Ketchikan awards $2.74M city hall HVAC contract, taps reserves

As Ketchikan residents get their power shut off and pack up to leave a town they can no longer afford, the City Council voted Thursday to spend $2.74 million replacing the heating and cooling system at city hall.

The 4-3 vote laid bare a divide over priorities. Council Member Riley Gass, who opposed the contract with Dawson Construction, said the spending was hard to justify while the cost of living drives people out. "I personally know people who have gotten their power shut off. Our people are leaving. They can't afford to live here," Gass said. "Every rate going up, up, up… and this is an enormous amount of money."

The presiding officer countered that the work is overdue maintenance that touches neither taxes nor utility rates. "The monies that we have are for building maintenance and managing our deteriorating infrastructure," he said, warning that delaying would only cost the city twice as much later.

The building case is concrete. A facilities representative told the council the HVAC units are more than 20 years old, fail current ventilation code, and run on R-22 refrigerant that is no longer manufactured.

Paying for it meant scraping money from across the city. The plan draws $365,000 from public works sales tax reserves and defers other capital work — pulling $299,000 from street projects and smaller sums from engineering, the cemetery, police, and fire. With a $257,000 contingency, the total authorized cost reaches $3 million.

The council first shielded one project from the raid, amending the transfer to restore $365,000 for repair and demolition of the Martin Street staircase — a job Council Member Abby Bradbury noted the council had ordered last year after residents raised safety concerns. Members then voted to fill the resulting gap from reserves rather than defer still more work.

Voting yes were Gage, Zingy, Dick Coose, and Jack Finnegan. Voting no were Gass, Jay Matani, and Abby Bradbury.