Juneau: August 31, 2026 Assembly Committee of the Whole Worksession

My packet loads. I'll bring us to order.

All right, I call the Assembly Committee of the Whole for August 31st, 2026 to order at 6:11 PM.

Mr. Brooks, would you do the land acknowledgement, please? Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to acknowledge that the City and Borough of Juneau is on Tlingit land and wish to honor the indigenous people of this land. For more than 10,000 years, Alaska Native people have been and continue to be integral to the well-being of our community.

We are grateful to be in this place, a part of this community, and to honor the culture, traditions, and resilience of the Tlingit people. Goodish.

Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Madam Clerk, could you please note the roll? Thank you, Deputy Mayor Smith. We have Miss Adkinson online, everyone else in, in person, and we have quorum. Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Um, may I get a motion to approve the agenda? Wait, do we normally do that? Um, are there any changes to the agenda? Seeing none, that is approved. It's the minutes I need an approval for.

May I have a motion to approve the July 13th, 2026 minutes? Mr. Kelly. I move to approve the minutes for the July 13th, 2026 Assembly Committee meeting of the whole and ask unanimous consent. Seeing no objection, that motion is adopted. That brings us to our agenda topics.

Um, agenda topic number 1. Codifying negotiated 5 cruise ship limit. This is an ordinance introduced by a few of our members.

We have a memo from Visitor Direct— Visitor Industry Director Pierce, as well as City Attorney.

However, I might actually— unless, Madam Manager, if you want to say anything. If not, I think I'll actually— if it's all right, I'll just bring it to, um, any of the members who are wanting to introduce this and give us background and let us know what, what you're thinking. So, Miss Wall.

Thank you, Chair Smith. Um, I'll provide a little bit of my, um, kind of reason why, and Mr. Kelly and Miss Houskandis can add, um, from their perspectives if they would Um, first I want to say, I, I feel like my intent was not to relitigate the 5-ship limit. We have heard a lot of, I think, misinformation about what this ordinance would do. It wouldn't change anything about the current policy that we have in place that is well supported. Um, so same boundaries, same number of ships.

I heard some people say it was permanent. It's not permanent. It's an ordinance. It can be changed. It doesn't have any impact on Gold Belt's development or prevent that development.

This would be the exact same policy that we currently have in place. So, so that begs the question, why an ordinance?

And I think that question is really about who gets to set the limits on tourism in our community. Is it Juneau? Or is it the industry? Um, I'm pretty confident we have seen the numbers from our surveys that, that our community wants it to be Juneau that, that sets that limit of how much tourism, how does it grow? Um, you know, the survey every year says the majority of people from Juneau really appreciate tourism, um, and The majority of Juneau wants the city to do more to manage it.

That has been the trend over the time. Um, so why now?

People have always asked, well, why isn't Juneau in charge? Why is the industry in charge? And, and the answer I've had to give them always is because of the law. Because when, um, if we were to limit how much tourism we had in our community, um, we would get sued and we would lose. Um, a year ago we had the Bar Harbor decision.

Staff brought us, um, their assessment that, that we could, um, now talk about legislating limits because, um, because of that case law put us in a good position to do so. It's been a year. Um, we've had a busy year. We haven't gotten it to to it yet, but we felt like, well, I'll speak for myself, the 5-ship limit, which is supported by the community, supported by the industry, supported, has been supported by this body in the past, was a good place to start when it came to Juneau leading that decision-making. All right, I'll leave it there.

Any other member? Miss Candies, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Ms. Wall did a great job at speaking to the kind of holistic look of the reasons to bring this now and what this will do.

But I feel like knowing that it has that strong community support for the 5-ship limit, And then by putting it in ordinance, really formalizing that local control, um, is what this is about for me. And we did get this from staff a year ago, but we all know things take time. So it feels like a good time now to assert that local control with something that we know is working, that we got to collaboratively. So, That's my only thoughts. Thank you, Ms. Scandies.

Um, maybe if people have questions for the makers of, or the proposers of the ordinance, we could do those now. Um, then we can also, you know, ask questions of staff. And if anyone has questions specifically for the makers of the ordinance.

Mr. Seniger. Um, sure. And, and since you, you said you've had the, the ordinance drafted for, I think you say almost a year, is that I hear that correctly? Is that the—. Sure.

Um, staff brought the suggestion that we look at legislating limits a year ago after the Bar Harbor discussion. We, the 3 of us, asked the— oh, asked them to draft this. Actually, they did have a draft. I don't—. We reviewed it.

I don't know how long they drafted that ago, but a year ago we didn't have a draft that we were looking at.

Okay, then the question, why did you sit on it for a year other than timing? It's— yeah, okay.

I have a question just on something you said, Ms. Wall, just how people are maybe anyway saying that the industry is, you know, setting the limit or whatever. But didn't the Assembly direct staff to like negotiate a 5? I mean, didn't— I mean, we as the representative body of the community, we did drive that motion forward. So I guess I just kind of want to—. That is correct.

I think what, what I am trying to say is that, um, we— I heard when we passed that motion, there were people saying, well, maybe we should do less, maybe we should do more, but 5 is where we're at right now, and that seemed to be something we could bring into an agreement with the industry. We'd set that direction, but we wouldn't have gotten a signed MOU if the industry had said no. So both parties need to show up and this— to make those agreements happen. This legislation would require only one party, um, to, to make a decision.

Madam Mayor. Thank you. My question is, you have a 5-ship-a-day limit, but you didn't put anything about passengers-per-day limit. Can you address why you didn't?

I will say that by the time I chatted with staff and the co-sponsors, from my own perhaps time-limited perspective, this was something that what we knew was in place, knew was working, knew what our berthage, you know, actual hard infrastructure capacity is, that that seemed like an easier for us as a body to agree upon. There, so that's one aspect of it. Another aspect of it is, and you probably saw that a little bit in Attorney Wright's analysis, and if you've done any of your own reading on the Bar Harbor decision and the remanding, that a lot of this all comes down to data. And something— when I say hard infrastructure and capacity, there's just some, some pieces of data are easier to argue about. Some pieces of data are easier to present, um, in a compelling fashion.

So this seemed like an easy lift. That doesn't mean that future assemblies couldn't do more with passenger limits.

Mr. Senninger, it— have you felt any indication, or is there a concern that members of the industry are attempting to exceed the current limits that we have in place? You know, the— like, what— is there a reason that's driving the need to kind of harden that limit, I guess? You know, is there a concern that there may be pressure to go above 6, and if we don't take— or go above 5, up to 6. Yeah, go up to 6 above 5, that Do you feel like there's pressure coming to do so? You know, I guess, yeah, I see Ms. Wall's hand.

Thank you, Chair Smith. Um, I think there'll be a good, uh, question, uh, for Alex, but also about kind of her conversations. For me, um, a lot of this is less about what I know and more about community trust. The community does not trust that the industry does not want to grow beyond 5 ships. They hear some of the same things I do.

I, I just heard that the schedule for Sitka came out just recently. They've had an MOU in place for 2 years. They knew there'd be about 2 years of grace period for their MOU, which had visitor caps. And what I heard was their— the initial schedule has 23 days over their caps. And so that is out there.

People see that. They ask, tell me all the time, what does a voluntary agreement mean?

I'll ask one. I, when, you know, from my understanding, and I mean, people may have different perspectives. I mean, there— this has been seemingly a collaborative process. We've gotten, you know, agreement with the main lines. I guess, I guess I'm just kind of curious again, like, why seemingly we are— I hear your example of SICA, I guess, but if we are working well together, why, I guess, why legislate and maybe kind of I guess I don't want to say sour the relationship.

Anyway, I'm just, I'm just curious about like the timing of it. If we're, if we seem to be working well, what kind of signal does that, does that send?

If I think some of the, I guess I'll respond to a couple of things I heard in there. So you did say sour the relationship. So we are a city government. We're a home rule.

Government. So the way that we set conditions in our community is, you know, we pass ordinances. So that is typically how we interact with things. And it is great that we have this collaborative agreement that we got there with the industry. But I think for a government to do an ordinance, if that sours a relationship, then I would question personally how good the relationship was in the first place.

Um, I hearing, um, what Ms. Wall said about the Sitka example, I think this is just the method with which the city interacts and exerts local control. So I mean, I would argue, why do you legislate anything? You know, we could probably come to great collaboration with many of our community members, and yet we have laws and penalties and, you know, speeding limits and tickets and things like that, because again, that is kind of the language that government speaks. Um, and so I think that with something like this, which is just maintaining what already exists and has been working well, uh, once the case law was there to support us and that was upheld, then that puts us in a position to do something that I've been hearing the community ask us to do, uh, because it makes them feel, you know, more in control. So, Mr.

Brooks and then Miss Hall. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I—. There's something that worries me about, like, the intention is for addressing, um, you know, the mitigation issues that we're experiencing in the now.

And I just think too, you know, we're trying to use it as the means of controlling or, you know, holding an industry within confines that are to the best benefit of the community with the least amount of impacts. But if at any point in the future our, you know, dock or harbor infrastructure wasn't able to support what we currently do, could they then use this enshrined litigation as a means to being like, no, you're going to take our ships even though you don't have the capacities or facilities to.

Go ahead, Ms. Wall. I guess I think that's a good question for the attorney, um, about whether if we pass this ordinance, um, people could, um, sue us for not protecting our community enough? Is that what you're suggesting?

Uh, more so, um, you know, take action against us for not allowing 5 ships, even if we can't handle 5 ships for one reason or another, but it's in our, you know, ordinances at that point.

Madam Attorney, do you understand the question?

Not really, but I will say there is no scenario where you don't get sued in this. So, so, you know, I want to make that very clear. Someone is going to sue you at any level of this. So, so you have to think about— I'll direct you back to my memo, right? The dormant Commerce Clause, the Commerce Clause.

We are not talking about the Tonnage Clause. I know it's our favorite one that has to do with taxes, but this is the Commerce Clause. It belongs to the federal government. The power for these vessels is with the federal government, not local government. So if you're going to move it to local government, you need to say why.

Public health, public safety, public welfare. That's what you have to focus on and That's what you have to talk about. You're going to get sued no matter what, um, if you do, you know, if you're doing things like an ordinance. So, so just know that.

Miss Hall, or—. Yeah, um, or— well, okay, um, yeah, question for the makers of the motion. Um, with the Visitor Industry Task Force due to kind of wrap up and come forward with their recommendations later this fall, um, that seems like it's, you know, something that would be worth waiting for, or a respectful community process to, you know, to play out. Um, so I, I guess I'm a little curious about the timing.

Miss Scandies, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, Uh, Ms. Hall, I guess my response to that would be that it wasn't part of the Visitor Industry Task Force charge. The previous Visitor Industry Task Force ship limits and how the city should, uh, proceed was part of that VITF's charge, but this is in a totally separate category and it does not have to do with the work that VITIF II is currently working on.

I see the— I see Ms. Atkinson's hand either for a question or a response there. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was actually going to respond to Ms. Hall's question just as the chair of the Visitor Industry Task Force. We have specifically not taken up whether to put our current limits into code or not because that is really an assembly policy decision.

We've definitely talked talked about what to do in the future if we want to change those limits, what sort of data we would use, how we would analyze it, and that sort of thing. But as to current limits, whether they're MOU or code, that's not something the Visitor Industry Task Force is discussing.

I guess if no more questions for— and of course we can ask the makers of, or the proposers of the ordinance. Um, are there questions for Staff, or any questions at all? Go ahead, Mr. Steiner. Um, yeah, this is kind of a follow-up on something you said, Miss Wright, that as we contemplate this to make it legally defensible as an ordinance versus a voluntary agreement, um, you said we need to be able to clearly articulate why we're doing it, whether that's to, you know, impacts, you know, hard data.

One of the things we've talked about, the Visitor Industry Task Force, is what kind of data should we be collecting to justify and guide decisions in managing traffic, managing congestion, managing visitor loads. Do you feel like— and the hard— I realize, hard question— do you feel like you have hear enough data and information to adequately defend putting this forward, or do you feel like we need to do a better job of justifying the why?

Thank you for that question. So, um, having been a resident of Juneau for many years. We obviously have had this conversation as a community and debated it, and the Assembly has debated it. What I would tell you is I think that there are some portions that we absolutely have enough data to defend. We have the initiatives.

We know where the community fell on both sides, right? Benefits and burdens. Um, but if I look at what the judge looked at in Bar Harbor, I can't tell you. And I think this is also a question for— the information might be out there and I may just not have it. Um, we've spent a lot of time on citizens' ability to navigate and enjoy Juneau downtown.

We have spent a lot of time on congestion. I do not have data on the impact on EMS and fire. Hospital and medical responsiveness, the impact on our infrastructure and water and sewer. I can tell you that I know this summer we limited water to the cruise ships when there was construction being done to ensure that the community got water first, but I don't have good data on that. We certainly know that there's an impact on transportation and the buses.

That one? Clear. Um, and I do think I can make a good argument on the isolation and geographic concerns for our community. So I, I can't meet every single one of those. I cannot tell you that I could win a case if we were following, um, the same, uh, uh, analysis done in Bar Harbor if I was held to every piece of that standard.

No, I don't have that right now.

Ms. Wall. Can I ask specifically about the fire and EMS?

Do we, you know, as part of our collecting what the information that gets collected on how much we can take marine passenger fees and apply it towards that is what data goes into that?

I'm going to defer to the manager's office on that information.

We are going through that process right now with our consultant because we're updating that formula. And so, um, we, we only kind of have like general impact data on, you know, downtown calls. So we, we serve as a downtown ambulance with marine passenger fees. So those are the type of metrics that we use.

More broad metrics.

Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, just to follow up on that, so we're currently in the process of going over with our, um, with our consultant ways in that how that money can be spent from the, the head tax. We are currently engaging in not ways that money can be spent, but looking at all of the possible, all of the things that we think have an impact on passengers, have an impact on, and making sure we're right-sizing our charge of those services to marine passenger fees.

So it's, it's not the same, but it certainly is useful, useful data that we are going through that process to bring you guys a new formula and bring under that agreement, you know, that is a defensible formula.

Mr. Kelly, uh, just to follow up on that, um, in those conversations with the consultant, when are we expecting to have that information finalized?

Before we put together the budget for next year. So we are getting all of that information so that, like, in the December time frame, we can start building a, uh, um, manager's proposed budget to present to you in the spring. Thank you. Triple follow-up on that. Let's do it.

Uh, and just to clarify, uh, with the manager, we have an existing cost allocation formula that we have already done this work with consultants. This is just our updated one, correct? Correct. It's a best practice to redo that. I think we redo it every 3 years.

Great. Thank you.

I have one. Um, so this draft ordinance is, is obviously related to a number of ships, whereas my understanding of the Bar Harbor case was it was limiting number of passengers. Is that— does that, does that provide you any, like, anyway, I don't know what the legal implications for that are. Additionally, you know, as noted, you know, the Bar Harbor initiative passed where we've— where ours have failed and, you know, at the box or failed to get signatures. Do either of those things, you know, cause you legal— greater legal concern?

Thanks for that question. So I'll start with the first one, the passenger versus ship limits. If I look at the case, you can choose either or both. It doesn't concern me from a legal perspective here. They were in a different situation numbers-wise.

Bar Harbor ships, it was a lot, almost all the same cruise lines. And I'll note it was not the cruise lines who sued. It was the dock owners and some of the workers, the people, the pilots who pilot the vessels. The Bar Harbor Initiative dropped it from, dropped it to 1,000 passengers, which meant that a ship coming in could maybe only disembark half or a third of their passengers. So The way you have it now, I fully understand there are bigger cruise ships being built, but the way you have it now, you have that passenger limit and you're fine.

What was the second question? Oh, just about how, you know, the Bar Harbor— I mean, this kind of—. Oh, the initiative— because it was an initiative that passed, whereas ours have, you know, um, I don't think that it— I don't think from a legal perspective that really matters. It forced the issue faster for Bar Harbor than, than maybe it would for us. The way the judge— the, the judge spent a long time looking at whether there was a less burdensome way of implementing the limits, like recognizing that this was extremely difficult on the community of Bar Harbor, recognizing that, that these limits did in fact meet public safety, welfare, health concerns.

Um, he spent a long time thinking about whether their MOAs were less burdensome, and he still upheld the legislation that came through as an initiative. And I, I mean, I can't read his mind, but from the language, I think he said it clearly demonstrated that the community was fed up. Um, for us, it's been a close call, um, the last few initiatives. So, so I don't know how a judge would handle that. Thank you, Miss Wall.

Um, Mr.—. I think Mr. Steineger asked you the, the very kind of important question. I think you mentioned we'll probably get sued. Uh, we could get sued for anything at any time. For me, it's never, are we going to get sued?

It's, um, you know, what are our chances? You said, I can't tell you today that we would win. I'm assuming, based on my conversations with you and staff over the last 6 months, you also can't say that we're going to lose, right? Like, characterize your risk for—. Please.

Um, that's, that's a— I, you know, I'll give you the lawyer answer of, right, it's a 50/50. I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if we would win. I don't know if we would lose. What I can tell you is, as a community, we have addressed some of these things.

As a community, we haven't. If I go to court, I rely on the initiatives that came in. I rely on conversations that you had. I rely on all of the testimony at VITIF 1 and VITIF 2. So that's what I'm depending on to support decisions being made.

And, you know, in general, this was the first— so this case comes out of the First Circuit in Maine, tends to be a fairly liberal circuit. We are in the Ninth Circuit. We are in the most liberal circuit. Right. And so If we were in the Fifth Circuit, we would 100% lose.

But I think it will be a close call again because the U.S. Constitution reserves this right to the federal government. And so there's always this push and pull of why we're doing it.

Mr. Senator. Thank you. Yeah, you can't tell us if we're gonna win or lose, but I'm curious, can you tell us how much Bar Harbor spent on their legal defense?

Sure. So Bar Harbor right now, Bar Harbor is reporting it took about 3 years of fighting. They spent about $1 million, but I will note they won, right? So if you lose, you typically have to pay the other side a portion of the other side's attorney's fees. And so You know, it could, it probably could range in the, you know, $1 to $4 million range to do this depending.

Mr. Senator, follow-up. Is that allowable towards head tax?

So I will say, so when we were sued by CLIA, there was some money that was paid for. However, I would note that in this situation, I can't— the cruise lines didn't sue in Bar Harbor. The dock owners and the pilots sued, and so that would be general litigation funds, not head tax. Ms. Wall, Ms. Candice. Sorry, go ahead.

Follow-up: if it was the same litigants in this case, you mean? If it was the same litigants, we would make the same argument. So if CLIA, if the cruise line sued us, we would make this, we would make the argument that head tax should cover some as well. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Um, uh, Ms. Wright, the reading your memo, not being a lawyer, the thing that kind of caught my attention was like this idea of burden that, you know, we have to show that legislating is the least burdensome way to do this.

And one, I think, big difference between this case and Bar Harbor is We are legislating a limit that has already been broadly agreed upon, and so I would argue as a non-lawyer that there's no burden being placed right now unless you are— unless whoever's suing you is hoping to grow beyond 5 ships. Do we—. When we say we're going to get sued, do we expect that we're going to be litigated by— that's a success— a more successful litigant would be someone who is saying we should be able to grow as opposed to someone who's saying you shouldn't be able to have a 5-ship limit.

I think that's a really good point. I think that, that, you know, that it's likely why I would anticipate, you know, litigation from, you know, people whose jobs are tied to the, maybe the dock industry or the cruise line industry. We have a lot of people, you know, we have pilots, we have longshoremen, we have people proposing a new dock on the backside of Douglas. There were conversations at VITIF 1 as to the boundaries of where those 5 ships should be.

So yes, I would agree with that.

See no other questions. Um, what was the question? Comments or motion? Comments or motion? Let's try a motion.

Oh, oh, you need a motion to make comments. Sorry, go ahead, question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, this would be for the attorney.

If you're going to, um, defend the municipality, does it make your defense more, um, solid if this type of thing is passed through an initiative as opposed to an ordinance?

Um, thanks for that question. I don't think that it matters either way. I think the most important part is the community conversation about why we're doing it, um, and, and that benefit burden assessment as a community. Um, that's the most important part for me.

Let's see any other questions. Anyone want to go for a motion?

Miss Euskandi. I would move that we forward the Cal Forward Ordinance, uh, 2026-39 to the full assembly, and I ask unanimous consent.

Yes, I just want to object for a quick question. Did not—. Of course, we, we suggested the language, but it didn't already get sent for public hearing. It just got sent to the committee. Is that correct?

That's correct. Okay, thanks.

Very good. I'm seeing at least one objection. Um, Madam Mayor.

Ah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll object for purposes of amendment. So, um, my amendment— first of all, thank you guys for bringing this forward, and I understand the time constraint you ladies have.