Editor’s note: This year the Chilkat Valley News partnered with KHNS on its election coverage in addition to hosting two candidate forums. Due to scheduling conflicts, the candidates for the mayor’s seat could not meet on stage at either of those forums, a Q&A with them will be published at a later date.
This interview transcript has been edited for clarity and grammar.
Jan, thank you for joining me in the KHNS Studio. You’re running for mayor this year. Introduce yourself and tell me why you’ve decided to run again.
My name is Jan Clayton Hill, and I’m a lifelong resident of Haines. I have a lot of history, family history, in this community on both sides of my family. My father was our native side, and we have generations of history there. My great grandparents on my mother’s side homesteaded Mud Bay in 1898, and I am fourth generation McCray at Mud Bay. So I have a lot of history in Haines.
I’m running for mayor because I like to serve my community, and this is an opportunity to do just that. And I know the job; I’ve done it four times. In my first experience as mayor, we were a third-class borough, so it was a (strong mayor) form of government at that time. I’ve stayed in tune with what’s going on in our community. I care dearly and deeply about what happens here and how we move forward. I see there are some opportunities. Maybe I can help with some lingering issues that were issues the last time I was the mayor, and sometimes we seem to hang on to those things for a while.
I have spent most of my adult life serving in different ways in this community. Years ago when I received my Lingít name, I didn’t know exactly what it meant. Over the years, I had asked many, many people, elders in Klukwan, and finally, I was in a discussion with Ed Warren, who actually was one of the people who gave me my name, and he told me that my name is interpreted to mean “one who serves.: So I thought that was very appropriate, and I like serving. I like volunteering in my community. I like participating. I like representing the community, and I believe I do a good job of that. I’ve maintained contact with many people that I’ve worked with over the years, and we’re all excited that I’m running for mayor again, and looking forward to an opportunity to work with some of those people.
You do have so much experience serving in borough government, and before, when we were third class borough. Do you think since you last served, do you feel like the town, this borough, has changed? Either with interpersonal dynamics or challenges we’re facing? Have you seen a different place?
I’ve seen some changes, and I’ve certainly seen challenges. You know, we’re all aware of certain challenges that we’ve had on different projects and things going on in our community, and some of them are what I’ve been referring to as lingering issues. These are things that I was dealing with six years ago, and we’re still dealing with it. And we need to figure out a better way to resolve those issues so that we move forward because we have many other things that we need to be working on. I just feel like my experience is valuable. I’ll use a little analogy of, I am just not ready to be put out on that iceberg yet. I’ve still got a lot of energy. I have the time to serve. I have the experience, and I just love this community that much.
Give me an idea of what some of those unfinished challenges might be.
The Lutak Dock is probably the main one. You know, when I left six years ago, we were ready to start building and had money. Then we had some changes. And granted, we had to deal with COVID. We had the slide. You know, tragedies in our community. Some of these delays were not able to be avoided, I guess, but I think that’s the main one.
Every term I’ve been mayor, I’ve had engineers tell me that that dock is going to fall into the bay at some point, and one engineer about 10 years ago even said to me, “It won’t take a big earthquake; it’ll just take the right one.” So I’m very concerned about that.
We have bear issues. We have conflicts all over. We have childcare issues. We have issues at our school, and these are all things I care about. I was raised here.
I went to school here all my life, and when I left Haines High School, I was ready to go to college, and I had a good background, and that’s what I’d like to see here. You know, our school numbers are down where they were in the 50s. There’s a reason for that, and part of it is we do not have year-round good-paying jobs for young families to be able to afford to live in Haines. I’m retired, and when I go to the grocery store, or I buy gas, or I go to the hardware store, I wonder how people with families are making it, and it concerns me.
We need to do better. We need to bring our young people home. Most of my family doesn’t live here anymore, and that’s very sad. This is not the community I thought I’d be retiring in, and I’d like to maybe help turn it around a little bit. I’ve got nieces and nephews that don’t live here because they can’t make a living here and raise their kids here, even though they would love to do that.
I hear you talking about these issues that I think a lot of people feel: Childcare, schools, jobs, Lutak Dock, you name it. We were talking before we started about the role of the mayor. What do you see as the job description of the mayor, and where can you put yourself into the process to make a difference?
The way I interpret the role of the mayor in this form of government is representing the community, running meetings, working with the manager to carry out the wishes of the assembly, and being that conduit between the assembly and the manager. And participating in the community and being an active member in, I mean, everything.
I think the mayor should be at ball games and be at all the community events and help with those events and we have a lot of opportunities here to celebrate our community. We don’t have to dwell on those lingering issues that we keep talking about. We need to find ways to celebrate the place that we live, and we’re blessed to live here. Trust me, we’ve all been somewhere else, and we all come back.
So I think that from my experience, I know that I represent our community well. I know this community. I have friends in every part of this community, which might surprise some people. I have worked in numerous different jobs, and one of the one of the proudest things I accomplished, I guess, was bringing Head Start to Haines, and that was a college project. And I just smile every time I drive by and see Head Start open and kids playing, and I go to graduation and all the fun things. Yeah. So I’m just an involved community member. I’ll help you do whatever you need help with if I can.
Do you have any dreams for things you want to see celebrating the community in the next couple years?
Well, a couple of times we had some pretty good celebrations, and I think that we might need to have a big community barbecue again on Main Street, where we closed it off, and we had live music. We took a community photo, which you can see in many buildings around town, and I think that we need to do more of those things. I think that we have new staff at the fair now, and there are some of us in this community that have been and participated at every fair since it started, and the Strawberry Festival before we had a fair. So I think that there are ways we can make our Southeast Alaska State Fair more of a regional fair again, and get other communities involved. And when you have people from all the communities in Southeast hopping on the ferry to come to the Hanes for the fair, that’s a celebration. I want to see that happen again.
I think we wrote about that in the newspaper. How you might be believed to be the most experienced fair goer.
I have never missed a fair.
Inside the assembly chambers, have you seen in the past year, or past three years, a way of legislating, a way of talking about things that you’d like to change? Are there things you want to hold onto that the current mayor has done?
My style in the assembly chambers is very strictly adhering to Robert’s Rules of Order, and that’s what I would do. It helps you run efficient meetings. One of the main reasons Robert’s Rules was created was to ensure that the minority at the table has an opportunity to speak and be heard, and I think that I think we need to go back to following Robert’s rules a lot closer than sometimes I have observed.
What about the types of topics the assembly has been spending time on?
I think the types of topics are okay, but I think that sometimes there is way too much discussion and it should be stopped. And similar to even this interview, if we were just going to sit here for the rest of the afternoon and talk, pretty soon we’re not really making good points. We’re just talking, and you know, many of us zoom into meetings or go to meetings, and those of us that are born and raised with Robert’s Rules of Order, it gets frustrating because meetings need to be run more efficiently.
I’m curious, especially for people who don’t know or aren’t as familiar with Robert’s Rules of Order, what does that look like for you as the person presiding over the meeting? What do you have to do to make sure the meetings move?
One of the best compliments I got when I first started being involved in community things: I was the president of the Chamber of Commerce, and we had a luncheon meeting at the American Legion. And after the meeting, John Schnabel came up to me and shook my hand and said, “Congratulations, you run a good meeting.” And I’ve hung on to that. That meant a lot to me.
I just think that the assembly can talk about any topic, and something that’s important to one particular assembly member might not matter to the rest of us, but it’s important to them, and we need to listen. But we need to listen appropriately, and not go down rabbit holes. I think everybody kind of understands what that means. I think Robert’s rules is difficult for people that that don’t practice them. Some of us have, you know, in different venues in our lives, been raised with Robert’s Rules of Order, and you’ll see them used in different ways. The basic rules allow for people to talk twice on a topic, and then you need to move on.
What do you mean by raised with Robert’s rules?
Well, the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood are famous for Robert’s Rules of Order, and they are the strictest users of Robert’s Rules of Order. They, the people that run those meetings, especially the conventions when they’re statewide, they keep those meetings in order and they follow them directly. There are no exceptions, and I was raised going to those kinds of meetings, and then you know we we had drama and debate in high school, and we ran meetings and we practiced things like that. I’ve participated in other organizations, you know, Southeast Conference and the Alaska Municipal League, and all the different things that you do when you’re involved in community affairs, and everybody uses Robert’s Rules of Order. I’ts not all the same, but I’m fairly strict with it, and it’s frustrating when people aren’t. But I understand everybody has their own style, that’s just mine, and I’m glad that I kind of grew up with strict meetings.
When you talk about all these different seats you’ve held, it reminds me you were, correct me if I’m wrong, you were recently elected as the Chilkoot Indian Association SEARHC delegate. Is that correct?
Well, I was. I have been in the past. I’m no longer okay. But I’ve been on the SEARHC board, I think total, probably 16 years. In the 80s I was the chair of the SEARHC board for several years. During some difficult times, one of our presidents had a heart attack as he was teaching a motorcycle safety class, and I was commuting back and forth to Juneau to help keep things moving forward.
Having held an elected position in the Chilkoot Indian Association — one thing I’ve kind of been following this year is, the borough has been trying to schedule these, I don’t know the official name, but some kind of intergovernmental meeting to coordinate between the three governments in the valley. Do do you have a vision for how shared governance works in the valley?
Years ago I was on the (Chilkoot Indian Association Tribal Council, and President for several years. Tribal government is different, even though we use Robert’s Rules in tribal government also. But I think it could be an advantage to get the two governments to, you know, talk more than they might.
I think I’ve seen some improvements in some areas and some collaboration, and I think that’s a good thing. It’s always a good thing when different groups of people in a community will talk and communicate, and you can walk away still disagreeing respectfully, and that’s okay. We learn from each other through, I think, conversation and disagreements. And if you and I disagree on something, Will, I might try my best to change your mind, and it may or may not work. And that’s okay. You can have your opinion. I have my opinion.
I talk to people from all walks of life in this community, and sometimes we agree, and sometimes we don’t. And then you just agree to disagree respectfully.
This is maybe a broad question, so let me know if it’s tough to answer. But when you talk to people around town, and you talk to people from different walks of life, do you hear people talk about a vision for where they want? You know, I think the economy is a big part, but just in general, you know, life in town, how people make money, how people spend their time. Do you hear a consistent vision for where people want this place to go in, say, 20 years?
Well, I think everybody here wants Haines to be successful. We want to be vibrant. We want to be able to be self-sufficient and take care of ourselves. It’s always been that way.
Growing up here, this was a blue-collar, hard working town. We were loggers and fishermen, and we were created in the gold rush too, and so mining is a part of our town. And I think everyone, everybody here, we need to get along. We need to work together.
We need to make our community so that people can afford to live here. First of all, I mean, right now that’s our huge challenge, but I think I hear a variety of ways to do that. People have their own idea of what a thriving community is. You know, for me, we need year round employment for people. One of my goals is, we need to provide so our young people can come back here. You hear so many kids graduating from high school and coming home for summer jobs, and wishing they could develop their career and come back here. Unless you’re, I guess, in the healthcare sector — with our new hospital, there’s going to be a lot of jobs available, and those are good paying jobs. We need to bring our young people back. This is a retirement community. We need to create a Haines, or recreate a Haines, that young people can come back to with their education and their skills and their families. We need to fill our school. You know, when I graduated, there were 18 graduates. Right now, we’re back down to that. That’s about how many kids we have graduating, and we should be thriving more than we are.
It’s interesting you bring up the age of the town. I wrote it down here. It’s the oldest median age of any borough in the state. Haines’ median age is 50.9, in the last census. Do you think the borough government can play a role in changing that, if you think it needs to be changed, and then what needs to happen?
I think this is a wonderful place to retire. And there are a lot of people that retire here, you know, even from Juneau that have spent their working lives coming here for recreation and for various events and reasons, and then when they were able to retire, they move to Haines and retire here, and I think that’s great.
But we need to find a balance between the fixed income and — there is nothing better than having retired people and young people living together. In Juneau at the Pioneer Home, they used to have a preschool in the building of the Juneau Pioneer Home. That is a wonderful experience for kids and for the elders that are in those places.
We could find that same balance here, and get our young families to come home. I’ve got nephews that would love to be living here and would have loved to raise their kids here, but couldn’t do it when you’re facing three or four kids and they’re all going to want to go to college or trade school. You got to make a living, and so I’d like to help find that balance, so that retired people are happy and comfortable and having a good life here, and young people are here also, keeping this a vibrant community with good-paying jobs and childcare available for working families, and good programs for our kids. I think this community does a great job with kids. You know, we have a lot of activities. And if you ever say you’re bored in Haines, I don’t know what to tell you because there are times when I have to juggle what I’m going to do every day, because there are so many things going on in this community, and that’s what makes it vibrant, it makes it alive, and hopefully attracts people to come here.
We have the fair, we have Dalton City. That’s an alive place. Now, some of us lived here when that was a movie set out at Jones Point, and that’s where I worked at the time. But I think that we just need to celebrate the things we agree on, and the things that will keep this community alive. And you can do that with old people and young people living together.
Why do you think the area, the community, doesn’t have more of these well-paying year-round jobs?
I think some of it is some of the people that have moved here don’t want some of the resource extraction jobs, or they’re nervous about those kinds of things.
Some of us, the ones that do support those kinds of jobs, I think a lot of us are the ones that grew up here with logging and fishing and even mining. I support responsible resource extraction, and I think that we can do it. And you know, the Palmer project isn’t even a mine yet, and it’s constantly getting beat up, and they offer tours. They want to meet with people. They want to show people what they’re doing, and sometimes they meet resistance. And we just need to figure out a way to support responsible projects like that. When the state of Alaska opens up areas for timber sales, we have a lot of logging families, a lot of families living here that came here when this was a logging community. Many of us grew up loading logs onto ships. I walked on logs in the water in Hydaburg for crying out loud. So, we just need those kinds of jobs back, and we need to do it responsibly. I care as much as anybody about the environment and the water and the rivers, but I believe that we can do these kinds of things responsibly, and I won’t support them if they’re not being responsible.
Do you feel like the main obstacle you see between where we’re at now and having more of those logging jobs and mining jobs is community opposition?
Yes, I do, and I understand it. I get it. But we’re not living in 1918 when bad things were happening in those industries. We’re all pretty dependent on electronics right now, and those materials come from mining, and I’d rather have mining being done in areas that have oversight and regulation and control than in places that don’t.
If it is community opposition, as opposed to say some kind of policy problem, it almost seems like a bigger challenge because you can’t just pass an ordinance to change people’s minds. Like you can with a policy problem. If you see that as a barrier to overcome, how do you start working on that problem?
I’m not focusing on any one industry, but I think education is critical. And many people will remember years ago we were doing mining forums to educate people, and we had people from all ideas coming to those, and I think they were valuable, but it takes a lot of work to put things like that together. I just think education, and again, sitting down and talking with each other over a cup of coffee, or you know, down on the beach, or wherever you’re comfortable, but taking advantage of things when these new industries come here and want to talk to us.
Let’s treat them respectfully and talk to them, and not poo-poo them. We had an opportunity to have really good cell service in this community, and that isn’t happening now. And that’s pretty sad to me that we can’t work together on things that are going to benefit the entire community, and I guess the challenge is to figure out how to have those conversations, and I’m going to put a lot of thought into that.
If for whatever reason these resource industry jobs don’t pan out, we don’t get more timber jobs or mining jobs, do you have hope for another option, another route for this community?
I will never give up hope. There is always going to be a future for this community, and I think we learned long ago that we have to be diversified, and right now we’re not real diversified. We’re pretty dependent on our visitor industry, which is okay. I worked in that industry also, and I love hanging out at the dock with the visitors. And I plan to do it again, but I think that we need to broaden our scope and bring in some other kinds of work. This year we have a boom in construction work going on on the highway. Those are good paying jobs. People are happy and they’re making good money. Well, pretty soon they’re going to be done working on the road, and those jobs will be going away again. So we need to start. We need to get creative and figure out ways to diversify, because tourism could go away tomorrow, and then what would we have?
I like your sentiment that you will never give up hope. I think people will be on board with that.
I am an eternal optimist for this community. I love it that much.
The other candidate for mayor is Doug Olerud. What’s something about Doug that you admire?
He’s a good businessman.
Thank you for taking the time. I know it’s a lot of effort to put yourself forward to run for office. So thank you for that, and thanks for joining us here.