A day after an ad hoc committee recommended the creation of an independent code commission to sift through the hundreds of violations outlined in the controversial minor offenses law, Haines Borough Mayor Jan Hill unilaterally declared the issue would go instead to the Government Affairs and Services Committee.
The ad hoc Minor Offenses Committee on Monday recommended creation of a code commission after hearing that residents wanted the borough to get rid of some of the 250 existing violations in code that became known when the ordinance was introduced last summer.
During her mayor’s report Tuesday, Hill stated that the task would go to the Government Affairs and Services Committee consisting of four assembly members.
“What we are going to try first is rather than establish another committee, we are going to go through our code, section by section, and have the GAS committee do this project,” Hill said. “The public can certainly participate in these committee meetings and I would encourage you to if you have suggestions or comments.”
Hill said the GAS committee wouldn’t take up the work until after completion of the budget and union negotiations. “It’s going to take a little bit of work in the office to decide where to start, but I want to start where we have the most hiccups and see how we do with that,” she said.
Assembly member Margaret Friedenauer interjected to ask if it wasn’t the assembly’s responsibility to assign issues to committees. She also pointed out that it seemed the GAS committee chair, assembly member Ron Jackson, wasn’t aware of this plan.
“The chair of the GAS committee didn’t know about that,” Hill replied.
Friedenauer asked the issue be put on the assembly’s April 26 agenda so it could determine as a group what to do.
After the meeting, several residents who had been pushing for the establishment of an independent code commission objected to Hill’s attempt to “shove” the issue into the GAS committee without assembly approval.
Evelyna Vignola said reviewing and revising the listed offenses shouldn’t be given to an assembly committee with an ongoing agenda and other work to attend to. “Such a level of ‘housekeeping’ requires its own committee (again), its own personnel and its own focused meetings,” she said.
Minor offenses committee member Deborah Vogt expressed a similar sentiment at a meeting Monday that recommended creation of a separate code commission.
“I think a code revision commission is really an excellent idea. I think that it gives the public an opportunity to make comments… about specific titles, specific provisions and so on. What we are doing here (at the minor offenses committee level) is basically more procedural than substantive, but I think it would be nice to have the community have an opportunity to review all of the 23 pages of offenses that are already on the books,” Vogt said.
A town hall meeting held by the minor offenses committee last week revealed a misunderstanding between the committee and some residents about the purpose of the committee’s work.
Some residents thought the committee would be poring over the 250 violations and weeding out the superfluous and unnecessary ones, but that isn’t what the committee was tasked with doing, committee members said.
The question came up again at Monday’s meeting when resident Leonard Dubber referenced the petition about 650 people signed, pushing the assembly to overturn the minor offenses ordinance several weeks after its passage in October.
“There were 600-some people who (signed the petition) because when they read (the ordinance) they saw all the rules that were coming up and they weren’t happy,” Dubber said.
Committee member Friedenauer acknowledged Dubber’s frustration but pointed out the petition said nothing about combing through the violations section by section.
“I hear what you’re saying,” she said. “That wasn’t included in the language in the petition. It wasn’t included that this committee or that the public process was going to include going through those individual violations and we weren’t charged with that.”