The Haines Borough Assembly has a packed agenda on Tuesday. Chilkat Valley News editor Rashah McChesney sat down with local government reporter Will Steinfeld to talk more about what’s coming up on Tuesday evening. 

Rashah McChesney: It looks like several things are stacked up on the Haines Borough assembly’s agenda, what’s coming up this week? 

Will Steinfeld: Yeah, for some reason, it’s lined up in a way where we have possible final votes on some really big potential changes to how the borough functions. There’s stuff we’ve been following for a few weeks now, things like bulk or containerization – basically environmental regulations for prospective mining companies, looking at maybe a final vote on accessory dwelling units on a severance tax. So these are all big things potentially for how the borough handles heavy industry, how they handle housing, you know, really core pieces of the local economy. 

It’s possible the assembly goes ahead and takes all these final votes at Tuesday’s meeting. In that case, we would have a lot to write about for the paper, it would be a whole series of big changes. But I think it’s more likely that some of these get pushed further down the road. So far, these proposals have come in and they haven’t really been amended, even though there are controversial parts about all of them. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if assembly members in this final public hearing on these issues, present changes they want to see to make these things work. Or maybe they decide to do something like send one or all of them or a combination back to committees to get some more time and deliberation. 

Yeah, and it looked like there were maybe some indicators that something like that could happen. I was looking at a list of proposed things that assembly member Mark Smith said he wanted to see with the severance tax, for example. Is that something that you see happening with all of those measures or maybe just this one? 

I wouldn’t be surprised. I think, like you said, there’s indications for all of them. There’s, as you mentioned, assembly member Smith’s memo that he’s written up. He has a lot of detailed specific changes he’s proposing. On accessory dwelling units, I saw the borough planner, Chen Wu, had recommended it go back to the planning commission. I think because of the fact that these are such significant pieces of legislation, we’re likely to see these kinds of questions pop up, and, you know, the meeting is a finite amount of time. So, they could push these on later. 

Elsewhere on the agenda, it looks like in a couple of places, the borough is sort of dealing with higher energy costs or feedback from residents about higher energy costs. Have you seen anything about that? 

I think you need look no further than the article you wrote this week about the petition going around from the public… I guess it would maybe delay the implementation of a seasonal sales tax rate. 

The number of signatures, it’s hundreds at this point, shows how much of an impact this is making in people’s lives. So  I think there will be some pretty significant discussion at this assembly meeting of what the borough can do, if anything, to try and give people a break. 

Do you get any sense that any of the assembly members are going to be responsive to those circumstances? 

I would guess so. I think generally what you see is assembly members trying to be responsive to instances where there are public outcries of this magnitude. Sometimes it’s a ton of people showing up in person for public comment. In this case, what we’ve seen already is hundreds of people signing a petition. So I would guess that there will be some effort to do something and assembly member [Mark] Smith has already introduced a proposal before the meeting to temporarily suspend the sales tax on all fossil fuels as he’s written it. 

But there are definitely going to be challenges. The borough’s finance director, who’s also the acting borough manager right now, Jila Stewart, has written prior to this meeting that if the assembly does choose to maintain the lower seasonal sales tax rate for the rest of this year, it would have a huge impact on borough finances. It would be, by her estimate, over $1,000,000 out of the annual revenue for the borough. It would mostly come out of the specific fund that pays for things like the school and the library. And so I think even if assembly members are united in the idea that they want to give residents a break, it’s going to be a challenge figuring out how they can do that. 

One other thing that’s on the agenda that I’m curious about is final accounting of the Freeride World Tour and its coming to town and the amount of money the borough spent. I’m curious if you could tell us a little bit more about what assembly members are going to be considering. 

There’s definitely one new thing, which is, according to the manager’s report for this meeting, Freeride has actually sent a definitive proposal for how much they want the borough to pay to bring them back next year. Last year, the borough had committed $75,000 to bring them here. Now, Freeride is asking for $150,000 between the borough and potentially other local sponsors who would help contribute to that. And so at some point, the assembly is going to have to decide what they want to do with this offer. Do they take it? Do they leave it? Do they make some kind of counteroffer? 

But I think it’s part of this broader question of what Freeride is worth economically and how much the borough should be willing to spend to bring them in and see some kind of return on investment. When I was talking to people during the Freeride weekend around town, I got the sense that people really enjoyed the event and saw a lot of benefits, but also had reservations,  at least among some, about a feeling that they weren’t getting enough value for the tax dollars they were putting into the event. There’s been some public comments submitted before this upcoming meeting that echoed that. But I also know there are assembly members in the past who have spoken (about the value of the event) — I think Craig Loomis has been a really big proponent of what Freeride can offer for the economy, so there should be perspectives on both sides about how much this thing is really worth. 

The assembly meets on Tuesday, April 14 at 6:30 p.m. in the assembly chambers and on Zoom.