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Debate over LUTAC Dock stakeholders divides Haines residents and assembly
Summary
Multiple residents and business owners testified about the reconstruction of the LUTAC dock, sharply disagreeing over whether Lynn Canal Conservation (LCC) should be granted special stakeholder status and who should lead project management.
Public comment at the Feb. 24 Haines Borough Assembly meeting focused heavily on the LUTAC Dock reconstruction and who should be treated as stakeholders in the design process.
Several residents argued that the dock should be managed and designed for the whole community and opposed giving Lynn Canal Conservation special, formal stakeholder status. "Lynn Canal Conservation is not a stakeholder. They're obstructionists," said Fred Gray, criticizing LCC's participation in dock planning and questioning the group's technical contribution. Craig Franke, speaking on what he said was behalf of LCC, said he opposed assigning exclusive, privileged status to any single group and warned the assembly not to spend public money to exclude businesses or classes of users from access to the dock decision process.
Other commenters urged the borough to consider local continuity and to avoid delays from a full RFP process. "What better project managers can you get? They've started the project, obviously, and now they wanna work through all the way to its final conception," one resident said, urging the assembly to consider Moffett and Nickel for project management so the group already "boots on the ground" can finish the job.
Manager Fullerton updated the assembly on the LUTAC Dock schedule and described draft selection criteria staff and consultants propose to use for evaluating concepts, including risk exposure (permitting, environmental), price certainty, operational continuity, safety and maintenance costs. Fullerton said staff are aiming for a dedicated concept presentation meeting on April 22 with possible concept selection at the April 28 assembly meeting so elected officials can have time to review materials before a decision.
Assembly members voiced a desire for clarity on what 'stakeholder' status would mean and asked for a transparent schedule and criteria. Several members urged the borough to 'own' the public process, set evaluation criteria publicly and limit the role of outside designers to technical tasks rather than control of selection or final decisions.
The assembly did not adopt a binding policy about stakeholder status on Feb. 24; the manager and staff were directed to continue public engagement and to present materials and recommended criteria at future meetings.
