Juneau Mayor Stephen \u201cGreg\u201d Fisk is dead.<\/p>\n
Fisk\u2019s son, Ian, found his 70-year-old father collapsed on the floor of the Kennedy Street home where he lived alone. A 911 call reported Fisk\u2019s death to the Juneau Police Department about 3:30 p.m. JPD and Capital City Fire\/Rescue responded to the call and pronounced Fisk dead at the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe medical examiner has authorized an autopsy, so we\u2019ll be doing that,\u201d JPD chief Bryce Johnson said about five hours after the initial call for help.<\/p>\n
Fisk was elected mayor in October, beating incumbent mayor Merrill Sanford with 65.9 percent of the votes. He was sworn in Oct. 20 after a campaign in which he said his highest priority would be diversifying Juneau\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No cause of death<\/strong><\/p>\n As news of Fisk\u2019s death spread, so did rumors. On Facebook and other social media, Juneauites speculated that Fisk had been killed in an assault.<\/p>\n \u201cJPD\u2019s aware of the rumors going around that there was an assault \u2026 that\u2019s just speculation. We don\u2019t know the cause of death. We\u2019ll have to get the autopsy done,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n As JPD officers complete their documentation of Fisk\u2019s home, Fisk\u2019s body will be flown to Anchorage for examination.<\/p>\n Johnson said an assault is \u201cone of the possibilities out there, but there\u2019s others that could have happened. There could\u2019ve been a fall, there\u2019s lots of things that would cause it.\u201d<\/p>\n While the cause of Fisk\u2019s death remains uncertain, Johnson ruled out suicide or any connection to the mid-November double murder in Douglas.<\/p>\n He also said there is no evidence of forced entry into Fisk\u2019s home.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t appear there was a break-in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Living next door to Fisk\u2019s home at 419 Kennedy Street, Don and Janet Kussart said the first sign of trouble they heard was when Ian Fisk opened the door to his father\u2019s home and started shouting.<\/p>\n They said their house is close enough \u2014 two feet \u2014 to hear doors slam in the Fisk home, but they didn\u2019t hear any disturbance indicative of an assault. They hadn\u2019t seen Fisk all day Monday, and his son arrived at the home after Fisk failed to answer the phone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Next steps for city<\/strong><\/p>\n Following Fisk\u2019s death, Mary Becker was named acting mayor of Juneau. Becker was the city\u2019s deputy mayor and a member of the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly. The CBJ attorney\u2019s office is currently working to make sure \u201cwe get the succession process exactly right,\u201d Assembly member Jesse Kiehl said Monday night. Though the attorney\u2019s office will be spending the better part of tomorrow working to make sure the procession is handled in accordance with city code, Kiehl said that there are a few things that the Juneauites can expect. At some point, he said, the city will hold a special election to determine who will replace Fisk for good. Becker will only keep her current role if she runs and wins. In the meantime, however, the city will also have to fill Becker\u2019s District 1 Assembly seat. Becker was in the last year of her second term. Kiehl said city attorneys are still hashing out the details of the special election.<\/p>\n The last time the city had to replace its mayor was in 1995 when then-mayor (now lieutenant governor) Byron Mallott stepped down, Kiehl said. At the time, Dennis Egan \u2014 now a state senator \u2014 was deputy mayor and became acting mayor. He ran for the position in the subsequent special election and won.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Friends react to news<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI think this was a terrible day for all of Juneau,\u201d said Jill Ramiel, president of the Downtown Business Association. Ramiel met Fisk six years ago on the Juneau Economic Development board and had been friends with him since. Ramiel served as treasurer for Fisk\u2019s mayoral campaign, which was a role reversal of sorts: When Ramiel and Fisk termed out of the JEDC board, she sought him to be the treasurer of the DBA.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was never afraid to say what he thought,\u201d Ramiel said, explaining why she selected him for the DBA. \u201cHe was a visionary. He was going to do such great things.\u201d<\/p>\n During their friendship, Ramiel said she got to know Fisk well. His grandson, Kai, was in the same kindergarten class as Ramiel\u2019s daughter. Fisk even stopped by her house for Thanksgiving dinner. Ramiel was one of many stops Fisk made while \u201cfriend hopping\u201d that night.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really looking forward to living in a city that he was leading,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She\u2019s not alone. Nearly 3,000 people voted for Fisk in October. Among them was Bob King, Fisk\u2019s campaign chair and neighbor of more than a decade. King lived just above Fisk on Starr Hill and said he and Fisk had been friends since Fisk moved into his house in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n \u201cHe moved in and we became good friends,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019d come up to my house for dinner, and he\u2019d invite us down to his house for dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n King said the two would talk about everything from local politics to fishing. They were both \u201cfish heads,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n This fall, their relationship grew into more than just fish talk. Fisk asked King to be chair of his campaign. Despite King\u2019s initial reservations \u2014 he even suggested several other names for the job \u2014 Fisk wouldn\u2019t take no for an answer.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wanted me,\u201d King said. And he was proud to be a part of Fisk\u2019s campaign because Fisk was so adamant about running an entirely positive campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is sad because his potential as a mayor was already showing,\u201d King said. \u201cFor that potential to be snuffed out is just a crushing loss. I\u2019m going to miss him horribly, and the community is, too.\u201d<\/p>\n King lost more than his mayor Monday. He lost a friend, somebody to talk with about going on dump runs and home-remodeling projects. \u201cIt\u2019s those conversations that I\u2019m going to miss the most,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to miss him being around as a fellow fish head, a neighbor and a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n As police prepared to remove Fisk\u2019s body from his home, a small crowd started lighting candles and placing them in the center of a small public sculpture.<\/p>\n \u201cThat makes me feel better,\u201d said D.J. Thomson after lighting the candles in Fisk\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n (Editor’s Note: The Empire misquoted Assembly member Jesse Kiehl by using the word procession instead of succession. The quote has been corrected.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Juneau Mayor Stephen \u201cGreg\u201d Fisk is dead. Fisk\u2019s son, Ian, found his 70-year-old father collapsed on the floor of the Kennedy Street home where he lived alone. A 911 call reported Fisk\u2019s death to the Juneau Police Department about 3:30 p.m. JPD and Capital City Fire\/Rescue responded to the call and pronounced Fisk dead at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":32911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32910"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}