Sitka rejects second petition to limit cruise ship visitors

The Sitka city clerk has rejected a second application to gather signatures for putting an initiative on the 2024 ballot to limit the number of cruise ship visitors to the Southeast community.

City Attorney Brian Hanson recommended rejection of the application on the grounds that the proposed ordinance “would not be enforceable as a matter of law.”

The attorney said, “Initiatives must be drafted clearly enough so that the voters know what they are voting on and so future disputes over the initiative’s meaning are avoided.”

The initiative petition, organized by Larry Edwards, was intended to impose a daily limit on the number of cruise visitors in town. It would have added a new section to municipal code with annual and daily limits on numbers of cruise visitors and scheduling of port calls.

Edward’s earlier petition, which was rejected by the city attorney and city clerk in late September, would have limited cruise visitors to 240,000 a year, far less than half of the estimated 580,000 who came to Sitka this year.

Edwards said he plans to meet with his petition co-sponsors “to discuss our next step, because Sitka does need a dramatic reduction in cruise visitors beginning next summer.” He said his two petition applications were aimed at letting Sitkans vote on limiting or reducing the adverse impacts of “cruise over-tourism” on the community.

“This isn’t against cruise tourism, it’s against too much of it,” he said. “Bear in mind, independent tourism has been increasing, which is good.”

The clerk notified Edwards of the second rejection on Nov. 9.

“In my opinion the above provisions of the proposed ordinance are confusing, misleading and incomplete; and consequently, unenforceable as a matter of law,” the city attorney wrote in his recommendation to the city clerk.

Edwards’ first application was rejected because the city attorney said it amounted to a zoning change, which may be done only by the assembly and planning commission.

Edwards called the dismissal of his second application “a naked political decision, contrary to the principles of our democracy and citizen use of the initiative process.”