Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Heliski Ordinance: Unfinished Business
The amended heliski ordinance was postponed to the February 28 meeting and will come before the Assembly as "unfinished business," not as a item for a public hearing as I had thought. However, the public will have ample opportunity to speak to the amended ordinance at the top of the meeting under "Public Comment." I look forward to hearing from you Tuesday, February 28!
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Borough heliski and GPS policy and how that policy raises some fundamental questions about what constitutes the public interest:
ReplyDeleteNationally, citizens are becoming more alarmed at the extent to which corporate/business interests now overshadow the public interest in the Congressional legislative process. It seems like this kind of influence is also getting more entrenched in borough assembly decision making.
I recognize that the assembly members are trying to make good decisions—not just get re-elected. Yet, they do seem to be drifting toward a narrower view of public interest that is focused on the protection business interests and profits. I would agree that the wellbeing of the local business community is in the public interest, but it needs to be just part of a more inclusive, balanced view of the public interest and generally not connected to any particular business or small set of businesses.
The assembly debate on the heliski issue seems to deal mostly with the interests of the industry at the expense of other stakeholder groups like LCC, Fish and Game, concerned highway residents, and other backcountry users. Missing from the heliski dialog these days is any concern coming from assembly members about broader-based public policy questions, like: “How can we include the interests of other players that were instrumental in formulating our policy on this matter in the past?”
I don’t think this absence of a more balance public interest perspective is necessarily intentional. I only ask that the assembly “breathe” (as the sign at the dock says) and take a broader look at how the borough’s heliski policy has been redefining the scope of what constitutes public interest in our democracy. To assist in formulating a more equitable policy, you might ask: “What would Ray Menaker have done?”
May I offer the following examples of my concern:
1) Every year, for the past three years, the assembly has been changing the law primarily because SEABA is unhappy with it---enacting emergency ordinances, or whatever it takes. Rather than public necessity, SEABA lobbying seems to have been the driving force. The fact that other stakeholder groups are willing to stand by the concessions and agreements they previously made (and are willing to continue to make) does not seem to factor into the public interest equation anymore. It’s far more likely for the assembly to ask why LCC is never happy and to ignore their testimony, rather than to inquire why SEABA is never happy.
2) I found it interesting that when SEABA testified recently that part of the trade secrets it wants to protect have to do with knowing where the avalanches, crevasses, etc., are, it didn’t appear to sound any kind of alarm with the assembly. It seems to me that these are life-threatening dangers and that perhaps the assembly should actually be requiring SEABA to share this info with other operators as a matter of public safety, rather than helping to keep these dangers a secret. Doesn’t public safety trump private interests?
3) The borough is now redefining it’s historic responsibility to manage the industry to include just a boundary enforcement role—thereby eliminating any other management responsibilities, such as assisting Fish and Game in effectively managing wildlife habitat. Knowing that SEABA has testified that it has no intention of sharing GPS data with Fish and Game, the assembly seems poised to sacrifice improved wildlife habitat management to satisfy SEABA interests.
4) Despite SEABA’s admitted past violations of the law, borough policy seems essentially be waiving past compliance issues with a permit holder and any need to first see a good track record in favor of immediately accommodating the industry. Additionally, the assembly seems to also be willing to make accommodations to the industry based on minimal, hearsay evidence. (Is there any objective evidence on record to demonstrate that there is a history of efforts by SEABA to protect its trade secrets and that there is really a risk of losing business?)
Below are some simple GPS ordinance amendments that I believe would reflect a more inclusive public policy—and would not exclude SEABA’s interest in some degree of confidentiality.
ReplyDelete1) The raw GPS data shall be made available by the borough, on a confidential basis, to state and federal agencies charged with management responsibilities in the area.
2) The data shall be made available by the borough to all others who request it, but in a modified form, which includes flight paths and landings but does not reveal GPS coordinates and is in a scale that reveals only the general area of travel.
3) The borough shall collect all GPS data in its raw form. The specific manner of cataloging this data for borough oversight and for the other stated purposes shall be determined by an independent contractor hired by the borough to process the data. The borough shall require the submission of all GPS data on a biweekly basis for at least two years, until such time that the manager determines that there has been a track record of compliance, at which time the required frequency of reporting can be reduced by the manager to periodic checks, but these shall be no less than five times per season.
how about a heliski policy based on historical context:
ReplyDelete1) i still do not grasp why the assembly starts a new discussion on heliski management every year, without framing it in any historical context. last year the assembly passed sweeping changes to the heli ordinance---more than doubling the skier days and significantly expanding the boundaries of the permitted area of use. given the gains that the industry won last year, it is certainly reasonable to expect that they would be more than willing to divulge the GPS data. it's hard to imagine that the economic gains from last year's expansions wouldn't far outweigh any losses that seaba would actually suffer from the borough making the GPS data public.
2) the GPS data is an incredibly valuable management tool for wildlife managers studying the impacts of helicopter overflights. monitoring of wildlife impacts has historically been one of the primary goals of heliski management. the assembly packet includes seaba's letter stating that they (seaba) have no intention of making the GPS data available to fish and game. in exchange for the privilege of using such a vast area of public land, seaba's permit should require that they make the GPS data available to management agencies---or the borough should make it available. one or the other.
3) i think the argument that the borough is not technically taking possession of the GPS data is a weak one. will there be no recorded history of borough monitoring? at some point there's got to be some borough record keeping on this. otherwise the borough would have no documented basis for enforcement as required in the other sections of the ordinance. the "no possession" argument just doesn't compute in the context of the heliski ordinance.
The discussion of the disposition of the heliski gps data was opened this year because I perceived that a promise to do so had been made. That this was so seemed true since the ordinance to provide confidentiality for the gps data was drafted before I took office. I wanted to keep the promise. The promise was to propose and to facilitate the community analysis and decision.
ReplyDelete