Haines Borough manager Mark Earnest said he’s hoping to put together by the end of August an ad hoc working group to review the downtown improvement plan and identify goals to be pursued.
The completed plan was recently submitted to the borough.
Earnest said he envisions a “core group” would be appointed, including one representative each for large and small businesses from the area to be improved, as well as a representative from the chamber of commerce, borough assembly and Chilkoot Indian Association.
“Once they meet, and go through (the plan), they could see if there should be other stakeholders involved in the process and maybe come back to the assembly with something more concrete,” Earnest told the assembly July 27.
“I think this needs to be borough supported, but if it’s going to be successful, it needs to be driven by the business community in that area,” Earnest said.
Earnest said he expected the group would start with small, attainable projects and work its way up to more complex issues like funding improvements through taxes or tax refunds. “There are larger policy issues that will need to be hammered out over a longer period of time… to be really successful, this is a four- or five-year process.”
“It would be helpful to get input from the business community and get their ideas up front, in terms of the structure and how we want to proceed,” he said.