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

Infighting within the company that controls much of Fort Seward reached a high point Friday when a majority of board members–who have pushed for improvements to company properties in recent years–were voted off the board.

The action raises new questions about the fate of major buildings within the historic district and also raises the possibility that the eight-acre Parade Grounds, a mostly empty field historically used for Army drills, will be subdivided between the Haines Borough, a private owner and the Chilkoot Indian Association.

Port Chilkoot Co.’s majority shareholders voted to shrink the company’s governing board from nine members to five last week. Four of the remaining board members are descendants of company founder Carl Heinmiller. The board now includes Lee Heinmiller, his sister Judy Heinmiller, his nephew Jerry Kane, daughter Riley and Christina Baskaya, the sole member of the Gregg family. Those voted out include Gregg family members Juge Gregg, Annette Smith, Tresham Gregg and K.A. Swiger. Fred Shields was also voted off.

While many of the buildings in the historic fort are privately owned, the Port Chilkoot Co. owns the barracks, the hospital building and other properties. The Parade Grounds is currently owned by Alaska Indian Arts (AIA), a nonprofit corporation historically devoted to Alaska Native arts and headed by Lee Heinmiller.

According to interviews and documents obtained by the Chilkat Valley News, tensions have been rising between Lee Heinmiller and the voted-off shareholders who were opposed to AIA’s desire to subdivide the Parade Grounds.

The latter group includes former Haines Borough Mayor Fred Shields, voted off the board Friday after 27 years. “It was a coup,” Shields said. “The truth is, there’s something very distasteful about all this.”

Gershon Cohen, however, called the action “a triumph of democracy,” turning control of the company back to a majority of its shareholders. Cohen, who joined the defunct AIA board in April 2021, is negotiating for purchase of property beneath a restaurant building he owns in the Parade Grounds, which would be the first private purchase of land inside the grounds. Documents show a plan for him to purchase a quarter-acre beneath the restaurant for $7,500 from AIA.

In a prepared statement, Cohen wrote that the AIA board last year unanimously approved transferring most of the Parade Grounds to the Haines Borough to be dedicated as a public park, and portions of an acre within the parade grounds to Chilkoot Indian Association and the Old Field Kitchen.

“The previous (Port Chilkoot Co.) board was opposed to the idea and was attempting to block the transfer by referring to vague, never-before applied language from the 1958 deed that transferred the Parade Grounds from (the Port Chilkoot Co.) to AIA, even though the majority interest of (Port Chilkoot Co.) shareholders were in full support of AIA’s efforts,” he wrote.

The last time an annual shareholders meeting was held was in 1998, which is a violation of state law. The meetings are an opportunity to vote for new directors. Heinmiller, president of the Port Chilkoot Co., said the meeting was long overdue and cited shareholder inequity on the company’s board of directors. The Gregg family collectively owns roughly 12% of the company compared to the Heinmillers’ 62%. Before last Friday, those opposed to subdividing the land had five of the nine seats on the board. Despite not having as many seats, the Heinmiller family shareholder majority gives them majority voting power, which enabled them to reconfigure the board.

It’s the subdivision to a private entity and the development of a road through the Parade Grounds that the company board members who were voted off have opposed since AIA began negotiating with the borough.

“My biggest worry is that it will dilute the parade ground,” Baskaya said. “Already the National Park Service had identified the encroaching buildings around the perimeters of the fort as having a potential to dilute its historic significance. I can only imagine what carving out this big field would do.”

National Park Service senior historical architect Grant Crosby said Fort Seward’s status as a National Historic Landmark rests on the fact that the fort’s buildings are organized around the central Parade Ground. He said the Parade Ground’s significance lies in its character as an open space based on its historical role.

“Changes to a historic site could potentially impact the National Historic Landmark’s integrity–its ability to convey its historical associations or attributes,” he said. “Historic sites that lose integrity through one action or many smaller ones (cumulative effect) may be delisted from the National Register of Historic Places.”

The fort was included in that national register in 1978. A de-listing would diminish funding opportunities to such sites, Crosby said.

The borough’s draft MOU with AIA would provide right-of-way access to the commercial parcel which would require developing a road to borough standards, planner Dave Long said. It’s unclear what the exact dimensions of a road would be. Heinmiller said the area has had road access for decades, before the historical status was granted, and current plans would likely have no effect on the fort’s historic status.

Juge Gregg, Baskaya and Swiger all joined the Port Chilkoot Co. board 10 years ago. Baskaya said since then, they’ve worked to inject momentum into the company and repair the fort’s historic buildings that had been left unattended for decades.

Since 2012, she said, the Port Chilkoot Co. board developed a strategic plan and automated the company’s financial records. They organized last June’s barrack’s auction to clear out excess and abandoned storage items and received grants to repair the barracks building porch, roof and siding. They enlisted local artists to paint scenes of barracks life over plywood to cover the barrack’s broken windows. They nominated the building to Alaska’s Most Endangered Properties list and partnered with the National Park Service to coordinate a feasibility study. Last fall, they received a matching grant from the Office of History and Archeology to repair the heating and plumbing system for the hospital building.

The Port Chilkoot Co. board members opposed to subdividing the land last month sued Heinmiller’s AIA, seeking reimbursement of $52,000 in delinquent rent, utilities and property tax that AIA owes the company for use of its hospital building. Juge Gregg said the decision to take the issue to court was used as leverage because AIA was unresponsive to dissident board members’ desire to have a seat at the negotiating table over the future of the Parade Grounds.

Those board members also sued AIA to take back Port Chilkoot Co. ownership of the Parade Grounds. The 1958 deed on the acre-parcel allows the company to take back the property if used “for any purpose other than recreation or Indian art development for a period of more than one year,” language Cohen insists is vague and hasn’t been applied consistently.

AIA founder Carl Heinmiller referenced the deed in 1974 in a letter to the borough requesting tax-exempt status on the parcel. “The deed to (AIA) is for the use as a park for public use and development,” he wrote. “If not used for this purpose it must revert back to the seller.”

The area later catered to cruise ship passengers who watched the Chilkat Dancers and ate at a salmon bake. The salmon bake was the original use of the restaurant more than 30 years ago. The borough has consulted its attorney to provide clarity on which entities have title on the land and negotiations with AIA have been on pause.

Juge Gregg said he’s not opposed to the Old Field Kitchen operating as it is, but that he wants the land to remain under single ownership, or to ensure any land transactions have a historical preservation covenant attached to them.

“I’m not opposed to that restaurant operating. I’m not opposed to a long-term lease for the building or for the land underneath the building. I’m not opposed to limited commercial enterprise happening on that strip. I’d be pretty hypocritical if I were because my dad’s (Tresham Gregg’s) art gallery has been there for decades,” Juge Gregg said. “However, we need to do so while still preserving the historical integrity of the fort.”

AIA owes the borough nearly $30,000 in back taxes, an issue that prompted AIA to enter negotiations with the borough to forgive the tax bill in exchange for conveying land, assessed at $290,000, to the borough.

Under terms of those negotiations, the one-acre property that includes Old Field Kitchen, Tresham Gregg’s Seawolf Gallery and a replica tribal house would remain under AIA ownership, according to a draft memorandum of agreement between the borough and AIA. The borough also would forgive the commercial property taxes due at Dec. 31, 2021, as well as develop a road through the Parade Grounds and provide snow removal and road maintenance for commercial activities on the one-acre parcel. Road maintenance would require assembly approval.

The impact of Friday’s board restructuring on the two lawsuits was unclear this week.

Those who were voted off the board and others familiar with the matter claim that last week’s Port Chilkoot Co. shareholders meeting was a plan largely led by Cohen, which is problematic given his interest in the land under Old Field Kitchen.

“He wants the land so now he’s been navigating the course for success. There are emails where he spelled out the plan, and the plan has come under fruition today,” Shields said on the day of the vote.

After dissident board members began opposing subdividing the land, Juge Gregg said Cohen cited to him privately the issue of share inequity on the Port Chilkoot Co. board.

Cohen initially suggested to Juge Gregg that Gregg family members resign and that if they didn’t, Heinmiller would call the shareholders meeting and vote them off.

“I told Juge the other day that an ‘option’ for the Greggs is to voluntarily leave the board to avoid the appearance of being kicked off,” Cohen wrote in an email to AIA members that was provided to the CVN. “They can do it the hard way or the easy way. That’s up to them. The easy way would be fast, the hard way won’t take much longer.”

In a separate email the same day that Cohen accidentally copied to the Port Chilkoot Co. board, Cohen informed AIA of the plan to change the board’s composition and give Heinmiller control.

“When that is resolved, i.e., Lee and Judy (Heinmiller) regain control of the (Port Chilkoot Co.) board, all ‘demands’ will be moot,” Cohen wrote.

Those demands included the Port Chilkoot Co.’s board members directive that AIA clear out the fort’s hospital building in two months time to make way for grant-funded repairs to the heating and plumbing system that were damaged in 2019.

In a strongly worded reply to Cohen’s accidental email, Juge Gregg said Cohen’s and Heinmiller’s plan would remove members who were actively working to restore and repair the hospital building.

“And to make matters worse, another reason you are seeking to remove Port Chilkoot Co. board members is so that AIA is free from (Port Chilkoot Co.’s) objection to the plan you outlined to me of carving up ownership of the Parade Ground – the heart of historic Fort Seward -- and enabling the purchase of the land under the Old Field Kitchen,” Gregg wrote.

Heinmiller told the CVN that the hospital project will continue as planned. “The roof still requires major repairs as do the roofs on the barracks and quartermaster buildings,” Heinmiller wrote. “Our small grant supported projects and rental income is not enough to fund these major projects. The company is seeking assistance with other organizations to engage in this endeavor.”

Cohen told the CVN he’s never denied or hidden his family’s long-standing interest in the fate of the fort, including the restaurant that “enjoys wide-spread support throughout the community.”

He said he was asked to intervene between the Greggs and the Heinmillers with the aim to resolve their multi-generational dispute.

“The Greggs’ overwhelming dominance of the PCC Board, despite owning very little of the company, was going to end. It was inevitable,” Cohen said. “I suggested they had a choice: they could volunteer to give up some seats on the Board and perhaps retain more seats going forward, or simply be voted off by the shareholders. They decided to take their chances with a democratic vote. I’m sorry there are some hard feelings, but I believe an important step has now been taken towards the revitalization of the entire area.”

In an unsigned, draft agreement provided to the CVN between AIA and Old Field Kitchen, AIA would sell a quarter acre of land under and around the restaurant for $7,500. The quarter acre in question is part of a separate, one-acre parcel within the Parade Grounds that’s assessed at a value of $197,000. AIA is working with Chilkoot Indian Association for the remainder of the acre parcel.

The draft agreement includes no covenant for historical preservation.