Daily Sitka Sentinel

Plan for Cruise Ship Days Not Ready Yet

By ARIADNE WILL

Sentinel Staff Writer

The Assembly declined to make a decision Thursday night on how or whether to close Lincoln Street to vehicles on high-volume cruise passenger days this summer.

The absence of a decision emerged near the end of a four-hour joint work session between the Assembly and the Planning Commission on the Short-Term Tourism Plan.

The plan was developed by the city Planning Department and the Planning Commission and proposes ways to handle a predicted record number of cruise passengers this summer.

The joint work session came as the plan is nearing completion. Thursday’s meeting included a comprehensive overview of the present draft, with opportunity for Assembly members to comment and look at a potential budget to implement the plan.

Assembly members were on board with most of the plan but hesitated to support a Lincoln Street closure option before the plan has had a first reading at an Assembly meeting.

Some members said they would like to wait for further community input – which they acknowledged could risk parts of the plan that have already been decided on – because the engagement opportunity would allow trust surrounding the plan to be built up.

Planning Director Amy Ainslie encouraged the Assembly to act fast on approving the plan’s budget so certain necessary items will arrive in time for the cruise season. She added that supply chain problems are causing longer lead times on some of those items, which include an ATV ambulance and portable restrooms.

Ainslie was joined by city Finance Director Melissa Haley in going over a preliminary budget, which would likely pull from multiple funding sources, including the General Fund and the cruise passenger excise tax (CPET).

Additional infrastructure may be needed, depending on how the Assembly decides to handle pedestrian and road traffic on Lincoln Street. The budget as presented Thursday allocates between $25,000 and $75,000 for barricades and fencing, depending on the decision on Lincoln Street access.

As written, the Short-Term Tourism Plan outlines three possibilities for Lincoln Street, all of which involve some level of closure. Options presented are closing the street to vehicles on days with substantial numbers of cruise passengers in town, the erection of a median down the middle of the street which would remain until the end of the cruise season, and a “full closure modification,” which would allow one-way traffic between Maksoutoff Street and the Northrim Bank drive-through.

The modification option was created after banks expressed concern to the planners about clients being unable to access bank drive-throughs. A banker said at a previous meeting that the banks have spent a lot of time training customers to use drive-throughs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that to take away that option would be frustrating and would make banks accessed by way of Lincoln Street less accessible to some customers.

Assembly member Rebecca Himschoot suggested the banks be approached about extending their hours on days when Lincoln Street may be closed to vehicles, as a full closure – as stated in the plan – would end around 4 p.m.

The Short-Term Tourism Plan will go before the Planning Commission again Wednesday, Jan. 19. A first reading before the Assembly is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 25.

The plan can be viewed at sitka.legistar.com, by clicking the agenda link for Jan. 13. A link to the plan is under the single agenda item.