As this year draws quickly to its close, it\u2019s becoming increasingly clear that any future mention of 2016 will \u2014 for Americans anyway \u2014 primarily call to mind a divisive national election and a slew of celebrity deaths.<\/p>\n
Countless social media posts, internet memes and casual conversations taking place daily corroborate this.<\/p>\n
But for those who dared to delve deeper into the news than pop culture headlines, this year will be remembered for much more. The following list contains some of the most notable stories involving Juneau city government during 2016.<\/p>\n
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Balance of power shifts in Assembly <\/strong><\/p>\n Late last year, the untimely death of then-Mayor Greg Fisk threw the city Assembly into a turbulent period of several months, during which the city\u2019s governing body had to fill two vacancies and decide how it would replace the mayor.<\/p>\n Last December, the Assembly voted 5\u20133 to hold a special mayoral election to fill Fisk\u2019s former seat, prompting political upheaval. Though Assembly seats are nonpartisan, those who hold them tend to generally subscribe to progressive and conservative stances on city issues. (It\u2019s important to note that these labels don\u2019t align perfectly with the Democratic and Republican parties.)<\/p>\n The five Assembly members who voted for a special mayoral election \u2014 Karen Crane, Maria Gladziszewsi, Loren Jones, Jesse Kiehl and Kate Troll \u2014 were of the progressive camp, as was Fisk. The three who voted against the election \u2014 Mary Becker, Jerry Nankervis and Debbie White \u2014 belonged to the conservative camp.<\/p>\n At the time of the vote, and up until the special election was held in March, Becker acted as mayor of Juneau, a post she rose to by virtue of having been deputy mayor at the time of Fisk\u2019s death. Becker, White and Nankervis felt slighted by the call for the special election. They saw the decision as a power grab, and in former Assembly member Ken Koelsch they found a prime candidate for the Mayor\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n In early January, Crane resigned her seat on the Assembly to go toe to toe with Koelsch in the mayoral race. In March, Koelsch won with nearly 60 percent of the vote. He had raised tens of thousands of dollars more than Crane running a campaign in which one of his primary platforms was the repeal of the senior sales tax restrictions that the Assembly had approved the year before.<\/p>\n [All ballots counted, Koelsch is new mayor<\/a>]<\/p>\n With the special election in the rearview \u2014 and having appointed Jamie Bursell to fill Crane\u2019s seat after she resigned \u2014 the Assembly had shifted from a 6\u20133 progressive-conservative split to a more-balanced 5\u20134.<\/p>\n When the regular municipal election rolled around in the fall, Koelsch once again mobilized his robust support base and threw his weight behind Becker, Norton Gregory and Beth Weldon.<\/p>\n Becker was fighting to hold her seat against newcomer Arnold Liebelt. Gregory was challenging incumbent Troll. Weldon was running unopposed. Like Koeslch, all three supported a repeal of the senior sales tax restrictions.<\/p>\n All three Koelsch-supported candidates won their seats in October, shifting the Assembly balance of power for the first time in years in favor of the conservatives with a 6\u20133 split.<\/p>\n [Becker, Gregory, Weldon win Assembly seats<\/a>]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n City sued by cruise industry <\/strong><\/p>\n In mid April, the Cruise Lines International Association\u2019s Alaska affiliate sued the City and Borough of Juneau over an alleged misuse of marine passenger fees.<\/p>\n In the ongoing lawsuit, CLIAA\u2019s attorneys are arguing that the city violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, among other laws, by spending roughly $10 million of marine passenger fee revenue \u2014 also know as head tax revenue \u2014 on a man-made island. The island will be a part of a downtown seawalk leading from the cruise terminals to Bridge Park, the site of the whale sculpture, near the Douglas Bridge.<\/p>\n Each cruise passenger who comes through Juneau pays a $5 marine passenger fee and a $3 port development fee to the city. CLIAA President John Binkley has said several times that his agency believes these fees can only be spent on infrastructure improvements that directly benefit both cruise passengers and cruise ships, meaning they have to be closer to the docks than the man-made island about one mile down the road.<\/p>\n The city, which is actively fighting the lawsuit, disagrees. Municipal officials, such as City Manager Rorie Watt, have sited a legislative audit of the Commercial Passenger Vessel Program \u2014 the state\u2019s head tax apparatus \u2014 as evidence of innocence.<\/p>\n The audit found that Juneau hasn\u2019t misused any of the roughly $34 million it has received from the CPV program since it began in 2007.<\/p>\n [Audit: No misuse of Juneau’s head taxes<\/a>]<\/p>\n \u201cWe had no problems with how Juneau spent their state CPV taxes,\u201d legislative auditor Kris Curtis told the Empire in late April.<\/p>\n In early October, a U.S. District Court Judge denied a request by the city to dismiss the lawsuit. The legal battle is ongoing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Assembly passes equal rights ordinance<\/strong><\/p>\n Toward the end of August, the Assembly passed an ordinance banning, for the first time in the city\u2019s history, discrimination based on race, color, age, religion, sex, familial status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and or national origin.<\/p>\n Surrounded by supporters of the ordinance who packed City Hall to watch the city\u2019s governing body make history, the Assembly passed the anti-discrimination measure with an 8\u20131 vote. Assembly member Jerry Nankervis offered the lone objection.<\/p>\n [Assembly passes equal rights ordinance<\/a>]<\/p>\n Nearly 30 people testified in favor of the ordinance at a public meeting held in the Assembly Chambers a couple months earlier. Many of those who testified felt a personal connection to the proposed law.<\/p>\n Kristen Bomengen told the Assembly that she had twice been evicted during the 1980s because two separate landlords didn\u2019t approve of her sexual orientation. She is a lesbian.<\/p>\n The ordinance was the brainchild of Assembly member Kiehl, who said several people had approached him about the city\u2019s lack of an overarching anti-discrimination law.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After long regulatory slog, Juneau\u2019s first pot shop opens<\/strong><\/p>\n The night before Thanksgiving \u2014 or \u201cDanksgiving\u201d as it was jokingly referred to by some \u2014 Rainforest Farms made Juneau\u2019s first legal sale of marijuana at a small private party.<\/p>\n [Juneau’s first marijuana sale goes without a hitch<\/a>]<\/p>\n Two days later, when the shop opened its doors to the masses, a line trailed out the door and around the block. The business sold out of marijuana in the first couple hours it was open.<\/p>\n There\u2019s now a growing list of prospective marijuana businesses in the various stages of the city and state licensing and permitting processes. But this list wouldn\u2019t be possible without the work of several industry members and governmental bodies who spent the better part of two years drafting and approving regulations for the budding industry.<\/p>\n After Alaska voters approved the ballot measure legalizing the sale of commercial marijuana in November 2014, the City and Borough of Juneau developed a marijuana policy committee to start establishing rules. That committee\u2019s work continued into the early days of 2016, after which it passed its proposed regulations over to the city\u2019s Planning Commission and Assembly.<\/p>\n The regulations didn\u2019t fly through the public process once they let the Marijuana Committee. They moved slowly through the Planning Commission and the Assembly. The most recent regulations were approved in October when voters in the municipal election directed the city to tax marijuana sales at 8 percent \u2014 the same rate as alcohol.<\/p>\n The Planning Commission awarded its first conditional use permit for a marijuana business in late March.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gov. passes state debt to city<\/strong><\/p>\n Days before the city\u2019s budget for Fiscal Year 2017 became effective on July 1, Gov. Bill Walker forced the city to reopen its budget discussions.<\/p>\n In an attempt to force the Alaska Legislature to draft a sustainable budget and close its then roughly $4 billion budget gap, Walker used his veto pen to cut about $1.3 billion in state spending, forcing municipalities to shoulder much of that load.<\/p>\n Walker\u2019s vetoes impacted the City and Borough of Juneau to the tune of nearly $5 million, most of which came from a veto of school debt reimbursement funding.<\/p>\n