The Haines Borough Assembly can a put a lid on its gun-sanctuary debate simply by advancing the question to the fall, municipal ballot as an advisory question.
Matter settled.
Then the assembly can get back to important, local issues, where its members have expertise and an obligation to act.
Resolutions about any other non-local issues – Black Lives Matter, LGBQT rights, Citizens United and corporate personhood – should likewise go straight to an advisory ballot.
These issues can be debated endlessly in bars, coffee shops and the Internet, and citizen sentiment can be decided by local voters every October.
National interest groups and their proxies here can pay to court local opinion the way three different phone companies came to Haines in the late 1990s, courting new customers following the deregulation of the telecommunications industry. Companies vying for long-distance business brought free shows to the Chilkat Center, laid out spreads of free food and bought big ads in our newspapers.
Folks voted with their wallets.
The problem with national issues isn’t that they’re not important or shouldn’t be debated in Haines; it’s that they consume too much Haines Borough time and local leaders already don’t have time enough to keep up with the town’s growing to-do list.
Also, as Chilkat Valley News editor Kyle Clayton has pointed out, the assembly has a lousy record of gauging public opinion on non-local issues. In 2018, the assembly voted to support the statewide Stand for Salmon initiative. The statewide election on the matter a few months later showed citizens largely opposed it.
In 2014, the Haines Borough Assembly opposed legalization of marijuana, only for the statewide vote a few months later to show that most people in Haines supported decriminalization.
When it comes to voicing what the town wants, assemblies sometimes get it wrong; voters never do.
So let the local debates begin. Proponents and opponents of such measures could organize debates down at the museum during First Friday events, when folks have a few belts in them, to get the excitement going.
Who knows? Slugging it out on national issues at venues around town might just dissipate enough vinegar that assembly meetings become more civil and productive.
The important thing is to get non-local issues out of the assembly chambers, where they only serve to divide and distract local leaders from more important business at hand.