The Haines Borough Assembly is being asked to gamble with $30,000 in public money.
The request is coming from the borough staff. This is what’s going on.
Public library supporters are seeking up to $2 million in private grants for expansion of the facility, and they’ve been told by the Alaska-based Rasmuson Foundation – the presumed provider of the $2 million – to think big.
Rasmuson provided most of the funding for the existing building about 20 years ago, so its interest bodes well for the project. The addition would add office space, a community room, and multi-purpose meeting space.
Borough staffers figure the planned community room could be expanded into an assembly chambers for an additional $400,000, a relatively small price. The idea would be to wing the community room/assembly chambers off the side of the existing building, with a separate entrance and rest rooms, allowing meetings to be held there outside of library hours.
It’s a great plan, as the new chambers would be centrally located downtown and provide amenities like full access and restrooms, which are lacking at the existing chambers. The library site comes with plenty of parking area and a potential for more user comfort and maybe even better decision-making, assuming that pleasant spaces make us more pleasant.
Here’s the catch. The grant people want to see a complete set of plans – including for the community room/assembly chambers – before providing any money. And the plans for making the community room an assembly chambers would cost $30,000.
Library supporters want the borough to pay for the $30,000 plans, saying that part of the project would benefit the borough, not the library per se. But those folks also are very honest that the $30,000 set of plans doesn’t guarantee the project will be funded, or even happen, for that matter.
That makes the requested $30,000 a gamble, perhaps a gamble with good odds, but a gamble nonetheless. The issue here is that the Haines Borough doesn’t spend its “own” money. It spends the public’s money. And the public may neither support this project nor appreciate their elected leaders gambling with their money.
As far as I can tell from a week of talking with folks around town, the public is split on providing the $30,000, which makes a decision by the assembly – scheduled for the Dec. 4 assembly meeting – all the more difficult.
But here’s a way to make that pill go down easier, and a possible route to a win-win that I personally would support:
Have the library supporters, a private donor or friend of the library front the necessary $30,000 on the condition that if the project receives the grant funds it needs for the project, the borough would reimburse the $30,000 and provide the additional $400,000 to expand the community room into an assembly chambers.
That places the gamble on someone other than local taxpayers, but commits the borough to reimbursing the money if the gamble pays off.
The current chambers are inadequate and the library project offers a relatively inexpensive way for the borough to get new chambers, but government leaders should not be gambling with large sums of the people’s money.
In the meantime, if the assembly absolutely needs to move from its existing chambers, meetings could move to the Chilkat Center lobby. For roughly $30,000, two restrooms there could be made accessible to people with disabilities.
The Chilkat Center isn’t a perfect fit – as the lobby is used by many groups on many different nights – but it would appear to be cheaper and faster than improvements to the existing chambers.
The borough has its own grant request of $522,000 to the federal government for a suite of improvements to the Public Safety Building, including disability-access upgrades to the current chambers, located behind the police department.
It appears that placing the $30,000 gamble may already have support enough for passage. Assembly members Heather Lende, Will Prisciandaro, and Sean Maidy voted for a resolution supporting it, along with Mayor Jan Hill. I and assembly members Stephanie Scott and Brenda Josephson voted in opposition.
The final and most important vote – on an ordinance to spend the money – comes Dec. 4. If you’ve got an opinion or a better idea, weigh in. Thanks.