In an effort to shield the borough from legal liability, borough staff last week halted public discussions about revoking or suspending Alaska Excursions tour permits at Glacier Point at the assembly’s commerce committee meeting. At Tuesday’s regular assembly meeting, the assembly voted 6-0 to refer the matter to the borough’s attorney.

Alaska Excursions owner Robert Murphy, and members of his staff, attended the Sep. 20 meeting in expectation that the committee, consisting of assembly members Tom Morphet, Sean Maidy and Tresham Gregg, would discuss his tour permits.

Morphet proposed having the discussion at a Sep. 11 assembly meeting in response to the death of an Alaska Excursions tour guest Steve Willis. Details in an Alaska State Trooper report about the causes of Willis’ drowning on July 30 mirrored concerns brought to the assembly by the company’s former guides in February-a fact that Morphet and Maidy have said is reason to discuss revoking or suspending the company’s permit. The trooper report ruled the Willis’ death as an “accidental drowning.”

When Morphet brought up the subject at the commerce committee, borough manager Debra Schnabel interjected. She said the scope of the agenda item was to review tour capacity in the borough, not discuss specific permits.

“Obviously, people have assumed there is a topic on the agenda possibly that’s beyond reviewing capacity issues,” Schnabel said. “It’s up to the chair to determine how you want to deal with that. I recognize that the media did have a story that I think is probably what’s generated the interest.”

Morphet said he raised the issue at an assembly meeting with the intent to discuss Alaska Excursions’ permits. The CVN reported in a Sep. 13 issue that such a discussion would occur at the commerce committee meeting.

Borough Clerk Alekka Fullerton told committee members she didn’t hear it that way at the assembly meeting, and Schnabel reiterated that she never expected the discussion to come up.

“But it does seem to me there are people here, who are reading the media, [have] come with an expectation,” Schnabel said. “If you want to take input for consideration at another date that’s fine, but I would really caution assembly members of this committee in engaging in any kind of analytical discussion about any individual’s particular permit.”

At the Sep. 11 assembly meeting, Morphet said he’d like to make a motion to discuss revoking or suspending Alaska Excursions’ permits. Assembly member Stephanie Scott, who chaired the meeting, told Morphet, “You can talk about that at the committee meeting.”

Maidy followed up and asked if they needed to make a motion to add it to the agenda item titled “Review of Permitted Commercial Tours.”

“I was just wondering if at that committee meeting, they’re already going to be discussing commercial tour permits, does it need to be added on as an agenda item when it’s already a part of the [committee] meeting?” Maidy asked.

Scott replied, “It is part of it.”

Morphet, Gregg and Maidy assumed the revocation or suspension of the permit would be discussed. But last week, Fullerton expressed concern about the discussion in an email to Maidy, the commerce committee chair. She wrote she was surprised to read about it in the newspaper article, and that if they were to discuss it, they needed to provide Alaska Excursions with notice. She advised that if the committee planned to explore revoking the permit, it needed to direct staff to coordinate with legal counsel, prepare a memo containing advice and schedule a Committee of the Whole meeting of the assembly to address the memo.

During the commerce committee meeting, Maidy refrained from discussing the permits.

“Realistically, after reviewing code and reviewing our guidelines, if the discussion was, for what I’m gathering from members of this committee to discuss specifically Alaska Excursions tours, then you’d notice that in code there’s a specific time requirement needed to be able to revoke anyone’s tour,” Maidy told committee members, “And [with] the amount of time left in the season, it’s just not realistic to be able to revoke a tour because we would not be able to give proper notice to the company.”

According to borough code, the borough manager may revoke or suspend a permit if “the area affected by the permit is required for another public purpose or for other reasons affecting the public safety or welfare.”

At Tuesday’s regular assembly meeting, Fullerton interpreted the language to mean that the manager can only revoke the permit if “the area affected” by the permit, rather than the tour, impacts public safety.

Assembly member Heather Lende disagreed, and said the line of code was two separate clauses. Morphet quoted the intent written in the first paragraph of the borough’s commercial tour permit code, which is to “regulate commercial tours to protect public safety and welfare.”

Borough Code addressing revocation or suspension of commercial tour permits states the borough manager shall give the permittee written notice of the proposed revocation or suspension of the permit with the caveat that, “If the manager determines that the reason for the revocation or suspension may endanger the public health or safety…the revocation or suspension may take effect immediately.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Schnabel said her father’s mill, her brother’s construction company and her own tour business experienced deaths, and that they were accidents, similar to Alaska Excursions. “As a daughter of a man who owned a mill and an operation, death came accidentally [and] often,” Schnabel said.

Morphet said accidents are defined as something unexpected, that the Haines Borough might “have blood on its hands” and that the assembly had been warned by former employees about the company’s dangerous tour practices. “We were told to expect this,” Morphet said. “We were told of serious deficiencies with this company’s regard for safety.”

Lende and Mayor Jan Hill said they shouldn’t be talking about the issue publicly and that they should consult their attorney. Hill left the room during the discussion and sat in the audience when she returned to the assembly chamber.

Schnabel wrote to the CVN earlier this week that she recommends the assembly seek legal counsel before having a public discussion on the issue. She said such a discussion needs to have a basis, and that no one had yet provided one since the troopers determined the death was an accident.

“[Borough code] provides specific criteria for revocation, accidents not being one of them. [Code] provides that applicants that are ‘fit, willing and able’ will be provided a permit,” Schnabel wrote. “It would seem that the argument presented for non-renewal could only be whether the applicant is ‘fit, willing and able.’ That is subjective criteria, and relates only to renewal or issue. We aren’t there yet.”

In regard to the commerce committee, Schnabel said she and Fullerton decided how “to protect the borough from legal issues, and moved forward without providing anyone (except Sean Maidy, commerce committee chair) the benefit of our thinking.”

The commerce committee did not discuss Alaska Excursions’ permit during the meeting and Murphy and his staff left without addressing the committee. When approached for comment, Murphy described recent CVN articles as “cherry picking” facts, as sensational and that the newspaper is engaged in a conspiracy with some assembly members to shut his Glacier Point tours down. He said previous reporting about his company being involved in two lawsuits was inaccurate. He declined to comment further.

Steve Willis’ widow, Sheri Willis, told the CVN earlier this month that she was involved in a lawsuit against the company, a fact the CVN reported in a previous story. When asked this week to clarify, Willis said that her attorney is still researching Alaska law and has yet to file suit, but plans to. Sheri was one of the ten guests who fell into rapids after their canoe’s motor malfunctioned above rapids.

Lisa Young, who booked a zip line tour with Alaska Excursions in August 2017, is suing the company for negligence after a guide allegedly failed to operate the zip line’s brake system, “sending [Young] careening into a nearby tree at a high rate of speed,” according to a civil district court complaint. Young’s attorney said she suffered from cracked vertebrae. The complaint alleges Alaska Excursions was negligent in its failure to properly train its employees, failure to maintain the safety of their clients and that it was reckless in its operation of a zip line.

On Sep. 18, three plaintiffs filed a complaint against Alaska Excursions in civil superior court for personal injury and/or property damages that was “automobile related,” according to court records. Their attorney, Douglas Johnson, said the suit hasn’t been served to the defendant.

In August 2017, 28 tourists were injured after an Alaska Excursions Unimog touring vehicle went off the road in Skagway-injuries included broken bones.

About ten former Alaska Excursions Glacier Point guides publicly criticized Alaska Excursions last spring when the company applied for a new ATV permit at Glacier Point. Guides alleged the company ignored safety concerns at Glacier Point and its zip line tours, and failed to property maintain their boat engines and other equipment.

Former Alaska Excursions guide Alton Smith told the assembly in February that the most dangerous part of the tour was the probability of a canoe motor failing above the rapids. “The tour is marketed as a paddling canoe tour, but that is not the case at all,” he wrote. “The tour relies heavily on the use of the outboard motors to shuttle guests to the glacial delta on time and when you are running them at full throttle for five months straight in extremely silty water, they break down all the time.”

Many Alaska Excursions employees, the bulk of whom did not work at Glacier Point, denied the guides’ allegations. Murphy told the assembly most of the former guides criticizing his company were disgruntled because they had been fired. He issued some of them cease and desist letters.

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