Skagway’s city hall and museum. (Greta Mart)
The Skagway Borough Assembly has been working to define its relationship with the Skagway Development Corporation. Over the last few months, the assembly has been drafting a memorandum of understanding with the private non-profit to determine how the two groups will coordinate with one another.
The agreement has reached a roadblock over whether or not SDC meetings will be open to the public.
Although separate from the municipality, SDC receives funding from the borough to carry out services related to local economic development. Those services range from grant writing assistance to private business consulting.
Recently, the Skagway Assembly reviewed a draft of a memorandum of understanding between the municipality and SDC. The memo aimed to define how the two groups can coordinate as separate entities.
A disagreement has arisen over whether or not SDC must open its board meetings to the public and include the Skagway Borough mayor as an ex-officio board member.
At a July 5th meeting, SDC executive director Kaitlyn Jared raised concerns about the privacy of businesses who reach out to the private non-profit for assistance.
“The instance in the meetings where it comes is there are some projects where they could request help from me then I need to go to our board to ensure that it is something that meets our mission statement,” Jared said. “But it could be in the case of a private venture that whether we say yes or no they don’t want someone else acting as a public official knowing about it. That was our concern.”
According to Jared, all SDC board members sign a confidentiality statement. She said she was concerned that this could be a legal issue if Skagway’s mayor served as a public representative on the board.
Assemblyman Steve Burnham Jr. pointed to the Haines Economic Development Corporation as an example of a similar organization with public board meetings and a mayor that serves as an ex-officio board member.
He argued that public board meetings wouldn’t necessarily compromise the privacy of SDC’s clients. Open meeting laws would allow the board to enter executive session when discussing matters related to other businesses.
“It seems to me that if your client is coming to you with a confidential topic that could affect the finances of your client, then executive session would be appropriate,” Burnham said.
Assemblyman Orion Hanson added that the public should know how SDC operates because the private non-profit receives public funding.
“Transparency about how our municipal money is spent is important. I for one think that having open meetings is a way to encourage the community to grow and prosper. When we have meetings and it’s just the people at this table, it’s not nearly as productive as when the public participates,” Hanson said.
The assembly approved the memo after adding language that cited open meetings laws to the public meetings section of the agreement.
However, at a meeting July 20th, SDC Board President Tim Bourcy told the assembly that the organization has not signed off on the agreement.
“Obviously we sent you guys comments for your last meeting with regard to what our concerns were, and we still have the same concerns,” Bourcy said.
Assemblyman Hanson said he has been working with SDC to try to come up with a solution that would protect client’s privacy while opening up board meetings to the public.
“So what they’re thinking of is that there could be a part of the meeting where community issues are brought up, and then if there are private discussions with prospective businesses that would be a part where the ex-officio would not be part of that, and then there would be a quarterly meeting that would be potentially open to the open meetings act,” Hanson said.
Mayor Monica Carlson said she wants to meet with SDC and then bring the issue back to the assembly at the next meeting.
