The following includes edited excerpts of CVN interviews with this year’s mayoral candidates.
Jan Hill,70, is the incumbent who is serving her fourth term as Mayor. She was raised in Haines and earned a bachelor’s degree in early childcare education from Seattle Central Community College. She helped start the Haines Head Start preschool program and taught there for seven years. She is on the Alaska Municipal League Board of Directors and Southeast Conference Board of Directors. She is now retired.
Douglas Olerud, 51, served as an assembly and city council member for three terms. Olerud was raised in Haines and has a bachelor’s of science in history from the University of Washington. He later moved to Seattle where he worked in the management training program for Big 5 Sporting Goods until 1994 when he moved back to Haines and started working for the family business. He now owns and manages the Alaska Sport Shop.
How important is it to engage in assembly discussion?
Hill: I do not generally engage in a lot of talking because I think my role is to be a good listener, sort through what I hear and in the event that I have a vote I can make an educated or at least informed decision.
Olerud: I think it’s key. I think the assembly and the public should know how the Mayor feels on an issue so if it’s looking like it will be a tie they know how that will go. I feel I have experience and knowledge that has the potential to help the assembly reach its decisions.
What is the role of the mayor?
Hill: The role of the Mayor is to represent the community, run meetings, work with the assembly and to carry out the legislation that the assembly passes. One way I represent the community is my involvement in regional and state organizations. That allows me to have a lot of contacts through our region and state.
Olerud: I look at the Mayor‘s role as providing direction, leadership and as a conduit between the assembly, the manager and the community. This sets the tone for how the meetings are run, the dialogue between assembly, staff and the manager, and being the mouthpiece for the community as well as representing the community outside.
What distinguishes you from your opponent?
Hill: My experience. The connections I’ve made over the years with being involved with local politics. I’m connected to our region through Southeast Conference, the Southeast Conference board, and I have been president of Southeast Conference twice. Statewide, I’m involved and have gotten a vote of confidence from leaders to serve on the Alaska Municipal League Board of Directors, and I was the president of Alaska Conference of Mayors.
Olerud: I think my leadership style will be different than Jan’s. If people are making false statements in a meeting, they need to be called out for it. If people are making disparaging comments, they need to be held accountable for that at the meeting. I won’t be going to every single committee meeting. I don’t think the Mayor needs to do that. I think the Mayor needs to set a tone of what they expect and let people do their business.
Is social media more beneficial or harmful to civil discourse in Haines? How do you or will you use social media to communicate to the public?
Hill: Too many times people are reactive on social media rather than proactive, meaning I’m going to talk to somebody who has this information and perhaps I’ll be able to contribute more constructively to the conversation. It’s opinion on top of opinion and the longer that goes on the farther away from the truth the conversation goes.
Olerud: I think it’s harmful not just to Haines, but society in general. Haines has been known as a divisive community for a long time and I think social media just pushes us further apart. Once you start reading one side (via social media news feeds), that’s about all you’re going to get, the information the algorithms think you want to know. I don’t know how much social media I would use as Mayor. I don’t know if I would use it at all other than what the borough has for getting out information.
The firing of Bill Seward and Debra Schnabel have some similarities. During the time of Seward’s firing, you chastised the assembly for not giving him an opportunity to improve, yet you did not give that opportunity to Schnabel. Why?
Hill: I believe Debra was given the same chance. Assembly member Paul Rogers asked to have a meeting and he asked to have me there as a witness. He outlined the things he was concerned about, told her what he was going to do. She was fully aware of exactly what he was going to do. He gave her a choice (to resign) and she didn’t take it. Mr. Seward did not have that opportunity. He walked into a meeting cold.
The personnel committee kept delaying (Schnabel’s evaluation). It got to the point of frustration. The assembly took the heat for that and it wasn’t the assembly’s fault.
I think everyone deserves an evaluation. I was put on the spot and I had to make a decision. Once again, the assembly made a decision and we had information that we can’t share. I had to make a decision and I didn’t even really feel like I had time to think about it and I still believe I made the right decision.
What is your response to criticism that your family’s business isn’t taking enough precautions in regard to pandemic mitigation measures?
Olerud: I have customers who are more vocal to me who wish we were more stringent and require masks and I have customers who come in and complain about a customer who just left wearing a mask. Why can’t we just respect each others’ decisions?
I talked to two different doctors, two different nurses, a hospital administrator and people in mental health and laid out different scenarios of what we could do at the store. They all gave their feedback on the pluses and minuses of each one. That’s how we came up with our protocol here at the store, that we would stay open, allow curbside pickup for the people that wanted it. At first, we were having staff wear masks, but we eventually decided to let people make that decision on their own. We went with as much sanitizer as we could, one-way aisles for a few months when that was a (Centers for Disease Control) recommendation.
Provide an example of how you’ve compromised with people who have different values and political beliefs than your own.
Hill: When the library came to the assembly and wanted the approval for their library expansion process, I broke the tie in favor of that. My supporters, and even friends, were very unhappy with me because they didn’t think we needed that. As that project moved forward my mind was changed. It became a project that was bigger than I thought we could afford and I changed my mind. That was a tough decision because I wasn’t sure I supported the expansion. What I did support was the planning.
Olerud: The banning of smoking in public places. For a while, I was opposed to it. I didn’t think the government needed to get involved with that. Because of the information they were providing me from SEARHC, I thought ‘No this is something we should have a community vote on and see if it’s something the rest of the community agrees on.’ I voted to put it on the ballot so people could decide.
How should the borough keep open facilities like the museum, pool, Mosquito Lake Community Center, library and Chilkat Center with less revenue?
Hill: Many of our facilities rely on volunteers. I think the borough will very likely continue to support these facilities, but will not be able to do it at the levels we have in the past. We’re going to have to have volunteers who are willing to work hard. The Mosquito Lake Victory Garden; that’s a whole team of volunteers. That’s what makes those kinds of things work, especially in a time where funding is going to become more and more difficult. Community involvement is going to be key.
Olerud: I don’t know if we’re going to be able to keep all of those open with less revenue. It’s going to be a struggle. If we do keep them all open, it will probably not be at the same level of service that is currently there. That’s going to require a lot of people getting their heads together and looking at new and innovative ways of providing the service with less cost. There has to be a cost benefit analysis of each of them. You look at the number of people served. You look at the budget. You make decisions based on that. I’ve got experience over the years trying to make things happen on a low budget.
How does communication affect divisiveness in Haines?
Hill: I think some of our divide comes from people misunderstanding the roles of government and the roles of the individuals in that government. I think that comes from a lack of good communication. I’m sure I’ve contributed to some of the divisiveness, but I’ve also learned that listening is more important than talking. There comes a point when you just have to realize you are not going to change someone’s mind, but I think I’ve learned that if we can have respectful, calm discussions we can accomplish a lot. If we get caught up in anger, getting excited and emotional, we are our own worst enemy.
Sometimes we’re afraid to reach out to someone we feel doesn’t agree with us. That shouldn’t be the case. When we have questions of one another, that’s when it’s most critical that we reach out to help us gain an understanding.
Olerud: You go to meetings and you hear people talking about “those people” or “that group” or “them.” There shouldn’t be any of “that group” or “this group.” We’re all in this together. I run a family business. We don’t agree on everything, but we are able to sit down and have a civil conversation about things. We weigh the pluses and minuses. Not every decision is what I want, but if it’s what’s best for the family we get behind it and work 100 percent to go in that direction. There are too many people in Haines, who if something doesn’t go their way, immediately try to undermine the outcome.
We need to create an environment at the assembly level where everybody feels that their thoughts and ideas are being equally considered, that they’re not being just pushed aside, that there’s no predetermined outcome. We need to hold everybody accountable in the way they discuss their ideas.