Jerry Lapp, a Haines resident with a long history of public service and time in local office, is running for one of two open seats on the planning commission.

Lapp, who was born and raised in the lower 48, moved to Alaska in 1974 from Montana, and initially settled in Fairbanks and worked on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. He later moved to the Haines area after his parents bought the 33 Mile Roadhouse. He and his wife, Kathi, later took over the business and ran it for decades before selling it in 2011.
The couple stayed in the Chilkat Valley, Lapp said, because the people are friendly and they liked the business community.
“It was a good place to live,” he said. “It reminded us a lot of living in Montana at the time. Things were still fairly open and there were not too many restrictions. That was the kind of lifestyle I was used to.”
Lapp has worn a lot of hats in local government – starting by running a successful write-in campaign for mayor in the mid-1990s. He was also deputy mayor for several years. Lapp has also sat on various boards and commissions, including the Haines Borough Assembly, the tourism advisory committee, and the school board. He was also the fire chief in the Klehini Valley for years.
“I like this community and I want to see it stay economically diverse,” Lapp said. “I know for the first 20 years that we were here you had logging, you had a mill, you had some mining, you had trucking through here. If you depend on just one industry, it can ruin your community.”
Now retired, Lapp spends his time maintaining his property, gardening, and volunteering at the senior center, where he may soon begin driving the bus to help transport local seniors.
But, he keeps his eye on local politics and is concerned about what he sees as a shift toward a narrow focus on tourism, driven by some in the community who want it to become more of an adventure tourism destination. He argues that this should not come at the expense of other industries. He is also critical of the decision to make the planning commission an elected body. He argues that this has led to an increase in political influence over what should be a non-political board.
“When you’ve got politics in play, all of a sudden ideologies come into play. And, it’s supposed to be the law and facts that you’re supposed to rule on, and that’s what we need to get back to,” he said. “That’s the way I would do things, is by facts and the law and the code.”