In 37 years in Haines, including as a newspaper reporter, editor, publisher and Haines Borough Assembly member, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know our town, its people, history, culture and politics.
I have celebrated our successes and mourned our losses, endured our battles and led or joined various efforts to improve our town.
Now I’d like to work as mayor because I believe I can help lead our government through a rough patch or two. I’ve spent years working closely with local people on local issues, reporting their concerns. I’ve also worked as an activist, promoting ideas and projects. I’ve learned — sometimes through painful trial and error — who lives in our town and how to get things done here.
I also have faith that our community can match the majesty of its natural surroundings and the promise of the great personal freedom, resources and opportunities we enjoy.
In recent years I have traveled in the American West, Midwest and East Coast and I have this to report: The worst day here still beats the best day in most of those places. Even by Alaska standards, Haines stands out.
Investment that grew from a vibrant volunteer and nonprofit base, a locally owned business sector and an atmosphere of encouragement endowed our town with facilities, attractions and organizations that other towns our size would envy:
A swimming pool and museum. A world-class theater. A nationally recognized public library. A full-time public radio station and a newspaper. An award-winning school district. The Southeast Alaska State Fair. The Great Alaska Craft Beer and Homebrew Festival. The American Bald Eagle Foundation. The Haines Borough’s $8 million permanent fund. The Chilkat Valley Community Foundation.
These achievements we owe to generations of residents who believed in Haines and backed up their faith with blood, sweat, tears, money and time. To this day, a steady parade of starry-eyed newcomers arrives with a dream of making a life here. That doesn’t happen in many places.
Our community is blessed with human potential and natural wealth, but we also face challenges.
Much of our growth in the past 50 years was boosted by state and federal leaders who met their obligation to our town and helped us. Until we return to office leaders more sympathetic to community needs, we’ll be struggling with basics, including operating money for our school, ferry system and parks.
To continue to prosper, we will need to become more creative, more collaborative, and more courageous, as well as more respectful of each other’s opinions. We’ll likely have to make do, volunteer more, or spend more in local taxes. At least for now, we face some painful conversations and difficult choices.
We also must address how we conduct our public business.
During the era of great oil wealth, our town could afford divisive battles between competing interests. Money is a great salve for healing wounds, including ones inflicted by hurtful public discourse.
With public funds in decline, we no longer enjoy that luxury. We are a small town, with a limited number of people willing to participate in government. To find an agreeable path forward, we’re going to need as many people as possible working together as neighbors. Not necessarily friends, but at least as neighbors, recognizing and respecting our differences.
Outgoing Mayor Doug Olerud did a great job of bringing respect and orderliness to Haines Borough meetings, setting a tone of calm, civility and efficiency. I hope to build on Doug’s progress toward making our government more responsive, more accessible and more accountable to citizens.
How?
During this campaign, just as in my 2016 campaign for assembly, I’ll be walking door-to-door, talking to residents about their concerns to learn what our borough is doing right, and what we can do better, where we may be spending too much time and money, and where we’re spending too little.
Like Mayor Olerud, I’ll keep regular office hours so residents can stop by city hall to discuss how the borough can help them succeed.
Our government must be led by citizens, through their representatives on the assembly. The mayor’s job, as I see it, is to help provide a vision for the community while serving as a type of oil, reducing friction and helping the gears of government turn smoothly.
To operate efficiently, we need an active assembly, setting priorities and policy directives for the borough staff. As mayor, I will push to resurrect a former practice of holding an annual assembly planning retreat following each municipal election, a brain-storming session where members can set their goals for the coming year.
Those goal-setting meetings will likely need to be quarterly to reinforce them and ensure completion, as it’s easy for assemblies to get caught up in issues brought before them.
These are just some of my thoughts as I embark on this campaign to serve you as mayor. I will be posting more at this site as I speak with you and other residents about your concerns. If you would like to speak to me about your ideas, please phone me at 907-303-2688.
I’m confident that together, we can make Haines a better place. Please consider voting for me on Tuesday, Oct. 3.