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Problem Corner is an iconic radio show that has become a vibrant community hub. Callers engage in a wide array of discussions, ranging from local political debates to community commentary and casual advertisements for listeners looking to buy, sell, or trade personal items.
The show's rich history is marked by its association with several prominent local figures. Notably, Dennis Egan, a former mayor of Juneau, was a key personality in shaping the show's direction in the 1980s.
As a testament to its enduring relevance and appeal, "Problem Corner" has etched its name in the annals of Alaskan broadcasting history. It's not just a radio show but a cultural landmark, celebrated for being the longest-running radio show in Alaska.
Welcome to Problem Corner, Alaska's longest running radio show. Connect and discuss the topics important to Juneau and all of Southeast Alaska. Call (907) 586-1800, and subscribe to the podcast at kinyradio.com, powered by Princess Cruise Lines, Alaska Laundry and Dry Cleaning, and Juneau Powersports.
Speaker 2:You are on the air with Problem Corner in Juno, Alaska. You are listening to Connor Lindrum and Wade Bryson in the studio with me. How are doing, Wade?
Speaker 3:Morning. How are you?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm doing just, just fine. I am just so glad to be here. This is one of my all time favorite things I ever get to do in my life is come be a host on Problem Corner. And yeah. Know.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic. Can you hear yourself in your headphones?
Speaker 4:I don't know if you have mic four.
Speaker 2:I've got mic four turned on. Try three. Three. It's weird.
Speaker 4:I should be louder.
Speaker 2:Give it a shot.
Speaker 4:How about now?
Speaker 2:Alright. Wade really is here with me, everybody. Now you got the evidence.
Speaker 4:Alright. I guess I do have I guess I am on mic three. My bad.
Speaker 2:No. No problem. That's okay. We're figuring it out. I if anyone remembers, we are in a new space, new mics, new board, figuring out our little hiccups.
Speaker 2:And in that same realm, that's right, folks. We've got another Tuesday coming to you with no call in yet, but you can still text in. You can still email. Please shoot me a text at (907) 586-1800 or email air@kinyradio.com. And we're doing all the normal things.
Speaker 2:Let us know if there's a local issue you wanna discuss. Let us know if you have a kayak you want to sell. Let us know if you're looking for some services, you want to solicit a little help. If there's someone's birthday you want to call out, if you want to remember a, you know, a beloved person who's passed on, all of this is what we like to do here on Problem Corner. And so you can text in at (907) 586-1800 or email us at airkinyradio dot com.
Speaker 2:And since we are doing this over text, if you want to be identified, like if you're having people call you to try and buy whatever it is you're trying to sell, or if you want people to know who's wishing them a happy birthday, sign your text. Be just like my parents and sign your texts, and that'll make me really, really happy because then I'll be able to give you credit for all the love and business you're putting out in the world. But man, talk about a beautiful day. It is so gorgeous Gorgeous. Out
Speaker 4:It's t shirt weather, shorts, you name it. 65 and sunny. We just can't ask for a better day than that.
Speaker 2:It's perfect. It's perfect. It's really nice if you are getting frustrated with any of your local city bureaucracy or politics. It's a great day to go running outside or screaming at the sky because you just got all the sun right there. It's gonna give you a little bit more energy back.
Speaker 2:If you've got anything you've got to try to get off your chest or try It's to work a it's a exciting time here in Juneau, Alaska. Would you say that's a fair description?
Speaker 4:Yes, sir. I did have an answer for one of our questions yesterday. They were curious if there was a conspiracy. Was it really no phones or and so we said, hey, That could either be a conspiracy that we're not putting these phones back on Problem Corner, or it could be technological delay. And I was going I was siding with conspiracy, but then Cliff showed me the phones.
Speaker 4:Like, I've actually seen the phones.
Speaker 2:The phones are here. They exist.
Speaker 4:They've been here for a while, and so it turns out it wasn't conspiracy. The phones just aren't plugged into the right port. You they
Speaker 2:don't think it's a prop phone. You think it's a real phone?
Speaker 4:I'm pretty certain they want their phones active in here.
Speaker 2:I know that they do. I trust them. I trust Cliff. I trust my KIY radio family.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So the answer was it was not a conspiracy. We really do have the phones. We really are just technologically delayed from moving from one studio to the next. But one day we will have phones.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be so good.
Speaker 4:Suggest a text today, 586189, shoot that text over.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, you know, we living in the world where we're all carrying around phones in our pockets all the time.
Speaker 4:Never make text anyways.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. And I am so tempted to just like start doing like funny voices for every text I get. I can do like a Mid Atlantic accent and be like kayak for sale. $200, kid.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, just add a little since we don't get to hear the voices of our listeners, is such a such a tragedy.
Speaker 4:Yes. You should absolutely do an estimated voice for any of the techs. I think that would definitely add a flavor to the Problem Corner show today.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, you know, we just get a lot of Mid Atlantic accents here on KY Radio.
Speaker 4:Definitely who's texting us today. You should read it that way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Just love the Gatsby, Jake. Here to sell you my spats. Lightly used. But I do have a few announcements of wonderful local goings ons.
Speaker 2:Actually, Lance Mitchell, our Monday host. Right, Wade?
Speaker 4:Yes. Lance and I had a wonderful time on Problem Corner yesterday. That guy's a riot.
Speaker 2:Lance is an amazing human being. We're really lucky to have him here in town. He does so much for the arts and the community, and he emailed today with a flyer from the Foodland downtown for the monthly roundup. So they do a monthly roundup. And so like every month you can like round up your dollars that you're spending and every month it's for a different cause.
Speaker 2:And so you can always do it, but every month who is receiving that benefit, that sort of like general, like, you know, somewhere between 1 and 99¢ donation per sale, changes. And this month is going to the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.
Speaker 4:Oh,
Speaker 2:nice. Yeah. So collecting donations to support Saint Vincent de Paul Juneau. And for anyone who doesn't know, Saint Vincent de Paul Juneau helps local neighbors in need through housing, shelter support, direct assistance, and community programs. The donations help provide practical support and hope for individuals and families throughout Juneau.
Speaker 2:And so 100% of all the donations are given directly to our monthly beneficiary. So, you know, if you're hankering for a candy bar or you're looking to get a snack or you're looking to do your shopping today, because when you're doing a roundup, you're only ever going to be donating somewhere between 1 and 99¢. It doesn't matter how big or small your purchases are. And so, you know, maybe instead of stopping in at your corner store, take a few extra blocks, go to IGA, spend your money there and donate to the monthly roundup through Foodland and help out St. Vincent de Paul.
Speaker 2:Also, you know, this isn't part of the promo, but they've got a great thrift store.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Over by not too far from our new studio over by Donna's. They've got a great thrift store. My spouse and I go in there pretty regularly both to donate and to pick up stuff. I got an incredible kettle.
Speaker 2:I went in there and I got a Les Crusea, like perfect condition kettle. Really? Crusea is like a high end French kitchenware manufacturer, most notably known for their sort of enamel lined Dutch ovens. They're big
Speaker 4:I was gonna say, I think I have one of their Dutch ovens.
Speaker 2:I've got a couple of them, and they're fantastic. And they really are like heirloom pieces that, like, you take care of them, like, can be passed on generation to generation. I've got one I got from my mom. She has some that she still uses that, you know, are well loved and well taken care of and have fed thousands of meals. And so we got this kettle that like, picked it up and it's this bright orange, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:I said, Abby, we have to get this. Abby's my spouse. And she was like, I don't know. I mean, that's a kettle and it's like for like $30 I'm like, if you got this anywhere else, this would be $120 And like, went, we bought it. And like I Googled in the car and it was like, yeah, dollars 120 for this kettle.
Speaker 2:We got it for So 30 go check out Saint Vincent De Paul. Everything you spend there helps people here in Juneau in your own community. It's not just getting sent off to some, like, big, like, larger organization. Like, it really is helping people here in town. And you might find some really great stuff or just some really practical stuff.
Speaker 2:I went in looking for some picture frames. I just need a couple picture frames. Boom. Easy. Kind of like a dollar or 2 instead of going to Fred Myers and spending a $100 on like five frames.
Speaker 4:Way to go thrift storing. I like that. A couple dollars in your pocket. Absolutely. That's all you need to do.
Speaker 4:Popping tags. Is that the phrase of thrift store?
Speaker 2:I love that song. Love that song.
Speaker 4:I know. One of the things I really like about Saint Vincent's is that it's all local, as you just mentioned. So it's a local organization. Mhmm. The people that work there are local.
Speaker 4:The board members are local Junoites. And so the operational the operations of St. Vincent stays local. The donations stay local. The people that they help are local Junoites.
Speaker 4:You could not have a more local beneficiary of that thrift store.
Speaker 2:Truly. It's fantastic. If you I would love it if someone could like a text and let us know about your best thrift store find you ever got.
Speaker 4:Oh, there you go.
Speaker 2:It could be here in Juneau. It could be somewhere else. I just want hear a story. Know, I want to hear about your life. I wanna know you.
Speaker 2:But I do have a couple other things I'd like to promote. So, you know, shameless self promotion every Tuesday night. Every night after I host this show, I run $2 trivia Tuesday at Devil's Club Brewery
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Downtown. Come check it out. Bring $2 cash. It's a good time. All the money goes into a pot.
Speaker 2:First place gets 75% of the pot. Second place gets 20% of the pot, and second to last place gets the last 5% of the pot. So even if you come and you don't do very well, still you have a good chance of getting your beer paid for, your sandwich paid for, something like that. And it's just a fun time.
Speaker 4:Who won last week? Who's our competition if we wanted to go do trivia?
Speaker 2:So David Noonan and his family got second place last week. Okay. And first place last week, man, I know I I can't It's the tip of
Speaker 4:your tongue. You won't remember till the
Speaker 2:left of the show's over. Another thing too is, like, I haven't written my trivia yet. So if you've got a trivia category that you really think I should be doing, go ahead and text me that at (907) 586-1800 or send me an email, eric k I n y radio dot com. I do have a couple of things here where people sent in a couple of things they would like to have promoted. So on June thirteenth, Saturday, garage sale day, there's a garage sale from 8AM to noon at 3024 Wood Duck Avenue.
Speaker 2:They've got furniture. They've got a 24 inch flat screen TV with remote. They've got camping chairs and sleeping bags, arts and crafts and sewing supplies, kitchen items, maybe you'll find another great Les Crusades kettle, kids games and toys, and much more. And so, you know, if you're out there garage sale, if you're a big garage sale, on Saturday, go to 3024 Wood Duck Avenue from eight to twelve and check out what they got. My family have been looking for a coffee table for a long time.
Speaker 2:We're really, really picky. And so maybe we'll check it out. We also have some people like looking to sell a couple other items. So we've got Karen, who you can call at (907) 789-2751, who's selling a 24 inch Vizio flat screen TV with remote for $30. An airline approved dog kennel that's 30 inches long, 20 inches wide, and 23 inches high for $50.
Speaker 2:A cat kennel carrier, which is 14 by 14 by 12 for $10, a roll top desk for $1.50, and a small computer desk and chair for 30, a twin bed frame, headboard, box spring and mattress, the whole thing except for the dressing for $50. There's additional furniture. There's a bedside table, a few bookcases, a Formica dining and crafting table, and adjustable bed frame for twin or double. So these are all things that Karen is selling 9077892751. Give her a call if you are looking to, you know, upgrade or expand your holdings a little bit.
Speaker 2:We also have a few other events coming out this week. Another thing, though, I'd love people to text me about, tell me about your celebration. Celebration just happened last week, and it was amazing as always. It is so special. Every year, Every other year, I should say, when we get to have celebration here in town, it is just such an explosion and dare I say celebration of culture and life and art and passion and history.
Speaker 2:And it just, I love it. I love it so, so, so, so, so much. So if you had like a great story you wanna share about going out to celebration or any thanks you wanna send out, it's a huge community effort from Absolutely. All over Alaska. And we also had people coming from New Zealand and Hawaii this year.
Speaker 2:Oh, really? Yeah. Absolutely. There were great dance performances from visitors from New Zealand and Hawaii. And if, you know, you also wanna send out just any thanks, any gratitude to any of the incredible artists and organizers and visitors and dignitaries who came through Juno last week.
Speaker 2:We'd love to shout them out on the air for you.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I heard that the opening procession lasted over two hours of the different groups going through. Talk about participation. Holy smokes, that's a lot of different groups.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 4:Mean, because it's one thing to sit there for two hours. It's another thing to see new, exciting group after group. The time passes by just like that. So I was really impressed that that was how much involvement that they had, that many groups.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And it's really stunning because it's like you really do get to you know, I mean, it's interesting because you often, when you are not within a culture, like it can become very automatic to sort of like see it from the outside and you're not thinking about it very directly, you do start to think of it very monolithically if you're not part of that culture. I think that that's just a functional thing, like not necessarily in the sense of like assuming that everyone feels the same, but when you go and you participate and you observe and you go watch the ceremony, you really understand the incredible breadth of like specific granular difference from community to community, from family to family, from place to place. It is different to be from one place in the Southeast than from another place in the Southeast. So I really encourage anyone in Juneau who in the future, if you are not particularly familiar, go participate, observe, cheer, and you are going to expand your conception so much and you will enrich yourself and you will also be part of this incredible air of celebration that is so important.
Speaker 2:And I really encourage it. It's a really special thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, everybody that I encountered is just having the best time at celebration. Doug Chilton, he actually has the canoes and Doug stays with us. He parks his stuff on our property. And so I got to hang out with Doug throughout the week that he was here and man, was tan. He had a good time out there rowing.
Speaker 4:So to get that firsthand, like I can see how it impacts him directly. Like, while Doug doesn't live in Juneau anymore, when he's here, he feels like he's at home. He was really happy to be back in Juneau and to bring his two canoes. What a great way to come home.
Speaker 2:Hey, here's our first one. Thank you, Doug.
Speaker 4:There you go.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Doug Chilton. We're getting down to the bottom of the hour. We're gonna go on a little break here in a second, but I want to give a little blast out to a few more events that are coming up this week. So we've got my trivia tonight, 07:00 at Devil's Club, $2. But then, of course, Thursday, we've got the the competing events of, like, the classic Alaskan open mic at 09:00, but also now the Crystal Saloon karaoke.
Speaker 2:And then also this Friday, STR FKR is gonna come perform at Crystal, which is a pretty big name to have coming through. Pretty exciting to see them. But then also really sweet this Friday at the Floyd no longer middle school, I guess we'd have to call it something else, the Floyd Dryden Building. I think it's an administrative building now in the current layout of the Juno School District. But they have a movie in the park pop up, and they're showing the Lorax.
Speaker 2:And it also has different equipment set up for different sensory situations. People have different levels of sight and hearing. So if you wanna go out to see a free community movie of the Lorax, go out with your family. Go check it out. That's on Friday from one to 02:30 in the afternoon.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's Troy Dryden. Yeah. It's just a sweet, cool thing. I think the local libraries organize it.
Speaker 4:Oh, nice.
Speaker 2:I love our libraries.
Speaker 4:That is one of the cool things about libraries is that they aren't just books, they do movies too.
Speaker 2:Oh, all sorts of things. It's fantastic. It really is like a community hub. Anything else you want to say before we go into our commercial break, my friend?
Speaker 4:Oh, no, I'm good. We're having a good time here on Problem Corner today. Send us a text while we're on commercial break. 9 That would be
Speaker 2:075861800. Tell us about an event you got coming up. Tell us about something you want to sell. Tell us about a great find you got at a thrift store. Tell us about your time at Celebration.
Speaker 4:Or did they watch the CBJ assembly meeting where they struggled to meet their fiduciary responsibilities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if
Speaker 4:you want
Speaker 2:to talk about CBJ fiduciary responsibilities, want to hear what you have to say. We will read your words out loud as long as they are legally acceptable. And it is 11:27 a. M. Tuesday, June 9, and we will see you after this commercial break.
Speaker 4:Green Building.
Speaker 1:Wrap and enjoy KINY anywhere. Local owned and operated. KINY, the news you need, the music you love.
Speaker 6:And Alaska First radio station.
Speaker 3:This is a special report from ABC News. I'm Wayne Cabot. Hours after the downing of an army helicopter, president Trump is blaming Iran and saying we must respond. ABC's Louis Martinez has learned that it's possible Iran didn't mean to do this.
Speaker 7:What we have learned from US officials is that a drone was involved. In other words, an Iranian drone brought down, this Apache helicopter with a crew of two aboard. Now what we are hearing from one US official is that it is unclear whether there was an intent to actually bring down the drone because the type of drone that, was involved was one that is typically involved in the attacks on shipping in the Strait Of Hormuz.
Speaker 3:Not only was it a drone that took down the chopper, it was a drone that saved the two service members. A Navy autonomous sea drone rescued the crew. It just arrived into the fifth fleet in late March. It's the first time that a drone has been used to save US Military Members. This is ABC News.
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Speaker 10:I'm Mary Paltola. I grew up in three tiny villages before we moved to the big city, Bethel. Right now, there are families in that region hauling jerry jugs of fuel because they can't afford a delivery. It's not just that politicians in DC don't care that we're paying $10 a gallon for diesel in rural Alaska. They don't even believe us.
Speaker 10:Overpriced fuel, overpriced food, overpriced ammo. The politicians rigging our economy have made life in Alaska unrecognizable. But I know this in my bones. There's no group of people more ready to save ourselves than Alaskans. It's why I'm running to bring our voices to the US Senate, to bring down grocery costs, save our fisheries, lower energy prices, and build new housing Alaskans can afford.
Speaker 10:I approve this message because it's time to show DC what Alaska first looks like.
Speaker 4:Paid for by Alaskans for Mary.
Speaker 5:Happy Father's Day, daddy. I love you. Happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, dad. Happy Father's Day, dad.
Speaker 2:Happy Father's Day.
Speaker 8:Dads. We get the job done.
Speaker 11:Well, maybe not all the jobs. Many get started.
Speaker 5:Seriously. I love the man, but he started to redo our bathroom at Christmas.
Speaker 11:Some don't get finished. To celebrate dad's best intentions, we want you to text a photo of that one project that got started but still didn't get finished and include the story behind the photo. One winning dad will win a set of tools to help hopefully finish those projects. To enter, just text the word dad along with a photo and brief story behind the unfinished project to k I n y at (907) 586-1800. That's (907) 586-1800.
Speaker 11:And happy Father's Day.
Speaker 5:Happy Father's Day, daddy. Parents, we found an activity where nobody has to charge their tablet. It's bobcat blitz at the Mitten Hall Mall. Saturday, June 13 from noon to four, bring the family out to climb aboard real bobcat equipment, take photos, and explore these incredible machines up close. The kids get an adventure, you get adorable photos, everybody wins.
Speaker 5:Plus free topsoil begins at 4PM. Just bring a bucket. Bobcat Blitz at the Mitten Home Mall, big machines, big smiles, and a whole lot of Can we do that again?
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Speaker 6:Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have infection, flu like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremfya today.
Speaker 6:Call 1805267736 to learn more or visit tremfyaradio.com.
Speaker 1:Now back to Problem Corner, where our community meets to talk, trade, and share.
Speaker 2:Welcome back, everybody. It is Problem Corner with Connor and Wade, and we are just so, so glad to be here with you. It is still text time. Shoot us a text at (907) 586-1800. We want to hear from you.
Speaker 2:Sorry that our phones are not quite working, but also if you prefer to email. Although, I mean, if you're texting and emailing, what's the difference? But feel free to also email us at air@kinyradio.com. So one of the things we got today so far is a heads up from Lance Mitchell, our Monday host, that the monthly roundup at Foodland this month is going to be donating to Saint Vincent de Paul. Great way to help your neighbors, honestly, just your fellow Junoites.
Speaker 2:Go there, buy some food, and you'll donate between 1 and 99¢ to our wonderful local organization. But if you wanna talk about celebration, if you wanna talk about CBJ's budget, if you wanna ask me and Wade questions about our hopes and dreams, you know, shoot us a text. We wanna hear from you. That is (907) 586-1800. What'd you do this weekend, Wade?
Speaker 4:Yard work. Yard work and a little bit more yard work.
Speaker 2:Every piece
Speaker 4:of grass asked to be cut this weekend because it was decent out. So I spent plenty of time pushing a mower.
Speaker 2:Growing fast.
Speaker 4:Especially this time of the year.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:What, we're two weeks from the solstice, a week and a half away from
Speaker 2:the solstice. Gosh, it just seems like it's going so fast. Yeah. It's crazy. I'm gonna go jump up and down in the sun for a few hours after this, after I'm done writing my trivia for tonight.
Speaker 4:There you go.
Speaker 2:So did you go to the budget meeting and sit in person?
Speaker 4:Oh, no, I don't. I couldn't sit in those meetings again. But I always follow the after report, so I can kind of tell the gist of the meeting. I can understand what those descriptive words and knowing that they had a good five hours worth of meetings where they were trying to figure out how to distribute the painful cuts throughout the community. I just know that it was a very difficult meeting.
Speaker 4:I did come across something this morning that I wanted to share with everybody, the very real world implications of the budget reductions. And we haven't experienced them yet, but the first one popped up that we are going to experience. If you've contacted city hall in the past three years, I guess, you would reach a very friendly lady named Elizabeth. Elizabeth is she's just a sweetheart. She's super nice.
Speaker 4:She went to school with my kids. She's just super friendly local girl who knows Juno's information, and she became CBJ City Hall, like, switchboard operator. You'd call City Hall. You'd go to the clerk's office because that's the, you know, the city's the the citizens facing person, and you would reach Elizabeth if you called city hall. And Elizabeth would find out what you needed and then would get you to the right person.
Speaker 4:She was not a full time employee. She was a half time employee, point five labor hours or point five employment, whatever it's called. She got cut last night. That was one of the scalpel cuts because they couldn't just wipe out the whole clerk's office. That doesn't make any sense nor would it work.
Speaker 4:So in order to figure out how to make it painful, they went and they carved out probably the least ranking individual in the clerk's office to save. Couldn't be very much for halftime position, but that cut had to be made. And it wasn't even a deep enough cut, but the cut still had to be made. And so now whenever somebody tries to call in to city hall, the likelihood that they get that dedicated person that was there to answer those calls, those calls are now going to get dispersed to other city officials or city employees that actually have a few more responsibilities. So the likelihood that you're going to have to leave a message, not gonna you're gonna have to send an email follow-up because they removed the one person that dealt with all the citizens calling city hall.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, the cut had to be made. It's going to cost every Juneau citizen that has to deal with city hall a little bit more. We're gonna pay more in our personal time and collectively as we as citizens connect with city hall, then we actually saved by removing that halftime position from the clerk's office, the person who helped every citizen that called. And that's a lot of what we're gonna be experiencing. The other one was the museum.
Speaker 4:People are like, you boneheads. Why did you cut the museum budget? Everybody likes the museum. Well, it's on the bottom of the list. It was under the the weight of we have to cut.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And so, you know, super likable things, super helpful things, things the community used. But because they were forced to make a lot of these cuts, those are the things that the community is going to miss out on. I did catch a part of an article. Citizens are a little surprised that the city didn't just stop every capital project.
Speaker 4:Money that is one time expenditure versus ongoing operational expenses. Once one time allocated money is put aside or it's allocated that was one time, it's over and done. That money's gone. And so everybody was they the people that were in favor of these cuts a year ago literally thought that if we choke off the CBJ budget, we can force them to not invest in city hall that would benefit the community in the long haul. We can force them to not do Telephone Hill, but those funds were already spent.
Speaker 4:They put a cap on the city budget, which is the annual operating expenses, and those were the expenses that got cut. At no time did those cuts did any city official ever think that those budget reductions would touch the city hall project or the Telephone Hill project. They're not connected anymore. There was no way to touch those. The vote was to like legislate through budgeting and it didn't work.
Speaker 4:They reduced the budget, and now the city is fighting with the budget, and the capital projects are still the capital projects not connected.
Speaker 2:So for those capital projects, you're saying like those were never an option. Are you saying that those were never an option because the path that the assembly decided to go down was to instead address the budget? Or are you saying that they couldn't be touched because it'd be impossible for those capital projects to be canceled or refunded or anything
Speaker 4:like Yeah. So like, let's take city hall. City hall, we pay about a million dollars a year in rent. That's a huge number. We take up apartments, two floors of the marine apartments downtown, and then we rent some office space, and it's significant.
Speaker 4:The city's gonna be in business forever, so to be in a city owned building makes the most sense. If you're gonna live forever or live for a long time, you wanna own your house. Yeah. That money was spent. That project had already been paid for.
Speaker 4:Like, city hall had already been purchased. That money had already been spent, and yet the pro the proponents of last year's budget cuts were like, if we pass these budget cuts, we can force them to not do city hall.
Speaker 2:But they can't they can't get the money back.
Speaker 4:Yeah. City hall had already been purchased. So That transaction was already complete, and people were trying to like, that train had left the building days ago, and they were like, why isn't the train back here?
Speaker 2:And so then for Telephone Hill, what was the money spent on there? Since it's like it's not like they paid for a building to get built. Like, it is a place where it's like there's an because I don't understand everything about it. I'm asking you about it. So it's a I don't
Speaker 4:know the status of where everything is with Telephone Hill. Mhmm. But I do know that as they put the project, like they turned the project on, the money was allocated to it, and so that money is out of the city budget. Telephone Hill money Okay. Is not setting in the budget anymore.
Speaker 2:And so, like, the thing, like, city hall makes sense. Like, you know, you've paid contractors. You've paid, like, people, like, you know, like, that's money. The building.
Speaker 4:You bought the building. The money's gone.
Speaker 2:That the money's gone. Like, for that, that makes sense. For something where it's a project where it's like, we've set this money aside to work on this project, but nothing like no ground's been broken. Like, I think there's been some, like, testing done and things like that.
Speaker 4:Little bit of money's been spent.
Speaker 2:A little of money, but, like, you know, if that money's been set aside, isn't that something where it's like, could, like, be, like, unset aside? Like, if they If they
Speaker 4:had the assembly votes
Speaker 2:Right. But I'm just saying They like
Speaker 4:might have been able to claw that back. I don't know what money's been spent. Any money that's been spent, they obviously wouldn't be able to claw back.
Speaker 2:Sure. But I'm just saying those two are very different. We're talking about sort of the idea of like budget versus capital projects. Exactly. Because like and so that was my question.
Speaker 2:So within capital projects, like, I think obviously it makes sense. Like you can't get money back you've spent. Like you've spent that money. Like what are gonna do? Be like, actually, can you take the building back and like give us our money back?
Speaker 2:That's unlikely. That's pretty crazy. But to be more, it's like, well, I guess we'll just stop trying to develop this housing development, which like, you know, whatever. Like, I just like, you know, that's just an example of something where it's like the money has been set aside, but hasn't actually been spent.
Speaker 4:And I don't know the status of the money. I think I've mentioned before, last September and October, I was personally held responsible or held personally responsible for Telephone Hill. Citizen groups literally thought I had been the instigator and the primary assembly for developing Telephone Hill. And in reality, Telephone Hill was a project that I never really touched. I didn't delve into the details of it.
Speaker 4:It just I did other things. And then the mayor removed me from public works right as Telephone Hill came to public works. So I didn't even participate in those subcommittee meetings.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 4:I just we're talking about the budget. They wanted a reduction in the budget, and the budget they're talking about is like next year's budget that they want reduced. Telephone Hill money was last year's budget, the year before that, this year's budget. And so once money is out the door and spent and these caps came in or these mandates Yeah. It was going to apply to the next upcoming CBJ budget.
Speaker 4:They don't look backwards in the budgeting. And people are saying, well, they could have. They could have stopped Telephone Hill. You're not wrong. They could have, except for that five assembly members said developing Telephone Hill was more important than not developing Telephone Hill.
Speaker 4:And if we ever get apartments on there, we'll be able to be the judges of that. Probably not till then.
Speaker 2:Come back to this in second. Just get a text coming in from the community. As a reminder, everyone, we are accepting texts and emails right now. Please text us at (907) 586-1800 for any of your usual questions, comments, items for sale, or services in search of. But we did get a text about an apartment sale, a moving sale that's happening.
Speaker 2:So this is from ten to six every day until they're done. But there's an almost new 60 inch Samsung t flat screen TV, a lot of kitchen and household items, a glass desk, two chairs, a wooden table, and a senior power chair. So they're emptying a whole apartment. They're working on this from ten to six. Their phone number is (907) 419-1031.
Speaker 2:It sounds like someone is moving or has maybe moved on from this life, unfortunately. I'm speculating there. I don't want to speculate too wildly, but it sounds like there is a whole apartment's worth of items that are up for sale. So please reach out to (907) 419-1031 if you want to go search around and see if there is anything that is going to fit your life. This is from Julie, a 69 year old senior citizen.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Julie, for reaching out to us. Really appreciate it. Hopefully, we can help you out with getting some of these items turned into cash for you. So, yeah, if you've got a little cash in your pocket, you want to get a new a 60 inch Samsung flat screen. That's huge.
Speaker 2:Or get some new kitchen items or a new desk, some chairs, two white chairs and a wooden table and a senior power chair. Please give a call to (907) 419-1031 and talk to Julie, who is looking to sell some stuff. But yeah, so that's our little interruption. Thank you so much, Julie, for reaching out to us. I hope you're able to make some good sales on this.
Speaker 4:I'm always glad to help out a garage sale.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Two people win when you have a garage sale. Sure. You get your space back and you get a couple of bucks, and people get items they needed
Speaker 2:at below retail rates. And I think equally as important, it stays out of landfill.
Speaker 4:Stays out of the landfill.
Speaker 5:Stays out
Speaker 4:of That the was getting there too. So you're upcycling things. People are getting a great deal on something they needed or didn't even know they needed, and you're getting space back in your garage. And every square foot is valuable in a garage. I'm still full and I'm slowly working on a garage sale.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:What a pain in
Speaker 8:the neck though, to go and take all your
Speaker 4:have I touched this in a year? Yes or no? No. Go into the garage sale. Alright.
Speaker 4:Have I touched it in a year?
Speaker 2:We've got an email from a community member from Eric who's got some recommendations for the budget. Oh, good. Alright, Eric. Let's hear we're gonna read your ideas out on the air. Thank you so for reaching out to us.
Speaker 2:And as a reminder to everyone, you can email us at air@KINYRadio.com. Eric says, I have two recommendations for the budget. One, reduce, cut back or eliminate all money given to charities, I. E. The glory hole, etc.
Speaker 2:If we want to donate as taxpayers money to a charity, it should be our choice. Also, if you took the amount, the budget was reduced out of this $500,000,000 budget. He took what percentage, which is probably going to be a 2% reduction in each department, reduce each department's budget by 2%. All budgets except police and fire. The idea of getting rid of Douglas Fire Department is ludicrous, insane.
Speaker 2:Ludo. Let's face it. The city does want to punish the public for their decision. The city has to stop spending money on stupid things like the gondola and giving money away. You know, as far as departments cutting their budget, anybody that has ever worked for the government knows that each department asks for more money than they expect.
Speaker 2:And when they get it at the end of the fiscal year, they spend what's left over, never give it back.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna stop you right there because while I know that
Speaker 2:I've got one sentence. I've one sentence One sentence left. I've worked for the government. I see it happen. Quick, let's spend this extra 300,000 or 400,000 or 500,000 because if we don't give it back, we won't get it next year.
Speaker 2:Happens all the time.
Speaker 4:Alright. So I'm gonna completely disagree with that. Well, I don't disagree that it does happen. I know that there are departments out there, maybe not so much in the departments I dealt with with CBJ. I've heard of it in the state department.
Speaker 4:I've heard of it on the federal level. But and here's the proof. Lapses. If anybody's been paying attention to the CBJ budget, the entire time I was on that, part of CBJ's budget savings, budget surplus came from lapses. We tried every year to make a balanced budget.
Speaker 4:We're taking in x amount of dollars and we're spending x amount of dollars exactly. And every year, year after year, the police department and every other department in CBJ gave money back in lapses to the tune of millions of dollars. So if you look at every CBJ budget cycle and you go back, you can go back seven years that I've sat there and watched the budget myself. The the the program or the practice in Juneau is you don't have to spend every nickel. If you give money back, it's not gonna impact next year's budget.
Speaker 4:And so they had a culture of returning their laps. CBJ got CBJ police fully funded for all 56 police officers, then they didn't hire 10. They didn't go out and spend that money. They returned that excess that lapse because they didn't hire those 10 people. And every single CBJ department had a lapse during those years where our budget surplus grew because we weren't spending the money.
Speaker 4:That's where some of the surplus came from. And so people are giving CBJ a bad rap, but that had been the practice. Now that they've decimated or tried to, like I said, equally spread the pain around, Now everybody's protecting their budget and we won't see lapses anymore because if everybody's going into their budget cycle with a deficit, it's just gonna be like, who do we let go? Elizabeth at the clerk's office was the first person that I've heard of that's going to be gone at the end of June. And that's what's going to those
Speaker 2:And if you think of every department like a family, like every family, not that I think that needs to be the culture, but like just conceptually, it's like, then, you know, of course, like they're going to be like looking out for their own people as much as they can, looking out for their own budgets, trying to like protect their own group as much as possible. And yeah, thank you so much for saying that. Because I think that there is often, and you know, I know I'm guilty of it, this assumption of bad faith in really any kind of governmental body. Like, I think that it's very much feels like a part of the culture right now. And I don't think that that's like an insane stance.
Speaker 2:I think it's kind of understandable in a lot of ways, but I think it's good to try to have a little bit of faith in your local government when you can. So having you
Speaker 4:Those tell are us people that live next to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it doesn't mean blind faith, but, like, you know, good faith. Mhmm. And that's so I really appreciate you sharing that, that, every department, when there was a surplus, was giving their money back. It was not, like, trying to buy, like, whatever, a bunch of, like, department hummers.
Speaker 4:In fact, that's how we had enough money for city hall to pay for it cash and not do a bond, is they'd been socking away surplus or lapse money for years that that particular topic was bubbling up to the top. And so Budgets versus capital stuff. And as that gentleman said, a 2% reduction across the board, more practical exercise is that person should go on the CBJ website and then just pick which employee they want to dismiss. So instead of saying a 2% across the board, which sounds easy to say, but then pull up the CBJ website, pull up every department, and then it has a list of the employees in the department, and then just start crossing the bottom person off of the list. You're not going to satisfy your 2%.
Speaker 4:But like parks and rec, a 2% reduction of parks and rec has a way different impact than a 2% reduction to CDD, Community Development Department.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna really quick interrupt on We did get a text just now. A really, like, sweet, warm one.
Speaker 4:Oh, nice. We need those.
Speaker 2:What a beautiful day. I wanna thank all the participants in celebration. I'm gonna do this like I did last time because we've got text going, so I got emojis. So, like, what a beautiful day, sun coming behind a cloud emoji. I wanna thank all the participants celebration.
Speaker 2:Sparkle. Prayer hands sparkle. This year, sparkle. Sun coming out from behind a cloud emoji. Sparkle was so freaking amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Hawaii, sparkle emoji. New Zealand was out at Ok Bay and the canoe, canoe emoji landing was amazing as well. Was so proud. It brought a tear to my eye, single tear eye emoji, and happy birthday to my brother, Tony Johnson.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really sweet. Thank you so much for sending that in.
Speaker 4:I do like that one way better than some of the other ones. That's super Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Also, want to speak a little bit to your recommendation, Eric. It's an interesting concept saying like to not have the city give money to charities, I. E. The glory hole, etc, etc. If we want to donate a taxpayer's money to a charity, it should be our choice.
Speaker 4:I can explain that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:So in most communities, the city takes on that role. Like the city would operate Glory Hall the way that the city kinda helped with operations at the warming shelter. And so a handful years ago, the city who cannot do things as effectively as the private sector, Government costs more money to run things because they have to run it like a government entity. By allowing the glory hole to be operated by a board of volunteers, by an executive director and let that take over its own thing, we're able to get better homeless services for less money. If CBJ had to cover homelessness services, which is a community's responsibility to care for your most vulnerable citizens
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 4:It would cost us excess of $5,000,000 to provide the same level of services that we only pay about a million dollars a year to the glory hole. That's forgive me if that's not the exact dollar figure. It's in that range.
Speaker 2:Sure. The point being that and we're gonna have to go off the air here in just a few minutes, but I'm really glad to talk about this because I think it's true. Like, absolutely, the responsibility of any community, and if you think about a town government as a codification of that community, which I think we should, is to take care of its members of that community. And listen, I mean, I understand if you have frustrations or fear, but remember, every person that you see sitting on the sidewalk or living in a tent, like that's a person. That is a human being who is part of our community, and you don't need to be friends with them, but that doesn't mean that we stop caring about them.
Speaker 2:And your point being that it would be such a much larger cost on our community to not be supporting the infrastructure that is there to take care of those members of our community makes perfect sense to me. Because if we didn't have those parts of our community that were being also subsidized by the city, then the problems that could arise in those situations could be much more dire and ended up costing a lot more, kind of like what you talked about before.
Speaker 4:For
Speaker 2:sure. It's the same sort of logic.
Speaker 4:I'll give you the next example. We provided supportive housing for chronically homeless and they don't have to pay rent on their $1,500 a month efficiency apartment, it saves $5,000 a month in non emergency services that we don't have to so it costs the community less to house an individual than to have them on the streets and have the emergency room contacts, the police department contacts, the fire department contacts. I
Speaker 2:could yeah. This is mean, I wish we had more time to talk about this because this is something I have more to say about. We'll talk about next week. Alright, everyone. It is 11:59AM on Tuesday, June 9.
Speaker 2:This has been Problem Corner with am Connor Lindrum.
Speaker 4:I'm Wade Bryson.
Speaker 2:And it has been our absolute pleasure to be talking with you all today. Thank you so much to everyone who texted and emailed, and we will see you next week.
Speaker 4:I'll be here tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us on Problem Corner, Alaska's longest running radio show. Keep the conversation going and stay connected to the issues that matter most to Juneau and Southeast Alaska. Missed part of today's show? Subscribe to the podcast at kinyradio.com. Problem Corner is powered by Alaska Laundry and Dry Cleaning.