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State re-opens comment period on annexation report

Dillingham and Manokotak’s competing annexation petitions have been delayed again to allow the public more time to comment on a preliminary report.

On Thursday, the state’s Local Boundary Commission announced that it was re-opening the comment period on the commission's preliminary report on the annexation petitions.

LBC staff supervisor Marty McGee said the LBC chair decided to re-open the comment period in response to a request from a few communities seeking more time to comment.

“We received a motion from Jim Baldwin on behalf of the clients he represents requesting additional time to file public comments, and the chair responded to that motion by extending the period.”

Interested parties now have until September 19 to comment.

The motion requesting the extension was from Ekuk, Clark’s Point and Portage Creek. They asked for extra time because of a comment letter from the state’s commissioner of commerce that took a different position on the petitions than the commission’s staff report.

The preliminary LBC report called for the state to form a borough, instead of sorting out the two cities’ requests to annex overlapping parts of the Nushagak Commercial Fishing District. Commissioner Chris Hladick's letter suggested amending and adopting the petitions from Dillingham and Manokotak, instead. But that was submitted toward the end of the July comment period, so the villages said they hadn’t been able to comment on the idea.

The extension gives them, and anyone else, the ability to do so. It also pushes back the rest of the timeline. A public hearing on the petitions was scheduled for September 20 and 21, but that has now been delayed to an uncertain date.

“We’re not sure at this point," McGee said. "It may set it back a month, but we need to work through the whole process, see what we get in as comments, then work with the commission to see when they’re available to have (the) meeting.”

The final LBC staff report is supposed to come out before that meeting, and is also now delayed. 

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