The municipality of Skagway received $5 million this week in federal pandemic relief to help backfill lost revenue from the 2020 cruise ship season that didn’t happen. But there are strings attached on how it can be spent. There’s also a looming childcare crisis and at least one potential ballot initiative over the future of Skagway’s clinic. KHNS’ Mike Swasey talked with Mayor Andrew Cremata on Wednesday about Thursday night’s Skagway Assembly meeting.

Swasey – So there are some big-ticket items on the agenda this week, let’s start with the ballot initiative involving SEARHC and the clinic.

Cremata – I think this is a good place to start. Obviously, the community needs to weigh in as a whole on this particular issue. So this is a good place to start a conversation at the table so that we can refine what the ballot will say exactly so that everyone in the community is very clear about what they’re voting on. 

Swasey – And what are they voting on? 

Cremata – Obviously, I think the long and short of it is, is SEARHC going to take over operations of the clinic, instead of the municipality? There may potentially be another ballot measure that could identify whether or not they’re also going to take ownership of the clinic building. Obviously, that’s not on this agenda, but I do think it’s a separate issue that the community is going to need to weigh in on. Whether or not that’s on the ballot in October remains to be seen. But I would expect that it’s a possibility.

Swasey – Okay. Well, tell me about the ARPA funds that came in this week.

Cremata – Yeah, we got a little over $5 million, that’s hopefully going to be approximately half of the full amount. So, I say hopefully because we certainly would like to get the rest of that money.

Swasey – All right. Well, the ARPA funds come from the Fed, but they’re distributed by the state. They’re supposed to replenish the CPV funds. That’s the cruise passenger vessel excise tax funds. And so those are then tied to state regulations. So I think the roadblock that I’m running into when asking, you know, the municipality, hey, what what is this money going to be used for is that they don’t know what they can use the money for yet?

Cremata – Well, indeed, and that is true, but I hope that the cruise industry and the state are more liberal in the way that money can be spent considering the significant challenges we have locally and other communities who deal with cruise ship traffic have. The cruise industry says we’re gonna have over a million passengers coming to Skagway next year. We need to be ready for them. My hope is we have more latitude to spend the money than we would traditionally but we’re going to know here in the near future.

Swasey – So we’re just waiting for guidance. 

Cremata – Exactly. We’re just waiting for some information. 

Swasey – Okay. Well, it’s a lot of correspondence this week from residents talking about the impending lack of child care in Skagway. I know that’s not on the agenda. But can you talk to that issue?

Cremata – I can actually I’ve actually put a lot of work into this over the last couple of weeks. I’ve spoken with our local childcare providers. I’ve spoken with multiple concerned parents in my office. I feel as though we have a plan and a potential backup plan. You know, in my opinion, the municipality, you know, has been committed to providing daycare for residents in the past. And I think that’s appropriate. 

We don’t want to lose families, especially now, because there’s a lack of childcare. So some of the challenges that we’re currently facing is, you know, the potential of one closing up sometime around February or March or perhaps even earlier, the possibility that the owner of another one may want to retire. So we need to make sure we have providers, and we need to make sure that they can handle children who are under five years old, like infant children. So these are significant challenges. And I think over the coming weeks, we’re going to be addressing them in a more direct manner.

Swasey – What’s happening with the waterfront restroom project that’s out for bids right now?

Cremata – Again, if we’re going to have millions of passengers, one of the key issues that we continually have is lack of bathrooms, and even the railway dock where we have bathrooms they insufficient. Unfortunately, building bathrooms is pretty expensive. But if we’re going to be a premier cruise destination on the globe, we need bathrooms. A lot of other things we need to do but that one’s pretty essential. Because if you’re going to do business, people have to be able to do their business.

Swasey – Alright, the perfect place to end it. Thanks so much for the meeting preview, Andrew.

Cremata – Alright, thanks.

 You can listen to the meeting live at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday evening at khns.org.