Departing Kodiak assemblyman warns: prepare for the Coast Guard boom

Dave Johnson used his last words as a Kodiak Island Borough assemblyman to deliver a warning: two Coast Guard icebreakers and the families that come with them are headed for Kodiak, and the borough can either get ready or squander the chance.

"We cannot view the arrival of these families and cutters as a routine military rotation," Johnson told the Assembly. His fear is that Kodiak isn't ready — and he pointed to Fairbanks as the cautionary tale. Johnson said he'd been told by a federal official that Fairbanks knew for years that new fighter jets were coming to Eielson Air Force Base but never built the housing to match, so the Air Force rotated crews through temporarily instead of stationing them there. "That is just such a wasted opportunity," he said.

Incoming Coast Guard families, he argued, will run the same math: strong schools, good healthcare, a community worth settling into. If the answer is no, he warned, service members will live in barracks and leave their families behind rather than put down roots.

And underneath it all, he kept circling back to the cost of living. As long as working families "spend $8 on a box of cereal and $300,000 on a 900-square-foot home," he said, housing should be elected officials' top priority — not a tourism economy built on low-wage seasonal jobs.

Johnson is leaving for personal reasons: he's relocating temporarily so his children can finish school elsewhere, though the family is keeping their Kodiak home and plans to return. In a nod to his longstanding opposition to short-term rentals, he said the house will go to a long-term renter, not a vacation listing.

The Assembly voted 6-0 Thursday to accept his resignation and sent him off with tributes to a long record of service — as a Coast Guardsman, a harbormaster, and a school board member. The best compliment for someone leaving a board, Mayor Jared Griffin said, is "that you made us better."

Now the borough has to fill the seat. Because more than 90 days remain in the term — which runs through October 2027 — borough code requires the Assembly to appoint a replacement rather than wait for an election. Applications go through borough clerk Nova Javier's office, and the Assembly plans to interview candidates and, if it can, name a successor at its July 16 meeting. It all lands in a busy stretch: Kodiak voters face three elections in three months, with the state primary August 18, the local municipal election October 6, and the general November 3.