Assembly approves maps for annexation petition

Map courtesy City and Borough of Juneau. Click to enlarge.

The City and Borough of Juneau is finalizing an annexation petition to be filed with the state’s Local Boundary Commission for lands that Petersburg wants to include in a proposed borough.

Last night, the CBJ Assembly approved several maps to be included in the petition. They show 92.6 percent of the contested area is in the Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s Juneau Game Management Unit; 93.7 percent is in the U.S. Forest Service’s Juneau Ranger District; and 71.4 percent in the Juneau Recording District.

The area was previously identified for annexation to Juneau. It includes all the territory from the southern CBJ boundary and east to the Canadian border; the Tracy Arm / Ford’s Terror Wilderness and Endicott Arm as well as Holkam, Windham and Hobart bays.

Before now, the CBJ hadn’t filed for the area in deference to Juneau Native Corporation Goldbelt, which owns 30-thousand acres at Hobart Bay. Goldbelt hasn’t expressed a preference for which borough it wants to be in, now that there will be competing claims for the land.

Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho says the Local Boundary Commission may still decide not to include it in either Petersburg or Juneau.

“But absent our intervention there will be only one petition asserting a claim over that land,” says Botelho.

October 26th is the deadline for submitting competing petitions and opposing briefs to the Local Boundary Commission. The assembly will introduce an ordinance to approve its petition at its regular meeting next Monday.

Sign up for The Signal

Top Alaska stories delivered to your inbox every week

Site notifications
Update notification options
Subscribe to notifications