About 20 residents turned out to hear assembly candidates answer ten questions at the Haines Chamber of Commerce Candidate Forum Tuesday afternoon in the Aspen Hotel lobby.
Chamber of commerce director Tracey Harmon hosted the event and asked 10 questions of incumbent Sean Maidy, Barbara Mulford and Paul Rogers. Will Prisciandaro was commercial fishing and unable to attend the forum.
The questions were related economic development and business in Haines. Harmon asked candidates to name one decision the assembly has recently made that benefited the business climate, and one decision that harmed the business climate.
As a decision that has benefited business, Maidy brought up an initiative he proposed that would exempt sales tax from residential long-term rent. “It’s a horribly regressive tax and I feel in the long-run it will bring more money into the community just by giving people who are renting, which is a large portion of the community, a little bit of extra money,” Maidy said.
Maidy said the assembly hasn’t made any decisions that were “outwardly negative toward business,” but that it sometimes takes adversarial tones when talking to businesses.
Rogers said he supports the marijuana industry in Haines, although he said the assembly didn’t “really have a choice in that.”
He said the recent debate on a municipally funded solid waste ordinance that provided a taxing mechanism, but not a plan to solve the problem, was an issue the assembly didn’t handle very well.
Mulford praised the assembly’s June 2015 decision to waive a percentage of dock fees from the Port Chilkoot dock.
The decision to implement a tobacco excise tax is a decision Mulford said hurt a sector of the business industry. “I think there was a lot of pushback from retailers on that and how it would affect their business, and a portion of the community, and they went forward with it anyways,” Mulford said.
Harmon questioned the candidates’ stances on Tier 3 designation for the Chilkat River.
Rogers answered the question most directly. “I think regulation needs to be at the local level as much as possible and I’m reluctant to support Tier 3 because of the fact that it comes from the federal government and is forced on states and on communities,” Rogers said.
Mulford refrained from providing her stance on Tier 3 designation, and said her opinion is unimportant. “I do believe that as an elected official we need to be representative of at least the majority of the community, and I don’t think that a personal opinion as an assembly member matters,” Mulford said. “I think it’s a representation of the voice of the community and that’s what we’re elected for and that is to represent what the community wants.”
Maidy said Tier 3 is still undefined at the legislative level. “We still don’t know exactly what it entails…I lean toward protecting the waterway. Whether that means Tier 3 or strict regulations adhered to by Tier 2, we don’t know until we actually get to that discussion.”
Harmon asked the candidates to name two to three industries they think have the most potential for growth in Haines, and how they could support them.
Rogers said the construction industry could grow if more young families could afford to live in Haines year-round. “That might take an improvement to the mining industry here, the timber sales in Haines,” Rogers said.
Mulford also pointed to construction. She also said agriculture has growth potential. “We’ve got more and more gardens or farms coming out and I think that could definitely be diversified and definitely be an economic impact, positively, to Haines.”
Twelve people turned out for the assembly candidate forum at the Mosquito Lake Community Center on Wednesday where attendees asked questions about police service, Tier 3, inclusiveness and how they could prove they weren’t crazy by running for local office. Mulford was absent for the forum.
One audience member asked the candidates what they would do if one of the three areas outside the townsite voted against creating a police service area.
Maidy said he couldn’t in good conscience direct the police to not respond. Echoing the police chief, Maidy said police response outside the townsite is an unfunded requirement and that no matter what it will cost money to respond.
Rogers proposed many of the elements included in the ballot proposition voters will see in October, including dividing the areas into separate voting blocs. He said it will be difficult moving forward if one area votes against police service and another vote for service.
“The assembly is going to be trapped in a situation of well do we respond anyway, and the moment they do that those who have agreed to pay are going to say, ‘Hey what’s going on here? We agred to pay and they didn’t…’ I think that’s the struggle that I see coming and I don’t have an answer for that.’”
Prisciandaro said he’d try to find money in the budget to divert to the police department. “Morally, I can’t just tell them now you can’t go out the Highway or now you can’t go out Mud Bay,” Prisciandaro said.
Another resident asked the candidates where they stand on Tier 3 on a scale of 1-5, five being the most supportive, and one being the least supportive.
Prisciandaro said he’s a five. “The watershed here in the valley is one of the most important things to my livelihood,” he said. “We don’t need to have any discharge into the river. Anything that changes the water quality of the river can affect the freshwater habitat.”
Another audience member who was critical of the Haines Economic Development Corporation asked if the candidates valued the organization, and if they supported continuing taxpayer funding of HEDC.
Prisciandaro and Maidy said while they were skeptical of the $95,000 the borough dedicated to the group, they now support the organization. Prisciandaro said he’d like to see it sustain itself soon. Rogers said he’s supportive of the organization’s work thus far and will support initiatives that enable economic growth.
All four candidates will appear at a community forum hosted by the CVN and KHNS, Tuesday, Sep. 18 at 6 p.m. in the Chilkat Center lobby. Attendees are encouraged to submit questions to the candidates at [email protected].