Skagway will open its second retail marijuana store this spring.  The Skagway Borough Assembly voted unanimously to approve the application for Boom Town Buds at last week’s meeting. Also in the meeting, Mayor Sam Bass introduced a new concept that would make Skagway’s Ore Dock, when operational, a “shipping” rather than “transfer” dock.  Ore containers would remain sealed and never be opened in Skagway, unlike the common practice where ore is dumped from the dock onto moored ships.

 

More marijuana, less housing and improved methods of shipping mineral concentrates were the topics of a one-hour Skagway Borough Assembly meeting on Feb. 1. 

There was no assembly discussion regarding Skagway’s second retail marijuana store slated to open this spring at the old Starfire location. All assembly members voted no protest regarding the new marijuana license application for Boom Town Buds. The application was submitted to the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office under the name Francis, LLC with Michael Healy as the designated licensee. Mayor Sam Bass, co-owner of Skagway’s first marijuana dispensary, recused himself from the agenda item. 

Several community members spoke regarding the lack of housing and the increasing number of seasonal visitors. 

Lynne Davison expressed concern that the character of Skagway is changing. 

Davison said, “Our entire town is becoming cruise ship focused. Housing that used to be filled with longtime Skagway citizens, young growing families, workers, tradesmen and professionals, is now left vacant for seven or eight months of the year, set aside exclusively for the use of a torrent of summer workers who support tourist-oriented businesses and at the end of the season, take their summer earnings and leave town.  Although many workers support local businesses, many work for absentee business owners who are either here for only a short time in the summer, or are not here at all, and who in turn take their profits to invest elsewhere.” 

She added concerns of pollution and quality of life. 

Assembly member Orion Hanson used his closing comments to address the number of houses being built. He said there were no new houses built last year, and none being constructed this year. 

Hanson said, “This is something that’s solvable. So, I’m a little bit rubbed the wrong way that everybody says housing crisis  — cause it’s not. It’s about people doing it. You build houses one board at a time, one nail at a time. You know — you pour concrete. You do it in the summer, and you work all winter. And I know there are people in this room who know that, and I’m looking at him, they work hard. And I, you know, I respect that. But this isn’t like the government swoops in and fixes it for you. It’s not, you know, it’s not what I think this country, this town is. You know — it’s about individual people, businesses, property owners, or new property owners stepping up and doing it. There’s property for sale. It’s expensive, interest rates are bad. All these factors are out there. I get it.” 

Hanson challenged community members to “put their money where their mouth is” and find a way to start building.  

Mayor Sam Bass, just back from Mineral Roundup, focused on the future of transporting minerals through Skagway in his mayor’s report. He introduced a shipping standard that he said would diversify the economy and safeguard the environment. 

Bass said, “The idea is simple. We only ship sealed ore containers. The containers would not be opened here. Instead, they would be only stored here and then barged to a location down south and Canada where the ore would then be transferred from the container to a cargo vessel. The idea has been discussed before but now it appears to be more probable than we previously thought. Another positive aspect of only shipping sealed containers is that Skagway would need very little new infrastructure. The containers can be loaded with just forklifts and from the dock structure we already have. Some reinforcement of the dock would be required, but not that much. Currently, we are considering a process where we store the containers, then we open the containers here. Then we dump the ore from the container into a ship that is moored here in Skagway. And that’s a very common system and it has merit. But this new process, where the containers just stay sealed, and we simply act as an ore shipping port and not an ore transfer port, also has merit, and it’s something that we should consider.” 

The next Skagway Assembly meeting is scheduled for Feb. 15 at 7 p.m.