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

Sitka will switch from free to paid airport parking next month under a state program that later could come to other Southeast communities, although Haines is low on the list of priorities. Petersburg made the move in December, when a private operator leased state airport property that had been used for free parking and converted it to a paid long-term lot.

The Alaska Department of Transportation said last month it will institute paid parking at the Sitka airport because parking management there “has become an increasing challenge” for its crew, particularly with abandoned vehicles. The department will advertise this month “to find a professional parking management company” to manage the lot in front of the terminal.

The effort “will be the first of several planned to solve similar parking issues throughout the state airport system,” according to the department’s announcement last month.

Sitka will serve as a “pilot program for the department’s smaller airports,” Sam Dapcevich, department spokesman, said on Feb. 25. “After it’s implemented there, the department will start rolling it out to additional airports.”

Dapcevich told the CVN the state currently doesn’t have plans to charge for parking at the Haines airport but could in the future.  “I haven’t heard of any trouble (with airport parking) in Haines,” Dapcevich said. “We have others that are higher up on our priority list.”

Nik LaCroix, manager at Alaska Seaplanes, said it’s common for cars to be parked at the airport for months. They can get in the way of snow plowing, he said, but haven’t caused a parking shortage. He noted the lack of enforcement of signs that prohibit parking for over 72 hours.

DOT also manages the airports in Gustavus, Hoonah, Skagway, Yakutat and several smaller Southeast communities, in addition to airports across Alaska.

The Juneau and Ketchikan airports are managed by the borough in each community, and there is a fee for airport parking.

The request for proposals for a private operator to manage the Sitka parking lot will go out this month. The department said it “anticipates a company will be managing the lot by early April.” The operator will set and collect the fees.

The parking rate in Petersburg went from free to $7 per day in December after the state leased the frequently-used, state-owned parcel to a private operator — at the request of the company that wanted more space for its own business.

In an interview with the Sitka Sentinel late last month, Dapcevich said the state decided to outsource lot management in Sitka because the department “doesn’t have the resources to manage parking.” He added, “We’ve been in discussions with the city. They’ve determined they don’t have the bandwidth to manage it either. So, we’re going to ... get a parking management company in there, and some of the issues people have come to us with should be addressed.”

One of the complaints is a lack of sufficient long-term parking, he said.

“We have 68 spots in the seven-day parking area and they’re typically pretty full,” Dapcevich told the Sitka newspaper. “By having a company in there that can manage it, they should be able to adapt and be more flexible than us. If they decide they can use more of the short-term parking area for long-term, they may be able to do that. Also, they could go longer than the seven-day limit we have in place. If people would like to pay to keep their car there longer, they would have that option.”

“The proposal is a long time coming,” said Sitka Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz. “We’ve been working with the state on a parking plan at the airport for quite some time. … We’ve been trying to push this off for a long time, so that we didn’t have to charge for parking at the airport. But at this point I believe it’s an inevitability.” He added, “I hope the rates are kept reasonable.”

Dapcevich hopes the move will reduce the number of cars left or abandoned in the Sitka lot for extended periods of time.

“An ideal situation would be that we don’t have abandoned cars, because someone is there and our maintenance and operations staff wouldn’t have to be trying to track people down, and then end up if you can’t track them down needing to involve a towing company and then following up with people so they can get their car back,” he said. “We would prefer that they’re focusing on their regular responsibilities, like keeping the runway clear and keeping Sitka’s roads clear.”