The Haines Borough Assembly voted last week to approve an ATV tour permit for Alaska Excursions after a process pregnant with controversy. One assembly member voted to support the tour, even though he was against it, because he feared the borough would be sued should it deny the permit.

But if the borough can be sued for denying a permit for subjective reasons, and assembly members vote based on that fear, what’s the point of having the assembly approve a permit?

The tour permit approval process was the fourth in the past year that was moved to a special meeting. They’ve involved hours of public testimony and assembly tweaking. Citing safety concerns, over-crowding and diminished experiences, former employees, rival tour operators and members of the public have opposed proposed tours.

The assembly ended up approving the tours, with certain conditions attached. Haines is the only community in Southeast Alaska that, by code, requires a public hearing and assembly approval of a commercial tour permit, according to a CVN informal survey of seven other Southeast communities.

The assemblies in Skagway, Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, Petersburg, Wrangell and Craig do not require tour permit applications to be the subject of a public hearing. Their assemblies do not weigh in on permits.

Petersburg and Wrangell have no commercial tour permit approval process in their codes. Skagway has language that restricts commercial use to two tour permit holders on Dyea Flats, a designated National Historic Landmark.

In Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka, various department heads only approve tours if they operate on municipally owned land. If a tour operates on private property in commercial zoning, tour companies are free to operate like any other business as long as they comply with local, state and federal laws. The U.S. Forest Service and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources regulates commercial tours on their land.

When approving a permit, the Forest Service checks to make sure tours are consistent with its land and resource management plans, are in the public interest, comply with public health and safety and that permit holders have required qualifications, technical skills and financial ability.

In Sitka, the police chief approves commercial tour permits and will grant the application “upon finding that the applicant for the permit is fit, willing, and able to comply with the law.” Sitka’s code states that the borough “shall take into consideration the character, experience, and responsibility of the applicant and the public health, safety and welfare.”

Haines’ permit approval process has shown that local code has been interpreted in multiple ways depending on who reads it. Assembly members Brenda Josephson and Sean Maidy disagreed on the interpretation of the word “fit” in Haines Borough code during last week’s meeting.

In the case of Alaska Excursions, former employees criticized the company for unsafe practices. Maidy, taking the allegations seriously, said he found the operator to be unfit.

Josephson argued that just as many employees spoke to the safety of the company and disputed the former employees’ claims. She recited borough code during the meeting, thinking it obvious that Alaska Excursions was “fit.”

“If the assembly, after the public hearing, finds that the applicant for the proposed commercial tour is fit, willing, and able to perform such a tour and to conform to the provisions and purposes set out in this title, then the assembly will authorize the issuance of a permit by the clerk,” Josephson read.

Haines Borough code also requires the assembly to hold a public hearing and consider all verified comments, along with public health and safety, before acting on the permit application.

Haines Borough Clerk Alekka Fullerton said the political nature of the decision allows for interpretation. “If you’re going to have a permit be administratively approved then you need to be very clear on what the requirements are,” Fullerton said. “If you’re going to have the public hearing process, I think you can be less concrete about it.”

Fullerton also suggested the cost of the permit applications should be increased to help pay for enforcement of various conditions placed on the operators.

Haines Rafting Company owner Andy Hedden thinks the public hearing process should be eliminated. “If it’s clear of obvious controversy, or if it is obviously legal, then the manager and the clerk should be able to approve it and move on without opening up a tour operator to the whims of every person who has a potential issue with one part of the tour,” Hedden said.

Hedden argued the one-year renewal term affects the stability of an operator’s permit and is a blockade to investment and potential growth. “It’s hard to want to make a large or long-term investment when your permit is tied up in a political process that can be reviewed every 12 months,” Hedden said. “The assembly showing they can be very reactive to public comment is kind of nerve wracking for a tour business.”

Alaska Nature Tours owner Dan Egolf supports the process. Egolf was the commercial tour representative on the Tourism Planning Committee in 2001 when the code was created for the City of Haines.

According to CVN archives, the Haines City Council in 2000 heard more than 25 complaints about tour operator Dave Button. Complaints alleged he snuck into community events to advertise to potential customers, poached customers from other tours and lied to visitors about other events being cancelled and then trying to sell them one of his tours.

Egolf said the regulations help curb potential bad actors. He added the areas locals recreate in are the same places commercial operators take visitors, and everyone needs to be involved in the discussion of land use. “If you’re not sitting at the table you’re probably the meal,” Egolf said, quoting a Tlingit elder. “I’m glad that we do have the regulations on the books right now.”

Fullerton and Egolf would like to see tour permit caps to the Chilkoot River corridor, for example, where overcrowding has created dangerous situations between humans and bears. There were 18 commercial tour permits in Haines during 2017, not including three heliski permits and additional special event and Port Chilkoot Dock tour permits.

Assembly member Heather Lende voted to deny Alaska Excursion’s permit application. Despite that vote, she said she wants to stay out of the approval process, but questions whether most Haines residents would agree.

“I feel fairly ill-equipped to make those decisions and yet by code I’m required to,” Lende said. “To me it’s like asking the assembly to determine the gillnet openings or hunting seasons. We don’t really have the expertise nor do we have the mechanism to enforce any of it and yet I understand the reasons why the assembly is charged with this. They’re basically political so people can have a say in the impacts a particular industry might make on us. That said, it’s a flawed system.”

The borough’s tourism advisory board recently made recommendations to change the permit approval process. Along with a list of many changes, the board recommended a permit be renewed every three years rather than annually. However, the recommendations allow for the clerk to review each permit annually.