Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of June 25, 2026 Part 1

All right. I will call the Thursday, June 25th, Cote d'Ivoire Assembly Work Session to order. We will start off with citizen comments. For those who wish to call in, the local number is 907-486-3231. Toll-free: 1-855-492-9202.

Please turn off your radio or any listening device to prevent feedback. For those in the room who wish to speak under citizens' comments, please come to the podium and sign in. Turn on the microphone, make sure the green light is on before speaking, and speak directly into the mic. And please state your name for the record and address all remarks to the Assembly as a body and not to any member thereof.

Thankfully, we got a woman.

To begin with, my name is Charles Glagolich. Nickname is Chas of Chasman Charters for over 30 years. I used to be, not anymore. I'm retired. Retarded now.

Retired, excuse me.

This is a comment in regards to the proposed fish box tax.

Gentlemen, it's always concerned me a bit that a vast number of clients to the charter boat industry are coming from the wrong place to begin with. They're coming from a perspective of, a number of them are, not all, but a majority of them are coming from a place that they want to send back as much fish as they possibly can, primarily halibut, without regards at all to whether or not they can possibly consume that amount. If that's If that experience isn't enough justification for the tax, at the airport in the summer when you go down there, just take note of the fact that all the people leaving Kodiak, fortunately, have got a number of fish boxes, far too many than which they can possibly consume.. And it's not the intent of the way the system is supposed to work to begin with. There's already two communities in Alaska, Sitka I'm more familiar with than any of them, which have imposed a fish box tax for all good reasons.

Not only does it generate revenue, and I hate to see terminology used, tax, quite honestly.

It will hopefully point an individual to enjoying what is many, many fold to enjoy in Kodiak during the course of his experience or her experience, without a consideration for justifying the considerable expense and trouble of coming all the way to Kodiak and justifying primarily that expense by what they take home in the way of fillets, and how much the fillets divided by the cost of the whole experience is going to That's not coming from the right place. It's really not. There's many, many things to enjoy in Kodiak, and it's not part of the specific instruction in regards to whether or not a fish tax is— or a box tax is justified. But it's common sense occurrence, which is very disturbing.

In conjunction, do we have a Coast Guard representative on the board at this time? No. Not the Borough of the City, probably.

A most frequent— and I'm not specifically delineating one particular organization as being an offender. But take note sometime of the airport, our local airport, and what's going on with the fish boxes that are stacked many times 5 to 10 high, uh, of Coast Guard personnel who are— they're sending it to their brother, sister, uncle, whatever. I mean, sending them some fish and taking some with you is obviously justified as being a resident of Kodiak, but not to the point where the guidelines are such which permit such ranting, rape and pillage of our water without any recourse at all. They have to buy a license, true. They have to go on a charter boat, true, because they don't have any other option.

But it's, uh, or themselves. It's, um, I'm so sorry, could you wrap up your comments? Yeah, it's been 3 minutes. I'll do it right now.

What's fair is fair, and waste is waste. And that leads to a rampant discussion in regards to draggers or whatever, but still, fundamental to me, fundamentally We're behind the curve in our community in many regards if in fact that fish box fee, I hate to say tax, is not imposed.

It's happening in Sitka and Gustavus. I've never been there. I can't even pronounce it. They have realized that that's the direction to take, and you get pointed for our local community in the right direction. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chance. We do have a call. You are now answering a call from the queue. Good evening, Assembly Work Session. Please state your name for the record.

Hi, my name is Valerie Erson. Go ahead, please. Yeah, um, I serve as the Corporate Affairs Manager for the Apognak Native Corporation. I'm offering comments tonight on Item 3C related to the discussion on the fish box excise tax. We have heard from a couple of Apognak Native Corporation shareholders, some of whom come from families where shareholder M owned charter boat fishing businesses.

They have concerns about the impact of a fish box excise tax on their businesses. We are also concerned with the idea that an excise tax is being discussed with the specific goal of bypassing a public vote. While we can appreciate that the Kodiak Island Borough needs to identify funding to support its activities, there should be an opportunity for the public and small businesses that would be impacted to have input into discussions on tax matters, review any proposals, and ultimately vote, as this could impact many families. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Valerie.

I'm sorry. No, I'm so sorry. You get one, one shot. Yeah. I would just like to defer, if I was responsible, to Jeffrey Wood.

Yes. Great. Yeah. Thank you. No other calls?

Anyone else?

Hello, my name is Richard Carstens and I also was a charter boat captain on Kodiak Island, but way back in the earlier days of charter boat skippers. I was a captain, Coast Guard licensed captain, from 1982 to 1992. So back then, there were— in 1982, there were only 3 or 4 different charter boat businesses, me and my partner and then 2 others. Anyway, we noticed I've noticed a huge difference, of course, in the number of boats, the number of— the number of— the amount of product that's going out. And back then, this tax wouldn't have made much of a difference to city government.

But, you know, I've, I've looked at what the city of Sitka does with their with their taxes and Gustavus, and it basically goes for the good of the community. It goes for— a little bit of it might go to the general fund. A lot of the monies go to the harbors, to fisheries enhancement and such like that to help us pay for all of the infrastructure that's responsible for these— for the charter boat businesses, which I'm which I'm for. So to me, it's a positive and it will— I believe it will help the residents of the community in general and the harbor and the city and the borough governments in particular.

Thank you. Any other calls? Anyone else?

Okay, with that, I will move on over to Manager's Comments.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Assembly Members. Uh, our Project Assistant role has been filled. Uh, Hayley Wallace, who's actually here tonight— we won't embarrass her too much— um, she currently works for Community Development, and she applied and is going to start in that position on July 5th. So congratulations to her.

Union negotiations are still ongoing. IBEW packaged up all of the final items and sent them over to us, and we have responded, and we are just going back and forth with some small questions. I think we are very close. On June 8th, because we haven't met since the beginning of June, Mayor Griffin, Mayor Haynes, Deputy Manager Benke, and I gave a presentation of the Coast Guard about why Kodiak would be a good destination for the new icebreakers, and I'm I'm sure you've seen the news. We did such a tremendously good job.

I'm sure it wasn't decided before that presentation. Um, and, um, so very exciting news. Um, I was actually standing next to Mayor Haynes in Assemblymember Gardner's shop, um, when Senator Sullivan called. And so it was really neat to be near the phone call, um, for the official announcement. So congratulations to Kodiak.

I think that's going to be quite an opportunity. Uh, Hospital Facilities Advisory Board met. Um, we are kicking off lease negotiations for our lease for Providence, the building, uh, that ends in June of 2027. Our first request was to get the Providence financial records for the last 3 years. It says in our lease that we are able to request those.

We've never done that as far as I can remember since all the way back to 2020. So we've asked for the last 3 years. So we can get a better idea of what's going on there. I've also heard from KCHC, and they're requesting us to sign a letter of consent and want to know if we will sign an NFI on the mental health buildings. And so that is a tremendous win for them.

And I don't know if we'll put that on agenda to get an official vote. I think the consensus we've gotten so far— and like, yell at me if I'm wrong— is that We're going to do that, and there shouldn't be any problem with that. So we're really excited to move forward with them on that. I attended a project stakeholder working group kickoff meeting for the Russian River and Sargent Creek Bridge replacements. It was basically a larger group meeting to go over all the stuff we've gone over in the smaller meetings and allow those new stakeholders to ask questions.

They gave us a lot of possible solutions that were very expensive, and we're not sure how we'll pay for them, but it is exciting to watch all of their hydrology models, to take place. Next in the report is our nonprofit funding schedule. Nonprofit applications are open until June 30th, and then the schedule of how they make it to the assembly is there. Um, and then for my last part, because I don't get to comment at the end, I just want to thank Assemblymember Johnson. Good luck on your move.

Um, so that's my department. In Community Development, the Parks and Rec Committee met on June 4th. Part of the meeting focused on the review of a resolution to the Planning and Zoning Commission to recommend a playground project for Halicon Court Park be added to the CIP list. Uh, the resolution will be forwarded to the Planning and Zoning Commission for consideration during the CIP review process this fall. Planning and Zoning Commission met on the 17th for its regular meeting.

The commission reviewed a conditional use permit request from the Native Village of Karluk related to a utility facility for improvements to the community's Public Water Facility. That passed. The next meeting of the commission will be on July 8th. For the Plan 2045, which is our comprehensive plan, the final— I wish— the first draft chapter is ready for review. What we've decided to do in Community Development is send chapter by chapter to Planning and Zoning and then on to the Assembly so that we'll have lots of chances for the public to see the individual chapters, and then there'll be a chance for public comment for the whole thing later, but it just gives lots of opportunity for the community to make, um, recommendations or comments.

This first chapter alone is almost 200 pages, and so I think you will appreciate the smaller bites of the comprehensive plan instead of looking at the whole thing at once. So after it makes it through planning and zoning, it'll be on to you. In finance, for people who are late in paying their 2024 taxes, the end of the redemption period is July 6th. After that date, documents are submitted to the courts. The borough will obtain a clerk's deed to real properties that still own taxes— owe taxes from 2024.

For 2025 tax foreclosure, staff has submitted documents to the attorney to be filed with the courts. Once signed, a judgment will put a lien on real properties until the delinquent taxes are paid. Since additional interest and fees continue to accrue, if you are one of those folks, please call the finance department at 486- 9324 to get a payoff amount. Our tax statements have been submitted to the printer and will be mailed to property owners on or before June 30th. Um, for our Tyler project, and you'll see another update in assessing here, levy was completed through the new software and tax bill statements have been sent to the printer through Tyler.

We're still working with them to complete other items such as delinquent notices and other data exports. Um, but as of July 1st, we're stopping all dual entry with the Harris system, which is really exciting for finance staff. Um, also Dora didn't add this, but it was interim audit this week. So Dora was running around sending all kinds of documents to our auditors. They don't actually come here for this audit.

They just pick random bits of information for us to send to them to get ready for our, um, actual audit in September. So we completed that today as well. I actually watched Dora leave the building at 5 PM today, which is kind of amazing. In assessing, uh, once again, we will be reviewing properties in the city of Kodiak. So you can see assessing has already been out, especially on nice days like today.

They're always wearing something bright. You'll see them in reflective vests. They do not enter your property, your actual inside of your homes, but they do go onto your property for measurements. We have an annual report due to the state of Alaska. We have problems— well, when SEMA sent this to me, we were having problems with Tyler, so we're asking for an extension, and we still might have to ask for extension, but the information we didn't have came in this afternoon, and so Tyler is looking a little bit better.

Assessing worked on a report for a liquor license renewal for Tony's. Um, for senior citizens and disabled veterans exemption, um, the PFD staff, uh, for the state is understaffed, and their ability to process applications has been really, really slow. They're back in like February. Um, they process them in the order that they come in. And so normally this time of year we have like 30 or 35 people that are undetermined.

We had 156 that are undetermined. And so SEMA, as tax bills are gonna come out, if you're undetermined and you're a disabled Veteran or a senior citizen, you're gonna get your tax bill and it's not gonna have the exemption, because if you're undetermined, you don't get the exemption unless you've contacted us and worked out other things. So those letters are out and people are coming in going, "Ah!" But what happens is once you do get determined that you are gonna get the PFD, your tax bill gets updated. And so there is a process to make sure you do get that exemption, but when the bill goes out, if you're not already determined to be— I want to say that it's applicable. I don't know, I'm missing the word.

Thank you. You don't get it. And so there are going to be some people who get some tax bills in this first week of July that don't have the exemption that will eventually get it, just because the PFD staff is so far behind. So I think, uh, Sessing did a really good job making sure that people were aware of that early on, and that letter has helped let people know what's happening.

Uh, no changes in the exemption updates or exemption appeals, and SEMA put an update in there for the Tyler conversion as well. Remapping commercial properties is going to begin on the 26th of June, and they're going to continue weekly meetings, um, with a go-live date of July 31st for commercial properties. So we're getting closer. In information technology, IT has been working on a new remote access system for staff LTP plant. Um, they monitor from iPads from home, and so it's really important that that communication system works so that they're, um, getting all of the alarms and updates from the plant.

They've also been reviewing and updating the consulting contract for our Proxmox virtualization platform, um, that's going to be starting at the beginning of the next fiscal year. Our cybersecurity and risk mitigation project is in full swing, and if you look inside of IT, it is just filled with boxes of hardware for that system. GIS has been working on capturing new drone imagery. I actually got to see the drone fly the other day. It's pretty amazing.

It's not a typical drone that you see. It has wings and flies like a jet and then turns on its side and just comes down and lands. Really neat. We're asking for better imagery of the fence out at the landfill so we can better monitor that, and they've been working on that. In engineering facilities, our pump extensions are here and complete for pumps 3 and 4.

We had a really low tide and the pumps were spectacular. And I want to thank Cody and Brandon from maintenance because they put in so many hours tracing that system and working with Will and taking all the knowledge that Will had and taking all the blueprints and knowledge they could get. Uh, they talked to the people in Juneau about their system and just spent a lot of time making ours work a lot closer to what it was meant to work like, and NOAA has been really happy with, um, their service and getting things back. Um, and surviving that low tide without an employee having to come in at 2 in the morning has been quite wonderful. Uh, the elevators are back up at the hospital.

Our solid waste RFP is out and it closes on August 4th. It's been out for quite a while, so we're expecting stuff to start coming in. Nothing has changed with our fuel spill assistance. Um, our building automation systems at the KFRC, um, are completed. We were able to reduce the overall building temperature by 10 degrees.

I don't know if you've ever been over there on a sunny day, but it gets really hot. And so those controls have all been adjusted. Again, that's Will and Brandon and Cody figuring out how those systems were meant to work and fixing them. So that's great. Tonight you'll see, um, an air handling unit issue that we're having with this building, um, and a proposal to get that fixed.

Uh, there are a bunch of small projects going on. We have hazardous material testing on the East Elementary roof. Uh, the Port Lion School painting project is getting ready to kick off tonight. On the agenda, we have an underground storage tank removal at the Annex Building, uh, the Mill Bay stairs and picnic table replacement. The contractor has mobilized, the project is happening.

We have an installation of the citric acid dosing skid at the Leachate Treatment Plant, and we are getting some work done on this main building roof. Upcoming contracts are listed there. We have an ARB meeting scheduled for June 29th, and then the next HFAB is scheduled for July 7th. Assemblymember Whiteside asked for some information from RentalScape. So the next few pages, you can see some of the graphs and information that we get.

That first picture there kind of gives you an idea of what RentalScape can find out about what type of building is being used, um, how many short-term rental properties they're finding. This month it was 113, but I expect that to jump back up when we get June's data in because that's when all of them usually come back online. You'll see booking activity and what the occupancy has been, um, as high as 60% last July and August, um, and where it's at now. And then what the average daily rate was, which I thought was kind of shocking.

On the next page, I took out the owner's address and the owner's name and some information that I didn't know if we wanted the whole world to see. This is— there are 11 more pages just like this of listings of all of the— so it gives us some pretty good detailed data on the address, who the owner is, when the short-term rental was first identified, um, how many nights have been booked to date, what their booking frequency is, a lot of really good information. And so both assessing and community development, and then the city as well, has access to all this information. So this should help us when we're trying to make estimates on accommodation tax, like what we should be expecting to come in, identify who should be paying accommodations tax, and also help us with our business personal property tax accounts from assessing. After that, you're going to see June's projects office report.

Thanks to Cody and Patricia for putting that together.

And I think the electronic version, it's a little bit easier to zoom in on those graphs. So if anyone wants to see that electronically, let me know. Otherwise, that font's kind of small. And I think that that's been a great addition to watch how projects are developing, and that's I know that was really long, but we haven't seen each other in so long. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Yes, it's been a while. Thank you, Amy. Any questions pertinent to the report for Madam Manager?

Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to our work session agenda items. Up first is the Sourcewell procurement system presentation.

Is that, uh, oh, it's Cody. It is, yeah. So our Engineering Facilities Director is here tonight. We actually already have a SourceWell account, so here's our pitch on why we should actually use it. Yeah, good evening.

Um, there's a slideshow in your packet tonight. I didn't want to bore you with going through the slides, um, sake of time, but essentially the borough has a SourceWell member account. It's not something we pay for, it's something that all municipal departments within the state have access to. And we also have what's called a NASPO value point account, which we have used in the past. Previously, we were told not to use a Sourcewell account because it wasn't deemed as like a competitive method of procurement.

However, I sat through that presentation with the gentleman that provided it and learned more about it, wanted to understand how it aligned with our procurement, uh, and then what could it offer us. And so that's what I wanted to present to you tonight. Essentially, just so we can— for the record, it's a public service cooperative and governmental agency that provides cooperative purchasing services to eligible public entities throughout North America. That's what Sourcewell is. They solicit via RFP.

They provide all the documentation. It's all on the website. You can drill down, see who bid it, when it was bid, what the numbers were, if they're local in the state, if they're out of state. All that information is available. Available.

And so I changed my original assumption about it, and it does really align with the procurement that we typically follow. It expedites the process. And so, um, I wanted to go through and see like an example of how we could use this. And so some of the examples that were provided that aren't just in my department, but I feel like they're worth bringing up, is like IT products and services. We looked and we've seen a lot of the things that we're already using, we'd save an average of 5% for.

Office supplies was a 5 to 10% savings, even from using things like Staples, Amazon, and the services that we currently use through Sourcewell. Parks and Recreation equipment went up to 15% savings on most recent park renovations, just the equipment alone that we paid for. And then there's some requests for non-common items that the Engineering and Facilities Department doesn't typically do on a regular basis, things like communications, uh, radios and whatnot for fire departments and other equipment for the firehouses. And based on the internal quotes that they had provided us, we're looking at a 5 to 10% savings just in those alone. And so that's just in product savings.

And so I thought that was interesting, but then I wanted to apply that in a real-world scenario. Well, ENF had purchased a new truck. We paid $49,074 to have a truck shipped from Kodiak— or from Anchorage to Kodiak. Um, that was after going through the bidding process. It took 30 days, about 7 hours of staff time, um, and then the overall savings that Sourcewell would have offered us is 13.93% when I give them the data for the truck.

And so the take-home is that we would have saved $6,836 in the product alone plus the 7 hours of staff time, which could have been used somewhere else. And so then I said, that's a big purchase. Let's look at little things that we buy. Well, we just purchased some weed eaters. And here's the real big takeaway for me as the director of the department.

Buying a weed eater takes the exact same time as a truck for the borough. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's true. It takes more people, though, to buy a truck because we had to have ENF staff and finance staff involved with that. However, and the weed eaters became a very lengthy process just because we had to get but solicited for quotes, had to get the 3 quotes because it was over $500. Um, came back cheaper to get it out of town even with the local preference.

However, they wouldn't ship them to Kodiak because of hazmat risks, all these different things. And so, um, we ended up buying them local at $845 each. Sourcewell offered us a $221 savings on the same items that we got locally. And so that would have been basically go to the computer, type in what you need, draw down, click the contract, reach out to them, pull out the, pull out the Sourcewell contract number, give them our account number. You don't work with Sourcewell, you work right with the provider.

And one of the providers that I pulled this quote from, ironically, is who we were getting quotes from for the same product. And the difference in price from what they provided us was $221.01. And so it's like, just by using the service we already have an account with, it's like an Amazon account or anything else. We would have saved $221 if we just ordered it through them. So that's essentially my pitch.

NASPO we've already used, which is the Value Point Service Contract. In Alaska state statute, we reached out through procurement through the state just to make sure that we're able to legally use that as the borough, just like we use the NASPO through the state. And they said a public procurement unit may participate in, sponsor, conduct, and administer a cooperative purchasing agreement for the procurement of supplies, services, professional services, Or construction with one of the more public procurement units or external procurement activities in accordance with the agreement entered between the parties, which we have, and they said we could follow suit with that. But I just need your permission to do so.

Great. Any questions? Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Cody. It's kind of appalling that Sourcewell wasn't being used before.

It—. Like you said, all it does is save staff time from going through the bidding process because the agency has already done the bidding for you. That's why we get to realize those sales. Something I think, for me at least, it would be a no-brainer. Um, something that always drove me freaking crazy, and I'm sure it does you too, is when you put in a budget request, you have a line item in the budget request, say $60,000 for a truck.

You have a sourceful contract to find said truck. You go find said truck for $58,000. Are you gonna have to bring that back in front of us for a vote?

Yes, that's kind of asinine. The bidding's already been done. We've already approved it, right? I would like the assembly to reconsider a budgetary— a budget-approved item through a negotiated procurement contract has already met all the requirements of that purchase. Just seems like unnecessary bureaucracy to me.

So thank you.

Anyone else? Mr. Whiteside. Thank you. I support this as well. I mean, there's, there's the fiscal savings which are obvious, but factoring in the administrative burden, it's— there's two parts to that.

So there's the amount of time, as Director Allen said, that they can be dedicating to much more important things than going through, through the procurement process for 7 hours to purchase a weed whacker or a truck. They can be spending on much more important items. But there's also a fiscal note attached to that. How many people, you know, 7 hours of staff time, how much did that cost us in salaries and benefits just for that procurement item for a weed whacker? Probably more than the weed whacker cost itself, I can assure you that.

So there's two sides to that, to the fiscal savings and then staff savings. And just streamlining the processes is just, to me, also a no-brainer that we should, we should be using this service.

Mr. Woods. Yeah, this seems like a total no-brainer to me. It's efficient. It's kind of scary that we're actually looking at efficiency to me a little bit. But yeah, this will be getting my support.

Cody, can you walk me through briefly how is that local preference protected or considered? How exactly does that mechanism work? Yeah, so, um, once if we decided this was a route that we'd want to go, of course we would still reach out for like local quotes and gather local pricing. I don't foresee, um, for my department specifically, I wouldn't want to use this for like contracted services, right, for construction or anything like that. I'm purely looking at it from a fiscal standpoint of staff time for procurement of goods and supplies.

And so if there's anything locally that we can pull into, but we're really limited locally for the things that we use. There's not— we have a couple of local stores, but even then, what we've been told— I had to just recently go pick up some grabbers for trash, and we had to pick up a couple of coolers, and I say a couple is a lot. And I was kind of told like, hey, these are for the community, right? And we needed them for an urgent delay. And so the, the stores are even telling us like, hey, can we not take everything?

And so we're We're looking at this as another way that we can support the community by not pulling the resources that are available here for the people that are here. And so when you get the local bids, do you have to insert those manually into—. No. So Sourcewell's already done all that's pre-approved. So we would just get them just like we normally do if it's something that's applicable.

So like the weed eaters would be a great example. We would pull from the local stores that supply those kind of products. So that's where we'd gather our quotes from, compare those quotes with the 10% local preference to the Sourcewell contract to see if there's something that's more advantageous to the borough. Okay. So there is like a local oversight over— over that piece?

We would still do the same process for some things, but like there's nobody here that sells trucks, and so that's kind of a moot point. There's nobody here that sells heavy equipment, and so these are the things that are what we spend the most time on. And ironically, when I say like 7 hours, it's not 7 7 consecutive hours for that. But each one of these process took, uh, it takes a little over a month. So that's pretty substantial amount of time investment over a month.

So it'd be— we're looking at things like if we needed a piece of equipment, if we needed something that's not available locally, or even like trying to get away from using our Amazon— our credit cards more or less for like the Amazon purchases or things that are through that avenue. If we can order ahead especially like I'm thinking baler wire, the consumables of my department and other departments alike, we can then look at the source for options that are cheaper.

Great, thank you. Anyone else? Um, okay, it sounds like there's consensus to move forward with it. Thank you so much.

Uh, next on the agenda is to discuss, uh, the draft ordinance Implementing Marijuana Tax. Let me pull this up. So Ms. Roberts initiated this, but she did say that Mr. Woods could also present this and start the, start the discussion here. So I'll toss it over to you, Jeff. Yeah, my agenda item's still pulling up, so just give it one—.

Yeah, mine was, mine was pretty slow too. Yeah, I think mine might be steam-powered hamsters.

Do you want the paper? I would love the paper version. Yes, Miss Roberts did not give a great deal of time to discuss this ahead of time. I was a co-sponsor on this.

I see staff took direction well and did draft an ordinance. We're still very much in the discussion phase with this. No numbers are finalized. We are very much talking about what we'd like to see happen, even like as far as where any projected revenue would actually go. So I think at this point it'd be appropriate to discuss that once I eventually can read everything.

Like with any tax, obviously, guys, this is going to require about like going to the ballot. This is not something we're doing in secret. I know there's been a substantial amount of public comment on additional taxation.

My computer still has not loaded. Would you like my computer? No, it's good. It's just going very, very slow. Thank you, ma'am.

So, Jared, never having introduced one of these, do I read this in or what? No, at a work session, you don't have to read it in. You can just kind of present what, you know, what you and Caroline are thinking, and then I'll just open it up for discussion. And then we can take a look at items that are of interest to the Assembly as it comes up, as they come up. Yeah.

Biggest item for me is what is being proposed currently, that any potential revenue be used strictly for public benefit, for projects, services, and grants that promote health, safety, and well-being, like education, housing stability, reentry, recovery. Childcare, and quality of life for borough residents. That's where we're coming from here. We currently do not collect a tax for marijuana. I understand there's a substantial amount of administrative hoops that these, uh, that these companies or businesses do have to go through already.

I get that. However, many other communities throughout the state have implemented similar tax structure Yeah, I guess we wanted to bring this to the discussion item.

I am done talking. Okay. All right. No, I just wanted to make sure. So let's open it up to Assembly discussion.

It is pretty broad. I think we should also at some point hear from staff about the administration. Load. But let's, let's kick this off. Mr. Gardner.

Okay, just comparing it to what they did in Fairbanks and whatnot, I'm unsure of how this would go, if this would be applied to every marijuana business on the island, or like on line 42 of the Fairbanks version, it's exempted for sales in the city. So that feels pretty wrong to me to just slap an extra tax on what is the one marijuana shop behind the Rendezvous. That feels like prejudice to throw it at just them.

I overall don't support any additional taxation pretty much.

Period to the end. Um, and I hate the idea of slapping additional paperwork on these businesses, uh, in a quarterly fashion. Um, it seems like it's not a big deal to just add one more piece of paper every 3 or 4 months, but when you're in your busy season, it's hard to get that done. And, you know, these guys got a lot going on already. I can't say I like this as written, and I believe that were it to go to ballot, it would fail anyway.

So that's my thoughts. Thank you. Mr.

Ames.

I'm of the belief that there is enough profit margin for these businesses, that 3% is not an outrageous amount. I do agree the paperwork burden is a concern, both for borough staff and the businesses, and I think it needs to be figured out how it can be done very simply. My opinion would be, when they fill out their sales tax, whatever the bottom taxable number is, that's the number they use. Um, so they don't have to go through a lot of figuring and everything else. They just pick that one number, multiply it by 3%, and pay it.

If we're going to have a lot of procedure that it makes it hard for them and takes a lot of time, I would not be in favor of it. Um, and also, if it's going to take a lot of time on our staff We need to look at what is collected from sales tax and compare it to what the actual costs are. We're going to come out ahead or not at 3%. If there's— the number's not big enough to justify the time of borough staff and then produce a reasonable income, there's no point. And there's really no point if the staff time is going to eat it all up.

So I think we need— the details need to be worked out carefully.

Mr. Johnson. Thank you. I don't have very strong opinions on this. I do think it's worth noting that the details are somewhat already included. I think, you know, unless my math is wrong, it looks like taxable sales in '25 were about $4.5 million.

3% Of that, we're looking at just under $150— what, $135,000 to $140,000 a year in revenue. What does it take a finance staff member to process a piece of paperwork? Maybe 15 minutes. If we're assuming worst-case scenario, they've got 4 businesses, that's 1 hour a month. I think we could probably afford the squeeze of an hour a month for $136,000 a year in revenue.

Now whether or not we want to do that, whether or not the citizens of Kodiak support, a totally different question. But I just— I think it's worth continuing the discussion and moving forward with a general assumption that it's probably worth it economically from a pure revenue perspective. Mr. Smiley, the city has 3 marijuana distribution stores and they're charging 5%.

Tax on them, and we have— what is it, 7? Sorry, Mr. Smiley, there's only 2 inside the city limits, and the only tax they have is sales tax. Oh, I thought there was a marijuana tax. No? Okay, forget what I was saying then.

Thank you. Mr. Whiteside. Thank you. I'm not sure where I sit on this one, but, uh, one thing I do know is we have We have a strong need for finding some ways to generate or expand our revenue stream in our community. So, so are we going to find creative ways to generate more revenue, or are we going to just keep relying on property taxes to fund our community and services?

It's tough because we have folks that are struggling here. And so do we increase the mill rate to make up for these funding gaps that are going to continue to widen every year, or do we come up with other ways to generate some revenue? I agree, $135,000 to $150,000 will make a difference. And come the budget cycle, um, I would hope that the administrative burden would get streamlined quickly if this is something that the community approved. And I certainly would, I guess, rest easier knowing that this would go on the ballot and the community would be the ones deciding.

I have no desire to, to push beyond that process, but we do need to figure out ways to generate more revenue in our community, and we can't just keep relying on pressuring homeowners and property owners to bear that fiscal burden. So I'm on the fence on this one, but leaning towards I would support it going to the ballot. Mr. Woods. In general, I'm a pretty big fan of syntaxes of most descriptions. Marijuana is almost exclusively a recreational type product.

Let's call it that. Let's be— let's say almost exclusively. There are some other things. That being said, the city level does levy 7% for sales tax, 3% additional I would be personally be a fan of this encompassing all of the marijuana dispensaries. People already have businesses inside the city limits, they're already subject to sales tax.

They know it's by definition a slightly higher cost to do business within the city limits. 3% Across the board, making it standardized, I don't have an issue with that. Certainly academically, um, having a specified location for these funds to go, such as the Community Well-Being Fund. I like that particularly well. I hate when we talk budget seasons and we talk moving forward in our community, how we, we consistently talk about maintaining what we have.

It's good. We do need to look forward to what we're actually building though. If we're just trying to exist, well, we're going to slowly erode that. If we have a direction for actual programs. And if we want to have things, we need to make money for those things.

I really hate getting stuck in the cycle of let's just exist and let's not move forward.

I have a couple thoughts based on what I've heard, and one thing I want to note in the ordinance. I'm looking at lines 29 through 20— I'm sorry, 19 through 22 about the Community Well-Being Fund. I think that should be more reflective of— or the language should be a little more reflective of the powers that the borough actually has. For instance, on line 22, there's reentry and child care, right? We don't have— we're not— the borough doesn't have the power to support childcare or subsidize childcare or even subsidize, you know, reentry programs unless they kind of go through that nonprofit process.

But even in through the nonprofit application process, they have to justify whatever they're going to be using this for is related to a borough power. So I might encourage you and Caroline to just look at that and make sure that the language is more reflective of what we can actually do.

And, you know, even broadly, even if it's just like, right, like we don't have public safety power, so we probably shouldn't put safety in there, but we can obviously, you know, health, education, economic development, you know, those kinds of things that we can do.

So that would be my one suggestion here on the ordinance. I would— for me, this is about— this and the next item that we are going to be looking at is about kind of like diversifying, not necessarily expanding, but, right, but diversifying our financial foundation, you know.

Nowadays, this is what— right, this is what you have to do. You have to diversify where your revenue comes from. So, um, I'd encourage us to think about it, uh, like that too. I, um, I'm also willing to, yeah, rely on the wisdom of the voters, um, to, uh, to take a look at this and, and tell us what— tell us what they think, which we should— we're going to do anyway. Um, uh, Nova, can you, uh— I don't Let's see.

Oh, let's take a look at the timeline that's there at the bottom of the staff report. And I just want to make sure that the changes and conversations that, that Jeff and Caroline have, and then with staff, that this is a realistic timeline for us still. So the ordinance will need to be introduced July 10th. Or I'm sorry, the packet deadline. So everything will need to be prepared by July 10th.

That's in a couple weeks. Um, then we'll talk about the ordinance July 16th, then we'll have a public hearing, um, and then, which is the absolute deadline, um, and then, uh, at that point, Nova, it's, uh, ready for the ballot. What additional steps are we, are we crunching ourselves in terms of time to get it on the ballot? Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly, we're a little bit crunched on time, especially Assemblymember Roberts is out of town. So, uh, if it— if this is something that you really want on the ballot this upcoming October, we need to have the draft ordinance to the attorney by at least next week.

So if there's someone that could work on the draft that you would like the attorney to review, I would like to have it at Tuesday next week so that it would meet, um, because technically we released the packet for the August 6th— July 16th meeting on July 6th. But, um, we can put a placeholder for a title while that's being reviewed by the attorney, but for packet deadline for the July 16th meeting, I really need to have that ordinance in the packet. By, um, July 13th. Okay, that's the deadline. So we're really crunched on time, but if it can be done— I'm not saying that it can't, it's just that we're a little crunched on time, and I don't know what kind of input we need from staff as well regarding this ordinance.

Right. Um, I haven't heard any, like, specific suggestions on the ordinance itself, except for what I pointed out about lines 20 through 22. I will throw this over to Amy. Does staff have thoughts? The staff thoughts are already in there.

We wanted to make sure it was a quarterly remittance to match our other— like our accommodations tax. That is a cycle they are used to doing. So I think that was Dora's only request if we were going to do this, to make sure it matched the other ones. And there is only 3 3 businesses in town. And so the only thing that I talked about with the finance director is whether or not this would apply equally to businesses inside of the city limits as outside of the city limits.

And I think we discussed that tonight already with there only being 3. So Jeff, does that give you— oh, I apologize, Mr. Mayor. Also, this ordinance doesn't have the ballot proposition language in it, so I think that's key language that we need to have reviewed by the attorney. Thank you. So I'll throw it back over to Jeff.

Is this enough? Is this— I'm not sure when Ms. Roberts is due back because I think she's off the grid. Um, uh, it should be enough. I, I will ask for some staff time with Ms. Javier to make sure I get at least my process— at least get what I need to have on there ironed out at some point during business hours. Um, just because I signed on initially to this as a co-sponsor, this is not my brainchild, uh, and I want to make sure that we're, uh, doing things correctly.

Yeah, Mr. Gardner. Can someone enlighten me as to how long something like this typically sits with legal and what that, um, comes back financially? Like, just a guess or a prediction. Our legal, uh, our main lawyer is $275 an hour, and I have no idea if it would just be her or she would bring other people in. And we would have to give a definite deadline when we sent it.

We would just say, hey, like, this, this is what we need you to review, and we need it back by this date. We've learned that deadlines are key. I just thinking in my head, I honestly, I don't see the voting population of Kodiak going for this. And so if you guys want to go ahead and get it on a ballot, I just wanted to make sure we we weren't going to be spending six figures with legal to do that. But I still don't— I don't feel too good about this one.

Anyone else before we move on?

Okay.

Jeff, I'm a language guy. I can work with you on ballot proposition language if you want. Okay. Mr. Mayor and Assemblymember Woods, would Tuesday by 5 PM, would— do you think you could get something back to me by Tuesday? Me?

Yes. Yeah. I will make time. Okay, thank you. I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

All right. Don't rest yet, Jeff, because up next is a discussion of natural resource excise ordinance similar, similar to a fish box tax. So toss this back over to you on this one. So this one is actually my brainchild, and I get to be somewhat articulate about this.

Sitka currently has a fish box tax where they levy $10 a box for seafood leaving the Sitka Borough. We have a much larger natural resource extraction footprint than Sitka does, I would wager to say. I pulled— I got a hold of some information in there. I don't know how much of it made it actually into the packet.

Fish and Game information indicates that roughly 74% of the deer harvested in the Kodiak Island Borough are harvested by people who do not live in the Kodiak Island Borough. That makes— there's about 8,000 blacktail harvested a year in the Kodiak Island— in the borough, or Unit 8, let's just call it Unit 8. So assuming that I've never once seen somebody put their antlers in the same box that they put their meat in, because that would be weird, uh, you're looking at a substantial potential revenue stream there. That's not touching fisheries at all. My primary concern is we are very much a place where people take from the resource and there's not a tremendous amount of input back into it.

The purpose for any funding generated by such a tax would be to put back into the fisheries, wildlife enhancement, and specifically access to subsistence and sport fishing and hunting opportunities. I've gotten to go to a couple of different locations where we do have a lot of this economic activity. I'll pick on Port Lyons. Uh, Port Lyons has that major trail system that runs over to state land back behind the village there towards Vicoda. That place sees a tremendous amount of traffic from people coming to and from Homer, showing up, shooting a bunch of animals, tearing up the trails, and leaving.

Currently, I am unaware of a direct funding source that we have to do things like repair trails that get torn up. Uh, additionally, economic development is a borough power. So if we're looking strictly at stuff like potentially assisting with hatcheries and funding in that regard, We, again, we don't have a direct source of funding for that except for through nonprofits.

I think that would be a net positive. Ultimately, we take a lot, we don't give enough. On top of that, Fish and Game does have grants for stuff like access, which requires a 25% match. We currently have no dedicated funding source for those matches.

We like all these cool things. We like our subsistence hunting and fishing and all that. Wonderful activity which I very much enjoy myself, but we don't have a good dedicated way to pay for it or enhancement. That's, that's the spirit this is coming from. I understand lodges are concerned and charter boat operators are concerned about a $10 box tax.

Um, as in somebody who lives here and who does send a fair amount of fish off island because I like to take it to friends when I go travel, for whatever reason, um, this is probably going to hit my pocketbook more than most anybody sitting up here today, I would wager.

I don't like a system where we take, take, take without a dedicated way to repair, replace, or replenish. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Let's open this up to discussion. And I think today, right, because this is the first time we've heard this, we're probably a little more interested, and I think in like the underlying policy concept concept, and then we can think about what direction or questions we want answered if we want to start to look at ordinance language.

Like, we don't have to debate like $10 a box or $20 or anything like that, if I'm kind of understanding you, Mr. Woods. But so, yeah, let's— Mr. Gardner, yeah.

So I was aggressively against this as written, but you and Mr. Galagolich have softened me up a little bit. My big concern here— excuse me— is for locals. I think language should be in here where if you are a resident of Kodiak, that I don't think that this should apply to you to some degree. There's, there's got to be a concession in there. I mean, most locals aren't going and getting their fish packaged at a processing facility, but I know plenty of Coast Guard families, or I know several local families that don't want to own a boat, and they will get a charter to get halibut in the summer.

And I don't want to see this tax applied to them. I don't see, I don't see a negative to it if it is specifically going to people that don't live here, or maybe putting a limit on how much a resident can send off.

And then you comment about people coming from Homer in these boats and getting a bunch of deer and taken off. Those guys aren't generally processing here, is my opinion. I know a lot of the fly-in guys and whatnot, they, they're processing, but a lot of these guys from Homer, they're coming down and whacking a bunch of deer and they're, they're slaughtering on the boat, or they're waiting till they get home because it's only a 12-hour run or whatever it is. So, um, I don't think you're even gonna grab that impact. Potentially there could probably take collaboration with Fish and Game, but if there was a harvest here process here, um, component to this, then I could see capturing that.

But I really— if something like this was going to go forward, the absolute only way I could support it would be if locals were somehow mostly exempted. And then there was another There was another small issue I had, but it's lost my mind, so I'm sure there's somebody else. I'll come back. Mr. Woods, you had, I think, maybe some clarifying. Yeah, I had actually already contemplated a lot of Jeremiah's concerns.

We're kind of blessed in a way that our charter boats all have to report. They have their logbooks. A big issue we've had, which actually has seen some closures in the Kodiak area, there's some additional restrictions is particularly boats coming from Seward and Homer, uh, fishing North Sofognac very aggressively. So much so that now North Sofognac has a— instead of a 2 fish per day limit, you're allowed 1 fish 35 inches or better, 35 or 36 inches or better. That's because, from my understanding, over half of the lingcod harvest was happening in the North Sofognac and Barren Islands area and going, returning to Homer.

So obtaining that information via logbook That's the public records. Once it gets back to the state, we can obtain that information. Uh, additionally, hunters are required to report their harvests. So if you have— and they are also required to report their method of transport on their harvest ticket at the end of the year. That information is also potentially something we could obtain through Fish and Game through a records process.

That's a big thing. I would say, in absence of an actual box, if you were to take whatever the state currently uses for an average size of a, say, a Link Card, added it, or to even assign— I think you could realistically assign an average and then, okay, approximate weight-wise, easy enough. Then you send the bill to the charter company. My big concern is we do have a lot of these off-island companies taking a tremendous amount of economic activity in our area. Not touching Kodiak really at all except for to extract resources.

You go to some areas along the west side, as I've repeatedly been told, and you're in a bay with 2 or 3 transporters from Homer and Ninilchik. These people don't, by and large, ever touch foot in Kodiak. This is to the point where there are some areas where people have hunted traditionally for subsistence where it has become problematic for locals to actually go obtain their subsistence resources. Thank you. Before I bring it back to you, Gardner, let me see if there's— oh, there is.

Thank you. Mr. Smiley. I'm not sure that we can have a rule that says if you're a Kodiak resident, you don't have to pay a tax, but if you're not a Kodiak resident, you do have to pay it. I think it came up with regard to fishing licenses for state residents and non-state residents. And there was originally— it was a huge amount of money for out-of-state, and the state Supreme Court said no, it has to be balanced in some way.

So the out-of-state license cost is some numerical multiple of the state license cost. At any rate, I think that may not be legal. And that's something we'd have to be concerned about. Thank you. Mr. Whiteside.

Thanks. Yeah, these— my thoughts have already been stated, but I'm just going to kind of roll them around again. I think the biggest hurdle for this would be the burden of enforcement. I mean, you have— I don't know how the state would— respond to, I guess, a cooperative approach to this and, and sharing records with us. But I do agree that there's a very high amount of transporters coming from the mainland down here to extract fish and game resources, a very, very high amount.

If you spend any time on the water any time of the year, you've seen them. I've seen dozens of boats coming in and out of bays during deer subsistence season. And they never touch foot on Kodiak. They extract a lot of resources and go home, so that's not contributing anything to our community. So it—.

In principle, I agree with this. I think it— I do think it's a good idea to— another way to, as the mayor put it, diversify our revenue. But I do share the unintended consequence, or potential unintended consequence, of penalizing residents. So if there was some way to legally exempt Kodiak residents specifically, um, I would, I would support it going to the ballot. This would be another thing that I would not support it if we pushed it through without this going on the ballot for the community to decide.

But I do agree that, you know, the amount of money folks pay— and I know we're going to hear this, and I do appreciate that folks have businesses to run, but the amount of money people pay to harvest fish and game from outside of our community, an extra $10 to $20 is not going to change their budget or change their minds to come do it. So I'm going to take those types of comments with a grain of salt, to be honest. But if the administrative burden and the burden of enforcement can be addressed, including exempting our local residents from harvesting some fish and game for their freezers, then, then I'd support it going to the ballot.

Mr. Ames, I'm not sure this would address it, but this is something that the Borough of Kodiak and Kodiak as a whole is going to have to look at. The fact that more and more charter services are coming to our area and reach— taking resources and I've had two of them last fall admit, well, theirs are so depleted they have to come this far. Well, I don't want to see ours get that depleted. Um, and so I do think that the whole charter system and boats coming from a long distance because their resources have gotten low is going to become more and more a problem, and it's going to make it harder and harder for the locals.

And as I said, I don't think the fish box tax per se is going to deal with it, but it's something we're going to have to start thinking about because if we don't think about it now, it's going to be too late. Um, you know, all you had to do is 20 years ago walk the docks of Homer, see how many halibut were hanging from all the different charter boats, and go, sooner or later this is going to be a big drag on the resources. And I think it's enough of a drag that it affects the commercial halibut fishermen. Um, I think it's a combination of that and bycatch play a big part in the allocation for the commercial fishermen because these fish aren't accurately accounted for or restricted. So The idea of protecting our resources, I think, is a very important thing we need to deal with.

I don't think the fish box tax is going to do it. I do agree that with what they spend on hunts here, if you take home 5 boxes, $50, it's not going to be a big drag on them. I'm more concerned on the paperwork for the charter person or the processor or whoever and for a staff. Um, but I don't quite know how to do it, but I do think the other issue that this brings up we have to address, and that is boats from a distance, even tourists that come to Kodiak but don't really spend any time here. Depleting our resources.

Thank you. Thank you. Um, let's see, I have Mr. Gardner next and then Mr. Woods. This is starting to sound to me more like lobbying at a statewide level. The more I think about this, you can't—.

I—. And Mr. Smiley, I was thinking about the legal aspect as well on this as I was going through this this week, but, um, you can't stimulate a tax on a subset of Alaskan population. It's written into the state constitution, and I'm paraphrasing, that the management of Fish and Game is to be done for the benefit of all Alaskans, and it's spelled out very clearly. So there may be a way to add a tax on a non-resident to Alaska for the specific unit that they're going in. If we were to go down this rabbit hole, then the next time you go hunt a moose in Homer, you're going to be doing the same thing.

And I also agree, we have all these transporters coming down here using the resource, but they're going home. They're not— I don't think any of that money for a large majority of those guys is coming into anywhere that it would be affected by the borough. You could capture some of that if you went at it from the state level. This feels more and more like a talk with Luis, um, and, and just bringing it up and pushing something a little bit bigger than a local thing and getting a tax for your hunting or your fishing unit. Um, and lastly, Bo, you got what I had forgotten to say, but I just want to make a point, uh, to put it on the record that I never want to see ever again the sentence that According to the borough attorney, this kind of tax can be accurately categorized as an excise tax rather than a sales tax.

As a result, does not need to be put on a vote by the public. If we are going to even consider a tax, it needs to go on a ballot. That should be clear. So that's what I think on the subject. I think I'm going to take Mr. Johnson first.

Sorry, my— we're not keeping to the topic anyway, so I'm going off the rails. What the hell is the point of a government if we're not going to make a decision? If we're empowered to make a decision, but we say, well, we don't want to, we want to let the voters decide that, then why have the government? Why aren't we just putting the budget to the voters? Why aren't we putting— so at some point, we got to take this responsibility for what we were elected to do on the dais.

And if a neck-size tax is is not considered a tax that's required to be voted on by the voters, then they voted for the assembly to make that decision. So I just— I'm all for public input, don't get me wrong, but every process we have has public input built into it. And I think sometimes deferring to the community to make a decision on our behalf that we are otherwise empowered to make is just abdicating responsibility. Possibility. Thank you, Mr. Woods.

All right, so a number of things. One of the things contemplated is that if you were trying to, say, ship something out, you had to have a hunting/fishing license to go ahead and obtain whatever resource most likely that you're trying to extract. Theoretically, one could use the resident's address put on said hunting or fishing license to determine whether or not that would potentially fit as a resident of Unit 8 or not. There's that, assuming such a step would be legal. Uh, second off, if you're trying to collect such a tax, uh, the most obvious points of collection would either be through the shipping companies or through the airport, primarily.

Barring that, that seems pretty straightforward. People already collect fees and taxes for any wide number of things at these points. Uh, big issue that we talked about that I think we're kind of getting off track with is I don't know that we can curtail the economic input from all these different companies coming from other places. The purpose and the scope of why I landed on this as a potential option was the fact that this economic activity was happening here and disproportionately affects people who do not live here. Okay, um, the revenue generated potentially, right?

We're looking at 26% of the people that harvest deer in Unit 8 live here. That's 26%. That is not a huge— I mean, it's significant, but in the grand scheme of things, that's barely more than a quarter. Additionally, Fish and Game information indicates that only about half of the fish harvested in Kodiak are from people who live with— or state residents. That's to say that substantially less than half of them are going to also be people that live here.

Can you differentiate between a resident and a non-resident? Very possibly. Um, the state does it all the time. However, in the event that you can't, this is potentially a process that would disproportionately affect people who do not live here. Um, and also, and I think fairly disproportionately impacts the people who come here, take our stuff, and leave.

Um, with regards to day trips, um, the majority of those lingcod that are being harvested in the saltwater fisheries that are happening was people running to the Barrens The barrens are still within the borough. We get— my understanding is we can absolutely have an excise tax on items extracted from the borough. I am unaware of a single lingcod spot in that whole area that is more than 3 miles from any point of land and would fall outside that scope. We're kind of in a weird spot with the halibut stuff. We're all Unit 3A along with Seward and Homer, right?

Previous events— attempts to make an exclusive area for Kodiak were not successful. So as long as somebody can go buy a 3A charter permit for— in Homer, they can theoretically run here. I don't know that we're going to be able to do anything to temper that, nor do I necessarily think that it's really our place to even consider that. However, it is us who are being impacted disproportionately by this economic activity. It is us who are having to go farther and farther to go get less and less resources that live here.

Ultimately, if the state collects public records, there is a public record request process. How free they're willing to share that, that's unknowable. But to cut it off and not investigate it, I think we're beyond the point where we need to consider something to replenish.

I've seen just in the time I've been on the water here growing up, it hasn't gotten better. You have a tremendous amount of extraction happening. And the game side, yeah, that's going to be wildly fluctuating based on factors largely outside our control. Fish and Game themselves suggests that hunter harvest is not a significant driver of mortality. That's— Fish and Game puts out a report every time they do border game.

That's where a lot of this information came from. Beyond that though, we do have a huge impact fisheries-wise.

I think it is a wise choice to investigate ways that we can potentially put back and enhance what we have instead of just taking.

So I'll kind of see if I can synthesize some things and give us some direction. I think, yes, it's a— to Dave's point, yeah, it's, it's our responsibility to to look at ways to diversify revenue to ease burdens on especially residential taxpayers if we can.

I personally think it's definitely worth investigating and continuing on the conversation.

So what I'm hearing— so 3 main questions. One is the resident versus non-resident thing legal/feasible.

I would throw in, if it's not, I wonder if a rebate program for residents would be also legal, or that's something that we could do. It does add to administrative burden, for sure, 100%. Which is the second thing, right? What would be the administrative burden for this? SICK has been doing this for 20 years.

In fact, I think they established the $10 box 20 years ago. I don't know if they're even— if they're talking about increasing it. 10 Sounds like a fine number. But I'm assuming if SICK has been doing it for 20 years, they've figured it out, what that cost-benefit is.

And then, the third one is what does that process of collection and enforcement actually what does that look like for us? Again, there is one model, right, that seems to be open to sharing information with us in Sitka on how to do that. We're looking at other things with game, but there might be something there to build on. Those are kind of the three big questions or themes that I've seen. Does that kind of— yeah, Mr. Gardner.

I just have a couple of quick things. First, just for anybody who's listening, I think it's really important that they understand that I believe Mr. Woods' intent is, is very good here, and he's not just trying to throw a random tax at locals. I think the intent is good, but I'm not a fan of the wording. And then I think as we're exploring this idea, you're assuming, in my opinion, too much interagency cooperation with Fish and Game and other entities. Yeah, I would love it if that were the case and it was nice and easy, but let's be realistic and take baby steps.

And then in the most of respectful ways, Mr. Johnson, I do believe I was voted onto this dais to help lower taxes, and that's why I'm making a stink about— I think any tax needs to go on a ballot. So that's just my feelings on that.

Okay, so— oh, sorry, Mr. Whiteside. No, I was just going to say, I think we've captured what comes next, and you summarized it well, but it's certainly worth at least exploring. This could be a very large source of revenue for, for the community. And yeah, just as long as it's the— I don't want it to impact our community in any way other than a positive impact through increased revenue that, that's coming from outside of our community. Yeah.

Um, okay, Mr. Woods, does that give you, um, enough to start working with, um, staff and legal to— and for your own research? Yeah, absolutely. Um, the biggest question mark for me is going to be a, what the process would have to be like to obtain the information from Fish and Game. Uh, currently I don't know if that's something we could do straight through a public records request, which a lot of those things tend to be. However, what that looks like, what the, uh, doing something like this on a recurring basis, I have no earthly idea.

Um, that's the biggest question mark in my mind, and, uh, Yeah, we should have enough to move forward at least with something. Okay, Mr. Ames. So far the discussion has pretty much been around charter boats, and if we can't eliminate locals but I go out and catch a bunch of halibut in my own boat and take it to a processor, am I going to pay a Box fee, and that's something that should be addressed.

Thank you. I did have Mr. Gardner. I was just— I thought we were wrapping up and done here, but you're getting fired up after that. I was just going to say that I would be very amenable to working with you on this and getting somewhere with it outside of this. Thank you.

Yeah, Jeff, follow up. Yeah, so contemplated The primary way to do this would not be to collect it at the processor, in my opinion. It would be to collect it as it leaves the island through a shipper or through an airport. Again, assuming that we can't differentiate between resident and non-resident, that would be the— not every resident is sending a tremendous amount of fish out. I think by and large, most of our residents here take what they need for their own use, and a very small portion of that gets shipped out.

I know for me to send a box of fish to my dad in Michigan, It cost me about $270. I am not going to blink if it costs me $280.

That's the idea. At least that's where I'm coming from. I'm trying to figure out a way that disproportionately saves the burden from the Kodiak taxpayer.

Okay. Yes, Nova. Time-wise, We're not trying to get this on the October ballots? I don't think so. Okay, thank you.

I initially was, but this was originally requested for May.

Yeah, there's a lot— there's still a lot. Okay, sounds good. Thank you. Do you want to tackle agenda item D before a break, or are you wanting a break now?

Yeah, all right, all right. I'm seeing more. Let's get this going. The last item is— or on the work session agenda before moving to packet review is to look at the Assembly applicant interview questions. That timeline is going to be coming up pretty soon, so I want to make sure that we have a chance to look at those and offer any revisions.

I have a couple of changes I think I'd like to see. On these questions. Would you like me to go over my suggestions first?

So the— I think the interview questions, we want them to kind of be a better predictor of success. So again, we want to keep the questions open-ended. We want to keep them nonpolitical.

I think our job is different than the voters', right? We should be selecting applicants based on— we should not be selecting applicants based on, you know, agreement with specific policy positions, I think, but rather on their ability to govern effectively. The voters get to decide on the policy preferences and those kinds of positions, I think. I don't think that's necessarily our luxury. So there's some slight changes I would like to make.

Question number 1, I think is fine.

Question number 2, let me come back to it.

I think is also fine. I don't like the word "good," Assemblymember, but I, you know, it's fine. I would like to maybe change "good" to "effective." Yeah? Okay. All right.

Number 3, I like to maybe broaden out a little bit, and it's, um, uh, I would— it's not just tell us about your experience serving on governing boards, but I think I'm interested in, uh, opening up to committees and other leadership kinds of experiences. So adding in what governing board, committee, and leadership position experiences or leadership experiences do you have?

Number 4, I think I want a question that helps us understand applicants, you know, they understand the distinction between governance and administration and how they think they would work with— in, you know, inside the borough form of government. So my suggested revision to question number 4 would be, what do you believe is the proper role of an assembly member, and how should the assembly work with the mayor, the borough staff— I'm sorry, the borough manager, staff, and the public? It's a little more specific for me because especially they're kind of new to the borough government.

Number 5, I don't like, really, at all.

I would recommend that we change that to how they make difficult decisions.

So something like— and I can email and send these out if— later. Assembly members are often asked to make decisions on difficult issues where reasonable people disagree. How do you approach making those decisions?

Okay. Hey, thanks. And number 6, what is your number 1 priority if appointed? That's also— I don't like that one because, again, I want to get these questions away from here's my agenda, you know, and more, hey, how can we work on these priorities together? So my slight revision to number 6 would be what do you believe should be the Assembly's highest priorities over the next 2 years, and how would you contribute to addressing them?

So it shifts the focus away from my agenda and kind of more towards the institutional leadership, I think, that I would like to see.

So you guys care, don't care, you know, or, you know, or do you have your own thoughts? But those were my suggestions. Did I see your hand first, Bo? Oh, okay. Mr. Gardner.

I was just going to quote Mr. Johnson and say that I do not feel strongly about this. Okay. Fair enough. Mr. Weisheit. Thanks.

Yeah, I agree. Number 2, good to— getting away from good and effective is a good swap there. I would say or advocate for number 3 and going more broad and getting away from governing board committee, very strict or prescriptive bodies, and maybe something along the lines of, do you have experience with collaborative decision-making? If so, please expand or explain or highlight your experience in that area. You can wordsmith that however you'd like.

Yeah, I like that. That way, you know, there's people that that are very great collaborators that maybe haven't served on committees or boards, but those are the kind of people we want. Yeah. I dig that.

Anything else, Mr. Weitzel? Nope. Was that— oh, okay. I'll send these to you, Nova, later. Mr. Ames.

I agree number 3 needs to be broadened a little. They may have served on the KEA Board, they may have served on— you know, something that's not per se governing, because governing sounds like government. Um, I was on the Habitat for Humanity board, I was on the Special Olympics board, and we have to get together, have meetings, and work together. So I think that sort of experience should be able to be included.

Mr. Woods. Yeah, I think if you are looking for the simple fix for 3, I think you could say leadership or governance. Those are pretty simple. But with that exception, though, I particularly liked the change you suggested for number 6, getting away from the agenda.

Mr. Smiley.

On number 4, my experience is many of the people that are transiently interested in what we do by listening to the radio and everything really don't have a clue as to what the borough actually does or what powers we have adopted. And I think that if you ask people what their vision of the role of the borough government is, or governance, either way, you have to— before that, you have to inform them of what our powers are so that they have a clue as to what we're really doing. So I don't know how to fit all of that into that question, but certainly something that expands on what the borough can do is good. That we don't have a— we can't do roads, Mr. Johnson.

I think it's maybe a little bit of a counterpoint to that. I'm not disagreeing, but I would offer that somebody submitting to be seated on the Borough Assembly should reasonably be expected to know what the powers of the assembly are. And I think asking that question is legit. Yeah. And quizzing that question is legit, but I don't think it's necessary or appropriate to explain to somebody who who's applying what the rule is, because if they don't know, then shame on them.

How do you understand Paris? Okay. No, I get what you're saying. I think I got something that can satisfy that. Okay.

Okay. So I'll put these together, send them—. I'm sending you the Word document. Oh, okay. And then we can put it in as like an informational item.

Yeah, one more to your left or straight ahead. Oh yes, oh, what, what do you have to say, Madam Administrator? So I know this is a relatively short appointment, but I'm always interested in hearing, um, if the— I know that we talk about in number 7 about commitments that will impact your ability to meet. I think that that needs to— that question needs to extend if we're going to have them assigned to committees. I think a lot of people are just like, sure, I can make Thursday nights without understanding that there are more more requirements during the day that, you know, and then, and if they will specifically be assigned to what Assemblymember Johnson was doing or how we'll reallocate.

And again, this is a short one, but some of those committees only have 3 people, and if it's down by 1, it makes it really hard to make those committees happen. So I think that that's worth asking. Um, and then in Amy's dream world, I would like them to accept electronic communications. Like, I want that to be a question. Like, will you— do you accept electronic communication?

Because that makes our job and the clerk's job— and there are some cases where people have like ADA reasons and they can't, and like, absolutely observe that. But that, that's, that's huge in how we do business and email communications. And again, dream world scenario. I don't expect you to add it.

All right, let me think on that one. That one's interesting. That one's interesting.

Okay, all right. We'll take a look or have it ready for you, I think, at the next meeting to just kind of look at. With that, we'll take a 5-minute break and we'll be back with packet review. Please make sure all your microphones are off. Oh, that takes a while.

Takes the fun out of it. And there's snacks in the back for saying thank you to Dave.

Thank you or good riddance? I think it's a thank you. There might be an underlying message. It depends on the day. It depends on the week for me.

Might be the hour.

Yeah, yep, exactly. And what we're hearing is that they're being depleted elsewhere, so they're coming here because we have abundance. Where are you guys at in Pakistan? Well, we just have 2 people in 7 countries. Oh, that's really—.

Oh, letter B. So we gotta be—. That's why the alphabet is so short. We gotta be here.

Yeah? I don't know. I mean, no, I don't think so because that's a state-wide thing and I don't think that's anything that we do. And I mean, you've got to charter a license to operate there. Yeah.

This is a state-wide thing.

So I don't know how that would work for shifting appointments, but—. Oh, it would be easier to do. I don't know how much momentum there's been on that with the email. See, that's the thing, I don't think there's going to be much.

But, yeah, I doubt there'll be much, but I think it's There's also, right, the Cook Inlet Committee too. Well, if there's—. Well, yeah, the appointee, I guess, is in the same boat.

I mean, yeah, you're there for a meeting to introduce yourself. But the couple people that I I've talked to about it, they're actually doing the appointment of the springboard for the election aid. So that's good. Yeah, great. I'm glad to see the improvement.

Yes, yeah. I don't feel as bad for like—. No, I think there's interest for—. From what? From just the few people that I've talked to on the streets about it.

So, um, and then, yeah, so I haven't talked to Caroline. Yeah, she's in her room.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's hard being a parent.

It's about time this happens. A long time.

A long time. No doubt. All right, I was on my way. Want some cake? Oh, there is cake?

We saw that. We saw the thing, but no cake. Do you want some cake?

When you went to Iceland, how long were you there? 12 Days. 12? There was a big scientific meeting in Akureyri, and that was 5 days. Wow, that's awesome!

Thanks for the snacks. You're welcome. You're doing a great job of teaching people about the Korean culture. And when you start your campaign in London, the $3,900 target, you have 5 days to get 3,000 followers.

Oh no, all right, Scott, it's all yours.

It's a work session. I mean, you can't get out.

No, I was more thinking the fact that if I run, I'm going to spend more. More time retired, more time to do some traveling. But you're well educated on things. It's good to have well-educated people than newcomers. Yeah.

The potential of having as many newcomers as we could is kind of scary. Yeah, it could be just Dr. Smiley holding down the fort. Potentially. Next assembly could be all new except for you.

Oh, there's two others. No, no, two others and Jeremiah. Jeremiah. That's something we need to talk about is, uh, how are we going to restagger the assembly seats when we have four coming up? It automatically gets restaggered.

Like, if you're gonna—. If you're up, we have an election. That's going to be for 1 year. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, it's—. Yeah, for Caroline, seeing Caroline existing for years before we start overwhelming, so it automatically—. It doesn't—. Somebody already solved that math problem. That's good.

That damn would take— I wasn't going to do it. I saw so much out, I was like, you guys are on to something. Ready, bro? No, that's, uh, that's almost pig-feeding. I just did.

Okay, all right, we're back from our break. We're going to get into packet review now. Up first— there we go. Contract number FY2026-55, approval of Annex Building underground storage tank removal with AIM Maintenance, LLC. Madam Manager.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The borough-owned Annex Building located just across the street here, formerly known as the Red Cross Building, has a 300-gallon underground storage tank that needs to be removed. The work was originally included as an alternative bid to the Signal Hill or mental health building demolition project. However, the Assembly elected not to move forward with the work at that time. Staff worked with Jensen Yorba Wall to develop this effort into a standalone bid package.

Staff presented the design to the ARB, which was then approved by the ARB on March 9th, and the project is anticipated to be completed on or before October 6th of this year. Staff issued an invitation to bid for this project on April 6th with a bid opening on May 12th, but we did not have any bid packages. We reissued an invitation to bid on May 12th, advertised for 3 weeks. There were 6 contractors in attendance at the mandatory pre-bid meeting. At the bid opening, staff received 2 bid packages.

Staff reviewed the bid packages and determined A Maintenance LLC, um, to be the lowest cost, responsible, and responsive bid. And our Engineering and Facilities Director is here tonight if you have any questions about the contract. Any questions? Mr. Gardner.

This feels like an aggressive amount of money to remove a single 300-pound tank. How deep? Does anybody know how deep this thing is?

Yes, one second.

So the overall depth is— I don't have the draw— the scale drawings printed, but we assume, uh, 3 foot down is where the tank starts, and then it says verify from the top of the tank to the bottom. So we—. Typical 500-gallon tank diameter plus 3 feet, right? Do we not have the resources at our disposal to do something like this ourselves? I mean, don't we have a—.

The Kodiak Island Borough Engineering Facilities Department doesn't have heavy equipment and things like that, or operators to do that type of work. In the future, is there a way for us to partner up with the city or Parks and Rec to do something like this? Like on our own. We don't have those types of MOUs or agreements. If the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly would give us staff and equipment to do that in a budget, we could do that.

Knowing, knowing what work is going to go into this and knowing now more about these sorts of contracts and why they cost so much money, but having helped do this sort of thing myself, $33,000 isn't a aggressive ask for this to me. Um, and I think that it would be very wise of the borough and the city to start doing that interagency work, because I believe that Parks and Rec has an excavator, and I believe that they have qualified staff to run it. And, you know, it's— even though it's borough money versus city money, really it's all of our money, and we need to figure out a way to work together, I think.

Yeah, Cody. Um, so I think one thing that I want to remind the assembly as a whole is anytime that the borough does any type of work that's over a contract over $20,000, that triggers state prevailing wages. So that's Pamphlet 400, 600 through the state. And as representatives of taxpayer funds, right, we have to follow those rules. And if we circumvent any of those prevailing wage rates and do things using like, say, an in-kind service or something like that, that would have to be a conversation at a later date and time with the state to understand what the implications are.

It's different if it's our staff versus we're hiring other staff to do that work.

Any other questions?

Okay. Oh, Mr. Smiley. Do you have a record of what the Architectural Review Board did to this? Did they add a bunch of stuff to it like they did that thing in the— out at the landfill? The Architectural Review Board did not add anything to this.

We streamlined the project. The original cost, I believe, was $80,000, was the ad alternate for the mental health. And at that time, we thought that was excessive, so recommended that it got removed from that project.. And so this is substantially cheaper than that project as itself. And when we presented it to the ARB, they were shocked that we designed it and had to pay the design costs associated with it.

They were hoping we could just do like a time and materials. However, with underground storage tanks and all the fuel spills and things that we're finding with ADC, it's safer and it's kind of like a risk transference, if you will, to do this work with architectural review. And by doing so, we actually figured out that there is a 1,500 feet away, there is another contaminated site, and that is what triggered some of the reasons for the increased cost is protecting the site and making sure there is no contamination. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Seeing no further questions, we will move on to the next contract, FY 2027-01. 7, Approval of janitorial services contract with JNR Cleaning Service. And this is one you want to postpone?

Nope, that's number 3. That's number 3. Yes, yes. Well, there's more discussion to be had. There is more discussion.

Yes. So our current janitorial services contract will end on June 30th. So staff solicited for bids for a new janitorial services contract. The contract includes routine daily, weekly, and monthly services, and as-needed services such as carpet extraction, stripping and waxing the flooring, post-event cleaning, deep move-out cleaning of the borough-owned apartment, and emergency cleaning services. Staff issued an invitation to bid on April 24th, advertised it for the designated 3 weeks, and bids were due on June 17th.

There was a mandatory pre-bid meeting on May 20th. There were 2 contractors in attendance at bid opening. Staff received 2 bid packages. Following the review of bids, staff determined JNR Cleaning Services to have a complete bid package and is the lowest cost responsible responsive bidder. The other person who put in a bid on this did not include a bid bond, so they were marked as non-responsive because they did not meet all the necessary items to have a full bid.

Um, The issue that has come up, because the other person who bid is not a responsive bidder, they are not allowed to do a bid protest. But they are doing a bid protest as much as they can because the owner of the other cleaning service is a borough staff member. And Cody has done more research on this than I have, but— and we are both here, so please ask questions of both of us. We went into the code and found what the conflict of interest looked like. There's a copy of our code for conflict of interest at the dais in front of you tonight.

Um, we— there are A through E on that sheet. Um, I've given a copy to Nova so that she can add it to supplemental materials, so it'll be available online tomorrow. But it is, um, in the code right now if you're online or listening on the radio. And so as you look at the different ones, it seems like the last one in there is the one that would be the most applicable to employees. And then as you go into the next section, we don't talk about employees anymore.

It specifically talks about borough and assembly members.

And so as you— and I don't have it in front of me, so I feel bad— E says that employees aren't able to use their job Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It says a municipal officer, appointed official, or employee may not use this official— his official position for the primary purpose of obtaining financial gain for himself or his spouse, child, mother, father, or business which with he is associated or owns stock. And so that would be the one that's most applicable to this. But there is no— there's nothing in code that says an employee can't bid on a contract. And so we wanted to bring this to the assembly so you could see the code, what the code says about conflict of interest, and have a discussion and see what you think. The employee who owns the business that has come ahead on this bid has been an employee at the borough for over 25 years and hasn't had any other contracts with the borough.

So I think it's safe to say that they're not using their position for the primary purpose of attaining financial gain for themselves. But it is an issue, and I know there are optics to consider in a situation like this. Cody, anything you want to add? I was just going to add that the— we do not have a formal bid protest yet from the other contractor. The current contractor is the other bidder, and we have We extended the bid process because during the review for rebidding the project, or the contract rather, we identified that they did not have the appropriate business license to even do the work that was already being done.

And so we went ahead and extended that to give them and afford them time to get the right license, business license, and things of that nature so we could make it a fair and equitable and kind of more competitive process. And by doing so, they then unfortunately did not include all the bid information, and that's what deemed them unresponsive.

Sorry. And the winning bidder, they didn't have access to privileged information. Everything was public. So the employee in question was not involved in the creation of the bid, the bid tabulation, opening the bid. It's just not in their job.

But they would have had access to the previous contract and knowing what the current contractor charges for things. But that's information that's available through public records request, and so it's not— Nothing we do once a contract is awarded is confidential. As soon as we send out a Notice to Award, everything becomes open to the public. It is only until we send out the Notice to Award that bids are— and that kind of stuff is confidential. Thank you for that.

I was just going to chime in there. Well, I just wanted to see how easy it was to access this information from my phone, and then I used a non-borough linked phone just to see if it was equally as easy. Went right to the borough website, clicked the borough records document. I believe it's processed through the clerks. It took me right to Laserfiche, and I was able to put in search janitorial, and it pulled up the rates from the previous contracts with the contractor.

And we did ask the clerks something that I failed to mention, and I looked at NOVA and thought about it. We did ask the clerks prior to starting this project of a conflict did exist. And then today she was help, uh, provide us with a couple of previous legal opinions because I didn't want to inadvertently have to redo that process. And it seems like everything drives back to like assembly members or mayoral folks that are benefiting or getting any kind of contractual gain from the contracts. Yeah.

Uh, Mr. Whiteside, software. I just refreshed my state of Alaska level 3 procurement certification Today. So, and I understand this is a municipal function, not a state function, but generally speaking, referencing the conflict of interest, if that person had any privileged information, which I agree our contracts are public, I have looked, I have pulled up many of our contracts, anyone can look up that information for current contracts, so that is public information, not privileged privileged information, if that person had access to any part of the process for developing the invitation to bid, the scope, any of the deliverables, how the bids would be tabulated, how they would even be recorded, and then certainly if that person had access to anyone or was part of the bid review committee. That opened the bids, reviewed the bids, and then made the determinations on whether or not those bids were determined to be responsive or non-responsive, they had access to any of that, that could be perceived as a conflict, even if it's the smallest amount of information. So just putting that out there, doesn't sound like this is the case.

So other than that, being an employee of an organization or an agency or entity doesn't inherently create a conflict unless you have that access to information or access to the process. And that's, again, that's just the state, how the state handles it. But I'm sure we are not too far out of alignment with that. Mm-hmm. Our bids remain sealed and in a safe until they're opened, and then they're opened in a public way.

So when we have bid openings, all the contractors or public are available to come in and watch the that, and the tabulations are done right there in front of everyone. And so it's a very— that part is a very public process. And this particular employee is not involved in— that's just not their role at the borough. So it's not— they weren't involved in any of those items. So, but I do think it's important to talk about because when the borough is looking at giving a contract to a borough employee, I can see why that looks suspicious, or it could look suspicious.

Um, and the legal opinions that NOVA found, I think Cody described very well, as, um, this subject has come up in the past but always directed towards, um, the mayor or assembly members and never employees. And so that's why this is just a new bridge we have to cross this time. Uh, Mr. Gardner. Oh, I'm, I'm so sorry. Yeah, just a quick one.

So I guess it would be in the borough's best interest that we're capturing the process, who's— if you haven't already, so sorry if this isn't already happening, that who is involved in each step. So we documented— we document everything on the bid tabulations. We sign it. It's Patricia, who's our project manager now, myself for pretty much everything. As Haley gets up to speed, she's been brought in.

She's still at Community Development, but as we— we've brought her in on a couple of them just so she can gain experience. As far as like moving forward, any like invoices or anything, if this does move forward, we're going to reroute to a secretary that will take care of that. So none of it basically excludes the person entirely from the process. Great, thank you. Um, I have Mr. Garner and then Mr. Johnston, Mr. Woods.

Okay, a couple things here. Um, there are several people that have talked to me about this. A lot of people are excited about this and make it abundantly clear I am completely partial to this, um, but, uh, the borough employee, it's my understanding she's handled, um, a lot of invoices and paperwork with the prior contractor, Sure Thing. And so while getting, um, public records may be easy enough for anybody to find these numbers. The optics look like she had pretty intimate knowledge of the inner workings of that contract.

Um, moving forward, whatever we decide to do here, I think it's important to take a look at that code because I don't think it covers the intent completely. And, um, in Section A of 2.35015, I think we need to add some language and bring the word employee back in there, like in Section E of the prior code. But there needs to be a provision as well for— it was brought to my attention that while Mr. Sherritt was on the assembly, he secured a contract with the borough through NWFF And realistically, that would have been our only option to do the cleanup that was needed. Otherwise, we would have had to bring in an environmental rehabilitation program from off island, which would have been excessive. So there's some new language that should be added here to me.

And just because of the current optics of this and the possibility of some legal annoyances, I guess with this whole idea, we may want to get some more legal advice before moving completely forward, I think, at the manager's discretion.

Mr. Woods. So, I mean, I agree. I think E under our current code section is the closest that we come to tackling this. However, God bless the Google, while I was sitting here, I got to Google their business license, the primary purpose of employment thing. Their business license has been active since 2011.

I'm not a math genius, but that's about a decade after they began employment here. So I think that can— for me, that goes a long way to dispelling any primary purpose argument, just being the business has been around quite a while after they began employment.

Beyond that, thank you, Cody, for anticipating a lot of these questions and taking kind of the the note and the forethought that you, uh, utilized here, um, in documenting the individuals involved with this process up to the point that you have, um, that goes a long way to making me feel better. Um, but I do agree, the optics of this are not particularly pretty. Thank you.

Uh, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Whiteside. Thanks. Hey, I don't want to come across as disagreeing with what you're saying regarding the optics. I would like to offer a bit of a different perspective. You know, I look at it like people got, you know, at least me, you know, I've got 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for me, and 8 hours that I've got to give to my family for, you know, making money or whatever.

If we've got an employee who's choosing to use their 8 hours to better their family's situation, more power to them. Sounds like everything here was done.