As Wrangell’s municipal election approaches on Oct. 1, the Port Commission is looking to fill two, three-year seats. Four candidates are running against each other: incumbent Chris Buness, Tony Guggenbickler, Antonio Silva and Eric L. Yancey. 

Each candidate spoke separately with KSTK’s News Director Colette Czarnecki on why they are running and how they see themselves in this role. 

Chris Buness

She talked about why she wants to keep the seat and what she can offer. She said she brings a different perspective and background to the commission. 

Tony Guggenbickler

He went over what ideas he’d like to address – one of them being his advocacy for liveaboards.

Antonio Silva

He said one strength he has is his future long-term commitment as a younger representative to Wrangell. 

Eric Yancey

He said his longevity with the community in the harbors is one reason why he’s a great candidate.

The interviews have been edited lightly for brevity and clarity. 

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Buness: I’ve lived in Wrangell for 18 years now and been involved in a variety of different community volunteer type organizations and things, which I really enjoy. And yeah, everything is here now. This is home.

You are part of the port commission?

Yes.

And you are owner of Stik built homes? 

Co-owner with my sister,

And you are a fire volunteer? 

Yes ma’am

Anything else? 

I volunteer with the Convention and Visitors Bureau and I help out with the PTCC, or the Parent Teacher Community Club, at the elementary school.

Guggenbickler: I’ve been a fisherman all my life, and I was in the U.S. Navy where I met my wife, and I have been in ports from Yakutat to Barra de Navidad in Mexico, where I was fishing for marlin. I have decided to retire because I’m blind, partially blind. I now have this time to serve on civic duties, and I am pretty familiar with ports and all the way up and down the coast. So that’s about it.

Silva: Born and raised in Alaska. I grew up on the Kenai Peninsula. I moved to Wrangell, I think full time in 2013. I think I’d been coming here since 2011 but I believe 2013 is when we made the move and yeah, we love Wrangell. My wife and I, we have two kids, one of which is in school, the other one will be in school next year. And so we love to call Wrangel home. 

I’m a full time fisherman. I do participate in four fisheries: shrimp, crab, gillnet and troll.

Yancey: I was born in Wisconsin, mostly grew up around the Tetons, in the Rocky Mountains, there in Montana and Idaho and Wyoming niche area for most of my life. Moved to Wrangell in 1978 right out of high school, and basically have lived here ever since then, other than one year over in Sitka, working at the pulp mill there, and one long summer up at Haines, working at a sawmill there.

I have been chartering since 1989, did some fishing charters for a few years, moved into some jet boat sightseeing and tours up the river at Anan and LaConte Glacier. That went through about 30 years (or a little bit better). Kind of ended up selling that Breakaway Adventures company to Spenser, who was one of my skippers. And in 2020 I bought the Rainforest Islander from the North End Port Authority and put it back in the water. So I do some ferry service work with it, assist a fuel barge when it comes into Wrangell for our fuel and do some other tour related things with it, and still run the jet boat a little bit.

Were you ever in the Port Commission before?

Guggenbickler: I’ve never served on that. I’ve served on the Board of Directors for the Alaska Trollers Association. I was on that for about somewhere between 25 and 30 years. I now have time to do this, if the public so chooses.

Silva:  No, this would be the first time. 

Yancey: I have never been on the port commission.

Why do you want to run for the Port Commission seat?

Buness: It’s been a great three years. I’ve learned a lot, and there are myriad things that the ports and harbors do that I was unaware of before I started, and I’ve learned some of those things. I think there’s still a lot of learning to do. Having that sort of basis, I feel like I’m in a good position to try to continue with the projects that we’ve already discussed over the last three years, and sometimes issues that are from before that have also come up, which I’ve learned a little bit about.

Guggenbickler: There are some things that I think would be advantageous in a way of safety, both safety and sanitation. For example, the Inner Harbor has no toilets, but when I ran, I wasn’t aware that there’s been funding to come down from, I guess, the state, and they’re going to take care of that. So I would like to oversee that. 

We’ve had some incidents here recently where people, who were born and raised here, were denied access to a slip to a stall because the quota for liveaboards was full, and these people were told to push on down to Bellingham and have their work done there. They are having some work done here, however this other work that they needed, they were told to push off and I extremely didn’t like that. 

Another thing that’s been crossing the boat owners here is people have been pushing to make it mandatory that you have insurance for your boat. We had a boat sink here a couple years ago, not mine, but it’s quite a burden that if it comes up and it passes, it will put quite a burden on people, especially young people, that are trying to get into the fishery. It would be a hardship for them, and I’m opposed to that.

And there’s some parking in the Inner Harbor where it’s not safe to drive down, in my opinion, so I would like to see those things taken care of. 

Silva: I feel it’s important for my generation and for the younger fishermen to have a voice and to be interested in the ongoings and the upcomings with the with Wrangell.  Wrangell is very unique and very fortunate to have the shipyard that we have, and the ports and harbors, and I’ve utilized them a lot in the past. I’ve spent a lot of time in the yard working on my boat. I know everybody in the yard. It has been an amazing experience and I look forward to hopefully being able to be a part of either future expansions or upgrades or changes that are happening, especially those that continue to keep fishermen in mind. Wrangell has a wonderful fleet and has a great fleet of young fishermen that I think it’s important to continue to offer the amenities and the services that can help them succeed. Because, you know, tourism is very important in Wrangell and I believe fishing is very important, and it’d be great to keep that thriving.

Yancey: I kind of wanted to be either on Port Commission or even kind of thought Assembly one time years and years ago, but I was so busy with my business, I felt like I did not really have adequate time to put that on my plate also and do the justice that should be done in such a job as that. So I just kind of always put it on the back burner while I was taking care of my own business and such. But now, I feel like I’m kind of semi-retired, I have time and opportunity to help support the waterfront of Wrangell and Wrangell in general. 

What do you think you can bring forward with the Port Commission?

Buness: I think continuing again, knowing a little bit and not having to start from scratch will be really exciting. Some of the things that I hope we can continue and or dive into over the next three year term are things like continuing our maintenance projects, both the sort of micro and macro that need to happen, which are ongoing and continuous, as any city department can attest to. I think we’ve already reviewed Title 14, which are the ordinances that are applicable for the ports and harbors. We’re going to take a deeper dive into that. I believe if I’m elected, that’s one thing the port commission hopes to do that we’ve spoken about previously. A little bit of awareness about the RAISE grant and the inner harbor basin improvements. Obviously, that’s just getting started. Super exciting to have that funding. We will need a little more funding to do what we want to do. But, yeah, those are some of the bigger things that I’ve got some knowledge of and hope to continue on with as we move forward if I’m elected.

Guggenbickler: I have access to the boys at the coffee shop where we have discussed quite a bit how we can make the lift from going from your boat to the dock, we can make that a lot safer. I will suggest that if somebody slipped or had a seizure or something and came off of that, they most likely would not survive the fall. We can make that better.

Silva:  I think I can bring my perspective of being a resident here. For example, the upcoming overhaul of the Inner Harbor, or the potential expansion over in Shoemaker. I feel like we’re kind of at a nice point in time here in which there’s going to be some big decisions that need to be made, and I would love to be a part of that. I think that my age, being 38 years old, I can offer a nice insight for someone who’s looking forward to spending the next 20 or 30 years fishing out of Wrangell and hoping to make Wrangell an even better place. I mean, it’s a great place as it is, but an even better place and even more to offer. 

Yancey: I moved here in 1978. I’ve had a boat stall, I would say, pretty much since 1980 or whatever. So I’ve been out at Shoemaker and Reliance and over at the Fish and Game float, and kind of in all of them through the years. I feel pretty level-headed and a person willing to also think out of the box is necessary. And I just think this is a good way to help support the Port Commission and the waterfront of Wrangell. They’ve got a pretty good thing going on. So I think I’m getting in at a good time, because they already got things pretty dialed in pretty good.

You mentioned some issues, but are there any other important issues that you’d like to address that the Port Commission faces?

Buness: I feel like Steve and his crew communicate well with Mason and other departments. I think they’re working well together. I think there always will be maintenance issues that we see and that we can pass on to Steve and his maintenance crew. And also, I was able to observe things firsthand in the Marine Service Center this summer because we were building in there and we were there for two and a half months. And so seeing a little bit of that and understanding how it all works, and some of the things that work well, and some of the things that might not be as appropriate. It’s a limited space in there, and there are a lot of different uses, even though the marine service center, (I was speaking to Steve about this the other day casually) it’s an incredible thing that happened. It was basically a dream of somebody’s, and it all became a reality, and has created incredible industry here in Wrangell and we offer things that other Southeast ports can’t offer. There’s not a lot of other marine service centers.

Guggenbickler:  I have some ideas that, instead of making mandatory insurance, I would suggest that if you buy a stall, if you get a stall here, you should have access to your telephone. I mean, it only makes sense that if there’s a problem on your boat, whoever’s watching the port that day, if they see a problem, they could call the person who’s responsible for that boat. And I think that’s, I mean, it’s not mandatory now that I believe, but it should be.

Silva: There’s always issues. The freshest issues at the moment are going to be the hoist fees, is one that jumps to mind. That or, like I was talking about earlier, the grant for the Inner Harbor as well as Shoemaker. I know all of those are topics of conversation and I would look forward to hearing from points of view. I feel I have enough contacts in town too and I’m not afraid of doing research that I can develop a good opinion to help bring forth the changes that benefit both the city, as well as the residents and the people that use the services.

Yancey: One of the recent things that have been going on is in boat insurance for boats that are at the dock. I get where there was a lot of controversy and people may not be happy about that, but nowadays, it’s not quite like it used to be. You know, 50 years ago, if a boat sunk, you probably just get a bunch of buddies and haul it out somewhere and kind of get rid of it or clean up the best you could. But nowadays, there’s a lot of potential legal issues that get involved with the boat sinking, let alone if it damages another boat in the process, or if you catch fire. There’s been a few of those around Southeast where a boat catches fire and catches other boats on fire, because they’re all in very close proximity to each other. So I don’t know exactly where the Port Commission is on that, but I can see that becoming potentially another thing that pops up.

Anyhow, I feel like, and I hear a lot of people talking about Heritage there, being able to have another boat launch next to the one that exists. That gets pretty crammed up at times, on weekends, with everybody trying to launch and retrieve their boats back out of the water. So I feel like that could be a thing coming up. There’s going to be a lot of stuff coming down, because they got money to redo some of the harbor. So there’s going to be a lot of things going on there of one type or another. 

What makes you a good candidate?

Buness: I think my knowledge already of having served for a term. I think I have a little different perspective because I’m more of a self-propelled boater. I kayak and canoe, whereas other folks are motor-oriented. Fishermen are both commercial and sport fishermen and that sort of thing. So I just want to bring a little different perspective and a little different thinking, sometimes with our conversations.

Guggenbickler: I’ve seen dockage from Yakutat to Barra de Navidad, and I see how they run their harbors. It’s given me pretty good ideas about how to do it in the port. We have not only slips where you can tie up your boat, but we have this dock with these people who repair and that sort of thing. It’s really second to none – the help that we can get right here in Wrangell. It is spectacular. I’ve had a boat almost rebuilt here, and I really don’t want to see some rules that don’t make very good sense, where their people are told to go to Bellingham and get it done.

Silva:  I feel it’s the career choice that I’m in, combined with my age and the connections that I have in town. Like I said, I have great connections with everybody that works in the shipyard. I feel I have positive relations with both the port and harbor employees, as well as all of the people that work in the shipyard, as well as I have great relations with all the fishermen. I feel because I have such good relations with everybody that it would really benefit to be able to kind of help everybody’s best interests in mind and come up with some great solutions to issues or ideas. 

Yancey: I think just my longevity of being in Wrangell for a long time and having a business here, a couple of them. I will say pat myself on my own back, but I got a  pretty good head on my shoulders, and I feel like I can see both sides of the story a lot of times. Even though one side may have to win, but you can understand where people are coming from and I think level-headed and willing to work.

What would you say the most important purpose of the Port Commission is?

Buness: I see us as an advisory to ports and harbors, and Steve is the lead person as the Harbor Master. He relies on us, I think, for a diversity of opinions and knowledge, and he listens effectively. I think he takes that information to heart. And I think he would be operating in isolation without those exterior voices and things to help advise him. We also are extra eyes and boots on the ground. We’re out there, we’re in the harbors. We’re moving things around. We’re seeing people and talking to folks about issues, so we can act as that sort of conduit to bring information to Steve and his crew.

Guggenbickler: I suppose, and I don’t have a lot of experience in this, it’s setting fees for stalls and I suppose other regulations.

Silva: An important purpose would be to find that nice balance between what is going to benefit the city of Wrangell as well as benefit those that use the ports and harbors. Finding that balance to where neither party is going to be feeling like they’re losing, but instead, both parties are going to be gaining.

Yancey: It’s not an entity necessarily onto its own. So you do have the city and the Assembly and lots of things going on there that you have to work through every time. You just can’t make your own decision so a lot of trying to fathom through that, I guess. Naturally on an island in a small town or even a big town, the waterfront is pretty key to a lot of different kinds of industries, whether it’s chartering, like I’ve done through the years, fishing industry, naturally. But then you have construction stuff too. There’s just a multitude of things that need or can use the waterfront for their desired purposes or needs.

Is there anything else you’d like to say about the Port Commission, the election or yourself?

Buness: No, I think that’s all.

Guggenbickler: No.

Silva: No, I’m looking forward to the election. This is all a new experience for me and so I’m excited to go through this process. And I hope that if I’m not elected, then I will run again. The further I go into my career, I feel it’s important to continue to serve in other manners that are beneficial for everybody here. I care about Wrangell and I want Wrangell to succeed, and so I look forward to this process in general, and I’m excited to see what happens.

Yancey: I think the Port Commission has been doing an excellent job in recent years. Lot of things getting cleaned up and taken care of. And it’s easy in a small town like this, every time you want to make a move, naturally, you’re going to have people that aren’t happy. Like raising stall rates or whatever, that’s going to cause controversy with a lot of people. But then just the reality of it is like we all know everything in our lives, on all levels, has gone up in recent years. So it should be no shock to anybody, and as long as you’re not overcharging more than anybody else is in Southeast, or if you’re in the middle of that pack of the high end people in the lower install rents. Let’s say, for an example, you should be fine, so even though they’ve gone up, I’m not sure exactly where we’re even at on that, but I’m just trying to use that for an example.