The Haines Chamber of Commerce is continuing to push its goal of establishing a local economic development council, though it still needs to convince the Haines Borough to get on board with the idea.

Mike Healy, president of the Skagway Development Corporation, recently spoke to the chamber about the benefits of an economic development council, which essentially operates as an autonomous arm of the borough government.

SDC receives about $92,000 annually from the Municipality of Skagway to provide resources to local businesses, help market the community and put businesses in touch with funding sources like revolving loan programs. In exchange, SDC writes grants for the municipality.

Healy, who owns Skagway Brewing Co., said having an economic development corporation shows outside businesses and communities that your town is serious about economic development.

  “This says to them that you’re organized, and you’re willing to put forth money and effort,” Healy said, pointing out that many applicants for economic development grants won’t even be considered without an economic development council/corporation in place.

Of the 18 people who came to the Skagway Development Corporation last year expressing interest in starting a new business, 10 are opening this year, Healy said.

Chamber executive director Debra Schnabel has been working to establish an economic development corporation in Haines for nearly a year. Several months ago, she submitted a letter to Haines Borough interim manager Brad Ryan asking the borough for $70,000 to start a development corporation similar to Skagway’s.

Ryan met with chamber president Kyle Gray and board member Sean Gaffney, who elected to withdraw the request until a more defined plan could be hammered out.

Gray said the chamber is looking into how other communities handle economic development, including through government-funded economic development directors, as chambers of commerce, and nonprofit corporations. A more defined proposal will be made to the borough before next year’s budget is put together, he said.

“I would say at this point it is an idea, but it’s pretty far away from fruition,” Gray said.

The borough has struggled in recent years to identify and implement an effective economic development strategy. The municipality established a community and economic development director position in 2014, but the man hired lasted only a couple of months in the job before resigning. The position was never refilled.

Chamber executive director Schnabel said she would like to see the issue of economic development addressed by the community, not the borough.

“We do not think that the government is the vehicle that should be driving economic development,” Schnabel said. “We would like to see an organization that is stand-alone funded through municipal revenue.”

The chamber isn’t the correct vehicle for more macro-level economic development because it is an organization beholden to its membership, not the community as a whole, she said.

“Historically in Haines, economic development has been in the purview of the government and is viewed as capital projects,” Schnabel said. “In other words, build a dock and economic development will happen. Build a road and economic development will happen. The facts are that an economy grows out of the entrepreneurial passions that commit labor, money and resources to develop commerce.”

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