Tristan Guevin says Sitka needs to ask itself, “How do we want our city to be in ten years, twenty years, and what’s the road map to get us there?” (KCAW photo/Rachel Waldholz)
Tristan Guevin isn’t afraid of the word “technocrat” — in fact, he embraces it. Guevin is one of five candidates running for two open seats on the Sitka Assembly. And he says, if elected, he’d push the city to plan ahead, and think long-term.
Tristan Guevin didn’t mean to end up in Sitka. He followed his family north. His aunt and uncle are longtime Sitka residents. Then his parents moved up here to retire. And about six years ago, he came for a visit.
“Initially I just came to Sitka to spend a little time with my family figuring out what I wanted to do next in life,” Guevin says. But, “[I] fell in love with the community.”
Guevin got a job working as a tutor for the Sitka Native Education Program. That led to work coordinating the Sitka Tribe of Alaska’s Tlingit language revitalization project — work he clearly loves.
“Languages to me are kind of a window into the soul of a people,” Guevin says. “As a youngster I learned Spanish, and then in the Peace Corps, Russian, and had an opportunity here to learn some Tlingit…I really love and treasure that experience.”
Guevin served in the Peace Corps in eastern Ukraine for two years, from 2005 to 2007.
Over the past six years, Guevin has worn a number of different hats at the Sitka Tribe, including, for a year, that of Deputy General Manager. In that role, he oversaw the STA’s education, employment and social services programs. He’s now a planner, managing grants and developing strategic plans to guide the STA’s various programs.
Guevin says he’d bring that planner’s perspective to the Sitka Assembly, “and really think about, how do we want our city to be in ten years, twenty years, and what’s the road map to get us there?”
What Guevin would like to see ten or twenty years ahead is a more equal city, one with economic opportunity for all.
“For example, last year in the school district, 36-percent of the students there were classified as low income, qualifying for free or reduced lunch,” Guevin says. “You look at that, you look at the prices of housing. To me, those are really two big issues: how do we create affordable housing? And also how do we create a more equitable economic system?…How do we create more of the high-paying jobs?”
For Guevin, the answer is: by building on Sitka’s natural advantages. That might mean investing in a public haul-out to expand the maritime industry. Or partnering with the Sitka Sound Science Center to increase work in the marine sciences.
Guevin says it’s not the city’s job to drive these projects – but it is the city’s job to think strategically, bring people together, and support the work already happening in the community .
“As an assembly member, I don’t think your job, it’s not really a top-down decision-making process for me,” he says. “You need to listen to what people want, to what people bring to the table, and really help to facilitate that. The heavy lifting, the people are going to do that, it’s not going to be the assembly.”
Guevin says one example of his philosophy in action is the new Wooch.een Preschool. It’s the result of collaboration between the Sitka Tribe, Sitka School District, and Tlingit and Haida Central Council. It expanded an existing Head Start program, adding a focus on Tlingit language and increasing family outreach.
“There were no extra resources added to that project,” Guevin says. “It was just three organizations getting together and really taking some time to plan and create a program that met all of our needs, and ultimately the needs of the kids and families. That’s what I really enjoy about my work, is being able to work with other people, being able to collaborate, to identify those mutual interests and find innovative ways to pursue them.”
But in the end, Guevin says, he’s running for assembly because Sitka is the place he’s decided to call home — and the place that his family calls home, too.
“I find everything that I want here, and love here,” Guevin says. “Having family here is huge, having my parents and my sister and my aunt and uncle here, and my adopted Dakl’aweidi family as well. That kept me here.”
Sitka’s Municipal Election is October 7. You can find profiles of all the candidates for mayor, assembly and school board, as they air, here.
