About 20 people attended a May 18 meeting to support Haines Borough acquisition of Picture Point, and several called for the borough assembly to speed up its timeline for making a decision on the purchase.
“I read the crowd as very aggressive, wanting the borough to purchase the property with its own money or to develop other ways of getting the property,” said borough staffer Debra Schnabel.
She organized the meeting for “Friends of Picture Point” to discuss the future of the property – two scenic pullouts that amount to about half of a five-acre waterfront strip Texas-based car dealer Roger Beasley purchased in October.
The assembly has met in several executive sessions to discuss Picture Point, which is posted for sale. Real estate agent Jim Studley, who represents Beasley, said assemblymen seem to oppose spending existing funds for the property and are instead seeking new grants to cover its price.
The assembly listed a request of $500,000 for the negotiated land acquisition of Picture Point as the third item on its list of 2011 federal legislative priorities, following boat harbor improvements and the Lutak port facility master plan.
The borough has made no agreement with Beasley preventing him to sell the land to another party. Studley said he’s trying to secure a “good-faith agreement” toward a borough purchase.
Borough manager Mark Earnest said the borough is seeking a National Scenic Byways Program grant to support the purchase, and $500,000 is the estimated cost of land acquisition and development. The grant requires a 20 percent non-federal match, he said.
Earnest acknowledged that meeting attendees wanted to move forward immediately with the purchase, but said the borough must look into new sources for money.
“When you add up everything, that money could be spent in a very short order, so there are a lot of priorities out there and a lot of support for each of those projects, but we can’t do it all just with borough funds,” he said.
The borough holds about $7 million in its permanent fund and more than $2 million in reserves, according to recent budget figures.
Schnabel is the grant writer for the National Scenic Byways grant effort.
“In my capacity as a professional person, I recognize fully that the project needs to have a grassroots organization, called ‘Friends of Picture Point’ or something,” she said. “In the void of that, I created it. Am I personally in favor of the borough’s purchase of Picture Point? Yes.”
She said the grant is “a yearlong process,” and “the general sense among the people who were at the meeting, in my opinion, was an insecurity about the timeline for the application.”
Studley said he is prepared for a lengthy process and was encouraged by the meeting. He said applying for the grant is “only a minimal amount of money, so it’s only prudent that (the borough) would do that.”
“From that perspective, I’ve been involved in many government projects, and I know how slowly that grinds,” he said. “Should we expedite this and move it forward? Well, you can only push the government to move so fast.”
Schnabel said many longtime residents backed the purchase.
“They’re older people who have property that they pay taxes on,” Schnabel said. “There were several people who were interested in serving on a governance committee, like being on the board of directors or something like that. I also asked people to say if they would be interested in donating money, and some people marked that column down.”
Tour operator Joe Ordonez joked that he went to the meeting because “I do photography tours, and it is called Picture Point.”
He said Picture Point is “a treasure” and “the classic, quintessential view of Haines.” Ordonez first saw the view from there on a poster.
“That, for me, was the image of Haines before I even came here, when I was working over in Skagway,” he said. “I saw that poster and was like, ‘Man, I’ve got to get over there.’”
Others who attended the meeting included Chip Lende, Thad Stewart, Fred Shields, Dan Egolf and Ray Staska.