The opinions expressed within the following commentary are these of the writer, and should not essentially shared by KCAW’s board, employees, or volunteers.
My title is Doug Borland, and my spouse and I are 30-year residents of Sitka. As long-time Sitka downtown enterprise house owners, our Russian American shops make use of six full-time Sitkans and as much as 12 together with our summer season non permanent employees. Right now I wish to specific some issues relating to the upcoming anti-cruise ship referendum vote.
Like most of Sitka’s residents, we’re conscious of, and respect, the “small-town atmosphere” and the distinctiveness of our city and the encompassing areas that make us particular. We too worth and wish to protect that particular uniqueness.
We relocated from Anchorage all these years in the past exactly due to the benefits of dwelling in such a small coastal city. We’re on the waters, mountain climbing the paths, and avid hunter-gatherers within the mountains and forests round city. So, in fact we additionally wish to protect these values.
For instance, within the early 2000’s, we voted towards the proposed downtown cruise-ship dock in entrance of the Sheldon Jackson campus as a result of it will transform the face of our downtown.
We hear day-after-day from guests that Sitka is the perfect cruise ship cease they’ve made on their Alaskan journeys! That is obvious, as we’re decidedly totally different. Subsequently, we have now combined emotions concerning the upcoming referendum and vote to severely restrict cruise ship guests.
We do acknowledge that the speedy enhance in cruise ship tourism that the city has skilled since covid has resulted for positive in some rising pains, and people, similar to visitors and pedestrian security, definitely should be addressed.
As major avenue companies we’re engaged with the Metropolis and different stakeholders relating to these points, via an ongoing structured course of encouraging enter from all.
Contemplating this, we really feel that the referendum could also be a too radical method, which in our opinion might have some severe unintended penalties that the well-meaning proponents of the anti-cruise ship vote could not have thought of.
To start with, the financial affect to our metropolis of the lack of gross sales tax revenues if this referendum passes is unquestionable, though what precisely the final word losses quantity to is likely to be debatable.
To us, as enterprise house owners, and to the city counting on us as a unbroken viable financial engine, this difficulty is extra sophisticated: Primarily, will the cruise ships, redirecting to different Alaskan ports if this passes, push ours and different companies beneath the break-even level the place we might be compelled to shut? Can we proceed to maintain our shops open within the winter, which we have now all the time carried out, though working at a loss, if we can not make it up from our summer season enterprise?
Because the proposed “cap” is a legendary determine, there’s on no account to ensure, if this referendum passes, that the cruise ship numbers will truly method the higher limits of the cap quantity. The unintended penalties could very nicely be that we are going to see method lower than the utmost customer cap set by the referendum, which might for positive result in worker layoffs, (not simply the lack of revenues via gross sales taxes), and will consequence within the full shutdown of ours and different companies, with our staff, and their households having to go away Sitka to earn a dwelling elsewhere, and will result in everlasting closures of even long-time downtown companies.
Additionally, it should be famous that if this passes, it’s not simply the direct main losses of gross sales tax revenues that our metropolis will really feel from the multitude of companies; additionally it is the recirculation of those {dollars} all through the town financial system all year long, as we re-spend these {dollars} collected from our clients all through the town.
We pay our suppliers, our staff, our utilities, our rents, and so on. – all of which once more create a further gross sales tax that helps our metropolis companies. Then once more every of the recipients of those {dollars} will re-spend and recirculate them to create extra gross sales taxes! This “multiplier impact” means the financial affect of our revenues from the vacationer {dollars} is way greater than simply the preliminary assortment made by our shops, and will ripple all through the city.
Lastly, it should be famous that we, together with many of the different tourist-related companies, are also main supporters of Sitka’s many nonprofits.
These deserving nonprofits embody social packages for elders and the much less lucky, our most necessary academic and faculty packages, the famend Sitka Summer season Music Pageant, the High-quality Arts Camp, SitkaTrails, the Legacy Fund, and sure, our valued public radio station! Yearly we have now helped to maintain these invaluable packages.
However they will solely acquire our help if we have now a viable, steady, and rising downtown enterprise neighborhood, which is kind of regarding.
And, that is very true now, as different public sources of help, primarily from our state and federal governments, for this nonprofit sector, are significantly threatened.
In conclusion, the unconventional method of a referendum suggests some severe attainable downsides that might negatively have an effect on most all Sitkans.
We might hope that the rising pains from the rise in tourism may very well be higher addressed via collaboration, cooperation, and shared values of what all of us ought to need for our particular distinctive coastal city.
In our opinion, this referendum raises many, many uncertainties of attainable severe, adverse, unintended penalties, and each listener must be contemplating these earlier than going to vote.
Thanks for the chance to remark.
