By Tom Morphet
The Haines Borough made strides to improve infrastructure and residents
took on issues ranging from war to declining world oil reserves, but the single biggest
story of 2007 was snow, lots of it.
Record-breaking accumulation and low temperatures that ended 2006 just
kept coming in the new year. By mid-January, the winter’s load in town exceeded 160
inches. Piles buried cars and reached the eves of one-story homes.
Two weeks and 40 inches later, total snowfall topped all but one
previous season record, and roofs were collapsing. Schools closed three days during a
March storm with high winds that pushed drifts to 12 feet.
An inch that fell Saint Patrick’s Day set the new record: 292.4
inches, nearly triple the average for winters dating back to 1972. "We’ve had
storms when we had five feet, but this started in November and it’s still snowing.
I’ve never seen that," said public works director and 40-year resident Bruce
Smith.
Snow stretched road crews like Smith’s, trapped three people in
backcountry avalanches, downed street signs, and sparked a dust-up over borough policy on
towing during plowing. Before their first meet in Ketchikan in mid-April, high school
runners were practicing in the gym, their track still more than three feet under.
The approach of spring brought fears of flooding, but the season
arrived cool and dry. The late thaw drew down the Goat Lake water supply, forcing the
power company to burn diesel, and also was blamed for the slow arrival of fish runs,
including the latest return of Chilkat king salmon on record. But the snow load also was
credited with keeping wildfires to a minimum.
After the weather, state politics generated some of the biggest stories
of 2007, as local impacts of decisions by a new governor and a legislative ethics scandal
kept the spotlight on Juneau decision-makers.
Veteran legislators were led off in handcuffs for taking bribes and
Haines representatives were asked questions about the influence of campaign contributions
on votes affecting the oil and cruise ship industries.
Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Haines, and Sen. Albert Kookesh, D-Angoon, both
resisted changes in a 2006 production tax on oil companies, saying its passage hadn’t
been corrupted by industry lobbying, but that didn’t stop Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin,
who convinced majorities in the Alaska Legislature to boost the tax an additional $1.6
billion per year during a fall special session.
Corruption in the Legislature became a rallying cry for local advocates
of publicly funded elections, who gained signatures toward a 2008 ballot measure to create
a "clean elections" system in Alaska. The Haines Borough endorsed the initiative
last week. "It’s becoming more and more difficult for a person without outside
money to participate in an election," said borough assemblyman Pete Lapham.
Gov. Palin also pushed legislators to stay true to wording in a 2006
statewide vote creating a $50-per-head tax on cruise passengers. The tax could bring as
much as $10,000 to the Haines Borough for each docking by a large cruise ship next year.
Palin made headlines in Haines for vetoing one-third of $3 million
appropriated by the Legislature for Haines and for continuing efforts to build a Lynn
Canal road, although she stopped a road-building effort launched by former Gov. Frank
Murkowski.
Road opponents focused on costs, particularly of the section between
its planned end at Katzehin and Berners Bay, where a state study identified 52 rock-fall
hazards. Opponents in February said the section would cost more than four times the
state’s estimate. In November, the state raised the project price tag to $350
million, a 37 percent increase attributed to soaring costs of steel, fuel and other
materials.
Haines Borough Mayor Fred Shields cast the deciding vote in a November
borough resolution narrowly opposing the road. Shields also joined municipal officials
throughout the region concerned that Palin is allowing the ferry system to languish under
detached management and chronic underfunding.
For Shields and the borough, management and maintenance were big issues
all year.
A burst pipe at the swimming pool triggered a six-month closure in
April, the longest in its 25-year history. Concerns about structural integrity prompted an
engineer’s survey of the facility that found $7.2 million in needed repairs. Borough
officials recommended pool users start planning for a new facility.
Upkeep of local roads and harbors dominated the assembly election, and
the assembly, confronted with the costs of years of deferred maintenance, hired a
technician dedicated to checking on borough facilities. The borough also built a new
public works shop, switched on its ice plant, scaled back its harbor expansion project and
started planning improvements to the existing basin.
The borough raised moorage, water and sewer rates and took grief for
issues including access to executive session recordings and its endorsement of tribal
ownership of the former Army tank farm property at Lutak. Assemblymen ducked a potential
battle over its recently adopted heli-ski map, turning down a request to revisit the
issue.
The borough’s new school building was hailed a success, getting
high marks for a bright and spacious exterior and winning kudos for contractor Dawson
Construction and crew, who trimmed costs despite working through a brutal winter, allowing
previously cancelled portions of the project to be added back in.
The school board wrestled with a high freshmen failure rate and
bullying, and a one-year, $500,000 federal disbursement to former timber towns bailed out
its budget. The high school cheerleaders took first at state, the speech team won state
honors in drama and staff at Mosquito Lake got cash bonuses for high student performance.
Nearly 50 students more than projected showed up for classes in August.
Theories for the upswing ranged from the lure of a new school to poor guessing by the
district. In March, superintendent Charlie Jones said he couldn’t explain why
enrollment jumped in 2006. "I can’t find anything to tie a rosy projection of
population to for the next year," he predicted.
Borough officials puzzled over who was moving here, and why. Census
figures showed the town growing in 2006, reversing a five-year decline and bucking the
trend in Southeast. State demographers projected a 29 percent drop in population by 2030,
but inquiries from would-be residents stayed high, interest attributed to continuing
favorable press.
The town twice was named among the best recreation spots in the nation
and found to have the largest per capita number of artists for burghs isolated from urban
areas.
Growth of businesses in town seemed to follow the seasonal crowd. A
summer coffee shop opened downtown, national realty company ReMax opened an office and the
International Wilderness Leadership School looked for a site on Main Street. The outlook
wasn’t as bright for year-round businesses. Northland Services ended barge service,
Video 144 went out of business and Skagway Air landed its last flight, closing after 43
years, a loss of six local jobs. The town enters the new year with a single dining room
open for dinner.
Late runs, missing hatchery fish and poor returns of Chilkat sockeye
reduced income for the local fishing fleet, though high prices for halibut offset the loss
for some. Haines Packing Co., resuscitated as a specialty fish company, processed salmon
at Letnikof for the first time since the old cannery closed there in 1968.
The Kensington mine project put everything in place to operate but a
legal plan for tailings disposal. After spending much of the year in federal court,
developer Coeur Alaska met privately with environmental groups and a proposal to create a
tailings "paste" was touted as a possible compromise.
With metals prices soaring, a huge Canadian zinc mine scouted Haines as
an off-shipment port and Constantine Metal Resources doubled exploration efforts on the
Palmer deposit near the U.S. border. Mayor Shields told the Chamber of Commerce in October
he expected the local find would be developed and mined.
The spiraling price of oil prompted a year-long citizen effort to write
a plan to help buffer the town, even as its first effects were being felt. Some businesses
shuttered for winter, citing the high heating bills, and thefts of oil and firewood were
reported on the rise.
Haines also felt the effect of the shrinking U.S. dollar, one that was
not entirely bad, as Canadians spent more in town, helping prop up receipts at stores and
lodges.
Another national issue – the war in Iraq – came home in 2007.
The local peace group ramped up efforts with films, talks and marches, including a
twice-monthly vigil on Main Street. Local veterans staked out a spot across Main Street
for their own demonstration, to show support for troops. The borough was asked its opinion
of a federal department of peace.
In the realm of sport, the Haines Merchants regained their crown at the
Gold Medal Tournament and Fairbanks snowmachiner Craig Hill broke the 120 mph barrier for
average speed in the Alcan 200. A record field of 27 solo riders took on the 148-mile
Kluane-Chilkat Bike Race and Haines High School legends Carl Blackhurst and Sarah Swinton
were named to Alaska’s high school hall of fame.
Haines cross-country runners burnished their own legends. The boys and
girls teams won their third and fourth consecutive Southeast 3A championships, an
unprecedented string of crowns.
Bears and moose featured prominently in wildlife news in 2007. Bruins
prowled downtown and Mount Ripinsky neighborhoods, the state’s removal of a cub
orphaned near Sullivan River spurred a demonstration, and elimination of a bear monitor
job at Chilkoot River irked tour guides and borough officials. Crowds of moose hunters
protested enforcement of a controversial new regulation in the subsistence moose hunt they
said turned hunters into criminals. "It’s either a crazy law or a crazy
interpretation," said hunter Don Turner, Jr.
Transitions around town included new leaders at local institutions
including Michael Byer at borough schools, Judy Erekson at KHNS, Phil Benner at the
harbor, Jerrie Clarke at the museum and Teresa Lara at the post office. Kathleen Willard
resigned from Haines Headstart after 19 years and the town bid adieu to longtime insurance
agent Gene McNamara.
The year brought laurels for a few residents. Preschool teacher Kim
Phillips was honored as Southeast’s educator of the year for young children, former
librarian Ann Myren won the statewide award for public library service, and Tlingit
language instructor Marsha Hotch was named winner of the governor’s award for
distinguished service to the humanities.
Surprises that came in 2007 included $417,000 in gifts left by the late
Bill and Anna Bell Carey, a hand grenade found on the Port Chilkoot Beach and a 19-foot
hammer Dave Pahl erected outside his hammer museum.
Residents mourned friends and family who died during the year. Gone are
Mary Lee Choate, Bertha Jennings, Nancy Piper, Pauline Case, Charlene Matthews, Wilma
Henderson, Lois Spencer, Betty Ogden, Cheri Pardee, Paul Jackson, Frank Wallace, Hazel
Nelson, Jesse Jones, Thomas Williams, Boyson Lammers, Julie Menaker Shallcross, Jim Hamp,
Lucky Metcalf and Bonnie Potter.
