This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Kimberly Williams: I'm Kimberly Williams. I am retired, and I currently serve on the Curyung Tribal Council and Bristol Bay Native Corporation. And I'm running for Seat A for the city council.
Izzy Ross: Why did you decide to run for this election cycle? What would you like to do on the city council?
Williams: Well, I thought about running for city council in the past. I served on the school board for many years, and once my children graduated from high school, I basically retired from the school board. In my opinion, I wanted to see people who served on the school board have children in school. So since my children had graduated, I was like, okay, I need to step aside and that others serve in that capacity. I have continued to serve on the Curyung Tribal Council. When I heard that the seat was open, and the incumbent decided not to run, I thought that might be a good time for me to put in and run for the city council.
Ross: What are some issues that you would like to work on if you were to be elected to the city council?
Williams: For myself, I'm born and raised in Dillingham, and I always tell people that I will die in Dillingham. So Dillingham is my home. And I, like so many — roads are issues. And I know, it's not unique to any of our communities, that roads are an issue.
Education is an issue. I mean, as our children had remote learning as we went through COVID — that's an issue. And so how do we get our children caught up? And what can we do from the city council to make sure that the school has the resources that it needs for our children?
I also think that public safety and our water, our infrastructure in Dillingham can always use the resources. And so to me, that's the issue, is how do we have the resources necessary to have a very safe community to live in? And those are issues that I think we all want, and that I'm very passionate about.
Ross: What are a couple of ways that you would go about trying to address those issues, or that you would work with other council members to do so?
Williams: For roads, for example, because I serve on the Curyung Tribal Council, our Curyung Tribal Council has funds for roads. And so our partnerships between the two organizations, we can help each other work together to get the adequate resources necessary to do a road. And for the Tribe, it took us over five years of saving up our roads money in order to adequately upgrade the Lil' Larry Nun Road and pave it. And if we partnered and we work together, I would hope that we can do that a lot sooner, and not just have the Tribe do it. And so I think the communication and the working together between our two organizations needs to happen. And I know that the Tribe and the city, on the governance level we have both tribal chiefs and the mayor sit down together to work on these issues. But there needs to be a working together of our staff in order to make sure this happens, because ultimately it's our staff who carry things out and not necessarily the elected members. I think elected members can support, but we really need our staff to work together to make things happen. And I want to be that voice to say, 'Hey, what do we need to do to make this happen?'
Ross: Kimberly Williams, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to talk today.
Williams: Thank you Izzy.
Kimberly Williams is the sister of Ronald Johnson, another city council candidate running for Seat A.
Stephen Carriere is the other candidate running for city council Seat A. He declined an interview with KDLG, pointing to a mistake made when KDLG interviewed him last year during his run for mayor. KDLG mistakenly quoted Carriere as saying "We should go with the COVID mandate". He actually said "We should get rid of the COVID mandate." The mistake was corrected when Carriere pointed it out that day.
Get in touch with the author at izzy@kdlg.org or 907-842-2200.
