April 2011
Main Street businesses will be required to remove signs suspended from marquees and pay $100 annually for awnings and park benches that encroach on the state’s right-of-way, according to the state Department of Transportation.
DOT recently mailed 22 letters to property owners downtown, informing them signs would have to come down and applications for permits to maintain marquees need to be mailed within 30 days. The $100 application fee is waived for buildings in place before 1959.
Removal of signs and benches is required for the state to meet federal road requirements and receive federal funding for DOT work next spring on portions of Main Street, Front Street, Second Avenue, Old Haines Highway and Beach Road.
“The Federal Highway Administration doesn’t allow any commercial signs permitted in the right-of-way,” a DOT manager said, “because they’re a distraction to motorists.”
April 1996
Commuting to work along the information superhighway
They work for companies and organizations far away, but they don’t leave town.
They’re telecommuters, and though only a small slice of the Haines workforce, they’re doing what futurists are calling the jobs of tomorrow–using specialized skills and knowledge to add value to products and ideas.
By definition, telecommuting is about white-collar jobs done at home and sent to a workplace by recent advances in telecommunications: computer networks, phones, modems and fax machines. About a half-dozen residents work such jobs in Haines. Most chose the Chilkat Valley for its beauty and rural lifestyle, then sold their bosses on the satellite arrangement.
April 1971
Earth Day
Tomorrow is Earth Day–a time to think seriously about the environment and what must be done to preserve it or improve it.
At 7:30 p.m. in Room 10 in the high school, the City of Haines will hold a public hearing on the sewer and water plans which Engineering Science of Alaska drew up for the city. An ESA representative will be present to explain the plans, and to answer questions.
Also at 7:30, in the school gym, and at other places throughout the school, special exhibits and demonstrations will be open to the public dealing with environmental problems.