The six Alaska communities that shared in a $10 million pandemic-relief gift from Norwegian Cruise Line have found various ways to spend the money — or save it for later.
Seward committed much of its share to help provide child care services.
Skagway set aside nearly half-a-million dollars to pay out as cash to residents this winter.
The cruise line in May announced it would donate $10 million to communities that had been on the company’s itineraries and suffered economically with the loss of cruise ship travelers last year and again this summer.
The money was designated for Juneau ($2 million), Ketchikan ($2 million), Sitka ($1 million), Skagway ($2 million), Hoonah ($2 million) and Seward ($1 million).
“We don’t know of anywhere really in the world that’s been more affected economically by the pandemic. Especially cities like Skagway and Hoonah, which are almost completely dependent upon cruise revenue as a source of income,” Howard Sherman, Norwegian’s executive vice president, said in announcing the gifts.
Wrangell has not been on the cruise line’s itineraries to Southeast. Norwegian’s Alaska ships can accommodate up to 4,000 passengers.
“We are giving that money to the elected representatives of those cities to disperse through their existing pandemic relief programs that they have set up,” Sherman said in May. There will be “no strings attached” to the donations, he said.
The city of Seward this summer decided to use its $1 million to purchase or lease a building for community-based child care services and to expand city utilities to serve a larger area.
Skagway set aside almost $500,000 to pay weekly cash assistance to unemployed residents this winter, though the borough assembly has not settled on a distribution plan. Assembly members at their Oct. 21 meeting discussed the program, including whether the money would go to self-employed residents who might not qualify for traditional unemployment benefits.
The assembly is looking to start handing out the money in December and continuing the aid in January and February.
Small businesses will receive $1.2 million of Skagway’s money, distributed through the community’s economic development corporation. The maximum grant is set at $40,000, and businesses registered outside of Skagway are not eligible for the funds.
Skagway’s economy is heavily dependent on cruise ship visitors, which numbered 1 million a year before the pandemic wiped out the 2020 season and dropped 2021 to a fraction of a normal summer.
The assembly also has allocated funds for the community food bank, a utility assistance program and to the tribal government.
The city of Ketchikan is leaving its $2 million untouched until it has a better picture of how federal pandemic relief aid has patched holes in the economy and municipal budget, and how much longer the COVID-19 pandemic hurts the economy.
The city council will decide on use of the money after a public process, which will include an appropriations ordinance and vote by council members, explained Diane Bixby, executive assistant to the city manager.
The Sitka assembly solicited ideas from the public on spending the community’s $1 million, and reached a consensus to put the funds toward improvements to Lincoln Street, the main thoroughfare in downtown.
The community could receive as many as 480,000 cruise ship visitors in 2022, more than double the number in 2019, said Melissa Henshaw, public and government relations director for Sitka. The planning commission is looking at options for how to accommodate so many people along Lincoln Street, she said. “That is ongoing,” Henshaw said of the planning process.
Hoonah lost 60% to 70% of its sales tax revenues the past two years due to the lack of cruise ship visitors, and used its $2 million Norwegian gift to plug that gap in the city’s general fund budget, Dennis Gray Jr., city administrator, said Monday.
The Juneau city-borough assembly in June turned down the $2 million gift from Norwegian Cruise Line. Not because members didn’t want the community to get the money, but rather because the company has purchased a downtown waterfront lot to build a new dock and several assembly members believed it would present a conflict to accept the money when they will be making decisions on the cruise line’s development project.
In lieu of giving the money to the municipal government, Norwegian Cruise Line donated $1 million of the community’s share to the Juneau Community Foundation, which disbursed the funds as grants to 15 nonprofit efforts.
“In preparation for receiving these funds, the foundation focused on high-priority basic social services — food insecurity, homelessness, and mental and physical health,” the community foundation said in a prepared statement on Saturday.
“Conversations were held with local agencies to determine Juneau’s high-priority needs, with a focus on those areas where need has increased due to COVID.”
Half of that $1 million went to United Human Services, which is building a nonprofit center in Juneau to house eight social service organizations.
The cruise line gave $800,000 to the Juneau Economic Development Council and Juneau Chamber of Commerce, which are working up a plan to use the money to benefit local businesses.
The company distributed the balance of Juneau’s $2 million to the Sealaska Heritage Institute’s arts park downtown ($100,000), for renovations at Centennial Hall ($50,000), and renovations at the historic Catholic church downtown ($50,000), according to news reports from Juneau radio station KINY.
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