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Alaska Municipality To Spend Almost Half A Million Dollars For RV Park’s Electrical Upgrade

Skagway (Alaska) will proceed with improvements to its RV park, a report said. The municipality has given the green light to spend as much as almost half a million dollars to upgrade the electrical infrastructure to accommodate RVs in the coming summer.

However, it is unclear regarding where seasonal workers and residents will be able to find affordable housing.

Garden City RV Park has been managed by the municipality of Skagway since 2013. In that time, seasonal employees utilized a portion of the park for accommodation during the summer tourism season. However, this year, the seasonal campers have been removed to allow for more overnight RV campsites.

Last week, the municipality ok’d cashing out as much as $450,000 to upgrade the electrical system in the park, without any long-term plans to plan its future or the future of currently displaced seasonal workers.

During last week’s borough assembly, Assemblyperson Orion Hanson stated that going forward with no long-term plan isn’t a good way to go.

“If we’re going to put electrical in and if then we decide that it’s going to be a permanent RV park, I think you have to dig all that back up and redo it then put water and sewer in. And that’s as somebody who runs an excavator and owns one. That’s definitely something you always want to plan forward, what you’re doing where it’s going, so you don’t do it twice, especially when it’s buried in the ground,” said Hanson.

However, Assemblyperson Dustin Stone argued that independent RV travelers will bring much-needed income to downtown businesses experiencing a third consecutive summer with the likelihood of a decrease in cruise ship traffic.

“If we choose to do nothing, it sounds like it’d just be another season of that RV park sitting empty. And if that happens, the things that get hurt are the business owners that are relying on independent travelers to help bolster an economy that’s already struggling. And it doesn’t look great on the town in my opinion, either, when you have independent travelers coming or asking about an RV park, and we’ve got a big empty one sitting in the middle of town,” said Stone.

Assemblymember Jay Burnham suggested the area north of town could be a great location to house seasonal residents while keeping Garden City RV Park in town to attract more individuals.

They agreed to meet as a committee to discuss the long-term plans for the RV park. However, no date has been determined.

Meanwhile, the city is planning to begin construction on the electrical upgrade project at the earliest time next spring.

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Hi, you might find this article from Modern Campground interesting: Alaska Municipality To Spend Almost Half A Million Dollars For RV Park’s Electrical Upgrade! This is the link: https://moderncampground.com/usa/alaska/alaska-municipality-to-spend-almost-half-a-million-dollars-for-rv-parks-electrical-upgrade/