There’s a fundamental problem with our form of local government: Residents don’t understand who’s in charge. Consider this statement Haines Borough Assembly candidate Gabe Thomas made to KHNS this week: “I think the Assembly’s main responsibility is to set the budget. It’s not to direct the manager in any other way, besides give her the budget, let her review the…
In a professional baseball game, the team that holds a lead of at least four runs after the sixth inning has more than a 95 percent chance of winning. The ruinous decline of standards in the United States is nowhere more evident than in the fact that I found the above statistic in a quick Internet search starting with the…
In the 2006 horror movie classic, “When A Stranger Calls,” a babysitter is spooked by increasingly ominous prank phone calls. When she calls the phone company to trace the calls, she gets the most chilling message — that the calls are coming from inside the house. As a Haines Borough Assembly member, I can relate. Our manager, Debra Schnabel, pursues…
This is what to do with your vote on adding a 2 percent tax on sales of alcohol and marijuana: Vote “no” on both measures. Wait one year until a voter initiative — or the assembly — dedicates income from both these taxes to a comprehensive, community recreation program. Vote “yes” on both measures in 2020. About a year ago,…
I missed the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines this year and had to settle for the big Alaska State Fair in Palmer, which offers junkier junk food, grown men in cowboy hats and a generous serving of Jesus in the form of booths offering ministry to the fallen. It’s a bit different than the Haines fair, which leans toward…
If you’re lucky, you haven’t had the chance to drive the new, smoother and wider section of Haines Highway. It’s no improvement. The road is smoother, and perhaps the lanes are a few inches wider, but the elevation of the roadway and the fact that it is hemmed in by guardrails for miles effectively has narrowed it, eliminating miles of…
Besides the obvious question of whether Heath Scott deserves to be paid nearly $33,000 more than any other permanent police chief in our town’s history is the matter of the precedent set for a 10 percent pay increase to borough executives. Under his proposed new contract, Scott will make $110,000 annually for 18 months starting in January, then get a…
A couple decades back, pundits and comedians made hay with the news that new hammers at hardware stores were coming with a written warning about their dangers. But the joke was on us. The Fear and Hazard Racket is now big business, with governments at the local, state and national level cashing in on this message: Be afraid. Be very…
“So another part-time position has become permanent?” — Haines Borough Assembly member Don Turner III, asking borough manager Robert Venables about his proposal to create a full-time “facilities director” position, September 18, 2007. “So long as grants are paying for it.” — Venables’ response. Let the record show: “Liberals” on the Haines Borough Assembly tried to reduce the size of…
Haines Borough manager Debra Schnabel recently increased the pay of police chief Heath Scott to more than $110,000 annually, making Scott the highest-paid police chief in borough history, by $33,000. (Bill Musser, the last, permanent chief previous to Scott, was paid $76,877, according to borough finance department.) Scott had been making $100,000 annually and getting $50,000 in benefits, and was…