When the Gary Paxton Industrial Park board met on Thursday (7-16-26), it approved an agreement and waiver for owners of uninsured boats. The document would allow owners to haul their uninsured vessels, as long as they agree to assume financial responsibility if the boat is damaged or spills fuel during the lifting process.

The owner must also pony up a substantial deposit. Board Member Casey Campbell said that was the only part giving him pause. 

“That $5,000 is going to be hard for people to deal with, and I almost feel like we just take it out. I don’t know what it’s gonna get us,” Campbell said. “We all know it’s not gonna solve an environmental spill or anything like that. So it’s kind of like we’re doing it because it feels good, but then it’s not gonna help the people who are trying to get hauled out.”

Park Director Garry White said while the money wouldn’t cover much more than a small spill, it was important to include it. 

“If there’s a big event, it’s not going to cover that, obviously. And then, this document has recourse to go after…whether the recourse is achievable or not,” White said. “But it also shows that some of these boat owners will have skin in the game, and understand that there is some issue going forward to the citizens in town if there is a spill.”

At the previous meeting, the board asked White to investigate whether any insurance companies could help cover the upfront cost for vessel owners through a loan, or bond. White said he’d had little luck courting insurance companies, but a private individual had expressed interest in providing bonds.

The board made one change to the document, adding that the $5000 spill fee could be covered with cash or bond, then approved the waiver unanimously. White said now city staff will work with Highmark Marine, the haulout operator, to negotiate adding the waiver to their operating agreement. Ultimately the Sitka Assembly must approve any changes to the haulout contract. 

For the last year and a half, following the closure of the haulout at Halibut Point Marine, Sitka’s fishing fleet must travel out of town to haul out their boats or wait for a spot on the city grid.

The plan adopted by the board of the Gary Paxton Industrial Park – called “Concept 4” – will include a 150-ton travelift, haulout pier, and temporary washdown pad. Voters approved $8.2 million dollars to fund a haulout last October. But the first phase of the project is now set to cost around $14 million, leaving the park short around $6 million.  

View the updated haulout plan here

The assembly will also consider whether to put two propositions on the ballot in this fall’s municipal election, both dealing with schools. The first would ask voters whether to permanently establish a 1-percent seasonal sales tax to fund repairs and replacement of school buildings. The second would allow city employees to serve on the Sitka School Board.

The Sitka Assembly meets at 6 p.m. tonight. Raven News will broadcast the meeting live, following Alaska News Nightly. 

Are we gonna need a bigger pier? That was one question presented to the Gary Paxton Industrial Park board of directors last week (1-12-23), as it discussed how to get Sitka’s highly anticipated marine haulout project off the ground. 

Last fall, just over 80% of Sitka voters approved $8.2 Million in city funding to build a haulout at the city-owned industrial park. The facility will serve the fishing fleet, which currently has no way to pull large vessels out of the water for maintenance, locally. 

But the language voters approved for the haulout wasn’t highly specific– the main requirement was a travelift that can haul up to a 150 ton boat out of the water.  That leaves a lot of the design up to city and industrial park officials.

One unanswered question is how wide the haulout’s pier should be. GPIP director Garry White told board members that a wider pier could expand the haulout’s customer base.  

“I had a conversation this week with a representative from Allen Marine, they suggested that if we made it wide enough to accommodate their boats, they would use the heck out of this haulout and they need 32 [feet],” White said. “So somewhere we gotta settle on how wide our piers are going to be. And I think that’s going to take some more discussion,” White added, saying that he originally suggested 25 feet, but now he’s leaning toward 32.

A wider pier would likely cost more money, though it’s not clear how much. The industrial park’s board has yet to vote on the question or consider detailed proposals. Development is essentially on hold while the city works to hire a project manager.  

But there’s still plenty to talk about in the meantime, and White said the more specifics the board could nail down, the less money they’d end up paying a consultant down the line. In an hour-long discussion with city staff, board members considered everything from the recommended width of the pier, to how many washdown pads the facility will include, to exactly where the lift will be located in the park. City Administrator John Leach said one main thing to remember was they would never be able to build a structure that serves every possible user.

“We know this envelope 97% of our vessels fall in. And if we can serve that 97%, just in that first chunk, you know, then there are little add on pieces after that,” Leach said. “Yes, we would hear everything. But initially, we’ve got to get the one that fits the biggest need.”

White, the park director, said next steps include goal setting, a joint work session with the Port and Harbors Commission, and lots and lots of public input as the city designs the new facility.

Sitka’s commercial fishing fleet has been without a haulout since this spring, but plans to build one have been in the works for the last two years, following the closure of a privately owned haulout that serviced most local vessels. But finding funding for a haulout has been a challenge, and after pursuing several paths, the assembly hit a dead end, and went back to the drawing board.

Sponsors of the resulting ballot proposition see using $8.1 million from the sale of the community hospital building as ‘trading one city asset for another.’ By charter, the proceeds of the sale were automatically deposited in the Sitka Permanent Fund. Only a vote of citizens can withdraw it.

Several community members spoke in support, including Chris Ystad, who said a haulout would go beyond supporting the fleet. It would support Sitka’s economy.

“We have one of the largest fleets in Alaska. And right now, we do not have a way to maintain it,” he said. “There are two boats that I can think of this year that just spent six figures, each one of them in Wrangell. That was not here, and it should have been. And they both said that it should have been. They wanted to be done here, because they are Sitkans and they want to bring business here.” 

Nancy Yaw-Davis said while she wants a haulout in Sitka, she would vote no in October, and wanted to know if any other ways to spend the money had been considered.

“What really bugged me here is I don’t know if all $8 million has already been dedicated to one economic aspect of our complexity. Is that the only thing that was ever discussed for the use of that money?” she asked. “Did you ever discuss other possible uses? You’re kidding. I thought I just missed it.”

When the ballot proposal was first considered by the assembly in early July, concerns about drawing money from Sitka’s permanent fund were discussed. Foremost, is the loss of about $340,000 a year in interest that supports Sitka’s general fund.  Sponsor Thor Christianson said at the end of the day, he believes that a haulout in the community would make up for those losses in sales tax revenue. 

“Honestly, I wouldn’t support going to the permanent fund for something that wasn’t an economic engine,” Christianson said. “Every dollar that’s spent out there [at the haulout] will be taxed at, we’ll call it, 5.5 percent. And back in the napkin, that’s about, if we see $6 million worth of economic activity, and that means everything. That means haulout fees, that means people working on boats, that means people buying bottom paint at LFS. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable number to hit at least once it’s up and running.”

Most assembly members were in favor of the measure, including Crystal Duncan, who said she supported taking the measure to the voters, but worried that the $8.1 million figure wasn’t telling the whole story–that more planning and money would be needed to get the project across the finish line.

“I’m thinking, as somebody goes into the ballot box, I don’t expect them to research intensely,” Duncan said. “I’m looking at it right now, as it reads, it looks like ‘$8.1, we’ll get it done. We’re going to take it from here, put it there, we’re gonna have a marine haulout.’ And I don’t know if we’re fully there.” 

Christianson said $8.1 million would get boats out of the water, but building out the haulout beyond a “barebones” version would require more capital. $8.1 is close to the amount the city asked for when it applied for federal RAISE grant back in April, and it’s possible that the grant could still come through this September. That would offset some of the cost to Sitka’s permanent fund. City Administrator John Leach said there were still a lot of unknowns, but getting the money could help Sitka leverage more money from the feds. 

“There’s a lot that could happen here. But right now, if this doesn’t go to the voters and if grant monies don’t come in…we’re at a point where it’s $0, or money from this sale,” Leach said. “Those are really our only two choices left right now, and we keep our fingers crossed waiting for grant funding to come through.”        

Assembly member Kevin Knox was the lone vote against the measure on first reading. He voiced concerns that tapping the city’s permanent fund – albeit for a good cause – was not without risks.

When we’re taking monies out of the permanent fund that has a diversity of investments, and putting it into one sector…we are running a risk,” Knox said. “If there’s a collapse in our fisheries, if there’s a collapse in tourism or other things like that…and then the haulout ends up failing or becoming a greater liability on the city, we will have to make up for that somehow.”

Knox said it was unlikely he would support the measure at the polls, but he supported putting it in front of the voters for consideration. The measure passed 6-0, making it the second ballot prop that voters will get to weigh in on this fall.

Thor Christianson and co-sponsor Kevin Mosher brought the ballot proposition forward after months of back and forth. If approved by the voters, the city would take the over $8 million dollars from the sale of Sitka Community Hospital property this spring and put it toward building a marine haulout. Christianson said the idea was the best option to emerge from a working group tasked to solve Sitka’s lack of anywhere to haul and service larger vessels.

“First and foremost, I think it’ll actually work,” Christianson said. “I think we can safely say we have tried just about everything.” 

It’s been over two years since the privately-owned haulout that served Sitka at Halibut Point Marine announced it would be shutting its doors. Since then, the city has tried to secure grants to fund a haulout, it’s sought proposals from the private sector, and leased property to a grassroots group of local vessel owners and commercial fishermen with solid plans for a community boatyard, but insufficient capital. So far, a haulout hasn’t materialized, and the fleet has been without a place to work on boats since this spring. 

“I was one of the last people to get hauled out at McGraw’s this spring, March 18. And I had nine different crew members come out and work on my boat for 25 bucks an hour, over the course of two days. It’s impossible for me to line up that kind of help in other communities that are familiar with my boat who work on my boat,” said local fisherman, Eric Jordan.

“I just want to press on you the urgency and importance to this fishing community,” he added.

Jordan was one of several Sitkans who urged the assembly to take the ballot prop to the voters. 

Sponsor Kevin Mosher said that at the end of the day, if the city wanted a haulout, it was going to have to pay for it. 

“The fishing fleet, the Marine fleet, affects every single person in this town,” Mosher said. “You can’t just say, ‘Well, I don’t have a fishing boat, it doesn’t affect me.’ It affects you very much, from sales tax to payroll, to people being on payroll, and then that money just circulates throughout the town. Having a haulout is absolutely crucial to this community.” 

Under the city’s charter, money from the sale of municipal property is deposited in the Sitka Permanent Fund, where only a vote of the public can withdraw it. That’s where the $8.1 million from the sale of Sitka Community Hospital landed. During public comment, former assembly member Richard Wein warned against using money from the permanent fund, and said dipping into Sitkans dividends from the state’s permanent fund might be a better way to go. 

“I think that this really needs to be considered,” Wein said. “Have a community effort. Everyone give a portion of their PFDs, we got the money, we got the U-haul, and we maintain the PFD.”

Several assembly members shared concerns about how taking $8 million would impact the health of the city’s permanent fund (which is meant to support Sitka’s operating budget) to the tune of about $340,000 a year. Member Kevin Knox said while he believed a haulout is essential, he wasn’t sure that paying for it with money from the permanent fund was the best solution. He proposed an amendment to the ballot proposition that would have required the assembly to pay back the annual losses each year. But he withdrew it after the city attorney raised questions about whether the measure was unconstitutional. Still, Knox said he couldn’t vote for the measure, at least on first reading. 

“I need more information. I need to figure out a little bit more about how this this works for our community as a whole,” Knox said. “And… if there’s some way to come back and and bring the permanent fund back to whole in some way.” 

“I struggle with using public money to support private industry,” said assembly member Rebecca Himschoot. “On the other hand, I can see some really good reasons why we need to do this. So I’m 100% for putting it on the ballot and letting the community decide.] It’s their assets. It’s the community’s permanent fund. And we need this haulout and we haven’t solved it any other way.”

The Sitka assembly passed the measure 6-1 on first reading with Knox opposed. If it passes on second reading, the question will go on the municipal ballot and voters will decide the issue in the October election.

The day prior to assembly deliberation of the proposed ballot question, the unelected board of the Gary Paxton Industrial Park also discussed the issue – raising many of the same questions – and ultimately voted unanimously to support putting the question to voters.

It’s been almost three years since Sitka’s primary haulout at Halibut Point Marine announced it would be closing up shop. Since then, the Sitka Assembly has gone down a few roads to try to get a haulout built: It’s held special meetings, issued “requests for proposals” from the private sector, and sought federal funding, but it keeps hitting the same roadblock – the money just hasn’t materialized. City Administrator John Leach said that wasn’t for a lack of trying.

“We are, as you’ve seen, applying for every grant out there,” he said. “And that’s pretty much a daily task, is trying to find sources of funding and creative ways to do this.”

The city has also tried to work with outside groups to get a haulout built at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. Last year, it approved a lease and RFP with the Sitka Community Boatyard- a grassroots group that had secured funding with the plan to convert existing infrastructure at the park into a workable haulout. Last month, organizers said the costs of construction more than doubled, and they no longer had adequate funding to complete the project. So they relinquished their lease with the city in April. But the group still wants to work with the city to make a haulout happen.

While the assembly is hanging its hopes on another federal R.A.I.S.E. grant, it may never come to fruition. If they do win the grant, they may not know until this fall, which means no matter what, a working haulout is at least another year out, for an issue that’s urgent to many. Without one, fishermen must take their boats out of town, or repair them on the city grid.

Assembly member Kevin Knox said it’s time for the community to consider what it would mean to build a public haulout if the grant funding doesn’t materialize, and whether they should put that question out to a public vote in the October municipal election. Should the city fund the construction and operations of a haulout? And if so, should it be funded through a sales tax increase? An excise tax or a separate fee directed at large boat owners?  

“There’s all kinds of questions about how you retire this debt. How you take care of the the debt service, if you did go out and bond for this,” he said.

Leach said that if the assembly wanted to publicly fund a haulout, he estimated it would cost somewhere between $10 and $13 million. With user fees covering operating costs- it would end up costing the city around $620,000 a year in subsidies from the general fund to pay off the debt.

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz wasn’t sure pursuing a new tax was the right call, because those have met pushback from the public in the past. 

“I fear having staff and sponsors working on an ordinance extensively, that, you know, it might feel good for us to do, but in the back of our hearts we all know…is going to fail at the ballot,” Eisenbeisz said.

Assembly member Thor Christianson agreed that while there was a lot of community support for a haulout, they would see pushback from the public who don’t own boats, and haulout proponents would have to prepare to campaign for their cause.

“The people that want the haulout facility are going to have some heavy lifting, just to encourage the rest of the community to support it,” he said. “Because we can’t really do much from here, and nor should we, to advocate for this,” Christianson said. “The last time we raised taxes was for the PAC and the assembly had little or nothing to do with that.”

Assembly members Thor Christianson and Kevin Mosher suggested a work session to review possible public funding options, like a new tax or fee, and asked that city staff bring forward a few “big picture” options for consideration. Mayor Eisenbeisz also suggested the assembly host a town hall as a first step to gather public input. 

The assembly didn’t take a vote or make any decisions on exactly what steps to take next. No member came out strongly in favor of one funding option over another. But they all agreed that a haulout is needed, along with the money to build one.

Assembly pledges to cut city’s carbon footprint

Energy costs and conservation were on the agenda when the Sitka Assembly met on Tuesday (5-24-22). The group unanimously approved a resolution to “decarbonize” city operations by 2030. 

Sponsor Kevin Mosher said the hope is to give the city an edge when applying for grants at a time when the federal government is funding projects that tackle environmental issues. 

“It’s something to show outside entities that we have a plan, we’re moving forward,” Mosher said. And so it is to give us a goal one to work for. And in my mind, what I see is as far as this is concerned, is if we’re able to hire a sustainability coordinator, this would be their basic charge.” 

The plan is to seek federal grants to expand the city’s electric capacity out Halibut Point Road, and, over time, to convert the city’s vehicle fleet to electric, and to heat all municipal buildings with electricity.

Dave Miller liked the resolution because it doesn’t lock the city into anything, and could mean more savings in the future.

“It sort of pushes us forward and says, ‘We really need to start looking at this stuff.’ I mean, if we look at the price of fuel now, you know, it’s about twice as much as it was just not long ago,” Miller said. “So we need to start figuring out how we can save a little bit, whether it be electric cars in the city…there are a whole variety of things out there that we have to look at and see what really works for us.”

It wasn’t the only energy related decision the assembly made on Tuesday night. The group unanimously voted to increase the city’s utility cost subsidy from 65 to 100 dollars a month for households that qualify. Kent Barkhau said he was glad the assembly was thinking about reducing the cost of utilities for families in need, but thought there may have been a path to address utility affordability and decarbonization in one swoop. 

I think we could think about using that kind of investment, or that kind of funding, to initiate a program that provides heat pumps for families, households, that that qualify for a subsidy, and thereby sort of achieved two goals,” he said.  

Finally, the assembly voted to join a group interested in establishing the first ever “green cruise corridor” in Southeast Alaska. The “Maritime Green Corridor First Mover Commitment” was originally proposed by the Port of Seattle, and is supported by most major cruise lines. It will explore the feasibility of zero emission cruise ships and an industry transition away from carbon.  Most assembly members were on board with joining the group, including Crystal Duncan. 

We know that the cruise industry is super important to our economy here in Sitka,” Duncan said, and added. “If there are efforts to look at the environmental impact, I think that we should take those steps.”

But Mosher asked that they hold off for a few months until they hire the sustainability coordinator, and then consider joining the initiative. 

The motion to join the maritime green corridor commitment passed on a 5-2 vote with Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz and Kevin Mosher opposed. 

Assembly passes FY23 budgets

The Sitka Assembly has finalized the city’s budget for the next fiscal year, bringing an end to the months-long budgeting cycle that began in January.

When the group met last night (5-24-22), it unanimously approved a $37 million general fund budget, with a surplus of around $380,000. That includes funding the Sitka School District to the cap, or the maximum allowable by state law, plus non-instructional funding, to the tune of around $8.8 million.   

The assembly also unanimously approved the city’s enterprise fund budgets  – with utility rate increases across the board. Most of the rate hikes are set higher than usual, to keep up with the highest rate of inflation in nearly four decades.

Users will see a 4% electric rate increase, a 5% jump in water rates. Solid waste rates will rise by 7.5%, and wastewater and moorage rates will jump by around 8%. 

When the Sitka Assembly meets on Tuesday (5-24-22), they’ll consider what next steps the city should take to develop a marine haulout at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. 

Sitka is without a working boat haulout, following the closure of the facility that served most of  the fishing fleet at Halibut Point Marine. Last summer, the Sitka Assembly began working with the Sitka Community Boat Yard to develop a haulout at the Park. The group secured a lease with the city in July of 2021, but the plan has since fallen through.

At an assembly meeting in early May (5-10-22), Linda Behnken, who was leading the boat yard project with a coalition of local fishermen said they’d been ready for liftoff when the cost of construction jumped. 

“We did, before we responded to the RFP, have sufficient funds to build a boatyard at GPIP,” Behnken said. “Then cost increased, almost doubled, on us. And we weren’t able to raise that delta.”

The group relinquished their lease at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park in April. Behnken said they’d already finished a lot of pre-engineering and design work, which they put on hold when they relinquished their lease with the city. She said they supported the city’s efforts to find money for the haulout, but she hoped that work that the Sitka Community Boatyard had already done wouldn’t be duplicated.

Jeremy Serka said he’d hoped they could keep working with the city to make the boatyard happen. 

“We’d just hate to see that work lost at this point, we have money into it,” Serka said. “And so if there’s any way that we could work together with the city, we don’t really care who builds this, or even who operates this. The key is that we do not create something that can be lost.”

Serka said that right now, the closest haulout in Wrangell won’t be hauling out any more boats for at least a couple of months, and Hoonah’s haulout schedule is jam-packed. That leaves Sitkans with one option – putting their boats on the city grid to work on during low tide.

“And if you guys know anything about that, there’s a lot of liability there. So we’ve got to think about that, we’ve got to think about boats hitting rocks,” Serka said. “We’ve got to think about us willing to donate our time and money to see this happen with not really any profit to be made out there.” 

At  the meeting in May, the assembly unanimously approved an application for a $870,000 Denali Commission grant to fund a concept design and environmental assessment for a haulout at the park. On Tuesday (5-24-22), it will discuss its next steps in addressing the needs of more than 600 commercial fishing boats in Sitka. 

Read the full agenda here

The assembly has postponed voting on the RFP twice, and at its last meeting, approved some changes to the document. It shortened the advertising period from 90 to 60 days, and removed language requiring infrastructure like a 20-year washdown pad. Several other amendments failed, and the assembly postponed a final vote. That’s after discussing if applicants who pitch long term leases should be scored higher than applicants who are interested in an outright purchase of the city-owned property. 

In other business, the assembly will consider approving a $30,000 appropriation to cover building inspections and appraisal of the former Sitka Community Hospital building. SEARCH currently leases the building to house its long term care unit, but is interested in purchasing the property. The assembly has begun the competitive sale process. Members will decide whether the potential sale of city-owned property will go to an advisory vote in the October municipal election. 

The Sitka Assembly meets tonight at 6:00. Raven News will broadcast the meeting live, following Alaska News Nightly. 

Frustrated by delays in Sitka’ efforts to establish a public boatyard at its industrial park, a group of fishermen is proposing setting up a nonprofit to do the job themselves — at least in the short term.

The Sitka Assembly took up the issue at its meeting on December 22.

The Sitka Assembly and the industrial park board have been pushing to build a marine haulout ever since Halibut Point Marine announced it would be closing up shop on its haulout in the next couple of years.   

The city asked for proposals from the private sector last spring, but it only got two nibbles that weren’t quite what the assembly was looking for. The assembly voted to reject those offers in July, and applied for a federal BUILD grant to help fund the multi-million dollar project with public money. When that funding didn’t come through, they went back to the drawing board, and in October the assembly directed city staff to draw up a brand new RFP.

And now there is a new twist in the haulout saga: A group of local fishermen informed the assembly that it is developing plans to launch a community boatyard at the park. During public comment, Linda Behnken and Jeff Farvour spoke on behalf of the group. They said it would be an incremental step toward the city’s goals of developing a higher capacity boat yard. 

“A small group of us has decided that we need to step in and try and create an interim option for Sitka to not be at any time without a haulout and a boatyard,” Behnken said. “Our goal is to do this in a way that benefits the community, that benefits the local fleet, and that doesn’t preclude any future options of going to a higher capacity yard, but just getting something started.”

“We don’t really want to be in the long term boatyard business, we just see this as a need,” said Jeff Farvour.

Behnken is the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, but the letter she submitted wasn’t on ALFA letterhead. It states that the group intends to raise and invest around a million dollars to launch the boat yard, under the umbrella of a nonprofit. They would upgrade the existing ramp to allow a self-propelled trailer to haul boats up to 55 feet in length, and would lease enough land from the city allowing around a dozen boats to be out of the water at a time. The project could be scaled up later to include a conventional marine travelift.

City administrator John Leach asked the assembly for direction: Did members want to move forward with the existing Request for Proposals, or did they want to make substantial changes to accommodate Behnken’s group’s new plan? He said he’d found the back-and-forth over the haulout RFP over the last year pretty frustrating. 

“In my previous life we would call this ‘wrong rock management,’ where somebody says ‘Go find me a rock,’ then we bring the rock,” he said. “Then when we get here to the table it’s ‘Wrong rock, go find me another rock.’ So we’re looking for that clear guidance, of what kind of rock do you want, and we’ll put it together. We thought we had it this time.” 

Member Valorie Nelson said she wanted to keep the RFP as open as possible, and  still favored a private purchase or lease. 

“My belief is the bigger the butterfly net the more butterflies we catch, and I propose and will support anything that says private ownership,” she said. “We do need to get that land into private ownership as quickly as possible because it’s a drain on city staff, it’s a drain on resources.”

And Rebecca Himschoot thought more specificity might bring the city offers closer to what they were looking for. 

“What if the butterflies are not what we want? What if they’re moths, not butterflies? I feel like we should be really clear going into it so that the bites we get, the nibbles we get, are the fish we want.” 

Member Kevin Mosher wanted to move forward with the RFP staff had developed. Members Thor Christianson and Kevin Knox both said they saw the RFP and the interim solution Behnken’s group was working on as complementary, not mutually exclusive. Christianson said though he didn’t object to leaving the private sector on the table for a potential sale, it was unlikely they’d get a nibble they’d be satisfied with. 

Due to a clerical error, the RFP in the packet wasn’t the most up-to-date version. The assembly took advantage of the hiccup to revisit the question at its first meeting in January.

City staff and the Gary Paxton Industrial Park board have been working to get a haulout project off the ground, ever since Halibut Point Marine announced it would be closing its haulout in 2021.  The city’s first Request for Proposal — or RFP — received only two bids to build the haulout, and ultimately both were rejected.

The assembly had been pinning its hopes on an $8 million dollar federal BUILD grant to fund the project, but received word in September that they weren’t receiving the money.

So what now? City administrator John Leach was direct when he told the assembly what he thought was possible.  

“To put it bluntly we don’t have enough money to build a haulout right now,” he said. “We need a slip, we need a washdown pad at a minimum. And we need to be hauling boats as quickly as possible.” 

He said the assembly could choose to go one of three directions. It could move forward with private sector development: Sell the land, hand over the keys, and say “build us a haulout.” Or the assembly could issue a new RFP with plans to lease city-owned land to a developer, and may even loan some public funds to help the developer get a haulout off the ground. Or the city could build, own and operate the haulout itself. 

“We’re looking for ways to move forward with this taskforce and working group that we’ve got kind of on standby,” he said. “But I don’t want to put that working group moving toward something until I know where to send them.” 

Thor Christianson said both the “pure private” and “pure public” options weren’t ideal- he preferred the partial-private option.

“Even if we get the money, we’re not going to be able to run it at a profit as a city. The fact is that private industry can build things cheaper than we can,” he said. “So I think the real question is ‘Okay, what would a public-private look like?’ How much, if there’s a spectrum between almost fully public and they just run it, or almost completely private, and my personal preference would be more towards the private side.”

And another challenge to consider when trying to attract a private developer to take the bait on a haulout partnership? City administrator John Leach said hauling out boats isn’t profitable. 

“You don’t make money pulling boats. We penciled this out and if we were to run our own haulout based on our initial studies, it would require about a $600,000 per year subsidy from the general fund just to pull boats,” he said.

“Knowing that we don’t make any money pulling boats, that’s the same for the private industry, there has to be some kind of investment and we need to be very strategic on how you put caps on what they can and can’t do, because we want to also not scare them away,” he continued. “So if we find a good proposal we really need to dial in that RFP.”

No one disagreed that a public-private partnership was the preferred option and the assembly directed staff to draft a new RFP. 

John Leach said that he would have proposals back for the assembly’s consideration within sixty days. The city’s goal is to have something available for the fishing fleet by next April. 

In other business, the assembly approved a new city seal designed by local artist Aaron Traz Hill,  and approved several committee and commission appointments. It reappointed Max Rule for the Investment Committee, appointed Chris Ystad to a term on the Gary Paxton Industrial Park, and appointed Catherine Riley to a term on the Planning Commission. It also approved a re-appropriation of an Alaska Legislative Grant for phase 1 of the Green Lake project on a 6-1 vote with member Valorie Nelson opposed. It unanimously appropriated COVID-19 relief funds toward harbor restroom improvements, and amended a section of city code for permanent motor vehicle registration on a 4-3 vote with members Valorie Nelson, Richard Wein and Gary Paxton opposed.