Category: Alaska News

After four years of effort, the Alaska Legislature has passed a bill offering additional support for the underfunded organization that offers free legal help to Alaskans facing civil lawsuits.

“We’re so excited,” said Maggie Humm, executive director of the Alaska Legal Services Corporation. 

ALSC is the state’s largest provider of free legal assistance for survivors of domestic violence and abuse. It generally supports Alaskans who are unable to afford an attorney on their own.

Under state law, Alaska must provide criminal defendants with a defense attorney. No such mandate exists in civil cases, so the work falls to the ALSC, a nonprofit that lacks the budget to take on every request for help.

On Wednesday, the state Senate voted 17-3 to pass House Bill 48 and give the corporation 25% of all state court filing fees, up from 10%. The change is worth an extra $400,000 to the corporation.

The change does not affect funding for the Alaska Court System; the fees are otherwise used for general purposes, not the courts specifically.

Humm said earlier this year that ALSC provided legal help to roughly 6,200 Alaskans in 2024. By email on Wednesday, she said she expects another 800-850 people will be helped by the additional money.

Because the House passed HB 48 on a 27-13 vote in February, the Senate’s action on Wednesday will send the bill to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for final approval or veto.

Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, proposed an identical bill in 2023, and while that bill passed the Senate, it never received a vote in the House before the 33rd Alaska Legislature expired in 2024.

That left Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, to reintroduce the bill last year and restart the legislative process. 

By email, Humm said that if signed into law, the bill “helps to ensure that more low-income Alaskans facing issues such as domestic violence, elder fraud, and access to earned benefits receive the legal help they need to protect their safety, stability, and dignity. Investing in legal services benefits all Alaskans by helping resolve problems early, before they become more serious and costly challenges for both individuals and our communities.”

ALSC has been trying since 2011 to pass a bill that reserves 25% of the state’s court fees for the corporation. In 2018, the Legislature passed a measure allocating 10%. 

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We are a Kodiak family with four children, ages 9 to 17, and have experienced a wide range of educational options in Alaska. Our experiences show me that Alaska’s schools need support to better serve our children.

Our children have attended private Catholic and Christian-based schools, local public schools and boarding school at Mount Edgecumbe. I have also worked in roles that gave me direct experience with private and tribally led preschools.

We watched as enriching programs disappeared due to budget cuts, and saw situations where students lacked consistent access to basic necessities because of safety concerns, with no real solution on how to help them receive the necessities being blocked from them because of poor staffing. 

In the classroom, we encountered teaching that ranged from uninformed to openly harmful. There were moments of ignorance, and others marked by clear racist undertones and blatant misinformation. When concerns were raised, responses were often minimal, not always from a lack of care, but because the systems in place made meaningful follow-through difficult.

I could write an entire separate piece on what our children experienced, some of it frightening, much of it unacceptable. But it is important to say that in every school, there were teachers and caregivers who still showed up every day for their students and did their best. Too often, their hands were tied by limited resources, and competing demands.

In the end, to keep our children safe and supported, we felt we had no choice but to homeschool.

Like many of us this is not theoretical for our family. This is lived.

What we have learned is that the challenges in our schools are not isolated. They are not limited to one district or moment in time. They reflect something deeper in how our education system was built and how it continues to function today. To understand where we are now, we must look at that foundation.

Alaska’s education system was shaped by the boarding school era and the “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” philosophy, coined by Richard Henry Pratt, which used schools to strip identity and enforce compliance. English-only policies were enforced throughout much of the early and mid-twentieth century under federal schooling systems established after the Nelson Act of 1905, and it was not until 1978, with the Indian Child Welfare Act, that the forced removal of Indigenous children from their homes began to slow.

This isn’t detached history. Its structures still echo through our schools today, in how they function and in the harm that continues to ripple through our communities.

Alaska’s people come from thousands of years of sovereignty; systems of knowledge and education are rooted in the land. These knowledge systems were intentional, place-based, and designed to raise capable, connected humans. Unfortunately, these knowledge systems were replaced by structures never intended to serve Alaska’s children.

That truth can be difficult to face, but it explains why the challenges we see today persist. Many of Alaska’s broader issues are deeply connected to education. When children are required to be in a system from a young age, that system has the power to support them or harm them. Too often, when harm occurs, the response prioritizes compliance over understanding.

When students are failed by the school system, we have to ask what system they are pushed into next.

My work as a cultural educator centers Indigenous histories and the next generations of children. It is grounded in the belief that supported children grow into capable adults. These issues do not only affect Indigenous students. They affect us all.

So, the question becomes, how do we move forward?

It starts with real support. We need honest conversations about past decisions, current funding and long-term change. At the most basic level, schools need enough resources to safely support children. When they do not, harm occurs and is too often left unaddressed due to understaffing and a lack of support systems.

We must also move away from one-size-fits-all solutions. Alaska is vast. Our communities are distinct, and the impacts of colonization vary. Each community holds its own knowledge, its own Elders and its own ways of caring for its people. Decisions made from a distance often create barriers for both teachers and students.

Teachers need space and support to grow in ways that meet their communities. Students need access to activities that keep them connected and engaged. Cultural learning should be recognized as meaningful and essential, not elective.

We also need to face a difficult truth. Teachers are being asked to serve as educators, caregivers, counselors and first responders for children facing abuse, neglect and hunger, while being paid less than many who shape education policy. This is not sustainable. It is not just.

If we continue this path, the consequences will grow — showing up in addiction, incarceration and a workforce unprepared for a changing world. When we talk about the health of our communities, we are talking about our children.

This cannot be fixed in a single legislative session or with one budget decision. It requires long-term commitment, even when the conversation fades.

The decisions being made now ask whether we are willing to invest in our future while facing the uncomfortable truth. That the system we have been funding since the beginning of American schooling in Alaska was not built with Alaska’s best interests in mind.

Our teachers are intelligent, creative and deeply committed. We cannot keep asking them to give more while taking away the resources they need.

If we are serious about supporting our children, we must do more than maintain what exists. We must be willing to change it.

Because our children and teachers deserve a system that genuinely supports them, not one that feeds the private agendas of others.

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As Alaska state lawmakers consider Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s pick for attorney general, several have questioned a potential conflict between his involvement with a private, religious school and his role in the state’s top legal office.

Stephen Cox currently leads the Alaska Department of Law, which is defending the state in a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of spending state homeschool funds on religious and private school tuition. 

He is also the treasurer and a founding member of the Thomas More Classical School, a private Christian school for grades Kindergarten through sixth grade, slated to open in Anchorage in the fall, whose website invites the use of state homeschool funding for nonreligious courses.

Cox has served in the role since his appointment in August, and appeared before lawmakers in a series of legislative hearings last week and Monday, ahead of a confirmation vote for attorney general, expected in the next week. 

Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, noted the apparent conflict between the state constitution and the school’s financial plans at a May 1 hearing.

“Our constitution directly says ‘schools and institutions so established shall be free of sectarian control. No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or private education institution,’” she read.

She pointed to his role as treasurer as a direct conflict with the state constitution because the school’s “tuition assistance” web page said it anticipates accepting payment through state allotment funds for courses “that do not use religious-based publishers and/or content.”

The lawsuit that will decide whether that spending is constitutional is currently underway.

Cox said he was not aware of the school’s tuition information. 

“I am on the board of that school. I am not involved in the day-to-day operations,” he said, adding that he was involved in hiring a headmaster and the formation of the school. “I am not aware of that part of the website and I’m also not aware of any decisions with respect to allotment programs.”

He declined to comment further saying the issue was in active litigation.

Each homeschooled student is eligible for up to $4,500 per year, to be spent on curriculum, supplies or other educational resources. But the question on whether that money can go toward religious or private institutions is currently being decided.

A group of parents brought the lawsuit to prohibit state money from going to such institutions against the state in 2023, and a judge ruled the allotment system unconstitutional in 2024, but that ruling was overturned by the Alaska Supreme Court. The case moved back to a lower court — four school districts were named as defendants — and last fall a judge denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, citing need for evidence of how allotments are actually spent. A discovery period for both sides to collect evidence is open until June 1. 

At a Monday hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Ted Eischeid, D-Anchorage, pressed the question.

“Does that mean that under Alaska ethics law, you would recuse yourself about decisions that might benefit your school, financially related to public money going to private schools?”

Cox answered a slightly different question. He told lawmakers, for background, he had already looked into the question of recusal given his three children are homeschooled through the Anchorage School District’s correspondence program, Family Partnership Correspondence School. He said that he was advised it wasn’t necessary.

“The advice that I received back from my ethics supervisor after an analysis was that it was not a reason for recusal, because I think there are, like, 25,000 Alaskan students that benefit from the allotment, and so the fact that my kids benefit in piano class and tutoring and whatnot wasn’t itself a reason to recuse,” he said.

Cox is Catholic, and is a parishioner at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Anchorage, according to the school’s website. 

Cox said he learned that the Thomas More Classical School was anticipating receiving allotment funds during confirmation hearings last week.  He said he was not directly involved with the state’s defense in the lawsuit and that he would seek ethics advice about recusing himself from the case.

“I will say that I’m not involved in any of the day-to-day litigation, or even really any of the supervision of the strategic litigation,” he added. “Recently, last week, I learned for the first time that on the website, there was a reference to the school anticipating becoming a vendor of the correspondent school allotment programs. So I have asked my staff to take another look at that from a recusal perspective.”

On Tuesday, the tuition information on the school’s website had been changed. It now says  that it still anticipates taking allotment money, but only in accordance with state law. 

At the hearing on Monday, Eischeid asked Cox if the school planned to receive public allotment funds. 

Cox said the issue is being litigated in court now, and whether it’s constitutional has yet to be determined. 

“I want to be very careful, because this is in active litigation, and these are the issues that the judge and the judges ultimately will have to grapple with,” he said. “But as I understand it, the school districts and their correspondence schools — so for example, ASD’s correspondent schools, Family Partnership —  the school districts will decide whether or not and to what extent the allotment can be used for private educational or private institutions, and vendors.” 

Cox said when a court rules on the question, the Thomas More Classical School will follow the law. 

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, noted that the Thomas More Classical school board president is Charles Gartland, who is also  working at the Alaska Department of Law as the civil division director. 

“Would he need to recuse from any cases dealing with allotments and private schools?” Gray asked?

Cox said he has asked the department’s ethics lawyers to research the question.

“I would assume that the same analysis that existed for me would also apply with respect to Mr. Gartland,” he said. “But I do not have an answer on that question yet.”

Officials with Alaska Department of Law did not return a request for comment on Tuesday on how decisions on recusal are made. 

Gray said Monday there appeared to be a conflict of interest. 

“Even if it’s all above board, as a member of the public, I see that, and I think that I would be more comfortable if the chairman of the board of a private school and the treasurer of the board of the private school wouldn’t work on those particular cases,” he said. 

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Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is urging state lawmakers to act on his proposal to cut state taxes by $7.2 billion over the next 36 years to subsidize construction of the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline.

Failing to act, he said, could keep the pipeline from being built at all. 

“This bill is too important. This concept is too important,” Dunleavy said. “This is not setting up a tax for the lemonade stand down here in the corner by the hot dog stand. This is the biggest (natural gas) project on the planet.”

But some state lawmakers are skeptical about the size of the governor’s proposed subsidy. Two alternatives — one in the House and the other in the Senate — are advancing through committees in the final weeks of the session.

Other legislators believe the pipeline already makes financial sense and no change is needed.

As a result, four different paths await state legislators in their last weeks, and it isn’t clear which one they’ll take — or whether the governor will call legislators into special session on the issue.

There’s also been no agreement with cities and boroughs affected by the proposed tax cut. There’s also no public agreement with North Slope gas producers or the state’s labor unions.

At the core of the problem facing lawmakers is how much — if any — subsidy is needed in order to attract investors who would pay for building the pipeline project in two stages. 

The first stage would involve a pipeline from the North Slope to Cook Inlet for in-state use. The second stage would construct processing plants at the north and south ends of the pipeline, allowing larger volumes of gas to be exported overseas.

If both phases of the project are built, Department of Revenue economist Dan Stickel told legislators on Tuesday, the result would be cheaper natural gas than currently available from Cook Inlet.

“If the full project goes forward, it’s a significant reduction in cost to Alaskans,” he said.

Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage, noted that Alaskans could be locked into high natural gas prices if the second phase is never built or if both phases are built but no exports take place.

For a hearing last week, the Department of Revenue estimated that under that scenario, prices in Anchorage would exceed $27 per thousand cubic feet by 2033, more than double current prices.

It’s unclear how likely that worst-case scenario is.

The larger the subsidy, the greater the chance that the project is built in full and the lower the price of gas for Alaskans, project proponents say.

“Our objective is to have the lowest cost gas for Alaskans and have certainty on the project,” said Adam Prestidge, president of Glenfarne Alaska, the project’s developer.  

A problem, some legislators say, is that they’re working without information. Glenfarne, an international firm that last year bought 75% of the project and became its developer, has not shared its latest estimate for how much the pipeline will cost.

“I think it’s important for us to have starting points on what the actual numbers are, because if it needs tax relief, let’s figure out what the relief is,” said Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage.

Legislators also don’t know how much North Slope gas producers will charge for the gas, or what international buyers will pay for it. 

Some of that information is impossible to know — legislators are trying to anticipate the price of natural gas in 2033 and beyond, once the pipeline is up and running. 

Other information is being kept confidential until a final investment decision or when proposed prices are submitted to state regulators, something that’s months away at the earliest.

Legislators are being asked to take action within weeks.

“We’re not really competitive in the global market if the (cost) overrun is 40%,” said Rep. Julie Coulombe, R-Anchorage, on Tuesday.

The gas pipeline’s publicly stated cost on Tuesday was $46 billion, but most legislators believe the true figure is higher.

“I think it’s really $57 billion … if not higher,” said Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, relying on a prior statement from former U.S. Sen. Mark Begich.

Begich, a Democrat, lost to Gov. Mike Dunleavy in the 2018 governor’s election. Now, Begich is a paid adviser, hired by Dunleavy’s administration on a $100,000 contract.

In a Tuesday hearing, Begich said lower taxes would not increase profits for investors or developers and would simply lower the end cost of gas for consumers.

“If you lower the tax, it does not go to the return or the profit or anything of this project,” he said. 

“I am just telling you right now, every dollar you save consumers is a dollar in their pocket in an economy that is struggling,” Begich said.

Under his calculations, Wielechowski said, the average Southcentral Alaska family would save $55 per year if the pipeline is built and produces gas according to the latest available cost analysis from the Department of Revenue. 

The subsidy needed to create that savings amounts to a loss of $500 per Alaskan per year, he said, money that could be used for the Permanent Fund dividend or state services.

“That’s not a good deal,” he said of the exchange.

The latest available version of the Senate proposal shows an increase in revenue to the state, rather than a subsidy. Instead of earning $27.9 billion through 2062, the state would earn $42.1 billion.

“I would describe that as very burdensome for the project and potentially prohibitively so,” Prestidge said. 

“I will characterize that tax at that level as something that would require some real reconsideration of the drawing board of how the project is structured and taken forward,” he said.

In the House, discussions have been less acrimonious. The House Resources Committee on Tuesday morning discussed a proposed a subsidy of less than $5.9 billion, smaller than the governor’s concept but similar in other regards. 

“It would be a tax reduction but a smaller tax reduction than proposed by the governor,” Stickel said of the House proposal.

On Tuesday afternoon, the committee worked methodically through a long series of amendments to its plan, frequently consulting Prestidge and Begich about how each might affect financial negotiations.

The House and Senate bills are each in an early stage of development. If passed by the resources committees, each would have to pass through their respective finance committee before advancing to a floor vote and on to the other half of the Legislature.

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The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District is scheduled to consider a proposal that would pay teachers, staff and contractors to carry handguns at schools in the borough.

The move, billed as a security measure, would be the first of its kind by a school district in Alaska. 

Current state law forbids anyone from carrying a concealed firearm on school grounds without the permission of a district’s chief administrative officer.

Board Policy 3515, as the concept is formally known, would set up a formalized policy for the Mat-Su school district’s superintendent to grant that permission. It is scheduled for initial discussion Wednesday evening. No vote is expected. 

As written, the draft policy proposes that the district will pay a stipend to “certain qualified individuals to carry a concealed handgun (including other authorized non-lethal security device) on school property in accordance with the provisions of this policy.”

The draft goes on to state that “participating authorized individuals will receive a stipend for this additional duty.” 

It does not state how much the district will pay participants, but that the stipend is expected to cover mandatory training and not a handgun, holster or ammunition.

The proposal is similar to a bill proposed by former Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, last year. That legislation did not advance, and Hughes has since resigned from the Legislature to run for governor.

If adopted as written, interested staff would be required to undergo safety training, a physical, a psychological evaluation and random drug and alcohol screening.

“This policy change is driven first and foremost by a commitment to student and staff safety,” the district said in a description of the proposed policy. 

The Mat-Su school district covers an area the size of West Virginia. North of Anchorage, it is the state’s second-largest, with 19,518 students in the 2024-2025 school year, according to state figures.

“In many of our schools, particularly those in geographically large or remote areas, immediate access to law enforcement may be limited. This policy recognizes that reality and seeks to responsibly bridge that gap in emergency response time,” the description states.

Under the text of the policy, the list of employees approved to carry handguns will be kept secret.

“Any employee who discloses the identity of an authorized individual — except as permitted by this policy or as required by law — may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including Termination,” the policy states.

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The state ferry Columbia, the largest vessel in the fleet, has been delayed a second time coming back to work on the busy summer route between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska.

The ship is now scheduled to make its first northbound run from Bellingham on June 5, according to the Alaska Marine Highway System’s online reservations site.

The state will keep the Kennicott on the route until the Columbia is ready to go back into service.

When the Columbia returns, the Kennicott will tie up at the dock in Ketchikan. The Marine Highway System — for the fourth year in a row — says it lacks enough crew to run both vessels during the busy summer season.

As of May 4, the online reservations system showed no availability on the Columbia until the July 24 northbound sailing for a traveler who wanted to take their car or truck or RV from Bellingham to Wrangell.

The Columbia, which has served the popular route since going into service in 1973, has about twice the vehicle deck space as the smaller Kennicott.

In November, the Columbia went into the shipyard in Ketchikan for winter layup and annual maintenance. It originally had been expected back on the route May 6. That date was first pushed back to May 20.

The latest delay to June 5 is due to a couple of reasons, said Gabe Strong, public information officer for the Alaska Marine Highway System.

“The dry docking of the Columbia was delayed because the Lituya had to have the bow repaired. … The Lituya took the Columbia’s scheduled dry dock time and that set the Columbia work back a couple weeks,” Strong said in an email on April 30.

“Luckily, we had the Kennicott available to take over the mainline run for the Columbia.”

The Lituya, which shuttles between Ketchikan and Metlakatla, was damaged when it ran aground after leaving the Metlakatla dock in late December 2025 and spent much of March at the Ketchikan shipyard for repairs.

In addition to losing time in the dry dock, the other reason for the Columbia’s delayed return to service was mechanical.

“During the Columbia bow thruster overhaul, it was discovered that the shaft that drives the turbine had saltwater intrusion, so the shaft was sent south to get flame-sprayed and re-machined,” Strong said.

A single turbine powers the bow thruster, which aids in the ship’s maneuverability. “It’s an omni-thruster that sucks water in from the sides and shoots it out the displacer plate on the keel of the vessel,” he explained.

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Another Chilkat Valley restaurant has closed. 

The 33-Mile Roadhouse has not opened to the public for several days and now has one sign on the front reading “Closed” and another reading “For Sale.”

Reached in person Monday, Roadhouse owner Robert Harris said he wasn’t interested in talking about the circumstances around the closure and that the signs speak for themselves. 

Harris took over the popular upper valley restaurant and gas station in 2011, after he purchased it from Kathi and Jerry Lapp. 

He owns the nearly eight acres of parcels around the roadhouse, which included a home behind it, and four cabins.

His is the second restaurant to close in just over a month. Alpenglow Woodfired Pizza announced its closure at the end of March after lease negotiations collapsed. 

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The Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Cabo Verde, Casablanca, and now, maybe, Haines? The world’s largest cruise port operator wants to lease Haines’ Port Chilkoot dock and add it to a portfolio of global holdings. 

Haines Borough officials said last week they had been approached by representatives from Global Ports Holding, a Turkey-based company, that reported hosting 17.6 million passengers at its more than 30 global cruise ports last year.

Former Skagway mayor Andrew Cremata, acting as a paid representative of the company, first broached the possible dock lease last fall, according to multiple borough officials. Cremata did not respond this week to a request for comment. 

Borough manager Alekka Fullerton said she met late last month with Cremata and Colin Murphy, Global Ports Holding’s regional head of business development. Murphy this week did not comment on the potential deal. 

Exact lease details were not discussed during that meeting, Fullerton said, but she and the assembly intend to hold a public meeting later this month.Theoretically, the company would present more information to residents at that meeting.

Based on the company’s other dealings, it’s likely the borough would see two major impacts from a lease: more cruise ship passengers and more borough revenue.  

The company’s nearest port is in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, where it signed a long-term lease in 2022. That deal followed a failed bid to lease Ketchikan’s municipal cruise dock in 2020. 

Under the Ketchikan proposal, the company would have taken on control, management, and maintenance of the facility. 

The twenty and thirty year leases on the table offered large sums of money to Ketchikan: at least according to the company’s pitch, compensation to the city could have totaled $140-212 million over the length of the lease. Ketchikan’s city council ended up voting down the lease, 4-3, maintaining the dock’s public ownership.

There are other considerations, too, besides just the total amount of compensation. 

With public ownership, Ketchikan was charging cruise lines a per-passenger berth tax, bringing revenue into city coffers. Haines currently does the same, with fees at the Port Chilkoot Dock expected to bring in $818,500 this year. 

Federal law requires those revenues be spent on cruise-ship related improvements, and Haines’ revenue is restricted to a fund that only spends on the dock itself. 

During its 2020 negotiations with Ketchikan, Global Ports Holding argued that if it collected those fees and then shared them with the municipality, those funds could be freed up to use for any purpose. 

The additional millions for Ketchikan likely would have been fueled by an increase in total visitors. 

According to Global Ports Holding’s annual report from 2025, passenger volume “underpins, directly or indirectly, most of our revenue and is the key to successfully delivering organic growth.” 

Despite being a global behemoth, the company isn’t on the public-facing side of things; it has a grand total of one google review — a one star review from a Spanish user — which reads “Worst company to work with, go away! Run!”

Rather, the company’s dealings would likely be with the cruise lines themselves, advocating for Haines as a more frequent destination. 

“They can grow the cruise ship industry here, with their connections, in a way I can’t do,” said Haines tourism director Rebecca Hylton. 

The annual report talks about big picture dealings — “the global cruise ship order book,” for instance — as determinants of which ships go where. Getting into that game, Hylton said, would require the borough government take on duties like sending staff to Miami. 

Whether residents want more cruise ship volume is an open-ended question. A 2025 survey found a majority of Haines residents supported cruise ship volume holding steady, or increasing slightly. Only 16% of respondents preferred a “much higher” amount of cruise ship business. There was, however, a spread of opinions, including a higher rate of support for the cruise industry among younger survey respondents. 

Haines currently lags well behind its nearest neighbors, Juneau and Skagway, in terms of cruise business. Some see a larger cruise industry as a potential boon for the local economy.

Right now, it’s difficult for local tour operators to run a business solely on cruise ship passengers docking in Haines, said Barbara Nettleton, owner of tour-company Takshanuk Mountain Trail. 

Now, Nettleton’s business relies heavily on the Haines-Skagway fast ferry, which delivers a predictable stream of customers to Haines from Skagway cruise dockings. But in the past, when Nettleton was targeting Haines cruise and independent travelers, the flow of customers wasn’t reliable enough to hire staff. 

“Last year we decided to go back into the Skagway market, and now we have crew that have complete weekly schedules,” she said. “If we had ships regularly calling into Haines, it would be easier to hire appropriately. Skagway could be more of a supplemental market.”

Hylton acknowledged that many residents would likely only support an increase to a certain point, if at all. But broader industry trends may force a change, regardless of local preference. 

“I think the cruise ship industry is moving toward a Caribbean model, with complete control over cruise ship guests at private islands,” Hylton said. According to Hylton, in Mexico or Belize, that might look like a gated-off shopping area at a port guarded by private security. Closer to home, it looks more like Huna Totem Corporation’s Icy Strait Point or Port Klawock, she said. 

Cruise visitation is currently trending up in Southeast overall, which has to some extent masked movement away from ports like Haines to the specialty, private ports, Hylton said. But if the trend continues, she warned, Haines could lose the industry. 

Earlier this year Haines lost an offer from American Cruise Lines that would have seen the cruise line contribute money to Letnikof Dock repairs in exchange for long-term guaranteed use of the facility. 

Soon after withdrawing its offer to Haines, American Cruise Lines finalized similar deals with the Chilkoot Indian Association and the Wrangell and Petersburg boroughs. 

Fullerton said that in her recent meeting with Global Ports Holding, the company’s representatives “intimated” that they were discussing similar possible deals with other communities in the region. 

That introduces some time pressure, said assembly member Gabe Thomas. 

“I know these port companies looking at Klawock, all these other small places, so we can’t sit on it too long,” he told other assembly members at last Tuesday’s meeting.

With little solid information yet, the near-universal answer on the issue from borough officials has been, “it depends.” 

Said Hylton this week, “it’s all going to be about how the lease looks and if it’s the right fit for the community.” 

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