North Pole: Regular Council Meeting October 19, 2026

Okay, thank you, Mr. Clerk. Welcome to our regular council meeting of the North Pole City Council today, October 19th, 2026.

Thank you for joining us. Mr. Clerk, would you please call the roll? Mr.

Brandt is not here at the moment. Miss Rolfe? Here. Mr. Skips? Here.

Mr. Williams? Here. Mr. Schuster? Here. Mr. Claus?

Here. Mayor Church? Here. You have quorum. Thank you.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and invocation.

Flag of the United States of America And Republic for one nation, indivisible, with liberty.

Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together this evening. Help us make the best decisions for our city, for our community, and for its residents. In your most holy name we pray. Amen.

Mr. Clerk, do we have a spotlight on new business this evening? We do not. Okay, that brings us to item 5, citizens' comments for items on the agenda. Sir, would you mind reading the disclosure, please?

Yes, sir.

Uh, any person wishing to speak on an item not on the agenda needs to sign up on the list located on the public testimony table. Respectful standards of decorum and courtesy should be observed by all speakers. Remarks should be directed to the council as a body rather than one member of the council or staff. Comments are limited to 5 minutes. Thank you, Mr.

Clerk. Appreciate that. Is there anyone signed up online for comments on items that are not on the agenda? Uh, we had nobody signed up online, but I know there are some folks here present. Anyone in the room for items not on the agenda, just step forth.

Make sure that you sign in on the sign-up sheet. You'll have 5 minutes. If you'll state your name, spell your last name, please have a seat if you'd like. Just make sure that when you're talking, the red light comes on. You'll have 5 minutes once you state your name.

Are you signed in on the sheet, sir? Okay, thank you very much. If you want to move that mic closer to you, you're more than welcome to.

Um, my name is Dan Henry Browning. I'm new to Fairbanks. Uh, I'm a 70-year-old honorably discharged veteran with meritorious master records, uh, with the exception of one background check record that turns out to be an honest mistake, happened over 50 years ago and needs remodified in the near future, I hope. I'm a single traveling researcher of people's lifestyles, most recently from Orlando Florida's Disney World and Universal Studios. Before that, 3 years in Las Vegas.

Before that, Hollywood, California, and the Redwoods up in Eureka, California. And before that, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and originally Oak Forest, Illinois. I'm here in Fairbanks to visit a Christian University graduate, my brother, uh, preaching for 30 years on the streets of Anchorage and Seward, Alaska, who I haven't seen in 50 years. And he is Preparing for life after death. And I'm totally new to Fairbanks and North Pole.

I would like to be considered for work in the North Pole hospitality and entertainment fields of endeavor that could add to the tourism increase over time. I have experience in USO shows as a host, chaplain's assistant in Iwakuni, Japan, Marine Corps Air Force Base evacuation of Lebanon early in '75, tour of duty '75 to '79, meritorious mass above and beyond the call of duty. Records, and I'm interested in Silver Bell Square Works, Santa Claus House, North Pole Ale House, North Pole Hotel. The kind of work I'm talking about is like, for example, a Santa Claus House singer guitarist of the all-time Christmas, uh, classic songs. Um, I also play piano.

I can provide an increase of Christmas spirit with Christmas songs also performed on karaoke platforms such as the North Pole Ale House karaoke systems. I also I also have a God-sent gift of healing through the arts of spirit and prayer and massage work, available as needed for older people who are aging. My singing voice has been mastered from the greatest voices in recorded history, plus my own added creativity involving a lot of yodeling effects. I can give you an example of that if you want.

Would you like to hear a sample of my singing?

I hope as a new 70-year-old single resident of North Pole and Fairbanks, I am acceptable as an asset to this holiday season of Christmas.

55 Seconds left.

Um, I'm only speaking because I'm new to Fairbanks and, um, I'm looking for a place to live and work where I— that relates to my past experiences. And I, I thought coming to North Pole with the Santa Claus House and, and this, uh, Fairbanks I have never met people that are more friendly, um, in all the places I've been to. I've hit the most popular, um, places of, uh, where people gather, you know, to, to enjoy life, and I have met some of the most friendly people here. And I'm being very honest and sincere, and I truly appreciate it.

All right, well, thank you for your testimony. Thank you for joining us this evening. It really is a wonderful place to live, and I'm, I'm glad that you're experiencing, um, the wonderful side of North Pole. So thank you for visiting. Any questions?

Seeing none, thank you so much.

Anyone else in the room like to give testimony for items not on the agenda?

Okay, seeing none, we will close citizens' comments for items not on the agenda. That brings us to action item number 6, approval of the agenda and consent agenda. Move to approve the agenda and consent agenda. Second, Skips. So moved and seconded.

Any adjustments? Yes, please. Uh, may we remove, uh, Item, uh, in, uh, new business item E, because we don't have a date unless there is a date.

Item E, it, it looks, Councilman Claus, like item E is request to council, uh, move to schedule Um, November— or sorry, December 7th's regular meeting. Is, is that your request? Yeah, that's the one. I was just wondering if there was a date that had been chosen to move it to. It's in the memo, and the date to move it to is December 1st.

Thank you. Then here, please excuse my remark. So you'd like to withdraw that? Yes, thank you. Okay, any adjustments on our agenda?

Uh, just so you know, approval of the consent agenda passes all routine items indicated by an asterisk on the agenda. Consent agenda items are not considered separately unless a council member requests. In the event of such a request, the item is returned to the general agenda. Mayor, may I? Thank you.

Yes, please, Councilman Claus. Thank you. Uh, one, uh, resident here asked me about the Um, the JAG grant, and I was not aware, neither were they, that the 60-page document is posted on our website rather than having been given to each council person individually in, uh, on our in print. Thank you.

Okay, thank you for your comment. Um, is there anyone who wishes to declare a conflict of interest for items on the agenda this evening?

Okay, seeing none, Mr. Clerk, would you please read the consent agenda items, please? Absolutely. Uh, the consent agenda, uh, minutes, September 21st, 2026, regular city council minutes. New business, request to council acceptance of the JAG grant.

Uh, request to council, uh, move the scheduled December 7th, 2026 regular city council meeting to allow for participation in AAMC and AML. And Resolution 2026-20, a resolution of the City of North Pole, uh, designating city officials authorization to sign on City of North Pole accounts. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Um, will you please call the roll on the agenda, please?

Uh, on the approval of the agenda and consent agenda as read. Miss Rolfe? Yes. Mr. Skips? Yes.

Mr. Claus? Yes. Mr. Schuster? Yes. Mr. Williams?

Yes. And Mayor Terch? Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote? 6-0.

All right, thank you. 7 Was consented. That was our minutes from September 21st. That brings us on to item 8, communications from the mayor. Um, Madam HR, since you're joining us this evening, would you mind, um, giving us an update as prescribed by the resolution on the director of city services position?

Okay, uh, we've been advertising advertising that for, um, I think we got it posted a day or two after the last council meeting. It's in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. We've been advertising on Handshake, the AML website, um, Indeed, Alaska Jobs, and with the Association of Engineers here in Alaska. And we've received a handful of applications to go over and review for interviews. Wonderful, thank you for that update.

Um, brings us to item B, is the certification of 2026 municipal election. Mr. Clerk, please take it away.

My apologies, just having a little bit of computer issues here. Um, okay, so you have those handouts?

Have some handouts for you. Uh, just the—.

These out for you guys.

This is the report of the Election Canvas Board. From the Fairbanks North Star Borough Canvas Board, and I can read this into the record. Uh, we the undersigned served as canvas board judges in the municipal election of October 6th, 2026, do hereby certify that we have examined in detail all absentee and question ballots, original and question registers for the one precinct of the City of North Pole. Upon completion of the canvas, it is our opinion that the attached summary of election returns as compiled by the borough clerk accurately reflects the total shown on the certificate of election returns by the election board of each voting precinct. Um, and the, the canvas board found no election irregularities and announced the final certified totals by ballot category as follows.

We had 246 voters on Election Day. We had 20 absentee ballots cast. We had 11 early voting at the early vote station in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. We had 1 question ballot, and we had, um, 9 challenge ballots. Most of the challenge ballots that occur in the city of North Pole are because people think that they're a city of North Pole resident.

And, uh, they fill out a North Pole ballot and a borough ballot.

The North Pole resident ballot gets challenged. The Fairbanks-North Star borough ballot still counts. It's just that they are not eligible to vote. So the borough clerk sends out challenge letters and lets people know about that. And I can take any questions if you guys have any.

Okay, seeing none, that this is an action item, so I'm looking for a motion that the City Council accept the report of the election canvas boards and declare that the regular election of October 26th was validly held. So moved.

Second. Any discussion on that or questions about that? Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Absolutely.

Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Claus? Yes. Mr. Skips?

Yes. Mr. Schuster? Yes. Miss Rolfe? Yes.

And Mayor Terch? Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote? 6-0. Thank you, sir.

All right, with that, on to mayor's comments. Um, fast planning Wanna give a little update. They have opened up the 30-day public comment period for the 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan. That is open until October 30th. It is worth at least a quick breeze through to look over our borough's plans for the MPA or MPO over the next 20 years.

To see the type of projects that they're trying to put forth. The Alaska DOT has a Badger Road roundabout survey out on Facebook. I don't know if you have seen that. They are proposing 7 possible roundabout locations along Badger Road. Whether or not you support them or are or totally against them, please get out there and comment on that.

Um, the city of North Pole's been real busy working on budgets for 2027. We'll be having our budget workshops on the 27th, October 27th, October 28th, and October 29th at 5:30, right here. If you're interested in attending, please, that would be wonderful. Um, last week I presented the Phase 1 downtown water main replacement project to the Interior Auditor Committee, who is considering writing a grant to submit to the Economic Development Administration on behalf of the city for that. Um, I would like to thank all the residents of North Pole who got out and voted.

It's very important. All 250-ish of you, um, which is about 10% of our total city population.

Um, the Fort Wainwright Field House is now open, which will allow for additional training space. It's located next to the PFC out on Fort Wainwright, the Personal Fitness Center. I want to thank the 25th Light Support Battalion On Fort Wainwright last week, they invited me out for their 85th birthday celebration where I got to read a proclamation for the Opahe Battalion and their history dating back to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, October 1st, 1941. It was a great honor to join them for that. Like to thank the Opahe Battalion for that.

We have been working on updating the code for the water and sewer, along with rate changes for water and sewer service provided by the North Pole Utility. That will— we'll be reviewing that over the next couple, 3-5 council meetings as soon as that rolls out. I would like to thank the Alaska Travel Industry Association. They brought more than 650 travel, um, advisors into the city of North Pole last week, gave them a tour of North Pole, and then had an event over at Santa Claus House Wednesday evening. So thank you for that and Explore Fairbanks.

I attended two housing-related meetings over the last couple of weeks, took a tour of a local builder's small town or small house pre-manufactured home that they're hoping to produce here in North Pole. That will be done indoors so that they can build all the way through the winter, take those out to the villages or really anywhere in Alaska, put them together and have a prefabbed home. Um, the second meeting was a housing summit at the Carlson Center discussing affordability, land options, building options, and community needs to help with the shortage in military housing. I would like to thank those that attended and welcomed home the North Pole High School Lady Patriots, who won state championship now for the second time, um, 2024 and 2026, which happened the week before last. Thank you and congratulations to those Lady Patriots.

Um, Since I don't have comments at the end of the meeting, I'm rolling it all into one, and I would like to welcome the new council members as we say goodbye and thank you to those council members who have finished their service to our city. With that, I'll take any questions of the mayor. Please, Councilwoman Rolfe. Yeah, I had a question on the budget, uh, meetings. Has it ever been discussed about doing them all at once, like on a Saturday or a Sunday?

Doing them in the evenings is very difficult. Um, it— I don't believe it's ever been discussed, or certainly not during my time. Um, was it discussed last year, Mr. Schuster, with the old CFO? Okay, well, I, I wasn't aware of that. So I think Jordan and I have both voiced that it's very difficult to have meetings every night.

My kids do extracurricular activities. It also requires a lot of coordination for sitters each night.

Uh, which I know is not an obstacle for a lot of people, but it's also a lot easier to attend if they all occur on one day. Uh, the borough does them typically over weekends, uh, in large chunks of time because it also makes it easier for others to attend. So just kind of to throw that out there, it might be something to look at trying. Okay, thank you for that, Miss Rolfe. Appreciate that.

Um, Mr. Harlock, will we put that back into memory so that we can remember this for next year when we start talking about budgets? Thank you. Um, any other questions of the mayor?

Okay, with that, we will move on to communications from department heads and borough representatives.

Um, Councilwoman Rolfe, let's start with a, a borough report. Uh, yes, uh, so the borough held a meeting since our last meeting. Uh, there were a few things on the agenda. There were—. Well, I guess there were a lot of things on the agenda, but they only dealt with a few topics The majority of the agenda was road service committees either adding or deleting areas that will go out to vote.

So there was probably about 10 different ones that are going to be having elections either to add an area, or there's one that's trying to delete a couple houses from their area. So that's going to go before the two different groups, either being added or removed, to have votes occurring on those. And then the other thing that occurred is that there was discussion about how excess funds for the school district is dealt with. That's what the $11 million pullback was from the borough, taking the money back from the school district and how that occurs and what the policy on that should be. They did modify the policy from what it is currently, so there— with the excess funds, there will not be a pullback in the future under the new ordinance that was passed.

They now have a reporting requirement in which they have to report, and there are restrictions on how the funds, excess funds, have to be spent. So that was passed And so that's what occurred at the last meeting. Any questions for our borough representative?

Thank you, Councilmember Rolfe, for that report. Appreciate that. Chief Smith, since you're in front of the mic, I guess you'll be next, sir. Thank you. Just two things to share with council tonight.

First, a little brief stat update I like to give every few months. We're looking down as far as crimes at the same time last year. I'm always looking back at the last year, so So we're doing pretty well overall in traffic, Part 1 and Part 2 crimes. Some of those have come down from what they were a couple years ago. However, I would just say that DUIs are still pretty high.

They are a couple down from last year, but they're still much, many more than, than we've seen in the last few years when they got tamped down really well. So we're at about 67 or so for the year. I'd like to see, I'd like to see less, and that comes through people making responsible choices when they go to, when they go to drive. So that would be my encouragement to the community. The other thing, a little bit of a less positive note.

So all of you probably remember some pretty extensive conversations we had around the beginning of the year when I requested some vehicle purchases.

That memo included an admin vehicle and a new patrol car, and in those conversations I talked about giving my current patrol car to the lieutenant and then rolling his car into the regular patrol fleet, thereby achieving 2 patrol cars this year. I also talked about what might happen if that didn't take place. What I said might happen has happened. We lost a car, and we have so many cars down right now that I had to give my car to the lieutenant because it's the only one left with lights, and I'm currently driving a rental car because that's what was brought up as a suggestion, as a solution, um, if we run out of cars. So the chief of police of North Pole, if he responds to a call, will be responding in a rental car because my only other option was my wife's Toyota Sienna.

I'm not doing that. So that's just something for you to think about. I would like to keep our fleet— and talked about this extensively— wanting to keep it at the level where it's been for the last 7 to 10 years. And I shared a lot of stats and a lot of information about that. When these cars go down, they go down.

The one that we had go down early this spring was at 98,000 miles and we got hit with a $12,000 repair bill. If we were going to fix it. That's just not worth doing on one that's got 100,000 miles. So that's the condition we find ourselves in. Hopefully, Lord willing, we'll get a car back in the next couple of weeks and I'll be able to get my car back.

But the patrol guys need cars that have lights in them. Obviously, I'm the one that needs it the least. So that's why I'm driving what I'm driving. So just putting it out there, there's still money in our fleet fund that I intended to spend this year when I made the request in the spring. It could still hypothetically even be used this year to plus up the, uh, the fleet before I bring my budget proposal for next year for what's going to happen next year.

So I just wanted all of you to be aware of that. I'll take any questions if you have them.

Thanks. Councilman Kloss. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, so Chief, I just wanted to confirm that as far as you know, there have been no— since I brought this up at the last meeting, there have been no reports of corruption in the, uh, city that one resident raised? Uh, the police department has received no contact by anyone claiming corruption in the city.

Thank you.

Thank you for your report, Chief. If you want to move the mic right next door, that'll bring us to Mr. Harlock, our CFO. Good evening, Council. Um, I've been working on the budget workshops that we'll be doing next week, and, uh, that's all. If you have any questions Seeing none, thank you, Mr.

Harlock. Moves us on to Chief Chambers. Thank you for joining us this evening. Thanks for having me. I'm here in lieu of Chief Heineken, who is out of town right now.

Um, had some staffing turnover that was unexpected. One of our paramedics took a position with UAF, um, and we had exactly 2 days notice.

But we managed to fill the spot through the apprentice program and what Chief Heineken's built with the farm team, so to speak. So we're moving along quite nicely there. And my real reason for being here is to answer questions on upcoming ordinances and resolutions. So unless you have a question for the fire department, I'll turn this off. Seeing none, thank you, Chief, for joining us this evening.

Brings us on to, uh, City Clerk Mr. Ball. Uh, good evening, Council. Um, we're pleased that we just— that we've wrapped up elections and the election season is over. Um, just a reminder that the upcoming state elections are coming up, and for those listening at home, uh, the only place to early vote is at the state office on 7th Street. We fielded a lot of phone calls today asking if we were a polling location.

We will be on the day of elections, but we are not an early voting, uh, precinct. So the only place to do that is at the state office on 7th Street, across the street from Sadler's. Also, thank you for passing the request to council That allows, uh, Miss Kimmel and I to go to AAMC and represent the great city of North Pole, um, at our conference. Um, I'm teaching a class and getting sworn in as first vice president, and Miss Kimmel is going to attend and get all of our learning on. And it allows, uh, future council members to attend as well.

And lastly, I'd like to thank council members Brandt and Williams for their service to the city council. And to the residents of the city of North Pole, and welcome our new council members later in the evening.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Any questions?

Just to clarify, our meeting that we have moved, um, with item 13E will be moved to when? When will our first December meeting happen? It'll be Tuesday, December 1st. At 6:30, correct? Tuesday, December 1st at 6:30.

All right, thank you, Mr. Ball. Appreciate that. That brings us on to ongoing projects, item 11, of which we haven't— please, Mr. Schuster. Didn't hear anything from Director of City Services. Um, last time I drove by Ford Subdivision, I didn't see any progress in, um, the removing the dirt that was blocked out of the, um, culvert leading into the lagoon, um, or the detention basin.

Do you have an update on that? We're supposed to get 8 inches of snow over the course of the next 2 days. Is that something we need to ask city services to take care of and build a contractor, or what's your plan there? I contacted that contractor and reminded them that that work needed to be done. Um, they assured me that they would make that happen.

And then I also contacted the last remaining individual builder who had a driveway put in there on Theron but hadn't put in a culvert as was required. So we asked them to remove their driveway apron so that we could have proper drainage down there in this spring. Um, he assured me that that would happen by the end of next week, and if that doesn't happen, I will ask our Public Works Department to go out there and dig that driveway up so that we have flow and then bill that customer back for time. Thanks. You bet.

Any other questions?

Thank you for that, Councilman Schuster. Brings us on to item 11, ongoing project reports, which we have none. Brings us on to item 12A, ordinance 2026-32, utility comp time, which can be found on page 11 in the packet. Brings us to, uh, staff report. Councilman Claus, since you are also a sponsor, um, would you mind giving a staff report on this this evening?

Thanks, Mayor.

Since our last council meeting, there have been several exchanges between, uh, Mayor Pro Tem Brandt and our city attorney, and I think there's been input from a whole bunch of people on this. Uh, there's been— in front of us here on the dais is a substitute for their particular ordinance that's before us right now. So it essentially be a thorough amendment of it, and it addresses some concerns that the city attorney had, and also that one of the utility workers brought to our attention today with a testimony, which I'm not sure has been read into the record or not, but Mr. Benkley's testimony. I'm not sure if the clerk has put that into the, the record. Anyway, um, the substitute ordinance, I think, um, addresses a lot of the concerns or issues that the city attorney brought up.

And I would hope that the members here would have a few minutes just to look through it since I don't think they've seen it before. This is the first time I think this has been this particular substitute has been brought to their attention. Mayor, that complete your staff report, Councilman Kloss? Yeah, my staff report, yes, as far as that goes. Thank you, thank you, sir.

Appreciate that. Um, I have not had a chance to read through the substitute as that wasn't sent out, um, prior to the meeting and only Right before the meeting, was it placed on the dais?

Um, so I, I can't speak to that whatsoever. Do you wish to speak to the substitute once we get there? Sure. Thank you. All right.

Um, we have our city attorney with us this evening, Mr. Rob Palmer. Um, Mr. Palmer, did you receive the substitute that is on our dais?

I did just about an hour ago, Mr. Mayor, and I haven't had a chance to fully digest it.

Okay, and would you mind giving us just a brief legal review of the prior version of the utility comp time? Yeah, good evening, Council. It's good to see you again. I had a chance to look at the prior— the, I guess, existing Ordance 2632, and the major concern that I had with it is that it conflated comp time or compensatory time with the utility on-call policy. And when you use the term comp time and you put it in the comp time code, in general you have to pay 1.5 times the actual hours worked, and that means the individual is work— is on the clock when they're working, and they get the right to choose between comp time or overtime.

And so after a little bit of back and forth with Mayor Pro Tem, it became clear to me that that was not the intent. The intent was to provide some sort of fair compensation for the utility employees who are doing extraordinary work of being on call. And so that's what led to the substitute ordinance. And I think the overall intent is the same, but there's some significant differences in it that, you know, warrant a closer inspection. I haven't had the chance to give it that closer inspection.

So I commend the Mayor Pro Tem for quickly trying to find an alternate solution.

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to open it up for public hearing on this.

Ordinance. Um, is there anybody signed up or in the room who would like to give public testimony to this item?

Please state your name. Yeah, please state your name, spell your last name, and then your area of residence, please. Um, I read it, but I didn't know there was a substitute. Um, I would highly recommend, since the attorney hasn't had a chance to give you an evaluation of it, that you would postpone this to the next meeting before you make a decision on it tonight. Because if— I don't know if all of you have the supplement in front of you.

The public doesn't, so the public hasn't reviewed it, and I don't see any utility employees back there ready to speak on it. So it's just my recommendation that you postpone it till the next meeting.

Any questions? Thank you, Mr. McGee.

Anyone signed up online to speak to this? No, sir. Anyone else like to speak to this? Okay, and that brings us to council discussion.

I think we need a motion to put it before us.

So I would move ordinance 2026— move to approve ordinance 2026-32, utility comp time.

Second. Brings us to council discussion. I'll just do a quick, uh, overview of it. For the paperwork that you have in front of you, um, you already heard what our attorney has had to say. There's also, um, testimony, a 1.5-page testimony, uh, from one of the utility, uh, workers that came in today.

I don't know if you all received that or not. Um, but if you did, that would be their, their point of view. Um, anyway, uh, this particular ordinance addresses eligibility and accrual and on-call assignments and records. I want to make a point of this. This is different from the on-call for fire and police.

It's a little bit different. Utility workers have more constraints placed upon them regarding the their response time and what they're able to do and not able to do when they're on call. And, um, I, I think this particular ordinance sort of solves that challenge. Anyway, it talks about use of leave and accrual limit and separate benefit, no change of overtime requirements, etc. So some of what the attorney had mentioned is addressed in here.

I take Mr. McGee's point that we might want to postpone this and give everybody on council an opportunity to review this material rather than make an instant, um, vote. Although it seemed that we had consensus last time to approve this, uh, this benefit, as it were, for the utility workers, I think we still would like to do that. And perhaps taking the attorney's suggestions to heart and also Mr. McGee's and the mayor's comments from the last meeting to heart, perhaps it's worth postponing this, but I'm not sure what the rest of the council would like to do. But I definitely want to see something— this or something pretty close to it— approved for the utility workers. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Claus. Councilman Schuster. Er, with, uh, Councilman Claus's synopsis there, um, I do want to see something approved. I would like to just state, um, I think it's funny that we got a letter from our attorney the day of our meeting of the second reading when this has been on the agenda for 3 weeks. Why today?

Why, why is there such a fuss about an alternate ordinance being a short window, like there was something sneaky happened, when this is the first time we got the memo from the attorney was today. I, I don't understand that. Um, I have a hard time getting my arms wrapped around the fact that our utility people are receiving no comp time and it's a problem now that we're offering them 1 hour when they currently receive zero. How does that make sense? That, you know, it's not a problem that we don't offer it, but now that we want to offer it, it's a problem.

And I just think that's I, I think it's a shame. I'm fine postponing it to work through some things, but I definitely want to see it happen.

Thank you, Mr. Schuster.

Anyone else? So I dove into this quite a bit, um, after our last meeting about what comp time would require and how comp time is used, accrued and maxed out. Um, I contacted the attorney because first I did not feel as though the original version of this was legal, um, as we are dictating to our employees whether they could take comp time or choose overtime, which is in our code.

And I asked the attorney to, to review that. And Rob, do you want to speak to that a little bit? And then maybe answer Councilman Schuster's question as to why the memo only came out today. Yeah, no, no, thank you. Uh, like the mayor said, he asked me to review the ordinance sometime last week.

I don't remember exactly the day. It was earlier in the week, and it I finally got a chance to— and this is on me, completely on me— finally had the chance to talk to the mayor and the clerk on Friday, and I knew my deadline was to get this in. I think the clerk said by 3 o'clock today, and so my goal was to get it to you by noon. If I will say, these types of ordinances are legally tricky, and I fully understand the policy. I'm not challenging that.

But if I get a chance to help whoever the authors are look at them before they're introduced, I think we can save some money and make this process faster. So, Council Member Schuster, I share your opinion, and I wish I had a chance to look at this sooner than just before you got at the final reading.

That answer your question, Councilman Schuster? I don't think it was— I didn't have a question. Okay, that wasn't the question. Okay. Um, I will say that I looked into a couple of options based on the testimony of our utility worker who came here and said, um, talked about the phone calls that you would get in the middle of the night from a drunk person wanting to know, is your refrigerator running, or what do I do about this, or I have a small leak.

Um, I reached out to call service in Anchorage, um, and for less than $350 a month, we could put the utility department through a call center out of Anchorage so that those calls that came through that weren't of an emergency type nature could be answered and emailed to our utility rather than disturbing a utility worker at 1:00 AM. And, and training those dispatching folks how to properly decide what's important and what's not important in our utility. Um, it is a service that a lot of local companies use out of Anchorage, a switchboard service, so they're very aware of protocol and, and how that works at a very effective, affordable rate compared to an hour of comp time or even an hour of leave time time for every single day you're on call. Those utility workers that are on call that do answer and they go to work, they get 2 hours if they open a laptop and fix the problem from home, or whether they get in a vehicle and drive to the city of North Pole and fix the problem in 2 hours. If they go over their 2-hour call-out time, um, they're on overtime from that point forth.

So Um, are there any amendments anyone would like to make to this ordinance?

Please, Councilman Claus. I would like to, uh, substitute the, uh, this particular language for the, uh, ordinance.

Second. So a complete substitute of what we started out with to the substitute substitute ordinance. Okay. Yes, Mayor. Thank you.

Any discussion on that?

Mr. Clerk, please call the roll on the motion to, uh, the—. To— excuse me—. To amend with the sub— with the proposed substitute. Mr. Williams?

Yes. Mr. Claus? Yes. Miss Rolfe? Yes.

Mr. Schuster? Yes. Mr. Skips? Yes. And Mayor Church?

Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote?

6-0. Thank you. Please, Councilman Schuster. I'd like to make a motion to postpone this to our next city council meeting. I'll second that.

Any discussion on that?

Clerk, please call the roll on the motion to postpone to the November 2nd regular city council meeting. Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Claus? Yes.

Mr. Skips? Yes. Mr. Schuster? Yes. Miss Rolf?

Yes. Mayor Church? Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote? 6-0.

Postponed. Thank you, sir. That brings us to Item B and a staff report.

Mr. Williams, since you are the council member here and sponsoring this ordinance, could I get a staff report, please?

Was what we talked about at the last meeting, the percentage of our— what is tax rate, I think, which is at 5.5%. We could take the funds, the excess funds, and lower the taxes to the people. Talked about, hasn't changed.

Okay, thank you for the staff report. Um, I'd like our attorney to chime in on this. Mr. Palmer, I'm here. For some reason, my video just got cut off.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm just quickly looking through. Is this the ordinance that required a supermajority of 6 members to move funds?

No, sir, I don't believe so. That was a previous ordinance that was removed at our last council meeting. Okay, then, uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I don't have a specific comment on this one then. Okay, thank you.

That brings us to citizens' comments. Anybody signed up online or in the room who would like to give comments to this? Mr. McGee. Thank you. Thomas McGee, 1152 North Star Drive, MCGH.

Ee, in reading that, I think it's a great idea. Um, if you heard any of the statements I made on TV, I was rather perturbed by having to pay $16 and some odd cents just to have a barbecue delivered to my house that I paid for in Fairbanks, and it was free delivery until I got taxed. So I, although I appreciate that you've brought that forward, um, Mr. Williams, I think it's a great idea to give back, but having the experience that I do in the city and understanding what the police department goes through, I wouldn't use it to lower the sales tax because we spend a lot of money in this city on the influx of people that come into the city, and that's how we can afford our police department and our fire department. I would definitely though recommend— and I think the option was in here— to continue lowering the property tax for the residents that live here. They're the ones that should benefit from that, and I think it's a great idea that you brought it forward, but I would see it go to the property tax as opposed to sales tax because of the burden that we, that we spend to support the roads and the safety of those roads and our emergency services to the out— people that don't live within the city limits.

Thank you for your testimony. Questions? Thank you, sir. Anyone else in the room or online who'd like to give testimony?

This—. Okay, with that Looking for a motion, please. Move to approve Ordinance 2026-26, Excess Audited Funds to Reduce Tax Rate.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Brings us on to council discussion.

Please, Councilman Schuster. I could start it off, and, and to kind of address Mr. McGee's concern. I tend to agree with you. I felt that way when we reduced property taxes last year, that it was better fit to reduce property taxes instead of sales tax because it captures the residents more, I feel, than, than the benefit of losing some of the sales tax, getting some of the tourists.

Um, still, I'm in support of this.

Year after year. I don't want to say we— I don't want to make it sound like we're being deceptive by taking in more than we say we're going to or that we're lying to the people. But I do feel that when, you know, we say we're going to take in this amount, there's no accountability at the end of the year when we take in more. What gives it back to the people and say, okay, we collected more than we thought we would, let's roll this into next year's budget and use that as, you know, part of a future budget to reduce the burden we need to collect from the taxpayers. I think it's a fantastic idea, and I'm in full support.

Thank you, Councilman Schuster.

Mr. Harlock, do you have anything to say about this ordinance since it is predicated on you doing additional work? Uh, no, I'll do whatever the council decides on. Thank you, sir.

Any further comments? So I'm going to be the naysayer here, not that I'm totally against it, but there are some things in this ordinance that concern me. Um, the mill rate is one of them. If we start messing with the mill rate every single year, it's going to affect those people who have escrow accounts attached to their house payments.

I'm glad the city council passed a reduction last year in the mill rate. Just this weekend, I received $576 from Denali State Bank in escrow overages that are coming to me, and I'm appreciative of that. As long as that keeps coming, if the mill rate gets reduced to a point that all of a sudden the city is in a position where we have to raise the mill rate back up up and I have to take those same $576 or $578 out of my pocket to pay the negative balance on the escrow, I'm not going to look at this so fondly. And that's all I have to say. Mr.

Clerk, well, please, Mr. Schuster. So your suggestion is the city holds on to the $512 instead of giving it back to the people, just in case in the future they have to pay that, then they have to pay it. So let's just— the city hold on to it. We know how to better hold on to it than the people. Is that what you're saying?

No, I'm, I'm saying that every decision that we make here has an effect, and if we don't think about the effects of those decisions that we make here, we will very quickly end up in a difficult position. I'm also worried about the businesses if we start adjusting the taxable rate every single year we will not pass that taxable— that tax rate change until after our budget session is done. So between December 15th through the 20th and the beginning of the year, those businesses along with all of our remote sellers will have to change our taxable rate to match whatever this council has decided to do. Which may, may not be a big deal or maybe a very big deal to get, um, over 400 remote sellers to change their point-of-sale systems in what's going to be less than 2 weeks based on our decision. I think if we're going to do that, we might look at going to a fiscal year rather than a calendar year as far as our budget cycles go, and change that around so that we're not affecting all of these decisions at the end of the year.

We're doing them mid-year and give them plenty of notice and time to adjust whatever we decide. Agree with you on that. Yeah, please, Councilman Claus. I like the idea of changing to a fiscal year as well.

Well, unfortunately, that's not on the table this evening, but thank you for that. Any other discussion?

Mr. Clerk, please call the roll on the motion to adopt, uh, ordinance 2026-26. Mr. Schuster? Yes. Mr. Williams?

Yes. Miss Rolfe? Yes. Mr. Claus? Yes.

Mr. Skips? No. No. And Mayor Church? No.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

With a pass. Thank you, sir. That brings us on to Item C, Ordinance 2026-31, Bidder Preference.

Sponsors of that were Mr. Schuster, is that correct? Yeah, please, if you wouldn't mind a staff report. Yeah, so this ordinance gives a 5% bidder preference to businesses located inside the city limits of North Pole. As a city, I feel it's important that we do business with businesses that are inside city limits. They're the ones who support Sales tax, they pay property tax, they're our neighbors.

I think it's the least we can do to show our support for our community businesses. This includes goods, services. We have a lot of great restaurants, we have a lot of great contractors, and I think it's only fair that they get a first shot at Um, who the city does business with. Thank you, Mr. Schuster, for that staff report. Mr. Palmer, this version of this ordinance, is there anything you would like to discuss?

Yeah, uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is a tough topic because the— I did write a memo on this, uh, believe it got to you maybe 2 weeks ago. To Mr. Schuster's prior comment well before second reading. And I do not write that type of memo lightly because of the conclusion that anytime a municipality or government in Alaska provides a local bidder preference, it's likely unconstitutional. I don't get to that conclusion lightly, and I had some back and forth with the mayor pro tem on this one.

And one of his challenges was the 3 cases that were cited in my memo were dealing with contractor hiring. And, you know, he specifically asked, are there other cases potentially relevant to municipalities? And the answer is yes. And let me give you some background before I talk about the case. Many municipalities have bidder preference ordinances on their books.

Most of those were enacted in the '70s and early '80s. When the economic picture for Alaska was completely different. Alaska was struggling, and the state and the municipalities were trying to figure out how to support local businesses. Those ordinances have stayed on the books because, if you can imagine, for local officials, it's actually really unpopular to take them off. And so some municipalities have been challenged, and Kenai is one.

And They tried— I'll just briefly talk about the case. They tried to sell land only to city residents and then gave a benefit, a 5% benefit, to residents who have been there long-term. Ultimately, the Alaska Supreme Court said that was an unconstitutional disposal of land because of the local bidder preference, the local resident preference. The same rules that apply to those three 3 hiring cases.

Let me see if I can get you a date. The Kenai case was in 1983. Since then, based on that case and the 3 cases I cited, the hiring cases, the contractor hiring cases, there are some municipalities who have memos from their attorneys recommending not to enforce their local bidder preferences because of the extreme risk of a constitutional challenge. Again, I don't like having this discussion because I understand the intent and the goal is to support local businesses and to support workers in your community. And so I don't, I don't make these comments lightly, and I definitely understand the consequence of them.

So I— there are ways to fix it, and the Kenai is one that has a very unique program to— I believe they give grants when the local businesses apply and get procurements, that's their way around it. And I think it's a unique way. It hasn't been challenged. I think it's probably constitutional instead of just a direct 5% benefit to local bidders. So be happy to talk about that further if you or the council has any questions.

Thank you. We'll put that on— please, Councilman Claus. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, with respect to what our City Attorney Robert just said, as far as giving a grant to somebody, wouldn't that be after the fact, or is that just an enticement? Yeah, through the Mayor, great question.

It's after the fact, but it's early after the fact. So the award process goes like normal, no local bidder preference, but if a local company is chosen and they commit to hiring local workers, then the city, or the borough, excuse me, provides a grant. And we— I could get more details if you want to explore that program.

Thank you. Mayor, follow-up, may I? Please. Thank you. It seems, um, rather we're talking about somewhat different things, like we're you're talking about cases that have to do with hiring workers rather than giving a preference to a particular company, a licensed, insured company.

So I personally like the, um, their preference myself. I understand your concerns, but I think in some regard it's sort of apples and oranges from some of the cases that selected as far as presenting this to the city. Thank you. Mr. Palmer, do you want to clarify that?

I, I can only give you the advice based on the law that I know and understand, and I, I don't think the court has drawn any distinction between hiring or land disposals. The Kenai case was a procurement process, so I— if the council wants to go a different path, you're definitely free to do that. I'm just trying to get you the most defensible position.

Okay, thank you, sir. At this point, that brings us to public testimony. Is there anybody signed up in the room or online who would like to testify to this?

Please step forth. Um, make sure that you sign up. I believe there's a pen there.

Yep. And when you sit down, state your name, spell your last name, your area of residence, and then you'll have 5 minutes.

My name is Aubrey Barnett. The last name is B-A-R-N-E-T-T. I live in the Um, with this particular thing, I, I find this interesting, giving bidder preference. I'm a big proponent, of course, of, um, giving or being— I think all the businesses here are very important, and I love that we're a small business community. I think that's It's amazing, but I think giving a preference there, it kind of takes away from the competition and the ability to get the best price.

And that's kind of the point, right, of getting bidding, is so that way you have people come in from all over and they'd be like— it gives you, uh, a bidding war of sorts so that way you can get the best price for your product. The only reason that I say this is because When we were looking at changing our boiler, we looked at multiple local businesses because I like to shop local. I love local. That's— there's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. But the cost for them to change the boiler locally was $35,000, whereas someone from Wasilla was half that.

That was $15,000 instead. If they can do it there, why can't we do it here? I feel like if we give them the option to always give a higher bid and they're like, oh well, but you get the 5%, you get preference, and so on and so forth, they're going to have a higher price. And my question is, does it need to be that high? Do you know what I mean?

Because there were a lot of times where I was sitting there and I was looking and we could fly someone from the lower 48 up here to do the work for half the cost of what a local person is doing. Now I know the cost of business here is a lot, it's a lot more, right? People here have higher, um, you have higher salaries, it's higher overall, and I get that. But when I had an itemized thing, it showed just— I mean, it was astronomical. And so I had to go with someone outside.

So my fear is if we're constantly giving preference to someone local, that we're not going to be provided with the best deal, we're just going to be provided with They're local. We're going local. We're going to pay out the wazoo for local. I think that local needs to be more competitive is, I guess, my point. So that way everyone can get a great deal, not just the city, but in general.

Any questions? Thank you for your testimony. Appreciate it. Anyone else who would like to provide public testimony this evening? Hey, see none.

With that, moves us on to, uh, looking for a motion, please. Move to approve Ordinance 2026-31, bidder preference. Second. So moved and seconded. Council discussion?

I, I have a question. Um, I'm looking at lines 73 to 76. It says if a qualified North Pole business is identified as being reasonably capable of providing the required goods or services, that business shall be contacted and given an opportunity to submit a quotation, bid, or proposal or other offer before the city solicits quotations from businesses outside, um, located outside the city. How long do we wait for a local business to return our phone call or give us a bid before we can go outside of the city looking for a better service? Please answer that.

You, you don't have to wait. That's why there's not a time frame in there. It's just that that's our first call because our local businesses are the most important to us. And so you call that company or that service first before reaching out to others.

Does that answer your question? Yes, please. Councilman Claus. Thank you. And also, uh, it's a good thing for our Chamber of Commerce.

It's where, uh, prompts them to support local businesses by keeping track of who— what bids are up, um, you know, for bidding and, um, other business opportunities, uh, for our local businesses that might pop up. Thank you.

So I tend to agree with our testifier. Um, competition is competition, and competition is good. That sets the price down to the lowest bar for our city.

While we sit up here and we talk about overtaxation of our residents, we then turn around and say we're going to provide a bidder preference to our local businesses. To me, doesn't make a lot of sense. We're either on board or we're out into the water.

Um, my two cents, please. Councilman, uh, Schuster, and then we'll go to Claus. My follow-up on that is local business is the life breath of our local economy. And so if— granted, I said in the last meeting, I don't think the city's business moves the needle for keeping somebody in business, but maybe it's the last thing keeping them in business, or the last thing our services help them make a payroll or something like that, I think losing that business is a greater harm to the tax base than a 5% preference. Councilman Kloss.

Thank you. I agree with Mr. Schuster. But also one thing, if they're local businesses, they're already paying things like property taxes and other taxes here. So they're stimulating our economy. By being here, and that's before anybody from outside gets to do anything.

People outside don't have an impact here, basically, and we're— we would be encouraging and sort of rewarding our local businesses by putting this into effect. I think it would be great. May I ask, what, what does this do that we as a city don't already do, other than a 5% um, change in cost. As a city, I believe that we use our local stores, local shops. We shop local first before we go anywhere.

Other than the 5% adjustment, what do 4 pages of language really do for our city in a positive way? Please, Mr. Schuster. I think it's the lines you read earlier. Are a large part of that. Just because you claim to shop first, and I'm, and I'm not, I don't have proof that you don't.

This puts it in a code for future councils, future mayor, city staff to realize that their first call should be to some of our great local businesses than running to town or running to outside city limits for services. That our businesses are our priority, and I think that should be written into code. So that's what it does.

Yeah, please, Chief Smith. Curious if the attorney wouldn't mind articulating hypothetically what— you know, he's talking about potential liability we're taking on. What would that look like? So one of the people that bids, and then just kind of give me a hypothetical, you know, if they take that to court? What are the damages?

How would that work?

Please, Mr. Palmer. Yeah, thank you, through the mayor. So usually these types of challenges come up with challenges to a bid. So let's say a Fairbanks bidder and a North Pole bidder are both within 5%, so the North Pole bidder gets the award. Fairbanks bidder then comes in and challenges the award and says it's unconstitutional, and that goes through the bid review process, usually to a judge, and then judge would say yes or no, and typically awards the bid to the lower bidder, which is both cheaper and a non-resident, and so city would have to pay, you know, less expenses.

And usually because it's a constitutional challenge, the city would also have to pay attorney's fees because there's usually constitutional claims are entitled to full attorney's fees. So that's the typical example. There are probably other examples, but that's the typical example.

Okay, thank you. And then for the council, um, in, in lines 148, contract file, um, the procurement file, is, is the intent to maintain that for each department? Are you planning on hiring additional personnel to maintain the procurement file for everything that the city buys so that we have 3 bids on absolutely everything?

Anything, and where shall that be stored?

That is not the intent.

Well, it cannot be the intent, but the wording says that the file shall document the application of the North Pole business preferences, including the identity of any business receiving the preference, an evaluation for price used for purposes of determining the award I could buy a pack of pencils at Safeway, be required to get 3 bids for procurement for that, and who holds on to that? You're not required to get 3 bids for that. You're required to buy it at Safeway, not at Fred Meyer's. Then you don't need to get bids because you're buying inside the city.

My thoughts on this are, um, this is a lot of effort on something that we don't need inside of our city code. We already do this as a city. And, uh, I love our North Pole businesses, but this is not the right way to love on our North Pole businesses.

Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor, had a quick, uh, note. Oh, please, um, Councilman Claus, with respect to this particular ordinance, if I— I do have a business license here, but if I was actively in business here in North Pole and I heard this conversation this evening, I would be pretty disappointed. And under certain circumstances, I might be inclined to move my business elsewhere, and I would not like to see that happen personally.

So I'm all for this particular— for this ordinance. Thank you for that, Councilman Claus. Any further discussion? Question. Okay, Councilman Williams, into the mic please.

Make a statement. If, um, let's say I was going to put a roof on my house, guys, all right, I would check with individuals here in North Pole who can give me the best deal for the house. Then I would check outside and I'd go with the one— do I want quantity or quality? And I check everybody out and make sure I get the best deal for my money. Okay.

That's what I would do. I don't know about anybody else. I'm not saying that you have to do that, but we're giving the opportunity that if we go that route, they get that 5% or however it, it, if I was gonna do that, I'd go, who give me the best deal? But I'd make sure I check their work. That's what I would do.

Or anybody in here, you guys would do that. There ain't no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You can say what you want. Point. Okay, but that's how I see it.

Thank you, Mr. Williams. I see it the exact same way. Um, so if there was a business inside the city that wanted to charge you 5% more for your roofing job, would you choose that business inside the city and spend an extra 5% of your money because they're located inside the red line that is the city of North Pole? What I would do, okay, this guy gonna charge me $20,000 to do my roof. This guy gonna charge me maybe $18,000.

If he can give me the same quality of work, I'm going with the $18,000.

So you're in support of this ordinance that is giving a bidder preference of 5%, or you're not?

I guess, um, I just told you which way I would go. Okay. All right, thank you, Mr. Williams. Any further discussion on this?

Mr. Clerk, please call the roll on the motion to adopt Ordinance 2026-31. Mr. Williams? I would say yes. Mr. Claus?

Yes. Miss Rolfe? Yes. Mr. Schuster? Yes.

Mr. Skips?

Yes. And Mayor Terch? No. Would anyone like to change their vote? I have one.

Thank you.

That brings us on to Item E, Ordinance 2026-33, Budget Adjustment, page 30 of our packet. Staff report, Mr. Harlock.

Evening, Council. This budget adjustment is to cover some remaining fees for the end of the year. We're at credit card fees. We need another $10,800 to cover the remaining 3 months plus September. And the vehicle gas and oil, similar situation.

Heating oil has gone up. Last year, price per gallon was $2.99. Right now it's $4.73. So that heating oil adjustment reflects heating oil plus also the increase. And, uh, legal fees, we have $813, uh, appropriated legal fees right now.

So that fiscal note for $8,750 on the average of the last 2 months should get us through the end of the year. And the professional services, uh, similar thing, just took the last, uh, 3 months' expectations, but we would need to cover Same thing for the memberships and dues. If you have any questions—.

Seeing none. Thank you, Mr. Harlock, for that staff report. Brings us on to public testimony. Is there anybody in the room who would like to testify to this? Signed up online, Mr.

Clerk? No, sir. Okay, that brings us on to a motion, please. Motion to approve Ordinance 2026-33, Budget Adjustment. Second.

Thank you for that. Brings us on to council discussion.

Mr. Harlock, for, for legal fees, do you feel as though what we have put out on this ordinance is sufficient?

Um, it's, uh, hard to, um, guess that, but we have $813 remaining. I took our last 2 invoices, did an average, and, uh, used that average to, um, estimate what we would need from now to the end of the year. So I would say yes. Okay, thank you.

Any further discussion on anything else on this ordinance?

Clerk, please call the roll. Before I do, uh, Mayor, may I just confirm that you were the second? Sir, I am the second. Thank you. Uh, on the motion to adopt Ordinance 2026-33, Mr. Schuster?

Yes. Mr. Skips? Yes. Miss Rolfe? Yes.

Mr. Claus? Yes. Mr. Williams? Yes. And Mayor Terch?

Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote? 6-0. Thank you. That brings us on to Item E, Ordinance 2026-23, the user fee schedule found on page 33.

Um, we are adjusting the— sorry, staff report. We are adjusting the ambulance fees to $1,300 to match what the borough charges for ambulance fees. Um, page 34, we are changing the hydrant meter water usage rate from 3 cents a gallon— 3.5 cents a gallon to an even 5 cents a gallon. And then on page 35, the service clamp rental, um, service clamp replacement fee, plumbing parts and fixtures required to our water utility. And then the after-hours call-out fee was changed at our last meeting from a flat $250 to $125 per hour with a 2-hour minimum.

Thank you for that. That brings us to public testimony. Is there anybody signed up online or in the room who'd like to give testimony at this item?

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. That brings us to council discuss— or I guess a motion, please.

Motion to approve Ordinance 2026-23, User Fee Schedule. Second.

Moved and seconded. Thank you. Council discussion? Question: the service clamp replacement—. Please, Mr. Williams—.

$1,200 A pair. What is— how does that— what is that? That's the clamp going across the pipe, right? That's the clamp going across the pipe to connect them, to slow down the service. To individual services, correct?

It's an HDPE plastic clamp. Please, Councilman Schuster. Yeah, I would just— to Councilmember Williams' question, I looked into that a little bit more, and they only have a couple pairs. And what happens is people don't return them, and people need them, and that is the true replacement cost of, of what it cost. And so when you have a break and you need to use them and don't return them, and there's another emergency and you haven't returned them, you're going to pay the, pay the price.

We have a— have so, so many in stock, right? Currently, right now, we have 2 pairs, and 1 pair is out on loan, which leaves us only 1 pair in circulation if we have to, um, shut down a service. Yes. Any further questions?

Thank you for that, Councilman Williams. Please call the roll on the motion to adopt Ordinance 2026-23. Miss Rolfe? Yes. Mr. Williams?

Yes. Mr. Claus? Yes. Mr. Skips? Yes.

Mr. Schuster? Yes. And Mayor Terch? Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote?

6-0. Thank you very much. At this time, um, that brings us into the Item 12F, swearing in of new officials. Mr. Clerk, would you please swear in our newly elected officials, sir?

Uh, raise your right hand and repeat after me. Uh, I, Aubrey Barnett—. I, Aubrey Barnett—. Do solemnly swear or affirm You solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States. That I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

The laws of the state of Alaska. The laws of the state of Alaska. The charter. The charter. And the ordinances of the city of North Pole.

Ordinances of the city of North Pole. And that I will faithfully and honestly. And I will faithfully and honestly. Perform the duties of city council member. From the duties of City Council.

Well, help me go.

Congratulations.

Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Thomas McGee. I, Thomas McGee. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear.

That I will support and defend. That I will support and defend. The Constitution and laws of the United States. The Constitution and the laws of the United States. The laws of the state of Alaska.

The laws of the state of Alaska. The charter. The charter. And the ordinances of the city of North Pole. And the ordinances of the city of North Pole.

And that I will faithfully And I will faithfully and honestly perform the duties and honestly perform the duties of city council members, so help me God. Of city council members, so help me God. Both signed.

With that, I would like to thank Mr. Benny Williams for your service on our council. Also Mr. David Brandt, who isn't with us. Um, thank you for your service to our council, and thank you to our new members for running. Elected office is, uh, quite wonderful, and thank you for stepping up to serve your city. With that, I'd like to move for a 10-minute recess.

If that's okay with everyone. Okay. All right, so moved.

Yes, sir. Please. We are back on the record. Thank you for joining us. We have seated our 2 new council members.

Thank you for joining us today. And that brings us on to item 13A, ordinance 2026-23.

Councilman Claus, for a staff report on this, please. Thank you, Mayor. In our code, it allows the mayor, you, to put something on the agenda by your lonesome when you feel like it. Which I understand, but you're also a council member, and other council members, I think, would like to be able to do the same thing just by themselves. And because the makeup of our particular council, which is varied as usual, which I think is great, um, sometimes if we want to get something that a resident would like to have us sponsor or brought before, you know, council as an ordinance or resolution or We're restricted to talking with two other council members only.

And so if the first two we might approach to co-sponsor something either are not going to co-sponsor it or just aren't interested, then we're kind of stymied, even though there are several other council members we might approach, if you understand what I mean. So I would like to go back to just having each council member be able to sponsor something before council. That's used to be the case in the past, a long time ago. Thank you. Councilman Claus, if I may, when was that in the past that council members could sponsor the single— singly, without being the mayor, that they could sponsor an ordinance?

I'm not sure if it was during Mr. Skip's time and mine or not, or Mr. McGee's time or not, but I think it was so. Oh yeah, all 20 years. Okay, may I stand for correction, sir? I think you said 2026-23, you actually— I think you meant '34.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay, that brings us to public testimony. Is there anybody interested in speaking to this? Anyone signed up online?

No. No. All right, brings us to a motion.

I move to approve, uh, Ordinance 2026-34.

Okay, council discussion, please. Mr. McGee. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, Um, I looked this up in the history of it, and apparently you guys just changed this last year in October of 2025, um, to a 2-councilmember motion. It had never— prior to that, it's always been a single member could bring forward a resolution or an amendment to an ordinance.

Um, based on the principle of it, by bringing forth one council member, we avoid the potential danger of having an unofficial meeting with other council members where we are limited to— and we also— any, anything that a council member brings forward to the council has to be seconded and then approved. And if, if the council member doesn't present his case for his resolution or his amendment to an ordinance, then he's not going to get a second. And a lot— I can tell you that a lot of A lot of items would, would die because lack of second. But I agree with, with Mr. Claus that it should be a one, one member opportunity and not require two different people to come together, have a meeting, discuss it, because if then they discuss it with someone else, then you're potentially crossing the line of, of an unofficial meeting, which is against our ordinances. That's all I have.

Thank you. So I just want to speak. We did not change this in 2025. It has been this way since at least 2022 that it takes 2 members to bring business.

Please, Councilman Schuster. That's all I was going to say. I didn't vote on this last year. Yeah.

Oh, it could have changed over COVID with the online meetings between '21 and '22. That could have been done in, in the early part of '23, I suppose, but I wasn't aware of that change. But thank you, Mr. McGee, for your history on this. Any further comment? Please, Miss Burnett.

So the way I understand it, this ordinance is here so that way we're not essentially doing business behind closed doors, correct? That is somewhat the purpose, like where two of us come together, um, and then we put it forth? Or—. Because the way I was explained, um, before, I believe it was last week after I got elected, it was one of those things where you're not supposed to talk about business with only, like, you can't do more than 2. And so I don't see why it's a problem, I guess, is I'm confused.

So what I believe you're referring to is the Open Meetings Act, where no more than 3 council members could get together and, and discuss on that. And, and Mr. Clerk, if I'm wrong, anytime please speak up. Um, and that was the, the brief education you got, um, was to just make sure that you didn't reach out to multiple council members members and talk about our business this evening, which would have maybe created an open meetings violation. If you asked me and then you asked Mr. McGee and then you asked Mr. Claus and then you asked Mr. Schuster, that then is an open meetings violation because that meeting hadn't been noticed and we're talking about the public's business without being in front of the public.

Um, this ordinance allows a single council member, so if I want to change rule or a law that we have inside our city, I can come in the last hour of being able to notice that to the clerk and say, hey, Mr. Clerk, I would like to change this section of code. And I'm not the mayor. I can bring that ordinance to the clerk. He can help draft that based on your ideas or your suggestions and then bring that before this body.

The way it's written now, it would require you as a council person to maybe get with Mr. McGee and say, hey, I got this, this thought I want to run by you. This is what I'm thinking about changing. Discuss that with him, and, and if he agrees, then you guys can kind of come to a synopsis of that business and decide, yes, I want to be a sponsor of this ordinance, and then bring it forth to council. This would remove that check and balance of talking with any other council member about it. So you could be up at 9 o'clock at night and decide, oh, I want to change this in our city, and send that to the clerk, and he's now required to put that on our next agenda, whatever that change is.

Okay, and then we can all discuss it. Then we could all discuss it. Yep. Just want to be sure I'm fully aware of what we're about to vote for. So please, Mr. McKee.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, to help, I guess, educate me, because the processes that we had— gosh, I hope I don't keep saying this a lot— but in the past, um, the duties of the clerk, if a council member wanted to bring up a resolution or an, an amendment change to an ordinance, then he drafts his, uh, item takes it to the clerk. The clerk's responsibility is to help that council member get it all down correctly based on, on the city code and city ordinance so that it is worded correctly. But it's not the clerk that approves the agenda, it goes to the mayor, and then the mayor approves the agenda. And if the mayor doesn't want that particular item on or wants it corrected said he gives it back to the clerk.

Is that still the policy? Yes, except by having one member, anything that would go to the clerk is required to be on the agenda.

I, I can say I don't want it to be on the agenda and abstain or move it around in the agenda, but per our city code, I'm required to put that on the agenda because it's been proposed to the city clerk. The clerk. In the past, what we have done is those have come in just like you, you discussed. The clerk has drafted that based on your request, brought that to a meeting of, of our department heads, our staff meeting, talked about those changes, things that maybe as staff we're able to see from the inside, and then bring those suggestions back to the clerk and then back to the sponsor, whoever that may have been. But a lot of things have changed in the last few years here at the City of North Pole, so it will take you just a little bit to give me some time.

Yeah, thank you. Please, Councilman Schuster. Yeah, I would just like to say, um, I, I value every one of our voices equally, and, um, if Mr. Claus, you feel something's important to you, um, I don't think I don't think the mayor holds any more power over thoughts and ideas than you do. And I think if you want something on the agenda, I'd like to hear about it. I'd also like to just emphasize your point earlier.

You know, if I think I have a great idea and Mr. Skiff thinks it's dumb and Ms. Raulf thinks it's dumb, but there might be you 4 that support it, it can still pass. But I can't ask anybody else about it. It because I'd be breaking the OMA. And so I think that's kind of the purpose and, and why I'll support this.

Speaking to your point, Mr. Schuster, um, if these two did not like your idea, you still have the option to bring it to the mayor's office if you believe that that would be something that we could support and move forward that way through the clerk's office.

Staff, do you wish to chime in on this at all?

Seeing head shakes and one no. Okay, any further discussion about this to advance this? Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Then just to clarify for our mover and seconder, that is a to introduce, not to adopt.

So this is—. And you are in concurrence with that?

Mr. Claus? Yes, I would like to adopt it as well. Do I just have to— we can only introduce it tonight. I'll introduce it. Thank you.

Move to introduce an ordinance amending NPMC 2.12.030E to allow a single council member to sponsor an ordinance, resolution, or other action item for placement the city council agenda as ordinance number 2026-34, City of North Pole. Second. I was going to ask that. Thank you, Mr. McGee.

And ready for roll. Mr. McGee? Yes. Miss Barnett? Yes.

Mr. Claus? Yes. Miss Rolfe? Yes. Mr. Skips?

Yes. Mr. Schuster? Yes. And Mayor Terch? Larry Terch.

No. Would anyone like to change their vote?

6-1. Excellent. That brings us on to 13B, Ordinance 2026-35. Brings us to a staff report. Mr. Harlock.

Uh, this budget ordinance is, uh, primarily to increase the utility for the electric. We also have, um, a building maintenance for the, um, fire department, we were looking at doing a new heat pump. For the police department, we have an increase for vehicle gas and oil and for vehicle repairs. And then I would like to make one correction on the electric for account 4212-33050. That number should be 49193.

I used the last 3 months from the prior year and the current month of September did a multiplier based off the increase in electric, and that number was not correct.

Okay, thank you for that. That brings us to—. Say that line again.

What account was that? Um, sewer fund electric, account 4212-3-3050, fourth one up from the bottom there. And then that total dollar amount again, Mr. Hardlock.

49,193. Okay, thank you. That brings us to public testimony. Is there anybody in the room or signed up online who would like to speak to this?

Done. Motion to introduce, please. Motion to introduce Ordinance 2026-35, Budget Amendment. I'll second that. So moved and seconded brings us to council discussion.

I'd like to move to make an amendment, as stated by our CFO Mr. Harlock, to increase, um, the electric and transfer out of sewer fund to 149143. Is that correct, Mr. Harlock?

Um, are you talking about the sewer fund, uh, 4212-3350? Yes, sir. Yes, 149143 is, is my amendment. Thank you.

Again, any discussion on that? Mr. Clerk, please call the roll on the amendment. On the motion to amend 42-123-3050 from 143-668 to 149-193. Mr. Brandt— excuse me, goodness.

Mr. McGee? Yes. Mr. Schuster? Yes. Miss Rolfe?

Yes. Mr. Claus? Yes. Miss Barnett? Yes.

Mr. Skips? Yes. And Mayor Turch? Yes. Would anyone like to change your vote?

7-0. Any further amendments on this?

On the ordinance overall, please call the roll. On the motion to introduce 2026-35 as amended, Mr. Skips? Yes. Mr. Schuster? Yes.

Mr. McGee? Yes. Miss Rolf Wolf? Yes. Miss Barnett?

Yes. Mr. Claus? Yes. Larry Terch? Yes.

Would anyone like to change their vote? 7-0. All right, thank you. That brings us on to item 13C, ordinance 2026-36. Can I get, uh, staff report?

Councilman Claus? Thank you very much. Um, since our rates are going up for ambulance service, um, we thought it would be a good idea, prudent idea, to keep our rate level here for the residents of the city of North Pole, even though the borough is increasing its rate. Some people are insured, some people are not insured. Somewhere on Medicare, Medicaid, all those elements go into this.

But we think if you live here in the city of North Pole and using our city ambulance service, that our resident rate should not increase, to make a long story short. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Claus. Brings us to public testimony. Is there anybody signed up or in the room who'd like to speak to this.

Okay, a motion please to introduce.

Oh, please, Councilman Claus. Move to introduce, uh, City of North Pole Ordinance Number 2026-36, an ordinance amending NPMC 4.10.030A, Ambulance EMS Services, to increase the percentage discount for North Pole City residents.

Okay, so moved and seconded. Brings us to council discussion.

Please, Mr. McGee. My question is this, um, as we— as it came up, some people have insurance, some people don't, and this is to help benefit, um, the, the residents, uh, at a, a percentage, um, to save them 25% on the going fees which was just bumped up to $1,300. How do we differentiate— I didn't say that right. How do we determine the difference to the insurance companies for someone who is insured or not insured?

I mean, I really— I don't believe the insurance company is going to— are we giving them a discount if it's a resident? So the insurance company is I've never known a discount insurance company to pass on a discount. That's my question. So I can answer it, or you can absolutely know the answer. Go ahead, and then I'll speak my—.

My—. I had to— I've used our ambulance services, um, and they give the discount to our insurance, uh, and I got a letter from the fire department to supply the information necessary to prove I lived in the city of North Pole and qualified for the discount that currently is on the books. So I sent that to the fire department, they approved the discount, and then that was the amount that my insurance paid. Thank you.

I'm going to ask a question, Chief, and this might not be the right person to ask, but based on your experience, how many non-insured people are we transporting from the city of North Pole out outside of the city, or ambulance calls that we respond to? And, and maybe Mr. Harlock or our billing agency would be a better person to ask this question of. But what I get— I guess a follow-up question while you're thinking about that, um, what benefit is the 25% that we would not take in?

What's the real difference here if insurance is covering a majority of these? I'm going to break that up into two. So your first question, I actually have statistics on this, and the reason that I have them is because I furnished the data data for our Medicaid reimbursement, the supplemental EMT stuff. Last year we billed for resident people inside the city calls, 178 tickets went out. So we had 178 bills that went out inside the city limits.

Now we respond a lot more, but that's the other half of ours. That's our big revenue our contract with the borough.

Out of that 178, we had 8 cash tickets. That means people didn't have insurance, they got the whole bill. None of them paid. And that's just, that's just the way it works in EMS and in 911 billing is the capture rate is, is actually not great.

The big driver for this is Medicare, Medicaid, and they set the tone, and all the insurance companies follow them, and they pay what they can. I think so. So that's where we're at with that. Um, is it going to impact our revenue? Probably not.

You know, I think, I think the best thing to do with this— and I, the department has no position on this, this is you guys, this— you're the revenue people, right? You decide what the stream is, and we work with it. Um, personally, completely personal opinion, I think if you support your residents by giving them a break everywhere you can, it's a good thing. You know, uh, being able to help Miss Rolfe, and, you know, and she got a reduction in that ambulance bill, it's a big deal. Um, so we don't officially support it.

We're actually kind of ambivalent towards it. In the big picture of things, but I think it's a nice thing to do for people. Thank you, Chief. Any questions related to that? Please, Councilman Schuster.

Yeah, it's kind of an— I don't want to admit this, but my first thought was, oh, what's, what's the impact to our budget by giving this? And I thought, no, we just raised our fees. And so this, the math works out to about keep fees the same for residents. It's another way of keeping the fees same for residents. Um, which I think is great.

It's not going to cost us money to do this. I mean, it will because we won't be able to bill higher to residents, but no current impact change from what we have right now. Thank you, Councilman Schuster. Councilman Claus, do you have your hand raised, sir? Thank you.

I was just going to come back to the 25%. Sounds like a lot, but, uh, it actually— the way the formula is, I'm pretty sure the chief would agree that 25% just means our current rate is approximately the same for the city residents. It's not going up the borough— the rest of the borough is going up. I don't know if that makes sense, but to you, it makes sense to me. So as the chief had said, it's a benefit for our residents here.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Mr. Clerk, please call the roll on the motion to introduce Ordinance Number 202636. Mr. Claus? Yes. Mr. Schuster?

Yes. Mr. Skips? Yes. Mr. McGee? Yes.

Miss Rolfe? Yes. Miss Barnett? Yes. Mayor Church?

Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote?

7-0. Thank you, sir. Mr. Schuster. Item D, D, E, and F were all on the consent agenda, so that brings us to Item 14, council comments excluding the mayor. Mr.

Clerk, where shall we start this evening?

Mr. Schuster. Yeah, I just want to welcome our two new council members. Um, looking forward to working with you both, and I I certainly appreciate the effort Mr. Brandt and Councilman Williams put in. I'd like to say congrats to the North Pole girls flag football team for another state championship. One thing I forgot to mention when we were talking about bidder preference, it slipped my mind, and I— so I just want to say it is we talked a lot about competition and why would we pay an extra 5% Um, I, I think it's my belief that when a— for example, the, a local contractor that has the, the paving contract, he's driving home every day, he hits those potholes that are waiting to be paved from a Fairbanks contractor who doesn't take that route home, and he wants to do a better quality job, he wants to get that fixed quicker um, and, and I think that's important.

It's, it's people who drive by that area, people who live and care about the city are inclined to do a better job, um, because it's where they live.

Mr. Skips. Yes, I just want to welcome the two new council members and just, um, say it's good working with the two that are no longer um, for the short year I did work with them. And just mirrored what, uh, Mr. Schuster said just about the football team, the girls taking state again this year. Um, and actually Lathrop won medium school and IGA won 9-man.

So 3 of the 5 state championships are in the interior. And that's all I have.

Just to echo what Councilmember Schuster and Skip said, and congrats to Our Lady Patriots and state championship win that they have yet again this year. They're a fantastic team. I took the family out to watch them a couple times, and they were just great to watch.

Santa Claus. I agree with what everybody said so far, but happy Alaska Day. Most people forgot about that, I think. Um, and kudos to the Skips family. Um, thanks to Mayor Pro Tem David Brandt and Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Benny Williams for their services.

Council members, and welcome to our new council members. Um, I think that we should be aware that we're having some snow coming up, and I want everybody to be out there driving, uh, safely on the— in the snow and on Thank you. And by the way, it's early voting time, so please vote. Thank you.

Miss Barnett, um, I just want to say, uh, thank you for the warm welcome from everybody. Um, for anyone at home that is watching, thank you for your vote. I do appreciate that. Um, I take this job very seriously, um, and I want bring in just fresh eyes, fresh ideas, um, and do whatever I can to make North Pole just more amazing than it already is.

And Mr. McGee? Thank you. Um, I agree with her. Thank you to the voters that decided they wanted me back on the council, and I'm glad to be back. I hope to bring some harmony to the council that, uh, alleviates some of that stuff that we've seen in the past.

Um, I don't understand why the mayor doesn't get to speak under council comments. We always let our mayor sometimes have the last word, but not always. Um, but I appreciate the mayor. I appreciate the council that's been here and has been serving. I hope to— I look forward to working with you.

Um, I, I hope to— I don't know why things have reverted from one system to another. But I'll do my homework to get up to date. One thing I have noticed is a whole lot of paper being printed again. We went from a time to where we went to our laptops because everything is, is so easily accessible through technology that we started stopping printing all of these agendas. And, um, I hope to see us maybe consider the budget and what the cost is for all this, this printing paper and go back to that.

Um, but, um, I'm glad to be back. I'm very glad to see the department heads here. Um, I enjoyed them all the years and enjoyed working with them, and I look forward to working with you guys in the future. And I move to adjourn.

Second. So moved. Thank you. Enjoy your evening, everyone. Drive safe.

Nice meeting you. So I got to learn some new ways, huh?