Haines’ upcoming borough assembly meeting will address childcare, the potential of hiring a state lobbyist and cell towers. KHNS reporter Melinda Munson spoke with the Chilkat Valley News’ Will Steinfeld from in preparation for the Feb. 10 meeting. The full agenda can be found here.
Melinda Munson: Will let’s start with the issue of child care. Child care has been difficult to obtain in Haines for a number of years. It’s on the agenda for Tuesday. Can you let us know what’s going on with child care, specifically with feeding children in the Haines Borough.
Will Steinfeld: Borough decision-makers are trying to figure out right now, how do we make providing childcare in Haines more economically feasible for these providers? But the issue they’re talking about this week that’s on the agenda, it’s a little more nitty gritty.
One of the Chilkat Valley’s providers is Kim Larson. She’s a longtime early childhood educator. She has said that in the past, she received a big chunk of money from the state to pay for three meals a day for her students and for the kids in her care. And then a couple years ago, after COVID-19, the money stopped coming through. What I’ve heard from borough decision-makers, from Larson, and even up to our state legislators, is that the problem here is not that the money is gone or that Larson is no longer eligible. It’s that the state of Alaska isn’t sending its staff to inspect and do the required oversight to give this money to Larson.
So, she says she’s paying out of pocket now. Paying around $15,000 for food a year for her kids. And the borough now is saying, “why don’t we send an official letter to the state of Alaska this year, and they’re in their budgeting process, make them fund these inspections that will allow Larson to start getting those funds again?”
Munson: So this has been an issue that’s been raised often, and there have been multiple efforts to come up with a solution. Can you give us an overview of what kind of movement there’s been in town in an effort to solve this problem?
Steinfeld: It seems like a big problem, which also means it’s not the quickest problem to solve is the sense I get. I’ve been hearing from providers in town like Larson, decision makers like Tom Morphet, but also experts in the region and in the state, in a broader sense, who say that these days, early childhood education, preschools, day cares, that kind of service is really difficult to provide while still making enough to keep the lights on. And so the question of what the borough can do about that is hard, because, at least according to these people, it seems like they would be fighting against kind of a nationwide, even economic trend here. And so there are proposals to maybe say maybe we can dedicate part of the borough’s budget to subsidizing child care providers in Haines. And I think there’s pretty broad agreement that it’s a really important service to keep families able to have two parents working, keep young families in town. And there haven’t, necessarily, to my eyes, been the kinds of definite solutions coming in front of the assembly getting voted on, but there are definitely groups working on developing those kinds of solutions.
Munson: And, it looks like we are again talking about possibly hiring a state lobbyist?
Steinfeld: We’re coming into the time of year when the assembly is in their budget process and they’re going to have to start making tough calls about where they want to spend money on the lobbyist is an interesting case, because the argument is, if we spend money on the lobbyist, it will actually bring back more money. It’ll be a good investment. And back in December, when we last talked about this, the borough manager [Alekka Fullerton] had actually recommended not to hire a state lobbyist. She had written in a memo that she thought it maybe wasn’t worth the $40,000 a year the borough could advocate through their legislators instead in Juneau, but it’s back on the agenda now, and once again, they’ll have to vote or make a decision on whether or not they think hiring this state lobbyist for another year is a worthwhile investment.
Munson: Cell phone towers are not on the agenda, but they do appear in manager Fullerton’s report. Mayor Morphet has mentioned that he has had conversations with a cell phone company. How is that affecting the community?
Steinfeld: What I heard from the mayor at the last assembly meeting was that he was describing it as informally suggesting to this company, Atlas towers “Hey, why don’t you look at this parcel up here? It’s at the top of Piedad Road, more borough land.” And it seemed like they were taking a look on some level. And the mayor was emphasizing to the public two weeks ago that this was not a decision being made. This was not anything final. He was just floating another possibility to them.
But that doesn’t mean that people aren’t confused or maybe frustrated. There’s at least one public comment in this week’s assembly raising questions like: “should the mayor be going ahead and suggesting alternate locations, even if it wasn’t formally without public input? Or the assembly’s approval?”
And then I’ve spoken to a few homeowners up there who are frustrated that all of a sudden cell towers are coming to their backyard. And so I wouldn’t be surprised if the topic appears at this week’s assembly meeting, even though it’s not on the agenda proper.
Note: The Haines Assembly will meet at 6:30 p.m. via Zoom or in the assembly chambers at 213 Haines Highway in the public safety building.