A look back—and the week ahead in the Chilkat Valley.
Take a look around and let us know what you think by leaving a comment here and if you have meetings or deadlines you’d like to see included, send a note to Rashah McChesney at [email protected]. |
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| A pool tournament, the Victory Garden, and the view at Lutak Lumber |
The 11th annual Aaron Nash Memorial Eight-ball Tournament was held at the Fogcutter Bar on St. Patrick’s Day along with the Chamber of Commerce Pot o’ Gold 50/50 raffle. There was corned beef and cabbage and plenty of winning. Amanda Brandon at the Chamber of Commerce announced the big winner of the raffle was Stuart DeWitt. The winning ticket was drawn by Bob Musseman III. Dewitt walked away with $900. The ticket drawn immediately after the winning ticket was Jim Lampkins, who walked away winning absolutely nothing at all. |
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| | | | 5 p.m. community workshop on the Tongass National Forest plan revision withU.S. Department of Agriculture forestry staff. A 117-page draft of the plan was released last week by the U.S. Forest service. Among other things, the plan includes a focus on expanding timber and other natural resource development.
Tuesday, March 31
5:30 p.m. Code Review Commission, which reviews and recommends changes to Haines borough code for the assembly, to meet on Zoom and in the Assembly chambers. Commission members are considering an amendment to the section of code on temporary additions to approved commercial ski tour areas as the current 7-day time period may be too tight given that operators must also consult with the state’s department of Fish & Game. They’re also reviewing language in a measure in front of the assembly that includes the taxation of trailers in trailer parks, which the assembly has asked Borough staff to remove.
Wednesday, April 1
Noon meeting of the Haines borough Tourism Advisory Board. Among other things, they’ll be electing a new chair as Alaska Mountain Guides owner Sean Gaffney is stepping down.
5:30 p.m. Community workshopat the Four Winds Resource Center in Mosquito Lake with Interface of Change, a five-year collaborative project to develop data-based tools for the Gulf of Alaska coastal communities facing environmental changes. Come enjoy a local halibut and salmon dinner cooked by the DDF team, meet the researcher, identify environmental stressors, build collaboration and identify local relevant research questions.
Thursday, April 2
5:30 p.m. Community workshopat the ANB Hall in Haines with Interface of Change, a five-year collaborative project to develop data-based tools for the Gulf of Alaska coastal communities facing environmental changes. Come enjoy sockeye gravlax, spruce tip shortbread, ginger sesame noodles, homemade crackers and pickled grapes, catered by Sarah Bishop, while you meet the researcher, identify environmental stressors, and identify locally relevant research questions. Visit alaska.edu/epscor or Davin Holen at [email protected] with questions.
Friday, April 3
5:30 p.m. nominations meeting at Jilkoot Kwaan Kahidi (Chilkoot Indian Association) office on Third Avenue. Meet the candidates for tribal council election.
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| | The deadline to apply for the senior and veteran property tax exemption. The form must be filled out online and the borough reports that it does not have paper copies. Call 907-766-6401 with questions. | | PFD filing deadline. Online applications are available through 11:59 p.m. Paper applications can be mailed but must be postmarked by the post office, or get a certified mail receipt no later than March 31. | | Appeal deadline for the Haines Borough tax assessments which were mailed out to property owners on March 2. Call the borough if you haven’t received one (907) 766-6400. The board of equalization — a group of citizens who hear assessment appeals brought forward by property owners — is set to meet on Monday, May 11 at 6:30 p.m. in the Assembly Chambers, 213 Haines Highway. | | Comment deadline on the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation which has put out a draft of its 2026 Integrated Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment report. This report comes out every two years and catalogs the conditions of Alaska’s waters. The Chilkoot Inlet, Lynn Canal, Taya Inlet and Mosquito Lake are all included in the new report. | | 2 p.m. deadline to submit a proposal for what to do with the M/V Matanuska. The public advisory board for the Alaska Marine Highway System recommended the state retire the 63-year-old mainliner ferry. Now, the Department of Transportation is looking for someone to take on, purchase, preserve or repurpose the vessel in a way that “honors its historic significance while allowing it to continue serving Alaska in new innovative ways.” Some options included in the public notice are: maritime training, tourism, community or cultural use, museum or heritage preservation, or as a research platform. They’ll also accept letters of interest proposing scrapping, dismantling or scuttling the vessel. | | Deadline for registration for the May 2 SAT test at the Haines Borough School District. | | Comment deadline on Atlas Tower’s is proposal to build a 140-foot tall cell tower near 52 N Sawmill Road in Haines. Public comments on the potential side effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted to Trileaf Corp, Rachel Bishop at [email protected], or to 2121 W Chandler BLVD., Suite 108, Chandler, AZ, 85224. Or, by calling 480-447-8260. | | Written public comment deadline for weighing in on Proposal 189 on local traditional knowledge, which is being taken up by the state’s Board of Fisheries. The board, which sets regulations for management of all fisheries in the state, is considering creating a path for people with local traditional knowledge about an issue, and nominated by their community, tribe or a certain organizations, to share their experiences, values, observations, and data directly with the board. | | Have a meeting, public comment period or something else you think Chilkat Valley residents should weigh-in on? Submit it here. | |
| | Reporter Will Steinfeld is in the middle of a month-long stay in the capitol as part of the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism’s Legislative Reporter Exchange. You can reach him anytime with questions or tips at [email protected] | | I’ve never been inside a beehive, but I imagine it’s something like the state legislature. | | The capitol is a fortress-like block of a building, the basement of which has a little room the reporters work out of. At any given time, the legislative process is churning away in various nooks and crannies of the five floors above — it’s just a question of figuring out where. | | The meat and potatoes are committee hearings, where proposed bills go to get ironed out and approved by an initial round of voting. Those are constantly happening in any number of small committee chambers, under meeting agendas that might just say “bills previously heard.” Takes some paying attention to to catch, and public comment is usually a cursory gavel-in and gavel-out. Much more boring than Haines' public-comment sessions. | | Outside of committee, it seems plenty of action happens beside random vending machines or in back hallways. (“Hey, what do you think about the nurse license compact stuff,” said one minority legislator to another the other day in an empty (save for me) stairwell. “I don’t really know man, seems free-market,” said the other.) | | Then there are the official House and Senate chambers, where legislation that has passed committee has to go for a final vote. | | My one session this week on the House floor was a hot-button vote on the state’s supplemental budget, which approves funding for unbudgeted costs that crop up during the year. | | It was a near-unanimous vote in both chambers to approve the supplemental bill, but a separate vote on where the money would come from brought some mid-week drama. | | At the moment, the capitol is watching as oil and gas prices spike from the war with Iran. The higher prices have left the state’s coffers more flush than normal. | | Still, the House and Senate’s bipartisan majority wanted to approve a potential draw from the state’s backup savings account, just in case the unexpected high prices should fall in the coming months and revenue is unable to fully fund the state’s spending. | | The all-Republican minority, however, successfully blocked the savings draw. Now, if revenue falls, legislators may have to convene a special session later in the year to solve the problem. | | One minority member, Jamie Allard of Eagle River, told her colleagues they each owed the president a thank-you-note for the price spike. Allard was presenting the wartime costs as a good thing — indicative of legislators’ odd position balancing high revenue, essentially as sellers of state oil, while their constituents, as consumers, pay the price. | | It’s interesting to watch these debates play out in person, but somewhat complicated to figure out exactly why things unfold the way they do. Compared to the Haines assembly, debate is far more under wraps. | | There is, I’ve heard, lots of talk behind closed-doors in the Speaker’s chambers. Even on the floor, legislators constantly pass notes between their desks, like a middle school classroom, but in this case above-board: they need only hold up a note over their shoulder and a page will grab it and orchestrate delivery to its recipient. When controversial topics come up, the notes start flying faster. Their content remains a mystery to me, but I like to imagine sometimes it's just a lunch order. | | Up at the front of the room, house speaker Bryce Edgmon is a quieter presence than, say, borough assembly chair Tom Morphet. During floor debates, he’ll call legislators up to his desk with a wag of his finger and they’ll whisper back and forth, out-of-earshot to the reporters in the back of the room. “Uh, oh, going to the principal’s office,” said one minority member as he was summoned up the other day. | | So yeah, beehive: A lot is happening over here to set the state up for its next year of policy. | | As far as local-specific issues, I’ve been listening in on debates about property taxes, including talk of discontent statewide over rising assessment values. On that front, one bill currently in committee could give Haines more local power to exempt property tax. | | There’s also talk of PFAS regulation — so-called forever chemicals, which have contaminated groundwater at Tanani Point. As federal regulations are rolled back, some legislators are pushing to tighten state regulations. I’m working on figuring out what that might change in the Chilkat Valley. | | I’m planning to get you that reporting this week and next. Until then, rest assured your reporters and representatives (or at the very least their staffers) are buzzing around and working hard. To be determined to what extent the people in this beehive sting. Honeybees or hornets’ nest — I’m sure there’s a bit of both, but I’ll need a few more weeks to say for sure. | |
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