The agenda for last Thursday’s Skagway Assembly meeting was packed, as was Assembly Chambers. Citizens testified about poultry infrastructure, and asked to keep the trees, please.
Trails, chickens and chainsaws were among the topics of discussion at the lengthy March. 7 Skagway Borough Assembly meeting.
The body unanimously approved the job description for an outdoor recreation coordinator. The position is year-round and falls under the purview of the Recreation Center. The coordinator will
hire and supervise trail crew and maintain outhouses and garbage and dog waste on trails. They will also help update the comprehensive trail plan, manage the community garden, oversee the municipal reservation system and promote winter recreation.
Several residents spoke about the first reading of Ordinance 24-01, which requires dumpsters for congregate housing and fencing for animals like chickens and rabbits. The ordinance specifies electric or six-foot tall fences.
Darren Belisle noted that bears have not bothered any chicken coops in town.
“The main matter the bears are in here is garbage,” Belisle said. “Put an electric fence around every garbage can if you think that’s going to help. I just think we shouldn’t be putting this ordinance into effect at this time.”
Assemblymember Deb Potter stated that parts of the ordinance originated from recommendations in a report by biologist Carl Koch, who toured Skagway.
The ordinance was sent to the Public Works Committee for review.
Assemblymember Alex Weddell presented Resolution 24-05R which protects trees over three inches in diameter from being cut down in lots 11 and 12 of Block 73, the area originally designated for the senior center. She asked that 13-06R be repealed. That resolution, covering the same lot, stated “every effort will be made to see that no trees are removed…”
The lots contain two large trees which shade a portion of Pullen Creek.
Assemblymember Orion Hanson, a builder, expressed concern with the resolution.
“We have millions of acres of undisturbed environment within 700 feet of this location, as far as you want to go that way,” Hanson said. “Or that way, or that way. I have a special relationship with trees. I build houses with wood. I also find trees very magnificent and great. You know, I love them in a way that I don’t know that I can fully explain here in this microphone. But I do know you can’t have it both ways on city lots. You know, you can not build a house sometimes, or you can build a house. But you don’t get it both. So I have a real hard time with the sternness of this language that suggests we wouldn’t touch any of this language…”
Weddell spoke directly to Hanson’s comments, stating that it was possible to build and conserve the trees.
“It can be done,” Weddell said. “I mean, saying that they can’t is just honestly stubborn and also not surprising from the person that I know has cut down more trees than anyone else I’ve ever met. And probably most arborists. I don’t know the size of everybody’s chainsaw at this table. I have a pretty good guess. But I would bet that Orion’s is the largest and I do own a chainsaw and I have cut down trees. What I’m trying to say here is, that if you think of cutting down trees for the sake of buildings as part of your regular routine, I can see why you would take this stance. However, I feel that it is not the right stance. We are stewards of this land.”
Potter moved to amend that Lot 12 be protected and that every effort be made that no trees be cut down on Lot 11. Her amendment passed and the resolution was forwarded to the Civic Affairs Committee. Resolution 13-06R stands.
In closing statements, Weddell apologized for disrupting “some of the harmony at the table tonight.”
Hanson signed off as “just a regular guy building houses.”
