Cell Tower final hearing
A fifth and final public hearing on new cell-tower regulations became the fifth and not final public hearing after the assembly decided to send the ordinance to a special meeting for further review.
The proposal includes stricter setbacks and permitting for new cell towers — something assembly members have seemed broadly supportive of. But decision makers were tripped up Tuesday by changes to the zoning in the proposal, including one that would loosen restrictions on personal communications equipment.
Current assembly member and former planning commissioner Eben Sargent also expressed concern about the process outlined in the proposal in which all cell-tower permits would go to the planning commission for conditional use permit approval.
“Conditional use permits cost a lot of money and cause a lot of lawsuits,” Sargent said. “It was my least favorite part of being a planning commissioner. With this specific topic there is just no way to decide these.”
The special meeting to iron out the details of the legislation is scheduled for Feb. 5 at 5:30 p.m. It will be a joint meeting of the assembly, planning commission, and code review commission, likely at the library.
Tuesday also saw a fresh round of public pushback to cell towers unrelated to the pending cell-tower regulations. At the beginning of the meeting, mayor Tom Morphet announced that the borough had suggested an alternate cell-tower location to Atlas Towers at the top of Piedad Road, behind the Piedad water treatment plant.
Because the permit process for the Atlas tower has already started, the proposed cell-tower regulations, which will now not pass until February at the earliest, do not apply.
This newest location was pitched as an alternative to a proposed cell tower on a private parcel on nearby Sawmill Road.
That Sawmill location faced opposition from nearby residents.
However, though farther from those Sawmill neighbors, the possible new location is near a new set of residents who are now concerned. A number spoke against hosting the tower in their neighborhood at Tuesday’s meeting, largely due to property value concerns.
Morphet said the new location was just a preliminary suggestion and no immediate action would be taken.
Sales Tax changes
The assembly voted unanimously to pass a set of changes to sales tax exemptions. One of the changes will raise the construction materials threshold so residents will have a smaller portion of their construction materials purchases exempt from tax.
Assembly member Cheryl Stickler said the exemption had not been changed in 46 years, and was due to rise to keep pace with inflation.
Currently, buyers in the borough only pay tax on the first $5,000 of a construction materials purchase.
The new legislation will raise the limit to $12,000 beginning in April. That would mean customers would pay tax on up to $12,000 of construction materials per purchase. The limit will then rise again to $22,000 in April 2028.
Outside funding priorities
The assembly Tuesday officially approved the borough’s priorities for state and federal capital project funding. The lists will be sent to the borough’s legislative delegations in Juneau and Washington, D.C., who then may advocate for the projects during their respective budgeting processes.
Covered under the “capital project” label are one-off spending on physical projects — things like infrastructure, buildings, or even vehicles and equipment.
This year’s priorities are roughly in line with recent years: focus is on funding for aging facilities and infrastructure — things like the public safety building, the borough administrative building, harbor floats, and the sewer system.
There were some changes made from last year: the assembly voted to make high school locker room ceiling repairs a higher priority on the list, and to add the Lutak Dock as the number one priority.
The dock had not been on the list last year, assembly member Kevin Forster said, because the borough government had thought the project was fully funded.
Outside of the capital budget, the borough is asking state lawmakers to prioritize funding the Alaska Marine Highway System and public schools.
On the federal side, the borough has a similar set of priorities, including the building and dock projects. Also on the list is a focus on education issues — maintaining J-1 visas for foreign teachers and continuing secure rural schools funding, a program that in recent years has passed around $200,000 annually down to the borough.
Lutak Dock
The borough has scheduled a public meeting with new Lutak Dock owner-advisor Moffat and Nichol for Feb. 12. Manager Alekka Fullerton described it as a “data gathering meeting,” meant to gather community input on priorities for the dock and how it will function.
Borough staff also plan to meet weekly with Moffat and Nichol, Fullerton said. And a new change: those staff meetings will be recorded and posted publicly to the borough website.
Assembly member Eben Sargent advocated for assembly members to be allowed to attend those meetings as a way to bolster decision making and oversight on the project.
“I see this as our third lap through on designs,” Sargent said. “Both Turnagain laps there was a lot of public disconnect from understanding.”
“I don’t think it was because there were sneaky things done without recordings,” Sargent said later. “I think it was because people weren’t asking the right questions at the right times.”
Sargent said after the meeting that his long-stated preference was for a dedicated project manager hired by the borough, given the scope of the project, and what he said was the limited capacity of already-busy borough staff.
“I haven’t got any traction on that suggestion, so this is the next best way to add some support from the body actually responsible for making decisions,” Sargent said, adding that he is not proposing the assembly members act in a decision-making capacity.
The proposal faced opposition, including from clerk Mike Denker, who said he worried involving elected officials would threaten the non-political nature of the staff group working on the project.
“I worry when we introduce assembly or PC members into executive branch bodies, some members may benefit from additional information and influence,” Denker said.
The assembly approved Sargent’s proposal, with Sargent, Loomis, and Forster voting in favor and Morphet breaking the tie.
“And so begins the mistrust,” Gabe Thomas said, immediately following the mayor’s vote.
Also following the vote, Sargent proposed delaying the implementation of his proposal until after the next assembly meeting. The delay would give borough staff time to determine how exactly the process would work for opening the meetings to assembly members. The assembly accepted the delay 5-1, with only Thomas voting against, saying he was “opposed to the whole thing.”
2025 Tourism Report
Borough tourism manager Rebecca Hylton said the borough was “doing okay” following a tourism season in which some travel numbers were down.
This past season, southbound traffic through the Dalton Cache border crossing was down 11% from the year before, and almost 30,000 fewer cruise ship passengers came to town.
Hylton attributed that drop partly to economic uncertainty. “Travel is one of those things that tends to get put off in people’s budgets when they’re concerned about where their income is coming from,” she told the assembly.
Hylton, however, said the borough’s prospects were buoyed by other cruise ship numbers — primarily the fact that even with cruise passengers decreasing, the total number of boats docking in Haines increased.
That was because of an increased number of mid-size and small cruise ships, Hylton said. That trend could continue now that Juneau has implemented a limit on total cruise-ship dockings. And the increase in smaller ships has included an increase in cruises docking in Haines that cater to wealthy clientele, Hylton said.
“I think people will spend more money getting off these boats,” Hylton said.