At its last meeting, Skagway’s assembly approved the start of lease negotiations for the town’s waterfront properties. They also approved a tariff document, berthing agreements, and to look at the cost of taking over the town’s airport from the State of Alaska. KHNS’ Mike Swasey spoke with Mayor Andrew Cremata about those issues and the latest on the rockslide activity above the Railroad Dock.

Swasey – Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata, thanks for joining us, lots to talk about as always. During the last meeting, the assembly approved negotiations to start with three companies on the waterfront for new leases following the RFP process, who are those companies?

Cremata – They are the three existing uplands users, which is AML, Temsco, and Petro Marine. And they were the only ones that responded to the request for RFP. So that was a bit of an arduous process, but, you know, it’s our responsibility as municipal leaders to make sure that we always follow code. So it was a bit contentious at times, but we’ve gotten where we kind of expected to be from the outset. And hopefully, the manager is able to work out a contract based on our code requirements that can be brought back to the assembly table, and we can all accept.

Swasey – The assembly also approved a tariff document and berthing agreements. So will you walk us through what those mean?

Cremata – Yeah, so a tariff document is the fees that are associated with the use of the berth. So the dual-use dock facility that replaces the Ore Dock will host a post-Panamax class cruise ship, or up to that size, but also have an industrial component so that we can dock a fuel barge there at the same time as one of these large vessels. So anyone who uses that dock will be subject to the tariff document. 

The berthing agreements, basically, if a cruise ship company wants to use our new dock when it’s built, then they are saying that they are agreeing to the tariff document. And we enter into an agreement where they use the dock for a certain amount of time. This is important because we want to revenue bond the $65 million it’s going to cost to build the dock. That’s going to come to a public vote here in the fall. And I encourage everyone to vote for it so that we can lock in a dynamic, financially fruitful future for the entire community. 

Swasey – $65 million sounds like a lot of out-of-pocket expense. How much revenue do you expect to see annually?

Cremata – It’s, you know, a bit of conjecture at this point. But the entire waterfront uplands, even in year one, is going to be significantly over $10 million. So this is the money that’s going to pay these revenue bonds. It’s not coming out of the general fund. It’s not coming from sales tax or from hotel taxes. Whether you’re a year-round resident or a seasonal resident, you’re not paying for the dock. The users are the ones that pay for the dock and the community gets to reap the benefits of having this key piece of infrastructure.

Swasey – There was a lease offer from the State Department of Transportation to Alaska Seaplanes to run Skagway’s airport. Now it looks like the state has extended that offer to the municipality to see if they have any interest. What’s the latest there?

Skagway’s airport. (Mike Swasey photo)

 

Cremata – Well, so what the Assembly decided to do was direct staff and the manager to basically put together, kind of, a one-sheet on what it will cost to maintain the building, what it would cost to do repairs to the building, whether or not acquiring the building would also mean acquiring the runways because then you would also be responsible for plowing them every day, you’re going to have to employ people to do that. 

So what you don’t want to do is get into a situation where you’re gaining an asset for what seems like a small amount of money, but over the long-term, it ends up being, you know, ridiculously expensive for the community. So right now we’re gathering information so that the assembly can decide what to do with it.

Swasey – And finally, what’s the latest on the rock slides above the Railroad Dock?

Cremata – We have a big meeting on Wednesday with some government officials that are coming into town, a number of geological experts, and also representatives from White Pass and from the municipality. We’re going to do a site visit up to the rockslide area and then we’re going to sit around a big table and talk about all options. Two parts to this, one is rockslide mitigation, and the other is ensuring we have a fourth berth for 2023. All options are on the table. And hopefully, once we start getting data in here in the near future we can come up with a plan to solve these problems.

Swasey – Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata, thank you for helping keep us up to date on what’s happening in town.

Cremata – My pleasure. Have a great day.