The Haines Assembly met as a Committee of the Whole to discuss what capital budget priorities should be submitted to the state and federal government and how to move forward with the borough manager and clerk hire.
The Haines Assembly had a relatively easy time on Dec. 5 deciding the borough’s funding priorities for 2025. Letnikof Floats repair, Public Safety Building replacement and expansion of the Administration Building topped the list for capital budget priorities. These are items the borough hopes the state will help fund.
A new item was added to the bottom of the list, Portage Cove Floating Dock. Assembly member Stickler says the dock would not cost taxpayers money.
“That project will not cost our tax payers anything, because the cost is going to be covered by the port fees,” Stickler said. “And we’re still like in the very elementary phases of the design, so we’re a couple years out from actually seeing this come to fruition.”
The assembly identified full funding for education, the Alaska Department of Public Safety or state troopers and the Alaska Marine Highway System as priorities for the state to continue supporting.
Mayor Tom Morphet said that the Haines superintendent warned him the district will be asking for more money from the borough this year. Currently, Haines gives around $600,000 less than the cap it is allowed to contribute.
Lobbyist Reid Harris explained the purpose of detailing budget priorities to the state.
“Those lists are important because those are submitted to your legislative offices,” Harris said. “Really, Jesse Kiehl is the truly important one, because he has served on the Finance Committee and Senate Finance Committee in the past and is likely to be on that committee again, although that’s not yet finalized. But those lists are put into a system called CAPSIS, which is what the legislature and the finance committees use in order to rank and prioritize projects.”
Harris said the state is focusing on necessities.
“As the legislature’s looking at the list, they kind of look at wants versus needs,” he said. “The state is not entirely flush the way it was like say, during the Parnell era.”
The assembly will discuss whether or not to retain a lobbyist at their next meeting. Harris has submitted a proposal.
The assembly also discussed hiring a borough manager. Assembly member Craig Loomis asked if Hunter Rieseberg, who was a finalist for the position but not chosen, was an option. Rieseberg withdrew his application and the chosen candidate accepted another job. The process was contentious with the assembly and community members expressing strong opinions on both sides.
Assembly member Mark Smith was not amenable to retracing his steps.
“I think Mr. Loomis, that we are at square one, okay?” Smith said. “And I would really refrain from pushing Mr. Rieseberg, because I’m almost sure he’s not going to get any support.”
Assembly member Cheryl Stickler suggested hiring a professional to help guide the hiring process.
“I really think that this is something we need to invest in, because look at how well of a job we did with the last one,” she said. “We proved to ourselves that we couldn’t come to a six, zero decision. We proved that. And so yes, Mr. Loomis, unfortunately, we are back to square one,” Stickler said. “But with an outside firm helping us to guide that discussion, we have an opportunity to list the character traits and the work style traits that we all want.”
In the meantime, the assembly made a plan for an interim borough manager. They decided to enter into negotiations with Alekka Fullerton, former borough clerk and an attorney. Fullerton has served as interim borough manager in the past.
The assembly, which is also hiring a borough clerk, decided to close the position at the end of the month. There are currently three applicants. The hiring process will start in January, this time with the use of a hiring rubric.
Throughout the meeting, Assembly member Smith kept redirecting tasks through the current interim borough manager.
“Miss Fullerton is certainly capable of drawing up a contract, all right, but it’s really the borough manager’s job to draw that contract up,” Smith said. “And we still have a wonderful borough manager right now, Miss Doom … I would recommend that we funnel and keep everything real clean and work through Miss Doom on this.”
Again its so obvious that the strong manager form of government is a total failure in the Haines Borough. As soon as we hire, we start the firing process. We need another form of government, this form does not work, is incredibly expensive and does not provide consistent service to the community. Bringing in an outsider to manage our town has been a total expensive failure…………….