During the first meeting of the new year, Haines Borough Assembly members discussed two long-running issues leftover from previous years and administrations.
In addition to extensive testimony on the Lutak Dock, the group met in executive session to discuss a legal dispute with George and Lynette Campbell over an airstrip they built about 26 miles from Haines. The Campbells had two appeals in a superior court over assembly and borough manager decisions made while they sought approval to operate their heliport – both were decided by the court in December and sent back to the borough assembly.
While they were waiting to hear the results of that executive session, the Campbells said that they offered the borough a settlement. While neither would say how much they’ve spent on the cost, Lynette Campbell said their offer likely wouldn’t cover their legal costs.
“I don’t think either side is going to recoup their costs,” she said.
Here’s what else the assembly discussed:
End-of-the-year report from the fire department

Longtime firefighter Cindy “CJ” Jones told assembly members that numbers included in an end-of-the-year report for the Haines Volunteer Fire Department were an undercount. She said last year the ambulance went on 463 calls, and there were 48 fire calls for a total of 511 calls. It’s a number that assembly member Gabe Thomas said was a record for the borough during Monday evening’s personnel committee meeting. Thomas, Richard Clement, and Mark Smith talked about the root causes of the high volume. Smith, who is a doctor, attributed it — at least in part — to a systemic problem with the scope of services offered by the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium clinic.
“When they close their doors at 5 o’clock, right, the only way in there – for anything – until they open the next morning is to be delivered by an ambulance. That’s what triggers their response protocol, even if it’s a UTI or a dental infection,” he said. “That’s absurd… to force someone to take an ambulance ride, right, just to get in the door of a clinic that says it’s here for everybody in this town is not compassionate and it’s abuse of medical resources running that [ambulance] up and down that road [463] times a year.”
The committee briefly alluded to charging for ambulance rides, and said it needed to be discussed further during the upcoming budget cycle.
Lutak Dock resolution
After extensive public and assembly discussion, a majority of assembly members voted to re-confirm a preference for a dock project designed by Anchorage-based engineering firm Turnagain Marine if it can be built within the borough’s existing budget.
That design would encapsulate the existing dock and build a new platform rather than demolishing the existing dock.
Critics said they feared the borough could be overwhelmed by the cost of installing the dock replacement design architected by Turnagain Marine because the company told the borough last year that there is no maximum guaranteed price on the project anymore.
Some, including assembly members Craig Loomis and Kevin Forster, who ultimately voted against the motion, asked for a delay in taking action on it, particularly as the borough works toward mediation with Turnagain, with which it has had an increasingly contentious relationship.
“The borough has already affirmed this design. We affirmed this design when we thought we understood the costs that were associated,” Forster said. “I feel like this resolution is dangerous if it passes, and dangerous if it’s voted down, largely because we’re in litigation with this contractor.”
Others advocated for the borough to go back to the drawing board and ultimately come up with a smaller design that could come in under the borough’s $25 million budget. Haines Industrial owner Haynes Tormey pushed back against that idea. Tormey, who said he works extensively on the dock, said the existing footprint of the dock is barely large enough during peak usage times.
Assembly member Richard Clement, who voted in support of the resolution, said there is not enough time to develop a wholly new design, even with the extended deadline to sign a grant agreement. Assembly member Cheryl Stickler, who voted in support of the resolution, said affirming a preference for the existing design is not the same as committing the borough to spending more money than it has on repairing the dock. But, she also said that every day the borough waits to take action on the project is another day there could be a catastrophic failure at the aging dock.
“We can’t afford the time and every day we are stalled on this project we are one day closer to dock failure,” she said.
Bearproof trashcans

In 2024, the borough partnered with the nonprofit Defenders of the Wildlife to offer free bear-resistant trash cans to residents who signed up for them. In all, 135 could be Haines-bound, but mayor Tom Morphet told assembly members that Alaska Marine Lines would not donate the $4,500 in space needed to ship them. Morphet told assembly members he could bring it forward as a budget amendment, though member Mark Smith said he did not support that move. Morphet also suggested reducing the number of cans to be shipped to an amount that would be covered by funds the assembly already set aside and then asking residents who did not get one to apply again.
Skagway sales tax
On Dec. 19, the Skagway Assembly voted to adjust the way it collects sales tax money from tour sales. The new sales tax regime could have a large impact in Haines because, among other things, it diverts sales tax revenue to Skagway on certain tours purchased by cruise ship visitors that are conducted in Haines. In the past, Haines collected the sales tax on those tours.
Mayor Tom Morphet said the two communities have been operating under a “Gentleman’s Agreement” for decades. Acting borough manager Alekka Fullerton sent a copy of the agreement to the Chilkat Valley News. It is not a formal agreement; rather it’s a note from former Skagway manager Bob Ward, dated to 2008, outlining what he said he and former Haines city manager Tom Healy had agreed to at the time. “Tour products sold in Skagway and consumed in Haines would be taxed in Haines. Tour products sold in Haines and consumed in Skagway would be taxed in Skagway,” he wrote.
Haines Finance Director Jila Stuart told the assembly on Tuesday that borough staff have not yet run the numbers to estimate how much in sales tax revenue the borough would lose.
“We know from earlier years, just looking at data, that … more of our land-based tour visitors were coming from Skagway than people coming from ships that docked in Haines. So it’s very significant to us,” she said.
Stuart described what Skagway is doing as “cutting edge,” and an outgrowth of a 2018 Supreme Court decision that overturned the “physical presence” requirement for collection of sales tax.
“Skagway is saying that [if] the sale takes place online or in Florida, where the cruise ship or the third party tour reseller sells to the final consumer … that whole transaction is taxable in Skagway, more or less,” she said.
Stuart told assembly members that there have been other sales tax decisions in local communities with regards to cruise ships as well.
“Skagway and Juneau, I think, are taxing transactions that happen on the ship while they’re in port and that’s something that a lot of other jurisdictions – including the Haines Borough – have not taken on,” Stuart said.
She said the borough is having conversations with its attorney and Skagway, and that the Cruise Lines International Association has weighed in, too, telling Skagway that no other communities are collecting sales tax in this manner.
“So, Skagway is breaking new ground,” Stuart said.
Lobbying contracts
Assembly members voted to continue paying Windward Strategies LLC to lobby the federal government, particularly on funding for a replacement of the public safety building. The company’s contract costs $36,000 plus expenses for the year, the same amount assembly members chose to pay to rehire state lobbyist Reid Harris during its Dec. 17, 2024 meeting.