It has become embarrassingly obvious that the downtown boat harbor expansion is an unnecessary monstrosity, a huge and ugly pimple on the once pristine face of our stunning waterfront.
That this project was driven by hubris and vanity – not by need or by prudence – is nowhere as evident as in the Haines Borough’s recent decision to seek $20 million in freight dock subsidies at Lutak instead of harbor floats.
Five years after harbor expansion work started, there’s still not a single new boat slip in the harbor. That’s right. The borough spent $25 million or more in public money without adding docking for a single new vessel at the harbor.
New arrivals to town already are asking, “What’s with the big, ugly parking lot?”
This is what happened.
Some expansion of the harbor was necessary, for two reasons.
Reason #1: Replacement of cement floats with wooden ones in 2008 increased damage to boats from wave action. A short breakwater extension or “nose” to protect from south winds was needed. Reason #2: A few more slips were needed, at least during busy summer months.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to abandon a large, northward harbor expansion plan on the grounds that its cost exceeded its benefits should have been a wake-up call to proponents. It wasn’t. Instead, proponents moved their oversized dreams to the existing basin, surrendered hope of receiving federal aid, and waged their bets on state funding.
Tragically, that bet came through in 2012, when Alaskans passed a statewide bond for ports and harbors, including $15 million for the Haines expansion. When the Alaska Legislature kicked in an additional $4 million, plans took off.
As proof that there is nothing more intoxicating than free money, when the borough’s Ports and Harbors Committee – comprised almost exclusively of boat owners and fishermen – got done drawing up their dream harbor, they had spent so much no money was left for floats needed to dock additional vessels.
As a design, the bloated plan garnered only marginal support (4-2) on the Haines Borough Assembly in 2014. Conservatives George Campbell and Debra Schnabel opposed it, primarily for its scale and expense. Campbell questioned what the borough could afford to pay the cost of maintenance.
Perhaps the expansion’s most extravagant and unnecessary feature, a double boat ramp allowing two vessels to be launched at the same time, dropped the coup de grace on gasping hopes of maintaining our scenic waterfront. In order to receive $5 million in additional, government funding to build the double ramp, a four-acre, paved parking lot was required to be built adjacent to it.
Assembly member Schnabel did the math and figured the giant slab would be enough asphalt to park a 747 jumbo jet.
In the 2016 assembly election, voters chose Heather Lende and I, who had differences with the giant harbor design, over two candidates (Ryan Cook and Diana Lapham) who solidly supported it. Lende and I both won handily. My 66-vote margin over Lapham, the third highest vote-getter, was greater than Lende’s margin over me.
The election added two project critics to the assembly, joining opponent Tresham Gregg. The assembly now was split right down the middle, 3-3, on a $25 million-plus municipal project, the most expensive one in our history. Our election had spoken volumes about the harbor expansion: Residents were skeptical. The election should have triggered a re-evaluation of the project by the full assembly.
But cooler heads rarely prevail in Haines politics.
Acting as project advocates rather than public servants, Mayor Jan Hill, borough manager William Seward, clerk Julie Cozzi and facilities director Brad Ryan went ahead with advertising bids on the bloated design in the short span of time between the municipal election and the first meeting of our new assembly, a move treasonous to the public’s will.
Though resisted by the administration, Lende and I were able to call a special assembly meeting on the harbor design. At the meeting, I proposed a special election, a “yes-or-no” referendum vote on the project design to be held as soon as possible and before the bid on the project was to be awarded.
Fishermen and Ports and Harbors Committee members stacked the meeting about the referendum. Assembly members Mike Case, Margaret Friedenauer and Ron Jackson voted against it, despite support from Jackson’s own wife, who testified at the meeting in support. Lende, Gregg and I voted for it. Mayor Hill broke the tie, denying citizens a direct vote on the project and ending the debate.
To say most people in town supported the bloated design is to say the 2016 assembly election never happened. But it did happen, and the will of the people was clearly to put the brakes on a half-baked plan championed by a small but vocal minority who dreamed it up.
Looking back, a person has to ask: What harm would have come from delaying the project a few months until its design could be changed to something most people in town would support? Or alternatively, what damage came from ramming the project ahead over the reasonable concerns of the populace?
We can only definitively answer the second question, and that answer sits today along South Front Street: A giant, empty, beachfront parking lot, an ugly steel wall decaying into the ocean with each passing year, and not a single new slip for a boat.