Questions about an ore terminal, the firing of manager Debra Schnabel and the best way to keep cultural institutions open during economically challenging times highlighted differences in Haines Borough Assembly and mayoral candidates at forums this past week.
KHNS and the CVN co-hosted a forum Monday for the six assembly candidates—Brenda Josephson, Jerry Lapp, Cheryl Stickler, Caitie Kirby, Carol Tuynman and Helen Alten. On Sept. 17, Friends of Mosquito Lake Community Center hosted a forum for the assembly candidates and two mayoral candidates—incumbent Jan Hill and challenger Doug Olerud.
When it came to bears, solid waste and general principles for balancing the budget, the six assembly candidates at Monday’s forum voiced similar responses. Candidates advocated for educating residents about what constitutes a bear attractant and how best to secure them, making solid waste disposal more widely accessible, and diversifying the economy while looking for “efficiencies” in the budget.
Responses differed more when it came to the question of Schnabel’s firing and how it could have been better handled. The assembly voted to fire Schnabel in May in a 3-3 tie vote broken by Hill, a decision many residents criticized.
Assembly candidates agreed that Schnabel should have received more feedback on her performance prior to termination. However, there were two opposing opinions when it came to the timeline for giving feedback.
Stickler and Josephson said they wished the assembly had been in the habit of regularly evaluating the manager’s performance.
Josephson, who was one of the assembly members who voted to fire Schnabel, placed the blame with the assembly’s Personnel Committee.
“I had referred to the Personnel Committee to establish performance criteria (for the manager) and get an evaluation established,” Josephson said. “Unfortunately, the Personnel Committee, who I am not a member of, did not hear it.”
Lapp, Alten and Kirby said they thought the manager should have been given a probationary period and the opportunity to improve her performance before she was let go.
Lapp, who voted to suspend Schnabel with pay but voted against her termination, cited Schnabel’s firing when candidates were asked about a time they’d changed their minds about an issue.
“Releasing the manager, I did change my mind on my way of thinking , and that was after listening to what the public had to say,” Lapp said. “I have a tendency to change my mind if I hear some good comments, if I hear things that are powerful statements.”
On the question of the community’s cultural centers, candidates had a variety of ideas for how to keep them open.
Some suggested ideas for increasing revenue.
Josephson said increased volunteerism and leveraging nonprofit status would be a way to keep the facilities open. Kirby suggested bringing in revenue through grants. Alten said she supported diversifying revenue sources, listing user fees, grants and taxes as possibilities.
“(Another option is) to take a percentage of revenues from taxes, add a one-percent or two-percent tax that is specifically for the cultural centers of the community,” Alten said, adding it would be up to the community to determine whether this approach has merit.
Lapp and Stickler said targeted cuts might be necessary.
“I do not support raising taxes to keep things open at this time,” Stickler said, citing the current downturn of the economy.
“We’ve gone through this before, and we’ve maybe had to temporarily shut down some hours or take a day off to save some money or lay off some staff to part time. You get through the tough times, and then, when your money starts coming in again, you gradually rebuild the programs,” Lapp said, adding that it’s important to work with boards to come up with workable budgets for the facilities.
When asked about a mask mandate, Lapp, Stickler, Josephson, Kirby and Tuynman said they don’t support a mandate at present. Alten didn’t directly say whether she’d support a mandate.
“In terms of a mask mandate, I’m pretty conservative about health,” Alten said. “I guess I believe in being cautious.”
The last question from the Monday forum asked candidates to describe their greatest weakness.
“My greatest weakness is I like information overload. I spend a lot of time researching, and sometimes I get into the weeds on issues… sometimes it can put me where I spend too much time in one area or another,” Josephson said.
Stickler described a similar trait.
“I over plan. I need all of the information that I can get my hands on, and then when I’m planning, I try to predict every contingency that could possibly happen and have an answer for that, and it is incredibly time consuming,” she said.
Alten, Tuynman and Lapp described issues with communicating ideas.
“I have too many ideas. I’m a solution-oriented person, and I see a lot of ways to fix things and change things and improve, and sometimes I lead into a new idea and people that are working with me are still back three ideas,” Alten said.
“I’m a big picture thinker, and I often feel like I can understand things, and I don’t understand why everybody else doesn’t understand. And then I realize, well, guess what, Carol, you don’t really understand them either,” Tuynman said.
“Sometimes communicating, speaking, basically communicating my point, sometimes I don’t get it across correctly, but I am a really good listener and in my mind I can form it, but sometimes I just don’t bring it out right,” Lapp said.
For Kirby, dealing with conflict was the issue she listed.
“I’m pretty non-confrontational. I don’t like conflict. I try to avoid it,” Kirby said. “What I’m doing now to work on that is running for the assembly.”
At the Mosquito Lake candidate forum, audience members had the opportunity to ask candidates questions directly. When asked if they would support an ore terminal at Lutak Dock, all candidates said they were open to hearing more about the option as a possibility for securing funding to rebuild the Lutak Dock face.
Olerud and Lapp said they would support an ore terminal in theory if it met all state and federal regulations. Josephson, Stickler and Hill stressed the importance of finding a funding source for Lutak Dock without taking a stance on an ore terminal. Tuynman, Kirby and Alten said they would prefer not to have an ore dock but were willing to consider all funding options for the Lutak Dock.
KHNS and the CVN will host a mayoral candidate forum Sept. 24 at 6 p.m. It will be the final candidate forum before the Oct. 6 election. Early voting began this week.