 by KGB Mayor Jack Shay August 30, 2002
Dear Mr. Perkins, I am writing to you about a very serious matter which bears upon the safety of school children in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. I know that the Governor has made a point in his administration to place the safety and education of our children at the forefront of his priorities, and I believe if informed in these matters he will speedily rectify the situation. The Ketchikan Gateway Borough has received notification from the Department of Transportation that all winter maintenance on some twenty odd state roads in the Ketchikan area will cease effective July 1, 2002. The justification, as reflected in a letter from yourself to a local resident is an effort to save $35,000 due to budget cuts. About half of these roads are regular bus routes for our children. In fact, one of our elementary schools sits at the end of a road which has been listed as receiving no winter maintenance after July 1, 2002. It has also come to our attention that 4 AAC 27.010 restricts use of school bus routes unless the entire routes are on roads regularly maintained which is under the supervision and maintenance of the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, a public utility district, a municipality, a borough service area or other agencies supported by public funds. The local contractor who provides bus service to our district advises that the busses will not drive on these roads in snow or ice conditions. This means no busses to that school which is one and one-half miles from North Tongass Highway. The statutory and ordinance procedures for creation of a service area or adoption of road maintenance powers by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough make it physically impossible for the Borough to undertake road maintenance prior to 2003 at the earliest, even if the will to do it were present. Without existing road powers, an orderly transition from state to local maintenance, even if desired, would take one to two years in order to adopt the required powers or create the required service area and levy taxes to generate the revenues to provide this service. Your notification in July that service would not be provided in the fall simply created a problem which is not possible to solve through adoption and exercise of road powers following the statutory procedures. Due to the fact that several of the roads identified by the Department of Transportation for elimination of maintenance are on existing bus routes, the Borough will be exploring with the Department of Education as to whether, under the pupil transportation funding program, it can transfer funds to the Department of Transportation to maintain these roads. It seems incomprehensible that the state would force the closure of an elementary school due to the refusal to maintain those state roads which are the transportation routes to that school. At a recent public forum, designed to solicit suggestions for addressing the issue, one of the suggestions which drew the most applause was the urge to sue the state to force them to maintain their roads. While this is likely not an effective option and may not even be a viable option, if the petty bickering between the legislature and the governor regarding budget cuts results in a death or serious injury to students due to failure to maintain school bus routes, I am confident that the State would be among the named defendants. Where the issue is a mere $35,000, blaming injury or death of a child on the legislature will provide little defense or sympathy for the state for its decision to effectively close these roads in the Ketchikan area. I suggest that you direct your staff to work with the Ketchikan Gateway Borough to come up with a solution for this road maintenance which will allow children to get safely to school and is consistent with the statutory limitations on the Borough's authority to spend public monies.
Sincerely, KETCHIKAN GATEWAY BOROUGH Jack Shay
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