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Ketchikan Charter Commission Survey

Download the Survey Results (click here) pdf

Read Paper Survey Comments

 

Online Survey Comments
This survey was conducted March 23rd - April 18th, 2004

 

City - Comments: PLEASE get past "area wide" and "non area wide" descriptors. If the community - this TINY island community is going to embrace consolidation than, in my opinion, it must be that total AREAWIDE - parity of services and costs be shared by ALL island dwellers irregardles of where you reside. It doesn't matter if you do not access specific services as much as others, you have EQUAL OPPORTUNITY as a resident of this island community to move freely anywhere you desire within this island community and have equal access to services and costs - and that is the important selling point to make. We are all on this island, equally sharing and accessing services and costs. Period.

City - Comments: Your goal should be to unify as many sevices as possible. It is ridiculous for a population this size to have duplicate agencies providing services.
The services in item #6 are used by all and should be funded by all.

Rural - Comments: If we combine the borough and the city, then there should only be one service area. Ketchikan. Period. Everyone gets equal service and pays equal fees. If the new government does not want to pay the expense of providing equal service, then do not merge the two governments.

City - Comments: I don't want people living in rural areas deciding the level of services available in the city. If they want birdshit in their water, let them have it. Don't force me to drink it. And don't turn my professional fire and EMS services over to a bunch of wannabes.

Rural - Comments: The most important issue I have with consolidation as a rural resident is representation in local government and paying for services I don't want or use. Even as the KGB is today I don't feel at all represented as a South Tongass resident. We have had no representation regarding the Alcan Timber harvest or the water and sewer upgrades.

Area not identified - Comments: I think that the fire department should be area wide. By using the existing facilities that are on the northend and rotating a couple of the cities fire department crew out north we would have a much more economical fire department. As it is now,us northenders are paying the price of a high salaried fire chief that could easily be covered by thecity fire chief. I thought that is what consolidation was all about,saving us residents tax money by combing seperate departments into one.

City - Comments: Having two governments, plus Saxman, on this island is no longer feasible. It can't happpen overnight and it can't happen without some people being negatively impacted for the short run, but we can no longer afford to support two governments.

City - Comments: There is no logic whatsoever to consolidate and simultaneously create a non-representative government agency like a port authority, then to claim somehow this is progressive. Port Authorities quickly become highly consumptive monoliths with taxing or revenue-generating authority, but out of the direct control of the public it purportedly serves. Bad business. The classic study on port authorities is, of course, New York, and PBS had an excellent documentary on this in either '03 or '02. Call them, get it, and watch it. I think many of you operate under a false impression of what a port authority really is.

Without election by district consolidation guarantees in short order some 'gang' or other will take over all of local government in comparatively short order, and then there will be hell to pay for all. While election by district does not guarantee against such an occurrence, it makes it considerably more difficult. This one's a deal breaker.

City - Comments: I will be voting "NO" on any consolidation at this time for the following reasons:

(1) It is clear to me that most folks living in the rural areas (Borough) do not want increased taxes for "services" they don't need or want.

(2) There are no solid facts as to how "consolidation" would save money and lower taxes. It is just vague speculation that money would be saved. I own property in Washington State and my experience has been that so called "consolidation of services" has resulted in sharp tax increases, more bureaucracy, and a clear lack of citizen control over these "consolidated agencies.

(3) Consolidation efforts at this time divert attention from more serious problems that Ketchikan now faces. How would it clear up the mess and the waste of public funds on stupid economic development schemes and donations (grants) to special interest groups.

(4)Do we really need all the services listed in your survey? For example, could the museum management be shifted to a non profit historical group?

I live in the city, but I respect the concerns of many friends who live in the Borough and are opposed to consolidation at this time!

Rural - Comments: Less government and an effort to make people more responsible for their own lives. Everyone should have free access to the dump, like now, and the pickup outside the city limits should be enacted. I would like to see auto disposal that is affordable. I had to pay over $300.00 to have a junked car removed from my property even tho a stranger dumped it there. I did this as an act of good citizenship, read below of how I am treated.

There are approximently 100 law enforcement folks around!!!this is outrageous, I know we are a border town, but most want to live within the law. These guys and gals are so bored the stalk the population. That is where we need some consolidation. Between the State Troopers, Fish and Game enforcement, The US Forest Service now has and enforcement division, Airport Security is 3/1 on some flights (that is 3 white shirts to one passenger!!) the city police, the Coast Guard and of course the building inspectors and borough hounds looking and trespassing, reminding us that even though one may own the property one is renting it from the government via high taxation. We are a border village of aprox. 13-14 thousand people. What gives here? Are we so bad we need this kind of presence of law enforcement?

I know this kind of harrassment because I resently got a $250.00 ticket for having my under age niece behind the wheel, not moving, along side a country road learning where the brakes and gas pedal are, and what "P","R","D", mean. There was no ticket warning me that it was illegal to teach her those things I learned at her age by my Mother. This was the first ticket in my whole life...over 50 years. That guy was bored. OK...less law, or at least a more kindly bunch with some finess. He had my niece crying.

City - Comments: Building Code enforcement must go area wide -- too many fire traps, unsafe buildings, and problems. A Building Code would lower insurance and fire preventation costs Borough wide, and save lives. Right now you can open a bed and breakfast out in the borough with no requirement for minimum safety egress, smoke alarms, sprinklers, or even legal stairwells, etc.

City - Comments: All that lives in Ketchikan should pay as in Ketchikan this includes Saxman. No division is needed. We would all feel better and not have to keep raising taxes or start paying state taxes if everyone had to pay the same as everyone elses.

City - Comments: Consolidation is not going to work. You folks are wasting your time. Ketchikan can not afford consolidation to one government. Because you will not provide equal government service to the rural people. Why would these people vote for consolidation to tax them selves for pay for services they can not have? The commission is wasting tax dollars for nothing. Ketchikan is slowly dying, people are moving out. In the end, it will revert back to a Indian Village and I can not wait. What will be left is real Alaskans.

Rural - Comments: Every man, woman and child could have been given at least $10,000 but instead the Economic Development people gave the money to a hand full of people who have no vested intrest in the Ketchikan aria or the people who live here.

The handeling of the Economic Development Fund has been shamefull if not criminal.

City - Comments: Enterprise funds do not work with respect to transit or the airport. IF you have eyes then you can see the condition of these departments. There will never be enough money generated to fully support these departments. as it is the bus service is bare bones & the airport should be given back to the state, fully funded to adaquatly support maintenance, safety & emergency services or absorbed by a department that is supported by the people of this town through the existing tax base & emergency services provided by the existing KTN fire department.

City - Comments: the airport needs to be turned over to the state or please do not include it with any other govt service such as the harbor \ thank you for your hard work and dedication.

Rural - Comments: A united government would benefit business. Especially new companies that are considering relocating to Ketchikan. A united government would provide one voice to the rest of Alaska and more importantly to the cruiselines.

Allowing Ketchikan's government to consolidate will enhance its ability to market the community, improve communication and simplify processes for the many organizations listed above as well as local business. Imagine one town hall meeting after all?

I believe this consolidation is in the very best interest of the community and I fully support your efforts.

City - Comments: How many more taxes are the residents going to have to pay before someone says "enough is enough"? As a former payer of a 9% sales tax, I don't see that day coming. Economic development is a joke here. It should be re-named Economic Excuses, because that is all I hear: timber this, fishing that, oh the pulp mill, yeah for tourism! Newsflash-if Tourism is all that is in our future as a revenue source I think it is time to move. I do not think we have strong leadership, I do not think we have a good plan, I do not think we are okay, I do not think that I should just accept things the way they are and I do not think the state should be solely responsible for our well-being.

I do think that this charter commission is the right thing to do. I challenge you to think outside of the box unlike the historical thought process of our governments. I challenge you to inspire the citizens of Ketchikan in a way that is less "I don't give a hoot" and more of "Why should I not give a hoot?" The less pessism that is seen by our governments, the less pessism that will be seen in our people. Think about it.

I encourage you to think of the people of Ketchikan as the people of Ketchikan and not city or borough residents. The division worked back when territory was worth dying for, but today it comes off as petty, narrow minded, and a waste of time.

By the way, unemployment did not go down...people just moved.

Rural - Comments: I DO NOT WANT ANY TAXES RAISED. I FAVOR ELIMINATING PROGRAMS INSTEAD OF RAISING TAXES AND WILL NOT VOTE FOR ANYONE ON A GOVERMENT BODY WHO VOTES IN FAVOR OF RAISING TAXES

Rural - Comments: I AM NOT IN FAVOR OF CONSOLIDATION. I FEEL THAT THE RURAL RESIDENTS WILL END UP PAYING FOR SERVICES THAT WE DO NOT AND WOULD NOT RECEIVE!

City - Comments: I would like to see a seven (7) member elected Assembly and recreate the KPU Advisory Board (nominated positions)to help oversee the utilities. I would also like to see the position of Utilities General manager restored as the duties of General government & Utilities are far different. The Borough, School District, City & KPU finance departments can be combined, with a Director over each specific area that answer to the Chief Financial Officer. Also the Borough, School District and City Public Works & Maintenance departments need to be combined and perhaps part of the Airport maintenance.

City - Comments: Left several questions blank, primarily because I don't know enough about rural issues to comment. Good luck with your efforts- I know you are dedicating a lot of time to this project.

Rural - Comments: I appreciate that you are doing this survey, televising the meetings and making this an open forum for public input. Thank you!

In an effort to maintain fairness and level services, I believe that areawide services should be made available to both city and rural residents, paid for equally by both. I recognize, however, that some services are currently only available to city residents, such as municipal water; in these instances, I believe that only those residents actually receiving those services should pay for these services, without expecting rural residents to pay any share. Rural residents should not be required to pay for any services they are not provided to them.

I recommend that you establish a cap on any areawide sales tax suggested, not to exceed the current rural sales tax of 5.5%.

Currently, sales taxes are levied on rent, which I believe is bad public policy. The reason for this is that rent is a basic necessity, like food and medicine, paid for by tenants who are often lower income residents who can least afford to pay this tax. I strongly recommend that sales tax on rent be abolished.

Again, thank you for your hard work and diligent efforts to keep the public involved. I appreciate it tremendously. ML Dahl

City - Comments: When people from all areas use any particular service they should also help support it thru their taxes. Make the sales tax the same for ALL and then have the assembly vote to decide how much a portion of those taxes to support each service. If a service requires more $$ then bring it back to the assembly. Also you should make all sales in Ketchikan taxable (with the possible exception of food items). I have not seen or heard of any viable reason why so called 'call in' or 'shipped out' sales should be exempt. When the retailers say they will be hurt by this taxes is absurd and you know its all BS. They dont like to pay taxes and you let them get away with it. I have worked in the retail industry for several years and I see them push these sales to bypass the tax. They will not loose business to other communties. Good luck on our Charter..I hope it works out.

City - Comments: Regarding sales tax - I selected "no" because I wouldn't want it to increase. If it remained at the current (city) level, I would be OK with maintaining it.
However, I always prefer property or income tax, as those are not as harmful financially to the poor or elderly.

City - Comments: I think an attempt to make services available to everyone, equally should be kept in mind. Also making the entire area responsible for these things. The exception is property off of the road system. I have an outlying cabin that receives no services, I do not want to see that property taxed more in order to meet the needs of those on the road system.

Rural - Comments: The need for more government, has long gone past the point of no return. This commision has the opertunity to make a impact that is greatly needed for our island community. Their has been very little growth in the area and yet the local goverment pushes the tax payers to the brink of packing up and moving on. If the econmics and growth of the area were in purportions of ohter areas the need for those expensive services could be justified. I would like to see the commision look at other communties of our size and see if the government size is comparible, to these huge ticket items that we are about to burden those we leave behind to pay for. The bourough residents live outside the city because they choose not to have all the conviences, yet every time the city embarks on a new tax item they inculde the bourough. The fear has always been if we consolidate these two goverments the citys ideas and spending habits will go right out to those who dont need or want them. On the other hand the bourough is now trying to outspent and out tax the city. It looks like a catch-22 system.

Rural - Comments: I believe the Charter Commission is on the right track. We need to consolidate services where results are in cost savings to the area.

Maintain the Service Area boards in order to hear local residents concerns. Do not burden property owners wih unfair tax rates. John Galea, Mountain Point.

Rural - Comments: I feel that this whole exercise is another total waste of time and money. Even if this is approved there won't be any savings. Bureaucracy always protects itself when under attack.It's like that Ditech Commercial where the Banker removes one sheet of paper as a demonstration of "reducing paperwork" from a pile of paper 3 feet tall for the folks applying for a home loan.The current empires would consolidate O.K. butthe "reductions in workforce" would end up doing something else with a new title at an increase in salary resulting in tax increases and increased frustrations dealing with the entrenched empires.

City - Comments: The whole idea is to make all the people on this island pay for all of the essential services offered, this way we eliminate all of the complaints. We need to bring this project under one canopy, period.

City - Comments: the more unified the services, the more efficient overall economically. we essentially have two Ketchikans right now

Rural - Comments: I would like to see a port authority, however, I don't know if the maritime port and the airport should be combined into one authority. I think the public should know the pros and cons of combining the two versus keeping them separate.

Since this community is too chicken to enact a head tax, I am also in favor of using seasonal sales tax revenues to pay for services that both residents and visitors use......such as the bus, parks and rec, road maintenance, etc.

City - Comments: The city utilities are an issue. I'd like to hear more about options for those.

Folks who don't want services and don't want to pay for them generally should be left alone, but there are some broader services that benefit everyone on the island and it's time to get with it.

There should be some type of support for the volunteer service areas so they can function properly.

Rural - Comments: People in the Borough do NOT want to pay for services they will not receive ( Streets, wastewater, police, etc) and we certainly don't want the added expense of paying for these systems to be designed and built. The new government should NOT use revenue generated from taxes to fund groups, and then come back and say they don't have enough money for schools and such.
Signed, Disgusted all the way around

Rural - Comments: Most rural residents have a large investment in their own domestic water systems and sewage disposal systems. This investment needs to be recognized and respected. To attempt to force rural residents to join either area wide or local improvement districts without credit for their investment in their own systems would be unfair.

Rural - Comments: I definitely believe in cutting costs and bringing us all together. I do not believe in imposing more taxes and not receiving the benefits. We have one great resource that is not being fully tapped and that is the tourist. We all put up with them, we should all benefit, not just a precious few. Sales taxes have not been paid accurately by some shops, quite a few of the shops are being run by non-locals that bring their own employees in.

Rural - Comments: I would like to see any service fee structure charged only to those who can or might use the service. A good example is: If bus service is provided from Knudsen Cove to Herring Cove then an area wide fee should be applied. If bus service is only in the city limits the fee should apply only to that district. My expectation is that Consolidation will actually be able to reduce overall fees by reducing redundancy and increasing efficiency. Please make your plan a realistic one and don't go hog wild. For me to vote "yes" I need to see a common sense charter that is trim and fit.

City - Comments: It is time to put this issue to rest once and for all. Consolidation is something that should be done for the sake of the population of the entire area. Money aside, there are just too many good reasons to consolidate than not.

Rural - Comments: I favor sales tax or an equivalent progressive tax over property tax, but not a sales tax on everything. If we consolidate and increase areawide services, our sales taxes will inevitably go up. No increase in sales tax should occur on food items sold in grocery stores. We should explore a sales tax or an equivalent progressive tax on jewelry, tours, restaurant food, cab fare. When I rent a car in Seattle Airport I pay a huge (17%) tax on the rental car. Other communities target the visitors and we should too. Tax jewelry. Tax businesses that don't remain open all year. Tax transient moorage. Be creative. Don't burden local people with the entire load. Many of our needs are created by the visitor industry and we really do not get our fair share of the proceeds. The ships claim a large chunk of the profits (30%)and they try to control the businesses in our community. I am not anti-tourism. We must learn to deal with this beast to our advantage. They love Ketchikan. They won't stop coming.

Rural - Comments: services related to persons should be areawide, services related to property should be non areawide, as we have already invested as required in the rural areas. The exception to this is police, as going areawide would increase the costs as we would have to add to the police, and the trooper presence would decrease. We also enjoy some benefits being "rural" with Alaska Housing and other areas, loosing this would be a major financial drain on the community, and enough to make consolidation a bad choice. I would be a solid supporter if these benefits would remain. Thanks for the hard work, good luck.

City - Comments: I think getting water and sewer on an areawide basis is important as present septic systems and those grandfathered in with no system at all but a dump into the Narrows pose a health danger. It seems to me that is the most important issue facing this area as a whole.

City - Comments: I AM TOTALLY AGAINST CONSOLIDATION FAVORING UNIFICATION AS A BETTER FORM OF COMBINING OUR GOVERNMENTS. ALSO MAKE SURE WE REMAIN A HOME RULE CITY AND OBTAIN 1ST CLASS BOUROUGH STATUS. THE 2ND CLASS BOROUGH CHOICE BACK IN 1962 HAS BEEN OUR PROBLEM ALL ALONG. THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING THIS CHANCE TO VENT.

Rural - Comments: Any services that are provided by both the City and Borough should be area wide, for instance, fire protection, water and sewer services. Any service that is equally available to all users should be supported in an areawide manner, for the instance the library and museum, garbage and waste management.

I don't think that sales outside the city will generate much if the sales tax were made area wide.

City - Comments: The enlargement of the borough needs to be addressed and the manner in which communities and areas presently outside the borough would be assisted and given a meaninful role. Pete Ellis

Rural - Comments: Do not expand services outside the City, especially Police!!

City - Comments: This perception some Ketchikan residents have about "rural living" is ridiculous. As far as I can tell, everyone on our island wants access to the same government services, but not everyone wants to pay for them. This isn't the bush or the outback and that sort of "leave me alone, I live in the wilderness" attitude that some residents have is a fantasy. Folks like that can go live in darkest Prince of Wales Island. Wilderness sounds really good until you are the one who needs an ambulance, a library book, a school teacher,a fire fighter,a road, a swimming pool, or a clean water supply. I fully support having one government on our island so we can avoid duplication of effort, and maximize our chance of generating revenue, grants, funding, etc.

Rural - Comments: I think any effort to generate revenues in the form of taxes should include seasonal businesses (i.e. those that close during the winter, but make their income in Ketchikan) and services used by tourist and other transient visitor persons.

City - Comments: This process is to bring the government under one umbrella. Maintaining independent service areas for any of the services contradicts the consolidation.

City - Comments: I think there should be term limits for Assembly members. Given a ballot question they could understand, borough voters voted about 4 to 1 in favor of term limits.

Rural - Comments: People who do not recieve services should not pay for them. People living on Pennock should not pay a disposal fee if the city/bourough is not providing them the service.

City - Comments: You must address the issue of sales taxes being collected by downtown merchants. Merchants should not be able to offer "no sales tax if we mail this to you" as an incentive to tourists. I am not willing to pay more property or sales tax until it is clear that sales taxes are being collected by the merchants who benefit so much from tax payers' dollars.

City - Comments: I thank the members of the Commission for their time and all the difficult work they are doing as a service to our community.

City - Comments: I believe an Arts Center would be an important economic development goal & year-round service for the commission to address on an areawide basis.

Rural - Comments: Question #2: We'd like to see a mix of Assembly Members elected at large and from service districts, IF service districts remain intact after consolidation.

City - Comments: A strong economic development department, areawide is needed to coordinate a number of proposed projects for the area to be sure each is financed and completed, such as a cold storage, bridge to airport, aquarium, library, museum, art center, port expansion, road extension toward Bradfield Canal, college camus promotion and expansion, Ward Cove improvements and so forth

 

 

 

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