The Haines Borough appears ready to greenlight a Portage Cove expansion contract next Tuesday to Pacific Pile & Marine for $13.2 million. Last Tuesday, the borough assembly voted 4-3 against holding a proposed public referendum on the scope of the expansion project. That removed the last opportunity to rethink the broad strokes of the project’s first phase. […]
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Posted inCorrections
Dept. of Corrections shares ideas
State Corrections Commissioner Dean Williams was not the bearer of bad news in a meeting with the Haines Borough Tuesday, despite negative expectations. “It was not the meeting that we had thought it was going to be,” Police Chief Heath Scott said. Although he expected to hear of more budget cuts, Scott said Williams didn’t talk much […]
Posted inNews
Public ballot sought for harbor project
The clock is ticking on expanding the Portage Cove harbor. Actually, two clocks. Clock No. 1: The Haines Borough opened six bids Tuesday, starting a 60-day countdown to award a contract on the expansion’s first phase to one of the six firms. Those 60 days end Dec. 24. The apparent lowest bid came from Pacific Pile & […]
Posted inNews
Assembly considers how to allocate money for nonprofits
Nine Haines nonprofit groups are seeking $62,600 worth of grant money from the Haines Borough. While the borough has $65,000 set aside to allocate to nonprofit organizations in 2017, the question is whether all nine qualify for specific pools of Haines money. The $65,000 consists of $32,500 from the borough’s general fund, $15,000 from its medical […]
Posted inNews
Faster internet in 2017
Alaska Power & Telephone plans to offer new internet packages to Haines in early 2017 because of increased speeds and capacity with the underwater fiber-optic cable in Lynn Canal. The 86-mile cable connects Haines, Skagway and Juneau. Right now, AP&T’s lowest level broadband internet package can upload and download 768 kilobits per second. The second-lowest level […]
Posted inNews
Borough to tackle glitch in heliskiing ordinance
Proposed legislation to cut back on conflicts of interest on the Haines Borough’s heliski review committee was sent to the Tourism Advisory Board. The borough assembly voted 6-0 Tuesday to do that because the tourism board is already reviewing the part of the borough’s code that addresses commercial tour permits. Borough manager Bill Seward recommended a change […]
Posted inLetters to the Editor
Beware of what you wish for
What will a $19.5 million grant buy you? It will buy you a half of a harbor without a single, legitimate public hearing. What is next? Probably a large bond election about equal to the school bond so the ugly blight can be finished. I don’t know how many times I have heard that if […]
Posted inNews
Juneau road talk heats up assembly
Days before Alaska Gov. Walker was expected to address residents on the topic of Juneau access, Haines Borough Assembly members wavered over what message they would present to him. Assembly member Margaret Friedenauer requested to discuss the topic at Tuesday’s meeting so members could be on the same page about the borough’s position. The borough has historically […]
Posted inNews
Governor to address road, budget, ferry
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker will address a joint meeting of the Haines Borough Assembly and Haines Chamber of Commerce starting 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Chilkat Center. Haines Borough Mayor Jan Hill said Walker will have about 20 minutes to make his comments about three main topics: “the state of the state,” including the state budget deficit, a proposed makeover […]
Posted inNews
Conflict of interest on heliski committee?
By John Stang Five people are on a Haines Borough committee to recommend whether to approve two companies’ requests to expand their heliskiing zones. But two of those five committee members are partial owners of the same two heliskiing companies that made the requests. They are Scott Sundberg, co-owner of SEABA, and Sean Brownell, co-owner of Alaska Heliskiing. […]