Hill vetoes assembly
action on Floreske

By Jessica Edwards

Haines Borough Mayor Jan Hill last week vetoed the borough assembly’s decision to drop its case against developer John Floreske. Floreske last fall defied a municipal order to cease operating in a gravel pit the borough said lacked a required permit.

Also at the meeting, the assembly voted unanimously to hold most borough property tax rates to last year’s levels, advanced an ordinance that would eliminate the business property tax to a second public hearing, and learned the borough’s $1.2 million plan for a restroom and pavilion at Port Chilkoot Dock required tidelands permits.

Hill said the assembly’s 4-2 vote to drop the gravel pit case “closed the door on any possibility of resolving permitting issues with Floreske,” and “opened the floodgates for others” who chose to flout the law.

“Everyone needs to be treated fairly. (Dropping the case) wasn’t the most appropriate decision,” Hill said in an interview after the meeting.

An affirmative vote of five of six assembly members within 21 days is required to override the mayor’s veto.

Assembly members Pete Lapham, Jerry Lapp, Norm Smith and Scott Rossman voted May 12 in favor of dropping the suit; Doug Olerud and Steve Vick were opposed.

The assembly decided to amend the borough manager’s proposed budget for next year to set property tax rates at 2009 levels, excepting road service maintenance areas voting to tax themselves at a higher rate to pay for snow removal.

Borough manager Tom Bolen said the total effect of his proposed tax increase would have been about $58,000.

The assembly voted to draw on the borough’s fund balance, which exceeds $4 million, to balance the budget instead of increasing taxes.

A final committee of the whole meeting to discuss the budget is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 4. The assembly will hold a third public hearing and is scheduled to adopt the budget at its regular meeting June 9.

Assemblyman Vick raised budgetary concerns about an ordinance that would eliminate personal and business property tax, and questioned the fairness of doing so. The tax is applied to business equipment, excluding buildings, inventory, and boats.

The ordinance is set for a second public hearing June 9.

Eliminating the tax would leave about a $200,000 gap in next year’s budget, said Vick. “I want to make sure we go into this with a fair and balanced approach. I want to be clear where the revenue’s going to be made up or what we’re going to cut.”

Rossman said eliminating the tax was fair by not penalizing small business owners investing in equipment. “I think this is a good step for free enterprise.”

Bolen said the assembly hadn’t addressed the budgetary shortfall should the ordinance pass. He said levying taxes in other areas or cutting the budget were options.

The assembly referred its plan for restrooms, a covered pavilion, and paved parking lot at the Port Chilkoot Dock back to the borough planning commission, following discovery last week that the project required tidelands permits.

The state last week approved a $1.9 million appropriation, using tax money collected from cruise passengers, for dock upgrades.

Bolen said PND Engineers discovered original project drawings were based on a faulty survey point. Resurveying revealed the project, as drawn, required state and federal tidelands permits, said Bolen.

Moving construction out of the tidelands, towards the road, would eat up much-needed tour bus parking space, said Bolen.

Getting the permits would push the project back at least five months, said Bolen, meaning construction wouldn’t begin this tour season. He estimated the permits would cost the borough an additional $15,000.

“Do we want the use of space (we agreed upon) and wait for it, or do we want to throw our hands up and start over?”

Rossman said if a redesign were necessary, the borough should require PND to eat the cost. “This is something they should have known. We shouldn’t have to pay them to redesign.”

Smith said the borough should reconsider buying property across the street from the Port Chilkoot Dock offered for sale last year for $230,000.

Olerud asked why temporary, trailerable restrooms the borough was building in-house at a cost of about $30,000 wouldn’t suffice in the long term.

Olerud also said Bolen had misrepresented the wishes of the boat harbor advisory committee and the assembly in a May 21 e-mail to Corps of Engineers representatives working on the borough’s plans to expand the Small Boat Harbor.

The boat harbor committee had resolved to push for a $33 million expansion northward of the existing basin, but Bolen’s e-mail indicated the borough would consider a smaller project. “I’m wondering where you got the authority to make those changes,” said Olerud.

Olerud said he was also concerned about a statement in the e-mail that the borough would consider “shouldering greater than the currently required 20 percent cost share.” That could cost taxpayers millions, Olerud said.

Making changes to the harbor plans should wait until after Bolen, Hill and Lapham travel to Washington, D.C. for meetings with Congressional delegates and the borough’s lobbyist, Olerud said.

“My personal belief is that if we cling to option four, we won’t ever see a harbor project,” said Bolen.