May 30, 2013
Thursday PM

I appreciate the role Mr. Dial fulfills with his letters regarding fiscal restraint, and living within our means. He provides an excellent balance for the ‘Tax and Spend’ faction in our community. However sometimes he neglects to provide all the information. That is, of course, a strategy that is useful when trying to make a point emphatically. So even though I value his point of view, and acknowledge the need for more restraint on government, I am going to provide a little more of the information that Mr. Dial left out.

I will only address Two Ketchikan Borough issues, the ‘Tax Problem’ and the ‘White Cliff’ remodel.

1.) Borough portion of the Tax Problem

While sitting on the Assembly I commented a time or two that the community will remember tax increases, but will forget about the tax decreases.

And Mr. Dial proved my point when he provided these details in his letter to the editor:

During the six years I served on the Assembly, we cut the Mill rate six times. I argued in 2009 and 2010 that anything below the 6.0 or 5.8 Mills was unsustainable, because we would be depleting our reserves in order to maintain programs. But the wisdom of the Assembly at that time was that it was more important to lower the Mill rate, even though we all knew that it would have to be raised once the reserves reached minimal levels.

The Borough Manager gives a little perspective on the Tax Issue in his memo of May of 2012 in it he states:

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough has one of the lowest areawide mill rates among boroughs that levy property taxes.

Not only does the Ketchikan Gateway Borough have one of the lowest ratios of taxable value to full value, it has one of the lowest areawide mill rates of any of the fourteen organized boroughs in Alaska that levy property taxes. The following compares the areawide property taxes of those fourteen boroughs (source: Alaska Taxable- 2011, pages 29 - 32):

2.) The second issue concerns the White Cliff remodel.

Mr. Dial takes some liberties with reality when he states: “The Mayor, working with the Borough Manager constructed a carefully crafted RFP (Request For Proposal) for new borough offices. The goal was to renovate the White Cliff building without voter approval;”

I realize that it is easier to argue a point, or elicit negative sentiments if you are able to demonize someone involved. The problem with that is, the above comment is totally wrong. First the Mayor and the Manager may both have been advocates for the RFP and Renovation, but that is irrelevant. First, our system is a WEAK Mayor form of government. (Several Assembly Members in the past have commented that they would never want to be Mayor, because the Mayor rarely has a vote in deciding policy.) Second, The Manager has more integrity than any man I have ever worked with. He will do what the Assembly asks, if it is legally possible. It is the Assembly, in open meetings, that gives direction to staff and expects that direction to be completed. It was the Assembly that wanted the RFP. There was substantial discussion on the issue. There was even a ‘No’ vote or two on the final decision (mine being one of them). Mr. Dial’s demonizing of the Mayor and Manager does a major injustice to those two men; and at the same time damages his arguments.

Mr. Dial’s major point of view on Fiscal Restraint is desperately needed in all levels of government. So although I will quibble about some of his tactics, and take umbrage at some of the ‘character assassination’ verbiage, his basic message is desperately needed.

John Harrington
Ketchikan, Alaska

Representations of fact and opinions in letters are solely those of the author.
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