I urge fellow residents of the rural areas of the Haines Borough to vote against expanding police service to the town’s road limits.
Although the ballot proposition calls for only “on-call” service at $70,000 per year, the recent history of the Haines police reflects a desire for more officers and a bigger budget. Starting two years ago, borough police have been responding to routine traffic stops with 2 officers instead of one, and they routinely patrol outside of their townsite service area.
Also, police have exponentially increased the number of traffic stops, using them as a kind of dragnet to gather information on individuals they find suspicious, which have included a visiting artist and a retired college professor.
Furthermore, police chief Heath Scott has expressed interest in the department growing to 7-8 officers, and acquiring and maintaining a drug-sniffing dog. The police department already is operating at a $150,000 annual deficit to pay for expansion to five officers the department lobbied for in 2017.
Who will pay for all this policing in a small town where the median age is 49?
Current state trooper service is sufficient to provide for actual emergencies and crimes outside the townsite. Haines-based trooper Trent Wialchowski proved this during the summer, leading the response to a fatality at Glacier Point, a search for a missing person near Klukwan and the prosecution of a highway resident on drug charges.
If Wialchowski needs support in the outlying area, he can request it of town police, under a mutual-support arrangement that’s been in place for decades.
In the meantime, I’ll continue pushing the state’s elected leaders for return of the blue-shirt trooper position. A trooper was based in Haines for 50 years until eliminated by trooper bureaucrats in 2017.
Expansion of town police service into rural areas is unnecessary at this time, and could become quite expansive over time.
Finally, there’s another route we could take: Dissolve the Haines Borough Police Department. The cities of Delta Junction and Houston, Alaska each dissolved their municipal police departments. Now each town is served by state troopers.
Vote no on Ballot Question #1.