On Tuesday a joint session of the Legislature is scheduled to hold a vote on rejecting Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s executive order that gives him authority to appoint all members of the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board (AMHOB). If they let it stand it’s likely he’ll replace at least half of the current board when the order takes effect July 1.
To understand why consider their response to the new ferry terminal he wants to build on Goldbelt property at Cascade Point.
Not long after he took office, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) began evaluating the feasibility of that project. If built it would replace use of the existing terminal at Auke Bay for sailings between Juneau and upper Lynn Canal communities.
Last March he referred to a Memorandum of Understanding he signed with Goldbelt as “a commitment to see this through.”
In between those periods the Legislature unanimously passed a bill creating AMHOB. In late 2021, Dunleavy appointed half of its eight public members. The Senate President and House Speaker each appointed two members.
The board began asking serious questions about the project at its meeting on June 3, 2022. The following month I pointed out that they’d “expressed a high level of frustration with DOT’s” justification for the project. Eight months later, Wanetta Ayers complained that the business case showing “why a leased facility at Cascade Point makes the best sense for the system” still hadn’t been made. She and other members raised that concern whenever the project appeared on their meeting agenda.
At a board meeting this past week, Christopher Goins, DOT’s director for the southcoast region, presented conceptual design options for the facility. Before and after that, Ayers argued the market, customer service, and financial cases should have been made before pursuing design and operational solutions.
Deputy Commissioner Katherine Keith disagreed and repeated the opinion she expressed at prior meetings. Determining construction feasibility first would allow DOT to include more realistic cost estimates in the analyses the board was requesting.
That suggests Goins should have been prepared to share conceptual-level estimates for the alternatives he presented. But he declined to do so.
At one point Keith did reference a $35 million figure that represented the “up to now” assumed cost. But neither she nor Goins told the board that according to the revised Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan published a few days earlier the current estimated cost is $76 million.
Keith also misled the board when she was asked if DOT would be responsible for any related road construction. “There is a road there already,” she said. That may be true, but in 2019 DOT determined the project would require upgrading nine miles of substandard road immediately south of Cascade Point at a cost of $16 million.
That question had been asked in response to another sly obfuscation from Keith. She claimed Cascade Point isn’t “even a DOT project, it’s a Goldbelt project.”
Not according to Goldbelt President and CEO McHugh Pierre.
“What DOT has told me is that it’s their planning document and they are writing it up that way,” he told the Empire. “I haven’t been given an idea of a proposal. I haven’t been given plans for something to build.”
Watching Dunleavy’s administration dance around legitimate AMHOB questions isn’t just a sign of disrespect for its members. It’s also an insult to the Legislature. The law they passed intended AMHOB to be “comparable to a board of directors providing business leadership and long-term strategic planning for a corporation.” And they empowered AMHOB by requiring DOT to “provide information requested by the board in a timely and responsive manner.”
The logical explanation for DOT’s persistent stonewalling is Dunleavy gave them marching orders to get this project done regardless of the advice or objections offered by AMHOB. He needs a stern reminder of the humble words he delivered in his first State of State speech.
“The governor has no power…except what you, the people of Alaska, give.”
We didn’t give him the power to unilaterally move the terminal for Lynn Canal ferry sailings from Auke Bay to Cascade Point. Or the power to effectively repeal a unanimously passed law so he can tell members of the AMHOB to rubberstamp that project or any other poorly developed plan.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
