SITKA, ALASKA
It’s hard to put a number on how much money it will cost to do all the work needed on the former campus of Sheldon Jackson College. Sitka Fine Arts Camp executive director Roger Schmidt says it will be a multi-year project to fully utilize the 19 buildings the camp now owns.

“Half the buildings on the campus are not ready for occupancy of any sort, and a number of the buildings that have been occupied by people we’re going to need to close down and start doing work on,” Schmidt said. “So this first year is all about working together as a community to get these buildings back up so that we can put programs in.”

And community support is coming in. Volunteers descended on the Hames Center almost immediately, and the building is now open to the public again. And the camp is receiving anonymous donations, not-so-anonymous donations, and offers of support from members of the community who already have gone to work cleaning out some of the other buildings.

Schmidt says he hopes financial support, initially, at least, will come from those who already have a stake in the camp.

“Donors, parents, former students, people who have been touched by the camp and have seen the difference it makes in kids’ lives,” he said. “With that initial effort we’ll be able to get the doors open this summer and we’ll be able to get our kids on campus.”

And also to get the campus available for community use when camp is not in session – something that can develop income. After that, Schmidt says the camp plans to go after larger funding sources, like grants.

“The granters we work with, that’s the first thing they want to see,” he said. “They want to see if they’re getting in on a program, a project, that they’re seeing a community that’s really rallying behind it, and we believe we can really show that this spring.”

Part of that support has come from the Sitka Assembly – not in the form of money, but in a resolution. Such resolutions are generally routine matters for the Assembly, which every year offers a verbal pat on the back to numerous organizations that they in turn can show to funders to prove they have the community’s blessing.

This resolution, approved at the Assembly’s Jan. 25 meeting, was harder-won than most, owing partly to confusion over how it was written.

“It was a resolution that said the Assembly would like to acknowledge that we support this endeavor and where we can help, we can help,” Schmidt said. “I think the sentence that confused people was that it said if there were any monetary requests that those would have to come before the Assembly to be approved.”

Assembly member Terry Blake questioned that language. Resolution sponsor Thor Christianson said it was meant to clarify that the Assembly would have to approve requests for money later, if at all. Still, the language was stripped out of the resolution to make things clearer.

But Blake still objected, questioning Christianson’s sponsorship of the measure so soon after resigning from the Arts Camp board of directors.

“And using his Assembly position to do that, to try to maneuver money out of the Assembly into a special interest group,” Blake said during the meeting. “I think if we do this, then let’s do it for all of the nonprofits, but I’m not so sure we can afford to do that either.”

Municipal attorney Theresa Hillhouse said there was no conflict of interest, because there was no financial gain involved, and because Christianson is no longer on the Arts Camp board. Blake said it might be legal, but it didn’t seem ethical to him.

“I was disappointed in the personal attacks on myself,” Christianson told KCAW later. “I just was a little surprised that the whole debate turned so nasty when it was just an attempt to give the Fine Arts Camp kind of an attaboy and a ‘good luck’ in their endeavor.”

Also reached later by KCAW, Blake said he supports the Fine Arts Camp itself, and its mission, and even its acquisition of the campus. His objections, he said, had to do with the process of how the resolution was brought before the Assembly. The measure passed, 5-to-1, with Blake opposing and Larry Crews absent.

Schmidt said the experience was “awkward,” and he didn’t understand why there was so much confusion over whether the measure called for money to be spent.
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