By jove, I’ve got it. We should have a contest to guess when the Lutak Dock in Haines is going to collapse into the sea. It will be like that Nenana ice thing. How’s that for making lemonade out of lemons? The winner will get most of the money but some will go to helping Lutak Dock. Of course, we won’t raise the $20 million needed to fix this 63-year-old structure, but we could raise enough for the cheese plates and two boxes of coffee they buy that no one drinks when the engineers come to show us concepts. Haines Borough’s plan for this dock right now is to wish for the money. That is another reason I think it will collapse. They are free to write in and correct me if not.
I am picking 7 p.m. on December 15, 2016, just because it is winter and I read the engineer’s report condemning it and I kayaked in front of it and there are 22 of 28 steel support beams that have fallen into the canal. It is steel in water. It is going to go.
The solution is to take the money from the steel monstrosity they are going to build in the front of town, write off the $2 million in engineering for that, then put the rest into fixing a desperate and liability-laden Lutak. But that will be tough to go through, so we can play the game until then. See me to get a ticket.
Joe Parnell