The City of Dillingham's petition to annex the Nushagak commercial fishing district has been re-filed with the Local Boundary Commission, starting what may be a yearlong review process. The city has been hoping to reinstate the 2.5 percent tax on raw fish since the annexation was overturned in a Dillingham superior court ruling last March.
Rather than appeal the ruling, the city used another means to file the annexation: It passed a vote of the city council, rather than a popular election like in 2012.
"The Local Boundary Commission notified us that they had accepted our petition as 'filed,'" said Dillingham Mayor Alice Ruby in an interview June 17. This formal notice, said Ruby, came after the city addressed some issues brought up by the commission in recent months.
Last fall, the city council delayed voting to advance the new petition for several months, with several council members advocating for time to study the feasibility of creating a new borough of western Bristol Bay communities. Ruby pushed the other way, saying the annexation and borough formation could move forward at the same time.
With the council's delays, Ruby says the city now might not resume collecting the fish tax for another two or three seasons.
"Our original objective was to try to get this submitted and accepted by the LBC in time to present this for the January 2016 legislative session," said Ruby.
Now, she says, it may not go to Juneau until the 2017 session.
The amount of revenue the city could collect from the fish tax depends on the size of the harvest and the seasonal price; modest estimates range from $250,000 to $500,000 annually.
Ruby, who has long supported the idea of collecting the fish tax, says the need for the tax to help fund current city services is felt more during these years of smaller state funding. She says the fish tax would likely go toward preserving existing services like harbor operations, police, public safety, landfill and schools.
"So the city was trying to be proactive and generate another source of income, so we wouldn't suffer quite so much every time there's a downturn at the state," Ruby said.
Those who oppose the annexation say Dillingham needs to find a way to share the tax with other Nushagak drainage communities, or focus on forming a borough.
With notice that the commission has accepted the petition, a public process and comment period has been opened through Oct. 1.
This story first appeared in The Bristol Bay Times/Dutch Harbor Fisherman and is republished here with permission.