The Haines Borough Assembly voted to send a letter requesting the legislature allocate funds to cover service gaps after the breakdown of the Matanuska, the last state ferry serving many Southeast communities.

The decision emerged from a discussion about the possibility of borough-subsidized ferry service at the Feb. 11 assembly meeting. Borough manager Debra Schnabel said she added the topic to the agenda after at least six people asked her whether this was something the borough was considering.

At the meeting, Schnabel explained that borough-subsidized service might look something like the borough paying Allen Marine $7,000, or whatever price they asked, to charter a vessel. The borough could then ask passengers to purchase tickets to offset the cost, she said. “Whatever the borough is unable to raise in revenue would be paid for by taxpayers,” she said.

Assembly member Gabe Thomas suggested coordinating with the school district to get a sense of their needs. Schnabel said the district has considerable transportation needs, citing several upcoming sporting events. If the weather holds, the school will pay to transport students on planes, and if not, they will be paying for hotel rooms, she said. “They are very much in need of support for that.”

Mayor Jan Hill said she had heard the state was working to provide alternative service to communities in February and said, “It’s the state’s responsibility to provide this transportation.”

At a House Finance Committee meeting on Monday, Feb. 10, deputy commissioner for the Alaska Department of Transportation Mary Siroky said moving people and freight in the Upper Lynn Canal could happen soon. The department is actively communicating with companies that could provide those services, she said. By the end of this week the department hopes to “have a good idea of how we might be able to fill in for some service that we recognize people need.”

Hill also suggested that the lack of ferry service could be an economic opportunity for private companies like Allen Marine to step up and fill the gap on their own.

Haines Chamber of Commerce executive director Tracey Harmon said she had received a quote from Allen Marine for a round-trip charter between Haines and Juneau for $7,600. Allen Marine’s vessel can hold approximately 125 passengers. Operating at maximum capacity both ways, this would translate to $30 per passenger to cover the charter costs. However, the last state-funded Allen Marine sailing, which was chartered to serve a backlog of people stranded in Juneau and Haines due to weather, only served a total of 148 passengers traveling between the two destinations. This translates to $51 per ticket to cover charter costs.

Assembly member Stephanie Scott moved that the assembly direct the drafting of a letter in support of a state-funded solution for the service gap. “It’s important for the assembly to take a position on this issue,” she said.

“I think it’s valuable to continue putting it back (to the state),” assembly member Zephyr Sincerny said, speaking in support of the letter. “The state has certain financial and service obligations that it owes to residents and municipalities. It is in the best interest of the borough to continue to be vocal about our needs and continue to hold them to the obligations they’ve made to us and other communities that are affected by changes in service.”

Harmon said she worried the state might not move quickly enough to serve students traveling back from sporting events on Feb. 15 and asked the assembly to continue to apply pressure.

Beyond writing a letter to legislators, the next steps for the borough will depend on what the state decides to do with regard to ferry service, Schnabel said. She said she would try to find out what the Department of Transportation’s plans are.

If they’re not going to do anything to fill the gap until March, then there might be a need for the borough to step in, she said. “I think that there’s enough people in the community that are needing the transportation services that in the absence of the state being responsive to that need, somebody probably needs to be.” She noted that transportation is a service traditionally offered by the government.

Schnabel said she’s not concerned by arguments that a borough-subsidized ferry would set a precedent, allowing the state to offload yet another funding responsibility to local government. We wouldn’t provide “anything but the most superficial service,” she said. “It’s not sustainable.” Without larger vessels capable of transporting cars and navigating winter waters and without a funding source to cover expenses, the service the borough could offer would not be a viable replacement for state-funded ferry service, she said.

The Department of Transportation did not respond to questions about the status of a state-funded ferry alternative in February by the deadline for this article.

During public comment, resident Tom Morphet suggested a different solution to resolve the ferry crisis. Haines needs to “begin a discussion for seceding from Alaska either as an independent state of Southeast Alaska or as a community annexed to British Columbia. Last time I checked, British Columbia had an operating ferry system,” he said during public comment.

In response to giggles from the audience, Morphet said, “Holding polite rallies is fine, but this community is being clobbered by a legislature that doesn’t care. Do something to get their attention.” He described the state as a cat playing with Southeast and said, “it’s time for the mouse to bite the cat.”