Given the extraordinary circumstances of the last two years, the “state” of Sitka is apparently not too bad.
Municipal administrator John Leach delivered his Annual Report to the Community at the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on January 26, and identified the many ways that the municipal government is holding its own.
Read the 2022 Annual Report to the Community.
Among the many functions of city government he discussed, Sitka administrator John Leach mentioned that applications to work for the city are down over previous years, but for the past month there’s been a fully-staffed Human Resources Department to assist in keeping jobs filled. Some revenues – like the property tax – are flat, but a promising visitor season could generate more sales tax.
Leach also said that all federal and state relief programs during the pandemic had pumped $76 million into the local economy.
He reminded the chamber that Sitka had to punch above its weight.
“The city has a lot of responsibilities above and beyond what your typical municipality would do,” said Leach, “and that’s because we’re an island community. You know, we have to provide all our own utilities here, and we keep that in-house as a city function. We’ve got our three core services of public safety, public infrastructure, and our contribution to education. So our folks are working hard every day to provide those core services.
But Leach cautioned that continued progress would come with change, and not necessarily the kind of change that residents think about every day.
He mentioned the way Sitka handled its garbage.
“Solid Waste is, is getting a little more expensive,” he said. “You may remember we just had to move to purchase a compactor. And hopefully that will help us gain some efficiencies. So we can make less shipments off the islands because we’ll be able to compact it more. But the important thing is we really need to find over the next eight to 10 years a solution for our solid waste to ship less and less.”
Leach was encouraged, however, that Sitkans – like the Climate Action Task Force – were already thinking about sustainable growth. He mentioned that “there is only so much water behind the dam,” and that the community was going to have to concentrate on energy efficiency, or developing new sources, to support economic expansion in government (US Coast Guard), health care, tourism, and fishing.
Leach did not see Sitka going backwards.
“I believe that Sitka is poised for pretty major economic growth, if done right,” said Leach. “And we could see an economic boom here. But it’s essential that we balanced the community’s desires with the expansion efforts underway in tourism and health care while maintaining an atmosphere to ensure the continued success of our fishing fleet. So we really need to make the right investments to ensure the future success of our special community.”
One of those investments is in planning for major growth in cruise visitation beginning this summer. Leach heaped praise on Planning Director Amy Ainslee, the Planning Commission, and staff for their work to craft the 2022 Short-Term Tourism Plan – but he wouldn’t speculate on where the assembly would land on the question of a full- or partial closure of Lincoln Street on busy days – or just keeping the status quo.
“So all of the choices are hard,” Leach said. “We just need to, you know, more or less try one, figure out what works best and scale it as necessary.”
