An attempt by a Haines Borough Assembly member to hit “pause” on the Small Boat Harbor expansion project until several financial questions are answered was shot down by the assembly last week.
Member Ron Jackson tried to have the assembly reconsider its March 24 vote against extending the public comment period on the 65 percent design of the project. Jackson said he did not want to move forward with the design until questions about funding were answered.
Jackson said he went home after voting against extension of the public comment period at the March 24 assembly meeting and felt “uneasy” about what he was voting for.
In an April 13 email, Jackson notified assembly members and staff that he would be seeking reconsideration, and outlined his reasons. He said funding hasn’t been secured for new slips intended to help repay project costs, and asked how funding for those floats might become reality and when.
“New slips are hoped for and not funded at this time, and until they are funded and installed, there is no opportunity for income to offset the added costs of the expansion,” he said.
The wave barrier will require protective anodes after seven years, Jackson said, which will cost an additional $400,000.
“They are a necessary and expensive long-term cost,” he said.
Jackson also said the harbor fund, an enterprise fund, isn’t paying for itself: its expenses exceed its revenue by about $142,000 annually.
Completion of the uplands portion of the project also is undetermined, Jackson said. “There is no financing plan to do this, nor vision of what it is other than a large expanse of gravel space. It could stay like this for a very long time. I do not think the community will accept this,” he said.
Ultimately, Jackson said he wanted to see “a well thought-out plan that makes a viable and sustainable harbor operation.”
“We have entered a period of austerity with regards to state financial support and probably will not see much help in that regard. It is up to us to have our own plan. I know there is a great reluctance to slow the pace of this project. I am reluctant to slow the project. I voted to move it forward. I am rethinking that vote now,” he said.
Assembly members Diana Lapham, Joanne Waterman, Dave Berry and Mike Case voted against reconsideration. Assembly members Jackson and George Campbell voted in favor.
Assembly member Case said while he understood where Jackson was coming from, he couldn’t support the motion for reconsideration because of the potential delay and the deadline on spending the $19.5 million in grant funds the borough has secured for the project.
“What we have done is like building a theater building with no seats and no screen and saying, ‘Oh boy, isn’t this nice.’ Eventually, we’re going to have to fill it up. But right now we have to either finish the harbor or else it won’t be there for us to finish,” Case said.
Assembly member Lapham said she was “disappointed” at this discussion coming so late in the game and put the onus of obtaining information on the public.
“There is nothing that is hidden. There is nothing that is out of the blue, (that) all of a sudden comes out on this project. Everything has been out, and I put a lot of the responsibility onto the public. If you want to know about any given project that the borough is doing, the information is there. It’s done right. It’s publicly noticed. And then come to the meetings. If you want to have any input or any effect on a project or have anything taken into consideration about a particular project, come to the meeting and voice your public comment,” she said. Lapham also claimed that “all the things” Jackson brought up, including “where the money is going to come from,” have been addressed in previous meetings. In fact, Port and Harbor Advisory Committee chair Norman Hughes confirmed there is no funding plan for completion of the project. The $19.5 million will only fund the dredging, steel wave barrier and the uplands gravel parking lot.
“We have a plan like any other Haines project: We are going to look for someone else to pay for it to minimize the cost to the borough,” Hughes said.
(Project supporters in recent weeks have suggested the outstanding $10 million in expenses would come from borough raw fish tax revenues or from a local sales tax for tourism promotion and economic development. Fish tax income, which ranges between $200,000 and $400,000 annually, currently goes into the borough general fund. )
Lapham urged Jackson to “learn the process” and said she wouldn’t support his motion for reconsideration. “To hold any project up after this long of a period of time when many, many learned people have addressed it, I can’t be in support of this,” she said.