A forum was held on Thursday in Juneau by the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, candidates for school board and Assembly discussed their opinions on funding for education and staff retention as well as the need to construct a new city hall.
Three candidates are competing for two seat on the school board: Britteny Cioni-Haywood, David Noon and Paige Sipniewski. They spoke about the state’s funding system students’ enrollment, teacher retention.
Over the last few years, district officials across the state have been calling to have the increment in the basic allocation of students, part of a formula that decides the amount each district’s student population is received in state funds. The amount has not increased significantly since 2017, and the rise in inflation has driven up costs. In 2018 was the first time that it was the year that Alaska Legislature approved a one-time budget increase but Governor. Mike Dunleavy vetoed half of the increase. Then, most recently the department of education in the state was pursuing the school district over extra money it received from city.
School board member Paige Sipniewski said a funding increase should be tied to improvements in academics.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”If we’ve seen a decrease in enrollment, we shouldn’t continue to throw money at the issue,” she said. “We cannot argue for a $1000 increase to the BSA without any improvement in the test scores of our children and their education .”
However, candidate David Noon said improving academic performance requires the hiring and retention of instructors so that class sizes remain small, and they won’t be improved without funding.
“Without the increase in funding for schools we’ll be struggling to recruit and retain educators,” Noon said.
When asked about how the district would decide what books should be made available to the libraries Noon as well as Britteny Cioni-Haywood stated that they were satisfied about that district’s current policies. .
span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I believe it is important to have a broad selection of choices that children can choose from,” Cioni Haywood stated. “One thing about reading is that you need to feel connected to it. Therefore, providing choices for every child is essential.”
Sipniewski stated that she believes parents should be able to exercise the final say on what books are in libraries at schools.
Its style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I absolutely oppose any aspect of gender, sexuality religious beliefs, profanity, religion race, or drugswhen it comes to books for children in schools,” she said. “We have libraries that are open to the public. You can browse the books they have there, or their parents can do it if they would like their children to read in that .”
The candidates to Assembly Districts 1, 2 and were present at the forum.
Two candidates are competing in each district Assembly seat. Joe Geldhof is running against incumbent Alicia Hughes-Skandijs in District 1. David Morris is running against incumbent Christine Woll for District 2. Juneau residents are able to vote in any race on the ballot. The districts will be determined by where the candidates reside.
The city wants the voters to pay for a modern city council with the issue of a bond worth $27 million.. The voters rejected a bond proposal worth $35 million for the project in the past. This time around, the city is putting $10 million into the project in order to reduce the amount of bond down. They also spent $50,000 to help promote the project.
District 1 candidate Joe Geldhof said building a new city hall is a waste of public money.
span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”There’s plenty of talk in the Assembly and the public concerning housing and housing What will we do? We’re planning to build an entirely new city Hall,” he said.
However, the incumbent the city’s Alicia Hughes-Skandijs says that fixing the space that’s not suitable for the needs of all urban workers or then continuing to lease other office spaces does not make sense financially.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”And regarding housing one of the spaces that we’re renting might be returned to apartments for residents,” she said. “We’re going to use the public purse in any way. .”
Assembly participants also addressed the issue of turnover within Bartlett Regional Hospital leadership. In the last month, Bartlett CEO David Keith announced his retirement while Chief Financial Officer Sam Wise announced his resignation.
In-situ Christine Woll said the Assembly must help the hospital’s board of directors owned by the city.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”We’re fortunate to have a solid and stable board in Bartlett currently, however it is always a struggle to recruit members to be on public boards within our city.” She said. “We have to continue making sure we’ve got committed citizens who want to be on the board. .”
Woll’s opponent David Morris, agreed that the Assembly should be working closely with the board of the hospital. However, more generally, he claimed, he does not believe that the city should run an institution.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I think that the city shouldn’t have an medical center,”” He said. “I believe it should be a private institution .”
Some communities within Southeast Alaska have debated whether to run municipal hospitals or let for the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium to construct and run one in place.
The Thursday forum was the latest of a series of public events that feature municipal candidates. In addition, the Juneau League of Women Voters KTOO as well as The Juneau Empire Juneau Empire and KINY will host forums on Sept. 12, 13. The Chamber will be hosting candidates for the statewide Assembly seat in an event on Sept. 14.
