Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly member Sharli Arntzen has filed to run for reelection. If elected, this would be Arntzen’s second term on the assembly.
There are three 3-year assembly seats up for grabs this upcoming municipal election. KRBD spoke with Arntzen about why she decided to run again.
This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Hunter Morrison: Why are you running for borough assembly?
Sharli Arntzen: Honestly, I’m running for borough assembly because I’ve just completed my first term as an elected official after three years. So I’m asking Ketchikan if they’d like to rehire me for the position once again. Now that I have three years under my belt, I think I understand a lot more about the processes and the way that things interact. So, how do I take that knowledge and information I’ve gained over the last three years and reinvest that back into our community?
Morrison: What are your main priorities?
Arntzen: My main priorities as an elected official is to serve with care, diligence and integrity. That to me means showing up. It means being present. It means coming prepared to meetings, reading the materials, getting questions asked.
My priorities, though, when I’m looking at what’s important for Ketchikan, I think about our future, and I think about what is going to be here for my children in 10 or 20 years. So we talk a lot about housing. That’s a really big hot button issue with my background in real estate. I think I bring a lot of knowledge and information and experience to those conversations. I also served on the planning commission for 10 years, so I have a lot of information about our zoning codes, and I have some ideas for ways that we can continue to increase the housing stock and inventory in our community, which will help stabilize prices. I think economic development is really important in our community, diversity of our economy, and how we do that in a way that does not punish local folks, but enhances daily life. But also supports our small businesses as well as our tourism industry. I think we’re missing the mark possibly when it comes to the medical industry, and we have an aging population. What are we doing as a community to plan for the future, so that when I’m old or when my kids are having kids, that from the cradle to the grave we have things in place for our community that continue to keep Ketchikan a great place to live.
Morrison: What is something you’ve done during your time on the assembly that you are proud of?
Arntzen: Well, one of the things that is really close to my heart that we’re working on right now is an assembly code of conduct. That, to me, is not something that one person should be writing and bringing in and telling the group how it’s going to be. It’s something that I think needs to involve everybody so that there’s buy-in, and we can all subscribe to the same standards. We’re in the process of going through that now. I believe we’re going to have a work session at our next assembly meeting.
I’ve sponsored a few different resolutions and ordinances. One of the other ones that I did was the accessory dwelling unit program. So a couple years ago, there was a program in Juneau that gave grants to local property owners who added accessory dwelling units to their home, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough had received $7 million from the federal government that was leftover COVID money that they have kept aside to help address the housing issues. While they go through the process of deciding what is the best to do with that money, I asked for assembly support to have a $200,000 grant program where people can apply and get $14,000 from the borough once they add additional housing to their property. So that program has been relatively successful. I believe that at least 14 grants have been awarded. A couple have been redeemed, and the borough saw that the program was doing well enough that they actually added the line item into our FY27 budget once again, so there are another 14 grants that are available. I think it just kind of helps ease some of the pressure when people are trying to add housing, maybe for parents or for children or for guests or visitors who come, or even if they have a business and they need a place for workers to stay when they come. So I think knowing what I know about real estate, inventory is the big, best answer, and the most equitable answer to solving our housing crunch.
Morrison: Outside of your tenure on the assembly, what other community engagement or leadership experience makes you equipped for this role?
Arntzen: I think everything that we do sets us up for doing what we’re called in to do today. So I could go on and on about all of the different opportunities I’ve had to learn and grow in leadership positions, but just to touch on a couple smaller ones or more recent ones, I had the opportunity of going through the National Association of Counties (NACo) High Performance Leadership Academy last year. That was an incredible learning opportunity to help take some of the practical things that we do in our daily lives into our business world, or into our business planning, or into our service planning. Those skills translate across all areas of my life. I mean, I’m a mom. I run a household. I’ve got multiple small businesses, and one other thing that I’m very proud of for that I was asked to be a part of the Alaska Association of Realtors Professional Standards and Grievance Committee, and so we review cases against other real estate agents and determine if all the facts and information presented were to be true. [We ask,] ‘Would it constitute an ethics violation?’ So that’s one of the other leadership roles that I play is reviewing ethics violations. And then they asked me this year to apply to be a mediator for the state of Alaska. So I’m going in September to Chicago for a week-long training. Those kinds of opportunities that I have, I really try to apply to every area of my life. So, if Ketchikan re-elects me, I’m going to bring the same level of analysis that I try to bring to each situation, where I want to get as much information as I can about the situation, so that we can make the best decision possible for the most amount of people in Ketchikan.
Leadership happens every day, and I hope that everything that I do is going to apply to my role as a borough assembly member. So whether it’s analyzing ethics cases for the State of Alaska, or refereeing basketball games, or dealing with bickering teenagers, trying even to decide what we have for dinner — these are all decisions that can build confidence in what we’re doing at the table.
Morrison: What’s something you’d like listeners to know about you?
Arntzen: I don’t think that my service on the assembly is about me. I try to remember that I’m on a team when I’m on the assembly. There’s six other people that vote, and I want to work cooperatively with them because really we all have the same goal in mind, and that is what is in the best interest of Ketchikan.
