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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 Juno Power Sports.
Speaker 2:Well, good morning. Good morning. Hello, and welcome to Prom Corner. I'm your host, Wade Bryson, and Prom Corner is a community service of KINY. The purpose of the program is to swap and trade items noncommercially and to discuss issues that affect the community.
Speaker 2:Programs not intended for businesses or something that would require business license such as firewood sales or arts and crafts or services like daycare providers. The other strict categories, home sales and rentals. If you're need of any of these services, you are more than welcome to call, and we must restrict the sale and purchase of firearms. Licensed gun dealers and other business owners are welcome to purchase advertising on Problem Corner. Alright.
Speaker 2:Still no phone calls, but people don't make calls these days anymore. I'll take your text. 500, I'm sorry. (907) 586-1800. (907) 586-1800.
Speaker 2:Send me your text and we can communicate, through that method. You can always send me the email air@kinyradio.com, and that'll send over your email. So go ahead and send us some messages so we can start this show off. I did not bring a guest with me this morning to keep the conversation going, so I will need your text so we have some stuff to talk about. A couple of recaps on stuff that happened earlier in the in the week here as, our first week back to Problem Corner.
Speaker 2:Oh, before I do anything else, let me say welcome to everyone who has arrived in town for celebration. I hope it is just truly an amazing experience. So welcome to town, all of our visitors. What do we have going on this week? Eliza, Eliza Valentine is throwing on a charity fundraiser this Saturday night, the sixth, and it's gonna be a food drive.
Speaker 2:So if you wanna go see a variety show, it didn't seem like there was a whole bunch of different, musical acts that we're gonna be performing, and it's the best price ever food bank donations. So bring some canned goods, non perishables, and you can go watch a ton of musicians play here at that's the Sandbar. I believe the show starts at 7PM, at the Sandbar this Saturday night. So you should go check that out. The Juno Pops Symphony Juno Symphony Pops concert is this Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 2:Again, Saturday I'm gonna say the Saturday night show is at seven. The Sunday show is at three, and that, Juno Symphony show, that's where they play all of the pop culture music, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and a handful of other ones. All I remember is that, the season that we went to a whole bunch of shows, that one was hands down my favorite show to go to. It's those, the Juno Symphony Pops concert. It'll bring you back to it'll bring you some nice nostalgic feelings when they play that real music.
Speaker 2:586-1800 send me a text (907) 586-1800. Take the email at air@kinyradio.com. I do have a garage sale announcement for this Saturday. Hopefully, our weather system that's rolling through will, give us a little reprieve on Saturday morning. Karen has a variety of things at thirty twenty four Wood Duck Avenue, 3024 Wood Duck Avenue, for a Saturday morning garage sale.
Speaker 2:They have an 8AM start time there. Kids game, kitchen items, you know, the usual garage sale stuff. Alright. And that is at air@kinyradio.com. Alright.
Speaker 2:This person wants to know what is going on with Vanderbilt Intersection. It's causing quite the nightmare for people working on hospital driving in Lemon Creek. In case you haven't driven from valley to town or town to Valley in the last two weeks, Vanderbilt Intersection is shut off. It's closed off. They've put concrete barriers.
Speaker 2:You cannot turn left there headed into town, and you can't take a right headed back to the valley. So you have to go the only way into the Lemon Creek area is either at the overpass or down by Hospital Drive. And I heard that the folks that are working at the hospital, this has turned everything into a traffic congestion problem. I was trying to be polite there. I know they're just doing a a detour.
Speaker 2:My understanding is that it's gonna be some type of variation of a roundabout, a t crossing. They did a newspaper article about it. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. I think they're trying to get everybody who drives like 60 or 65 through that section of Eagan, trying to get everybody to go down to 30 miles an hour or 35 miles an hour to go around a turn there. The only positive thing that I think could happen by doing something at Vanderbilt, creating a potential roundabout scenario.
Speaker 2:Controlled light intersection makes the most sense, but, what if they were doing this as a precursor to the North Douglas Crossing? Oh, now it almost starts to connect a couple of dots. Right? That would be the only logical thing that I could think why would they try to put a roundabout at Vanderbilt or some version of that unless it was in preparation to see how well it would work for the bridge across that section of the channel. Alright.
Speaker 2:Does that answer your question 18 Fuwadi? I said the word logic and I almost should have known that the answer was gonna be wrong because you can't apply logic to some of those government answers. Alright. Anybody from DOT wanna weigh in on it and let us know exactly what, Junoites can expect from that intersection? I know that there's one or two, DOT employees.
Speaker 2:You can send us a text, 586-1800. Send me that text and I will get that answer for you. Alright. I still got time before I gotta take that ABC commercial break here. I wonder how many breaks I'm taking this.
Speaker 2:Definitely messed it up yesterday. So send me that text. 5861805861800. Alright. Did I wanna touch on this?
Speaker 2:Okay. So the community comes out, does a vote last election cycle. They say we don't want Wade. Did me a favor. I'm okay with it.
Speaker 2:But they also said, hey, we significantly want to reduce CBJ's taxing to the community. They said, we want you to reduce taxes. And the assembly has struggled with that. The cuts that I'm sure it would be hard to fathom somebody who was saying, oh, I wanna vote for lower taxes, but they're not gonna really cut anything. That just couldn't have been the thought process.
Speaker 2:And so the assemblies really struggled this year trying to figure out how to spread the pain around is a phrase that I had heard because no budget line is gonna be free from those reductions as you've been hearing about it. They're having those discussions, how do we spread the pain equally? Well then the other discussion that they had, and almost had to note this was coming as well, is where else can we tax people? Oh, they won't let us increase sales tax. They won't let us increase property tax.
Speaker 2:How else can we raise taxes? And this is one of those unintended consequence things. Well, I get their their understanding or their thought process. Why don't we raise the sales tax limit? Sales tax cap, I think is what they call it.
Speaker 2:Right now, and they had been increasing it over the years, you only pay sales tax on the first $15,000 of the transaction, which is $750. They're gonna increase that from 15,000 to $30,000, and that will increase the sales tax max by another 17 $750. Well, how many things do we buy that are $30,000 and above? The only thing I could think of that we bought any regular time schedule is cars. And so they went to go increase the cap on sales tax, maybe maybe a couple of jewelry purchases, in the downtown corridor.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, that that could be legitimate money down there. Maybe people are buying $40 $50 $100,000 Rolexes and now we're gonna get $7.50 more dollars in sales tax with them. And then the other item would be cars. So now you're just adding $750 to buy a car locally, which is already, you know, problematic trying to with all the additional costs. Could the assembly help bridge the sales tax cap gap, should use the word gap, by increasing the cap from 15,000 to 30,000?
Speaker 2:Or could one of the potential outcomes be that less items above $30,000 or above $15,000 are sold in this community? In previous times, I know when they've looked at really increasing the sales tax cap so that they could capture those jewelries. The jewelry stores have like sister stores or they own a store in Juneau and a store in another Southeast city that's on the cruise ship path. And if the sales tax gets crazy, they'll just say, oh, okay, you can buy this in the next port you go to and you'll save, well, if they go to a port with no sales tax, $1,500 in sales tax on a $30,000 purchase. So by the assembly increase in the cap, could one of the consequences be actually taken less sales tax revenue because now that they've tried to squeeze more out of a transaction, that people are just looking for other places to do the transaction.
Speaker 2:We already try, with a tremendous effort to get people to look locally first. And so for CBJ to now put an additional 750 or $750 sales tax, on those rare items that are above $15,000 that people are making that purchase. Could one of the consequences be that they just reduce those large purchases? History says that that's the consequence, is that people find alternative methods to make big purchases like that or alternative locations. And so to remove transactions that go above $15,000 think about how much economic activity that is for the community, right?
Speaker 2:The community benefits way more by having a $30,000 transaction happen. Commission profit that then goes to pay all of the business expenses, that kind of stuff. Wages, nothing is sold for $30,000 without some level of wage being involved. And so in order to squeeze extra sales tax out of large transactions, I think increasing the sales tax cap to 30,000 will just reduce the number of large transactions, which will have a negative impact on our economy as opposed to the few nickels. Literally, we have a 5% sales tax, so it's a nickel per dollar.
Speaker 2:The nickels that they're trying to squeeze out of these large transactions. If you have any information that differs from mine, by all means, send me a text here. (907) 586-1800. (907) 586-1800. And somebody was kind enough.
Speaker 2:I can't Google while I'm on Problem Corner, but they sent me a link to explain Vanderbilt Intersection. Dot.alaska.gov, Eagan Dash Vanderbilt Dash Intersection. If you Google that in or type that in, I'm sure it'll bring you to the right location. But that website, the DOT website will of course have the project information for the Eagan Vanderbilt Intersection, but also any of the other DOT projects that they're performing here in the community. Thank you for reminding me of that.
Speaker 2:You can always go to dot.alaska.gov and click on that project link, I think is what we get you over there and you could check it out. And this person goes on to say that it is all explained on that site. Well, perfect. That's what we need to see. So you can go check it out.
Speaker 2:I got a break coming up in a couple of minutes. I'll see if I can't check that out. Give you a little bit more information on it. That were that would have been a great task for a second Prom Corner host today. Alright.
Speaker 2:Send me a text, (907) 586-1800. Finishing these 2¢ on the budget gap. What solutions did you come up with? If you've got something that said, why aren't they doing this? Why aren't they doing that?
Speaker 2:If you have, solutions that the assembly has not thought of or brought up or you think it's a really good idea and they just need to convince the assembly, share it with us. Let's tell everybody. I won't pretend I know how to cut $12,000,000 out of the budget because that is a tough thing. The other thing that has taken place as I was talking about what the assembly is doing to try and correct their finances. There are a couple of citizen initiatives this year.
Speaker 2:And last year we had two citizen ballot initiatives that when they passed, capped the mill rate at nine, mills, not counting debt service. So that doesn't include, any of our bond repayment or debt service. And also the no sales tax on food or utilities. Well, I hope that you've noticed and experienced and seen how your food is not there's not a sales tax on your food right now. So for every $100 you spend, you get like a 5% bonus.
Speaker 2:That's like one more item. Not quite one more dinner, but you get the gist of it. So that is an extremely helpful thing. So now what the citizen initiatives are doing is to allow the mill rate to be raised, and then also increasing sales tax. And it might be a seasonal sales tax.
Speaker 2:I have not read up on it. I'm sure we're gonna hear more about it. They have ballot, or petition booklets, are out right now. So if you would like to see a change in the citizen ballot initiatives that were passed last year, Citizen ballot initiatives are out again this year. And so that is the petition booklets are out.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm trying to spit out. It is not a sure thing. It is not on the ballot right now. They have the petition booklets out. And, as Juno has shown in the past, just because the, petition booklet is out does not mean that ballot initiative ends up on the ballot.
Speaker 2:So, there you go. Hopefully that helps. Okay. I'm about to the break. I have one text that I will save for after the break.
Speaker 2:Yeah. How about while we're taking this ABC News break, you get in front of your computer and you can send me an email to air k I n y radio dot com. That will send me your email or send me a text even easier, (907) 586-1800, and that'll get your text right over here. And, I'll be back in just a couple of minutes after this ABC Newsbreak with more Problem Corner on KINY.
Speaker 1:Download the free Juno Media Center app and enjoy KINY anywhere. Local owned and operated. KINY, the news you need, the music you love.
Speaker 3:And Alaska First Media radio station. ABC News. I'm Michelle Franzen. In California, the hostage standoff in Bakersfield, California that began Tuesday inside a bank ended after fifteen hours. Police say the suspect, Anthony Scott Searles Harris, served in the US Army and was dishonorably discharged.
Speaker 3:FBI special agent Sid Patel says a special task force moved in and the suspect was killed.
Speaker 4:He was no stranger to law enforcement and has a criminal history of using weapons to commit violent offenses. In 2014, he was charged with sex acts with a child 14. He's a registered sex offender.
Speaker 3:Police say all 10 hostages were released unharmed. Despite a ceasefire, the Pentagon says The US intercepted Iranian drones targeting a US base and forces in Kuwait. Kuwait's public airport damaged. The Trump administration says it believes peace talks can still continue. A US coast guard dive team in The Bahamas searching for Lynette Hooker ended early today due to bad weather.
Speaker 3:The Michigan woman disappeared in April. Her husband says she fell off their dinghy. This is ABC News.
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Speaker 1:Now back to Problem Corner where our community meets to talk, trade, share.
Speaker 2:Alright. Welcome back to Problem Corner. Give me a shout here. 5 oh, no. You can't call.
Speaker 2:586-1800. You can send me a text. And go ahead. I know you text every day. I text every day even though I miss the art of the phone call, which we should be having back hopefully by next week here on Problem Corner.
Speaker 2:And I won't that make our life a little bit easier. But in the meantime, send me a text. (907) 586-1800. Got a question here. We are getting more ships coming into Juneau and bringing in great economy.
Speaker 2:Okay. I could clarify. We have a five ship per day limit and they are sticking to the five ship limit. This would be the second official year of the five ship limit. So we're not getting more.
Speaker 2:We're plateaued at the same level of cruise ships. So they're not no more are coming. The same number are coming each day. We were investigating the refuse that ships put were putting into the waters. Are we nipping in the bud or the situation getting worse?
Speaker 2:There was an incident a few years ago where they released, I think, gray water, in the interior channel or the interior waters, and that was a big deal. They got in trouble. They got fined, and so they have to dispose of that out at sea. I don't know if some of their wastewater is being offloaded here at CBJ. I don't think so.
Speaker 2:But the good news is they're not allowed to do that and I spoke with one of the executives one time and he had a really good explanation. He said, wait, we need to be coming to Alaska for a very long time. It doesn't make any sense for the cruise ships to do harm to the environment because we want to keep coming here. And so they're trying not to do things like dump gray or black water into the interior waters there. Alright.
Speaker 2:Hopefully that helps. No. They are not trying to dump water or dump illegal stuff into the channel. Alright. This person has a question.
Speaker 2:Is it illegal to have bird seeds bird feeders with bird seed in it out in the summertime? That is a good question. I don't actually know the legality of it. Somebody out there knows the answer. I'm sure there's a governmental answer that says they have to be in this condition through this time period.
Speaker 2:If you used a little bit of common sense and had a bird feeder that was not accessible to a bear, like it was hanging up in a tree or hanging up off the side of your house nice and high, where, I know my wife had a second story window that she had fixed a bird feeder too and it was awesome. Birds were laying in there all summer long to, get bird seed except for that it was directly over our little garden. And so then our garden had nothing but other plants grown in it because of the bird feeder above it. And so she had that out there for a couple of years and nobody ever said anything to us. So if it is illegal, I don't think the bird feeder police are out there trying to make sure there's no bird feeders.
Speaker 2:What might be illegal and what you could be referencing is that it's illegal to feed bears, and so someone could interpret that being a bonehead and improperly mounting a bird seed feeder or bird feeder at a place where a bear could access it, that just might be a bad idea. So I think the best advice I can give you, a bird feeder that's up and out of the way, probably not gonna get harassed by anybody. A bird feeder that's attracting a bear, probably gonna cause you an issue. Not gonna be able to feed it enough seed and then they start poking around your trash. And I actually wanna talk about bears because it is that time of year that those pain in the necks are out here flipping dumpsters over and knocking trash cans down, and I wish bears could get the memo that just because recyclables smell good doesn't mean there's anything in there.
Speaker 2:Recyclables seem to be an attractant to bears, at least in a couple of neighborhoods that I've seen, but there's no food. Alright. And then, of course, you guys are freaking awesome. Alaska Department of Fish and Game officially passed something about a bird feeder not having to be taken down between April 1 and November 15 or not. Did not word that right.
Speaker 2:Maybe we we are or aren't supposed to have it between April 1 and April 15. The mandate. Oh, okay. They clarified. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2:It is mandated by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, to take down your bird feeders between April 1 and November 15. So they don't want you to feed the birds during the summertime, which there's probably a little bit more food for the birds to eat. There's some logic to that. But then you can put it back up in November 15 and ideally the bears are gone. Can I say this out loud?
Speaker 2:Out of sight, out of mind. So if you have a bird feeder that's not attracting bears, it could be more up to you on when you wanna take it down. I'm just saying. Okay. But those bears are back at it.
Speaker 2:And, before coming to Problem Corner, I had to go, lift a dumpster that was all the way full and I think I'd had strap to lift that sucker with. But, make sure you're taking those precautions so that bears are not getting into your trash. We've had this conversation many many times in Problem Corner, and in case you hadn't participated in any of those conversations, Bears can break into almost any enclosure. There's definitely some that they can't get into and inside buildings, you're generally not gonna have a problem. Gotta But be careful of like trying to keep the bear out versus allowing the trash drivers to pick your trash up so it has to get in there.
Speaker 2:And this person who asked the question, is it illegal to have bird feeders out? He said it's pretty smart bear. Yeah. The bears are smart. I definitely heard of a story last year where a bear got into someone's vehicle.
Speaker 2:They just opened the door, went inside. Why not? One of the things that we've discovered that actually helps, combat the bears was pine saw. And we had a bear that just wouldn't leave a single dumpster alone. It didn't matter what we did.
Speaker 2:It didn't matter how we tried to secure it. That bear found a way to open that sucker up. And so having Pine Sol sprayed all over the dumpster interior, we sprayed it all around. The bear did not like the Pine Sol and so he kinda left it alone. And what I discovered is if the bear doesn't isn't aware of your trash can, you've got a little while.
Speaker 2:They you know, it's not thinking of your trash can. But if a bear gets your trash can once and you fed them well, that bear will definitely come back around to see if you have provided the same delectable treats that you did in your last trash bin. So, yeah, keeping the bears out from the start, Definitely the way to go. Alright. No emails, no text.
Speaker 2:I'm running out of things to talk about with myself. If you'd be kind enough to send me a text, 9075861809075861800. I know a problem I've had and I've heard a couple other people call out for, yard work. If anybody out there is performing lawn mowing services, yard work, yard maintenance, I know there's a whole bunch of folks that are searching for it, so, we'll tweak our rules a little bit. If you are able to provide, lawn mowing or yard work service, why don't you reach out to us today here on Prom Corner?
Speaker 2:Send me that text, (907) 586-1800. I do believe that if I got a couple of lawnmower numbers out there that that would help a significant number of Prom Corner listeners. So if you can do that, by all means. Hey. Hey.
Speaker 2:Stuff for sale. Thanks, Jay. He has a 25 gallon Vavor sandblasting cabinet still in the box. He wants $75 for that. A heavy duty engine mount, $70 for that.
Speaker 2:$75 for that. Twin 70 horsepower two stroke long shaft. One outboard is still intact. The other outboard is ordered the rebuilt power head, needs a rebuilt kit. Oh, there's three of them, for $400.
Speaker 2:So if you need the outboards, the heavy duty engine mount, or the sandblasting cabinet, call Jay 95735989573598. And, Jay, thanks for doing that. And then this person has a request to bring back the old Problem Corner music. Yes, there was nothing quite like that last three minutes of the noon hour that were filled with that familiar flute music. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll mention it to the higher ups and see if we can't get a little bit longer of that Problem Corner music playing. I heard a couple of the retro Problem Corners, but I only when I was in my car, of course. And so I didn't catch if they had the Problem Corner theme music. Did they play it all the way from start to finish including the the three minute music bed that was on both sides? I'd be curious if that's what it did.
Speaker 2:Alright. But we could only know. Let me know if you were listening to those. This person says it was part of our lives and it brings back memories. I agree with you.
Speaker 2:I don't think you can hear that Prom Corner music without kind of bringing you to this day period. Completely agree. No matter where I'm at, if I even hear like a little snippet of it, it's I'm instantaneously in Problem Corner mode. And again, a few minutes left here in the show, 9075861800. Garage sale this weekend.
Speaker 2:I know we've got a yeah. Maybe we have a little bit of rain, but that's Juno. Right? Oh, yeah. Somebody sent a neat email or a neat text.
Speaker 2:So the rain, is what we're talking about? Oh, it's hard it's hard read emails and talk with you guys about stuff. It's just harder. Those emails will grab my thought process. This person wants to talk about e bikes on the walking paths.
Speaker 2:This is the very conversation that is taking place across many different municipalities and state government levels. I don't know where it's on the federal government agenda. But e bikes are the wave of the future. People are getting, battery powered vehicles, micro mobility devices, so that anything that you can, power with a battery and help you transport, one wheels, skateboards, kick scooters, and there's a handful of things out there. There are a couple of different categories.
Speaker 2:There's a category that lets you go to 20 miles an hour while you're pedaling and only while you're pedaling. Another category that lets you go 28 miles an hour and only 28 while you're but only while you're pedaling. And those are the max speeds, of course. You don't have to automatically go those. And then the other kind is the throttle capable.
Speaker 2:So it's an e bike that you don't that you can just throttle without pedaling. And the thing that are probably causing the most issues are the vehicles that you can, have a throttle on as opposed to biking. For better or worse, full disclosure, I own a bike shop and I sell both kinds of bikes. So, I know this conversation is coming up. CBJ has started looking into it, and one of the potential outcomes is that class one only on CBJ trails.
Speaker 2:And that would be the 20 miles an hour while you're pedaling and only while you're pedaling, and everything else would be restricted. The other part of that conversation that is coming up is that a, maybe it was the Forest Service or it had to have been the Forest Service, but they were issuing warnings in Dredge Lake, which is a state property that, ebikes are not allowed on Dredge Lake. So the battle struggle conversation, I don't know. We can describe it any way you want depending on how passionate you are for the topic. But the conversation about the restrictions on ebikes and where they're going to be allowed is a conversation that is absolutely coming down our way.
Speaker 2:So the person that says, can we talk about it? That's like my understanding of where the city's at right now with the way that the city's looking at it, the way that the state's looking at it. If did you have any other questions or was there another aspect of that that you wanted to have talked about? Does that make sense? Okay.
Speaker 2:Alright. So this person says, okay, so you cannot play the old music for some reason. I can't even remember what the music that y'all are talking about. At the end of Problem Corner, it'll be a little snippet of that three minute Problem Corner song that used to play. I hope that helps.
Speaker 2:Alright. (907) 586-1800. Send me the text. The city is on a struggling budget. I would describe it more they're in a budget reduction cycle.
Speaker 2:They had a balanced budget past couple of years. They have a mandatory reduction this year and they're trying to reduce city expenses to get to that budget. And so they're just to help with your wording there, this person said the city's on a struggling budget. I would call it a budget reduction cycle because once they make that $12,000,000 reduction, then next year's budget cycle will still be tough, but they won't have to reduce it by $12,000,000 again. It costs a fortune to maintain our roads and streets.
Speaker 2:Why isn't the stud law being enforced? You can hear the sounds of the studs. You are not wrong. And I believe that some of JPD is giving, fix it tickets, It's forcing people to go get their studs removed from their vehicle now that we're in June. Can't just go round the horn.
Speaker 2:But, yeah. Anybody riding with studs right now, they've probably done more damage to their tires and their studs. That's not fair to say. Then they're doing to the road, but I don't know that for certain. So you aren't wrong, and this person is correct that oh, man.
Speaker 2:Everybody's calling me quick. Call me. I'm busy. Let's just go on to the next one. This person has a propane fireplace insert.
Speaker 2:He wants 1,500 or best offer. So if you need a fire a propane fireplace insert, call Joe. 32100013210001 for that propane fireplace insert. Hey. And I really appreciate you guys sending me some texts.
Speaker 2:These are so helpful. And oh my gosh, or OMG, this person says, talking about the budget, I don't really see how they can even be thinking about closing the Douglas Fire Department. And we kinda knew, did kinda say this is what's gonna happen, that budget reductions of this magnitude were not gonna be possible without impacting the community. And so this person is in disbelief that they're even considering Douglas, but that puts Douglas Fire Department against library funding. Puts the Douglas Fire Department in competition with swimming pool funding.
Speaker 2:And there's not enough money for any of that. And so you've got the fire Douglas Fire Department battling if it made the list sorry, let me explain. So if it made the potential cut list, it then became in competition for everything else that was also receiving cuts. And that's kinda why I described it. The assembly had the conversations or their conversations are how do we spread this pain out?
Speaker 2:How do we make the reductions across the community so that the pain is spread throughout the whole community? And if they decide that closing Douglas Fire Department is a way that they can not harm other I mean, it just everything was gonna be on the chopping block when it came to reducing the budget that large. And so while almost everything they put on there, I would say everything they put on there has a user group. Everything that got put on the chopping list had people that depend on it, count on it, use it all the time. And so once those budget reductions were mandated, the only thing left was how do we spread this pain across the community because otherwise it was gonna be, okay, so we'll just stop operating pools in Juneau and that'll prevent us from causing pain to a whole bunch of other half of the other organizations.
Speaker 2:And there was no one thing that could be cut, no one entity that could be removed that solved the $12,000,000 budget. So that made it where a whole bunch of things had to get impacted. And even when they did that, try to not remove anything. They tried to just spread the paint out instead of just like say, closing Eagle Crest or closing the downtown pool and made like really big steps like that. They tried to make smaller steps and it still didn't do what they needed to and that's why they looked at how can we get more tax out of the community.
Speaker 2:And that was the very thing the community was complaining about last election cycle. You're overtaxing us. Stop this. And so what's the right answer going forward? We got ballot initiatives that could reverse last year.
Speaker 2:We have a budget that is being reduced and is about to get passed. I have final discussions tonight, I think. How do we get our city back on a fiscally sustainable path where every budget cycle isn't spreading the pain across the community. Right? We don't want to do that.
Speaker 2:We shouldn't be putting the Douglas Fire Department's funding in competition with pool or library funding. You're absolutely right. That is a horrible spot for the community to be in. However, in trying to reduce the budget by $12,000,000, that's the kind of conversation they had to have. Alright.
Speaker 2:That brings us to the end of the show. Remember, if you're having a garage sale, go ahead and get that garage sale announcement sent over here. We got Katie on Prom Corner tomorrow, followed by Nano on Friday, and they can send a whole bunch of folks to your garage sale. And it's just gonna be a little rain this weekend. That's all.
Speaker 2:Just just a little bit of rain. No big deal. So your garage will be fine. And then, yes, send an email. Send a text.
Speaker 2:Hopefully, they are, they're making progress on the phones. I'll have a update the next time I talk to you guys. But send that text 586-1800. Send that email air@kinyradio.com. And remember, as always, on Problem Corner, there are no such things as problems, just solutions we've yet to discover.
Speaker 2:Have a great rest of your week. I'm Wade. I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: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.