Leach Sums Up 2024 As Sitka Progress Year

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Category: News

Created on Thursday, 23 January 2025 15:23

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By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
    In his annual presentation Wednesday on Sitka’s economic and social conditions, City Administrator John Leach emphasized the city’s efforts to boost infrastructure, provide public services, and work to ensure the tourism industry remains in balance with the town.
    In his address at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, Leach said 2024 was a year of success and growth for the city, praising particularly the work of city employees under his direction.

City Administrator John Leach stands in front of city hall this afternoon. On Wednesday Leach spoke at the Sitka Chamber of Commerce noon luncheon about Sitka’s social and economic conditions. Leach said 2024 was a year of success and growth for the city. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

    “It’s truly been a year to remember. It’s been full of growth, teamwork and a lot of hard work,” said Leach, who’s been administrator for five years. “Together we’ve hit some important milestones that show our commitment and the wonderful spirit that makes Sitka just such a special place… Each department at the city has played an important role in improving life for our residents and sparking engaging conversations in the community.”
    Leach noted the city’s efforts to work with industry to establish guidelines on daily cruise ship tourist numbers.
    “The plan was to kind of hit that sweet spot (in the) community that the (Tourism) Task Force told us about, and that’s 7,000 passengers per day, with a quiet day weekend limit of under 1,250 passengers. As I said, I’ve worked with the cruise terminal, and I think we’ve come up with a product. It hasn’t gone through its first season yet, so hopefully we give it a chance to work and then we can kind of work out some of the issues, if there are any,” Leach said.
    A permanent city tourism commission has been established to follow up on the work of the one-year tourism task force, but a manager hasn’t yet been hired. A citizen group, concerned that the tourism limits in the agreement the city has signed with the cruise ship industry are too high, is circulating an initiative petition to reduce those numbers.
    Leach told the Chamber gathering that city sales tax revenue, which has soared in the past two years of record cruise ship visitors, would take a hit if the petition proposition should be adopted by the voters.
    “I’ll come right out and say it – if tourism takes a big hit, our sales tax revenue is likely going to drop, too. And if that sales tax revenue drops, it’s going to make it harder for us to invest in the infrastructure,” the administrator said. “We’re going to have to take a long, hard look at what nice-to-have programs are out there and what our staffing levels look like.”
    Along that line, he said city staff has already conducted a linear regression finding “a very strong correlation between the sales tax dollars and the number of cruise passengers.”
    Overall, he noted, sales tax figures are stable for the time being.
    “Our sales tax revenue is really steadied out. Pandemic’s behind us, and tourism is really kind of steady from year to year now, so it looks like we may have found our new normal,” he said. “There’s still some potential for growth as new businesses in the tourism sector ramp up, and they’re still getting used to the number of visitors right now… The funds we’re transferring to the public infrastructure sinking fund are in a good place, but we’re feeling more pressure on the resources.”
    Shifting topics, Leach also spoke of the local government’s plan to commission a study identifying available land best suited for housing development.
    “We’ve kicked off a housing land study to find the best opportunities for affordable housing that went out to RFP – I believe a contractor has already been selected, and that work has begun,” Leach said. “So it’s going to take some time, but hopefully we’re going to get some detailed information on where we can develop and how we can build some more affordable housing.”
    (At the time of his presentation the results of the request for proposals hadn’t been announced. The Sentinel started inquiries today.)
    Leach said in his Chamber remarks that the city is working on a U.S. Department of Energy energy efficiency and conservation block grant for recycling and electrifying, and will receive other federal money for work on the city’s hydroelectric infrastructure.
    “There’s basically a large pot of money available, and we’re in the negotiation stage with the Department of Energy right now that could potentially end up at a very large grant to the city that could help us with phases two and three of the Green Lake hydro facility upgrade. So fingers crossed,” said Leach.
    All told, the city has about 300 capital projects in the works, amounting to tens of millions of dollars, he said.
    “We are actively working on over $150 million in grant-funded projects, and that takes a lot from our public works staff, our engineering staff, our finance staff… Eating up that $150 million are the upgrades to our airport – you guys are seeing that happen. The marine service center sea wall –– still working through the planning phases on that one ––  the haulout,” he summarized.
    Turning to the economic effect of the internet cable break last August, Leach said the Sitka Economic Development Association concluded that “the losses are about over $250,000 just during that first two weeks.”
    He said, “Our city’s IT department did an amazing job. They upgraded the data center to keep things running smoothly. We made sure the city stayed connected despite these disruptions and their quick action and smart use of Starlink (satellite internet) and bandwidth management really helped us stay online… We knew that access was important to the community, so we got Starlink set up at the library and the senior center to help the public regain access to internet.”
    The administrator also expressed thanks to the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Royal Caribbean Lines, and the Sitka Dock Company for their contributions to local internet connectivity during the outage.
    Leach also highlighted the city’s new Parks and Recreation division, which manages youth activities, city league basketball and volleyball, and the Blatchley pool. In addition to starting new programs, it took over functions formerly run by the now defunct Community Schools program.
    “Parks and Rec – that’s a big, popular one right now,” Leach said. “I think the community really loves having that program back... In just this first year, 517 kids took part in our new programs. Of those 517 we were able to give out 61 scholarships so that other students and kids could join in on the fun. The city league basketball program saw 90 players hit the court this year. And as you can imagine, pool usage is up by 77 percent so everyone is excited about swimming again.”
    Citing other statistics from 2024, Leach said the police department received 24,249 calls, 3,736 of them emergencies. Officers wrote 120 citations, and the fire department answered 1,577 calls, of which 1,385 were EMS calls. A third of those calls, he noted, were for nonresidents.
    Sitka Police Department remains short-staffed, but the city hopes to change that in the near future, he said.
    “It’s especially important to keep in mind, as volunteerism decreases across the country, it becomes harder to recruit people for careers in law enforcement. So as you’ve seen, not just here but nationwide, we’ve got a lot of vacancies in law enforcement,” he said.
    “We’ve got some plans in the works to hopefully change that in the next few weeks,” he added.
    Also this year, the city plans to keep working on the issues of child care, housing and tourism, Leach said.
    “We plan to keep working closely with the Child Care Now group, finish the housing land study and explore funding options for affordable housing through state programs, and even with the citizens’ initiative, will continue to look at how tourism affects our community and work on policies based on the recommendations approved by the Assembly in 2024.
    “Number two is we want to engage more with the community, team up with nonprofits and reach out to those who are often underrepresented,” he said.