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

The assembly voted 4-2 Tuesday to direct the Haines Police to serve only the townsite, unless the Alaska State Troopers request them to respond to calls for service.

The decision came after Mud Bay, Lutak, and Haines Highway residents voted against raising property taxes for an on-call police service. Borough manager Debra Schnabel asked the assembly on Tuesday night how to direct the police. According to borough code, the police are only funded to operate within the townsite service area.

Schnabel sent police chief Heath Scott and fire chief Al Giddings a memo Wednesday that said, "The department is not authorized to provide police services outside of the political boundaries of the townsite except by request or directive of the Alaska State Troopers," and said that in any instance of service delivery, documentation of the request by the Troopers must be shown upon request. Schnabel also asked for a cost estimate for "professionally removing the word "Borough" from police department vehicles.

Department of Public Safety communications director Jonathon Taylor told the CVN Wednesday that their position has been and remains that the "Haines Borough Police Department is the agency with the main jurisdiction within the entirety of the borough. We will continue to assist the Haines Borough Police Department as needed and as appropriate. Neither the removal of the word 'Borough' from HBPD's vehicles nor the city manager's memo impacts our position."

Assembly members Sean Maidy and Will Prisciandaro voted against the directive.

Maidy said from the Trooper's perspective, the borough is responsible for policing, and that he couldn't knowingly direct residents outside the town site to call the Troopers who aren't obligated to respond. "Until we find out a way forward I can't rightfully put people's lives in danger," Maidy said.

Prisciandaro voted against the directive because he said that he heard from voters that "a lot of the 'no' vote was [because of] the funding mechanism." Residents outside of the town site may want police service, he said, but they didn't agree with the added cost to their property taxes.

Jim Stanford, former chairman of the public safety commission who lives at 27 Mile on the Haines Highway, said he voted in favor of the on-call police service area, but thinks it failed because of the proposed property tax increase, and because of people's lack of trust in the borough. "The reason I think the vote failed wasn't because people didn't want a reasonable response time, but they didn't feel like the borough had worked out the financials at all," Stanford said.

Stanford said the $71 a year in added taxes was a pittance.

Scott said voters told her that they voted no because of a lack of faith in the police, not because they were worried about expenses. "It's important for the public to know that they will work through the Troopers, not through our police and that's through our charter," assembly member Stephanie Scott said.

Police Sergeant Josh Dryden told CVN on Wednesday that the department intends to honor the assembly's wishes and the voters' wishes. Still, he said, "I don't see many of us sitting here in this department if we hear somebody screaming over the line for help." "We'll do our best to try to follow the assembly's wishes, but that's a hard thing," Dryden said. "The assembly members and the people that vote, they're not in here listening to it. They haven't seen some of the things that happen here, even in a small wonderful peaceful town like Haines."

The Borough Assembly also unanimously passed a motion to direct the manager to notify Alaskan government officials that the borough's charter only funds the police to operate within the townsite, and advise them of the recent vote against the on-call service areas.