Hoonah, the Southeast Alaska city of Hoonah has filed Hoonah to the state Local Boundary Commission. motion in the State Local Boundary Commission to create Alaska’s 20th organized borough which would comprise Hoonah as well as a few small communities in the outlying areas that are less populated.
It is believed that the Xunaa Borough would include Hoonah in addition to Game Creek, Elfin Cove and Funter Bay. The name for the potential borough is more closely related to the Lingit word that refers to the community.
“Voluntary incorporation is preferred over either having a separate local government for boroughs that is imposed on residents by the state, or leaving the entire region, excluding the current City of Hoonah and Hoonah, which is not organized,” city officials wrote in the petition.
Furthermore, city officials noted that the proposed area encompasses “all of Huna Tlingits’ ancestral territory” apart from the the lower Chilkat Peninsula land that has already been integrated into the Haines Borough. The proposed area is home to subsistence hunting and fishing areas.
“The capability to The Huna Tlingit to influence future decision-making regarding these lands is of crucial significance for this Tribe,” according to the city’s government.
As per the census for 2020 the population was ninety-one Hoonah residents, which is the majority of the 980 residents from the proposed town. Hoonah is the third-smallest state-wide borough in terms of population, following Yakutat with 700 residents, and Bristol Bay Borough, which had 865 residents.
The borough would comprise over 10,000 sq miles in land area, comprising more than 4000 acres of land – more that the combined states that comprise Rhode Island and Delaware combined plus more than 66,000 acres of water according to the petition. The boundaries of the borough would extend from Yakutat as well as Haines in its north. Juneau along with Chatham Strait to its east, Sitka to its south and the Pacific Ocean to its west.
In the case of Hoonah, its city council would be disbanded. Hoonah’s new borough will be subject to an annual sales tax. However, residents living in the area of the city that was previously governed will continue paying the 6.5 percent sales tax Hoonah currently collects. It would leave the few people living in outlying communities to pay the higher tax.
A Local Boundary Commission has the legal authority to decide whether to approve an application after a long process. If the commission chooses to approve the petition those living in the borough will have the final say casting a vote in a referendum on whether or not to create an city or a borough. The petition asks voters to decide whether or not to add taxes on the same ballot that asks whether or not to create an city.
Commission staff approved the petition to review on November. 27. The day of Dec. 1 was the beginning of a 90-day time frame in which the public are able to comment about the petition. In accordance with a timeline that was posted on the website of the commission the staff of the commission has to submit a report about the petition on or before August. 4. This is followed by an open meeting in Hoonah on September. 10, and an open commission meeting to determine whether to endorse the petition the next day. The official written decision will be announced one month later on the 11th of October. 11.
If the commission decides to approve this petition will be an election within the proposed borough, which would take place between the 31st and 120th days following the decision in writing.
The commission is comprised of five members, including four who were appointed by Governor. Mike Dunleavy. Fifth commissioner John Harrington of Ketchikan was first appointed by Governor. Sean Parnell in 2006 and was reappointed three times, the most recent time by Dunleavy.
According to the state law, for to be integrated, a borough’s population has to be large sufficient and steady enough be able to support the borough’s government.
It is believed that the Xunaa Borough boundaries would be smaller than the boundaries of a borough commission members drew up in 1992. It was included in an study on the boundaries of a model borough that was updated in 1997, and in the report in 2003. report on areas that are in compliance with the standards for incorporation of boroughs.
These reports predicted three more communities — Gustavus, Pelican and Tenakee Springs as well as Hoonah becoming the future “Glacier Bay Borough.”
In a report Hoonah officials submitted with the petition, they stated that they had contacted all of the communities that were not included in 2022. According to the application, Pelican leaders said joining the borough could have an impact on its status as city, and potential for it to annex land adjacent to it as well, while Gustavus officials said that the inclusion in the borough would reduce the chances that the petition will be successful. Officials from Tenakee didn’t reply to two requests, as per the report.
If the petition is approved, Xunaa would be the first borough to be created since Petersburg was established in 2013. It could include less than one percent, 980 out of 77,157 of Alaskans who were not in a borough that was organized at the time of the census in 2020. Alaska is also the sole state where certain residents reside in regions that aren’t part of counties, or in the similar to counties.
The story was originally published in Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.
