The Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly has officially and publicly condemned a planning commissioner who made discriminatory comments against the local tribe, Ketchikan Indian Community.
Darlene Dollimont-Svenson holds a rural seat on the borough’s planning commission. In a public meeting last week, there was an agenda item regarding a requested parking variance for the tribe’s planned support center for locals facing housing insecurity.
“I want us all to know one thing that has been continually said from seven different sources, and that is — and it’s really not that nice — how much more do white people have to pay for KIC in this community?” D-Svenson said at the meeting. “I know it’s on record, and I know you can fire me for it, but we have to, I got emails about it. I just don’t understand the division.”
The variance is for the tribe’s planned S’eenáa Hít Navigation Center, which will have greater capacity than its current warming shelter. The intent is to provide day services, overnight shelter, case management, and support services for the community’s unhoused population. To meet parking requirements, KIC would have to buy more land or build a parking structure. That could add up to $1.2 million to the project.
Borough staff recommended the planning commission grant the variance, which was ultimately approved 4-1 with D-Svenson voting no. In the past, D-Svenson has also voted against the rezoning to move forward with KIC’s tribally led healing center.
At the borough assembly regular meeting on Monday, members unanimously approved a resolution requesting D-Svenson resign from her position.
Planning commission seats are appointed by the mayor and can not be recalled like an elected official. Borough Mayor Austin Otos said they are working on changing the municipal code to allow for people in appointed positions to be removed due to misconduct. If D-Svenson chooses to not resign, it would require a minimum of two public hearings for a municipal code change to go into effect. There is a special meeting to have the first public hearing scheduled for Sept. 28. The second is scheduled for Oct. 5.
There were over two hours of public comment at the assembly’s regular meeting, with many testifiers condemning the racist comments.
Organized Village of Saxman President Joe Williams was one of them.
“I’m totally shocked by such remarks, singling out solvent tribal governments and portraying Native people as a burden in our own homeland,” he said. “Racism does not become less harmful because someone admits that the words are not nice before they say them. Quite frankly, I thought that we were well past that, because I grew up in a time when it was very, very much in my face.”
At the podium, KIC Tribal Administrator Emily Edenshaw thanked the mayor for quickly denouncing D-Svenson’s comments, but requested policy change and deliberate efforts moving forward. The requests include educating public officials about tribal sovereignty, setting up meaningful government-to-government consultations and strengthening stands of conduct.
Edenshaw questioned if she can be sure the governmental relationship with the assembly is one based on mutual respect. She said public trust has been broken and she wants it to be repaired.
“I should not have to wonder whether sending a staff member into a room means sending them somewhere where they may be scoffed at rather than respected,” Edenshaw said. “I should not have to look at a pattern of votes involving our tribe and wonder whether the outcome would have been different if the applicant were not KIC.”
D-Svenson initially agreed to an interview with KRBD after the Monday assembly meeting, which she previously had said she was going to speak at. She did not attend the meeting and has since declined an interview with KRBD.
In a text message, she said she was speaking on behalf of local businesses and “repeating taxpayers concerns does not mean that I adopted an allegation of racial discrimination or acted with discriminate intent.”
She did not answer whether she intends to submit her resignation, but says she plans to evaluate and vote according to “applicable facts, codes and standards and information — not race.”
D-Svenson was appointed to the planning commission in 2023 and her term is set to expire March 2027. She was appointed by the former borough mayor, Rodney Dial. Now an assembly member, Dial apologized for appointing her to the position and said he now regrets making that decision.
All of the assembly members, including Bridget Mattson, who requested the amendment to the resolution include a request for D-Svenson’s resignation, thanked the community for speaking up.
“I express along with others the regret that these words were piercing to so many, and that pierced tender places in so many,” Mattson said. “As a borough and as partners and neighbors together, I’m grateful to be part of this community.”
Her request for the amendment passed unanimously.
Immediate response
Ketchikan Indian Community put out a statement last week following the planning commission meeting, denouncing the comments and asking the borough to remove D-Svenson from the commission. In the statement they also requested the emails she referenced be disclosed and made public.
“Public service comes with a responsibility to serve all people fairly and with dignity,” KIC president Gloria Burns said in the statement. “Native people should not have to walk into a public meeting wondering whether the person sitting in judgment of an issue involving our Tribe sees our very presence and our government as a burden on ‘white people.’”
Mayor Otos also called on D-Svenson to resign in a public statement last week. Others have come forward to condemn her statements and call on her to resign, including City of Saxman Mayor William “Billy Joe” Thomas, Metlakatla Mayor Albert Smith, Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska President Richard Peterson, and House District 1 Rep. Jeremy Bynum.
