Video Clips
Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.
Jared Griffin
“The pace of outmigration appears to be slowing, but over the past 5 years, our borough saw nearly 1,000 residents leave. And it was a net loss of about 650 residents when you consider births and, you know, people moving in.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“that long-awaited strategic planning process, which hopefully will get started pretty soon.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“Even more significant is, I think, is we continue to see fewer young children entering the population. In April of 2020, we had 970 residents aged 5 to 9. That number last year was 800. 802, Um, actually.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“They're not destiny, right? They're signals. But I think if we pay attention to them, we'll be better positioned when we go through strategic planning.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Amy Williams
“I do have copies of the— because I thought this might come up, of my reply to the contractor, if you want to see that. I can distribute that now or later or whenever, but that's been issued and the protest was denied.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“I think a conflict exists when someone has the ability to improperly influence influence the outcome. And I don't think that appearance alone is not enough evidence to show that an influence has occurred. And we have to ask, you know, which decision in the procurement process was improperly influenced? And we can't point. There is nothing there.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“the state released new demographic estimates yesterday. So I took a look at them, and there's a really— there's some really interesting things in there that I think will help guide what we do.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jeremiah Gardner
“I deeply appreciate what Mr. Mayor and Mr. Whiteside said about the cleaning contract. You made me immediately think that I do really trust the staff here. And no, the optics aren't perfect, but you were exactly right. I'm glad you were able to change my vote. I do think we need to take a look back at that code and clean that up just a little bit to avoid the presence of poor optics, because it's still poor optics.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jeremiah Gardner
“we have in our code Chapter 2.35010, Section E, it says municipal officer, appointed official, or employee may not use his official position for the primary purpose of obtaining financial gain for himself or his spouse, child, mother, father, or business. Um, not that it is, uh, the primary financial gain in this situation, but the optics of this look a little bad to certain people in the community. I think it would be wise to extend the current contract for one month and talk about how we want to approach this situation and basically put this back out to bid so that we can clean up the optics on it. So I will be voting no on this one.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Cody Allen
“the other bidder that is filing the formal complaint/informal protest was deemed non-responsive. Per our bid documents, we have all the outline requirements to make a bid responsive or non-responsive. Per code, it's really the assembly's decision if they're a responsible bidder, but so we went through— and our checklist there that's in the bid documents, and they didn't provide a bid bond for bid security. And so that automatically deemed them non-responsive, and we let them know as such.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Cody Allen
“although it's ambiguous on if an aggrieved bidder is allowed or not allowed to protest per borough code, we decided to allow that anyways, and so we actually extended the protest period to give them time and provide a formal protest to the manager for review”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Amy Williams
“as soon as we identified that there was going to be a potential conflict at that pre-bid meeting, every step that could be taken to separate the two was already done. But given the staff member's job here, in their normal course of work, they would have nothing to do with anything on the creation of or tabulation of or opening of or just— that's just not their job here. She does work here, but that's the end of the, the correlation.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“The pace of outmigration appears to be slowing, but over the past 5 years, our borough saw nearly 1,000 residents leave. And it was a net loss of about 650 residents when you consider births and, you know, people moving in.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“A conflict exists when someone has the ability to improperly influence the outcome. And I don't— I don't think that appearance alone is not enough evidence to show that an influence has occurred., and we have to ask, you know, which decision in the procurement process was improperly influenced? And we can't point— there is nothing there. So if we can't identify one, then we're objecting to who won and not how the contract was awarded. So I would strongly urge you to pass this contract.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“the public's confidence doesn't come from us avoiding difficult appearances. It comes from knowing that we apply the same rules to everyone.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Amy Williams
“we also talked about looking at possible code changes to make that section more clear in the conflict of interest section at agenda setting this week. So I think we've done some work around making sure that those optics aren't something that we have to worry about in the future. I do have copies of the— because I thought this might come up— of my reply to the contractor if you want to see that. I can distribute that now or later or whenever, but that's been issued and the protest was denied.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Amy Williams
“As we do when we get any kind of a protest, it goes to the manager, and the manager has a certain amount of time to answer it. We answered it right away, sent that reply back to the other bidder. They have it, and I got an email back that said thank you, and that's the only thing that we've heard. I have shared that response with both your Deputy Prime presiding officer and the mayor, just so they were included on what was going on.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Amy Williams
“we did— we got a letter from the other contractor. They named bid protest/formal complaint.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jeremiah Gardner
“It was brought to my attention that I believe there was sort of an informal protest letter written on this.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“the state released new demographic estimates yesterday. So I took a look at them, and there's a really— there's some really interesting things in there that I think will help guide what we do.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Cody Allen
“the contract actually already expired June 30th, and so I'm not really sure how that process would work, potentially extending and things. So that contract is completely expired at this time.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Bo Whiteside
“procurement processes, when following best practices, which I am confident that Director Allen and his staff did, along with the Meta Manager, they are very rigid and prescribed in process. And certainly, in respect to anyone highlighting a potential conflict of interest, there is very prescriptive ways that you capture the process.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“In April 2020, we had roughly 700 residents in their 70s. Now we have 900. That's a huge jump in just 5 years. The median age in Kodiak went from 35 to 36 in that period. That's a whole— that's a really significant shift in just a 5-year”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Jared Griffin
“Even more significant is, I think, is we continue to see fewer young children entering the population. In April of 2020, we had 970 residents aged 5 to 9. That number last year was 800. 802, Um, actually. We have a rapidly aging community.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 2, 2026 · Jul 2, 2026
Scott Smiley
“I'm not sure that we can have a rule that says if you're a Kodiak resident, you don't have to pay a tax, but if you're not a Kodiak resident, you do have to pay it. I think it came up with regard to fishing licenses for state residents and non-state residents. And there was originally— it was a huge amount of money for out-of-state, and the state Supreme Court said no, it has to be balanced in some way.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Bo Whiteside
“I think the biggest hurdle for this would be the burden of enforcement. I mean, you have— I don't know how the state would— respond to, I guess, a cooperative approach to this and, and sharing records with us. But I do agree that there's a very high amount of transporters coming from the mainland down here to extract fish and game resources, a very, very high amount.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Dave Johnson
“It's kind of appalling that Sourcewell wasn't being used before.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Dave Johnson
“The bidding's already been done. We've already approved it, right? I would like the assembly to reconsider a budgetary— a budget-approved item through a negotiated procurement contract has already met all the requirements of that purchase. Just seems like unnecessary bureaucracy to me.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Dave Johnson
“all it does is save staff time from going through the bidding process because the agency has already done the bidding for you. That's why we get to realize those sales. Something I think, for me at least, it would be a no-brainer.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Charles Glagolich
“fundamentally We're behind the curve in our community in many regards if in fact that fish box fee, I hate to say tax, is not imposed.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Charles Glagolich
“There's already two communities in Alaska, Sitka I'm more familiar with than any of them, which have imposed a fish box tax for all good reasons.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Bo Whiteside
“there's the amount of time, as Director Allen said, that they can be dedicating to much more important things than going through, through the procurement process for 7 hours to purchase a weed whacker or a truck. They can be spending on much more important items. But there's also a fiscal note attached to that. How many people, you know, 7 hours of staff time, how much did that cost us in salaries and benefits just for that procurement item for a weed whacker? Probably more than the weed whacker cost itself, I can assure you that.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jeff Woods
“This seems like a total no-brainer to me. It's efficient. It's kind of scary that we're actually looking at efficiency to me a little bit. But yeah, this will be getting my support.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Bo Whiteside
“I support this as well. I mean, there's, there's the fiscal savings which are obvious, but factoring in the administrative burden, it's— there's two parts to that.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jared Griffin
“it sounds like there's consensus to move forward with it.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jeff Woods
“Sitka currently has a fish box tax where they levy $10 a box for seafood leaving the Sitka Borough. We have a much larger natural resource extraction footprint than Sitka does, I would wager to say.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jeff Woods
“I understand lodges are concerned and charter boat operators are concerned about a $10 box tax.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jeff Woods
“I don't like a system where we take, take, take without a dedicated way to repair, replace, or replenish.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jeremiah Gardner
“My big concern here— excuse me— is for locals. I think language should be in here where if you are a resident of Kodiak, that I don't think that this should apply to you to some degree. There's, there's got to be a concession in there.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Charles Glagolich
“It's happening in Sitka and Gustavus. I've never been there. I can't even pronounce it. They have realized that that's the direction to take, and you get pointed for our local community in the right direction.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Valerie Erson
“They have concerns about the impact of a fish box excise tax on their businesses. We are also concerned with the idea that an excise tax is being discussed with the specific goal of bypassing a public vote. While we can appreciate that the Kodiak Island Borough needs to identify funding to support its activities, there should be an opportunity for the public and small businesses that would be impacted to have input into discussions on tax matters, review any proposals, and ultimately vote, as this could impact many families.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jared Griffin
“this and the next item that we are going to be looking at is about kind of like diversifying, not necessarily expanding, but, right, but diversifying our financial foundation, you know.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jeff Woods
“Fish and Game information indicates that roughly 74% of the deer harvested in the Kodiak Island Borough are harvested by people who do not live in the Kodiak Island Borough. That makes— there's about 8,000 blacktail harvested a year in the Kodiak Island— in the borough, or Unit 8, let's just call it Unit 8. So assuming that I've never once seen somebody put their antlers in the same box that they put their meat in, because that would be weird, uh, you're looking at a substantial potential revenue stream there. That's not touching fisheries at all.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Bo Whiteside
“if the administrative burden and the burden of enforcement can be addressed, including exempting our local residents from harvesting some fish and game for their freezers, then, then I'd support it going to the ballot.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Jeff Woods
“if you were trying to, say, ship something out, you had to have a hunting/fishing license to go ahead and obtain whatever resource most likely that you're trying to extract. Theoretically, one could use the resident's address put on said hunting or fishing license to determine whether or not that would potentially fit as a resident of Unit 8 or not. There's that, assuming such a step would be legal. Uh, second off, if you're trying to collect such a tax, uh, the most obvious points of collection would either be through the shipping companies or through the airport, primarily.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1 · Jun 25, 2026
Nova Javier
“If you're not ready, we can call a special meeting the following week. But by code, we need to make the appointment 30 days after you declare the seat vacant.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Meeting of June 25, 2026 · Jun 25, 2026
Nova Javier
“On June 4th, 2026, Assemblymember Johnson submitted his resignation letter from the assembly effective today. There are still more than 90 days remaining in the term since the position he holds will not end until October 2027.”Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Meeting of June 25, 2026 · Jun 25, 2026