The biggest winners in Tuesday’s election in Sitka weren’t candidates, but ballot propositions: For a new tax on marijuana to support school activities, and – by an overwhelming margin – for withdrawing $8 million dollars from the city’s permanent fund to build a marine haulout and boatyard.
The effort to fund and build a new marine haulout in Sitka has been underway for three years, but no plan has gained any traction – until now.
“And it finally just became clear that the only way to get this done is for the city to have skin in the game,” said Linda Behnken, director of the Alaska Longline Fisherman’s Association and a member of the Sitka Community Boatyard, a grassroots organization that submitted a proposal for construction of the project, and raised significant cash to build it, but was waylaid by the pandemic and the subsequent cost increases. The organization helped develop Prop 2, which asked voters to take up to $8 million dollars from the recent sale of the Sitka Community Hospital building, and apply it toward the construction of a public marine haulout and boatyard, to replace a private facility…
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