Video Clips

Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.

Clips from City and Borough of JuneauClear

Beth Weldon

“Thank you for all your work, because I do know that that is time-consuming to go through all those signatures.”

Juneau: June 18, 2026 Special Assembly Meeting · Jun 18, 2026

Beth Weldon

“this is a short meeting. We are adjourned. Thank you all for coming at noon.”

Juneau: June 18, 2026 Special Assembly Meeting · Jun 18, 2026

Speaker A

“Members typically attend 5 to 9 meetings per month with varying workloads throughout the year. Staying connected with the community, listening to residents, and addressing time-sensitive issues outside of regular meetings are also essential parts of the role. The assembly consists of 9 members: the mayor and 8 assembly members. 6 Members must reside in their elected districts, while 2 can live anywhere in the community.”

How To Run For Office In Juneau, Alaska · Jun 16, 2026

Speaker A

“All community members vote for all assembly seats, which include at least 3 positions on the ballot each year, with terms lasting 3 years. Members can serve up to 3 consecutive terms, and local elections are nonpartisan. To serve in the assembly, candidates must be: 18 or older, registered voters in Juneau, and residents for at least 1 year before the election. To run for office and appear on the ballot, candidates must file paperwork with the CBJ Clerk's Office in mid-June. July, including a declaration of candidacy and a nominating petition with at least 25 signatures.”

How To Run For Office In Juneau, Alaska · Jun 16, 2026

Speaker A

“They also need to file campaign and financial disclosures with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. Running for the assembly involves significant visibility and engagement with residents, events, and media on local issues. A successful campaign requires strong organization scheduling, fundraising, volunteers, and communications. Appointing a campaign treasurer for financial reporting to the Alaska Public Offices Commission is advisable.”

How To Run For Office In Juneau, Alaska · Jun 16, 2026

“there is no doubt that the cuts and reductions that we have made and have proposed to make, of which there were at least 34, probably more added after, have impacts. And that's just the reality of having less revenue to fund, and less recurring revenue, I will say, to fund recurring expenses.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“The assembly proposes to cut $261,000, and that's like a 39% reduction, I think.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“When I look at the things that we do have on our reduction list, you know, JDC, Travel Juno, Eagle Crest, and the City Museum being the big ones that we reduced here, my heart breaks.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“This ordinance also recognizes $525 million in forecasted revenue and $20 million in transfers from different, different fund balances.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“This ordinance appropriates $545 million for the entirety of the city and borough of Juneau's FY27 operating budget, excluding including the school district.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“we are looking down the barrel of an incredible amount of budget cuts next year, and we really do have to find the balance. I don't think it's going less, and I don't think it's removing the cap altogether, but I frankly would be comfortable with a higher number than 30 even.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“I would move to amend the amount from $30,000 to $50,000.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“I'd like to change that single item amount from $30,000 to $20,000”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“I added up what it would save us if we were to cut both pools, close both pools, the field house, Eagle Crest, fully close the museum, JDC, Travel Juno, eliminate the housing fund. Move the prosecution of misdemeanors to the state, get rid of taking care of our ball fields. That is $7 million. That is the scale that we are talking about.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“We set out to make reductions in services of at $2 million, and we did not meet that. And the way that we got our fund balance out of the negative numbers and back to a positive number was to eat into our CIP.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“our fund balance right now is one bad sales tax quarter away from having no funds to deal with our operating expenses, let alone a major natural disaster or other disaster.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“when I look at this one and I look at the taxpayers who will be affected, and I hold that on one hand, and I hold the, the what the public good would be if we removed this exemption, it is an easy decision for me because it would allow us to fund all of these things that people don't want to see defunded.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“Motion carries with 6 yeas and 3 nays.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“At this level of funding reduction, the museum would not be entirely closed to the public. Hours would be reduced, but there would still be some public hours.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

“We gave ourselves the task of cutting $2 million out of the budget, plus finding revenue of $2 million. We did not cut $2 million out of our budget. We barely scraped by with $1 million, and then we added a bunch of other things.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

Speaker A

“So with 2 different audit firms and it being a first time through for Bartlett's auditors, um, they had additional time that was needed for them to complete their audit. And because of that, because we didn't get Bartlett's final issued financial statements, then CBJ wasn't able to finish out some of their final allocations, specifically the internal service allocations, until we have both Bartlett and school district financial statements.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker B

“So typically by November 1st, with a kind of final draft around Thanksgiving time, and that allowed about 3 weeks before we tried to issue in mid-December to late December. And that was the timeframe that was followed for many years, essentially until COVID hit, and then we started running into delays”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“Bartlett's auditors issued one material weakness over financial reporting. It's on your screen. It is similar to what the city had last couple years in that basically there were design and implementation issues related to preparing for the audit. So essentially not having internal controls in place to make sure that the information was ready.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“The overall preparation has really improved. And so I don't want you to dwell on this. I want you to think about that you have an unmodified opinion, and that is what you want, right? So, so nothing led us to conclude that amounts were wrong in the financial statements as they were issued. It's just what we see is that there's some improvement that can be done over the reconciliation and review process.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“The second material weakness related to— I mentioned the lease receivable for the Harbors. We found that communication between Harbors and Finance was not sufficient and that there hadn't been adequate review of the variable leases.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“Again, based on those adjustments that we just went through, the reconciliations for debt issuance, tax accruals, and unearned revenue hadn't gone through sufficient review and hadn't been tied out. We call it tied out, but hadn't been reviewed and made sure that they agreed to the account balances in your system prior to providing them to us to audit.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“And then we found a calculation error in the sales and hotel tax accrual that was done at year-end, and it changed it by $2.7 million. So again, what we're looking for is large amounts that could change decision-making, right? And these are all larger amounts that are part of your financial statements.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“We did have what we call some material misstatements that were corrected as a result of our audit. To highlight quickly these, there was $10 million that was a timing thing. The bond was not issued till FY26, but it got recorded in '25.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“CBJ audits results. We also issued unmodified opinions over all opinion units. So again, I mentioned the different types of funds you have, so we're issuing multiple opinions on each of those reporting units or funds. We had two material weaknesses in internal controls and one significant deficiency.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“For the lease receivables and deferred inflows in Harbor Enterprise Fund, which also is included in the business type activities, we found that leases had been valued incorrectly. And I know this is something that finance is working on currently to correct, but we found about $8.6 million of lease receivable and deferred inflows.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

Speaker A

“I move that we introduce this ordinance set it for public hearing at the next regular assembly meeting and send it to the Finance Committee meeting, the June 3rd Finance Committee meeting for discussion. So this would still be on our June 8th regular meeting for public hearing, but we'd get an opportunity to chat about it next week.”

May 27, 2026 Special Assembly Meeting · May 27, 2026

Beth Weldon

“We may have inadvertently caused a double taxation that we just have to work with our our finance director and sales tax person to make sure that it's not what— I doubt that's what the intention of the assembly was, is to double tax something.”

May 27, 2026 Special Assembly Meeting · May 27, 2026

Speaker B

“I'm looking at the, you know, item in our packet from our most recent Assembly Finance Committee that shows our unrestricted projected unrestricted balance of our general fund at almost negative $1 million at the end of fiscal year '27.”

May 18, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · May 19, 2026

Speaker B

“The process the assembly has used to address the revenue shortfall has been divisive between user groups. I feel all of the facilities make Juneau livable and are needed and should be supported.”

May 18, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · May 19, 2026

Speaker B

“Without year-round recreation, decent public schools, and the sense of community these things bring Why would you stay if you have the means? That is why I support recreation and affordable housing grants.”

May 18, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · May 19, 2026

Beth Weldon

“I was one of the votes that voted for the gondola, but the 5 of us, because it was a 5-4 split, saw the handwriting on the wall with Eagle Crest. And here we are with Eagle Crest that we saw more and more general fund going into more and more subsidy.”

May 18, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · May 19, 2026

Beth Weldon

“I'm trying to do the job that we set ourselves up in the fall, so I'm looking for $2 million, so some of my cuts will seem harsh, but I'm also looking at them in service reductions. I'm not looking for them from the manager's budget.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Speaker A

“I will be making a case on June 8th that we, um, do something different on the revenue side so that we can reverse all of the hard decisions that we're going to make tonight.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Speaker A

“I know we will still get independent travelers here because we have a cruise industry that brings them to us. I know it won't be as many.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Speaker A

“we have been— the assembly has been conservative for many years, so we have had savings that can help us weather the storm, but I'm not sure we have begun to actually truly understand what the size of that deficit is. I mean, um, we mean the community. When we put together the list that that, um, we heard so much about from the community, that was a list of how to make up a $2 million deficit. We are looking at an $8 million deficit”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Speaker A

“I think in our current budget climate this year, and certainly next year, we have to decide what we're not going to do anymore as a community. Those are the choices before us, and I don't want to do things not well.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Beth Weldon

“hotel bed packs, they get $1,267,000-ish. Marine passenger fee, they get $614,000-ish.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Greg Smith

“I'm looking at their balances, you know, at one point It felt not long ago their fund balance was $30, $40-something million. Amended FY26 is potentially $64 million with a potential increase to the fund balance of $6,800,000.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Speaker B

“Amendment passes 5 ayes, 4 nays.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Neil Steininger

“You spoke to replace— potentially replacing some of this funding with marine passenger fees. Is it your intention to put forward another amendment later to our marine passenger fee budget, or is that a next year's marine passenger fee budget concept?”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Speaker A

“I believe strongly in what Travel Juno does. Um, I think making a cut of this size will be detrimental to our community. We know that marketing is always the first thing that gets cut, and then you see the results later down the line.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026

Speaker A

“if, if we were to not take action on any of the pending list items, and move forward the sales tax ordinances, we'd be looking at an operating deficit of $8 million.”

May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting · May 20, 2026