Commentary: The Real Story of the Campaign to Halt Holtan Hills

By Emma Kramer

As I drove back to Girdwood on a recent evening, a report by Alaska News Nightly about our community caught my attention.

Listening, I was grateful for some unbiased coverage of the Holtan Hills Development Proposal. That is, until the end of the report. In a few closing sentences, the reporter repeated claims that a few Girdwood individuals had given ‘tainted’ testimony, withheld financial information and spread misinformation. I was directly involved with this group being referenced, and what was stated was erroneous.

The Alaska Landmine, with Alaska Public Media cited as a source, is not a reputable media source, and it has been extremely biased in covering the Holtan Hills issue. As someone with firsthand knowledge of the people the Landmine is accusing, I am happy to clarify the history of the Halt Holtan Hills movement.

Alaska Public Media, citing The Alaska Landmine, reported that we “vilified dealmakers”. Rather, we raised several important ethical concerns: Assembly Member Chris Constant’s real estate commissions from CY [Connie Yoshimura] Investments, Director Adam Trombley’s oversight of Heritage Land Bank, defiance of the Heritage Land Bank Advisory Commission and our local advisory committee’s recommendations for Holtan Hills.

Many in the Girdwood community cried corruption early on, knowing that the most viable PUBLIC land was going to CY for $20,000 per acre. The Halt Holtan Hills movement did not spread claims of corruption. It was claims of corruption plaguing the Bronson administration that affected public perception of Holtan Hills. Our focus was to expose the development plan as a poor use of public lands that would exacerbate our problems, rather than respond to them. Our focus was also to share effective inclusionary housing solutions from other ski resort towns.

Holtan Hills proposed location. (Turnagain News file photo)

Halt Holtan Hills Campaign Backstory

Following the initial announcement of the Holtan Hills development in December 2021, myself and two neighbors decided to host a town hall to discuss the proposal. We held the event in February 2022 at the local community church. The town hall was not sponsored by any particular group, but included the clinic, Fire Department, school staff, business leaders and local senior citizens.

The list of community concerns were written as follows:

• Stressed Girdwood infrastructure (electricity, wastewater, food access, overburdened volunteer fire & EMT crews, limited trash service, no recycling and an undeveloped "industrial lot").

• Lack of social programs to respond to our current needs including housing, domestic and family crisis response, drug and alcohol programs, home care, daycare and after-school care, public transportation, trash services and recycling, strains on the food bank and volunteer fire crews helping folks in crisis or experiencing homelessness.

• Concerns about having only one-access road in/out, increased construction traffic by the school, $1.5 million in improvements needed on two miles of historic Crow Creek Road for construction trucks—paid by the MOA.

• Lack of community infrastructure. Girdwood has no ice rink, public pool, community/recreation center, teen center, grocery store, hardware store, tire change over/auto repair shop, outdoor music venue or storage facilities.

Our Assembly representatives Randy Sulte and John Weddleton attended the town hall, and at the time Mr. Sulte noted that we had a lot of varied concerns and needed to focus on what was most important. 

He said we would be best to focus and highlight our community concerns as "one bright light". The chair of the Girdwood Board of Supervisors, Mike Edgington, was also present, and he and others took the concerns (literally written on huge, poster-size post it notes) to the next GBOS meeting and drafted a resolution stating there was no support for Holtan Hills from the Girdwood community. This resolution is in the MOA public records.

From the town hall meeting and conversations that followed, an ad-hoc email group was formed, which became the nexus of the "Halt Holtan Hills" movement. 

It began as a dozen of us and grew to nearly 30. We began chatting over Zoom on Sundays, and that continued off and on for nearly a year. Now it is just an email chain where we circulate thoughts and articles about equitable community development and housing strategies in other mountain ski resort towns; sharing information about towns that, unlike Girdwood, have the power to govern themselves and implement inclusionary housing policies, short-term rental permitting, deed restrictions, housing authorities and community land trusts.

This email group includes myself, a grant writer for the State of Alaska, three ASD teachers, Girdwood Clinic LNP, a lawyer, two local real estate agents, a forensic accountant, a housing developer, two long term renters in their 20’s, a civil engineer, an environmental engineer, an executive director for a local non-profit, a few local business owners and retired local seniors.

The Alaska Landmine claimed members of my email group spread misinformation and did not disclose their financial records. 

Instead, this group was an informal local group, never presuming itself in charge of speaking for Girdwood, and spontaneously formed from our desire to respond with “one bright light” as suggested by Mr. Sulte.

The strategy we employed was to present our predicament to Anchorage community councils, asking each for a resolution of support for Girdwood as we asked the Assembly to vote down the HH proposal. We received 20 resolutions of support from community councils, a few councils didn’t agree, and others were split on their votes. 

This was a grassroots approach to elevating the Girdwood community’s voice by getting Anchorage support, on record, through community councils. Different pairings of those of us from the email group, sometimes in person and sometimes over Zoom, attended each meeting to present facts and public records, including the Girdwood community’s resolution, our recorded concerns and unanswered requests for land dedicated to workforce housing.

There is no requirement to disclose our personal financial information, and everything related to any properties owned is public record. For those in our email group that own short-term rentals (STRs), that does not mean they cannot also believe that using the most viable public land in Girdwood for more, unregulated STRs is wrong. 

Choosing to rent your home is a personal choice, and individuals can make this choice. Developing public lands without regulations will greatly exacerbate the problem, and Girdwood locals will feel the lion's share of the impacts.

Public land has inherent public benefits, and these benefits are meant for the community. The Halt Holtan Hills movement was not scripted, nor was it misinformation. There was no "tainted" testimony. 

It was a grassroots campaign led by a highly motivated community group.

For Assembly members and news outlets to quote the Alaska Landmine will cause them to lose their credibility, as that opinion blog is highly biased.

I have recordings from my meeting with Adam Trombley and CY Investments, and would be happy to share them for more context of what HHHAC had tried to do to amend the development agreement, for the benefit of the community.

About the Author:

Emma Kramer served as co-chair of the Holtan Hills Housing Advisory Committee (HHHAC) in 2022-2023. The committee was formed to investigate and make recommendations on the disposal of municipal land for the development of a subdivision. The committee ultimately rejected the proposal. Kramer, a 25-year Girdwood resident, lives on Crow Creek Road.