KCAW

Whalefest week is finally upon us, with one of the highlights of the event being its numerous educational talks as part of its Science Symposium. Whalefest Science Symposium Chair Lauren Bell and Tlingit storyteller and cultural knowledge bearer David Kanosh join KCAW for the Morning Interview to share more about the experts presenting at this year’s Whalefest, as well as how storytelling connects to this year’s theme of “Entwined”.

Sitka’s Municipal Administrator John Leach announced his intention to resign on Wednesday (10-29-25) after six years on the job. He will be leaving at the end of May of next year, hoping to give the city ample time for a smooth transition.

KCAW’s Hope McKenney sat down with Leach on Friday to discuss his time in the role and what’s next.

TRANSCRIPT:

LEACH: What brought me to Sitka was my days in the Coast Guard. I was actually stationed over at Air Station Sitka as the engineering officer from 2015 to 2018. I fell in love with the community. I loved everything about the place. I ended up getting orders to Washington, DC. I made a pretty difficult decision to leave my family here while I went off by myself to Washington, DC — it’s what they call a “geo-bachelor” tour. And with the intent to return to Sitka, I put in my retirement notice while I was at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, DC, and looking for a way to get back here and be in this community, this opportunity popped up, and I applied for the position and got it in late September of 2019, I think, was the official higher time. 

KCAW: So you announced this week that you’ll be stepping down from the position at the end of May of next year. Tell me a bit about that decision.

LEACH: Six years, or, I guess, about six-and-a-half years when this comes about next year, it’s a long time to be in a role with this level of intensity. I love the work. I absolutely love and value the people that I work with, but it can take a toll on you. And I never really had an opportunity to take a break, and I think I need that. I’m not leaving the community. I’m still here. I still want to help. I still want to volunteer. I plan on doing the things that I enjoy here in Sitka. That’s the reason why I moved back. But I think it’s just time to step aside a little bit and take a break and then see where else I can get involved after that.

KCAW: So in your six years, it’ll be six-and-a-half years by the time you leave, what are you most proud of during that time as municipal administrator?

LEACH: I think what I’m most proud of is putting systems in place that help us look further into the future. I think we make more calculated decisions now, whether that’s through our strategic planning or asset management. It’s about making good value decisions for what we’re going to do next, instead of just, you know, what’s the biggest fire right now and who’s the loudest person yelling? You know, we’re looking out for the long term interest of the city, and how things are going to happen 20 years from now. So just instilling that long term vision, I think, has been a big win.

KCAW: Can you talk about some of the challenges that you’ve seen over these six years?

LEACH: The biggest challenge, and it’s for everybody, not just me, it’s everybody that works at the city is, as I said, the high intensity, the big demands and the very limited resources. Local government is very personal for people, and you multiply that by a few times since you’re in this small island community. So because you’re making these decisions and doing work that is so personal to people, and then they’re the same people you’re connecting with, sometimes you have to make an unpopular decision and you take it personally if other people take it personally. You know, we really want to serve everybody, but you’re never going to make everybody happy. And that personal connection is really difficult to confront, I guess. 

KCAW: So you mentioned staying in the community. What’s next?

LEACH: Well, first and foremost, I’m going to take a break. I want to take a few months of not doing anything, reconnecting with my family. When I got out of the Coast Guard, I didn’t take that leave, that break before taking this job. It was out of the uniform one day, off the plane and stepping into this job the next day. So again, I’d like to reconnect with my family, recharge, and I’ve thought about some consulting work, seeing if I can help other municipalities, or even plug in here somehow through that work. But otherwise, the options, they’re open.

KCAW: Well, thank you. Is there anything else I should have asked you, or you’d like to share?

LEACH: I just want to emphasize that my decision to step down is not rooted in any frustration. I think Sitka is in a really strong position right now, and that’s because of the people who serve it every day. There’s a lot of good people in City Hall that are working on the citizens’ behalf here, and sometimes they go unrecognized. But I talked about local government being deeply personal. You know, these are the same folks that you go to school with, you go to church with, you’re sharing holidays together, and they’re here to serve you, and they work their tails off every day. So I want to thank them, and I want to just remind the folks of Sitka of that fact, that they’re here to work for you, and they also are your friends and neighbors.

Project Homeless Connect returns on November 8th at St. Gregory’s Church from 11am – 1pm. Captain Katherine Dooley from Salvation Army and Julia Smith from Sitka Outreach and Support join KCAW for the Morning Interview to speak more on how the event can support those experiencing homelessness or concerned about becoming homeless, as well as how one can donate clothes to support their unhoused neighbors.

Over 100 Sitkans gathered at Blatchley Middle School for the 3rd annual Salo Salo event on Saturday, hosted by Sitka High School’s Filipino culture club, Barkadas. KCAW’s Ryan Cotter attended the event amongst newcomers and returning regulars alike, experiencing an afternoon full of games, song and dance, a quickly emptied buffet, and a reminder of the importance of Pinoy pride. 

Sitka Tribe of Alaska’s Fall Family Festival is October 31 from 4:30 to 6:30 PM at Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi. Anna Schumacher joined KCAW for the morning interview to discuss the festival and other upcoming fall events planned by STA. Listen here:

The City of Sitka will petition the state alcohol board for three more restaurant beer and wine licenses. The Sitka Assembly made the decision after two meetings filled with community debate.

The State of Alaska limits restaurant beer and wine licenses to one for every 1,500 people, and Sitka has technically already met the state limit for a town of its size — ringing in at just over 8,000 residents with six year-round licenses and two seasonal tourism licenses. But new regulations have opened the door for communities around the state to petition for additional licenses by taking into consideration seasonal visitor numbers. 

The City of Sitka estimates the island has a visitor population of more than 665,000 people per year, and approximately 3,200 non-local workers. Since 2023, Juneau, Homer, Haines, Soldotna, Wasilla and Valdez have had similar petitions approved.

At the Sitka Assembly meeting on Oct. 28, over two dozen community members and business owners called for the city to pursue the additional licenses.

“For me, this isn’t about alcohol at all. It’s about what we build around it,” said Cambria Holmes, co-owner of Campfire Kitchen, which hopes to accompany its pizza offerings in its new downtown location with beer and wine.

Holmes said approving additional licenses would support a thriving downtown, generate more tax revenue, foster community and add healthy competition.

“I want to be clear, if I thought for a moment that obtaining this license would harm anyone or hurt the fabric of this community, I wouldn’t be standing up here advocating for them,” she said. “I’m raising my daughter here, and I care deeply about the kind of place that she grows up in, one where businesses act responsibly, where families feel safe, and where we model what community looks like at its best.”

While the majority of community members voiced support specifically for Campfire Kitchen, several assembly members, including Katie Riley, reiterated that the decision on the table wasn’t about any one specific business, but about what’s best for the community.

“The question being asked of us tonight is whether or not, essentially, it’s in the public interest, or whether or not our community has the capacity to handle three more Restaurant and Eating Place Licenses, not who should get it or what they should do with it,” Riley said.

Sponsors of the resolution, Thor Christianson and JJ Carlson, said in a city memo that by adding more beer and wine licenses, they hope to allow existing businesses to grow, new businesses to start, and to meet the demand of the sizeable visitor and seasonal worker populations while still providing year-round employment and dining options for locals. While most public testimony was in line with this theme, one community member spoke against the resolution.

Michelle Kavouras is prevention director at Sitka Counseling, and is the Southeast regional co-chair for the Alaska Alcohol Alliance. She said temporary visitors aren’t reflective of Sitka’s actual population, and said allowing more places to serve alcohol would affect Sitka’s recovery community, which is running out of alcohol-free places to go.

“When we consider public interest, we are not just looking at creating revenue, we are looking at the health and safety of our community,” Kavouras said. “Adding more licenses means adding more risk for our youth, for our families and for our community. Any increase in alcohol availability has the potential to affect public safety, mental health and overall wellbeing, and these factors must be weighed thoughtfully.”

Assembly member Kevin Mosher also voiced concerns about public safety, and said he couldn’t reconcile voting yes to request more licenses based on Sitka’s high tourism numbers. 

“Because of this new law, we can include the seasonal numbers. Before we couldn’t,” Mosher said. “But I am struggling right now with choosing to request a license that will be for a year-round thing, for something based on seasonal numbers. So in my mind, although the state made it legal, I don’t know that that’s a wise course of action, because why did we issue the licenses? For public safety.”

The assembly considered petitioning the state board for up to six licenses at its meeting in August, before deciding to postpone a decision until more research and discussion was had. Assembly member Christianson said Tuesday that settling on three additional licenses is a good compromise, will be good for the economy and shouldn’t contribute to teen drinking.

“It’s not perfect,” he said. “I would love to be able to address everybody’s concerns, but we can’t. It’s the system we have, and I think we should go ahead and do this.”

After lengthy discussion, including a conversation about public health concerns and two amendments to the original motion, the Sitka Assembly voted to move forward with the petition on a 6-1 vote, with Mosher opposed. 

Staff are expected to submit the petition materials and virtually attend the Alcohol Beverage Control Board meeting in early December, where Sitka’s request will likely be considered. If the board approves the petition, businesses will still have to come back and apply for the licenses.

Next week, Sitka Parks and Recreation, Americorps, YAS, and the Sitka Conservation Society will host “Lights On After School.” The event will highlight the wide array of after school activities available to youth of all ages in the community. Organizers Juliette Langley and Elle Campbell joined KCAW for a Morning Interview to discuss the event. Listen here:

The 29th annual Sitka Whalefest takes place Nov. 7-9. This year’s theme is “Entwined.” It’s centered around the idea of coming together and unraveling the tangled connections of the natural world and revealing how intimately everything and everyone is bound together. Lauren Wild, assistant professor of applied fisheries at UAS, and Taylor White, who will offer a talk at Whalefest entitled “Ways of Knowing: Community Connections with Sea Otters and Abalone,” joined KCAW on the Morning Interview to discuss what to expect at the upcoming festival. Listen to the conversation here:

A jazzy melody from “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” peppers the air outside of Blatchley Middle School’s art classroom, a friendly reminder that fall has arrived. Inside, sixth graders are at their desks, painting and drawing. Yellow fabric is draped over the harsh fluorescent lights, imitating the warmth of the sun. Spread out above the whiteboard are various cut-out paper letters spelling out “ALL ARE WELCOME,” with each unique letter showcasing a different student’s skill and style. The first period of “Art Lunch Bunch” is hard at work.

Sitting behind a desk with colorful markers neatly displayed is sixth-grader Mariana Diaz Mendoza. She shows off a drawing in her notebook –a face outlined in ink, with shaded lips and brows, the sides of the face intentionally distorted, as if they’ve been stretched out like taffy. Her notebook is full of sketches like this– with muses ranging from fabulously creepy clowns to biblically accurate angels– demonstrating  a level of skill and detail that signals she has been drawing her entire life.

“I was born of a disability, and so I wasn’t able to move half of my body, [or] either my fingers. So [doctors were] like, ‘Oh yeah, art could help you with moving your fingers,'” says Mariana.

Mariana holds her arms apart as wide as she comfortably can, demonstrating her relatively limited range of motion.

“I didn’t know that. Mariana, that’s so beautiful. So you were, like, born to do it. You were born to do art,” says Clare Sheedy, the Resident Teaching Artist at Blatchley Middle School. She is one of four Americorps ArtistYear residents in Sitka this year. For the first time, the volunteer organization with a long-established local presence is piloting the program here, which connects art teachers in regions with little to no arts programming in schools. 

Sheedy was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. As the daughter of Irish and Scottish immigrants, she was surrounded by singing and dancing at family gatherings, and even learned to play the fiddle. She most recently served as an Art Educator at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, and studied art and writing in grad school. But she didn’t join Americorps with the arts in mind.

“I want to learn how to build a house. And then I started looking into AmeriCorps programs. And then I just came across artist year,” says Sheedy. “And I was like, this is something that I’m interested in and that I have real skills and passion I can bring to it.”

Sheedy hopes to help her students connect with the creativity they already have.

“Art is already in their lives. It’s in their families. It’s in the Sitka community around them. It’s in their notebooks. It’s something that we’re constantly co-creating, and that’s everywhere,” says Sheedy. “So I hope to just kind of be a facilitator of those touch points.”

Due to funding cuts, Blatchley Middle School has been without a full-time arts teacher for several years, so Sheedy arrived to a classroom low on supplies. But she says community members quickly stepped up to help, with donations of everything from  glue sticks to tempera paint. Sheedy has been incredibly moved by the generosity and strong sense of community amongst Sitkans, and says working with the students has been an absolute joy so far.

“They’ve been so fun and funny, just joyful and delightful to get to know,” says Sheedy. “Working with them has brought out a part of myself that I really like, that’s more playful and maybe a little chaotic, because there’s some of that chaotic energy in middle school.”

Above all else, the students are hungry for art. Right after Sheedy began teaching at the end of September she sent a survey to students, asking them what arts programming they want to see. Sheedy has incorporated their suggestions in her curriculum, like starting an after school art club, and the Art Lunch Bunch groups, which sixth grader Mariana attended, as well as 8th grader Claudia Teas-Klanott, who is painting a handmade cardboard guitar. 

“In the time I’ve been in this space and working with Miss Claire, it’s been really supportive and just like welcoming,” says Claudia. “You can connect with everyone without feeling like you’re gonna be judged, because everyone’s here to make art and stuff, so no one’s gonna judge you for the type of art you make.”

The arts programming at Blatchley got cut shortly after Claudia entered sixth grade. Now that it’s returned, they are able to regularly work on a wide variety of art projects more consistently. Claudia believes it is crucial that youth-centered art spaces like Art Lunch Bunch exist in Sitka. 

“It’s really important for kids to have creative outlets like this, because being in Sitka… There’s not a lot of art things and stuff that are, welcoming to kids,” says Claudia. “It’s really nice, because it’s during school, so you don’t have to worry about if you’re free after hours.”

Sheedy says it feels “exciting and a little overwhelming” to re-establish a middle school arts program. She is applying for grant funding for supplies, and making long-term plans for future teachers, even though federal Americorps funding beyond this year is uncertain.

“So that’s why organizing this room and putting a lot of emphasis on student involvement and setting things up in a way where it can easily be transitioned after a year or two to someone else,” says Sheedy.

While she initially applied to Americorp to learn how to build a house, Sheedy is building a foundation to help middle schoolers find a home in the arts.

The air is tense as a nurse steadily performs CPR on a patient in need. Another nurse stands nearby, ready to trade off and continue compressions if the first nurse gets too tired. Hovering behind them, two more medical professionals are ready to assist in anything from keeping time, to shoving an oxygen tube down the patient’s throat. 

But these first responders are not saving the life of any ordinary individual, but rather, man’s favorite four-legged friend. That is, they would be if the dog was alive. 

‘So I’ve got a video here about just, we’re using a stuffed animal. We don’t want this to be a traumatic class,” Dr. Toccoa Wolf says. Wolf is a veterinarian and owner of Sitka Animal Hospital. She is showing a room full of amused firefighters from across Alaska a video demonstrating how to perform CPR on pets and to recognize whether an animal is struggling to breathe and needs it. The recipient is a cuddly, life-sized stuffed retriever with brown curly fur.

Having worked in Sitka for over six years, Wolf has cared for many local firefighters’ pets. So when one of her clients reached out to her about teaching a pet first aid workshop for the Alaska Fire Conference in Sitka this October, she jumped on the chance. And so did the firefighters- Wolf’s class at the conference booked up quickly, so she had to host a second one. Wolf says it is crucial for Alaskan firefighters, many of which serve rural communities, to be ready to provide immediate medical care to pets in need. 

“And so the luxury of having that in the lower 48 is that’s often not far most of the time,” says Wolf. “They can get to an ER vet and they have access to immediate care. But here, especially in rural Alaska, that’s not always a luxury. So I think it’s especially important for us to have the first responders knowing how to do initial, supportive and non-invasive stabilization.”

It turns out, CPR doesn’t vary that much, creature to creature. But some adaptations are required, particularly for America’s most popular pet: the “squishy-faced” french bulldog.

“They are at such high risk if there’s an incident like their threshold for you know, any disruption to their heat regulation or their air regulation is so small,” Wolf says to the training participants. “So when you deliver oxygen to them, that’s when it becomes a little bit different…what you want to do is maybe forget the mask and actually try to get a way to get oxygen past the airway.”

Fortunately, a key lesson of Wolf’s training is that firefighters pretty much already have the skills needed to provide first aid to furry companions, they just need the training and the equipment. Firefighters who took her class walked away with free goody bags with animal oxygen masks and breathing tubes to bring back to their respective communities. Wolf encouraged the firefighters to reach out to medical professionals in their area to establish safety protocols when rescuing animals in need. 

“Collaboration amongst all medical professionals with first response is a really big part of emergency management,” says Wolf. “And sometimes we don’t always think about the veterinarian as part of our emergency management team. But as we can see, it is a huge part of emergency management.”

Wolf’s training ended up being timely– it came just about a week before Typhoon Halong hit Western Alaska, displacing over a thousand people. Amidst the evacuation efforts of those from impacted villages, some residents were separated from their pets.  A representative from the nonprofit Bethel Friends of Canines said that as of October 20, the organization helped rescue 107 dogs across Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, the hardest hit villages by the typhoon, and has already reunited many of them with their families.

For Wolf, the recent typhoon reinforces the need for these trainings. Throughout her decade of experience as a vet, Wolf has worked extensively on various humanitarian relief efforts with the U.S. military, and has seen firsthand how important it is to have emergency responders who recognize the strong bond between humans and their pets.  

“And if you talk to people that have been through traumas or disasters… people wanted to know, where’s my pet? What happened to my pet? What happened to my livestock?,” says Wolf. “And most of the time, it’s the first question that they ask. And so that being able to help facilitate the first responders, being able to help the rest of the family and the family pets has always been important to me.”

Wolf hopes that with continued education and resources, first responders throughout Alaska will be even more prepared to rescue family members, two-and four-legged alike. 

To learn more about how to bring pet CPR training to your own community, you can contact Dr. Wolf at [email protected]