Unalaska council ratifies a library internet contract three years late

The Unalaska Public Library ran its public internet service for three years on a contract the City Council never approved.

The council ratified it Tuesday, 5-0, with no recorded discussion. The five-year agreement with GCI Communication Corp. covers 25 Mbps of dedicated fiber at $108,876 a year, running from July 2023 through June 2028.

Federal and state grants cover nearly all of it, and leaving the contract unratified could have forced the city to repay past federal E-Rate money and put future awards at risk. The general fund has paid $8,779 across the three years, all of it in fiscal 2024.

City code required council review because the contract obligated money from future budget years. City Librarian Karen Kresh wrote that staff did not realize that. "In hindsight, this was a lapse on the part of staff," she wrote.

Staff found the omission themselves during a review this year. Earlier library internet contracts, signed by the school district under a joint consortium through 2022, never came before the council either.

The library chose GCI over OptimERA, which bid about $21,000 a year more.