U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski was in town early last month and again she went on about how much she likes Haines and how she’d like to have a cabin here some day. We should take her up on it. Murkowski coos over Haines every time she visits and she visits a whole lot compared to Alaska’s other U.S. senator, Dan…
At the June 14 Haines Borough Assembly meeting, economic development director Lee Hart commented that it takes a spreadsheet to find a restaurant that’s open in Haines. Hart’s remarks came a few weeks after a friend of mine received an email from an Anchorage friend wanting to know where to eat in Haines. “It’s complicated,” my friend responded. Last night…
We learned to make balloon animals at the Kid’s Stage of the Southeast Alaska State Fair this year, the secret being a small plastic pump to inflate those long balloons that defy most everyone’s blowing capacity. So some knowledge was gained amid the chaos that results from combining sugar-addled youngsters with tempera paint, glitter, and hot glue. Also, my apologies…
It’s no big surprise that garbage rates are going up again. Like utility charges and taxes, the cost of getting rid of stuff never goes down. During a proposed doubling of garbage rates in the mid-1990s, one lifetime resident told the Chilkat Valley News, “Whatever I can’t burn, I’m flushing down the toilet.” And so it goes. Local waste handler…
Under police chief Heath Scott, you will never be safe enough and you will never stop paying more for it. Now the police are into the pot of money that pays for the public library, Chilkat Center Haines Museum and swimming pool for $177,000 and more each year. That’s right. If you can’t get into the pool or museum, it’s…
The Haines Borough manager is again pushing to close the pool three months, May 8 to Aug. 1. The Haines Borough School District has given $12,500 to keep the pool open, so the borough would only be funding eight months of pool operation. The pool would be closed nearly four months of the current fiscal year. Ironically, the pool is…
About a month ago, 40 Juneau residents boarded the state ferry and traveled to Skagway for the Buckwheat Ski Classic, a decades-old event that attracts visitors from Haines, Juneau, Whitehorse and other towns. For two days, those 40 Juneau folks ate at local restaurants, slept in Skagway lodges, drank in the town’s watering holes and likely deposited about $15,000 into…
In Juneau, a 59-year-old man pushed a 54-year-old man through a second-story window, killing him. In Sitka, a drunk school bus driver steered into the opposite lane, smashed into a car and drove up on a sidewalk, with 21 students aboard. In Haines, large, pro-Russia placards were erected on Main Street, saying “Russia De-Nazify Ukraine” and “Disband Nato.” Then they…
“Don’t wanna be buried in debt or in sin so we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto Cause there ain’t but two ways we can change tomorrow.” Songwriter Brandy Clark, from “Pray to Jesus” At public meetings I’ve attended for the last 35 years, some jackass will always stand up and say, “This town is dying.”…
Around 11 p.m. Saturday, a car full of teen-agers drove into a highway pull-out at 26 Mile and parked just long enough for the kids inside to get out and dance around to some loud music in the parking lot. Cheap thrills, for sure, but small-town kids understand that even cheap thrills beat no thrills at all. Adults are no…