Wali Rana

Today we're joined by Mayor John Handeland, the incumbent seeking re-election as mayor of Nome. John has served multiple terms and is also the general manager of Nome's Joint Utility System. John, thank you for speaking with us.

John Handeland

Well thank you for the opportunity, I appreciate it.

Wali Rana

Of course. Thank you for your time. Can you tell me a little bit about your background and what inspired you to seek re-election?

John Handeland

I am a lifelong resident of Nome. Born and raised here, I've only spent extended periods of time out of Nome twice, once, when I was five years old. Spent six years in Norway, and then I went to college in Bellingham, Washington, seeking a degree in Business and Accounting. I ended up coming back home because my dad was sick and my mother needed help taking care of him, and I had thought I'd go back and finish at some point in time, but just got involved in the community and in life in general, in Nome, I love Nome. It's my home. I will be buried here or spread here or something when that time comes, have no intention to leave. So that is kind of, you know, my history of being in Nome, and I have always thought that it was important to give back to the community, you know? And this community certainly has been very supportive of me over the many years that I've lived here and have wonderful friends, you know? Throughout the population, and that's kind of my background.

Wali Rana

Awesome.

John Handeland

Oh, and why am I seeking re-election?

Wali Rana

Yeah.

John Handeland

Forgot that part of it. Just that, you know, I had served as mayor for a number of years back in the 80's and 90's, and then came to work here at the utility, and it was just too much to try to do both. And when Mayor Richard passed away in office, I came in just as an interim to fill out. At that time, things started to get interesting again, there were still some projects and things that had been going on when I was in the last time that we had been pursuing and just got back into the groove and decided that I could continue and provide something back to the community, where they have provided so much to me over my lifetime.

Wali Rana

Thank you. And how do you think your experience will help you with addressing some of Nome's problems?

John Handeland

I think that there are definitely issues in our community, and I don't like the word problems, but 'challenges' instead. And I think that just the contacts that I've made over my lifetime in both elected and non-elected service, that those things do provide a background and basis and history that are beneficial in trying to make better improvements for our community. And there's a lot that has been done. There's a lot that remains, and I'm willing to give it my best shot to help Nome move forward.

Wali Rana

So if you were to win this election, what would be on your immediate agenda?

John Handeland

Well, my immediate concern is housing and the lack of affordable housing and safe and quality housing in the community. It's been an issue that not just the city, but businesses in town as well, have been facing the lack of housing. We can't get people to stay in Nome because they don't have any place to live. And I'm even more familiar with it here just in the last two weeks in that, you know? Directly now, I have two homeless people living with me, you know? Friends that have been in the community for 30 years, their house got sold, and they just have not been able to get into any other place.

So, I mean, trying to address, not just, we've had some great improvements that have been done here to try to address, like the population that is, you know, truly homeless and more indigent as a result. But you know, the project that the Community Center put together with the housing first and the 17 units that they installed, you know, has been a great thing to try to get some of our residents to give, give them the basis to move forward and improve themselves. But if you don't have a place to live and you're not comfortable, you're, you know? You're not going to, not going to get there. And just yesterday, had a meeting with some people from the homeless coalition in the state, who have some people with them that are looking at coming up with a program that can assist any resident, regardless of ethnicity or affiliation. And there's going to be a it's an exciting thing if Alaska possibly can be one of the 10 sites that they're looking around the country to see if they can't address and come up with a model that can work elsewhere. I don't know that it will come to fruition, but anytime there are people that are interested in helping us, we're certainly interested in working with them to any degree to see how it could make our community and our region better as well.

The, so, housing is definitely at the top of the list after the port project was finally approved and is moving into a contract, there have been many plans that people have made here, but it was contingent on feeling that the economy of Nome and the would be stable or improve. They weren't willing to necessarily make investments, you know, with out knowing that they were going to have, you know? Some return on their investment. And then, you know, besides that, then there have been projects or funding available to some of our Native organizations that have allowed for additional housing to come into the community. Bering Strait housing, we've worked with them on projects that they are looking to have a development. Just recently, Solomon and King Island have brought in some new houses as well, and Norton Sound is building a whole lot of units to support their people.

So there is, you know, the there are things that are moving forward with regard to that, you know, initiative or desire to address. And I just that's where I see a priority of the city needs to be and be able to coordinate with many of these organizations to see how we can better it for everybody, and have opportunities. You know? Some of these houses that are being built now will free up other units. And right now, we've got teachers that are living in a dormitory because they can't find another place. And it's, we have police officers, they're all living in the same location. And it will, you know, some of these other developments will address some of the needs, but you know? The housing shortage in Nome and in the region is significant. I think it was 250 units or so when a study was done recently, that was a minimum number of people that, units that were needed, and then it will make some other ones available. But, you know? We're also seeing that there are construction companies that are coming into Nome that are buying up some of the housing stock here, and it just there is the need for the continued development to support the community long run. So that's, that's the main thing, or the first priority that is on my agenda.

I'd also like to see some health improvements made. And we hear constantly about the terrible roads that we have here, but we've got roads. There are, I think that many of the I mean, we need to take and figure out a better way. And there have been studies that have been done. We've tried other things for dust control. You know, it's, it's not healthy for all of this dust that is running around. And I would like to see us move forward with a plan that paves every street in town, but we got to make sure that the stuff underneath it is in good shape, so that we're not paving one year and tearing it up the next year, or even in the same year, so that we, paving is an important part of it.

And then, you know? We also need to address just the revenue sources and the expenditures of the city. The this last budget cycle was not a fun one in having to make some cuts to and prioritize things. You know, there are people in Nome that say, close the library, close the museum. You know, those are not necessary. Well, another one that you know is, maybe in that category is the pool. But you start talking about closing the pool, and everybody's, you know, gets in a tizzy about it. And it's the same thing with, you know? The Library and Museum, which I think are very valuable to the community, both for folks that you know homeschool their children and just it's some of those niceties that are important to keep in order to keep or solicit new people coming into town.

There are, you know? Nothing against Kotzebue, nothing against Bethel or any of these sites. But, it's you know? People need to have, you know? Culture. We need to have recreation. You know? And just continuing to figure out on the expenditure side, I think things were cut pretty much to where they needed to, or as much as we could, without simply eliminating. But looking for additional revenue sources is definitely what needs to be done. I think we have some opportunities now coming up with both, with the port happening, with the graphite mine that is anticipated in this area, we've seen that the mining activities have greatly improved the life quality for people up in the Nana area, but Kotzebue with Red Dog, obviously, the North Slope borough has oil and Nome has has resources as well. And with that. When this graphite project does come online, which I strongly believe that it will, you know? It's one of the things that's on the White House's list right now, of seeing that we can get, or that they can get through all of the federal requirements to put that into place. People sometimes think, well, we don't need graphite. Well, graphite is in batteries. Graphites in your cell phone. You know, it's, it's going to be, it is a valuable commodity. And, you know, it's great that we can do things in the US of A so that we're not dependent on other countries for some of these things that we need.

You know? There's been a lot of gold mining here over the past, and there still is that activity. But not, you know, the huge presence and conglomerate company that we had, it's more smaller operations, while people sometimes are opposed to mining because it changes the topography and but yet, if we didn't, if we didn't have some of this extraction going on, you know,? We we wouldn't have the good life that we have. So those are, you know? A couple of things immediately that are on my list. And it's, there are always new opportunities that come out. You know? If you're willing to reach out to people or meet with them as they express some interest. I always say that Nome is a great place, you know? And there are things that we don't have, like malls and murders, but, we have great open spaces and wonderful country, and there's just a lot you can do in this community because of the extensive road system that we have, which was developed because of, you know? The spread out area for mining in the past and trails that then became roads. And, you know, give us much, much more ability.

We need to also look at our what we can possibly do to improve, or enhance the tourism aspect. The efforts by both locals and the city to encourage more cruise ship traffic into the area, that brings people to the region, and everybody's pretty much heard about Nome. When you talk about Alaska, you know, they'll recognize Nome, whether it's in the Johnny Horton show, or song, "North to Alaska," or anything else. I mean, Nome is kind of embedded in people's minds when they think of Alaska. And we have lots of, lots of opportunities, if we're only willing to take the steps.

And certainly, you know, it'd be ideal if we could get more people interested in, you know? Both planning and working toward some of these goals. You know? I'd like to see a little less apathy when it comes to, I mean, everybody has a valuable contribution that they can make. And, you know? It doesn't do a whole lot of good to just air it on Facebook. You need to be willing to roll up your sleeves and and spend some time, give some time back to to the community.

Wali Rana

Looking forward to the future, what would be some of your long term goals for the city?

John Handeland

Well, as I mentioned, I guess in the prior thing is, you know, I want to, I want to see us, you know, pave our roads. You know, have housing that we can so that we can attract people to our community and get them to actually stay here the we also, then, any you know, economic we have a lot of stuff and programs that are dependent on the federal government, and, to some degree, on the state government. But you know, we see Nome is not the only place that's having financial issues. The state, you know, has deficit spending the you know, I don't know how many trillions our national debt has gone up in the last year. Some of those programs have been, you know, cut over time. And you know, we need to be more resourceful and dependent on our own area. Some of the places where there has been support in the past is drying up, and so it's not just the city, but it's residents community and organizations in town that will also at some point, be looking for other ways to support the programs that we really want to have continue or develop in Nome.

And I guess just another deal that would be great to be able to address is our Front Street area. You know, we just had two more buildings torn down here the last couple of weeks, and lots of blank spaces there. And it would be great if we could come up with a renewal plan that could, you know? Make our front street more vibrant it, you know, we're never going to go back to the day where we have the lord and lady shop a little, you know, clothing store that was here, you know, a shoe store, a toy store, any of those things. Because when people can just go on Amazon and have it here, delivered by Ramon and company, you know, next week, and you know, prices, you know, it's expensive here, so we need to figure out how to cut people's energy costs, for instance, and the cost of doing business in the community. And we can, we can do it if we all get together and, you know, are cooperating in it. And I think that, you know, there are, have been efforts to bring more people together. You know, there are resources or programs or materials that people have in the community, if we get into a more cooperative arrangement with people, and a lot of that is just, you know, we need to be, you know, we need to be initiatives that people are looking at. We just have to have more coordination, I think, between everybody to see, how, you know, whether it be the city or just the community at large can support these things so that we can develop a better economy that is not as dependent on others.

Wali Rana

And circling back around to the present, what would you want to do differently from what's being done now?

John Handeland

Well, it's I'd like to see more involvement by community members. And, you know? A cooperative feeling between folks. You know, it's very difficult sometimes to try to balance the needs and desires of other organizations, and it's you know, more communication and not having as much we need to be expressing and airing what our plans and our needs are, so that we don't have two places trying to do the same thing and have duplicity in services. I think that more open communication and involvement is something that I would like to see change.

And you know, I've asked over time a number of people to participate in some of our, you know, boards and commissions. And people you know, have declined. And you know, well, and time, it's during the summertime. We all want to be out in the country. We don't want to be in meetings. We don't want to be, you know, we want to be able to get out to Salmon Lake, get out to Council, you know, get out berry picking and all that other stuff. So that becomes a challenge because you got a period there that you can't, you know, nothing, I shouldn't say, nothing happens. It's difficult to get all the parties together, but if we can set up some forums throughout the year and encourage people to get out and, you know, and give their ideas. Because, like I say, you know, people do have some good ideas, but it's not like everybody follows Facebook and you know they need to, need to come forward and express those things you know? Publicly, as opposed to, you know, where there's an opportunity for discussion, dialog and planning, as opposed to, you know? Not participating at all.

Wali Rana

So, with the election right around the corner, is there anything you want the community to know that you feel like I maybe didn't ask you?

John Handeland

No, I think that the I think that we kind of covered it there, you know, not everything happens at City Hall. Not everything happens overnight, and there are a lot of seeds that get planted along the way that then take watering and nurturing and the just how we can take, you know, better work as a community, as opposed to factions that are, you know, the little factions that we may have, which isn't bad. I mean, it's great when somebody has a specific item or interest, but I do try to get around to the community regularly. My contact information is available, and I, you know, it's a 24/7 job. It does not, you know, everything does not happen between eight and five, Monday and through Friday.

So I just, I think, I'm, you know, have my pulse on much of the community. Obviously, there are things that, I can't be everywhere. But I am looking forward, should I have the opportunity to spend another term in helping to improve Nome's future. I've been around here for 65 years. I'm not going to be around here forever, and I would still like to be able to make contributions and improvements for my relatives, my friends, my family, and everybody that lives here. So I would appreciate people's support, but more so, I would appreciate them going to the polls, regardless of who they support.

It used to be that, you know, there'd be 700 people in Nome that voted in every other year, and it was substantially more each year when the mayor was on the ballot. Now, you know, if we get 200, 250 people, I think that's maybe a big number, and you need to really get out there to to participate, you know, from that level as well. And I'm just, I think Nome has a bright future, a brighter future, and together we can make it happen.

Wali Rana

You just heard from John Handeland, the incumbent candidate in Nome's 2025 mayoral race, John, thanks again for joining us.

John Handeland

Well, thank you. I appreciate your time.