2. What is the City’s role in promoting youth and family wellness? Specifically, do you have any strategies for how the City can help provide more dry, healthy, entertaining places for teens, children, and/or families to gather?
Joseph Reeves: I believe the city’s role is to do as much as they can, and it’s going to take public input. Because me, personally, I’m not sure what the public wants – I’d want them to come to me and tell me what the needs are, that’ll start the dialogue. This is #1 on my list, having kids of my own – this is definitely an important issue.
Heidi Raffaele: There are so many wonderful things we could do, particularly with some of the covered areas in town. Most of the schools have unused spaces that could be used for activities year-round. Some of the folks at Baranof Elementary School have been doing Super Saturdays for 20 years, I think; if we did some of those kinds of things indoors in the winter for older kids, I think that would be a great thing. I don’t think we’ve really tapped into what we can do in this town as far as dry, healthy entertainment, but we have to ask the teens. Parents can tell you what they want for their children, but that doesn’t mean the teens would agree with me, so let’s start with them and move from there.
Jack Ozment: I think the city has been trying hard to provide facilities – we just finished the skate park, which was driven by young people; that was in answer to a need they had put forward. We have just finished an addition to the covered playground at Baranof. We’re working on more ball fields at Kimsham, which I think is going to be a great facility out there. But when you want dry and heated, all I can see is to use school buildings in one way or another. I was going to say SJ a week or two ago, but that facility has kind of left us, I’m afraid. But I think the City has been doing a commendable effort to provide things for young people to use.
Reber Stein: In the big picture, my feeling is that the interests of the community need to be articulated and placed in the Comprehensive Plan. Then I think the Assembly should be held to observe the Comprehensive Plan and everything they do should be work towards accomplishing what we see in the Comprehensive Plan. I think the plan has been neglected, and yet it is still held up as a necessity. It can be the clearinghouse for everything the community desires, including dry, healthy, entertaining places for children and families. Right now, we’re at ground zero with what’s happening in Sitka. We’ve done a really good job of maximizing capacity, and now we’re realizing that these assets aren’t as stable or predictable or available as they once were. I think it’s important for the City to consolidate what it has and, in this case, preserve somehow - either support the efforts to preserve the Hames P.E. Center as a facility for individuals, communities, and groups, or consider an enterprise fund to manage that for a period of time.
Chad McGraw: As a youth that grew up in Sitka, and now having children of my own, I understand the issues facing our youth in this community. Our community lacks dry, healthy, and entertaining places for children and families. There are several other communities in SE Alaska that have wonderful recreation facilities that provide such entertainment. It is my opinion, more than ever, with the recent events of Sheldon Jackson College, that a recreation center should be on the forefront of Sitka's priorities.