Juneau fills its airport, harbor and ski-area boards

In a city you can't drive to, the airport and the harbor aren't conveniences — they're the only ways in and out. Juneau, the only U.S. state capital with no road to the rest of the continent, reaches the world by plane and by boat, and at a special meeting on June 24 the Assembly quietly handed oversight of both to a fresh slate of unpaid volunteers.

The Assembly approved 11 residents to three citizen boards — the ones that watch over the airport, the docks and harbors, and the Eaglecrest ski area — each appointment passing without a single objection. "Seeing none, those appointments are made," said Assembly Member Paul Kelly, who chairs the Human Resources Committee and brought the names forward.

Five went to the Airport Board, the seven-member body that keeps watch over the field that is Juneau's air link to everywhere: David Epstein, Mike Newell, Jerry Godkin, Jordan Kessler, and Nolan Davis, who fills the seat reserved for airport tenants. They serve staggered three-year terms, set up so the whole board never turns over at once, and they serve for free.

Three more — Tyler Emerson, Shem Suter, and Steve Fox — joined the Docks and Harbors Board, which oversees the working waterfront where the cruise ships that bring more than a million visitors a season tie up alongside Juneau's fishing fleet. And three went to the board running Eaglecrest, the community-owned ski hill on Douglas Island: Kevin Krein, Sandy Hussain, and Sean O'Neill.

None of it took long, and none of it made news in the usual sense. But in a capital that leans on its runway and its docks the way other towns lean on their highways, it was the quiet machinery of a place keeping itself running — eleven people raising their hands to do it.