Skagway’s city hall and museum. (Greta Mart)
Skagway residents will be asked to weigh-in on whether they want to see a recreation center expansion. On Thursday, the assembly agreed to hold an advisory vote on the October ballot.
The assembly wants to know three things from Skagway voters. Do you support funding of the recreation center expansion? Do you support funding of an expansion to include an aquatic wellness center? And, do you support a one percent sales tax increase to fund the design, engineering and expansion and retirement of general obligation bonds?
The estimated cost will also be included with the ballot questions.
Assembly member Jay Burnham said the advisory vote will help the assembly understand where the city stands.
“That’s pretty simple and straightforward and I think that the people can decide whether or not they want it,” Burnham said. “And then we’ll have direction and we can go from there.”
Orion Hanson said voter input is important if the building expansion is going to continue to be an issue.
“For us to continue to talk about this — either we put this on the ballot, or we move on,” Hanson said. “And I think it’s fair to let the public weigh-in on it.”
Dave Brena said he also supports putting the question to the public.
“But I think there should be some form of estimate on how many years this one percent will be in place in order to pay for either of these options,” Brena said. “And then there should be a sunsetting that takes that one percent sales tax back down automatically at the end of those periods.”
So did Dan Henry.
“You have a ballot issue. You have the ability to pay for it if in fact this is the route you want to go to pay for it. All the other things we were talking about devoting our energy toward infrastructurally are things that we can deal with other funding sources, i.e. cpv monies and things like that,” Brena said.
Tim Cochran said, while he doesn’t disagree with putting the question to voters, he expressed some caution.
“But I don’t think the public realizes how long and how much it’s going to cost,” Cochran said. “One percent sales tax increase is not very favorable among a lot of the business people. I don’t think people will realize how much it’s going to cost to maintain.”
Mayor Monica Carlson also wanted to caution the assembly on a few things.
“Even if we do get support funding for the engineering, and we spend what we have in our budget, $1.4 million. We’re going to commit to that $1.4 million and then, will it sit on the bookshelf? Or will we actually build something,” Carlson said.
She also brought up the long-term costs of the facility.
“With the retirement of general obligation bonds, that doesn’t take care of the maintenance and operation of the facility,” Carlson said. “To think that won’t involve a mill rate increase or more property tax increase with the challenges that we have ahead in this community, we need to think long and hard.”
An advisory vote nearly made it to the ballot this time last year. But in 2017, the assembly voted it down. This time, the group voted unanimously.
The municipality has conceptual designs for the project from 2016.
As an advisory vote, this will only gauge whether residents support expansion and a tax to pay for it.
