Seward's Folly: Binkley defends a status quo that is indefensible

On Friday March 3, I joined two other gubernatorial candidates to debate tourism issues in front of the annual Alaska Wilderness & Recreational Tourism Association Conference in historic Seward.

The forum included Democratic candidate Ethan Berkowitz and Republican candidate John Binkley. And for the first time since declaring his candidacy at Christmas, I finally heard Binkley articulate a public policy position on an issue that Alaskans currently face; a cruise ship head tax.

And not surprisingly, he opposed any state taxes on an industry that makes a billion dollars a year off Alaska and pays no state taxes. Instead he argued, critical marketing tourism programs should be paid for by oil revenues.

However, looking behind the scenes it's understandable why he would side with large multi-national corporations instead of Alaskans who through their local and state taxes pick up the cost of providing services to the cruise ship industry; his business continues to grow off of the cruise ship passenger boom.

Binkley, who operates a seasonal river boat and gold mining business in Fairbanks gets a considerable amount of his customers from arrangements with the cruise industry. Apparently he is keeping with the current Republican attitude in Alaska that there is no interest unless its self interest.

And what's ironic is that his comments came in a town that has shouldered a significant tax burden for the cruise ship industry. In Seward, where they play host to tens of thousands of cruise ship passengers a summer, the town collects no head taxes from the industry while having to cover roads, public safety and the cost of providing the local infrastructure.

In fact, every passenger exiting from the ships in Seward pays the railroad a head tax, but yet none of that revenue goes to the local community. Meanwhile, local taxpayers through their property taxes are paying the cost.

But the most amusing comments was his defense of the $28 million dollar cruise ship passenger depot at the Anchorage Airport. In fact, reconciling his comments to the audience on Friday with history, is a great lesson on how some politicians tend to lose memory when they run for office.

In the spring of 2001 while I was in the legislature I had my first conversation with John Binkley. He came to my office to address my concerns as a vocal critic of the railroad spending $28 million dollars of taxpayer money to construct a facility that was going to serve a limited use (cruise ship passengers) and be closed for 8 months a year.

During that conversation, Binkley who was the Railroad's Chairman of the Board and supported the rail depot, told me that the reason they went ahead with the project was that they didn't want to embarass Senator Ted Stevens by giving back the money. Even though the railroads own feasibility study raised questions about the project.

However on Friday, the rail depot turned from a "must do" to a "must have". 

In his comments on Friday, Binkley defended the depot as a vision for the future. We built this so we could encourage commuter transportation and not have the roads clogged up with rental cars, eliminate the need for $56 million dollar parking garages (referring to the new Anchorage Airport car rental facility under construction) and to eliminate the need for expanding the Glenn Highway to four lanes.

Now lets stop here.

First, when the railroad board gave the rail depot the green light there was no car rental garage planned yet. Even so, would you rather have a $56 million private structure that generates millions in revenue or a $28 federally subsidized rail depot that's closed eight months a year?

Second, those rental cars clogging all the highways (unlike the tour buses from cruiseships) actually pay local and state taxes that reduce tax burdens of Alaskans. In Anchorage alone, the industry contributes almost $10 million dollars a year. Not to mention another $5 million dollars a year to the Anchorage Airport in concessionare and lease fees that help keep the airport open.

Third, I'm sure the 40,000 Alaskans a day that commute from the Mat-Su would love to know that John Binkley's vision for improved transportation in the region is based on them giving up there vehicles for a train ride.

Ironically, the railroads own economic feasibility study panned the idea of commuter rail to the airport due to a lack of railroad infrastructure, a sparse population base and the reality of infrequent trips.

But then again, anybody who would have taken the time to read the airport rail depot's feasibility study would have known that. But this was never an issue of what was best for taxpayers, this was about self interest.

In December 1998, a month after being elected to the State House I was invited to lunch with former Governor Sheffield who was head of the railroad at the time. I brought up the subject of the proposed rail depot. At the time, the railroad was still in the process of having a local firm conduct the feasibility study.

I told the governor I thought the project had a limited appeal and was a bad use of taxpayer money. However, it was very clear from his response that regardless of what the projected economics concluded, his was going to spend $28 million on the depot.

In December 2002, Sheffield and others sipped champagne as they celebrated the grand opening of the Bill Sheffield Airport Railroad Depot complete with a bronze bust of the former governor.

Today the rail depot is open on a regular basis only for cruise ship passengers from mid-May to September who pay nothing for the facility. The total yearly passengers are less than 50% of what their feasibility study projected they'd be by this date.

At least the next generation of taxpayers won't have to look down the tracks very far to see why they're inheriting an $8 trillion national debt. 

All aboard.