A band of self-appointed experts recently attacked the borough’s public works department for failing to maintain local roads.
They were right about the condition of our roads, but they didn’t look very deeply at the reasons for all those potholes. Instead, they insisted on seeing the time cards of hard-working, underpaid borough employees.
That was a shame.
In October 2023, deep in our annual monsoon season and a week or so after being elected mayor, I personally inventoried the condition of local roads – by driving them.
I wrote up a description and ranking of the condition of each road in the townsite and I sent my report to then-manager Annette Kreitzer. The findings of my report are not secret.
Anyone who spends any time downtown knows that Second Avenue near Dusty Trails is a minefield, that Union Street east of Second Avenue is an embarrassment and that First Avenue North is an insult to taxpayers.
The local experts didn’t know it or didn’t say it but they were on the warpath partly due to the weather. A typical winter fills many of our potholes with snow and ice, softening the bumps and camouflaging them for six months.
Our recent, snowless winter kept the holes in view and winter rains dug them deeper with each storm. The same was true for all of coastal Alaska. The Anchorage newspaper wrote stories about it. Bigger potholes and frost heaves are just some of the costs of climate change in Alaska.
The experts also forgot to mention that Alaskans – led by a do-nothing governor – have traded road maintenance in for their beloved Permanent Fund checks. For 30 or so years, the State of Alaska rebuilt local roads. The money came to Haines annually through the Alaska Legislature’s “capital grants.”
It was candy that state legislators gave out every May and towns like Haines ate it up, paving dozens of roads that were surfaced only with gravel for Alaska’s first 100 years. Consider that until the late 1970s, the Haines Highway and Main Street were our town’s only paved roads.
Until state leaders get off their duffs and start generating some revenues, you might as well take your kids down to watch the paving of Second Avenue. That’s likely to be the last paving to be done here in a long time – and it’s being paid for by federal disaster money, not borough or state revenue.
The experts also failed to point out that the borough’s equipment operators are paid significantly less than operators who work for the State of Alaska or contractors like Southeast Roadbuilders or Hi-X. You get what you pay for and the borough pays only enough for journeymen operators.
Finally, the experts proposed no options for funneling more local funds to filling potholes. Here’s one that the city of Anchorage adopted nearly 10 years ago: A local fuel tax dedicated to road maintenance.
That is, users of roads pay for maintenance through a tax on gasoline. If you drive a big fuel hog that’s chewing up roads, you pay more in fuel tax. If you drive a cute little thing sporty thing, you pay less. If you carpool, you pay even less. And if you ride a bike, you pay nothing.
You pay for what you use. That’s about as democratic as a tax can get. And unlike a hike in general sales tax, a little old lady in Deishu who is scrimping for grocery money and hasn’t driven for years isn’t asked being asked to chip in to give monster trucks a smooth ride.
As a Haines Borough Assembly member, I advocated for a local gasoline tax dedicated to road maintenance. The idea didn’t make it out of committee. The notion that we would help pay our own way to fill potholes on our own borough streets was greeted as heresy.
Haines Borough roads are in lousy shape. But neither the Alaska Legislature nor the Haines Borough Assembly nor apparently the public has the will to raise the money that it takes to maintain them.
Instead, all we’ve done is gripe about potholes.