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First Things First by The First Things First Alaska Foundation (FTFAF) is broadcast monthly on KINY on Saturday at 9 a.m. and on KJNO on Sunday at 9 a.m. Each episode explores the balance Alaskans face: protecting our state's rugged beauty and vast wilderness while advocating for sustainable economic growth through responsible natural resource management.
With thousands of jobs lost in the past decades due to restrictive regulations, First Things First raises vital questions about the future of Alaska’s economy. Can we preserve our cherished landscapes, waterways, and wildlife while fostering prosperity for generations to come?
Join FTFAF as we explore essential areas for Southeast Alaska’s growth—highlighting education, advocacy, and smart development.
Welcome to First Things First, powered by First Things First Alaska Foundation, champions of responsible economic development and natural resource management in Southeast Alaska. Stay informed, get involved, and make a difference for Juneau and all of Southeast Alaska.
Speaker 2:First things first, Alaska Foundation. It's the broadcast podcast. Dano back in the studio wanting you to get involved, stay informed, and make a difference, and you do that with First Things First Alaska Foundation. And we've been talking a lot about that Mendenhall glacial outburst and everything going on that, but we have a public meeting coming up on that. Right, guys?
Speaker 2:We can talk about that later. Right. We need to peel back a little bit of what's going on and dive into what First Things First Alaska Foundation is all about. Its foundation, its purpose, its economic impacts that it cares about because, well, it goes so much beyond the Mendenhall outburst in glacial flooding. Let's do a quick introduction starting over here with the executive director of the First Things First Alaska Foundation.
Speaker 3:This is Don Habiger with, no. I don't wanna do that. Do it again. Don Habiger, executive director of First Things First.
Speaker 4:Mac Miner's here.
Speaker 2:Mac, what do you do? Board member?
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm a board member. That's right. And I've been in there since the founding of First Things First.
Speaker 2:Alright. And last but not least,
Speaker 5:I'm Denny DeWitt. I am a, currently a board member of First Things First, but served for several years as the executive director.
Speaker 2:And now that's Don over here.
Speaker 5:Guys How's Don?
Speaker 2:Let's dive into this today because we spent a lot of time talking about the Mendenhall outburst. Obviously, a public meeting coming up. There'll be plenty more to talk about that. But first things first, Alaska is so much more than that. And we wanna talk about that today, kind of the foundations, the things that stands for.
Speaker 2:You guys have to be doing this for a reason. You have to be on this board for a reason. Let's start with just talking about that, Dom. Why do you do this?
Speaker 3:Certainly. Probably to put it in perspective, it's just a a good time to remind ourselves of our purpose. And first things first was created, to focus on a strong Southeast Alaska economy, or, even more broadly, the Alaska economy. And we do that by concentrating on responsible economic development through natural resource, management. So we're looking at expanding our resources responsibly to help our economy grow.
Speaker 2:Mac, let's move on to you. Why do you do this?
Speaker 4:Well, we've had several issues over the years, and I think to make people aware of the issues that we back up and try to tell the people that maybe it's not a good idea to do this and maybe it's a better idea to do something else. So we're just putting our 2¢ in there, and we come out and we have Denny on the radio who has a great voice, and we come across with, ideas that maybe you shouldn't vote for the Jack or maybe you shouldn't, like, take a real minute and think about a new city hall Or why do we have so much taxes? And why can't we fix the sewer? Little items like that that make everyday living in Juneau a little cheaper.
Speaker 2:Mack, you got me thinking about all that. I'm always thinking about that as I'm living here in Juneau. Daniel, let's move on to you on this one.
Speaker 5:I've got, 4 grandkids that live here. I'm committed to our community, and I wanna see it grow and prosper. And I wanna make sure that I'd like to help make sure that my grandkids have as much opportunity here in Juneau as I have. And we need to look at a lot of different things. There are things that are gonna hurt our economy if we do them.
Speaker 5:There's a whole issue of where's our population going. It's not growing right now, and that's not a good thing. So there are a lot of issues that we need to be looking at thinking about that are important, to the future of our community. And for me, that's why I spend time on First Things First.
Speaker 2:Well, and sometimes when you talk about the future, it's good to look into the past. And it sounds like you all have been with First Things First for a long time. There's been some great people that have been with First Things First Alaska Foundation. Maybe let's peel back and talk about some of the historical activities that First Things First has been a part of. Maybe some of the more important things that you guys see in your eyes.
Speaker 5:Well, I think one of the things that, we have really put out to our community in a very loud sense is a whole notion of what our wants and what our needs, and what are we gonna do first, And how do we get to a point where we can begin to get into some of our wants based on a strong economy and a strong community? If you ignore your needs and go after your wants, eventually, your community our community is gonna fail. And so talking about issues that are gonna help build our community has always been a strong point of first things first. Back in 2015, the, community went through a lot of activity around creating an economic development plan. And one of the things that, we stood up and said was there's a lot of nice things that you're doing there, but you're gonna have to finance it.
Speaker 5:And you can't finance it without a strong economy, which was kind of a secondary activity it seemed to us on that economic plan. Particularly at that point in time, we were seeing the state cut back. The city was, having difficulty raising funds and small business was what we needed to come in and replace that part of the economy. And one of the things we were talking about in that whole activity is what are we doing to create an environment that will bring in small businesses? And that was one of the things that really, in its most recent activities, historical activities we got involved in, and it was all based on what's the future development, the future economy of Juneau, Alaska.
Speaker 5:And it wasn't gonna be continuing to, see government grow. And that's proven out.
Speaker 2:Well, in coming out of COVID, and then here we are in 2025 now, which is crazy to say, how do you say the CBJ is doing with that and the economic plan?
Speaker 5:We're sort of bumbling along.
Speaker 2:See, that's what I didn't wanna hear.
Speaker 5:I know. You know what? We really have not gotten ourselves focused on what is it that we need to do to create a thriving economic environment here in Juneau. You can't just sit around and hope, there are things like potentially, bringing in, Juno access, which is a road hard link road. And the importance of that folks don't think about if you get a road into Juno and transportation costs go down, the price of tomatoes at the store are gonna go down for all of us.
Speaker 5:And those are the important things that, sometimes we miss when we're arguing about economic issues.
Speaker 2:But it takes away from that small town field, Danny. People people can get here.
Speaker 5:Well, there are a lot
Speaker 2:of small
Speaker 5:towns in this world where people can get to them. And we have a problem with housing. We have a problem with the cost of housing, particularly for lower income individuals, and, that affects our workforce. And that affects what kind of businesses can be here and be profitable here, so they'll remain. And that's an important part of our economy.
Speaker 5:We just simply can't ignore.
Speaker 2:Well, and I like the access conversation too, because obviously, first things first, Alaska Foundation has worked on Juno access things before. Other things too is the southeast transportation plan and also what's going on with the Alaska Marine Highway System too. Just how we get our resources just seems to be changing every single year. It has in the 5 years I've lived here now, it seems like.
Speaker 3:Well, one of the things that, first things first has been working on and, you know, back when Denny, my predecessor, as executive director, started the project with the board. It was looking at connecting southeast through the short ferry hub through where practical terrestrial or roadways, and so it was integrating entire southeast with a road to a marine highway link, but shorten it, concentrate it, make it a hub and spoke kind of vision so that we don't have an overreliance on ancient or old, machinery that just cannot keep up with today's trade.
Speaker 2:Do we see electric ferries the right direction for this? No. I gotta ask.
Speaker 4:Would you like to take a ride across, get on in Homer or Seward and head for Kodiak, and all of a sudden the lights go out in the middle of the gulf. What would you think about that?
Speaker 2:I would hope they would have some type of backup. The things the things you don't hear about.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Well, I mean, I had that route on my calendar for many years because I fished out of Kodiak in the summers for, I think, 18 summers. And I would take my truck. I'm gonna keep my boat over there so I wouldn't have to run across the gulf and then drive the highway and up and back and I have to be home by school starts. That was the deal.
Speaker 4:And that's how it worked. And I I rode the I drove the road and I, used the ferry system. But now, like last year, when the ferry only runs twice a week south and twice a week north, it becomes very hard to get things like I wanna buy another car. And I'm with the sales tax, and their Anchorage has the product, and so you have to go to Anchorage and shop and then bring it back. And I've been doing that for years and it's just you, you know, they they make you wait 2 hours at the ferry and you could drive to Haines in about an hour once you're used to driving the highway.
Speaker 4:And this whole no accesses killed everything. It kills the freight. The freight's the fish. The freight is the beer that's made here. The freight is everything.
Speaker 4:And building materials alone makes it so much more expensive to get things here. And there's such a lock on the freight that what are you gonna do? I suppose they're just starving us out.
Speaker 2:Wants versus needs. Right?
Speaker 4:Exactly. It's what
Speaker 2:it's all about. First things first, Alaska Foundations. This is the broadcast podcast. Get involved. Stay informed.
Speaker 2:Make a difference. Talking with Denny DeWitt. Mac Miners, who you just heard from, some awesome knowledge coming from you on that one, and Don Havanger. Let's talk more about how do we fix some of these things, guys. I mean, obviously, I feel like this just gets talked about in a hot button way where, oh, we talk about it for a hot second and then it goes away, then we talk about it again and then it goes away.
Speaker 2:You have solutions, and that's what First Things First Alaska Foundation is here for. Where do we start?
Speaker 3:Well, one of one of the things is, we are part of a kind of a a group of small businesses, nonprofits that are challenging, through the court system, the roadless rule. One of the things that that we have to recognize in this region is that most of the land is the Tongass Forest. And to gain access to that, we just have to go to court and challenge the roadless rule that came out under the Clinton administration. We understand the need to, preserve some of our forests. That's not the issue.
Speaker 3:But the issue is there are other areas where we need access, whether it's exploring for minerals, whether it's geothermal access, whether it's just connecting one community that lives on the same island to the other community, through a hard link. So all of those issues, have been kind of delayed, through the Robles rule. And so we've joined that group to, ask the courts to kinda repeal the roadless rule that, we've been suffering under for these many years.
Speaker 2:Do you think this new presidency will have anything to do with that? Do you think it'll help at all?
Speaker 3:We are looking for opportunities. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, you would think it's gonna be a big change.
Speaker 4:When I grew up in Southeast Alaska, I grew up in Southeast Alaska and the when the ferries first showed up in, what, 64, 65, We use that a lot for transportation and the sports. And what really made it run was logging because logging was big in Southeast Alaska, Wrangell, Petersburg, Ketchikan, Haines, Hoonah. And now we have no ridership in the ferry. So it really is a kind of a lost leader as you'd say. But when you go to the towns that had when you revisit the towns that you went as you're young, you find that there's barely a restaurant.
Speaker 4:There's, you know, a very expensive grocery store. There's one thing about it, they ship all the homeless here, And so it's just like when you lost that industry and that responsible harvest of that timber, you lost the ferries. And that's just kind of a casual observance over the last 50 years.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't seem like it's gonna come back at all anytime soon either unless some things start to change with some of the things that you're involved with.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 5:There are some things that we can think about that might change how how much it costs to live here. You know, we're looking now at, an increase in our sewer fees. They're about a 100 and just under $150 a month now. And they're going to about 250 or higher. And that's all after taxes.
Speaker 5:You got to wonder what would happen if instead of having it a bill, we put it on the property tax. So that at least we could deduct it from our federal income tax, small thing. I don't know whether it worked, but gosh, wouldn't it be nice if we sort of started thinking in those terms, rather than just laying costs on the public here and, you know, $250, $300 a month is a pretty big hit to a lot of people's budgets. And is that a welcoming kind of thing that will help build our community? I don't think so.
Speaker 5:We have to do something with the, the sewer system, the water system. No question about that. But But if we're gonna do it, perhaps we ought to think about what is the most constructive economic way to get there. And I think we're missing a lot of those opportunities.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The way I see it is public perspective from family and that you just hear around the community, we see it as it just keeps getting more and more expensive to live here. Whether it's our housing, whether it's our utilities, whether it's our Internet, and what's going on, we haven't even touched upon the fishing industry yet. I can see Mac over there just licking his lips ready to talk about this one.
Speaker 5:Well, that's a fish falling out.
Speaker 4:All in the net.
Speaker 2:It just seems like things are getting more and more expensive. And if something doesn't change here soon, then everything that everyone has worked for so long that Mac was just talking about just minutes ago is going to fully dissolve and go away.
Speaker 4:One point I wanna bring up is many years ago when they wanted to open up the AJ Gold Mine, and all these people did not want it to happen. And in my eyes, that was the biggest taxpayer of all that if we had that today, we would have enough money to do whatever we wanted. And it's like the tourism. I welcome all those tourists because it's like more fish in the net. Tourism is like fishing.
Speaker 4:It shows up in May and it goes away in September, and that's the time you have to harvest. So you gotta use every available access to get those guys' money. I mean, I hate to say it that way, but that's how it is.
Speaker 2:Well, we haven't even mentioned that yet. We talked about the logging impacts, but we haven't even talked about the impacts of mining in Southeast Alaska and what's been done since the Clinton era.
Speaker 5:Absolutely. You know, we've got 2 mines in our community that are producing well. And the AJ is, as Mac mentioned, the city owns part of that. So it's not just a matter of the tax revenue that could come off of that. It's the, revenue from what we own as Junealites into our community or into our, economic system and our tax base.
Speaker 2:Well, and mining is such a big history in this town. I mean, just look at Douglas.
Speaker 4:It's That's my old mine.
Speaker 5:That's why we're here.
Speaker 3:One thing to add is in 2015, first things first, really wanted to understand the economic impact of mining. And so they took a look, and we used then the McDowell Group, and so we partnered with them, or paid them, I guess, is the real
Speaker 2:It is
Speaker 4:what it is.
Speaker 5:Yes, we did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did.
Speaker 5:And they did a fine job by
Speaker 2:that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. But just some of the numbers are are wonderful numbers for our community. And, you know, this was a look back at 2015, but 850 direct jobs, here in Southeast Alaska or 1700 indirect jobs. And these are some of the the it depends upon your perspective. If you were a city, I would think, exciting numbers.
Speaker 3:$3,800,000 in through local government taxes, sales tax, property tax, that those two mines or the mines in southeast pay. So and another one, 535,000 in charitable contributions. So the mines are a significant contributor to our economy. And first things first, always looks for opportunities to comment on on their importance. And let's just put that in perspective.
Speaker 3:Recently, Greens Creek, asked for an extension for their permit. They wanted to do the change their tailing, site. First things first came up and said that we need a 40 year mine life. And so we chose one of the alternatives that was out there, and we argued really strenuously for that 40 years of economic impact. You know, a community that is based on all of our resource development.
Speaker 3:So ultimately, the, forest service decided not to go with our suggestion. We think they were wrong, but, there you go. We argued for alternative d, and we continue to support our mining partners.
Speaker 5:You know, there's another part of the, mining in our community that folks don't think about, and that's the number of children in our school district as a result of folks who work in the mines. And if you think we've had a downturn in the enrollment, and we've just gone through a pretty tough exercise. It's not one that should have surprised anybody. It's been forecast for a number of years, but think of what it would be with probably 4 to 600 less kids. So mining is much more important to folks in this community than a lot of people realize.
Speaker 5:Our miners are folks who are coaching our kids' softball teams and basketball teams and soccer teams. They are an integral part of our community that gives us a lot of strength, not only the the taxes that the mines pay, but those people are homeowners that are paying property taxes. They're folks who live here and they're paying sales tax. They're part of our community, an important part of our community. One that I think we forget about when we're starting to talk about, should we have a mind with 10 years or 20 years or 30 years or 40 years, into the future?
Speaker 2:I like that we're talking about the future too. And another thing talking about people in our community, and this is kind of in the same light, the fishing industry as well. What's happening with our fisheries and our hatcheries going on right now too. That's going to affect a lot of jobs in the area. And Mac, I'm gonna let you just unreal on this one and what is going on with the fishing industry right now.
Speaker 5:I can't imagine him
Speaker 2:Am I gonna have a king season or what?
Speaker 4:Yeah. It's looking really good.
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay. That's good.
Speaker 4:Who's got a good escape with? The hatchery? We should be able to fish the hatchery fish? But what you gotta remember is infrastructure. Juno has a very small fleet.
Speaker 4:In fact, my son left and he now he lives, took his boat to fisherman's terminal and he fishes southeast. He's a seiner. But what you gotta remember is is there's no place to work on your boat. There's hardly a place you can pull out a small boat, but what we lack here in town is the infrastructure and the ability to, park those boats. Let's say you have a huge run up at Amalga Harbor, and all the guys from Petersburg and all around Rangel, they come to fish it, and then there's no place to really put it.
Speaker 4:And we focused our harbors on the tourism industry. And that, you know, whale watching is a big deal. I I agree, but, you know, and we need as many people as we possibly can to get on every little boat they possibly can and maybe they get lucky and see a whale. But at the same time, they got to work collectively. And if you look back in the pictures, like I was up at the Alaska Fisherman's Building yesterday, and I was looking at the old pictures that are on the wall in there of the fleets in Juneau compared to what they used to be.
Speaker 4:And the laundry had a big business. You know, the grocery stores did a big business, But now what you see is you don't really see the fleet in here. I started in the fleet when I was 16. Probably what year was that? Oh, 1967 or 8.
Speaker 4:So, I mean, I've been in the fleet. I know what it's like. I've been to the Bering Sea. I fished the Gulf. I I fished all over Southeast.
Speaker 4:And now when you go back and forth in Southeast, you see the hatchery releases are the ones that are really helping the fishermen out, especially as we get into low prices. And there again, transportation, getting the fish out is a big thing in price. And, you know, you and the no. I don't wanna say this, but the poor state doesn't have any employees. They they use that excuse, and it's very obvious that, you know, whether it's this guy or that guy's fault for, you know, not creating more jobs or enough money for them to go, but they're having a hard time with recruitment.
Speaker 4:And that really hurts things, especially when the constitution says we have to harvest for the maximum. And it doesn't seem to happen because we don't have the help to do it.
Speaker 2:That is crazy. So with all that being said, what is First Things First Alaska Foundation? I'm sitting here with Denny DeWitt, Mac Miners, and Don Havanger. What is First Things First Alaska Foundation doing for the fishing industry in Southeast?
Speaker 4:Well, they're helping through transportation. Transportation is the key. Housing is the key. When let's say you have a cannery, where are you gonna house these people? In a hotel?
Speaker 4:No. The tourists are all staying there. There's not enough. You go to some of these other communities like Valdez or Cordova or Kodiak where you have a lot of fish processing and they have bunk houses. Here, we don't have a bunk house.
Speaker 4:Guys have tried, but it really makes sense to have a place with, you know I I've been in camps since I've been young. I worked in the slope for almost 8 years. So I was in camp for about 8 years. So I know how that works. It works great.
Speaker 4:Everybody's got a place to stay. There's good food. There's laundry, and there's good jobs, and that's where the money's at. But it seems to me that, after reading this gentleman's great letter in the paper on Tuesday from Haines about what's driving economical economic, development. It's the Washington DC money.
Speaker 4:It's all these other people. It's pretty tough for poor little first things first to compete with that amount of money. You know what I mean? All we can do is try to get the message out.
Speaker 2:And that's exactly what we're doing with this, this broadcast podcast. Kinda have a deeper conversation than some of the over the air stuff that you hear on the radio. We can dive a little bit deeper in a podcast, say how we're really feeling about stuff, guys.
Speaker 3:You know, Dano, one of the things that, when you think about the future and involvement is is supporting projects as simple as, may maybe the, hoona totem, infrastructure on the waterfront. Now that certainly could be used exclusively for tourism. But how about if somebody needs to store a ship at a dock there for the summer? Maybe it's a fishing ship. And so you have potential cross usage, with infrastructure.
Speaker 3:Or, let's think about the backside of Douglas. Recently, we had one of our native corporations, talk about a development back there. Could it be that the coast guard moves out there for quicker, easier access to the rest of our waters. Could it be that some of that development, supports the fishing industry, maybe a small boat, harbor or haul out harbor? So looking at all of these opportunities, expanding our economy, allowing small business to flourish, and supporting our larger companies that want to develop instead of always saying no, saying yes, how can we help?
Speaker 3:And that's the, role that first things first brings to the conversation.
Speaker 2:That was beautifully put, the wants versus the needs. Well, we've been talking about this entire conversation for the First Things First, Alaska Foundation Broadcast podcast. I wanna thank Denny DeWitt, board member, for coming in here today, Mac Meiners for all the stories, board member coming in today as well, and and Don Habender, everything you're doing as executive director. Now what could you say to the people out there who wanna get involved, stay informed, and make a difference? How can they get involved in the First Things First Alaska Foundation?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We're starting a new year. And you know what? If you really wanna roll up your sleeves and talk to us about becoming a board member, we'll even look at, new board members. So, we're not an exclusive club.
Speaker 3:The only thing we ask for is you roll up your sleeves and look at a prosperous economy. But other things you can do is, get to know us on our website at ftfalaskafoundation.org, or, of course, send us an email. Give us your opinion. Tell us how you can help or what we should be working on. And that's first t f inc@gmail.com.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the info, Don, and thank you for listening to the First Things First Alaska Foundation podcast broadcast.
Speaker 1:This has been First Things First, a presentation of First Things First Alaska Foundation. Learn more at ftfakfoundation.org, and subscribe to the podcast.