Video Clips

Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.

Larry Terch “So this $110,000, um, that was just quoted, where did you come up with that figure and their qualifications, and what type of workload are you thinking of for that kind of salary? So that would be a 40-hour-a-week employee workload.”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Larry Terch “the mayor is a political position, and as you look at our code, when you get into the city manager position, it's much higher than the mayor's position.”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Santa Claus “our code permits us to have one and actually requires it under current code, um, that we ought to stick with that and explore that, especially at that salary level.”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Larry Terch “So I don't know if the Director of City Service position needs to remain as it has been in the past.”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Larry Terch “So what's the proposed salary on that? $120,000, I think, is what we had that at.”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Larry Terch “We had talked about hiring a chief of staff or someone in the mayor's office to assist the mayor in day-to-day work, grant writing, and also the transition period between mayors.”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Larry Terch “Uh, right now it's at about $110,000. And then the intent was, since we've never had that position before, to hire them as a non-PERS employee, saving us about 22.5% in PERS”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Larry Terch “The director of city services— that position wasn't, um, introduced or created until I think we got into Mayor Welch's time, where the intent for that director of city services position was to eventually become a city manager.”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Larry Terch “the council voted by resolution to hire a director of city services. Um, my intent was to not hire a director of city services, turn the public utility supervisor into a department head”

North Pole: Budget Work Session - Administrative and Clerk/HR Budget · Oct 27, 2026

Kat Sorensen “we'll bring an ordinance that changes to a seasonal sales tax that you'll also have to vote on and pass and drops the mill rate, which you'll also have to vote on and pass. So there's kind of three levers that are being pulled.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Doug Schoessler “even in our loans when we had to present the financials, our wastewater, they said you got to finish that rate study or we're not repaying all your grant that we gave you. So we are working to get that done. We can take those two projects when it's tied together and bring that back to you. And like I said, I'd love to have it by the end of the year, but we're kind of— there's some things that have really major data issues that we've needed to work through, and both finance and ourselves are working through that to get our consultant those— that information.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Doug Schoessler “we have a big rate study going for that. We're hoping to have it by the end of the year for water and sewer rates and how to get there and, and what that needs to be to happen. We haven't had a rate study since 1993. This came up, this came up 2020, 2021, maybe it's 2022.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Kat Sorensen “definitely something to be in mind— keep, keep in mind is once again that depreciation for 27-28 does have us exceeding our revenue. So we have to be mindful of and plan for that as we look towards that rate study in the future.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Casie Warner “I'm wondering if there's a different way to maybe look at that where we could potentially keep that 1 mil rate, um, inside city limits, but allow for some property exemptions around primary residences and those that are currently operating as short-term rentals, um, but are willing to make the move into a long-term housing and allow them a little bit of that property tax relief.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Casie Warner “there was a House bill that passed at the state legislation, uh, last legislation session, House Bill 13, that allows municipalities to have a little bit more control around the way that they, um, do property exemption.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Kat Sorensen “all 3 of those levers have to pull for this budget to pass.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Doug Schoessler “We were right to council to pass the rate study, and this is the same one we're working on. It got— that was right when, uh, I believe Jeanette just started that month, wasn't comfortable with it, and it never came back. And then COVID hit and everything is just kind of fallen back. But we have done some cost of living type of raises in the rates, but not a rate study to show where we should be.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Doug Schoessler “We're looking at all those bigger buildings— businesses should be metered and working off a water meter. And how does that rate work? And getting that dialed in so it matches up with what most communities would be doing on it. So hopefully we can really simplify the rates and get that rate study done so we can bring those both back in there, both water and wastewater.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Casie Warner “I think kind of where I'm getting hung up is with that 1 mil rate reduction, and I personally myself would like to see us keep the 1 mil rate and then look at how House Bill 13 could help support our year-round residents through that reduction if it's a primary home and/or supporting owners of short-term rentals that may want to become long-term rental units.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Lori Draper “it does deserve some looking at because if I'm not mistaken, what it also allowed us to do is to allow these tax reductions without having to go to a vote of the people because it used to be that the state only allowed you to do $75,000 homeowner exemption.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Doug Schoessler “It certainly helped to be able to keep the rates where we are right now, but as we're going through the rate study, I mean, these are all projects that would have had to come out of the rate pairs price, you know, when we do those rates. So it's been a good thing for the city.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Doug Schoessler “just kind of a simple thing that helps the year-round folks is just match the borough's example.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Kat Sorensen “And the mill rate is $500,000. The mill rate change is $500,000.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Kat Sorensen “But with the loans associated with it, it is a good deadline. It's like Doug said it. It came up in 2021, '22, kind of fell to the wayside, and we're excited to re-up that and bring that forward with you. But we haven't planned for any of that in this budget. This is a very status quo budget and may address that in the future for both of these enterprise funds.”

Seward: City Council Budget Work Session 10/27/2029 · Oct 27, 2026

Commissioner Brown (Wasilla Planning Commission)

“Is it within our reasonable power to ask for some direction update from the administration since there's been changes. And as of right now, there's no planner in the audience, and our job depends on having a planner and some directions for us to move forward because we cannot sufficiently serve and advise the public without certain things, which is missing right now.”

Wasilla: Planning Commission Regular - 27 Oct 2026 · Oct 27, 2026

Commissioner Brown (Wasilla Planning Commission)

“I'm concerned because I'm assuming now the planning clerk is signing off on permits and stuff, and I'm just worried about that coming back as not being legal, having a legal official sign those documents and approving those Permits and requests.”

Wasilla: Planning Commission Regular - 27 Oct 2026 · Oct 27, 2026

John Diumenti

“Taxiway November has the same pavement strength as the main runway, so you can taxi rather large aircraft down there. And the taxiway is capable, dimensionally capable, of holding something along the size of a 737”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

John Diumenti

“the survey they're doing right now, I think we're expecting to take another month.”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

Shannon Jardine

“I think we should go with, uh, Apron D. I think we should do T-hangers. I think that's what we really need at this airport is T-hangers.”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

John Diumenti

“this for this whole Phase 1, I'm expecting to probably last into next summer and then starting Phase 2 immediately thereafter.”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

John Diumenti

“Wasilla being one of them, they're, they're expanding. They want their runway to go to somewhere north of 5,000 feet. If you look at the geography around Wasilla, they have incredible IFR capability.”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

John Diumenti

“the valley, the aviation in the valley. Is going to grow here in the next 5 to 10 years. It's going to be fairly substantial.”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

John Diumenti

“It's basically going to be kind of a general, okay, we're converting Apron D to a leased lot. We want to see at least 10 aircraft per square foot in your, in your proposal kind of thing”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

John Diumenti

“My proposal right now would be that those, those turn over to T-Hangers. And the reason why that, that I say that is they are— I'm sorry, that Apron Charlie and Apron Delta go to the airport requires T-Hangers just because What we're doing is we're taking what is currently open space and currently what you would call dense aircraft storage.”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

John Diumenti

“we have kicked off and we are actively moving forward and going to be starting the public engagement here shortly. But, you know, again, before that happens, the The consultant needs to have their information together on what the airport looks like.”

Palmer: Sept. 24, 2026 - Airport Advisory Commission · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “The findings can be categorized into 4 recurring themes. So performance oversight— so the goals were not consistently verified and agreements and requirements were not enforced. Grant agreements and contract management, subrecipient selection agreements were not consistently managed, which is what I mentioned before about procurement. Reporting and public participation, there was one citation in which we did not meet the HUD definition and guidelines to participate in a public process.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “I would say no because we were looking for it, so I assume the answer No, we have not put the language in it as of yet.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “And really what those public hearings are, as you probably imagine, are to get the public's input on how we should spend these funds and which of those categories that still meet our consolidated plan that we need to focus on for that upcoming year. And then 95 of 101 individual monthly reports for subrecipient agreements reviewed.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “So those ones are not, and so those funds are still held in an account, and so we do still have to figure out what we are doing with those funds in order to move those to a category that we would need.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “We have now used a standardized documentation checklist for this, in which each of the planners or each of the managers as well as the program manager uses this to make sure that everything is in process before it finally gets executed so that there are no delays.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “we now standardized our solicitation selection records and agreement put into place agreement templates and pre-execution review. So now any disbursement of funds out of either CDBG, HOME, or ESG goes through Title VII, so a competitive process, whether that's an RFP, an RFP, an ITB, anything that is allowed in Title VII.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “staff have changed over, and HUD rules have changed continuously. And so understanding that, you know, we're not the best set all the time, and so I'm here to go over some of the findings and knowing that this was a learning opportunity for all of us.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

William Falsey “there were 4 subrecipients that were selected in 2021-23, uh, that audit couldn't verify how they were chosen or how selected, and some of them are still funded.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Darcie Montalvo “We have met with grantees. We found that it would be important to do resets. So we've met in person and reconveyed expectations, updated our agreements”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “4 Out of 8 reviewed files had missing or untimely documentation. One 2023 agreement file contained only 3 of the 9 required documents to make it compliant.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “the first of 4 required hearings for the 2024 Annual Action Plan was not noticed or conducted. It was an oversight by the team.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “documentation controls files did not consistently contain the documentation needed that could verify our compliance in which internal audit could review.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

Kimberly Rash “None of the funds or what was cited in the audit had to do with CDBG funds going to a non-eligible project. All of them were process-based within the team, that there was an overall lack of really adherence to any processes and documented policies that they were following internally.”

Anchorage Assembly: Municipal Audit Committee Meeting · Oct 27, 2026

← Newer Older →