The Haines Borough Assembly on Tuesday told concerned residents it would not slow plans for expansion of the Small Boat Harbor, but agreed to discuss an economic analysis of the project at a Finance Committee meeting next week.
Tresham Gregg submitted an informal petition to the assembly with 100 signatures asking the borough to suspend engineering work on the project and conduct reviews of its design and economics. Gregg also asked the borough to hold a town hall meeting to discuss these issues.
Instead, the assembly voted 5-1 to direct the Finance Committee to conduct an economic analysis of the project. Assembly member Mike Case was opposed.
The committee will meet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Nearly a dozen residents turned out to express opinions on the project. Former House Rep. Bill Thomas, a commercial fisherman and harbor user, said the borough needed to continue moving forward with the project and spend the money it has received so it doesn’t get taken back by the state.
“If we want to go backwards, let’s do that. Rip up the water and sewer lines and let’s get crazy. We need to keep going forward. We have 90 people waiting on the waiting list for the harbor,” Thomas said.
Thomas and fisherman Jim Szymanski said harbor projects in Southeast are traditionally phased and not fully funded at the project’s onset.
“It’s really important to realize that almost all boat harbor expansion projects – at least the ones throughout northern Southeast Alaska that I’m familiar with – are not fully funded,” Szymanski said. “You can use Sitka, Juneau, Hoonah, Wrangell as examples. It took years for them to then fill in the stall infrastructure. Our project is not unusual in any way, shape or form. It’s the norm.”
Resident Don Turner also pointed out that by installing the new steel wave barrier – even if it doesn’t have funds yet for the harbor’s innards – the borough would be protecting its new floats, installed in 2009, that are being damaged by wave action.
“If we at least get the wave barrier to protect the harbor we have and have the basin built, we will be a lot more likely to get some help with (funding for putting the) floats in,” Turner said.
Critics of the project spoke against its large, expanded parking lot on the waterfront, and the fact that $10 million of the total project cost is unsecured. They also questioned why the petition was placed on the consent agenda, which effectively removes it from discussion.
Resident Carol Tuynman called for the petition’s removal from the consent agenda. “The public really needs to hear why certain decisions are being made.”
Former assembly member and Chamber of Commerce executive director Debra Schnabel said she was “hurt” by the item’s placement on the consent agenda.
“I know what it is like, and democracy can get really messy and really complicated, but when the public takes the time to petition you to ask for your attention, and to ask for your ear to hear what they have to say, I really react with hurt that the request is put on the consent agenda,” Schnabel said.
Assembly member Ron Jackson pulled the item from the consent agenda.
During discussion of whether to hold a town hall meeting on the matter, Mayor Jan Hill ran through a list of the public hearings held on the harbor project since 2009 (though the current design wasn’t chosen until February 2014). She also pointed out the borough held a Port and Harbor Town Hall meeting on October 9, 2014, which included visual aids for the project, but only a handful of residents attended.
“Where was the public? I’m just saying, we have had a town hall meeting and nobody showed up,” Hill said.
Assembly member Diana Lapham attacked the significance of the petition. “Some of these people that are on this petition are only here in the summertime, so yeah, they’ve got a lot of signatures on that petition. But again, I put it up to misinformation and the way things get spread by word of mouth.”
Assembly member George Campbell, however, apologized to the public for “pooching” the project and not requiring a cost/benefit analysis be conducted for the project sooner. “We’re here now. The best we can do is salvage what we’ve got and go forward.”
Assembly member Mike Case objected to Campbell’s apology, and made sure everyone was aware Campbell could only apologize on behalf of himself, and not the entire assembly. “When we’ve had all these meetings and nobody showed up and then they bitch about it, I don’t think an apology is necessary,” Case said.
Assembly member Joanne Waterman said she believed a happy medium could be reached in which the harbor gets its parking lot and an aesthetically-pleasing waterfront is maintained.
“I truly believe we can have both. I think we can have the parking that is required for an active, vibrant boat harbor, and I think we can make it look good,” Waterman said.
The assembly recently advanced a 65 percent project design to PND Engineers. The company expects to produce a 95 percent design by June 1.
The borough was awarded $19.5 million in state funds for the first phase of the $30 million project. Borough officials have said that the municipality must spend the money on construction before July 2017.