(Sydney Dauphinais/KRBD)
Local business owner Spencer Strassburg has filed to run for a one year term on the Ketchikan City Council.
There’s only one one-term seat available. The other two seats up for grabs are for three-year terms. Strassburg is currently the only candidate in the running for the one year seat.
KRBD’s Sydney Dauphinais sat down with Strassburg to talk about his decision to run.
Spencer Strassburg: I was from Washington state as a kid and spent about 12 years in Florida, getting some of my early business education, and then I sold everything I had and moved my family to Ketchikan in 1997. I live here with my significant other Julie. Most of us know us as Julie and Spencer. We’re kind of a team.
Sydney Dauphinais: Why are you running for city council?
Strassburg: I ran previously in 2015, 2016. I think I might have skipped 2017 or 2018, and then again in 2019 and 2020. So about five years I ran before, and took the last six years off to kind of learn how to keep my mouth closed. I’ve been working on my business strategies and new trainings and working on my team during that time and kind of living under the status quo since then, and I’ve kind of decided I need to throw my hat in the ring again in an effort to try to bring a business focus to the council.
Dauphinais: If elected, what is something that you would like to accomplish on the council?
Strassburg: My primary focus would be to figure out how to extract more revenue from the cruise ship industry. It’s absolutely ridiculous that 8,000 people are having a hard time keeping the lights and the water on, and the multi-billion dollar companies are posting record-breaking profits. It’s just a direct sign that we’re not doing business properly somehow.
Dauphinais: What kind of community engagement or leadership experience do you have that you feel would be helpful in this role?
Strassburg: I’ve been working on leadership training pretty significantly while I’ve been away. In particular, I’ve spent about a quarter of a million dollars in training in 2026 alone to build my team and myself stronger. All my people have sales training and coaches, and that’s what’s really made me understand that we’re making some mistakes in our management of the port. That asset’s not properly being managed, and that’s why we’re not getting the revenue that we deserve there.
Dauphinais: What is something that you would like listeners to know about you?
Strassburg: That I’m honest and transparent. I think most people that have seen me run before know that I’m just speaking exactly what I think, and I think that’s really refreshing right now. I think that transparency is something that the voter is really seeking, and that’s what you’ll get from me. I only applied for the one-year seat because I don’t want you to trust what I say. I want you to test me. If I’m not making decent results or satisfactory results in the one year that I’m there… I don’t expect everything to be done overnight, but if we’re not seeing some action, I’ll take myself out of there because we don’t need anybody else camping out in that seat. We need change. We need change, and we need to act immediately.
