Cordova: July 15, 2026, City Council Meeting

Deborah Adams is absent. Lee Collins here. Aaron Hanson here. Casey Kansman is absent. Mike Mickelson here.

Randy Rainey here. Dave Zasto here. That was a formal council.

Okay, we have an agenda before us. Are there any edits for the agenda?

Hearing no objection, we'll consider the agenda approved. Disclosures of conflicts of interest and ex parte communication. Any communications or conflicts to declare? Anybody? You're online.

Okay. And guest speakers, we don't have one scheduled. Audience comments? We have some staff and one audience. Um, chairpersons and representatives of boards and commissions.

Good evening, Dave Jenga. I represent the city on the board of directors of Regional Citizens Advisory Council. Our schedules have kind of not matched up lately to get in since our last board meeting, but I attended their annual board meeting in Maldives via Zoom, and you, I think, received a 4-page packet highlighting that meeting, what the meeting's at. Just wanted to update the one thing that's happened since then, which was expected, but it's nice to get it checked off the list, is that the Coast Guard finally got around to approving our recertification over the next 3 years. That was delayed substantially because of that extended federal government shutdown, but at least that happened.

We don't have to go through the big, big review for another 3 years, which is nice. And the other thing is during Salmon Jam, we're going to have the Cordova book launch of The Protectors of Prince Williamstown. It's a really nice little booklet by Tom Prestadina. He does these cross-section books on workboats, things like that. So he's done one, it's his little history of the oil spill, Prince William Sound, and then goes into cross-sections of everything from the service vessels to the tanker and fishing boats and fishing RCAC and such like that.

So, um, put up a bunch of these in town and put them on Facebook a bunch too, so maybe you've seen it. So there's going to be a staff person here, and then Robert Beetle, workers with CDFU, myself are going to help at the table 6 to 9 on Friday or 3 to 10 on Saturday, and we're able to hand out one free book to each household. So stop by. I think sometimes she brings up— brings some other swag, RCAC swag, along too. So we will see you up there.

And also thank you to anybody who put in comments to the Coast Guard trying to support the recertification. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And so, you know, it's been moved to Mount Eccles.

Yes, I saw that. Yes. 3 Announcements. It's getting covered.

Okay, approval of consent calendar. We don't have any items under minutes or bids, proposals, or contracts. So reports of officers. The mayor's report— I didn't put in, um, a written report, but I did, um send an email out through the clerk. I think that maybe folks got today about the ferry.

The winter schedule has been put out for comment, and I— it's sparse. Yeah, it's sparse. It's a big fat bummer. But I did send you that email from Craig Tornoe with a picture of the rot on the deck where the— yeah, that was— I mean, a picture does say a thousand words. Pretty bad.

He did say that he's— I don't know if I said that in the email. He's going to meet with the folks in the shipyard in August and see if it really is going to be a full 5 months. He thought maybe it could potentially be only 4 months. Only 4 months. So we'll see.

Track on that. But I do want to reiterate that I think when people make comments, we should really be staying— we should be making sure people are aware of what's in the long-range plan and that the plan is for the Taslina to come to Cordova as soon as the dock upgrades are completed and that we have an Alaska-class ferry dedicated to Prince William Sound because the Aurora, I think, will be over— will be like 44 or 45 years old by the time that happens. And those vessels all are meant to have a 30-year lifespan. So all the money they have to put into doing those repairs is money that could be going into saving up for a replacement has to look to include. So yeah, um, and I think our next Housing Committee meeting is the 28th, say.

Yeah, say.

Um, that is all I have at the moment, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

I have— okay, so City Manager's report. I think Cheryl's Just standing in. Yeah, standing in while Sam's getting a little bit of a break, but she'll be back next week. Um, Samantha does have a report to give, so invite her up.

Hello everyone. Um, um, Monday be, uh, finished filling the pool. Uh, if we are going, um, slowly with everything, so getting one system on at a time. Right now, uh, we're just trying to vacuum it out, um, without turning the filters on because it just has a lot of gunk in it. Um, so a little bit at a time, starting things up.

We are still our day-to-day with the boiler system. Uh, so it was on last night all night. The pool temperature was 70°. This morning, but it has been on and off, uh, with that throughout the last few weeks. So, um, just getting, uh, Albert Mechanical in.

They've been great to work with, and Micah troubleshooting what's happening with it. It's been a little bit of a headache, so I'm hesitant to give any date out of when the pool's gonna open because I want to see it up and running efficiently. More, probably a week. That'll be happy. We haven't put any chemicals in it yet, um, because we're still just trying to get everything kind of slowly.

So super great news, very excited about it. So, um, last meeting, um, maybe last or the one before, I get asked about the budget amendment, where we're at with that. Um, right now we're about at $51,000 with it, um, that we've used., rhinosis came in a little, um, more than what their estimate was, but way less than what I thought it was going to be. So, so that was good news. Um, but again, with the boiler, that's costing a little bit more than we had anticipated.

When— yeah, when we're up and running, uh, when I'm full school, put the all hands on deck. Now, ended with, uh, lifeguards and getting a class sorted, actually a couple classes. Probably a lot of volunteers become lifeguards. So we'll make sure that everyone knows about that. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Sure. Questions? I just, I just, just a couple comments. I really appreciate you being cautious, making sure the pool's up and running, everything's functioning before saying, okay, we're ready to go.

We have a great team with it, so they just tell me where to be and what to say, and I'm there. So it's been really great to celebrate everything this month at Parks on the Hackathon. Make people aware of what we do. Video. Uh, I just want to formally thank you and who all was involved in getting the, uh, National Guard or the Army guys in there to do the cemetery for the Fourth of July.

They did a great job. It really looks better than it has in a really long time. They scrubbed graves, they weeded, they did a lot of stuff in there, and it really made it easy to go out and do flags on Fourth of July. So that was fantastic. They, yeah, it looked great and it was citywide.

I think all departments, you know, it was just everyone. I got to say, yes, you can have Ron. Um, and he loved it and great. So it took, you know, it takes all of us to come together as a community sometimes to make that stuff happen. So happy to lend a hand.

So it was really great and important. So yeah, and they helped with all this too. I don't know if you guys saw that they were rebuilding around the anchor there. So It's really awesome. I think they did the EX Cemetery too.

I think, yeah, yeah, they did that. They weed whacked the other cemetery as well. So yeah, they've been a great asset. Yeah, and up in Austin, we had boys that helped out with the Forest Service major bridge construction on Keenan Ridge Trail. There's massive amount of rock that they moved for pavement structures, and they made short work of that.

Yeah, so yeah, they've been a huge help around here. They have been, definitely. Works nice. Appreciate that.

Here. Thanks, Samantha. I don't have anything to add. We do have, um, reports from Human Resources and the Cordova Center for the quarterly reports. I think we'll probably have a few more on the next meeting.

This give you a little more time to get them in, but Questions for Cheryl, or questions that we— great, thank you. Yeah, those reports are great. It was great to see the, uh, activity of the Cordova Center and also all the things that Kayleen has been, you know.

Yeah, I feel like that's the quietest department and the one that we really see see in action the least. So we— it's a lot of behind the scenes work that's happening. So that's— yeah, a lot of support, like, throughout the city for staff. Yeah, she provides a great level of support for everyone. So really curious to see how this information kiosk will work that she mentioned in her report as well.

Yeah, that, that looks really interesting.

Okay, so council correspondence. We have the notice from, um, Alaska Marine Highway System about the comment period being open for the winter ferry schedule. Yeah, like I said, we just want to reiterate what the long-range plan says and make sure that we get Alaska Class Ferry here to replace St. Laura. Um, any questions about that, almons?

Okay, so ordinances and resolutions. We have Ordinance 1239 before us. Would someone like to make a motion?

It's the second motion on that page, the second one for that. We're doing the ordinance. Yes, I, I move to— where are we? I move to approve first read of Ordinance 1239, an ordinance of City Council in the City of Cordova, Alaska, amending Cordova Municipal Code Sections 5.1 5.10.030 Definitions and 5.10.130 Payment and Collection, amending Cordova Municipal Code to incorporate changes made by the Alaska Remote Sellers Sales Tax Commission to permit certain marketplace facilitators that facilitate services within the city to report and permit directly to the ARSSTC.

Thank you. Is there a second?

Awesome. Thank you, Granny, and seconded Kingsman. Um, Council Member Rainey, I— so it seemed like if we want them to collect this, we have to accept this. So, and we don't have the manpower to collect it on our own. So what do you recommend?

Because We either opt out and don't, don't be a member, or we opt in. And, and currently code does require that if you are doing rentals of any sort in Cordova that you are collecting and remitting this tax. That doesn't change, that still is the same, um, but with some of the online rental agencies, uh, they leave it in the hands of the business owners and you can't really build it in that well unless we are— we have passed this. Okay, then they will implement it on their side and then it goes directly to— because it's an online sale, it will go directly to ARSS— ARFSTC. So is this like— then to us, the bed and places like Airbnb or There's a few vendors like that, and I will say that currently we do have business owners that are doing it.

This will just be— it will be consistent across the board. Anyone that's operating out of those online vendors will have it implemented if you're doing business within— That's—. Let me clarify, that's how I understood it.

So I think it's— but I think that consistency piece is really, really crucial, especially as we start going and doing— as everyone was doing more things online. I mean, you still sometimes all notice a thing and I purchase online, there's some obscure place and still not attached, something. So I appreciate the consistency. And the two-part of this— the ordinance is to change the Steve Cronovitz Municipal Code, and it will require two readings. The resolution later on is about our agreement with ARSSCT.

A—. Yeah, I get that wrong. TC, sorry, Tax Commission. Um, so that's why we have two different actions that we're doing tonight.

Is there anything that you're concerned about that we should be concerned about? I mean, it seems like this is code already. Now we're just trying to be consistent. I, I think it provides, um, consistency for us and also the, um, the enforcement part, but the tax commission can provide more power behind it as a, as a large group, um, to get this taken care of, where one individual calling each of those, um, online vendors doesn't have the same power. Absolutely.

Thank you. I think it will be Any other comments or questions about this, about, uh, Ordinance 1239?

Comments online? Okay, um, hearing none, then let's take a voice vote. All those in favor of adopting the motion as proposed, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Same sign. Motion carries.

Good. And then we come to resolution, Resolution 07-26-25. Um, would someone like to make a motion to get it on the table? So I think on the agenda it says we've got, um Items 9 and 10, and then the memo it says items 8 and 9. Yeah, it's 10 and 9.

9 And 10. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that that— I move to approve Resolution 07-2625 approving and adopting the amended Alaska Intergovernmental Remote Seller Sales Tax Agreement as presented.

I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. Um, Council Member Rainey, and second by Council Member Rainey. I have nothing more to add than my questions before.

Council Member Kinsman, um, I think the arrangement's clear, especially with code. Is there anything that you know that's different? I mean, Ken already spoke to it, but yeah, it's just the other piece of it. Once our code is in alignment to carry it forward with our agreement with the tax commission this March.

About the agreement, any questions about the agreement?

Just one. When does that immediate take effect? When is—. July 15th. So looking through, there's a few different dates in here.

Yeah, they've given us a few different dates. I did speak with them and let them know that we were a little behind the initial timeline. They said that that wasn't a problem there.

They have to notice the vendors 30 days. So once they get everyone that's opting in to do this part of things, then they'll be noticing those vendors. So I assume like around October, November it will get implemented. Um, just because it is a process, we go through our two reads and then, um, what's other communities? Other communities, we weren't the only ones, so they were okay with it.

Any questions about the agreement?

I guess other— sorry, one more question. As far as collecting money, I mean, this all just comes in from this entity, from Remote Seller Tax. We're not going to see it itemized out. Correct. Okay.

They do— we don't publish that, I guess, in a packet. They do give us a monthly list, though, of the taxes that they collect. So we are able to see if anyone were doing business online and was interested to know if the tax is actually getting to the City of Cordova, we, we have a list where we can verify. So then from really your department, we in theory, once we find out that this is live, we'll be able to track to some extent an increase. In theory, there should be an increase.

Yes, I know how we, how we, uh, report on taxes though. We can never report on a business, a specific business. So it gets a little bit like we will see it. But from what you would be able to see, not your report, you would be able to report out broadly that because of this, it directly brought in X amount of extra dollars to Hora Hora. Yeah.

Okay. Across. Sure. However many businesses, however, online platforms or whatever it is. But you'd be able to provide it.

Okay, great. Thank you.

There are still some who do, uh, short-term rentals without—. So, but where we stand today, pre-this, to where we are one year from now, there— we'll be able to have some kind of data broadly without disclosing who the businesses are.

Okay, right. All those— any further discussion? Have anybody off? I have a quick question. Yeah, so if you notice that there's purchasing being done online and the tax is not being collected, is it better to, to let you know or directly to— I would be interested, um, and then I'd say take it to the Cook's Tax Commission.

I— yeah, I think that it behooves us to know and be involved in that process. I usually just— I usually just text Kara, which is great too. They are great. They are— yeah, they are efficient. Okay.

But it kind of gives me an idea also to look on the monthly, if you know about a vendor, kind of space about Okay, just to keep an eye on. Yeah, great.

Okay, um, any further comments? Ready for a vote? All those in favor of Resolution 07-26-25, uh, approving and adopting the amended Alaska Intergovernmental Remote Seller Sales Tax Agreement, please signify by saying aye. Hi. Any opposed?

Same sign. She carries. So pending agenda is where that gets us.

This we want to see.

What do you think, Susan, about The prospect of second meeting.

Oh, uh, should get the second reading of this. This is—. I'm sorry, this is the second— this is the second meeting of July. Never mind. This is—.

All right, never mind. But look how quick it was. Okay, so August, August 5th is the next. Yeah, so we have 2 weeks between, so we have a little bit of a break. And we do need to do the second reading to get it going, so we're not the last of the communities, if that's— um, but I did email you recently that on the 28th we have, um, Fisheries Committee also.

That bother you at all, or can you attend both? One's at 1, and, and then we have the Housing Committee at 7. Because some of those people like to work all day and you just want to be there until 7 PM. Anyway, you can get back to that. Thank you.

But Fisheries kind of set a schedule for the rest of the year not too long ago, so I'm not sure what they're going to talk about except maybe a little wine and moon.

Oh, maybe they'll find something. Yeah, quality.

Um, anything else that people want to call attention to or questions about for the upcoming? And I was late in giving staff the little reminder about quarterly reports, which are usually in this packet. So I already have another one for next time, and I think a few more will be in the next one also.

That's all I know. And so then we've got the, the, um, it's not on the calendar. Oh, the primary is on August 18th, and Sunday is the last day to register if you want to vote in the primary, right? 30 Days before. That would be correct.

Yeah, sorry about that. Just thought, well, wouldn't you have to say that in public in case anybody is in here?

Okay. All right.

Sweetwood Blessing State Fair is coming up. I just want the floppy banana.

Yes. Good news, Susan.

Okay, well then, audience participation.

Any— anything at all? Anything on your minds? Anything? Okay, council comments.

Start over here.

Down south, really grateful to be back here. Um, that's generally— I travel a lot and stay a lot with the family down south.

Really, really fortunate that I can raise my feral children in this community and feel with that.

Fortunate being around different family, my nieces, nephews, children the same age as my children. And it's a really special place. It is pros and cons, there's different things to it, but, uh, pros are for me and my family, I feel very fortunate that we're able to Thank you for everyone who helps make that possible, because it does take the whole village.

Thanks. Yeah, well, thanks, Pat, as always, for making sure we're well prepared for all the topics we discuss. And really happy to see it all in movement. Laura Clark's rec As always, very busy shop over there. I too took a page out of Council Member Kimson's playbook.

I too just got back from about 40 days traveling, or 38, and Council Member Kimson usually mentions our water, and I found that really bad water. So really, those little things that you come back to Cordova and realize we've got a pretty special place. So it feels good to be home.

I have not traveled outside of Cordova, but still do appreciate everything. Um, once again, thank you to all the city members that got the cemetery in good shape for us. That was— that brought me to tears to see that day. And all those guys have been out for their free coffee. So, um, the human resources and Cordova Center reports are great.

I appreciate Signe giving us a heads up on the needs of the theater.

As we see this building now starting to see maintenance on equipment, it's one of those things where you have to, you have to spend money to make money, and we cannot ignore maintenance. It's across the board. So it was good to see the heads up in that department. And thanks to everybody who sits at the table and calls in when they don't sit at the table. But I appreciate all the council members.

It's been some really good discussions at this table, and it's, it's not a dreaded, dreaded feeling coming to council meetings as it has been in the past. So I appreciate all the council members. Thank you. Thanks. Uh, Council Member Mickelson, I'm going to go to you online because, uh, you're, you're right there, the head of the table this week.

Yeah, all right. Um, yeah, I echo my fellow council members comments here. I'm just really happy to hear there's some pool progress, but I feel like the elephant in the room is we're probably not going to have a same season this year, and that's going to have major effects on our taxable income revenue. Um, there's just going to be huge ripple effects, and obviously the gillnet season also, um, is most likely going to be a disaster. But this is an unprecedented just complete absence of pink salmon so far in Prince William Sound compared even to Daffodil Ridge, which is so much worse.

It sounds like it's probably northern Gulf of Alaska wide, but we seem to be getting the worst of it. So as, as wonderful it is to see all the blooming and life this time of year, we're going to have some extremely hard choices to make this this winter is my prediction, just based on the lack of fuel tax because tenders aren't operating because almost every single salmon fishery is closed. So I guess everyone should be prepared for that, and I know we've talked about it before, about what services we value the most and which ones we are willing to maybe suspend, and hopefully only temporarily, but Yeah, this is, this is extremely dire, and there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be struggling that depend on fishing for their income this winter.

Thank you. Yeah, I think that's probably been on everybody's mind. We know, we know where it's coming. Um, Council Member Collins.

Yeah, I don't think I have a whole lot to add. I think a lot of the same things that I've heard Councilmember say about appreciating Cordova, and also as a former gill netter, I still do look at the fisheries announcement, so it is difficult seeing if I was trying to put myself in a position if I was gill netting this year with there's no opportunity, so that's a difficult thing to be seeing knowing all the people in town who rely on that. Better. That's— yeah, this— Councilor Mickelson said, I'm sure there's going to be tough decisions to make here. There's not a lot of time left to see things change before we deal another same season.

It's not looking good so far, so being prepared for that, I think, is going to be important too.

Member Hanson, I'd love to thank, uh, all city staff for everything that you do.

And all of my fellow council members, their comments. And, uh, I don't know if anybody has been to 17 Mile this year and, uh, had to fight the bears to get out of your truck to get the bags or whatever the items are on the back of your truck, but we counted 22, 8 of which were at the truck as soon as it stopped. So then you had to pull up, back up, get some distance, and try to shoot them away. And even at that point, they were basically at the back of the truck as you're trying to unload. So I can't imagine what the Refuge Department is dealing with if that's the situation that we're in.

So I know the bear offense is on topic, but that is a a huge liability. I don't think that anyone could do anything as a single person because you have to have somebody present, or two people present, with the numbers to bear. And they have zero fear.

Like I said, 22, 22 is what we've seen there for the 15 minutes that we were present. So that's going to be a— it is an issue. And it's going to continue to be a bigger issue.

Okay, thanks.

All right, um, thanks everybody. I hope people can— we've got some big decisions and some weighty things to deal with, but maybe just for the weekend people can go out and enjoy Salmon Jam and enjoy some live music and some local talent and also talent from coming from outside of town, get out and run and walk with your friends for the salmon runs. And, uh, yeah.

All right, thanks everyone. Oh, I guess I need that.

I'm 7:35.

Where was that? Where were you? 17. Oh, you were at the land. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, took me a second. Well, I mean, all you have to do is fly over that and see bears that you can't see. So I have flown a lot. Oh, I agree. But I haven't been present or something in a while to that extent of—.

To see them on ground. Yeah, it's— you're making me not ever want to walk the dog again.