Assembly members will discuss a request for proposals for Port Chilkoot Dock for the second time at the Aug. 11 Haines Borough Assembly meeting. And, the borough clerk’s report confirms that two citizen initiatives are making their way through town. The Chilkat Valley News’ Will Steinfeld joins KHNS reporter Melinda Munson.
Melinda Munson: Will, thanks for joining us. Let’s talk about what is on the agenda for Tuesday’s Haines Borough Assembly meeting. Let’s first talk about the cruise ship dock.
Will Steinfeld: Where we left this last time was the borough manager and the assembly plan to write up a draft of what they call an RFD, a request for proposal for management of this dock. So the general idea was, we’re going to go put out this call for whatever private companies are out there who are interested in some sort of deal to lead this dock, manage the dock, whatever they can dream up. And then the borough would have the freedom to go through the proposals, see if any feel like good fits or good deals, and then proceed from there.
And so we’re kind of at the same step in the process this week, except now there is actually a draft of this RFP document that the borough staff have drawn up. And Assembly are going to take a look at it and maybe approve it. They could go in any direction. I think they could approve it or edit it.
It does give us new information about what this RFP process will look like. It’s really open ended as we heard last time, so it doesn’t really have strict guidelines about what the proposals need to look like exactly. It gives outside entities the freedom to offer what they want to offer.
It does require specific information. If this RFP goes out and goes out as written, we’ll hear from companies about financial information, how they plan to handle specific aspects of managing the dock, like how they’re going to schedule shifts. So this is all stuff the boroughs ask for, and we’ll hear from assembly members if they think anything’s missing, or if they think the process isn’t right. And then maybe the RFP process will start after the meeting.
Included in the document is the wording “ship scheduling.” Can you explain why that could be a little bit complicated in Haines?
The whole idea of putting this dock out for management is complicated because there are companies that feel like there’s prior history, and they already have an interest in what’s happening here. It’s not just starting with a blank slate and asking people to come in and give their best offer.
You mentioned the ship scheduling. That’s currently done by Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska. They don’t have a contract with the borough, but they do a lot of the management of the dock right now, including the ship scheduling.
The borough retains ownership. The borough collects the fees. But Cruise Line Agencies provide some of the staff who coordinate logistics of landing at the facility. Also the infrastructure like fenders that are at this dock. So they made a point to come and talk to the borough staff when this whole Global Ports thing kicked off to say, ‘Hey, we already do a lot here.’ And Global Ports coming in, or now a different company that responds to this RFP could change things.
Global Ports itself has said that they feel like they’ve already invested a lot into this process and had asked for some kind of return should the borough go out and open up this offer to other companies. And it doesn’t really seem like the borough has given them that – I hesitate to say special treatment – but it sounded like they were asking for some kind of differential treatment in the RFP process. Asking for the ability to match any other company’s best offer.
So, you know, if other outside companies that haven’t been involved come in, they’ll be entering this kind of network of relationships that already exists surrounding this facility.
Will, Haines residents can expect to see two petitions going around town, hoping to get enough signatures to be on the ballot. Tell us about those petitions.
These petitions are going to need 279 signatures from registered voters to be on the ballot. If they’re on the ballot, then the voters will decide if they pass.
The first is to repeal the seasonal sales tax that passed at last year’s election. So that’s the one that raises sales tax in town in the summer and lowers it in the winter – and exempts groceries in the winter. And if this gets on the ballot and then the voters approve it, it would just roll back the sales tax system to how it functioned before last year’s election.
And then the second one is to lower the senior property tax exemption from $300,000 exempt property value to $200,000. The mayor, Tom Morphet, wrote a letter in the Chilkat Valley News, a letter to the editor last week, making a case for this. And he says that the borough needs to collect more revenue for what he calls essential services. And he says this does that. It brings in more money, but it still maintains at least $200,000 of exemption for seniors.”