Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

The question of extending police service borough-wide won’t go before voters this October after the Haines Borough Assembly referred the issue back to committee.

Borough staff recommended sending it back to the Government Affairs and Services Committee after several public meetings about the proposed ordinance to create a “community safety service area.”

The issue began after the Alaska State Troopers declined to fill a vacant position in Haines in January. Before the vacancy, Haines Police responded when the trooper requested assistance.

Now, the state’s wildlife trooper and local police respond outside the townsite. Haines Police chief Heath Scott said his department isn’t funded to respond to such calls.

The ordinance has drawn criticism from local medical and fire volunteers whose budget would be folded into the expanded service area, which includes roughly all borough land north of Sullivan Island.

Some assembly members said more time and a clearer understanding of the issue was needed.

Assembly member Sean Maidy said the wildlife trooper is currently responding to emergency calls, “which is exactly the kind of calls that people out the road and out these areas are telling me is what they want.”

“If we’re going to decide to relinquish the service before we put it to the people to vote...we should decide whose jurisdiction it is because right now it is the trooper’s jurisdiction and we’re talking about taking that jurisdiction away,” Maidy said.

The assembly also directed borough manager Debra Schnabel and Mayor Jan Hill to contact the state troopers to find out more details about the current service and if the troopers would continue to respond if the borough created a new service area.

In other borough news, the assembly advanced unanimously an ordinance decreasing the mayor’s salary from $15,000 to $6,000 “to be more in line with other similar communities.”

Assembly member Ron Jackson proposed the cut in May, citing Alaska Municipal League data showing Petersburg’s mayor receives $5,400 a year, and Sitka and Kodiak mayors get $6,000.

Skagway’s mayor receives $12,000 and Wrangell’s mayor is unpaid.

Hill was absent from that meeting.

The proposed salary decrease will go before a public hearing Aug. 22.

Harbor dredging is behind, according to Maidy.

Maidy, liaison to the Port and Harbor Advisory Committee, updated the assembly on the delay.

“The dredging is going very slowly because of the hardness of the stone underneath,” Maidy told the assembly. “The harbor master said the (PND) workers are losing optimism on how difficult the work is becoming. The dredging is painfully slow.”

Dredging is a month behind, Maidy reported.