A proposal to build a boat haul-out facility in Sitka with the money the city received from selling its community hospital property will be on the Oct. 4 city election ballot.
On a 6-0 vote July 26, the assembly gave final approval to an ordinance on the ballot question. If passed by the voters, up to $8.18 million from the 2021 sale of the hospital building and property to SEARHC would go toward construction of a haul-out and boatyard at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park.
Sitka has not had a boat haul-out — an important piece of infrastructure in a fishing community — since Halibut Point Marine closed its facility earlier this year to pursue tourism projects, particularly a cruise ship terminal.
The lack of a boat haul-out for repairs and maintenance has driven more business to Wrangell, where the borough leases out space at The Marine Service Center which offers boat-lifts of different sizes.
The ballot question in Sitka comes in the wake of three requests for proposals in the past decade that failed to generate private financing for developing a haul-out facility.
Ordinance co-sponsor Thor Christianson said the sale of the hospital is providing Sitka with a rare opportunity to start work on a haul-out without cutting elsewhere in the city budget. Also, he said, the city appears to be out of other options.
“We tried to get money from the feds, we tried to get money from the state, we tried private, we tried public-private,” he said. “The one difference with this is I think it actually has a chance of working – $8 million will get us hauling boats out of the water.”
“It will cost us money, we’re going to have to pay for this,” said co-sponsor Kevin Mosher. “This is why we’re doing this — because we’ve tried everything else and it just didn’t work. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it. So, the question is: Do we want to support our fishing industry, our marine industry? I believe we should and most people in this town believe that to be true.”
The city deposited the $8.18 million it received from selling the old hospital to SEARHC into the municipality’s permanent fund, a savings account that requires a vote of the people for any withdrawal.
“I’m opposed to using the permanent fund for a purpose like this,” Assembly member Kevin Knox said. He voted in favor of the ordinance but said he didn’t know if he would be a “yes” in October.
While the haul-out will provide direct and indirect benefits for the community, there is a chance it could become a liability for various reasons, “and the city will have to make up for that somehow,” Knox said.
Assemblymember Crystal Duncan said she’s supportive of putting the question to voters, but hasn’t seen any business plans for how the haul-out would be built and run.
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