Mayor Douglas Olerud, former fire chief Al Giddings and borough manager Annette Kreitzer traveled to Washington D.C. to lobby the borough’s congressional delegation for funding to build a new public safety building.
The trio, along with the borough’s lobbyist, met with Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Mary Peltola and their staff, Sen. Murkowski’s staff and congressional committee staff during the course of their three-day trip to D.C. It was the first time Haines Borough officials have visited D.C. to lobby for a project in 15 years, Kreitzer said.
“We were able to present the case and I think most people saw it as a compelling case,” Kreitzer said. “Our delegation gets lots and lots and lots of requests. We’re going to keep pushing our project and do everything that’s asked of us to make it very clear why it’s needed.”
Due to inflation, supply disruptions and other factors, the project cost has increased by about 27% in the two years since it was initially proposed with a current price tag of $31 million. In November 2021 an architect presented a conceptual plan at a cost of $20.5 million.
Kreitzer said congressional staff helped them identify different funding sources that could target different parts of the project.
“When you look at communications equipment, dispatch and 911, there are potential opportunities through the Department of Justice, for instance,” Kreitzer said. “That’s what we’ll be trying to break out. We’ll kind of explode the whole project into parts and see if there are chunks of it that can be allocated to one bucket or another.”
The current public safety building is more than 40 years old. There is standing water and mold in the building’s crawlspace, Kreitzer said. The building was constructed in a flood plain. Part of the concrete floor in the bay where the Haines Volunteer Fire Department parks its trucks is tilting. Because of the misalignment, one of the electronic bay doors must be opened by hand, she said.