THE MAYOR IS IN
I have moved into the mayor’s office at the borough administration building at Third Avenue and Willard Street.
For now I’m here much of the day, but officially I reserve the hours of 3-5 p.m. Monday through Friday to meet with constituents. I’m also available to constituents from 5-6 p.m. by appointment (because the borough office gets locked at 5 p.m.). I do not keep regular constituent hours on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, as I’ll be preparing for regular assembly meetings on those days.
Otherwise, if my door is open, come right on in.
If I’m with someone and the mayor’s office door is closed, leave a note on my office door.
The best way to phone me about borough business at this time is to call my borough office phone directly, 766-6405, between 3 and 5 p.m. You also can try calling or texting me at my personal cell phone, 303-2688.
With all the different forms of communication, we live in a kind of Tower of Babel, with many missed connections. It seems that if all any of us did was to constantly check our devices, we’d hardly have time to get our work done. I will try to reply to every message. If you don’t hear back from me, try another method.
If you absolutely must see me at this minute, come looking for me. If I’m not at the borough office on Third Avenue and Willard Street, I’m often at my private office, Suite #27 in the Gateway Building on Main Street. (Upstairs of Ampersand Alaska.)
ACTIVE ON THANKSGIVING
It’s evident that Haines goes big for Thanksgiving. Last week’s tragic landslide in Wrangell added to the poignancy of the holiday for residents who remember the eerily similar fatal slide that occurred here around this time just three years ago.
Give thanks every day.
On 9 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, 39 folks turned out to run or walk in the Turkey Trot, a local tradition for about 20 years sometimes conjoined with the “Turkey Bowl,” a flag football game held in slush. Thanks to Kari and Stephanie of SEARHC for organizing the trot this year and for the waffles.
That nearly 40 people showed up to walk or run in the gray, rain and wind reflects a public demand for recreation opportunities that isn’t going away. As a community, we are beginning to understand that physical recreation plays a vital part in our health and wellness, particularly during the winter months.
Please join me in efforts to increase Haines Borough recreation offerings. If you’re interested in serving on the borough’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, please submit an email or letter to the borough by Nov. 30.
Captain Kevin Woods of the Haines Salvation Army said 170 residents turned out for the Haines Community Thanksgiving, noon to 4 p.m. at Haines School. The Haines Ministerial Association sponsored the meal, which included turkey, ham and all the trimmings. Another 140 meals were packaged to-go.
It was great to see folks at the dinner sharing time and conversation with their neighbors. It’s events like this that provide the glue that holds our town together. The mayor heartily endorsed the hot sweet potato dish made with molten marshmallows.
Crowds of folks came downtown to take advantage of holiday sales Friday and Saturday. That’s a boost. When you shop in Haines, your money goes to your neighbors, recirculates in the community and is likely to come back to you, directly or indirectly. Shopping out of town exports cash directly to corporations in faraway places.
GRATEFUL FOR THE LAUGHS
There’s nothing quite like seeing a surly teenager thrown through a window on a frosty, November night.
Thanks to director Tod Sebens and his outstanding cast for their performance of “The Play That Goes Wrong,” a needed night of laughs during our dark season.
It’s almost 70 years now that Lynn Canal Community Players has been staging live theater in Haines for no other reason than it’s fun and winter is long. We should be grateful.
The group’s long trajectory owes to a remarkable string of stage newbies who can act.
Almost 30 years ago, Dan Henry, Jono Greene and Jeremy Andrews brought down the house with “A Night in the Ukraine,” a Marx Brothers sendup. So it was fitting to see Jono in the audience Saturday as Dan Mahoney, Ryan Staska, Crystal Miller, Kelsi Gloyer and company followed suit with another fine and raucous comedy.
It’s likely that some of the youngsters who were in the theater’s front row Saturday howling at the pranks and pratfalls will take the stage as our next generation of entertainers.
The show goes on and we’re lucky for that.
A WINTER WANDER LAND
Borough staff has stationed four trash cans downtown this winter — at 4th and Main, 2nd and Main, Picture Point and Tlingit Park.
It’s the first step of an effort to make our town more pedestrian friendly year-round. Though the details haven’t been ironed out, I’ll also be looking to keep Main Street sidewalks clear of snow this winter. Shoppers shouldn’t have to walk into traffic to reach our stores.
Further, I am looking at ways to keep two, important walking trails shoveled and sanded this winter — one through Tlingit Park to the post office and another behind the Aspen Hotel to the Haines School. These paths are important shortcuts that save time and keep pedestrians away from traffic.
If you have time, ideas or equipment that might help in this effort, contact me.
Also, please respect your neighbors and clean up after your dog downtown. Plastic bags have been ordered for pooper-scooper stations. Scoop the poop and get it into trash cans.
DO YOU NEED A STREET SIGN?
A resident on First Avenue North recently informed me that their street has no street sign. As First Avenue North doesn’t connect to Main Street, the resident was having trouble explaining to out-of-town friends exactly how to find her home.
Discussion at city hall revealed that other streets also are missing signs, including Young Road at its junction with Second Avenue, an important intersection.
We are making an effort to ensure are borough streets and roads are properly signed. If your street is missing a sign, call the borough at 766-6400, or call me at 907-303-2688 and I’ll get you on a list.
Also, the borough plans to resume its efforts to identify homes with house numbers.
Numbers are important so people who need to find your house — including firefighters and ambulance drivers — can do that, even at night. To facilitate numbering, in the coming months we’ll be looking at providing building owners with numbers. Stay tuned.
MAYOR’S APOLOGY
Property valuations and property tax collection are necessary functions of local government, allowing the Haines Borough to pay for vital services and facilities. Unfortunately, those functions ran afoul of taxpayers this year.
The borough is committed to fixing the tax assessments process, including by establishing policies that will more clearly define procedures and make valuations more transparent.
A constituent asked that I post here an apology to taxpayers I made at the Nov. 14 assembly meeting. Here it is:
“I’d like to make a formal apology to the public for the property tax assessment situation. The borough has struggled with the assessment process for years, perhaps decades. We fell behind in getting values done and this year we had an overwhelming number of appeals.
“There’s no question that we are in a state of need. We appreciate the work that’s been done and continues to be done by a committed group of residents who have brought forth issues with — and failings of — our process.
“We are sorry for the upset this has caused, for not fully anticipating the pr0blems that arose this year, and for the time it took for government to full understand and appreciate the concerns of taxpayers.
“We are working as fast as we can to fix the assessment system and to make it right for both the Haines Borough and property taxpayers.”
ASSESSMENT ISSUE #2
The Haines Borough Assembly is working to provide relief to property taxpayers having difficulty paying their taxes this year.
The Assembly on Monday introduced an ordinance that would delay collection of penalty and interest for late property tax returns, retroactively to the Nov. 1 due date and extending to Dec. 31, 2023.
Because of requirements for advertising and public hearings, the assembly’s action won’t become effective until passage of the ordinance at the Nov. 14 regular assembly meeting. But if you are worried, please don’t be. There is unanimous support on the assembly at this time for granting this break.
Once this measure passes, if you missed the Nov. 1 deadline, you will not be charged interest or penalties on your overdue amount until Jan. 1, 2024.
A hike in assessments and subsequent increase in tax bills have been especially difficult for residents this year because of other price increases, including gasoline, electricity, and consumer goods. Your borough leaders are sensitive to this situation and trying to help.
COME OUT TO THE PARADE — AND THE FESTIVAL
The Haines Borough has become lead organizer of the annual Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Festival, a tradition here since the 1990s.
Hats off to the borough’s tourism department for organizing this year’s celebration of our more valley’s most prominent bird.
As there were no injured eagles awaiting release, this year’s festival won’t feature a wild eagle being released back into the wild, but eagle fest weekend is still a fun way to learn about bald eagles and get out to see your neighbors.
The festival kicks off 3-5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10 with children’s activities at the Sheldon Museum and a meet-and-greet at the same time at Haines brewery. Starting at 5 p.m., a “mini-parade” featuring local musicians and folks in eagle costumes will lead festival guests and locals from Main Street, down Third Avenue, and to a party at the American Bald Eagle Foundation.
Special events continue through Sunday afternoon, Nov. 12. Check schedules posted around town. Get out on Eagle Fest weekend!
ASSESSMENT ISSUE #1
As mayor, I understand and appreciate the hurt that has been caused by the administration of property taxes and particularly a spike in valuations for some properties this year. Spikes were caused by a variety of factors including the tragic loss of our staff assessor last fall, the real estate market and the hire of a contract assessor. They also resulted in some big increases in property tax bills.
The meetings of our tax appeals board (called the Board of Equalization) were difficult, painful and divisive. Appellants have organized and are demanding the borough address the hurt the process has caused and to make changes to prevent such difficulty and heartache in the future. That’s a good thing. Citizen pressure gets the job done.
The Haines Borough Assembly will start taking on this issue at a workshop set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2 at the assembly chambers. I think I speak for all assembly members when I say that we are sorry for the way this happened and we are making assessments our #1 issue to resolve.
In the meantime, appellants have asked the borough to “abate” or delay penalties and interest on property tax payments due Nov. 1. The borough staff is investigating how to do this while staying within the laws that members of assembly swore to uphold when they took office. Or to come up with any other legal way to address penalty and interest.
Many of the rules governing property tax collection are borough and state laws. Borough laws cannot be easily changed before Nov. 1. The process for changing state laws is much more complex and time-consuming.
Please bear with us. Starting Tuesday, we have new leadership in the borough government, including three new assembly members and a new mayor. We’re getting to this as quickly as we can.
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES
The Chilkat Valley Preschool administrator phoned me and asked if I’d speak to her students about being mayor.
Easy, I thought. I would explain to students that government is how grown-ups make decisions for large groups of people, the same way that their own parents make decisions for them. Maybe we’d have a little mock election.
So I explained what government is. In our mock election, Bunny beat out Cat as the best pet by a 3-1-0 margin. (It was a three-way race but Dog did not win a single vote.)
Then I got ambushed. Turns out that that the preschoolers wanted to use the opportunity of my visit to press the mayor on what THEY wanted from the Haines Borough. They gave me a good, old-fashioned button-holing.
This is what my four diminutive constituents said:
“Can you get us some swings at Emerson Field and fix the skateboard ramp there?” (At the intersection of Haines Highway and Mosquito Lake Road.)
“Can you do get us some playground equipment at Mosquito Lake School?”
“Can you do something about all the puddles?”
“Can you make the town look brand new?”
Aging infrastructure, capital projects, potholes and downtown revitalization. These are the universal issues and they start at a tender age. Funny how that is.
As leaders, our jobs are to address the universal issues, plus all the other business that comes up.
For the record, the school’s teacher and assistant also voiced constituent concerns. The teacher wanted the borough government to do something about the high price of gas. The assistant wanted a slide at the swimming pool.
If you have a project or concern that you think the Haines Borough should address, stop by, phone or email me. If nothing else, we’ll get it on a list. Knowing what’s on your mind is the best place for us to start in serving you.