Kodiak residents rally to preserve auditorium position amid school budget cuts

Over a dozen Kodiak residents attended the borough assembly work session Thursday night to defend the Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium technical director position. The position sits on the school district's potential cut list if the borough does not fully fund the district's budget request.

The auditorium is a borough-owned building that seats over 700 people. It hosts school performances, community theater, civic meetings, and professional touring acts. The position provides technical oversight, scheduling, safety coordination, and maintenance awareness for the facility.

Molly Miller, executive director of the Kodiak Arts Council, told the assembly the auditorium is down to one staffing position that covers at least two separate jobs: community school scheduling and auditorium technical direction. She warned that allowing the facility to fall below basic operating capacity before ongoing conversations about its management result in a sustainable plan would be costly to restore later.

"Once institutional knowledge, volunteer coordination, technical systems, and community use patterns are lost, they are very hard and costly to restore," Miller said.

Several speakers emphasized the auditorium's role beyond entertainment. Jill Miranda, a local resident, described the facility as a social connection hub, youth resource center, and public mental health investment in an isolated community where winters are long and dark.

"Social isolation is a major mental health risk in Alaska," Miranda said. "Access to the arts is preventative mental health care. Research consistently shows that participating in music, theater, dance, other live arts lowers stress hormones, improves mood, builds emotional resilience, and increases feelings of belonging."

Fred Vogel, a 60-year Kodiak resident, recalled when the state built the auditorium in 1986 with four employees handling different aspects of the building. He warned that without maintenance staff, the facility would deteriorate.

"There are hundreds of lights that need to be maintained," Vogel said. "There is a number of different safety issues that must be addressed and checked on a constant basis. If we do not have someone to do that it no longer becomes a usable facility."

Steve Belden, who moved to Kodiak five years ago after attending a sold-out Nutcracker performance, said the arts were the first to be cut when school budgets tighten. He compared the situation to Project 80s, when the state spent hundreds of millions on facilities across Alaska without funding long-term maintenance.

"If you don't fund the school district budget all the way, and if that position over there, that one maintenance position, is cut, all we're left with is volunteers, and we can only do so much," Belden said.