By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
While responding favorably to the Alaska Trollers Association request for a city contribution toward the legal expenses of fighting a lawsuit threatening Southeast fisheries, the Assembly did not take a vote Tuesday night on providing the $25,000 ATA sought.
The ATA is an intervenor on the side of the defendants in the Washington state lawsuit Wild Fish Conservancy v. Thom, filed in 2020.
The lawsuit would curtail fishing on migrating salmon in order to protect killer whales which historically have spent part of the year in Puget Sound. “Thom” is Barry Thom, the National Marine Fisheries Service regional administrator.
The state also has intervened on the side of NMFS. So far, ATA has received donations for legal help from Sitka, Craig and Petersburg, a guiding organization and individuals.
Local trollers appealed to the Assembly for a city contribution, and it was presented Tuesday as a motion sponsored by Thor Christianson and Kevin Mosher.
“This is something we need to jump on and jump on hard,” Christianson said. “I’m hard-pressed to think of an event that has threatened to wipe out a huge portion of our economy in one fell swoop.”
There was no vote but there was a general consensus to put the $25,000 in a supplemental appropriation ordinance to be introduced at the Jan. 24 meeting. (The Sentinel will have more about the lawsuit in a future edition.)
Christianson said today that he and Mosher, the co-sponsors of the ordinance, would like to see the appropriation come from the general fund.
Troller Matt Donohoe, president of the ATA board, said today he was pleased with the Assembly’s response to the request.
“I was gratified they understood the seriousness of the situation, that the region could very well lose the troll industry,” he said.
Tourism
Most of Tuesday’s five-hour meeting was devoted to summer tourism questions, with the Assembly approving amendments to recently passed fees and policies for Harrigan Centennial Hall, and commenting on this year’s summer tourism plan.
A general agreement was reached to repeat the closure of Lincoln Street on the anticipated 53 days with 5,000 or more cruise passengers in town.
City Administrator John Leach said he and Planning Director Amy Ainslie met with Department of Transportation officials this week on plans for traffic improvements at Lake and Lincoln streets, which was a traffic bottleneck last year.
“There’s a lot of traffic engineering that has to go in with changes at the intersection, but what we did get from DOT is they hear us loud and clear on the issues,” Leach told the Assembly.
The main change, if it can be implemented in time by the state, would be a left turn signal for traffic coming from the roundabout and turning from Lake street onto Lincoln Street; adjusting the timing of the traffic light; and adding flaggers to improve traffic flow around Centennial Hall.
“So a lot of efforts have already happened on that traffic piece that we hope to have working before the season gets here,” Leach said.
Centennial Hall
The changes the Assembly approved to Centennial Hall fees and policies were:
- a permit fee exemption for electric vehicles picking up and dropping off.
- making vendor and outfitter permits good for three years instead of one. In the first year, terms would be staggered for one, two and three years, but eventually all will be three. Tour and excursion operators advocated for the change, in order to provide stability to their businesses.
- substitute an outcry auction for a closed bidding process for vendor spaces in the plaza, and outfitter spaces behind the building. Tour operators argued that this was a better option, since they would know the high bid, and could secure a spot.
The proposal to double the annual permit fee for buses, from $1,000 to $2,000, was voted down. This summer will be the first in which permits are required.
Those testifying on the Centennial Hall amendments in general have opposed the steep fee increases in the policies approved on Dec. 13. While they agreed an update was needed, they did not like the reduction in spaces available, the sudden and steep increases in permit fees, and a bidding process that pitted them against each other.
More Tourism
Ainslie proposed five areas to consider in the summer visitor plan for this year, which were discussed by the Assembly and the audience, but no final decisions were made.
It was agreed that portable restrooms were needed, with some discussion but no decisions on locations. The Lincoln Street closure to vehicles 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on high tourism days also won favor.
Ainslie also brought up other ideas for improving pedestrian safety, which was a major concern expressed in the survey of more than 600 residents.
Those ideas include hiring traffic monitors at major intersections and improving way-finding signs.
The planning director also asked whether the Assembly wants to continue the bathroom grant program, walking and biking incentives, food cart permits, and beautification measures.
She said she will take the feedback from the Assembly and present a budget on each of the items for a final decision at a future meeting.
Some of those testifying at the meeting expressed frustrations with the growth of tourism, and said Sitka should consider ways to limit or reduce the growth in cruise ship tourism.
“I have one topic sentence, and that is, you need to cap the number of tourists. And that’s the end of it,” said Richard Wein. Sitka’s major asset is that it is an “authentic” place to visit, he said.
Also from the audience, Larry Edwards agreed with Wein, saying this is the time to make important decisions. He said the Assembly should ask for advice from the Sustainability Commission “on what the right size is for tourism and so on, and on how to attain that level of tourism,” he said.
“This is a sustainability issue, and sustainability commissioners have the requisite expertise to give this advice,” he continued. “The right size for cruise tourism is a sustainability issue on many levels, including the economy, our small town way of life, and perhaps whether we will be able to retain our designation as a subsistence community. The cruise tourism issue is urgent because of the extraordinary level of visitation of last year becomes more than one-year spike.”
Hugh Bevan, a former city administrator and public works director, raised concerns about traffic management, particularly on the stretch from the roundabout to O’Connell Bridge when Lincoln Street is closed.
“I think it worked pretty well last year (but) the changes to the traffic system may not be as workable if our passenger load continues to increase,” he said.
Bevan said he’s also concerned about traffic being created by the rapid development of Japonski Island, which feeds into the same system in the heart of downtown.
“The intersection is designed to operate with four quadrants and when one of them is taken away, it almost felt to me like the intersections is starting to become unstable,” he said.
Bevan said he was intrigued by the idea by Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal manager Chris McGraw for a bus transfer facility on the Baranof playground. McGraw has been working on the concept with Baranof Principal Jill Lecrone. The school would continue to have playground space, the cruise terminal owners would pay for the changes.
Shirley Robards, owner of Stereo North, described last summer’s changes in temporary and fulltime street closures as “a disaster.” She said that in her observations, closure of Lincoln Street did not result in more pedestrians going onto Lincoln Street. She also spoke against the closure of Maksoutoff Street for the summer, which resulted in commuters from Japonski Island bypassing Lincoln Street.
