By Jessica Edwards
The Haines Borough Assembly may decide next week whether to establish
an ad-hoc nine-member energy and sustainability commission and hire a part-time, one-year
contract position to research and manage borough energy issues.
The resolution, proposed by assembly member Steve Vick May 13, will be
the assembly’s first formal action on the work done by the Borough’s Peak Energy
Task Force last year. The current resolution works from language crafted by the energy
group this spring.
Other communities around the state are acting fast on energy issues in
response to soaring oil prices, Vick said. "What are we waiting for? What is our plan
for dealing with this?"
Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau have begun conservation measures, Vick
said, such as training energy raters to help make homes more efficient, replacing
incandescent street lights with light-emitting diodes, programming municipal computers to
shut down at night, and committing funds to research alternative energy.
Vick said fuel costs, up 30 percent over last year, indicated a crisis
was at hand. The borough has budgeted for an additional 40 percent fuel cost increase in
2009.
The addition of a contract person on the payroll for 20 hours weekly at
about $20 per hour proved a sticking point for assembly member Doug Olerud, despite
Vick’s assertion the employee’s wages would be offset by energy conservation
savings.
"If the goals in the job statement were more well defined, I might
be more in favor," Olerud said in an interview this week. "With the budget
$150,000 in the red, I’m not interested in hiring someone unless we can make cuts in
other areas."
Olerud said although energy issues "were without doubt a
priority," he was concerned that without a very specific mandate, a new commission
might repeat the work of the peak energy task force: "They came up with problems, not
solutions. We need concrete ideas of how to move forward."
Energy issues could be addressed in-house by the assembly and borough
staff, borrowing from the work done in other municipalities, Olerud said.
But Vick maintained current staff couldn’t manage the additional
tasks required to implement, monitor and measure conservation efforts, much less research
grants for community programs and alternative energy.
Proposals that volunteers should staff the position also weren’t
viable, Vick said, both because volunteers burned out and because a volunteer
couldn’t represent the borough government in working with state and federal agencies.
"This is an economic development coordinator for the next millennium."
At the meeting May 28, Vick said he would take up assembly member Jerry
Lapp’s suggestion to make the job a one-year contract position instead of a staff
position.
Former task force staff person Stephanie Scott argued in favor of
hiring someone to work on energy issues.
She said the research she had done to stay current with statewide
opportunities, such as workshops with state agencies, had required substantial time and
commitment.
"There’s so much to learn and so much we need to do,"
Scott said, adding she wasn’t interested in being volunteer of the year. "Who in
the borough is going to take this on? Everyone is too busy to do this."
During public comment, residents urged the assembly to take immediate
steps to learn more about alternative energy and opportunities as well as efficiency
grants available from the state and federal governments.
Scott said the Alaska Energy Authority had sent a map, which she would
post in the library, on which community members could mark places they felt were potential
sites of energy.
Authority representatives would then assess the feasibility of the
sites, she said, conducting a "sniff test" similar to one done on the
feasibility of wood heat.
Resident Jim Green said the borough should take the Alaska Energy
Authority up on its offer to measure sites of potential alternative energy sources, such
as wind. "At some point when energy gets so high and we are having to resort to
diesel power, the viability gets better and better," he said about the cost of
developing new technology.
"Why wait to find out? No one knows the potential until
measurements have been taken."
Resident Mike Denker said it made sense to act swiftly on state and
federal programs, so as not to be last in line.
