TRUCK FIRE – Firefighters knock down a fire in a Ford Explorer truck in Arrowhead Trailer Park in the 1200 block of Sawmill Creek Road Saturday evening. One person received fire-related injuries and was taken to the hospital, Sitka Fire Department Chief Craig Warren said, and the truck was considered a total loss. The cause of the fire is under investigation, Warren said. The fire hall received the call about the fire at 5:33 p.m., and one fire engine with eight firefighters and an ambulance were dispatched, he said. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

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Dock Condemned, Assembly to Hear Appeal

By Sentinel Staff
    The Assembly will hold a special meeting Monday to consider an appeal by the Gary Paxton Industrial Park board of directors to reverse the city building inspector’s notice of condemnation of the old pulp mill utility dock at the industrial park.
    The building official’s notice of condemnation was issued on Jan. 21 this year, four days prior to the date the GPIP board was to open bids on its request for proposals to purchase the dock.
    On Jan. 29 the GPIP board voted to approve the single offer received, from Lee Hanson of Hanson Maritime Co. At the same meeting, the board also voted to appeal the notice of condemnation.
    The park’s request for proposals had stated that the dock would be sold “as is/where is, with all faults and defects.” In his Feb. 18 letter to the city appealing the condemnation, GPIP board president Scott Wagner said the board was “working to create jobs and income to the City of Sitka. We believe the condemnation order is extreme and is slowing the process of creating a marine center at the park.” He complained that “only when an individual shows interest to purchase the dock does it receive a condemnation notice.”
    Referring to the sale of the pulp dock and warehouse to Silver Bay Seafoods in 2008, he said the industrial park board “is asking that the condemnation notice be removed, and that the utility dock be sold with restrictions, similar to the Silver Bay situation.”

The condemned deep-water dock at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

    The pile-supported utility dock, which is located next to the newly installed multi-purpose floating dock, was built in 1958, and its deteriorated state has been documented in a number of condition studies since the city took ownership of the Alaska Pulp Corp. mill site in 1999.
    In his report to the Assembly on the condemnation appeal city attorney Brian Hanson (no relation to Lee Hanson) recommended that the building official’s condemnation order be upheld.
    He cited the building official’s findings and previous engineering reports, concluding “this structure has been de facto condemned due to concerns regarding safety and possible collapse as indicated in the assessment by Reid Middleton, Inc.,  in 1999 and verified in the assessment performed by PND, Inc., in 2000.”
    He said the “pertinent course of action” by the city is to “properly post the property as unsafe and to be vacated until such time as it can be proved to be safe for use.”
    In an earlier section of his report he noted that the purchase proposal by Hanson Marine “repeatedly indicates planned immediate use of the wharf, including placement of a mobile latice crane and construction of a welding shop.”
    Lee Hanson explained in his purchase proposal that he is not offering cash for the dock and 33,640 square feet acres of associated tidelands valued at $67,280.
    The rationale, he said, was that he would be relieving the city of a dock with a negative value of over $90,000, a figure based on another company’s bid to demolish the dock. That company was allowed to withdraw its offer when it determined that it had  underbid the project.
    The tidelands also have a negative value, Lee Hanson said in his letter to the GPIP board, because in order to use them “you would have to first demolish the dock at a price that exceeds the market value of the tidelands.”
    In 2002 the engineering firm PND made a waterfront development plan for the industrial park, estimating the cost of “construction repairs” to the utility dock at $1.7 million.
    While the GPIP board manages the industrial park, any sale of property at the park requires Assembly approval.
The condemnation appeal is the only item on the agenda of the special meeting, which will be held at 6 p.m. Monday at Centennial Hall.


   


   

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20 YEARS AGO

March 2004

Businesses using the Centennial Hall parking lot testified Tuesday against a proposal to charge them rent in addition to the $200 annual permit fee. City Administrator Hugh Bevan made the proposal in response to the Assembly’s direction to Centennial Hall manager Don Kluting to try to close the $340,000 gap between building revenues and operational costs.


50 YEARS AGO

March 1974

Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand President William S. Paul Sr. will be special guest and speaker at the local ANB, Alaska Native Sisterhood Founders Day program Monday at the ANB Hall.

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