I encourage residents to contact Haines Borough Assembly members, Mayor Jan Hill and manager Debra Schnabel and urge them not to exempt from 14-day quarantine workers arriving from outside our community to work on elective construction projects like the harbor expansion.

The existing harbor works fine for now. Expanding the harbor is a project we’ve delayed for decades. There’s no good public health reason to lift the quarantine for workers coming from outside for this project. The same goes for Haines Highway expansion.

If the freight dock stops working and we can’t get food into town without the immediate help of some expert in Juneau or Anchorage, that’s a different story.

Perhaps most importantly, removing the quarantine requirement for workers on non-essential projects threatens to erode public support for our quarantine and shelter-in-place directives. If the public perceives these rules are arbitrary or politically motivated, they won’t abide by them. Then we’ll be in very deep trouble.

Phone or email assembly members, the Mayor and manager today.

Tom Morphet