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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:Hello, Juno, and welcome back to Problem Corner. My name is Connor Lindrum, your Tuesday host. I'm so, so glad to be back with you all. Today, we have some guests with us on the air here to talk. We have Pat Race and Brock Tabor.
Speaker 2:We are going to be going and talking about the mill rate and sales tax changes that Juno went through last fall and some ballot initiatives that are looking to try and balance the books as it were coming up. Pat, Brock, thank you both so much for coming on. Would you mind introducing yourselves and talking about your roles in the community? Brock, would you like to go first?
Speaker 3:Sure. Thanks, Connor. My name is Brock Taber. I've been a resident of Juneau since 1997, Homeowner in downtown. I've been pretty involved in a lot of different things through the years.
Speaker 3:I worked in social services, I've worked in the tourism industry, and now for the state of Alaska and been very involved in various recreational activities. I've coached for Park and Rec. I'm currently one of the coaches for the Juneau Ski Club and my son participates in multiple sports here in town.
Speaker 2:I grew up playing in Parks and Rec. Thank you so much for being a coach. That's a big deal. It's really nice to have you on the air Brock. Pat, please introduce yourself.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my name is Pat Race. I grew up here in Juneau, born and raised. My dad owned the Billiken Bar down in Douglas and mom was a storytime librarian at the Juneau Library for thirty three years. And yeah, and I own a comic shop and art gallery downtown called the Alaska Robotics Gallery. And I use a lot of facilities that we're trying to prop up here.
Speaker 4:I've, you know, used the pools quite a bit and the field house and love the hockey rink and the city museum. Obviously I like the arts programs and things like that that the city provides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we live in a really beautiful, vibrant city, and it takes a lot of wonderful things to make those wonderful, vibrant elements of our community happen. It takes volunteers, but also takes employees. It takes money and it takes time. So before we jump into it, everyone, this is a call in show. This is Problem Corner.
Speaker 2:You can call us in at (907) 586-1800, or you can text us. But if you text, please sign your text if you want people to know who you are because I don't have everyone's number saved. Or you can email us at air@kinyradio.com. We are gonna be trying to focus on our ballot initiatives that our guests are working on here for the first half of the show. So please, as our guests are talking, if you have any questions about the processes of balloting or of how we determine our mill rates or how we do our sales taxes or the impacts they have on our community and you wanna ask our guests questions, give us a call.
Speaker 2:(907) 586-1800. And I think I'd like to start by just sort of like helping lay out the timeline of what we're dealing with in Juneau right now. So last fall in October, there were a series of items on the ballot to vote on. And one of them was a mill rate cap at nine. Now the mill rate is the formula, let's say, that is used to determine sales tax.
Speaker 2:No. I'm sorry, not sales tax, property tax. My mistake. And then we also had a item on the ballot that took our 5% sales tax and stopped applying it to food, to groceries, and also to utilities for residences. Do I have that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Alright. Great. And then what we've been seeing here on this side of the New Year is that this is having big budget implications for our city, and we have some citizens here who are trying to change things back or balance it out in a different way. I would love to start with you, Pat. So let's talk about your ballot initiative to change the mill rate.
Speaker 2:Is it to change it back to what it was?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it just restores the cap. We've had a mill rate cap of 12 mills since 1995. This just we just go back to the normal, what we've all been used to for all that time. So I don't view it as a very radical or major change. The mill rate in Juneau has been historically as high as eighteen, twenty, 22 prior to 1970.
Speaker 4:And that, that as we started to bring in the sales tax, we were able to bring the property tax down. And in the nineties, they decided to put a cap in place to make sure there was kind of a ceiling on what the property tax could be. There were several people who opposed at the time, it barely passed then. So I was a little bit shocked when they lowered it to nine last year. And the big problem I see there is that now we're right up against that cap of nine mills.
Speaker 4:There's no variability. It doesn't give the city any headroom. If we have a particularly bad flood year, if we're talking about closing pools, if we're having an avalanche downtown, the city really doesn't have a lot of recourse aside from running a special election and putting something on the ballot, which can be especially time consuming and political process instead of just raising the mill rate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And just to clarify for our listeners or anyone who doesn't remember diligently reading their ballot last fall, a mil is correct me if I'm wrong, a thousandth of a percent?
Speaker 4:So a mil is like so like a millimeter is one one thousandth of a meter. Right. A mil is one one thousandth of your property tax.
Speaker 2:One one thousandth of your property tax. So when we say nine mills, we're talking about nine one thousandths of your property value. Yes. As a tax. We do have a call coming in.
Speaker 2:Hello. You are on Problem Corner. Do you have any questions for our guests here today? One hello? Oh, here we go.
Speaker 5:Hi. My name is Mel, and
Speaker 6:you're you're talking over me.
Speaker 2:I apologize, Mel. Please continue. What's your question?
Speaker 6:Okay. Okay. That's that's an echo. The the phone system isn't quite right yet, but I'll I'll try to get by. I think the most important thing when you're talking about taxes is what's going on.
Speaker 6:We're not I'm just talking about a basic tax to fund essential services. And I wonder why the Douglas Fire Department is subject to close. And I'll give you a reason. There was a confusion of ambulance service at assisted living and also at a building, Trillium Landing. And we had a medical emergency, which was anonymous about the incident, but we had to wait quite a while.
Speaker 6:I didn't bring it up to the fire fire department people because the ambulance had not arrived yet, but they had enough knowledge to to give medical help. Now why would they even consider shutting down the fire department services in Douglas? That's all I have. I'll let somebody else talk.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Mel. Really appreciate it. So I'm gonna answer this a little The reason why they would consider doing that is because there's been a big hit to the budget. Would you say that's correct?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So there's a 10 to $12,000,000 annual hole in the budget, and that's recurring funding. So we're talking about over ten years, that's $120,000,000 So pretty significant hole in the city budget that we're trying to fill. We've changed a tax structure that has been in place for over a quarter century, twenty five years. You know, we've had a 5% city sales tax and we've had about 12 mil cap and that's how it's been basically my entire adult life.
Speaker 4:We made a big change last year and now we're dealing with the repercussions of that. And so to my mind, I think we cut a little too far and the efforts that Brock and I are working on are trying to put some money back on the table and restore some stability for the for city funding.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's Pat Race, who's working on a ballot initiative to restore the mill cap to 12 mills, correct?
Speaker 3:That is correct.
Speaker 2:Alright. And so, Brock, let's talk about your ballot initiative. So yours is attesting the other change that went through in the fall on the last ballots where our 5% sales tax was removed from groceries and from residential utilities, correct?
Speaker 3:In part, in part. Okay. Really what we're looking to do is we're trying to ensure that recreation, both indoor and outdoor, in all of its various forms, you know, whether it's supporting trails, whether it's supporting the ice rink, whether it's supporting grants to needy athletes, It provides the assembly with two different things. One is a consistent source of funding, they can look to when they're going through their budgetary process. And two, it provides voter intent.
Speaker 3:Ballot initiatives cannot say, you have to spend your money this way, because that would take away the authority of the assembly to determine how they're going to create a budget and how they're going to fund that budget.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:But what it does do is create something that, there's been a lot of discussion for years about having a way to tax the tourism market, having a way to potentially bring in new revenue associated with tourism. The city can't tap into the head tax to support services like funding the ice rink and things like that. That's gone through litigation and it's been determined head tax money can't be used for those things. So this is a different way to potentially tap into a new source of revenue.
Speaker 4:Now, Brock, I want
Speaker 2:to interrupt you real quick. So what is the change that you're proposing in your initiative?
Speaker 3:Excellent. So we're proposing a seasonal sales tax of 1% in which we would go from 5% to 6% from the beginning of April going through the end of September, which is what we all consider to be tourism season. The revenue from that 1% period of time would go towards funding all of these various recreational facilities and activities and things like that, that historically have been the first thing that gets cut when there's problems with the budget.
Speaker 2:Got it. And so this would be a 1% sales tax increase. Now, what would be the things so this wouldn't change what is being taxed, which is what happened on the ballot before. This would just be taking the things that are still being taxed currently and increasing it by 1% for approximately half the year. Exactly.
Speaker 2:And so what are the things that are currently being taxed?
Speaker 3:So this would be for things like purchase of certain goods, whether it's going to Home Depot or go into buying a t shirt downtown, it's purchase of tours and things like that. I mean, it's things that we generally are going to pay for on a day to day basis, whether you're buying a six pack at the store or you're doing something else.
Speaker 2:And what's important too is that these are also things that tourists who are coming here to enjoy our wonderful place in the world will also be spending money on. So like items in shops downtown and tours, as you said, and I don't know, taxi rides, maybe things like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, things like that. And we've, what we've been able to do when we've broken down the math a little bit is we recognize that it's going to bring in approximately 7,000,000 additional dollars of which residents like ourselves, we will be paying a little bit more. We're gonna, we'll probably pay approximately $3.23400000 of that. But the rest of it is gonna be borne by the tourists, by tourists who are coming here during those six months.
Speaker 2:So a little bit less than half of what we'll make back will be from Juneau residents. We've got a call coming in. Just before I bring you on the oh, they just dropped off the phone. Feel free to call back. I was just letting Brock finish his thought before I brought you on the air.
Speaker 2:But if you still have another question for either of our guests, please give us a call back at (907) 586-1800. Yes, Pat.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And I just wanted to note that the, with the exemptions on food and home utilities, you're still with, with this 6% seasonal sales tax, you're still coming out ahead compared to a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Oh, we've got a call coming in. Hello. You're on the air with Problem Corner talking to Conor Lindro and Pat Race and Brock Taber. Do you have any questions for our guests today?
Speaker 7:Well, I don't have a question, but I have a comment.
Speaker 2:Alright.
Speaker 7:It seems to me that it doesn't matter whether it's the city, the state, or the federal government. I think the biggest problem is the people that are controlling the money have a spending problem. And if it was their own money and their own checkbook, it wouldn't wouldn't come out the same. There's been plenty of incidences with the city and borough of Juneau. It didn't even ask, but they they spent gobs and millions of dollars.
Speaker 7:And it's just it's just totally wasteful. And I guess the biggest thing that comes to my mind right now is a gondola. Yeah. Absolutely. My phone.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for calling in and letting us know your thoughts. And I don't think that you're alone, sir. I think there are a lot of people who are very frustrated with the city's spending, and I can only imagine the city themselves are very frustrated with their reduced ability to spend. I'd be curious. Pat and Brock out on the street, you're talking to a lot of people.
Speaker 2:You've been working really hard to get your signatures to try and get these ballot initiatives ready to be voted on. I've got two more calls coming in, but after I talk to one of them, I would love to hear what you've been hearing on the street. Hello. You're on the air with Problem Corner. Do you have a question for our guest today?
Speaker 8:No. Like the previous caller, I have a a couple of comments.
Speaker 2:That's what Problem Corner is for.
Speaker 8:The first one is I'm I'm sure that the folks that put this petition together are very well intentioned, but there's there's two main things that everybody needs to realize. First of all, the most important one probably is the fact that, well, it said that this is to save the pools, recreational things, and whatnot. It won't be dedicated to that. It just goes into the general coffers of the city. And they've already proven that they're too irresponsible with their money.
Speaker 8:So that extra money they get is not necessarily gonna stay to to do what it's intended for. They can do whatever pet project they wanna do. And the second comment is is this this tax would start on the April 1. It it basically parrots the one that was tried to pass last year as far as timing. Well, the irony of it is is there's almost no tourism comes in April anymore.
Speaker 8:The ships don't come till the end of April. So everybody in general is gonna be paying that 1%, and very little tourist money is gonna be covering it. So I thought that was rather ironic. And with those thoughts, I'll let you go.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for calling in. We really appreciate it. While YouTube and out pounding the pavement collecting that ink, have you been hearing similar sentiments from your fellow community members?
Speaker 4:Yeah, certainly. I think there's a great deal of frustration in the community about, you know, I hear the, I hear about the gondola, I hear about city hall. I think it's important to note that the, you know, the location that the city's in now is not very sustainable. You know, it's a 1940s fire station. We've got asbestos problems.
Speaker 4:They've got to go somewhere. It's nice to get everyone under one roof. I'm doing a remodel, whether it's at the Burns Building or at the, at one of the schools is going to cost money, but there's, but they're not purpose building a new facility. They're trying to upgrade an existing facility. And, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4:I think that on the city level, I think that we're, we're, we certainly make some mistakes, but like the thing like the gondola on the, on the size of an individual's budget, that's like having a KitchenAid sitting in the closet where you're like, Oh, I bought that and I was going to make a bunch of bread and it didn't work out. And I had to sell it at a loss. You know, I think that that's, there's some allowable inefficiency in city government and it's frustrating and we all hate it and I don't think we want to see it. And I think if there's someone that's bringing that inefficiency in, in some bad faith way, don't think they should be a city leader. I think we should vote them out.
Speaker 4:And I would note that there's two open seats on the assembly and I'd love for people to run for those seats and fill those seats with people that they think are going to make good responsible decisions. You know, I don't, there's, we're not talking about graft or corruption. We're talking about a couple of mistakes that have gone through the process and not quite rolled out the way people like. But yeah, I am hearing frustration. And so I think it's important that the city hear that.
Speaker 4:But I also think that when Brock and I show up with thousands of signatures from Juneau residents that say, you know, that are motivated by, we want to keep the pools, we want to keep the trails, we want to keep the ice rink, we want to keep the city museum. When we put that on the table, we say this is what we're hearing out there is that these are not services that anyone wants to lose. I think the city has to be responsive to that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I think that also the voters have to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I think Pat brought up a couple really good points. One thing that is important to mention is that I've heard a lot of a lot of comments about one time expenditures like the gondola, city hall, things like that. Those that's money that's going to be spent one time. Our intention is to address long term budget.
Speaker 3:We already recognize there's going to, there are very well going to be new checks and balances that are going to be in place and people are going to be spending much more time evaluating future expenditures by the, you know, by the assembly. What we're looking to do is fill this 10 to $12,000,000 hole. Yeah. The conversation about recreational facilities is going to happen again next year. It didn't end just because we were able to fund it this year, but unless we find additional revenue to start filling this hole and to start, you know, making sure that we have the sort of community that people want to live in, we're not going to be able to solve it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I'm going to jump in real quick. Gentlemen, I know I only have you for the first half of my show. We're coming up at the bottom of the hour. I would love if you have any parting requests of the community, any final thoughts you want to send out, what you think the most important part of your ballot is, anything that you want to have be sort of your final message.
Speaker 2:Brock, since you just spoke, Pat, if you want to take it away. And then Brock, we'll have you be our final voice. We go into our commercial break.
Speaker 4:Great. Yeah. I just, you know, it's completely unsustainable to spend down all of our savings. And so we need to figure out how to, how to have a balance, a revenue stream that balances and makes sense. We had that for twenty five years and, you know, I think we need to find a medium.
Speaker 4:The proposals that Brock and I put on the table, they're not radical, they're not extreme, a compromise. And I think that this is a compromise that we should all get on board with. If anyone's interested in signing the mill rate petition, we're still collecting signatures and we have an event this evening down at the Grizz Bar from 4PM to 7PM and come on down and listen to the Rain Dogs, have a beer, tell me what you think and sign my petition book.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Rain Dogs great music. This is a great cause. I go down and have a brew and maybe help put some money back in our city's pocket. Brock, what thoughts would you like to leave our listeners with before you both leave us today?
Speaker 3:So our intention is to make sure Juneau remains a livable community that is going to both keep and retain young families, attract new residents, and to help make this the most vibrant community we could possibly live in. Recreation is a fundamental component of that. It creates mental health, physical health, emotional health. We all enjoy it in all of its way, shapes, and forms, and we want to make sure that Juno remains a leader in having recreational facilities into the future.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Gentlemen, it's an absolute pleasure. It's been an honor to talk about these important local issues with my friends and neighbors. Thank you both so much for coming on the Thanks for having us. Good luck to you both and good luck at your events tonight, Pat.
Speaker 9:All
Speaker 2:right. Take care of y'all. All right, everyone. That is the bottom of the hour. I will see you very soon after these commercial breaks.
Speaker 1:Local owned and operated. KINY. The news you need. The music you love.
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Speaker 1:Now back to Problem Corner, where our community meets to talk, trade, and share.
Speaker 2:Hello all, and welcome back to Problem Corner. Our guests, Pat and Brock, have moved on into their busy day. So it's just me, Connor Lindrum, manning the phones and the mic. If you have any comments or questions about those two ballot initiatives, give a call in. I will do my best to summarize and answer any questions about what our guests were talking about.
Speaker 2:Our phone number is (907) 586-1800. Feel free to text or call. Works either way. And you can also email us air@kinyradio.com. And we got a couple of messages in over the text while our guests were here.
Speaker 2:I wanted to let our guests finish their thoughts before they left since we only had them for the first half of the show. But going back, I've got a few messages I'm gonna read out from our wonderful online texting service. So we got one right here. Hey, Problem Corner. I have a great idea.
Speaker 2:Why don't we move the city offices to Floyd Dryden? I know that you will say that ship has already sailed as we have tenants in Floyd Dryden and the city has already purchased the PFD Building. However, it seems those can be undone. The reason why I suggest this, I think that people at Juneau would be more prone to increase taxes if it looks as though our city leaders are tightening their own belt. We've got a call coming in.
Speaker 2:Hello. You're on the air with Problem Corner. How are you today?
Speaker 9:I'm good. And you?
Speaker 2:I'm great. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for asking. Do you have anything to hawk trade, do have any comments or questions?
Speaker 2:Anything you wanna talk about today?
Speaker 9:I'm just gonna comment that the gentleman who called during the first part of your show Mhmm. Said that the city has a spending problem. He's spot on. And the general public, the reason that we respond as we have and we voted is that the accountability to the public that has been disregarded. I mean, our votes and what we say should be spent and how it should be spent has not been respected nor followed.
Speaker 9:So these proposals and saying that outdoor and indoor recreation, that's kind of yeah. That's what everybody wants. But the biggest problem is you get taxes. And like he said, there's no real regulation once they have the freedom to make the choices. And so we just don't wanna give them so much money that they can make a choice that isn't in agreement to what we as the public have said.
Speaker 9:Interesting. That's my take on it. I think I'm speaking the same thing that the gentleman said before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I have a do you mind if I talk to you for a moment about this?
Speaker 9:You can ask questions. I'm not sure I have answers
Speaker 2:Sure. No. Totally. Absolutely. I just wanted to see if you had the time because sometimes people call like, I just have to say something.
Speaker 2:I gotta get off the phone. Anyways, I think it's really curious because I was having this thought as you were talking about this where do you think that when the ballot initiatives came up in the fall, and there were these things to vote on where you could reduce property tax and also reduce the number of things that sales tax was applied to, do you think that the mindset of the Juno voters was somewhat, like, punitive in the nature of, like, I need to reduce the amount of options that my city government has because I'm not trusting the way they're spending the money? Or do you think that the motivations for reducing those were more personal for being like, oh, this means more money in my pocket that I get to use when I go grocery shopping? And I'm not saying one's like right or wrong. I'm just curious because I I never thought of it that way as sort of voting in a way to sort of send a message to our local politicians.
Speaker 2:I've always really considered it just as sort of, like, people trying to think about what is, like, the best policy for going forward. I've never thought of it as a messaging platform.
Speaker 9:I'm no. I don't think that people voted to say, look what I can put in my pocket. I think people were tired of having the city government make decisions against their vote. And and so that's all that we have is our vote and what we say to the people who are leading us. We are the ones that that make you know, we're the ones who pick them to follow what we ask them to do as a community.
Speaker 9:And I think that the main problem and challenge that the city government just went, well, we're gonna do whatever we want. And it appeared and felt and has been exactly like that. So I don't think it was more what I put in my pocket house is gonna benefit me. I think they're like, benefit our entire community, do what the, you know, the general public asks. And if you can't do that, they're not gonna give you any money.
Speaker 9:It's kinda like your kid. You're not gonna give him a bunch of money if he's gonna go out and blow it on candy every day when
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 9:You told him he can't have candy.
Speaker 13:Sure.
Speaker 9:So that's that's my opinion.
Speaker 2:I think that's really interesting because, you know, honestly, the sentiment behind that, the idea that use your vote to send a message to your representatives is such a good one. Like, I really honestly love that. I guess we have another call coming in. Oh, they just stopped ringing. Feel free to call back if you want get in.
Speaker 2:I saw the light flashing. But to you who I'm talking to right now, do you think that the message has been sent now that, like, the city museum is being closed down and that these other services are in jeopardy? Do you think that with a message sent, now would be a time to sort of like go back? Like, just in the same way with the metaphor before, like, if you give your child money and they spend it unwisely, it's not like you decide to never give your child money again. You're just like, hey.
Speaker 2:You're not getting allowance for like this amount of time, so you learn your lesson. But at the end of the day, our city is still gonna be better off if it has more money to spend and do its services. Does that make sense?
Speaker 9:I think if our city spent the money that they had in a frugal and wise manner and that then the public would probably recant, but I don't know that our city government has learned and it's not a lesson, I would say, but I'm not sure that they are I don't think they're following exactly what the public is still asking them. Absolutely. And and if if they were, there wouldn't be such such a such a, you know, controversy. But I'll let somebody else talk because it sounds like you got calls right
Speaker 19:now.
Speaker 2:Do have another call. I really appreciate you sharing your viewpoints and sharing your voice with us. Thank you so much for calling in. Moving on to our next caller. Oh, they just went off the air.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry. Please call back in. Here we go. New caller on the air. Thank you for calling into Problem Corner and thank you for your patience if you've been on hold waiting to get on.
Speaker 2:I'm Connor. Do you have any questions or comments for today?
Speaker 20:Yes. I sure do. And thanks for taking the call. Thanks for your program. And glad you're back able to take calls.
Speaker 4:Oh, me too.
Speaker 20:Two things. First, I wanted to clarify or perhaps even correct something that one of your guests said, and then you said much the same thing
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 20:Just a moment ago. And and that is property taxes haven't gone down. The ballot measure didn't reduce property taxes, and nobody's property tax has gone down. And that's because assessments keep going up. Assess values keep going up.
Speaker 20:So reducing the cap on the mill rate hasn't reduced property taxes and very likely won't. Tax income to the CBJ will continue to grow because assessments. And then that relates to the second thing. We learned when the assembly had hearings on what they were gonna do just recently. We learned that that the by far, the largest property taxpayers here, the largest taxpayers that is, are the mines, the two mines that we're fortunate enough to have.
Speaker 20:And they'll pay the bulk of that 1% seasonal sales tax. And and already the amount of tax they're paying is extraordinary and prohibitive. And so to me, this excess taxation and particularly the waste of money on things like the Burns Building and cap and and Telephone Hill, and, of course, the the tram, the the Eagle Crest, gondola. Wasting money on that and and hitting our minds, with such huge amounts of money, to me, that becomes a capital move issue because Juno has a certain reputation anyway. And so hitting the mines, saying, well, they're here, so we're gonna tax the heck out of them.
Speaker 20:To me, that becomes a capital move issue too because so much of the state says, well, there you go. Juneau doesn't like mining. So that's all I had to say, but but I'm glad to answer any question you might have.
Speaker 2:You know, I've got another caller coming in, so thank you so much for your voice. I'm gonna let another person take up the airways. Thank you so much for calling in today. Hello. We've got another caller on the air.
Speaker 2:Oh, I just missed you. Feel free to call back in when you get a chance. And also thank you so much to our previous caller. Really appreciate you calling in. And so it's an interesting semantics point talking about the property tax not going down because the property values are increasing.
Speaker 2:So the idea that being though even though the percentage is smaller because the large another percentage being taken off of is bigger than the amount the city getting is the same. We've got another call coming in. Hello. You're on Problem Corner. Welcome.
Speaker 2:Oh, never mind. Another dropped call right there at the moment of hitting the button. Bad timing. It happens for everyone. But I think that when there is an increase in the property value, your city should be able to benefit from that.
Speaker 2:Hello. You're on the air with Problem Corner. How are you today?
Speaker 13:Oh, I'm doing good. I'm not calling from here, but I just wanna comment on that. On the what Gold Belt want to build a deal on Douglas Island. To me, you know, that's a replica of our native village. Natives never lived there.
Speaker 13:You know, you gotta understand, you know, that's And where they decide to build this to weather good can be good there. Know, there's sometimes there, Gary went back to June when we're trying to come home. You know, that's what I was thinking about. And my other comment was, since you guys are discussing stuff on June, what you guys are gonna do when you get the icebreaker. That's a big problem for you guys because you guys are gonna have to find a place for them to stay.
Speaker 9:And
Speaker 13:that's an issue to resolve first before you're the one. You gotta find a place for those people to stay. There's a lot of loss gonna be coming in on that.
Speaker 2:It's true.
Speaker 13:It's a of families.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much for calling in. I I think that that was much of the impetus behind trying to develop Telephone Hill was to sort of meet a housing intent for that icebreaker, though I'm not fully versed on that, but that's been what I have been hearing. Thank you so much for calling in.
Speaker 13:But listening to the when they're talking about your telephone, how much money the Junior's gonna spend to clean it out and then have some developer come in.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 13:That's another problem there. You know? That's a lot of money that wants to spend to demolish everything there to have something built there.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's true. Demolition is surprisingly I
Speaker 13:just thought I'd call in and bring that to you. Bring that up. And I'm not from Juneau, but I just listen to Problem Corner all the time.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening and being a loyal listener. We really appreciate you calling in. Your voice is valuable. Alright. The phone lines are open.
Speaker 2:Feel free to give us a call if you want to talk any more about the mill rate. Oh, we got two callers coming in. Alright. You beat the race, and you are on the air with Problem Corner. How are you today?
Speaker 21:Hey. Good. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm great. Thanks for calling in.
Speaker 21:Something totally off the subject that you're talking about. Love it. You know, Juno should be working out a partnership with the landfill to make that place a nicer place to live. I I've lived there for years. I don't live there anymore, but you can't even go for a ride out the Seine or, you know, way down past the ferry terminal without seeing trash.
Speaker 21:Just the the amount of money that the landfill charges is outrageous.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, the landfill is a big problem in a lot of ways because it's also running out of room. I I don't disagree with you about it being expensive, but I mostly like, I get I get really worried thinking about it just like it getting full because I don't know if what the plan is when there's no more room for that because that's that's that's coming soon, at least in like, you know, the lifespan of a city. And that makes me very nervous as a, you know, born and raised Juno person because there's a lot of trash, and it is heartbreaking. And it's it's a it's a problem.
Speaker 21:How how can, you know, locals be proud of the community when it's it's a dump? You know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I do always feel this, like, a big glow of pride when spring comes around and there's all the trash cleanup along the medians and stuff like that, which is such a weird, like, silver lining of being like, oh, the trash is so good because I get to feel proud of my community members when they pick it up. But yeah, no, I don't disagree.
Speaker 21:Yep. The city and borough should be working out in agreement. Anyhow, that's just my steer of the different direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. If anyone wants to talk more about the landfill, feel free to give us a call. Thank you so much for calling in, sir. I hope you have a great day.
Speaker 21:Okay. Thanks. You too.
Speaker 2:So I do wanna go back to a point that we had a caller make just a moment ago.
Speaker 7:Oh, but we've
Speaker 2:got another caller. Hello. You're on the air with Problem Corner. How are you today?
Speaker 5:Pretty good. They always do the exterior part of Juneau when they clean up. When they're gonna get underneath all the stairs and all the so look in the back of the building.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 5:Piles and piles of garbage. When when they're gonna clean up Stained road and get cheaper when they push their all their appliances off into the water.
Speaker 2:I do hate that people dump out the road. It's it's so upsetting out Thane and out north. It is so heartbreaking, and it's so infuriating to see just these piles of trash and, like, these appliances thrown out there and, like, glass everywhere,
Speaker 9:it
Speaker 2:is really it is really infuriating. You know, I I don't have any idea if there's any sort of a plan to have something for that. But, I mean, with the big budget hole and, like, the city having to cut back on so many services, there's very little hope in my mind that they're gonna be able to try and prioritize any trash cleanup like that as a city organization. It'd probably be up to, you know, the community. You might have to start organizing your own event and trying to get people together to
Speaker 5:do a trash parade. Be good if they could take a pressure wash to do some of the the way that it looks in the back because the the you just walk up walk up, you know, in between the buildings and you'll see.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 5:And, Josep Josep, we've had a fence over here over on Willoughby that has been broken for almost over twenty or more years.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 5:And it seems like they only do something after somebody has died from it.
Speaker 7:Yikes. So
Speaker 5:and they got tourists to go down there. They go down there. They don't realize that all that water that's underneath, it looks like concrete and this is dirty, but it's all slick.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 5:get washed down there. You know, it may not be much, but you may be down there at the wrong time and you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for calling in. Really appreciate it. If anyone out there wants to start getting together to help organizing some Fain and out the road trash pickup and cleanup, I know I would volunteer some time because it's it breaks my heart.
Speaker 2:And, hey, you know, if you're out there and you're considering putting some trash in your car and driving out to dump it on the beach today, please don't. That's a bummer. We got another call coming in. Hello. You're on the air with Problem Corner.
Speaker 2:Thanks for calling in.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Just real quick. I have my sales still going on. If you wanna know more about what I have for sale, give me a call at (907) 957-1673.
Speaker 2:Alright. (907) 957-1673. Can you tell us again what you have for sale for our loyal listeners?
Speaker 5:Oh, I already have a 21 speed bike. Front brakes need a little work, but, yeah, I've always known people really they don't like the front brakes very much. But, yeah, it's a it's a fine bike. Get a brand new seat. Got We got brand new we need
Speaker 6:a brand
Speaker 5:new seat on
Speaker 2:the bike. Anything else for sale?
Speaker 5:Yeah. And I got what you would call vintage VHS. Not not the the the shows you see on the Netflix and everything else because it's all been sanitized. Yeah. And I said, you know, you get you get to see forty eight hours and another forty eight hours unedited.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah. You wanna get on some vintage VHS? Give a call to (907) 957-1673. Thank you so much for calling in.
Speaker 2:We've got another caller on the line. Hello. You are on Problem Corner. Thank you so much for calling in.
Speaker 22:Hi there. I'm just calling because I'm so enjoying Problem Corner today. It's been so fun.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you.
Speaker 22:Hear people from yeah. You're doing a great job, and the guests were awesome, and people calling in have been great. And it's refreshing to hear people engaged with community topics, and I'm excited that these propositions have come forward whether or not they pass just because it's giving us all an opportunity to talk about how to run the city and I know that the assembly members are listening and I know there are two open assembly seats and who knows who's going to fill them. But how cool that we all get to be in conversation about these important financial topics. So yeah, thank you for providing a space for us to to speak.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for saying that. And I also really appreciate you bringing up Pat's point that there are two open seats. If you want to get involved and you want to have influence in the way that our city is run, it is I want people to call in. I want people to complain. This is Problem Corner, and I'm a big believer in voicing problems.
Speaker 2:I'm a big believer in communication and it does things don't get fixed if you don't talk about them. And I'm really glad that you I'm really honored to be a part of Problem Corner and be able to facilitate these conversations. But the next step is action. We talk, we must act. So if you know someone in the community that you trust them and you think that they should be involved in shaping the way our community is shaped, maybe be like, hey, you should run for the assembly.
Speaker 2:So thank you so much for calling in and for your kind words.
Speaker 22:Yeah. Keep it up.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. We've got another caller on the air. Hello. You are on Problem Corner. How are you today?
Speaker 13:Good. Hello? I just have a few yeah. I'm here.
Speaker 2:Okay. Great.
Speaker 13:I got a couple items. Sounds like the I don't I got a few items. Let's
Speaker 2:Excellent. What are you looking to sell?
Speaker 13:Oh, okay. I have the woman's it's like a not a mountain bike, but it's kinda like, it's got the skinny tires on it, you know, like like a 20 speed, I guess, 21 speed woman.
Speaker 6:In bike
Speaker 13:and a bike trailer to go with it and a jogging stroller as well.
Speaker 2:Okay. Jogging stroller.
Speaker 13:Of tires that one set is the two fifteen sixty r sixteen, and the other one's a two thirty five fifty r nineteen.
Speaker 2:Okay. Great. And where can people call to try and do a little commerce with you, sir?
Speaker 13:Oh, okay. 501-1471. That's it. Local.
Speaker 4:Okay. Great.
Speaker 13:97.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Give a call at 90750141471. If you are interested in buying a women's 21 speed bike, a jogging stroller, and a bike trailer, and also has a couple sets of tires for sale. I'm gonna go on to our next caller, but thank you so much for calling in today. Hello.
Speaker 2:You are on the air with Problem Corner. How are you today?
Speaker 13:Well, pretty good. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. We've got just a couple of minutes left on the air. I'd love to hear what's on your mind.
Speaker 13:Okay. I just would like to commend the assembly. It's they get a lot of bad publicity, and I think they're doing a hard job as well as they can and they need a little support once in a while. I just wanted to express that to them.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate that. I do think that it's very easy to just see the position and to forget the person, and it is very understandable. I I don't think that it is, like, you know, monstrous to be particularly critical of your leaders. And in fact, it is essential. But I think that especially the smaller the community gets, it is really important to sort of like try and hold the whole picture.
Speaker 2:Don't hold back from holding them accountable, but remember that they're people too, and that no one does better for you when you just beat them all the time. So thank you so much for calling to share that.
Speaker 13:Yeah. I just like to support them as much as I can. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you. Alright, everyone. We have just another minute or two on the air before we're getting off here. If anyone has any last minute messages they wanna share with the community, any birthdays or anything, give us a call.
Speaker 2:(907) 586-1800. And thank you again so much to Pat Race and to Brock Taber for coming in and talking about their ballot initiatives today. Tonight at the GrizzBar at, I believe, from four to six. Double check me on that community, but go down there if you want to sign the petition and revert our mill rate back to its original rate. I think that while our leaders need to do well on spending our money, I think that we still need to have money to spend for our city to function.
Speaker 2:It is 11:59 thirty on Tuesday, June 16. I'm Connor Lindstrom. It has been my pleasure to be your Problem Corner host. I will see you next week, and someone else will be on the air tomorrow. Thank you all so much.
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.