Encouraging commercial agriculture, adding special events, and developing the port were among economic development opportunities touted at a public forum Saturday at the Chilkat Center.
Economic challenges that were cited included limited and expensive Internet access, out-of-town shopping, and monopolies on fuel, freight and banking services.
About 25 residents turned out for the open-ended discussion, including about eight business owners.
Haines Chamber of Commerce president Debra Schnabel reported that the group’s “business retention and expansion program” was building a database on local businesses that would include information on what is needed to make existing businesses grow.
“Economic development comes from supporting and expanding existing businesses. These are the people who have the passion for what they’re doing. You don’t have to convince them to come here. You don’t have to convince them to stay here,” Schnabel said.
The chamber also will be holding workshops in the spring explaining how Sitka, Skagway and Juneau face their economic development challenges, Schnabel said.
Artist and shop owner Tresham Gregg, who helped organize the meeting, said retreats were a new potential source of income but obstacles include the town’s remoteness, lack of amenities, and “we’re not all that used to cooperating with each other. We have divergent opinions on what we’d like to see happen and some would rather not see anything happen at all.”
Resident George Figdor said “nobody outside can produce fresher, healthier food than we can produce right here and that’s actually part of our history.”
Commercial produce has “great potential but we don’t quite have the infrastructure and the zoning and the other parts of the support system we need to make it happen,” he said.
Schnabel noted that the largest component of the cost of food here was the expense of basically shipping water. “Having food produced locally should be much less expensive because you don’t have to pay for freight on the water.”
Schnabel also said it was “time to get real about the leakage issue.”
“I can stand outside the post office… and every single day I can probably count 150 to 200 packages from Amazon.com walking out… People aren’t willing anymore to put their money back into the community because we have so many options available to us and we can afford them,” Schnabel said.
Carol Tuynman said the government could “model” local support by making purchases locally. “The government needs to step up to the plate on those big purchases. They may spend $2,000 or more for some piece of equipment (bought locally), but that money will come back to our economy.”
Fisherman Craig Hagwood said commercial fishing offers many opportunities for young people. “You can work your way into owning your own boat and permit.”
Liz Cornejo, a geologist and spokesperson for Constantine Metal Resources, reported the company spends $1 million per year here, including with a range of businesses, and fishermen.
Newspaper publisher Tom Morphet brought up the monopolies, noting that there had been competing companies making freight and fuel deliveries to town in the 1990s.
“People say it’s too expensive to have competition at that level, but it’s not too expensive for us to compete for groceries and hardware and in all these other areas. I don’t buy the contention that there can’t be competition at that higher level, because there’s competition for the crumbs,” Morphet said.
Assembly member Margaret Friedenauer said Internet speed and cost are a “huge barrier whether people know it or not.”
“I work two jobs that are Internet based. It’s very difficult and it’s very expensive. There are some tasks I cannot do because of our Internet (speed and costs),” Friedenauer said.
Resident Anne Boyce said she’d like to see the chamber’s survey quantify the economic impact of nonprofits and retiree incomes.