KCAW

The City of Sitka is continuing to brainstorm solutions to the island’s childcare shortage. In a special work session Tuesday night (6-16-26), the assembly decided to move forward with an option from a recently completed childcare study. It’s estimated to cost about $1 million a year. 

But assembly members still need to refine what they want in the plan before figuring out how to pay for it. 

Sitka has been grappling with the issue of childcare for years now: There aren’t enough options, it’s expensive for families already struggling with increasing daily costs, and there simply aren’t enough people working in childcare to expand capacity. 

The city decided to do something about it, and in January, hired a regional education nonprofit to write a report about the barriers to childcare and suggest possible solutions. Blue Shibler with the Southeast Childhood Collective released the 30-page report in March, and now the city is figuring out what to do next. 

“I think [Shibler] did a pretty good job of finding answers, or at least giving us some clarity as to what’s available and what isn’t, and some ideas about how we might move forward,” Assembly Member Tim Pike said at the June 16 meeting.

He said the city started its childcare discussion with three main goals in mind: To increase capacity, stop the rise in childcare costs for parents, and maintain the viability of existing childcare facilities in town.  

“My goal tonight is to see if we, as a group, can come up with what Sitka’s plan for childcare looks like going forward, so that we can see whether that matches what the community wants and/or needs, and also [have] a conversation as to how we figure out how to pay for that,” he added.

Eight community members spoke at the meeting, saying there’s a dire need for childcare solutions in Sitka. 

Dr. Kimberly Capp is a local pediatrician. She said childcare centers and programs like Head Start are important for children’s safety and for catching developmental disabilities. She said while the city, the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, and Sitka Tribe of Alaska all continue to have meetings about childcare, no one wants to “own” the issue, and it’s time for that to change. 

“People are willing to pay for childcare, they just can’t pay more than they make,” Capp said. “So count the fees, count the possibility of grant partnerships or things like that, use the resources you have for excellent childcare in the limited spaces that exist, and help them help you expand.”

Patricia Bauder manages Avis Alaska Car Rental at the airport. She said they’ve lost several employees due to the lack of childcare options in Sitka, and it’s negatively impacted their business. She said the city needs to be involved in a solution, and suggested it provide subsidies to both families and childcare providers. She also pointed to a proposal in New York City that would tax high-value second homes to fund city programs, including expanding affordable childcare. 

“It’s difficult to attract people in the business of childcare because they’re not paid enough, and if you pay them what they’re worth, then parents can’t afford the cost of childcare,” she said.

Erin Clay moved to Sitka with her husband in 2014. She said finding childcare has been a continual stresser on her family since their four-year-old son was born, and that it’s affected her ability to work outside of the home. She said the system’s flawed, and suggested funding a career pathway for youth. 

“One of the biggest challenges that we’ve found is the turnover,” she said. “He’s had great caregivers, but they can make more money cleaning Airbnbs, which feels really broken.”

Assembly Member Katie Riley thanked the community for showing up. She said she thinks a “phased approach” is the best way to tackle the issue, and suggested filling Sitka’s existing facilities and stabilizing the system before trying to expand it. 

“There are not many problems that you can just throw money at and they get better, but this really seems like one of them, and that’s a unique opportunity,” Riley said.

Pike said the city could continue to study and study and study this problem, but it’s time for action. He said there are a lot of things the city asks the community to invest in because Sitkans want their lights to turn on and their roads to be paved. He said this is no different than that, and the city is going to ask the community whether or not they want to invest in their kids. 

“Is it going to cost people? Yeah. Is that a question that should be asked on a ballot? Absolutely,” he said. “We want the people of the community to tell us whether or not they want to invest in kids. I think everybody up here says this is good. Everybody in the room here says this is a really important thing, but the community is going to have to step up. It’s going to have to spend money, and they’re going to have to say, ‘This is important.’”

Ultimately, assembly members agreed to move forward with the report’s Program Option 3, a blended model which combines three strategies, including workforce incentives, per-child operating grants, and a family affordability component, which is estimated to cost about $1 million. They also unanimously expressed support for adding a workforce development component for youth into the plan.

The assembly plans to hold another work session on the issue in the coming months to hash out how to pay for it before putting the issue before voters. 

A collection of historic finds rests in the bed of Buck Santistevan’s pick-up truck. Donning a neon vest and hard hat, they point out the items they have found so far.

“That’s the exhaust. This is the mooring chain. That’s the keyhole anchor.”

Each of these objects were buried under decades of sand and mud packed down by tides along Sitka’s coast. They’re coated in chunks of rust, except for a shiny, galvanized hubcap from a 1940s Oldsmobile Santistevan picks up from the truck bed.

“I mean, for having been in the water for probably 70-ish years, it looks pretty good, doesn’t it? Good job, Oldsmobile,” they say as they place the hunk of metal back down.

Santistevan is the archeologist on site for the Alaska Department of Transportation’s extension of the Sitka Seawalk. The pedestrian walkway runs alongside Crescent Harbor and through the heart of downtown. When construction wraps on this phase, it will stretch from the library to the O’Connell Bridge, but in the meantime Santistevan is keeping a close watch below the surface.

“If they punch a hole in the ground — whether it’s with a teaspoon, a shovel, or a giant bucket excavator — I’m here to put eyes on every single scoop that comes out,” they say.

Santistevan is there to observe changes in color or composition of the soil in the intertidal zone. Discontinuities can point to an artifact, like what’s sitting in their truck bed.

“As the project archeologist, I have the authority to say, ‘Hey, I want to monitor here,’ or ‘Hey, I know we’re supposed to monitor here, but in this context, I don’t see that we’re going to find anything else, so I don’t need to monitor anymore.'”

There are five areas Santistevan has to monitor. They say this land is like a layer cake with slices of Tlingit, Russian, American, and military history.

“When I get up and come to work every day, and I’m standing in this ancient and dramatic landscape, I just feel so lucky,” they say. “But it’s not really luck, is it? It’s hard work.”

It’s hard work, but also the consequence of trying something new. In college, Santistevan studied literature. After completing their required courses, they still needed a few general electives. On a whim, they chose Anthropology 101.

“The Kool-Aid is very strong in there. I was absolutely captivated.”

They remember the day their professor chiseled obsidian into an arrowhead using antlers and leather. This is an ancient process known as flintknapping.

“It blew my mind that I was watching this guy do something that people had been doing for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.”

Santistevan quickly declared anthropology as their second major. While still an undergrad, they joined a graduate student doing archeology research at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil. That researcher advised Santistevan to pursue a master’s degree, and eventually a PhD, in archaeology at the University of Florida.

“I don’t know how I ended up at a tropical university doing work in the tropics,” Santistevan says, “because I don’t like heat and I don’t like bugs.”

Santistevan prefers the cool climate of the Pacific Northwest. But after working as a contractor for 20 years, it might be time for a change.

They recall the years they spent on site, “standing out in the sideways driving rain with 14 layers on, shivering, my teeth chattering, thinking to myself one day it won’t be me, I’ll be able to hire somebody to come out here and do this for me.”

Santistevan says they want to continue to manage their contracting company but they also have their sights set on opening a bakery. They’d sell pão de queijo, a Brazilian cheese bread they ate when working in the Amazon, but incorporate flavors of the Pacific Northwest like marionberry.

When they’re not working, Santistevan is experimenting with new recipes or writing. Archeology requires documenting, analyzing, and reporting any findings to different stakeholders. But Santistevan also dabbles in creative writing and poetry, and they can’t help but notice the parallels.

“Even if I’m just pulling up an Oldsmobile hubcap over here, there’s a whole story around that goes for hundreds of years and sometimes thousands of years in each direction,” they say.

Whether Santistevan is studying a construction site or penning their next poem, they love to craft stories from the things they dig up.

The Mirage is the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association’s (ALFA) first hybrid electric fishing vessel. With rising fuel prices, the hybrid engine seeks to make fishing more cost- and energy-efficient. Lauren Howard, a policy coordinator at ALFA, and Ben Matthys, a marine electrician at Southeast Sparks, join KCAW to discuss how the hybrid engine came to be and the changes it’s already making on the fishing experience. Sitkans are invited to see The Mirage from 1-4 p.m. on June 20 at Eliason Harbor. Listen to the conversation here:

Jeff Budd joins KCAW to talk about the upcoming Old, Unique Car, and Tiny Truck Parade. The name of Sitka’s annual car parade is a bit longer this year, inviting more unusual or antique vehicles to join the procession. The parade will start at at Whale Park on July 4 at 10 a.m. Listen to the conversation here:

The Greater Sitka Arts Council is requesting design proposals for multiple murals to sprawl across businesses downtown. XtraTuf is sponsoring this project, which they are calling “Boots on the Ground.” Bette Gray from the Sitka Public Art Subcommittee and Zach Castagnola from XtraTuf join KCAW to discuss their plans for the murals and how southeast artists can submit their ideas. Design proposals are due August 1. Listen to the conversation here:

Aurora Randolph wades in the center of the deep end of the Blatchley Middle School pool. Over by the pool’s edge, one of Randolph’s students takes a deep breath before swimming toward her. She watches closely. 

“You kept that form perfect the whole time,” she tells the student. “That was great.”

But she’s not leading a Blatchley Middle School swim practice. This is an adult mermaid class.

After an hour, Randolph tells her students to take a breather. “Get some water, stretch your legs out, stretch your ankles out, make sure they’re feeling good.”

The mer-students need a stretch because they’re probably not used to swimming this way. After a 10-minute break, it’s time to slide into their gear and head back to the deep end. The swimmers slip their feet into monofins. They’re like a pair of flippers except their feet are bound together by a piece of rubber shaped like a dolphin tail. 

Randolph describes the next step of suitting up like “trying to put on pants when you don’t want to get the pant leg wet.”

She bunches up a thin spandex sleeve speckled with scales and pulls it over her fins. Her tail shimmers with a mosaic of pinks, purples, and blues with frills flowing from the tail’s fluke. 

“We’ve been kind of joking at the pool that I am now a professor of the mermaid arts at the pool for Mermaid Academy,” she says.

Randolph works for the city’s Parks and Recreation Division. Last week, she taught kids how to swim with mermaid tails. 

“And then a few people reached out that were like, ‘Is there an age limit on the kid class?’”

Erika Apathy was one of those people. She wanted to try something she’d never done before, and mermaid class seemed just the thing. Apathy says she swam when she was in school, “but it’s totally different, right, to have your feet kind of stuck together.”

During their first lesson, Randolph focused on basic mermaid mechanics: how to properly propel and quickly ditch their tails in case something went wrong. Now, her students look to master the artistry of pencil dives, tail flips, and bubble kisses.  

“You’re going to take a nice big breath, you’re going to go down, and then you’re just going to blow out all those bubbles and push them out to the world like this,” she explains.

The pool goes quiet as the students dunk their heads below the surface to watch Randolph’s underwater demonstration through their goggles. 

“Water is probably gonna go up your nose on this one,” she warns after coming back up for air. 

Randolph says mermaiding is as much a technical sport as it is an art form. And after two days of two-hour classes, her students seem to have mastered both aspects. 

“Now we have graduates of Mermaid Academy,” Randolph says. “Class of summer 2026 and the start of the official Sitka Southeast Mermaid Pod.”

One of those graduates is Ashlynn Emanoff. She says she signed up for the adult mermaid class after seeing how much fun her younger sister had during the kids’ session. Now, they have a new way to spend time together. 

“That was one of the first things [my sister] said once her class was finished,” Emanoff says. “She said, ‘We can swim together, and oh, it was so cute.”

Randolph says she’s been a mermaid for a decade, mostly in warmer places, like Florida and St. Croix. Whether she’s swimming in springs or scuba diving next to sea turtles, she has always felt most at home in the water.

“Being a mermaid feels so correct in the most magical way possible for me.”

Sitka’s new mermaids glide back to the shallow end, take off their tails, and hop out of the pool. As they head to the locker room, Randolph’s glad she invited them to be part of her world. 

Hailing from Greece, Katerina Chatzinikolau was named the first woman concertmaster in her country’s history. After meeting Sitka Music Festival Director Zuill Bailey in Athens three years ago, violinist Chatzinikolau finally makes her way to Sitka for the festival’s 55th season. Bailey and Chatzinikolau join KCAW to share what performances are coming up and what music means to Chatzinikolau. Listen to the conversation here:

Bill Hill- “My name is Bill Hill, lifelong Alaskan, Dena’ina Athabaskan, and I’m from Naknek, out in Bristol Bay, home of the greatest sockeye salmon run in the world…had some interesting looks when I said that here today earlier.”

KCAW- “From our fishing fleet?”

Hill- “Yes, sockeye salmon run in the world!“

Bill Hill has worked as a commercial fisherman for decades. He runs a small business with his wife, Diane, and he’s worked in construction. He served on the board of Paug-Vik Incorporated, Naknek’s Alaska Native village corporation, for 15 years, and spent a quarter of a century in education, as a teacher, administrator and superintendent in  communities across the state. In a joint interview with KCAW and the Sitka Sentinel on Tuesday (6-9-26) he said he’s really concerned about the state’s future, especially affordability for the next generation.

“I’m really worried that Alaska is not going to be a place where they can work hard and build good lives. I’m really worried about our nation as well,” Hill said. “We see tax on the rule of law and unchecked corruption, and I just think some things need to be done about it.”

Hill’s experience is wide and varied, and he thinks that’s something Alaskans will value at the polls. 

“Right now we have a congressman who, you know, has lived a pretty privileged lifestyle and is associated with pretty significant money, I think,” Hill said. “Alaskans are not just this sort of, like, this one set person, right? I mean, we all do so many things in Alaska, and I think Alaskans appreciate somebody who can represent that.” 

Of the 14 challengers to incumbent Republican Nick Begich’s congressional seat, Hill is expected to top the list alongside Anchorage Democrat Matt Schultz. Hill is running as a nonpartisan candidate, and that’s not new for this race. 

“I didn’t learn until jumping into this race that I’m like a lot of Alaskans. Most Alaskans, really, over 60% of us do not align with the Republican or Democratic Party, and you know we need representation too, and I think there are a lot of people who are in the Democratic or Republican Party who would like another option as well,” Hill said. “So I didn’t decide to run as an independent. In fact, it was a real consideration when I was thinking about jumping into this race. Is there a path to victory for an independent?”

Hill spent his time in Sitka meeting and talking with locals about issues that are important to them, like the Tongass National Forest. When it comes to Alaska’s resources, he said he’s pro-development, but Congress needs to consult with Alaskans on every project that happens on their lands. 

“I’ve heard somebody who’s really interested in making sure that the Roadless Rule remains intact, and then I’ve heard other people who say that we need to make sure that we have more access to logging, and, you know, that crosses the boundary between different communities and different organizations, and so I think that’s a conversation that the local communities need to have, but it needs to be supported by your congressman,” Hill said. “So if there’s an opportunity for a resource to be developed as a congressman, I’d bring that to Alaskans to see what their thoughts were on it, and we would move forward with it if it’s good for Alaskans.” 

He would support and advocate for the rural subsistence priority on federal lands and updates to the Magnuson Stevens Act to address issues with trawling.

“Ensuring that Alaskans have a real seat at the decision making table that really represent all voices in Alaskans, not just industry advocates,” Hill said. “So, promoting legislation like that would be a priority.”

He supports federal funding for public radio, and said Alaska’s state-run ferries are an essential service that should receive federal dollars. He would work to secure those funds to bolster the ferry schedule and restore access to ports like Prince Rupert.

“If we took a major road anywhere else in Alaska, and we cut it off all of a month except for one day, what would be the outcome? We’d have huge outcry, right?” So, the marine highway system is very important to Southeast Alaska, and I think it needs to be supported,” Hill said.

But affordability tops his list, and he said he’d work in Congress to reduce the cost of healthcare and childcare, and energy. 

“Right now, you know, we have somebody who seems to be more interested in providing tax cuts to corporations and billionaires, and that’s where the money goes when they cut important programs to Alaskans, so I think we have a lot of work to do,” Hill said. “I think there are a lot of people who’d love to stay in their hometowns. I think there are a lot of people who love to stay in Alaska, but they’re being forced out.”

He said he’s centered most of his life around building partnerships, and believes, if elected, he’ll collaborate well with Alaska’s senators. 

“Regardless of who they are, whatever the name is, I’d work with the delegation, because we’re there for Alaska, we’re not there for ourselves,” Hill said. “And, oftentimes, I’ve found is that when you work in conjunction with other people with the same mission to serve the people, that you’re much more powerful.”

Hill spent a couple of days in Sitka, before heading back to Anchorage. Then he’ll go fishing before he’s back on the campaign trail again. 

The clear waters and maritime infrastructure along Alaska’s coasts make for prime conditions for mariculture, the cultivation of marine organisms like oysters, seaweed, and shellfish. Andrew Jylkka and Sara Ebersole join KCAW to discuss what opportunities mariculture can bring to the state and how Jylkka’s organization, Spruce Root, can help local farms get up and running. Listen to the conversation here:

The Sitka Assembly voted to allocate more than $1.1 million in retroactive federal funding to the Sitka School District at its meeting Tuesday night (6-9-26). The money comes from Secure Rural Schools, a program that supports schools surrounded by federal lands which don’t contribute to the local tax base. 

For the past two fiscal years, SRS funding lapsed. Then, last December, Congress renewed the funding for this year, along with retroactive payments for the missed ones. The money can be used for schools or roads, and in years past, the city usually split the money with the district 50/50. But this year, the assembly is going all-in on education. On Tuesday, the assembly voted to dedicate 100% of the federal funding received to schools, adding more than $800,000 to what it has already budgeted for the district. 

In the last budget cycle, some of the federal funding had been earmarked for the Public Works department for street maintenance, but the money didn’t come through until recently. 

“There are needs at the school district, there are needs at the city,” Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said Tuesday. “I could argue the school district’s needs are larger. I could argue our potholes’ needs are larger.”

Municipal Administrator John Leach said the assembly expressed a desire to move the full amount to schools given their precarious funding situation next year. Even with last year’s state funding increase, school leaders say the money hasn’t kept up with the rising cost of education, and declining enrollment over the past two decades has also cut into the district’s bottom line.

The district was already facing a $1-2 million deficit in March, when staff discovered an accounting error to the tune of about $800,000 in unaccounted for expenses. In late April, the board approved a budget that cuts 8.5 positions, half of which are certified teachers. 

Eisenbeisz said this is a one-time disbursement for the district and he doesn’t want schools to rely on the full amount of pass-through funding in future years. He advised the school board to use the money wisely. 

“I understand the crutch is needed to bridge a gap, which may or may not be changing in future administrations at the state, but I don’t want them to become so assured of this and this funding level that that becomes an issue that binds future assemblies and future school boards to an unsustainable level,” he said.

Assembly Member Tim Pike agreed that the move is a rare, one-time occurrence, but said it was important for the assembly to take advantage of this opening to help the district. 

“This is a unique opportunity for the city to support the schools,” he said. “The needs are very large, and the state has not stepped up and done their part. So this is an opportunity to bridge us through into a hopefully better fiscal environment with a governor who would be more amenable to funding education and meeting the requirements for the state.”

Several assembly members said they support a continued push for Secure Rural Schools funding when meeting with Sitka’s congressional delegation in the future, saying the funds are important for both the district and the city.

Ultimately, the assembly voted unanimously in favor of the one-time allocation. It will consider the funding one last time before a final vote on June 23.