Living in Las Vegas for six months, I got to know some of Sin City’s landmarks, most notably its signs. Vegas is a town full of implausible solicitations like “Loose Slots!” and “Breakfast: 99 Cents!”
My favorite was one above a strip-mall storefront, in giant block letters, reading: “Free Money!”
You can’t fault Vegas for not understanding what people want.
The Haines Borough Assembly also wants free money and, not unlike the marks who arrive in Vegas from Spokane or Poughkeepsie, they’re willing to gamble for the chance of winning it. Unfortunately, when the assembly gambles, it uses your money.
The assembly on Tuesday approved spending $48,000 in sales tax revenues on a Juneau lobbyist in 2021. As the appropriation season ends with the adjournment of the Alaska Legislature on May 19, Mr. Ted Popely will make about $1,000 per day for trying to get us a share of free money.
Specifically, assembly members want Haines projects included in a $350 million bond package proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy that would need to be approved by voters statewide in the fall.
It’s not a bad idea, as a similar bond for ports and harbors statewide included $15 million for Haines harbor expansion, effectively launching the current, unfinished $30 million project. But Sarah Hannan and Jesse Kiel, who represent Haines in the Alaska Legislature, should be able to do that. After all, that’s why we elect and pay legislators.
And if Mr. Popely doesn’t get us more than $48,000?
As the old saying goes, “You pays your money and you takes your chances.”
Our town has never won big at lobbyist roulette. For years we paid a Washington, D.C. lobbyist to help score us a big chunk of federal harbor money that never materialized.
Former state Rep. Bill Thomas, with all his contacts and pull, couldn’t stop the state from eliminating the Haines state trooper job or closing our Public Health Nurse office when Thomas worked as a lobbyist for the borough five years ago.
Thomas, who now works for Dunleavy as a rural liaison, may not even be able to stop Haines from losing its DMV office. If someone with Mr. Thomas’ clout can’t protect us from state cuts, what are the odds a hired gun can serve us up gravy?
Assembly member Cheryl Stickler voiced some of the loudest support for hiring Popely. “He knows people we don’t know,” Stickler said at Tuesday’s meeting. “He knows who the players are.”
Stickler served for years as a school principal in Haines and attended meetings of a school board that sent its own members to Juneau to lobby for school funding during annual spring “fly-ins.” It was creed at school board meetings that citizen lobbyists such as board members carried more weight with legislative leaders than the slicks who huddle in the halls of the capital.
In a conversation with me this week, Stickler said comparing school to municipal lobbying wasn’t comparing apples to oranges but was comparing Golden Delicious to Jonagolds. Haines needs well-spoken representation in Juneau at the moment legislation is being passed, she said. “I don’t have a personal relationship with (Sitka state senator) Bert Stedman, but Mr. Popely does.”
Stickler said Haines needs a big shot of funding, particularly for repairing Lutak Dock and bringing local roads up to standards that could withstand last December’s floods.
Certainly that would be great and Mr. Popely might deliver it, but there’s a larger point that this discussion sidesteps. Funding essential needs of our town shouldn’t be a game of chance. As a community, we could act like responsible adults do all the time: We could pay our own way.
If the borough needs more money for repairing roads, for example, the assembly could pursue a local tax on gasoline so that a portion of road costs would be borne by the people using the roads most, motorists.
If we need more money for other needs, our town might place a local tax on alcohol, a luxury that sells very well in Haines, considering our growing number of drinking outlets.
Being responsible for our town requires leaders to show confidence in themselves and in our community, and to act in a way that reflects confidence back to voters. That takes some courage. It’s so much easier to spin the roulette wheel for the chance of free money.