After being tasked with looking at the biennial $22 motor vehicle registration tax, the Haines Borough Government Affairs and Services Committee is recommending discussion of the tax program be lumped in with a larger discussion about solid waste management to be tackled by a new ad hoc group.
The committee met last week to discuss the motor vehicle tax after assembly member George Campbell began pushing for its repeal. An ordinance establishing the tax was passed in October 2013 to help raise funds to clean up junked and abandoned vehicles around the borough.
Discussion at the meeting veered toward solid waste management when assembly member Margaret Friedenauer – who doesn’t sit on the committee – said dealing with junked vehicles is a public health and safety issue, largely because of hazardous waste.
“It’s a problem because of where we live and because there aren’t any resources for people to properly dispose of an abandoned, dead vehicle,” Friedenauer said. “We have to be able to provide that type of resource when we are dealing with public safety and public health.”
Friedenauer pointed to a memo former manager Mark Earnest wrote on the motor vehicle tax, when it was estimated to bring in $40,000 annually. The borough has been through one year of collecting that tax and has only taken in about $24,000, according to interim manager Brad Ryan.
“We may not be able to do the idea that we first came up with because it is only generating half of what (Earnest) anticipated, but that’s not to say we couldn’t use the fees to address something more like hazardous waste, if that’s the bigger problem,” Friedenauer said.
“Instead of just getting rid of it, we could re-evaluate if there’s another way to utilize it,” she added.
Ryan said he would like to see the borough implement some kind of annual program that encourages people to deal with their unused vehicles.
“If it was up to me and you were going to maintain the tax, I would like to see us once a year look at the money we have, project how many vehicles that would get shipped out of town – drained, cleaned up, paid for borough time and for borough towing – and put out a public announcement that was first come, first serve,” Ryan said.
Assembly member Campbell said he would rather get rid of the current tax, which was passed under the assumption that a specific program would be implemented, and instead propose a new tax for something the public might support more, like solid waste management.
In September 2014, former assembly member Debra Schnabel drafted a solid waste management ordinance for consideration by the borough’s Commerce Committee. It dropped off the borough’s radar until she once again brought up the draft ordinance in July when the borough was dealing with a trash issue at the Eagles Nest trailer park.
The assembly will deal with the committee’s recommendation once the other two committees tasked with looking at the tax – the Finance Committee and Public Safety Commission – hold meetings and develop their own recommendations.