After state lobbyists secured 3.2 million in funding for Lutak Dock, the Haines Borough Assembly voted both to renew that contract and sign on a new team of federal lobbyists.

The $48,000 annual contract with the Juneau lobbyists, Theodore Popely and Darwin Peterson, has been extended for another year. The contract with the D.C.-based federal lobbyists, Jay Sterne and Martha Newell-Kinsman of Windward Strategies, will cost $3,000 a month through the end of 2023, plus travel expenses which the assembly will have to approve first.

Both teams will be working to get money for the borough’s next big project, the replacement of the public safety building. The project was last estimated at $22 million, but is likely more expensive now thanks to increased supply and transportation costs.

The assembly may also approve a shortlist of secondary priorities – such as increased broadband to attract remote workers and investment in renewable energy sources – but borough manager Annette Kreitzer said it’s important that the lobbying teams don’t “dilute” the borough’s number-one project by asking for too much at once.

Kreitzer said she wouldn’t always recommend federal lobbyists, but the amount of federal funding currently flowing is “unprecedented.” She believes it would be money well-spent to ensure that the borough gets its slice of the pie while it is available.

Kreitzer told the assembly that a representative in U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office suggested that the borough look into federal lobbyists when she and Mayor Douglas Olerud were in Juneau campaigning for the Lutak funding.

And the success of the state lobbyists on that front has itself been persuasive. “I think we proved last year that lobbyists at the state level can be beneficial,” Olerud said. “I don’t think we need (lobbyists) all the time, but when there’s a specific clear-cut project it’s valuable to have that representation, especially with Annette’s understanding of the system.”

Lobbying is “a complex process but it really works if you stay on it,” Popely said to the assembly at a Committee of the Whole meeting on Aug. 17, a week before the assembly voted to approve both contracts. “A lot of this business is patience and persistence – talking to the right folks and knowing what the messaging is at the right time.”

All four lobbyists have extensive connections with “the right folks.” Popely worked for 12 years as chief legal counsel for the Alaska legislature. And his partner Peterson recently switched to the private sector after a 24-year career in the Alaska state legislature, where he worked for both chairs of the state finance committee.

Federal lobbyist Sterne has been an Alaska-focused D.C. lobbyist for 30 years; his clients include the city of Nome and the Alaska aerospace corporation. His partner Newell-Kinsman was a legislative assistant for Don Young for three years, and she said that because she moved to the private sector recently, she is still “close with people on both Sulllivan and Murkowski’s staffs.”

Stern and Newell-Kinsman were able to speak to Murkowski and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s distinct governance styles, remarking, for instance, that “Lisa is a very senior appropriator” who often uses the earmarking process (setting aside money for particular projects from above). While Sullivan doesn’t believe in earmarking, he is, in Stern’s words, “somebody that you want on your side when there’s a log jam.”

The state and federal lobbyists said they plan to work closely with each other to secure the money for the public safety building. They said they are hopeful both because of the availability of funding and because the building’s obvious state of disrepair is compelling. Both teams cited a YouTube video published by the borough last year.

“You can’t plug a toaster into that building,” Kreitzer said. She said she has “concerns about something really bad happening with the electric system” if the building isn’t replaced soon.