Video Clips
Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.
Clips from Kodiak Island BoroughClear
0:46
Jared Griffin“We are planning a DC trip, a DC lobbying trip. At first, I think at the beginning of the year, I was saying that I didn't want to do that, but now that there's like $150 billion at stake, that we might be able to, plus, you know, plus the billions in the defense communities program. I'm not going on one trip and I'm going to add in a DC lobbying trip because I think they're thinking about us and they need to keep thinking about us.. And so I think that's going to keep opening doors for us. So we're planning that trip with the city now for mid-September, mid to late, something like that.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:16
Aimee Williams“defense communities have such a big footprint that aren't paying taxes into the local government, but those folks are still using our local infrastructure. That money is meant to offset the use of local infrastructure. So it should be a great thing for the community.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:33
Janiese Stevens“Whoever drafted this ordinance lacks the basic knowledge of marijuana and its components to efficiently implement it. CBD has marijuana in it, though a small percentage. Where is the cutoff percentage and what is and isn't taxed? It is clear this is misinformed attempt to tax an already overtaxed and overregulated industry”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:37
Aimee Williams“I attended a meeting with the Undersecretary of Energy. Um, he was here to discuss obstacles and opportunities that Kodiak is going to face, uh, with military expansion on several different projects here. Um, got to hear some really out-of-the-box thinking on how to provide energy, um, and how KEA was already working on meeting the upcoming needs. While I was at that meeting, I got the contact information of the person that's organizing the defense forum in Fairbanks that I'll be attending right before the summer AML conference in August. The organizer is also someone who helps people with their applications for the Defense Community Infrastructure Program.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:26
Jared Griffin“Ms. Roberts, would you— if you have that statute, would you want to amend that line to maybe just insert that statute as a parenthetical? I think that is a good idea to specify”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:02
Jared Griffin“Yeah, big pot. It's a big pot.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:54
Jared Griffin“I also talked with, yeah, Brittany, too, on that trip about defense communities, and there really seems to be some good positive momentum. It's obviously not going to fix all of our infrastructure that came up during the interviews earlier, but it's certainly going to help. And so, I'm glad that we are like at the tip of the wave, you know, making sure that we're on everybody's mind.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:24
Jared Griffin“Ordinance number FY 2027-05, levying an area-wide marijuana excise tax, establishing the Community Wellbeing Fund, and providing for voter approval of the tax.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:44
Janiese Stevens“there are only 2 of us who have a marijuana business in this community. So when you pull those records and you publish them, you're, you're publishing 2 people's income figures”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:29
Aimee Williams“So I already have an appointment set up with her so she can help us gain any knowledge to get us closer to that program.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:17
Janiese Stevens“I am the owner of Wildflower on Near Island and Smoky Hollow in Bell's Flats. I'm also a certified public accountant. I'm here today to voice my strong opposition to the drafted ordinance implementing a borough-wide marijuana tax on Kodiak.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Regular Meeting of July 16, 2026 Part 1 ·
0:36
Rich Gonzalez“Mark's appointment to the Kodiak City Council in 2012 taught him important lessons about public service, listening to residents, working collaboratively, and making the difficult decisions. That experience, combined with the leadership roles he has held, has prepared him well to serve on the Borough Assembly.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:38
Jared Griffin“we do have the option of going into executive session. The Assembly, we are allowed to go into executive session to evaluate the candidates. The subject does qualify for an executive session as it is a topic of which tends to prejudice a person's reputation of character.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:35
Janiese Stevens“I am continually perplexed by our local government's proclivity to choose marijuana as a sin of choice when brainstorming ways to raise revenue, when there are other vices on the island outselling marijuana tenfold. If your goal is to raise revenue for some community fund why not pick the poison with the highest revenue and the highest cost to our community? And it is not marijuana. Both alcohol and tobacco outsell marijuana and have a much higher price tag, draining our island's public safety and health resources.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:32
Janiese Stevens“I am a small business. I employ a lot of people in this community and in the state of Alaska. And things like this— and I contribute to scholarship foundations, nonprofits. And the more I'm regulated and taxed, the less I can do for our community in those ways.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:31
Janiese Stevens“the state of Alaska already has the highest marijuana tax in the nation. I pay my fair share. By continuing to overtax, you are rewarding non-regulated markets. We are already competing with manufactured psychoactive substances which can be sold to anyone anywhere, and non-regulated dealers who again sell to anyone anywhere, compromising public safety with the risk of cross-contaminated substances.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:34
Janiese Stevens“Whoever drafted this ordinance lacks the basic knowledge of marijuana and its components to efficiently implement it. CBD has marijuana in it,— though a small percentage. Where is the cutoff percentage and what is and isn't taxed? It is clear this is misinformed attempt to tax an already overtaxed and overregulated industry, and I strongly discourage anyone for voting in favor of it.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:38
Janiese Stevens“there are only two of us who have a marijuana business in this community, so when you pull those records and you publish them, you're publishing two people's income figures, which I do believe is a little exposing for my local government to do just because I sell marijuana.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:27
Jared Griffin“the Borough Clerk's Office advertised the vacancy per Borough Code on June 26th and July 3rd. The application acceptance period was from June 27th to July 11th. The following applications were received by Mark Anthony Viscoccio, Sean Brecky, Caleb Callahan, and Alexander Sweeney.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:26
Jared Griffin“Ms. Roberts, would you— if you have that statute, would you want to amend that line to maybe just insert that statute as a parenthetical? I think that is a good idea to specify, especially since that was brought up in citizens' comments.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:26
Rich Gonzalez“I'm here to offer my wholehearted support for the appointment of Mark Vizcocho to the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly. I've had the privilege of working alongside Mark in several capacities, and when Mark commits to something, he gives it everything he has.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:24
Jared Griffin“Ordinance number FY 2027-05, levying an area-wide marijuana excise tax, establishing the Community Well-Being Fund, and providing for voter approval of the tax.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Special Work Session of July 16, 2026 ·
0:31
Chris French“this particular code requirement, there's a state requirement for a 50-foot buffer from a natural stream. And also the borough has it, but only in the conservation district that I know of. So with that, with the applicant going back to the C District, it brings that— at least at the borough level, it brings that requirement in place for any development that takes place.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:39
Chris French“feel free if you would like, if any individual Commissioner has a question on anything in this chapter, please feel free to email me and I can bring your question up to the Commission at the next work session too.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:24
Chris French“the applicant is proposing a subdivision to consolidate 9 existing vacant lots into 3 lots. Those 3 lots would meet the 5-acre minimum. Actually, they're larger than that 5-acre minimum that's required by the Conservation District.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:12
Chris French“we just wanted to have the first chapter come to the Commission, and then once the Commission is done reviewing each chapter, we will be taking those on to the Assembly for one of their work sessions to review those.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:21
Chris French“The C District has a minimum lot size of 5 acres. Therefore, the related subdivisions are needed to consolidate lots to meet that minimum requirement. Staff does recommend that the Commission forward a recommendation of approval to the Borough Assembly.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:34
Chris French“for the Assembly ordinance, staff will draft that the rezoning will take effect upon submittal of all 4 final plats. So with that particular statement, it's very similar to what we've done for the subdivisions that were related to rezones in Uzinkee and Old Harbor, that the subdivisions have to have their final plat submitted before the rezoning takes effect. And that's pretty common for this type of situation where we have subdivisions and rezonings happening at the same time.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:42
Chris French“they're going from the RR2 back to conservation. In the actual conservation district zoning requirements, there is a requirement for the 50-foot buffer if there is an anadromous stream on your property. So there is no need to put anything into a plat note or anything because the actual zone of conservation already has a requirement that needs to be met at time of zoning compliance permit. In the RR-2, there isn't such a requirement.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
1:00
Michael Martin
“by going to this larger model, we're one, reducing the footprint of potential homes, increasing those environmental protections, and getting back to that sort of model that Kodiak was known for that makes it such a special place. So concerning the stream and your— and the concern of salmon, we also think that it's a beautiful natural feature of Kodiak and we want to preserve it.”Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:37
Chris French“we do have a chapter on environment in the Comprehensive Plan. So a lot of, Commissioner Delgado, that you are talking about from an environmental standpoint is discussed in that chapter, but also in the arts, culture and history chapter as well. But we are looking at those factors with regards to development because as a Comprehensive Plan, that focus is always on how it relates to development and especially development into the future. If your Comprehensive Plan usually is a horizon of 15 or 20 years, and so we are looking to how development would take place in the future.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:34
Chris French“the subdivision request to consolidate is related to the rezone request to go to the Conservation District, which has a minimum lot size of 5 acres, and therefore, the consolidation is needed to meet that minimum lot size.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:28
Chris French“The applicant has proposed a rezone of 6 lots that are created through subdivision requests S-27-1, 2, 3, and 4, which we just discussed, that consolidates 21 lots into 6 lots. The applicant proposes that the 6 lots be rezoned from the RR-2 Rural Residential 2 District to the C Conservation District.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:48
Michael Martin
“to my knowledge, every couple of years, there is a small pink salmon run. As you've noted, there are two properties that are currently purchased alongside it. On one hand, I believe this has come up because the larger tract— we refer to it as Phase 3, it's the large section across that creek on the Coast Guard side— is one of the sections that we are wanting to rezone to conservation, which, as you noted, actually increases the protections for such areas.”Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:16
Michael Martin
“my name is Michael Martin Jr. I'm the manager of Oceanfront Kodiak, the Cliff Point Estates development. And the stream that you are referring to is Cliff Point Creek, I believe, or Cliff Point Stream.”Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
1:13
Chris French“It's really, you know, what is a comprehensive plan, how is it organized, how is it used, what are goals, objectives, and policies, how they're used, how this plan relates to any other plan that we have at the borough, what the community engagement process has been, what's the public review process. There's a review of Kodiak Island Borough and its communities, which deals with everything from history to demographics and everything else.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:56
Michael Martin
“The one thing that I have brought to the development since I entered into the picture back around 2019-2020 and took over as the developer and manager overseeing the development is to go back to more of that traditional Kodiak model. I did not like the original 2-acre design that was originally envisioned by the previous project developer. And so fortunately, things have, you know, moved in a way that it makes more sense for us to try to go back to that more traditional style lot layout and zoning.”Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:34
Chris French“This is a long chapter, but it's long because, you know, the chapters regarding, you know, history and regarding the terrain of the borough and things like that. It is a pretty long chapter. Also, the Census Data chapter is full of tables and things that add length to the chapter.”
Kodiak Borough: Planning and Zoning Commission of July 8, 2026 ·
0:30
Aimee Williams“I already mentioned we have $170,000 budgeted between the two line items, plus $100,000 budgeted for college and libraries, uh, which puts us at $270,000. But we have, uh, $68,169 in the opioid fund balance. There are four applications that are going just for that money.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:08
Jared Griffin“Up next is to discuss code change to reduce allowable assembly absences.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:33
Scott Smiley“in the past, we have used $25,000 for the health and safety ones, and for the educational ones, $5,000. That's not supported by the amount of money we have. And it's tough to find more money.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:32
Jared Griffin“I would suggest someone to amend maybe line 42, because we don't want to consider pregnancy as an illness or injury. It seems like a pretty contained set right there, but maybe just a little bit of wordsmithing to get what you're trying to get at, Mr. Whiteside.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:29
Aimee Williams“I think that would be a good look at the use of those tourism funds and clearly supports tourism and that is what the fund is for. So that would be a great use.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:47
Scott Smiley“If we limit the amount of money on one of these sheets, the big guys get $15,000 and the small guys get $3,500, that adds up to $181,000, which is $11,000 $100,000 more than we have, but $11,000 should be close to doable. The other one is more advanced than the two amounts are, $20,000 and $4,000. That adds up to $224,000, which is $54,000 more than we've budgeted.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:29
Jared Griffin“there are kind of— just to kind of guide our discussion, there are 3 things here. One is the, the reasons, the allowable excused reasons. Number two is the, um, the process of, um, qualifying for an excused absence. And then the third thing is the, uh, revising the allowable number of absences from 50% to 25%.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:42
Aimee Williams“Casey, she also has an opioid ask in for a larger amount, so it might be more appropriate to fund them through there if you don't want to do this one. And then also, we'll talk about it when we get to contracts and packet review, but a large part of what we pay for animal control actually goes to the Humane Society, like to the tune of like almost $75,000. And so if we're looking for low-hanging fruit, giving them another 4 might be, you know, $79,000 instead of $75,000. That might be an easy one to take off the list as well.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:17
Aimee Williams“Canna is our local sponsor of the Women, Infants, and Children in the Infant Learning Program, they're not the funding source. And because it was going to get dropped if no one picked it up, Canna picked it up. And so they are not the funders. Those are state programs that they're just administering.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·
0:38
Scott Smiley“I think it's important to have two categories of funding. I think if we divide them in that way, it's fine. I think it's crazy to try to nickel and dime things on each of the— on each of the applications because we just don't know enough. One other thing that I've done with these two sheets is for applicants that are new to our system and are asking for the big amount of money, we don't have a history of how you deal with finances. So I think the temperate thing to do is to limit them to the lower amount of money.”
Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of July 9, 2026 ·