10 years ago
09/04/2014
Board rejects digital meeting packet
The Haines Borough school board on Tuesday almost voted to do away with printed meeting packets, before getting hung up on the question of providing computers to board members.
Board members instead voiced support for posting meeting packet information and agendas on the district’s website.
Tuesday’s discussion started with superintendent Ginger Jewell’s recommendation that the district spend $2,250 annually on a subscription to “Boardbook,” a service that allows school officials to quickly build meeting packets online.
Jewell told board members the program would allow her to cut in half the time required to assemble packets for their monthly meetings. She said hours of work are spent before each meeting changing the agenda and packet contents as new information and issues arise.
The idea hit resistance with Jewell’s suggestion that use of the program include discontinuation of paper packets. Member Brenda Josephson said using a computer to follow a meeting would be cumbersome. “I have to have the paper.”
Member Brian Clay said a computer he has only works half the time. “You can have all the technology in the world, but you’re asking me down here with a laptop. We’d all have to bring a laptop.”
Jewell said it hadn’t occurred to her that not all board members would have mobile devices.
Board members, including student representative Christine Briggs, suggested school computers might be available for use at meetings, but Josephson said that arrangement would mean members wouldn’t have an opportunity to review packets until the start of meetings.
Member Sara Chapell said she understood from previous superintendent Michael Byer that preparing packets was “a bear.” “You could tell. It was a lot of work.” Scott Doddridge said the board should defer to Jewell’s recommendation and try the program for one year. “Our superintendent is a go-getter who’s goal-oriented. This will make her job easier. It’s a wise move to give it a try.”
A vote to table the purchase failed, and a subsequent motion to give authorization for Jewell to buy the program also failed. Opponents of buying the program included Anne Marie Palmieri, Sarah Swinton, Josphson and Clay. Palmieri raised questions about information retrieval from the subscription service and questioned the time-savings involved in making the switch, noting that uploading information to the website would also eat up staff time.
Before the voting started, Josephson said it wasn’t unreasonable that board members get time to consider such a change.
The Haines Borough Assembly discontinued paper meeting packets about two years ago, when packets were growing in length to 300 pages or more per meeting. The move included the borough purchasing iPads for all assembly members and the mayor.
25 years ago
09/02/1999
Glory Hole sockeye dwindling
For years, its abundant salmon lured bears and eagles, and its deep forest seeing created a primeval scene that attracted scores of wildlife viewers as well as photographers and artists.
But the spawning pool that became known as the “Glory Hole” is losing some of its splendor. Down are numbers of crimson sockeye that once crowded its transparent, shallow water, prominent against its white sand bottom.
Ovoid and about 150 feet long and 75 feet wide, the Glory Hole lies about a half-mile northwest of Chilkoot Lake along a rugged road that leads to two old homesteads and some logged tracts of forest.
Lutak resident Dan Harrington has been visiting the spot regularly since 1982. He was surprised to find “no fish of any kind” in or around the pool when he visited Aug. 1.
Sockeye used to appear in the Glory Hole in mid-July, with another plug arriving a few weeks later. “By the end of July, that place used to have a couple hundred fish in it – always,” Harrington said.
When friends came to visit, Harrington would take them to the pool to show off the fish that spawned there and lined the swampy stream that leads up to it. “It was like a lagoon down in Haiti.”
Fish and Game technicians counted 50 sockeye in the Glory Hole Aug. 6. Commercial fisheries biologist Randy Bachman said the pool is a “great place to see fish: and one gauge of the Chilkoot sockeye run, but not critical to overall red populations.
“The Glory Hole is not a major spawning area. Most (Chilkoot sockeye) spawn on the western shoreline of Chilkoot Lake and in the Chilkoot River north of the lake,” Bachman said.
The drop in the pool’s numbers may be linked to a plankton population crash biologists suspect as the cause for the decline of the Chilkoot River sockeye run, among other factors, Bachman said. “You can speculate a lot on why there’s no fish in the Glory Hole.”
Heavy predation by bears can make the numbers of fish fluctuate during a single season, he said. “You can have fish in there for a couple of days and they’re gone. You can hit and miss fish there in just one week.”
But state data, including biannual fish counts at the Glory Hole, back up Harrington’s impressions.
From 1967 through 1998, counts averaged 251 fish, with peaks as high as 2,300 in 1972 and 500 in 1976. Mirroring the decline in Chilkoot sockeye, the past decade has seen a decline from the average, including 152 in 1991, 60 in 1995 and just 14 last year. The count typically peaks in early fall.
Bike tour operator Thom Ely said he’s seen a difference in the 10 years he’s been taking clients along the Glory Hole Road.
“The numbers have been seriously down for a couple years. I used to easily count 100 fish in the 1980s and early ‘90s. It seems like since 1995, there’s been a major decline,” Ely said. The water level in the pool is down about a foot, Ely said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a former inflow stream has been diverted. The quantity of water isn’t going in there.
Ely said he brushed a trail near the pool to keep visitors from damaging the Glory Hole’s banks, and enhancement may be needed do increase flows into the pool.
“There’s a possibility the fish have moved off to spawn somewhere else.”
Improvements to protect the pool — including wooden walkaway for visitors — were proposed in an eagle preserve advisory board meeting last year, but no action has been taken.
Visitor traffic to the Glory Hole has declined in the past few years due to several factors, including flooding of the Glory Hole Road by beaver dams and the berming of the road entrance by Native landowners.
After the road was improved for a 1991 logging operation, car traffic to Glory Hole increased several years. State park ranger Bill Zack said he even saw a truck towing a camper bouncing down the road.
“It was a big draw. It’s beautiful. It’s really pristine back there,” Zack said.
Ely still runs tours there.
“It’s a beautiful bike ride and the Glory Hole’s still pretty, but it’s not as spectacular without fish.”
50 years ago
09/26/1974
Editor’s note:
O.K. We missed an issue – this one should have been out a week ago.
We’re sorry. The IBM composer got sick, went to Juneau, was cured, and sat at the airport for two days awaiting the lifting of the fog. When it got back, the editor got sick, and by Sunday morning it just didn’t seem practical to put out a paper.
And now, printer Bill Hartmann is in Sitka, the editor is heading for Juneau at noon, we have a whole mess of ads and neither room nor time for all the stories that should be in this issue without going to 10 or 12 pages ro even more – and at 1 a.m. it just isn’t reasonable to try for two or four more pages.
So, we’re sorry – but if you’re reading this it means that the paper DID appear – and on Thursday, at that!”