Ketchikan Borough Assembly member Kathy Bolling has filed to run for reelection in the upcoming municipal election. There are three 3-year seats up for grabs.
The assembly serves as the legislative power of the borough, and is responsible for approving an annual budget and establishing policy for the borough.
KRBD’s Hunter Morrison spoke with Bolling about her goals and priorities if elected to office.
Hunter Morrison: Why are you running?
Kathy Bolling: I am running because I think I’m an even better candidate than I was when I first started three years ago. And I did wait to file, just to kind of keep the game open to encourage people to think about running for elected office. We need local folks to dip their toe in or just jump in the water and give elected work a try.
I do have some priorities. I think that’s going to be your first question. I think the number one thing for me is we just completed the comprehensive plan that’s supposed to be good for another eight, nine, ten years, and I don’t want it to molder on the shelf. It was a community-wide effort, we created goals and strategies to reach those goals, and I don’t want them on a binder on the shelf. Some of the things that stood out to me, like transportation and public facilities, is strengthening our regional and inter-island connectivity. Under housing, partnering with employers for their workforce housing solutions, I think is one way we can really solve the crunch, especially in summer, if the workforce can provide some of their own housing.
So under the health and wellness section, there’s childcare, which may not leap to most people’s minds at first, but it’s vital to the economy and to our workforce. And we have a running summer playground, which actually, way back in the day when the city had parks and recreation, I ran the summer playground program. So it’s been around a long time, near and dear to my heart. And in the past, we also had community schools programs. We had other ways to provide childcare in town. We don’t have that now, but what if we expand that summer playground program, which is always at capacity? What if we expand it to provide latchkey care during the school year? I think that’s something I’m going to work on.
And trails. I just drove by coming from the university to KRBD, drove by the Third Avenue Bypass, and I’ve been a real advocate for reopening the Rainbird Trail, the southern end, so people can hike up and hike over to a platform and just look down over downtown and look out. You can practically see Nichols Passage from there. It’s just the most breathtaking view, and so that is being worked on. We just actually approved a little expansion to the contract so they could helicopter some extra materials up there. So that is happening. And speaking of priorities, I can’t not mention tourism, right? We’re all impacted by it, and it is in the cruise line’s best interest to work with their destinations, such as us, and it’s in our best interest to make sure that they hear us and that we decide what is manageable as a host, and set up expectations for our guests.
And I’ll just segue quickly into a story about Ketchikan. Several years back, “Ask UAS [University of Alaska Southeast] did a panel of women in Ketchikan in the 50s and 60s. And we had Alaire Stanton, and Cathy Bellon, and Elinore Jacobsen, and Ernestine Henderson, and I know I’m going to forget some other names, Merta Kiffer. Anyway, one of them began to talk about, it might have been Ernestine, talk about when the mill came in and how the mill people were not welcomed by the locals. They were not happy with this inundation of all these people coming into town. They weren’t happy, really, about this new industry and the impact it made, in the downtown area. And in 1965, the mill went on strike. Mill workers went on strike, and suddenly the merchants weren’t getting the money in, and they realized that they were really interdependent on each other, and they figured it out. And I think we can figure it out. So, Ketchikan, we’ve done it before. We can do it again.
Morrison: Gotcha. What is something that you have done during your tenure on the assembly that you’re proud of?
Bolling: Well, what stands out in my mind is my effort to really make us accessible. Like, I see people come to the podium that I grew up with, or I know their kids, or I knew their parents, or our parents knew each other, and I want them to really feel welcome. It’s so important. I know that people don’t like to write letters or come to the podium, but it’s just me. You’ll stop and talk with me at the grocery store – I want it to kind of feel the same way. And I’ve made a concerted effort to keep people in the loop of what I’m up to, what I’m thinking, and what I’m learning, especially when I’m traveling for the borough on the borough dime, right? When in Anchorage at the Alaska Municipal League, or when I’m in DC, I made short videos and posted them on my Facebook page, which is public, so I think anyone can see them. And then I began doing them from the front seat of my car, and I do that because we have two rambunctious dogs and a few insistent cats, and I just found it easier to just go sit in my car to record them. So I call them from the front seat, but I just try to present information. I’m not trying to sway anybody, just to be informative, because most people are not watching the three-hour-long borough meetings, right? So I think it helps bridge that gap and helps people know what’s going on.
Morrison: And aside from your time on the assembly, what other leadership roles, or community engagement roles make you equipped for this role?
Bolling: Gosh, well over the last 30-some years, I’ve sat on nonprofit boards. I was on a governor’s task force. I’m currently on the Ketchikan Community Foundation Board. I have a supervisory position at the university [University of Alaska Southeast] where I work, and I’ve completed the National Association of Counties High Performance Leadership Academy. That was a several months long intensive course for government employees and local officials. I’ve won an award for being the outstanding Alaskan in the area of substance abuse prevention and education. I put my energy where my heart is, and as an assembly member, I work to make Ketchikan a place where everyone is valued and supported. And that might sound like a slogan, but that’s actually how I live my life. So, I also do my part by serving on the museum advisory board, the library advisory board, the investment committee for the borough, and the joint cooperative relations committee, where the city and borough governments sit down and work things out.
Morrison: Gotcha. Aside from what you’ve already mentioned, what is something that you’d like listeners to know about you?
Bolling: Well, I listen to KRBD, and thank you all for listening to KRBD. It’s a great example of how we have journalists as our neighbors, and it’s so important. Local news media keeps us all informed of local happenings. No other entity can do the job the way our local radio stations do, and the newspaper can. I just think it’s so important, working in the field of information, because I’m a librarian, it’s so important to know your sources and be able to go back to primary sources. When you post things, you have a responsibility to post where you got the information, where other people can also find it, and that is a way of being transparent. And there is an obligation when you provide information to delineate this is my opinion based on this, and these are the facts and not to present assertions as facts. So we have to be respectful of the people that we’re communicating with.
Something about me: my husband and I have five grandchildren, four of whom are enrolled in our local school district. So I am very motivated to ensure that Ketchikan’s a place where they can thrive, and we can age gracefully. That’s really of the greatest importance. And I want a Ketchikan where they can stay, and build their own families in homes that they own, and that’s what I want for everyone.
Hunter Morrison is a Report for America corps member for KRBD. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution.
