Kelly Fishler

Why are you running for office?

I’m a U.S. Navy and Alaska Air National Guard veteran. I’m married to an active duty Coast Guard member. My husband and I have two small kids that are five and almost two. I’m a longtime Alaskan. I’ve lived in Anchorage, Valdez and Barrow, in addition to living in Juneau, and I am running because I love my city. I’ve served my country. I want to serve my city. And I want to be a part of finding solutions to the problems that we’re facing today.

COVID-19

Regarding COVID-19, at what point, or under what conditions do you think Juneau should fully reopen?

This entire campaign has been mostly centered around our public health policies. It’s my opinion that the assembly did a really good job and the best job that they were able to do, as well as the school board, early on last year. Since then, we’ve learned a lot about the virus. So last year, when we were so concerned about our physical health and our community’s public health, as a whole, we neglected our economy and our mental health. I would say it’s time to begin reopening now.

Economy

Do you think the pace of development and economic growth in Juneau is too fast, too slow or about right? Why?

I would like to see more economic development, especially with small business owners. There’s a lot of barriers that people run into, whether it’s licensing or simply not understanding how to open a business. There’s a lot of opportunities here in Juneau. There’s not very many places where you can buy new clothing here. And we have a lot of Coast Guard families who come up and they say, well, it’s beautiful here, but they’re missing a lot of amenities that they had considered to be standard things that you would find in any town.

Working together

What’s your approach for dealing with colleagues you disagree with on policy matters?

I really love working together, I absolutely love all the other people who are running for Assembly, I love the people that are on the Assembly. So to me, it’s really important to connect with other people, especially ones that you don’t agree with, and to find compromises and ways to work together. Because ultimately the goal is the same. We want to help our city, we want to, you know, address and resolve all these problems. We just have to find a way to do it together.

Hazard mitigation

City-hired experts produced new hazard maps for avalanches and landslides — how should the city balance responsible development with the needs of community members already living there?

You know, those residents who already live there have lived there for as long as they have, and their houses are still standing. And so it’s definitely something that you have to know about and you have to be aware of. Living anywhere has risks, whether you live in New York City or along the giant fault line in California or you live in Alaska. So we want to make sure that we have plans in place to take care of anything that does happen. But we’re also working towards avoiding anything happening in the first place.

Serving Juneau

Which parts of Juneau do you think are underserved by the city administration and what will you do about it?

The most underserved are probably our kids. There’s been some studies coming out that talk about the lack of socialization and development through socialization, because these little kids, they don’t see the bottom half of somebody’s face. And the study reported that there is an average of 20 IQ point deficit with these little kids, that are all COVID babies, if you will.  We want to make sure that our kids have opportunities here in Juneau so that when they get out of high school, they don’t have to move away.