10 Years Ago

After more than an hour of testimony from residents, the Haines Borough Finance Committee last week recommended to let voters in the fall municipal election decide the fate of the 1 percent tax for tourism and economic development.

Committee members Ron Jackson and Diana Lapham supported the recommendation; Tresham Gregg was opposed. The assembly will take up the question as a discussion item at its Tuesday meeting. 

The issue came to the committee after commercial fisherman J.R. Churchill submitted a letter to the assembly last month asking the group to put on the November ballot via a referendum. 

“The borough needs to put its finger on the pulse of whether or not people still support this,” Churchill, who favors repealing the tax, said at the June 30 committee meeting. “I don’t necessarily think that my perspective is going to win out here, but every so often you need to – I think, anyway – give a voice to these people who haven’t ever had a chance to vote on this.”

30 Years Ago

Local calls with cellular phones are now toll-free, a cost reduction of about 75 percent. 

“Cool, huh,” said local GTE Alaska manager Greg Combs, who supervised the installation of new equipment for CellularOne. “You pay only for your air time.”

Until the switch was thrown about 4 p.m. Tuesday, local cellphone users were paying the Juneau-Haines long distance rate, about $1.50 for the first minute, on top of a 55 cents per minute air-time charge, Combs said. 

Combs said he drove around last week trying out his small cellphone in various locations around town. Despite an occasional “dead zone” – for example, the hill down to Mud Bay – he found that it generally worked.

The toll-free area extends to Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan, and might be extended in another two to three years, Combs said. “For fishermen, this is going to be super.”

50 Years Ago

There was good news and bad news for travelers hoping to go south on the rain-plagued Alaska Highway and the Alaska Marine Highway.

The good news was that the 100 miles of the Alaska Highway affected by washouts had been taken care of and no one was stranded, and that two of the three bridges which had problems as a result of heavy rains would be in service Thursday night, according to Keith Byram of the Canada Department of Public Works. 

The bad news was that the third bridge would be usable by Sunday at the earliest, and possibly Monday or Tuesday depending on how repairs go. One pier of the bridge had been ripped badly and had to be jacked up.