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

Haines Borough and the former City of Haines consolidated as one government in the early 2000’s. Before combining, our Haines assembly was also the school board—same faces, different hats. This dual purpose legislature frequently met at Haines High in the commons, which is today exactly the same, spacious and heated. Learning that current plans for a new multi-purpose, municipal facility are at least twice the square footage of the current structure is concerning.

One needless aspect of the CIP wish-list—although not so needless as a macho, indoor shooting range—is the spiffy, toasty space called “the assembly chamber.” I say needless because we already own (at least) three well-equipped, heated public alternatives for use by boards and committees: the Chilkat Center lobby, the public library community room and several spaces within Haines School. Sure, paid staff might have to “set up and break down.” To make the math easy, if each assembly meeting costs $50 extra in staffing, avoiding $1 million in construction costs buys staffing for about 20,000 meetings.

Within rational limits, just as sure as the world, doubling a public facility’s usage approximately doubles the public’s economic benefit of its operation. Creativity in facility programming—booking more public functions into existing, ready-to-serve facilities—means public spaces that are well-loved, well-used, and more economical. That concept is worth a lot of taxpayer cash. How much cash? An amount roughly equal to the needless and grandiose debt obligations we avoid.

Burl Sheldon