Northwest Arctic Borough Assembly candidates bring up ideas for declining budget and mental health needs

With 10 seats opening up on the Northwest Arctic Borough Assembly and school board this year, some have no candidates, some are uncontested and some have up to three people competing for the role.

The most contested assembly race is for Seat A, representing Kivalina, Noatak, Kiana and Noorvik.

Incumbent Elmer Armstrong Jr. has been serving in Seat A since 2016. If re-elected, he said he would maintain his objectives as an assemblyman: expanding the Village Public Safety Officer program, improving local infrastructure and addressing high costs on energy and living.

“The priorities are still the same,” he said. “They never change.”

When Armstrong ran for the seat in 2016, he said he didn’t have much experience in municipal government. With time, he said he learned more about the processes and budgets.

During his first term, he said one of the biggest achievements of the assembly was deciding to build a new Kivalina school and evacuation road. He said that, while there are still improvements to be made to the site and access to it, the project is crucial in the face of the water levels rising around the world.

In more recent developments, Armstrong said that, after the Noorvik fire took the lives of six people, the assembly has been making progress on building and improving warm storage facilities for search and rescue and the fire department in several communities. Providing subsidies for water and sewer services, as well as distributing solar panels and heat pumps to the residents, are other borough actions he said he sees as beneficial to residents.

In light of the declining revenue from the Red Dog Mine, the assembly needs to consider cutting its spending, which is something Armstrong said he wants to focus on if elected.

Elsie Sampson is another candidate running for Seat A.

If elected, Sampson said she wants to make sure the assembly is focused on teamwork and team effort with regional, state and national organizations.

“It is so important to work together,” Sampson said. “We cannot do it without one another’s help to support our people and their needs.”

Sampson said the assembly should receive monthly financial updates from borough departments, to maintain updated construction schedules and ensure that the projects run on time and don’t run out of funds. Regular updates are also important for the Village Public Safety Officer program, which supports law enforcement in communities, and the Village Initiative Program, which funds heavy equipment and other village requests.

The assembly, Sampson said, should seek input from villages on projects, plans and upcoming events and answer questions that the village council members and residents might have.

“If we’re traveling to the villages, let’s communicate with the villages to see if this agenda would work for them,” she said, “what their needs are.”

If elected, Sampson said she wants to make sure that the assembly uses a positive approach to improve community wellness.

“All agencies should work as a team to encourage community members to practice healthy habits instead of just surviving,” she said.

The third candidate for Seat A, Walter Downey, could not be reached for the story.

Kivalina mayor and incumbent Austin Swan Sr. is the sole candidate for assembly’s Seat B, also representing Kivalina, Kiana, Noatak and Noorvik. Swan has served four terms on the assembly already.

“The assembly always has a lot of work to do,” he said.

One of the main priorities for the assembly, if not the top one, is improving the VPSO program, he said.

“We need law enforcement, virtually in each community, which we don’t have at the moment,” he said. “It’s been difficult, but we’re making some progress.”

In terms of economic needs for the borough, Swan said he hopes that Teck Alaska is able to successfully develop a new mine north of the Red Dog Mine.

“If we can get that going,” he said, “we can have some revenue.”

A reliable source of revenue is crucial for the borough that serves residents some of whom do not have water and sewer services in their communities.

Swan also said he hopes that the assembly can help his home community of Kivalina start making progress toward relocating the village.

Incumbent Reid Magdanz is running unopposed for Seat J, representing Kotzebue and the surrounding area.

Magdanz grew up in Kotzebue and his family’s camp on the upper Kobuk River. He has lived in Juneau and worked in construction with Drake Construction Inc. for five years, during that time living in the Northwest Arctic seasonally. Magdanz moved back to Kotzebue in 2019 and was elected for his first term on the assembly in 2021.

“I’ve really appreciated my time at the assembly and have enjoyed my work there and appreciate the trust that the residents of the region placed in me,” Magdanz said. He said he would appreciate residents’ vote and will do his best to keep earning their trust.

One thing that he said he is proud of for his first term is working with the assembly and the mayor to start preparing the borough for the Red Dog Mine revenue decline. After ratcheting down the budget during his first term, Magdanz said the borough redistributed some funds to the school system that “has a pretty direct impact on things like the sports that the school offers and the lunches that kids get, whether the gyms stay open,” he said,

If he is elected for another term, he said he hopes to continue that work by making cuts to the operational budget and putting money away into the sustainability fund.

“We can start by being careful with our spending, prioritizing our programs and services, spending ... on those that have the most impact on our residents,” he said. “We’re looking at a serious revenue decline, but trying to just manage that in a way that residents don’t feel more pain than they have to.”

Magdanz also hopes to help the borough continue to take advantage of federal dollars coming in from the Infrastructure bill, “which the borough has been doing well, but there’s more, more that can be done there,” he said.

Mental wellness is another issue that is motivating Magdanz to run for the second term. He said that achieving other goals — good infrastructure, locally-grown teachers and doctors, has a prerequisite of healing ourselves.

“A lot of our residents live with a lot of pain and trauma and things that they struggle with in their daily lives,” he said. “We really need to be thinking at the borough about what we can be doing as a borough in a region to heal our people.”

Incumbent Walter Sampson is running for Seat K, representing the Kotzebue area. He did not respond to questions about why he decided to run for the seat again.

Johnson Greene is running for Seat K against the incumbent Sampson.

Greene worked in public radio for 23 years and served in the Navy in the late 1990s. He has previously lived in Kivalina and Shungank and saw first-hand that “things are challenging in the villages.” He now lives in Kotzebue with his family and children.

For Greene, who is a long-time Kotzebue City Council member, this is the fifth attempt to get on the borough assembly,

“I’m just interested in politics, local politics that involves our town and our region,” he said. “High cost of living and high-cost fuel concern everybody.”

Greene said that one way to address the high costs in the region would be to focus on completing the Cape Blossom Road, which will open up economic opportunities.

“I think we just have to think out of the box. We have to find more funding for our villages somehow,” he said. “We got to figure out how to continue to get funding for our local governments and our region’s villages and try to focus on focus on getting more help for veterans too.”

Greene said he hopes for a good turnout for the local elections.

“Everybody has a voice and an opportunity to make their voice heard,” Greene said.

Four seats are opening up on the Northwest Arctic Borough School District Board of Education, with only two candidates running for two of them.

Millie Hawley is an incumbent running for Seat B on the school board, representing Kivalina, Noatak, Noorvik and Kiana.

She said she believes in the role of the school board to protect the students’ interests and work collectively to encourage them to complete their education.

“We also need to move with new trends,” she added. “The whole nation (is) transitioning to more technology being used in the school, and we need to be able to navigate that for students.”

During her first term, Hawley said the school board has been working on providing family units at the Alaska Technical Center.

“A lot of our people would like to go training and don’t want to leave their families behind,” she said. “It’s hard living in rural Alaska. If a mother has children, then they are solely responsible for keeping the home warm ... during the winter.”

Hawley said she wants to continue the work she and other school board members started.

“I believe in momentum,” she said. “I don’t think I’m done with the work that I’ve been doing there.”

Shannon Melton, running for Seat F, declined to comment on her candidacy.

City of Kotzebue

Four seats are also up for election at the Kotzebue City Council.

The first candidate for Seat D is Kathleen Sherman.

Sherman is currently serving out the term for City Council Seat E which she filled in late January after it was vacated. She said she decided to join the city council to pay it back to the community after her son was rescued by city’s emergency services.

“I wanted to show my appreciation to the City employees as well as volunteers who saved my son’s life when a 911 call was placed last August,” Sherman said. “They were so quick to respond, and I am forever grateful.”

Sherman is now running for the seat, vacated by Saima Chase who is running for House District 41.

“I feel like the city has lots of work ahead with our water issue,” Sherman said. “That is my main concern. I have lived in Kotzebue my entire life, born, and raised. I am also raising my children and grandchildren here.”

Carl Jennings said he is running for Seat D to focus on “getting the city on firmer ground” in regards to the current financial situation and to ensure that the services provided by the city are sustainable.

Jennings said he has more than 15 years of experience as a city employee, as the Public Works director, purchasing agent positions and Equipment Operator.

“This has provided me with a good understanding of what it takes to provide basic services that include water, sewer and solid waste handling as well as provided me with experience in administrative functions,” he said. “If I’m fortunate enough to be elected I will provide more on what I would like to see for Kotzebue.”

Ruth Moto, who is running for Seat E, and the write-in candidate for Seat F, Cory Jackson, could not be reached for the story.