AS 29.03.020 states "Allowing for maximum local participation, the legislature may establish, alter, or abolish service areas within the unorganized borough to provide special services, that may include but are not limited to schools, utilities, land use regulations, and fire protection. A new service area may not be established if the new service can be provided by an existing service area, by incorporation as a city, or by annexation to a city"

The means to provide this service already exists in statute. What's at stake amounts to local or state control, so maybe it should be considered a "power grab". Some territorial-era special districts became so powerful prior to statehood, problems arose in folding them into the borough and city framework established under the constitution and henceforth under the state's umbrella. The Haines Borough incorporated as a third-class borough in order to eliminate the independent school district which wouldn't go away on its own.