Mosquito Lake Community Center agreement extended through end of June
The Haines Borough Assembly extended the borough’s current memorandum of understanding with Friends of Mosquito Lake School and Community Center for another six months, through the end of the current fiscal year.
In 2014, the Mosquito Lake School closed due to falling enrollment. In 2016, the borough approved a memorandum of understanding with the center which expires at the end of this month. Under the agreement, the borough retained ownership of the building and responsibility for utility costs while friends of Mosquito Lake assumed responsibility for cleaning, light maintenance, landscaping, garbage collection, coordinating events, and rental of the space.
At a meeting Tuesday, the center proposed a revised memorandum of understanding, including edits to reflect the current use of the building as a garbage collection center and community garden, and revised rental fees for use of the facility. The center proposed renewing the memorandum of understanding for another five-year term.
“Our proposed (memorandum of understanding) contains some updates to our current one that will allow us to engage in better financial and long-term planning at the facility with a commitment of support and cooperation from the borough,” center chair Dawn Drotos said.
Assembly members declined to consider the new memorandum of understanding, saying it didn’t make sense to approve a five-year term in light of the anticipated deficit for the upcoming fiscal year.
Since the school closed, the facility routinely comes up as a potential cut during borough budget discussion. For the current fiscal year, funding for the community center was left out of the budget until a last-minute amendment allocated $10,000 of CARES Act funds and $10,000 of borough funds for the facility to serve as a food-security center in the Chilkat Valley.
“We need to just extend the current memorandum of understanding because the budget is not set for the year 2022. We have no idea where we’re going with everything, and this is one small piece of a big picture that we’re going to have to look at in making our budget decisions for the coming year,” assembly member Paul Rogers said.
At Tuesday’s meeting, assembly members encouraged center volunteers to begin looking into other funding options like grants.
Planning Commission to discuss borough drainage standards
On Tuesday, the Haines Borough Assembly referred discussion about improving borough storm drain standards to the Planning Commission for further consideration. The idea for raising standards was prompted by flooding and landslides in early December, triggered by heavy rainfall.
Borough facilities director Ed Coffland said FEMA funding can be used to repair roads and public facilities to meet standards in borough code, but at present, the borough doesn’t have any drainage standards.
Interim manager Alekka Fullerton said although she suspects FEMA will only fund repairs to meet drainage standards at the time of the flooding, she thinks there’s merit in discussing new standards since heavy rain events like the one in early December are likely to occur with increased frequency in the coming years.
“What we saw as a 200-year storm this year may in fact be a 100-year storm in the future, or a 50-year storm… As a community, we need to increase our resilience by decreasing our vulnerability, and to plan for extreme events,” Fullerton said, adding that another factor to consider is that higher building standards will result in increased building costs.
The Planning Commission meets next on Thursday, Jan. 28.
Asymptomatic COVID-19 testing program for travelers extended
The assembly approved $72,000 in CARES Act funds to support ongoing pandemic-related borough expenses ranging from increased fire department personnel hours to continuation of free, asymptomatic COVID-19 testing for travelers entering Haines.
A last-minute extension of the CARES Act spending deadline to the end of 2021 gave the assembly additional time to come up with a spending plan for roughly $275,000 left over from the original $4 million the borough received through the federal relief bill.
At a CARES Act ad hoc committee meeting on Jan. 21, members agreed to recommend funding ongoing borough expenses including $35,000 for the fire department, which has seen a decrease in volunteers and an increase in the time involved in responding to calls due to the pandemic; $10,000 to cover coronavirus-caused emergency sick leave for borough staff; and $25,000 to fund asymptomatic tests and provide quarantine assistance.
At Tuesday’s assembly meeting, members approved an additional $2,000 from the CARES Act to cover credit card fees for residents paying remotely due to pandemic concerns. The borough will use the $2,000 to continue paying these fees through the end of February, at which point it will cease covering the fees.
A spending plan for the remaining $200,000 CARES Act funds is uncertain. At the Jan. 21 CARES Act meeting, committee members expressed interest in distributing the funds to community members in the form of another utility assistance program but said they wanted to find out whether the borough is still going to receive a $1.4 million CARES Act grant from the state’s Department of Health and Social Services before finalizing a plan.
In December, the state said it would provide $1.4 million to assist with stabilization and behavioral health services in the wake of the Dec. 2 landslide. The funds were initially given to Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau and subsequently returned to the state so that the grant could be given directly to the Haines Borough.
At Tuesday’s assembly meeting, interim manager Alekka Fullerton said she continues to receive assurances from state officials that the funding will eventually come through. She said she remains somewhat anxious about the funding since the state has not yet provided details about when that will happen.