local level, Melonie Boord says the Sitka Tribe is making moves. 

“I wish we could say that we have all of the answers,” Boord said. “We don’t, but we have started to think about strategic planning.” 

Boord said the Tribe is developing its strategic plan to tackle childcare. Although the plan isn’t set in stone yet, it provides around $400,000 toward programs like mini-grants for existing childcare providers to build capacity, and to provide financial support for in-home and relative care. 

Tori Hay is a member of Sitka’s Early Childhood Coalition. When the assembly met on April 26, she told the group that as of earlier in the month there were 60 Sitka families on waiting lists for childcare.

“It takes years to get to the top of these lists, which causes uncertainty and stress as families wait for this essential resource. And, as we know, if families can’t access childcare, they can’t access their jobs to help take care of their families,” said Hay. “And a ripple effect of this is that Sitka has less access to workers to fill needed positions.”

Hay was one of a few community members that voiced support for the assembly’s decision to direct the city’s Health Needs and Human Services Commission to look into Sitka’s childcare shortage and provide recommendations on how to address it.

The Early Childhood Coalition has been advocating for solutions to Sitka’s childcare shortage for several years- hosting events like town halls and ‘self-care cafes,’ and collecting data from families. Hay said the group plans to ask the assembly to support House Bill 149, which would allow certain childcare providers to organize for collective bargaining and would establish a public fund for providers.

“I think that the community needs to be aware of the economic cost to the community of our lack of childcare,” said Rebecca Himschoot, who sponsored the discussion item. “It’s not only extremely costly, economically in terms of people who can’t get to work, but to the families, and it’s an equity issue.”

Himschoot listed statistics from Thread Alaska- a childcare advocacy group. According to the nonprofit’s  data, the cost of licensed early childhood education in Sitka equates to around 14 percent of a married couple’s income but makes up about 32 percent of a single man’s income, and 42 percent of a single woman’s income.

Child care centers have received an influx of cash in the last few years- the Sitka Assembly earmarked around $500,000 of its COVID relief budget for childcare, and the state set aside almost $100 million, which is still being distributed. 

But assembly member Kevin Knox said he’d discovered while working on distributing Sitka’s CARES Act federal pandemic funds, during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, that the problem was complex and the solutions varied.

“One of the things I kind of looked at was…what were other communities doing?” Knox said. “And there’s a massive gamut. There’s no single golden egg, for sure, that’s going to solve the crisis that we’re in.”

Assembly member Dave Miller asked members of the public  if access to childcare in Sitka had gotten worse.

“You brought up that there’s a waiting list of 60 names or so, give or take. How many names would have been on that list five years ago, or 10 years ago?” Miller asked. “I mean, is it bigger now than it was back then? Are there more people sitting around waiting to get on?”

Several people in the assembly chambers nodded, then Sheldon Jackson Childcare Center director Lolly Miller came to the podium. She told the assembly that the challenges are complex- childcare is expensive to provide, and they can’t raise the cost any higher without putting too much of a burden on parents. But they’re experiencing staffing shortages- Miller said she could open her facility up to 20 more kids if she could fully staff it. And she called for parents to stay engaged in the conversation, even after their kids had moved from early childhood into Sitka’s public schools. She noted one parent who is counting the days until he can get his child out of childcare and into public school which is free.

“And that’s what happens once you’re out,” Miller said. “Do you really think about us? After you’ve got your kids out? I’ve had yours, yours, yours, yours and his,” she said, pointing around the room. “I’ve had all of them. Just saying.”  

Her point being Sitkans should care about early childcare capacity even after their kids age out. 

The assembly unanimously agreed to ask the Health Needs and Human Services Commission to make recommendations on how to address childcare needs and programming in the community.

In other business, the Sitka Assembly…

-Voted to request the Police and Fire Commission make recommendations on how to improve Sitka’s snow removal process.

-Unanimously approved a $30,000 appropriation to repair a portion of Sitka Cross Trail. 

The section of the Cross Trail between Kramer Avenue and Cascade Creek washed out during a heavy rain event in late January, rendering it impassable. The city plans to hire Troy’s Excavation to make the repairs, with a June 15 deadline. The assembly will consider the item again on second reading at its May 10th meeting.