Denali Borough: September 9, 2026 Assembly Meeting

All right, well, good evening everybody. Thanks for joining us here, either in person at McKinley Village Community Center or online. Via our YouTube slash, um, Zoom channel. Uh, we'd like to start tonight's meeting with a public hearing. Tonight we have one ordinance on our public hearings agenda for, um, Ordinance 26-14 to amend the Denali Borough Code Chapter 8, Section 5 for municipal elections.

If you do have a comment, we ask that you try to limit it to about 3 minutes and just expect it to be kind of a one-way, one-way piece at this point. Um, with that, I'd, I'd like to open the floor or the microphone to anybody who has a comment for Ordinance, uh, 26-14.

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and close our public hearing. And then if anybody is having a technical difficulty, ends up online or walking in, um, as the meeting's going, we can we can always kind of suspend the rules and allow that person to share their, their piece with us. Okay, so with that, I'd like to call our regular meeting to order. Uh, with that, I would ask our clerk, Miss Renshaw, to do a roll call. Uh, David Alexander.

Here. Walt Warner. Here. Dominic Canali. Here.

Jeremy Samfield. Mark Johnson? Here. Chris Zippone? Here.

Jared Zimmerman? There's a—. Okay, we did receive communication that Mr. Zimmerman was on his way here, but I would entertain a motion to excuse him in the meantime.

I'll move to excuse Mr. Zimmerman. Second. All right, any discussion on, on that excusal?

Okay. Oh, you're right. Well, now that we know who's here, um, I'd like to start our— restart our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. Mayor Noel, if you could stand and start us off here.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and this is the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. All right, with that, we would look for a motion to approve tonight's agenda.

Public comment. Public comment. Public comment. I'm new here, don't worry about it. Jared's not usually this late.

So public comments, uh, when you're providing a comment, please include your full name and limit your testimony to about 3 minutes per person. Uh, and then if you know relatively what area of the borough you live in, go ahead and share that with us as well.

Is this just like a general person to be heard? Yes, ma'am. Be the right time for us. Absolutely. Hi everybody, my name is Sandra Loomis and I'm running for House District 30, our district.

I live in Talkeetna. I grew up in Talkeetna since about 1978. My family came to Alaska in '68. I feel like it's a time for a fresh change in Juneau for our House district. I— one of the main reasons I started running was, um, because of education and the problems with funding and how the funding's been flat for at least a decade, schools and for maintenance and I just think the priorities need to be on education, public safety, and transportation.

Um, I just want to have opposition to some of the, uh, in the Lower Valley, a lot of the seats have been unopposed for several election cycles, and I think it's like taking away a lot of the conversation that needs to happen amongst all of ourselves. Since COVID I feel like there's been a lot of isolation. And divisiveness and people way over here and a lot of big money going into dividing people and people way over there. And I think it's time to bring it in and get us all talking to each other again. I think we can talk to each other even when we don't agree, and then we can work on things that we do agree on and move forward on those things.

I know that revenue for the state is a big challenge.

I know that one person alone can't do it, but I know that I'm willing to work in a coalition, which both of the people I'm running against have stated they will not. And I think that's important for being able to do good work for the state and for our district. I don't know how much more time I have left, but I'm gonna put some cards out and I would ask anybody to reach out at any time doing nothing but campaigning. And deep diving on state level issues. I've been following national a lot and getting— educating myself a lot more on state level.

I would love to hear input, the most important to each person and voters that have been knocking doors. Pete and I have been, um, doing meet and greets in all the communities, going to all the community councils, um, and I think that's important for anybody that wants to represent big districts like ours. It's a lot of driving. Good thing I like brunch. Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Miss Loomis.

And hello, I'm, I'm Peter Bauer. I'm running for the state Senate seat that, uh, is, uh, encompassing Denali Borough and all the way down to Valdez. So, uh, it's a lot of territory and, uh, pretty difficult to get around, as I'm finding. But I'm, I'm glad to be here. Uh, I grew up, uh, just, just a poor kid in the sticks in northern Minnesota.

And because I grew up in an era where there were loans and grants and opportunities like that readily available to poor kids. I got to be the first person in my lineage on either side to go to college and also graduate from Mayo Medical School in South Minnesota. I had a career in the Air Force as a flight surgeon taking care of flyers and their families. I was a commander overseas, including combat tours. And then ended up at NASA for a bunch of years being a flight surgeon for astronauts and instructor pilots there.

Took care of crews from Mission Control and for their launches and landings both in Florida and Kazakhstan. So spent some time in Russia where the Russians will be there. They're—. So Ukraine. So I've had an opportunity to get acquainted with and be exposed to a totalitarian environment.

Finally, was able to take early retirement so that my wife and I could come to Alaska to live out our years, and then found that Alaska's government really was a top-down, pretty authoritarian sort of institution, and decided that I could not abide it and unretired and decided to run for office in the state Senate against two minority— against minority candidate who also is unwilling to work with the majority. So that's what I'm about. I'm really, really reinforced as I get around in campaigning, going to the various council meetings, been to Houston, Big Lake, Willow, Chickaloom, Sutton, and hearing all the individual issues that areas have and what a different personality each community has. And so glad to get to listen to what you have on your minds. And that's what we want to take forward.

Sandra and I are very much of a mind. We, we've, we're very different personalities, but we do really well together and hoping that we can go down to Juneau and bring those local concerns up instead of just kind of being told like this 20,000-acre land swap deal that's going on right now that people are up in arms about. This was normal process, but that normal process meant we have a plan for you and the land that you love and recreate in, and it's going to be up to you to stop us. And that is not the way that I want our government to be. And I believe most of you don't want your government to be that kind of top-down, this is how we're going to do a thing.

So Sandra and I are a good team and we're out here kind of fighting the good fight, trying to knock doors. Coming to the meetings to learn your issues. So, everybody's got a website. I got my contact info on that website. Please reach out.

Was up in Anderson today, getting to know that a little bit, area a little bit, and the concerns they have about data centers right up there. So, there's a lot going on. If, if we don't take control of our own destiny, somebody's gonna do it for us. So let's, let's be the agents of our own future. So if you have questions afterwards, of course we got literature there and happy to talk anywhere, anytime.

Okay, um, are you ready? Sure. All right, I'm going to turn the gavel back over to our presiding officer, Mr. Zimmerman, for the remainder of the meeting. Thanks, Mrs. Bowen. Uh, apologies everyone, uh, for being late, but Any other public comments?

I guess I'll just note that there were two written public comments submitted, the Dobbins and the Joshua Christianson. Um, they're online, they're on the table, or the table over there, and we can read them into the minutes if you'd like. Yeah, yeah, if anybody wants to follow along at home, the whole meeting packet's on our website next to the meeting minutes.

Well, if that's the case, we can go on to approving tonight's agenda.

Motion to approve tonight's agenda. Second. Moved by Mr. Warner and seconded. Any discussion or changes to the agenda? You want to post?

Okay, I'll call that unanimous approval. And that'll bring us to communication and appearances, and we have, uh Misters, uh, LeBecq and Greenow, um, online to talk about our municipal financing options.

And, uh, I guess I go to, uh, Mayor Nolte, do you want to introduce the topic a little bit, or—. Sure, yeah, I'd be happy to. So this is, um, Mr. Joe LeBecq is our Borough Assembly confirmed legal counsel. Mr. Mark Greenow is a colleague of his. And excuse me, the conversation— excuse me— started in the context of our community solar array.

So, I approached Joe with a question. You know, we've heard that the borough— we have some challenges with forward funding, and what does that mean for borrowing? What does our code say about municipal borrowing? What are options available to us? So, and it was in the context of this large capital improvement project.

And so I think they may use that as an example, but I think it just prompted the, you know, let's share this information with the assembly. Let's educate ourselves on what we can by code do and what we can't do. What takes the vote of the people and what does not. So with that, I turn it over to Joe. Thank you for joining us.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly, thanks for inviting Mark and I here tonight. Mark is, um, a public finance person. That's all he does is public finance. So he does it throughout Alaska, he does it in Washington. He's licensed in both Washington and Alaska.

He's also a professor at the University of Washington. He teaches tax law because he has an LLM in tax, which is an advanced legal degree. But we're here tonight to just run over some of the basic steps involved in municipal bonding. Mark, are you on? I can't see you.

I am, Joe. Um, thank you for that kind introduction. Unfortunately, I'm on the road tonight and my laptop has gone into a bit of a doom loop, um, and it is not allowing me to sign on. So I'm on my phone. And I know that we have a presentation, some slides that we sent over.

Is that something that, that can be brought up for the assembly so that we can go through those? I would normally share my screen, but unfortunately I don't have a screen to share tonight.

Yeah, the clerk and I talked about that, and she has the PowerPoint, and she's prepared to scroll down through it. Oh, great. All right, well then, let's just have at it. Um, again, my name is Mark, uh, Greeno, and I'm a, um, a public finance lawyer, as Joe said. I've been in this field for 30 years or so and have worked closely with Joe throughout my career.

Um, I think the first transaction we worked on, Joe, was for the city of Kakhtovik, uh, and that was maybe 30 years ago. Um, so, so we have worked together to finance a number of facilities all across the state of Alaska, and it's a pleasure to be speaking with you. I don't mean this to be a lecture. I just want to introduce the concepts of borrowing money and how that's done, why you might do it, and what it involves. But I always welcome questions.

Throughout the presentation, so feel free to interrupt. There's no formality here. So most of the local jurisdictions that we work with in Alaska use the State Bond Bank to borrow money. And this is— it's a wonderful institution, and it helps local borrowers Basically, um, it, you know, they're, they're your, they're like your banker, um, and they're working for you. They're, they're funded by the legislature, and, uh, and they, uh, basically take the credit of the state and apply it to your borrowing.

So instead of— you could go to a local bank, and, and if you'd prefer to do that, we, we do do that work, um, but this, this presentation is geared toward longer-term financing. So, so like a 20 or 30-year type capital financing. And for those projects, usually we see local borrowers use the bond bank. So next slide, please.

I know that lots of people that I work with have an adverse reaction to borrowing. They're like, we don't like debt, we don't want to go into debt, why would we do that? There are a couple of reasons why people go into debt.

One is you might have something like a sewage treatment plant that if you can build it now, will help you build out a neighborhood or a downtown. You are hoping that by fronting the infrastructure now, you will generate economic development in the future. And so you haven't saved up enough to build the sewage treatment plant right now, so you'll borrow that, and you hope you get basically better returns. And that's what businesses do too, right? They build a factory, and they hope that the factory will make more money than it costs them to borrow it and build it.

The second one is a little bit more geared toward public agencies, and that is, if you're borrowing money to build a sewage treatment plant, um, then you're, you're building the plant and then charging the users to pay it off. If you're, if you're not borrowing, then you're, you're charging people now and saving up that money, uh, in, in 10 or 15 years to build the sewage treatment plant. But the people who paid for it aren't necessarily the people who benefit from it. People move in and people move out. And so public agencies often use borrowing as a way of allocating the cost of an expensive investment to the people who are actually going to benefit from it.

And then the third reason is just from a political perspective, it's very difficult to accumulate money. It's difficult to accumulate rate-based money. If you're saving up your electric rates or your water rates or your sewer rates to build something new, people are saying, why, why, why, Why should we have such high rates? Look at all the money you have in the bank. You have all this money that you have accumulated, you should lower our rates.

Or the same thing with taxes. You are taxing us to save up money, but look at all this huge, big fund balance, let us cut our taxes instead. It is politically difficult. Those are the 3 reasons that we find that public agencies want to borrow money to finance big infrastructure projects.

Next slide.

So those are the 3 there. You hope that your investments produce gains. Your current projects will produce future benefits, and so you want to equalize that. And then accumulating funds is politically difficult.

Next slide.

So when you're thinking about borrowing money, to finance a public project, there's a number of factors that you want to take into consideration. First is, how much money do you need? Second is, when do you need it? Third is, how are you going to pay for it, right? I can't tell you the number of times that I've worked with local agencies and heard folks say, well, we don't have to worry about how this project is going to get paid for, we're going to pay for it with bonds.

And that's great. We're happy to help you issue a bond, but you do have to pay it back. So you need to think, are we going to pay this back with taxes? Are we going to pay it back with revenues from some other source? Are we going to pay it back with grants?

And so where you're— how you're going to repay your loan is very, very critical to us. There are tax implications to these if you're borrowing for a governmental purpose. Then, then typically the, um, the federal, uh, Internal Revenue Code will allow you to borrow at a lower rate. Um, it, it's a little bit complicated, but, but as long as you're following the rules, then you'll get your interest rate lowered by anywhere by 30 to 40%. Um, and so, um, keeping, keeping track of, of that, uh, those tax advantages is, is helpful when you're, uh, trying to save money on your interest rate, particularly now that, that long-term interest rates are, are much higher than they used to be.

In terms of term and redemption, so term is how long you're going to borrow the money for. Is it going to be a 15-year loan, 20, 30-year loan? You want to think about that. And then you want to think about redemption. Sometimes there are restrictions on how quickly you can repay your loan.

So with most, if you've bought a house before with a mortgage, then typically, you know, within a year or two, you can, you can, if interest rates drop, you can refund it, you can refinance and take advantage of the lower interest rates. But with with, uh, with municipal tax-exempt bonds, there's usually a 10-year period that you're not allowed to repay. Um, so that's something to take into consideration, uh, regarding, well, maybe we'll get a, maybe we'll get a grant next year, um, and, and want to repay a big chunk of this. Uh, those, those are, those are factors in figuring out how much you want to borrow and what, and, you know, how quickly you'll want to repay it. Interest rates, obviously, are a concern.

You want to try and take advantage of low interest rates, but they are nothing that anybody controls, and nobody has a crystal ball.

Credit enhancement, this is if you are borrowing through the bond bank, basically, the bond bank is lending you money, and then they are going on borrowing money on the credit of the state. The state has very, very good credit. And so the bond bank gives you their, their rate. And so it's, it's very, very helpful if, as just a local government, somebody says you're, you're risky, and so we're going to charge you a higher interest rate because of the risk of such a small entity being able to repay this loan. Instead, they're lending money essentially to a State of Alaska agency that has been borrowing billions of dollars in the markets for years.

Everybody understands who the bond bank is, and they give them a really good deal because they're a very, very excellent credit, and you benefit from the lower interest rate that the bond bank will give you. In terms of covenants, those are the promises that you'll make to your creditors. If you're issuing— and we'll get into this in just a minute— if you're issuing general obligation debt payable out of your general fund, then you're basically making a promise that you're going to levy enough taxes to pay off the debt without regard to the rate or the amount. You're just gonna pay it. If you're making— if you're payable out— if your borrowing is payable out of a utility, so if a solar array is generating electric revenues and you're only borrowing on the credit of your electric utility, then you're gonna make promises that you will charge rates that are high enough for you to be able to repay that loan.

Next slide.

Okay, I'm going to take a quick break now before we introduce the different types of bonds that you might want to issue and just ask if there's any questions that folks have or if I'm going too fast or if this is too, too detailed because there's a fair amount of information and we don't want to overwhelm you. Hey, hey, Mark, I have to interject if nobody's going to ask a question. I need to talk. Question. I was just going to ask if there is any— if you're familiar, have any municipalities defaulted on bonds in the past?

And then does the state come after us, or what does that look like? So there is a state law that says that if you borrow from the bond bank and you default, then the state has the right to take any money that they have, um, in their custody that would otherwise go to you, um, and apply that to the bond bank loan. Um, so they can kind of garnish any funds that you are, uh, due from the state, and that would include anything for your school district, anything for your roads, you know, any type of funds that the state has. And so in, in my experience, I have never had anybody default. We have had people that have run into trouble.

The bond bank is very understanding of local communities that have issues. One of the communities that I worked with had a flood, and their electric utility went out, and they did not have money for 6 months or so. The bond bank is very understanding of how to work around those types of situations. They're one of the nice things about borrowing from them is not only are they state-oriented and understand the local governments, but they're also, you know, they're a political entity. There are representatives in Juneau that are advocating on behalf of communities saying, you know, we need, we need assistance for this.

And normally in a situation like that, What we have seen, if the local community looks like they're going to fall down on the job, we've often seen the legislature come in and say, we want to appropriate however much money, $500,000, $1 million to the bond bank in order to do a restructure of this loan. We've had that happen before. We have not seen anybody just completely fall on the job and default. I haven't seen that in 30 years. Thank you.

So there's basically two different ways that you can borrow money. I alluded to this earlier. The first is a general obligation bond, and this is borrowing against your general fund. You can only do this for capital projects. You can't do it for working capital or salaries or anything like that, only permanent type structures.

And it also requires that your voters approve by a majority vote that the borough would, would borrow this money. If, if you get voter approval for a general obligation bond, then you have the authority to levy property taxes in whatever amount is necessary to be able to pay it off. Now, you don't have to. So, so we have communities that don't even levy a property tax. They get voter approval for their bonds, and they pay it off with severance taxes or fish taxes, various other sources of revenue that they have.

But the underlying promise of this debt is the state constitution allows you to levy your property tax in whatever amount necessary, regardless of any other limits, to be able to pay it off. This is a very— the bond bank views this as a very secure instrument. If your voters have approved of it, And the state constitution allows you to tax as necessary to pay it off. Then, then the bond bank feels that, that, that you have the tools you need in order to borrow the money.

Good question. Um, yeah, this is me. I just want to make sure I understood what you just said there.

What I'm hearing is we would have to have some sort of structured tax system in place. No, you do not. You actually do not. We have, as I said, Joe and I have worked with many communities that do not have a property tax system in place, but this is the oldest borrowing in the United States. It is centuries old.

The idea is that you have promised that if necessary, you will do this.

And so it's kind of a binding promise that you will do whatever it takes to be able to pay off this debt. And the bond bank understands that many jurisdictions in Alaska do not have a property tax in place, but it does authorize you if necessary to impose the property tax and to pay off the debt. So when you apply to the bond bank for a loan, it's just like if you're going to apply to a bank for a mortgage. They hire a financial advisor who will look at your financial statements and your ability to repay the debt, and they will make, uh, you know, they will present a credit review to their board of directors, and then the board of directors will determine whether they think that, uh, that the borrower is creditworthy enough to be able to repay the loan. And, and they will take into consideration all sources of revenue that you have, um, for the, for the debt that you're proposing to undertake.

Okay, thank you for that.

Good. Next slide.

So, so the other type that has nothing to do with property taxes are what we call revenue bonds, and these are bonds, uh, loans, debt that is repayable from the revenues that are generated by the facility that you're proposing to build. So this could be a water utility, it could be a sewer utility, it could be an electric utility. So if you're looking at a solar array, then you're going to want to, you know, look at what the cost of building the project is and put together a forecast of what kinds of revenues come in. You're going to need to be able to show the bond bank that, you'll be able to operate and maintain the facility. That's going to be the first claim on the revenues.

And then that you'll be able to pay off the debt. And then they'll also want you to be able to reserve enough to make capital improvements to your utility property in the future. So it's kind of just a typical business model. It's the same kind of thing that you would want to do internally, right? If you're going to borrow money to build a project and you're hoping to be able to pay off the project with the revenues that the project generates, then it's— everybody's interests are aligned here.

You're going to want to make sure that you're able to charge enough rates to pay off the project, and so is the bond bank. And these are very, very typical as well. We see port projects, we see all kinds of different revenue generating hospitals, all kinds of different revenue-generating projects that the bond bank is comfortable financing.

The other way that you can pay off a revenue-type project is you can— again, this is, this would require a property tax regime, but you could assess the landowners a special assessment to pay off, to pay off a project. We see that with like road paving, or if people are extending a natural gas pipeline into a neighborhood, then all of the folks in the neighborhood might agree we're each going to pay $20,000 over 10 years to have access to natural gas or to have our road paved.

These types of bonds do not require a vote of the people. The assembly has the authority to do that. And Joe and I were looking today at your charter And your charter authorizes you to borrow money, which is good for your authority. There's no question that you have the authority to borrow money as needed. It does include the typical restrictions on general obligation bonds, which says that you can only use them for capital purposes and that they require approval by the voters.

Have you ever seen a Something like a road improvement project with a kind of a special assessment in an area without a property tax.

I don't know how you would assess. So, yeah, it's, it kind of, it, it would be kind of difficult. It's not like it would be difficult to do. You could set up an assessment type of, uh, system. They're a little cumbersome if you're not already assessing a property tax, I guess is what I would say.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, I mean, people like those because the people who are benefiting from it get— those are the only people who are paying for it. And so they're quite popular for local projects that just benefit a very specific group of taxpayers or property owners.

So, you said that you've gone through our charter and we're talking, you know, the general information is wonderful. I'm glad that we're doing this just to be educated, but specifically on the solar array, um, you know, from what you've seen in the charter, is that something that's going to require approval by the voters? Well, it depends on how you're proposing to repay. If you're only proposing to repay from electric revenues that are generated by that project, and you're not promising, you know, any type of tax revenue or the full faith and credit of the borough, then that would not require voter approval. Okay, so it's based on repayment structure, correct?

Thank you. Yeah, and that's something that you'll want to chat with the bond bank about because they might, you know, a lot of times they look at a revenue type structure and they say this looks pretty shaky to us, we would prefer that you go out and get voter approval for it. Even if you're proposing to repay it by revenues, which you're welcome to do, um, the bond bank may say, you know, we, we would feel better if you had voter approval for this, if you pledged your general fund to it, even though we understand that you're intending to pay it from this narrow revenue stream. We just— we're just not comfortable with the credit of this project that we're not— you know, we haven't seen it before. We're not sure that it'll pay off.

And so that's just, you know, that's them acting as your banker.

Next slide.

So there's legislation that the Assembly would adopt that kind of sets the contract between you and the bond bank. There's also a loan agreement, but, but basically it just contains all the stuff that we've talked about. We talk about how are you going to repay the loan. If, if it's a revenue type facility, you're going to promise to operate and maintain the facility first, and then whatever's left over from your revenues after you pay the operating and maintenance costs, that will go to service the debt. You may be required to set aside some money, kind of like a security deposit on an apartment.

You might have to set aside 1 year's repayment amount in a blocked account just in case you do fall down on the job. Then the bond bank can, can tap that as you're trying to figure out how to how to work yourself out of any difficulty. So that's very common with revenue bonds, and you can use that amount to pay off your last payment.

There may be promises that you make regarding taxes, regarding operation and maintenance, regarding not, you know, not issuing additional debt. And then there may be again, questions as to how quickly you can repay the debt or not. So those, those will all be worked out. Those would all be worked out in a, in a resolution that's adopted by the assembly, and that kind of governs— it basically amounts to the loan agreement between you and the bond bank.

And that's something that, that Joe and I would, would, would work on with you all. It's, it, it's a little bit complicated, um, but We've been doing this for, for many, many years. The bond bank, we've been working with the bond bank for many, many years. And so with folks who haven't done this before, you know, we will take the time, as much time as it needs, as you all need, so that we can answer all of your questions, that you understand how we're putting this together.

Next slide.

As I said, what the bond bank does is they issue their own bonds. They go out in the market on Wall Street. They hire Wall Street underwriters that you've heard of before, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, big Wall Street companies, and they pool together all of the bonds that local governments are issuing. They usually do this maybe twice a year, sometimes 3 times a year. Then they will publish a prospectus, what we call an official statement that describes the bond bank and stakes credit, how they are proposing to repay these.

Then the bond bank will purchase your bond after they sell their bonds and lend you the money. You are basically in business with the bond bank. They are your lender, but they are going out in the public market to raise the money. They don't have their own money. They're like a bank.

If you go to the bank and you deposit your $10,000 that your Aunt Edna left you, then the bank is going to go and take that money and lend it out to other people. That's how they make money. They don't just hide it in a vault. That's what the bond bank does. They go out and borrow money, and then they take that money and lend it to you.

The nice thing about the bond bank is you can get long-term financing. If you're just working with your local bank, and we work with lots of them, they're great, but they typically don't lend for more than, say, 10 years or so. So if you have a long-term project, 20 years, 30 years, then you're going to want to work with the bond bank. Again, they give you the credit of the state of Alaska, which is exceptional. It's a very well-run Treasury Department.

Borrowers in the New York markets understand the bond bank. They've done billions of dollars of transactions. And so they get the lowest interest rates possible in most situations. You do not have to go to rating agencies. You don't have to have anybody, you don't have to deal with anybody else other than the bond bank.

They're friendly. They understand you. And then you also don't have to provide a whole lot of additional financial and operating information that typically you would have to provide if you are doing a bank loan or trying to borrow through anyone else. They're going to want to see your financial statements every year. But other than that, you know, unless you get in trouble, then, then then there's your ongoing compliance in terms of providing additional information to them every year is pretty limited, which is nice.

Any questions on that?

No, thank you. Okay, next slide.

So some of the folks that you'll be working with Let's look over on the right column there. That's the municipality, that's you. You'd work with your bond lawyer. That could be my firm, it could be another firm. You may have a financial advisor, but typically you'd only need that for a big complicated project where you needed somebody that was working on it with you.

I think that if you're borrowing at your level, you probably wouldn't need it. And then if there are other people that are going in on a project with you, you may have partners in the project, but if you don't, you're basically down to your two lawyers who will help you. Because if you look over on the left column, the bond bank has its own financial advisor. They have their own bond lawyers. They have their Wall Street underwriters that will be buying their bonds.

They have a trustee that takes care of all of the money and the transactions, and they will do the work with the rating agencies to ensure that the credit of the the state of Alaska is presented in the most favorable manner so that you get the lowest interest rate. So the nice thing about working with the bond bank is almost all of the people that you'll be dealing with are going to be folks that you know and have worked with before, and everybody else has worked with the bond bank for a very long time and are professionals and are used to working with, uh, Alaska municipalities, boroughs, cities, from everything from soup to nuts, from $100,000 loans all the way up to $100 million loans for big hospital projects in Native-run hospital projects. So the bond bank is a really great asset for you in terms of how can we borrow money. They really are, they're really professionals.

So I think that like the executive director of the bond bank, Ryan, who's a good friend of mine, I think he should— I'm going to send him these slides and he should thank me for singing his praises because they really are good people.

All right, next slide.

So what kind of work am I going to do for you? If you hire me to borrow money. There's 3 areas that I work in: state law. So as I said, the state constitution, the state laws, your code, your charter, all govern and restrict and allow you to borrow money. So we're going to make sure that everything that you do is eligible under state law.

There's securities law, but it's very limited because mostly that's the bond bank's concern. They They're the ones who will be selling money or selling bonds out in New York. And they have to make sure that they're not committing securities fraud. They're very good at what they do. And your role in that will be very limited.

So our role, if we were to be your bond counsel, would also be limited. And then tax law is something that I will also work on with you because, as I said, the service, the Internal Revenue Service, restricts the use of how you spend your money. You can't use it just for private purposes. You have to use it for governmental purposes in order to get the best interest rate. And if we determine that that doesn't work for you, then we might find another path forward for you.

But those are the 3 areas that we'll be looking at if we were your bond counsel would be complying with state law, making sure that you're not making any type of fraudulent representation in the bond bank's documents, which would be highly unusual. But complying with tax law is important, and it's something that we would spend some time on with you.

Next slide.

So the timeline for putting together a project like this is, you know, we would check your tax status first. We would put together your proposal for the bond bank. They have, they have an application that you can download and take a peek at what types of information they'd want to see. We would draft your bond resolution, which is the contract. And so once we get approval from the bond bank, then we would— they will go out and sell the bonds and price them.

And then we'll have closing, just like you might have if you agree to buy a house. Then a couple weeks later, you'll sign all of the documents. And then on an ongoing basis, There may be some information that you have to provide on an annual basis to the bond bank, although it's quite limited. It's usually for people who are borrowing much, much more money than your borough would be. And then you do have to kind of keep track and make sure that you're not using your project in a way that the service would— the Internal Revenue Service would be— would find difficult, which we would be working with you on.

So, for example, if you financed a solar array and then 3 years later you got an offer from a co-op to come in and say, hey, we'd like to buy that from you, what do you think? That's something that you would want to check with your tax lawyer because you've borrowed money for a governmental purpose. But then if it's going to go to a private entity, even if it's co-op, then that would have tax implications. And so as long as you're borrowing money on a tax-advantaged basis at lower rates, then there are some regulations and restrictions that you just want to kind of keep at the back of your mind.

Next slide.

So as I said, with tax considerations, if you're using the project for a private purpose, So that might be you have a contract with a co-op, they're going to take all of the electricity, or you sell the project, or you have preferential rates for a big user of the electricity, then that's something that we'll want to work together with you. The other thing that can cause some grief, although it's unusual in a situation for a borrower like you, would be if you borrowed the money and then just sat on it for year after year after year, invested it at higher yield. So you'd borrow at 5% and then you'd throw it in AMLIIP and earn 6% on it for 4 or 5 or 6 years because you couldn't get your project off the ground. That, that's also a concern that the service worries about, and it's something that we would want to monitor.

I think that's all the slides I have. You can advance, but hopefully it says thank you and more questions.

I have a question. Yes. Given that, you know, if we were borrowing for the solar project and it's sort of a tight timeline, We would, I'm sure, have to use the revenue bonds because we wouldn't have enough time to put this before the voters. How long would it take to go through the process of applying for the loan through the bond bank and knowing whether or not we would be approved for that? Oh gosh, I, you know, it kind of depends on, you know, how prepared you are to to put together an application.

If you have, for example, a third-party consultant saying, you know, if you have a 20-page report from a consultant saying, here's how much it's gonna cost, here's our forecast of the revenues that it's gonna generate, you know, and it looks like something that their financial advisor could read in a week or two, then your application is gonna go through pretty quickly. If you're just starting off and you have no idea how, you know, or what the project is going to look like, then, you know, it's going to— it basically depends on your preparation time. That's the first factor. The second factor is that the bond bank, you know, it doesn't just go to market every month. They go to market maybe 2 or 3 times a year.

And so you kind of have their cycle because they usually use 5 or 6 borrowers each time that they go out to market. And they'll say, oh, we're going to go in April, or oh, we're going to go in October. And so you just kind of, you have to hit their need. Now it is possible, and I have worked with borrowers to do this, if you're ready to go and you need to get going, but the bond bank cycle doesn't work for you, you can go to a bank, get a loan, like a construction loan. You can borrow upfront intending then to pay down the construction loan with when the bond bank deal goes forward.

You probably wouldn't want to do that unless the bond bank had already approved your application. But say they approve your application, but it's going to be 4 months or 6 months before they get a deal done. And you really, you know, for whatever, for whatever reason, shipping, timing, construction window, you need to get the project done, then if you have a local bank that you work with, then we can put together a construction loan with them pretty quickly. We did that for the city of Soldotna. They wanted to build a field house the voters had approved, but they didn't know how much money it was going to take.

They had a lot of contingency in it. They didn't want to borrow all the money up front and then find that they had an extra $1 million left over. And so we worked with them to go to their local bank. They took out a bank loan and then the next time that the bond bank was ready to go, they got long-term permanent financing and paid off their construction loan.

Good. Thank you.

Got a question, uh, maybe for you, Joe. Um, can you help me understand if, you know, understanding this, it seems like a revenue bond, uh, might be something of interest. I imagine that would require setting up a new enterprise fund. Um, can you help me understand the impacts of a project like this and how it affects our operating budget and our forward funding component. I'm curious, you know, if the loan sits on the sides in the balance sheets and servicing the loan goes through the normal channels, or can you explain on that?

Right. Joe Levesque here. Thanks for that question. I don't think that It's going to affect your balance sheet or how the bank or creditors look at you. If you have a revenue bond, especially a revenue bond that you're going to have experts look at it to make sure it pencils out.

In other words, they're going to see that whatever project you're proposing to pay off the revenue bond with is going to make enough money to actually satisfy that loan. So I don't think it's really going to affect them. Do you know, Mark? Well, you are definitely going to want to set up an enterprise fund because what you are going to promise the bond bank if you do a revenue bond is you're going to promise, first of all, you've got this fund set up and all of the revenue from the facilities that you're financing is going to go into that fund. That's the first thing you promise them.

You know, it's not going to go into any other fund. And then, and then you're going to have what we call a flow of funds or a waterfall. You're going to pay your operating and maintenance expenses every year, and then you're going to pay your debt service, you know, how much your principal and interest on your loan is. And the important thing about the revenue bond is you're telling the bond bank, look, your only recourse for repayment is from this enterprise fund. We're not promising you any taxes.

We're not promising you any, anything other than the revenues from this facility. And but then the third promise that you're going to make is we're going to charge rates that are sufficient enough to pay operating and maintenance, and then they're sufficient enough to pay all of the principal and interest every year. And then there's going to be a margin that they're also going to want you to pay. Or at least charge, which is basically a depreciation component so that you'll be able to, you know, keep your facilities up and running. And that's usually like 25% of the annual debt service because the operation and maintenance costs that are payable off the top, that's on a cash basis.

So it doesn't include— it doesn't include depreciation if you're looking at it from an accrual— I don't know if you all do a cash basis or accrual basis accounting.

Okay, thank you for that. I think I was mainly looking at, you know, our forward funding requirement and the fact that we're limited on how much money we can spend and taking on this new obligation, you know, what do we need to be on the lookout for? And does our setup maybe further restrict our ability to do a revenue bond, um, because of that component from our charter? And that doesn't have to get—. You know, I just kind of wanted to throw that out.

Yeah, I, I, I mean, I don't I know that the charter restricts your— I can scrub your charter a little bit more carefully, but I don't know that it restricts your ability to establish an enterprise fund and borrow for the purposes of the enterprise fund. But you probably will. I mean, if you're establishing a new utility, then, then I don't know that you'll need charter revisions, but you probably will want to have a code section. On, you know, how to set up the utility, the enterprise fund, and the rates that you charge.

Thank you.

One question I have, there's several projects get tossed around the community in terms of things that would be of benefit, and I could certainly see you know, bonding be a way, a way, a way, way to move those, those projects forward. Um, one that's been bad around the assembly, um, is to help deal with the housing crisis is, um, we're coming into title with our municipal lands entitlement, kind of show things get surveyed from the state and stuff like that. And between us and the Planning Commission, there's been, um, some planning going for potential subdivisions on some of the better parcels of borough-owned land. Um, in terms of, uh, and then certainly debated, you know, whether those just get sold off as raw lots, if the borough were to take on some level of development with roads and utilities, or if the whole thing would get, um, you know, sold off to a developer with the expectation that they would do that work and then sell them off. But For that, for that second option of if, um, if we wanted to pursue, you know, some level of land development, is that, is that something that would be considered public?

Or since that stuff is going to get sold off eventually, is that something we'd probably be looking at kind of private financing anyway versus some type of a bond option to facilitate a development of that type? So it kind of depends. I mean, with roads, typically you would reserve the easement to the borough and you would own all of the roads, and so those would be public. Um, the utilities, it is— it's hot, you know, if you have investor-owned utilities that are providing whatever, natural gas or electricity co-op, you know, if it's not, if it's not governmental You still have the— you can have the authority to do that. You know, you want to have the borough— you want to make sure that you, you're exercising approved powers.

That's what Joe would, would be working on. And if it's possible that it would not be tax advantaged— so for example, when we do natural gas pipelines, that's considered for state law purposes purposes to be a public project. You can go ahead and finance a gas pipeline, even though it is owned by Enstar or whoever, ever. For federal tax purposes, if it were owned by a private entity, then you would have to pay a higher interest rate. It does not mean you cannot do it, it just means it is going to be a little more expensive because the federal government does not consider that to be public.

So there's a bit of a disjoint between state law and federal tax law that doesn't say you can't do it, it just makes it a little bit more expensive.

Okay, thank you.

And I just— this is Joe Levesque again. I just want to make sure that everybody is aware that You guys are not a general law municipality, so that charter is really your Bible. It tells you what to do. The only exception is in Title 29, there's a Section 2910-200, which is limitation of home rule power, and it, it says these following statutes are prohibited from acting otherwise. So you have to follow whatever those particular statutory sections are.

But other than that, it's your, it's your charter. That's, that's what guides the whole municipality. And as a home rule municipality, that gives you a lot of, a lot of authority and power to do things that general law municipalities simply cannot do. Yeah, that's, that's correct, Joe. And, and the provision in this, in this borough's charter as to borrowing is quite broad.

It, it basically grants the borough the authority to borrow money for any purposes. It doesn't even say except as otherwise prohibited. But of course, you know, if it's— if, if the state constitution doesn't let you do it, then you can't do it. But, but it is quite, it is quite broad. Fraud.

I also like to mention that there's a section in Title 29 that has to do with port authorities. I know the city of Nenana up the road, um, has a port authority on the river, and they're really trying to develop that. And the significance of port authorities is that under the statutes, port authorities are allowed to borrow money and bond So I think that's another thing. I, I mean, you guys have rivers running up there. You might have other, you know, infrastructure as well that you could establish a port authority.

And if the port authority bonded for something, the municipality is simply not obligated to pay that back. The port authority is part of the municipality but it's a totally separate entity. And then, you know, we talked about conduit bonds, um, the private bonds. You know, the biggest one, Mark, is the biggest one in the state, that Aliaska Marine Terminal in Valdez. Yes.

Yeah, so, so Valdez borrowed $2 billion to complete the marine terminal, um, and, and all of that was payable not from the city, they were not on the hook in any way, but it was payable by the private corporation, the Alyeska Pipeline, that put in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System marine terminal in Valdez. If you have private entities that are looking to borrow at lower rates because of the tax advantages. So as I said, with natural gas pipeline, there's no tax advantage, but with many other types of facilities, there are special provisions in the Internal Revenue Code that allow the borough to borrow, but without liability, without recourse to the borough, on behalf of private entities to construct certain types of facilities, including pipelines and port projects and airports and water projects and sewer projects and solid waste facilities. So, so there, there, there is a lot of kind of hybrid type financing available, and we've worked with many Alaska municipalities to, to provide, you know, lower interest rates for financing that type of infrastructure. But, but all the liability is is, is, um, on the, on the private operator.

And the city gets an impact fee, fairly significant. Mark, do you recall what Valdez's impact fee was?

I think their permanent fund is worth close to $100 million now, so it's— it was a healthy amount of money that they, that they use that impact fee, um, to, to seed their, their permanent fund. And, and, um, and they've, they managed it well. And Mark and I have done a couple of these, uh, conduit bonds. We did one for the Aleutian Pribilof Island Association, which is really the health corporation for the Pribilof Islands and the East Aleutian Islands. And when we did that, the Aleutians East Borough actually was, uh, the municipality that was impacted, so they received like $50,000 for helping the Pribilof Island Association get this bonding.

And then recently we did the Kena facility in the city of Kodiak, and the city of Port Lions was the municipality that actually helped Kena build. It's this beautiful marketplace in the center of town. And so, you know, there are those things too.

Any more questions?

This is Mark Johnson. I do have one additional. In regards to the requirement for the popular vote versus the assembly, my understanding of revenue bond is it has to be backed solely by the revenue created by what the bond covers. It can't be backed by other general assets of the borough. Is that accurate?

That is correct, although you, you, you can use those assets, but you just don't promise them.

So, so, so the, the— if you, if you were to get into trouble, um, and your utility was not generating enough revenue, then you could use other revenue from other sources to keep you from defaulting. But your creditor, the bond bank, would not have the right to go after that. They would be limited to whatever the revenue generated by that facility is. It is a one-way gate. You are allowed to use general fund money, to pay debt service on a revenue-type debt, but nobody could force you to do that.

But you can't— my understanding is you cannot use it as a surety. That's correct. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit tricky because in a way the bond bank already has the surety by its ability to intercept any state funds that are coming to the borough. So they, they do have that right, and you should be aware that if you— even if it's a revenue bond, the bond bank statute, this, the intercept statute trumps the, the promise that you make because it said it's not even a 'the bond bank may.' It says if you do not pay on a bond bank loan, regardless of whether it's a revenue loan or a general obligation loan, if the state has money that they're supposed to pay over to you for, for whatever purpose— education, roads, whatever money the state is supposed to pay you— then, then the state must turn that money over to the bond bank to make good on your loan. So, so, so there is a surety, um, at the state level, uh, that is outside of the revenue-producing facility that you're financing.

And you just need to be aware of that. So let me— and then I'll give an ugly scenario. For some reason, it collapses, doesn't do what we want it to do. They could attach the grant, any grant money, including the education budget or any other things that are distributed by the state, correct? They have to.

There's, there's not a 'they could,' there's no, there's no discretion there. So that's why if your project is getting into trouble, you want to talk, you, you just want to call them and say, look, we need to, we need to do a workout. And, and they're very good about that. It's happened that, that folks, you know, get into trouble, that there are natural disasters that destroy facilities. And, and, and so, you know, you work with your, you work with your delegation, um, in, in Juneau, and, and you work with the bond bank because They don't want to get a black eye.

They don't want to have bondholders in New York hearing about defaults. So they're very motivated to try and work through things. I don't think that the intercept has ever been invoked ever in the 4 decades that the bond bank has been financing local infrastructure. I don't think they've ever used it. I'm not aware of it either, Mark.

But when you were talking earlier, you mentioned that you could go to a local bank and secure a loan. But the bond bank, the Alaska State Municipal Bond Bank, also issues loans in certain areas. Now, remember when we did the city of Galena?

Yes. And they ended up with all this diesel fuel or something that they had to use for their electricity. They— well, they had the base closure. Right, right. Yeah, um, yeah, but they ended up, you know, losing all the military money, right?

And they so ended up like paying way too much for the diesel, and then the military was gone. Yeah, in that case, I think the legislature appropriated $1 million to the bond bank specifically for them to make a loan to Galena. To finance— I think you're right, I think it was the acquisition of diesel oil for their utility from the— you know what, it's been so long, and I have a little bit of PTSD from that transaction because that Galena was the one that after they did that, then they had the horrible floods. They had to do a workout as well. The bond bank is If you're going to owe money to somebody, first, you know, the first people you don't want to owe money to is the Internal Revenue Service.

They're your worst creditor. After that are banks, and then, you know, way down on the list in terms of nice people to deal with are the bond bank. They're going to work with you if your project gets into trouble.

Is the phone—. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna try and change subjects a little bit, but at the end of the presentation, you were mentioning about how maybe there was an option for us as a municipality to kind of loan on behalf of a different entity or a co-op, you mentioned, I think. And I guess my question is, where do the keys to the kingdom fall in that instance? Instance, right? If, say, the Denali Borough were to take a loan and then have another private entity develop a piece of infrastructure for us, would that fall into, like, the memorandum of agreement between the two parties as far as who's liable for what, who's responsible for what, who's, etc., etc.?

Does that question make sense to either of you? Yeah, you know, in those types of situations, the way it normally works out is you literally are acting the way that the bond bank is acting. You're just facilitating the transfer of money from the bond bank to that entity, and then you wash your hands, you step out of the transaction, and they're the ones responsible for repaying the loan. There's no recourse to you. When Joe was mentioning the Kodiak Marketplace, The city of Port Lyons, which obviously is a very small village, borrowed— what was it?

$40 Million? And then loaned it to the Native nonprofit for their marketplace transaction. Then they just walked away. They said, we are out of this deal. We are assigning everything to everybody else.

Once a year, we will file an audit. And you'll pay for it, not us. And there's no liability. You just, when we say conduit, we really truly mean you just facilitate the transaction and you're not responsible for anything else. Now there's other ways of doing it, right?

You could do it as a public-private partnership where you have some say-so and you're involved and we're happy to work through those. Those deals are much more complicated because then you're at the negotiating table, as you say, trying to figure out who bears the risk of this, who bears the risk of that.

Right. Okay. So I guess that the last sentence there is kind of the meat of the question I'm asking here is if we do end up in an agreement with another developer entity and say, for whatever reason, the worst case scenario, they start kind of operating in a way that doesn't necessarily align with what we envisioned, I guess, is kind of like my question. Do— is there— if we were to enter that circumstance, would there be room for us to say, hang on a second, we didn't agree to that, we don't like what you're doing, or do we actually just kind of give them all control without any oversight or room for expressing concerns? Yeah, I mean, I think you've kind of hit the nail on the head there.

The more control you have, the more liability you have, right?

So typically, you just— in the typical transaction, you just wash your hands of everything and you're not responsible and you don't want to know about it. I mean, you want notification if they're falling down on the job, but, but you're not, you're not assuming any liability, and you're also not assuming any responsibility, but you also don't have any control. So every time you're going to want to exert more control, then, then there's going to be the implication that you had the ability to control this, and so if it blows up, then you're responsible. Okay, that answers my question well enough. Thank you.

Mark and Joe, if I may jump in and say just thank you so much for your time in this presentation. And I think it's going to be really helpful now for those who aren't maybe municipal finance geeks. They can—. I appreciate them hanging in there with us through this discussion, and especially for our assembly as you look ahead. For both, you know, potential community solar array.

We have two enterprise funds, our land management and our solid waste. So when we think about capital improvements under those two enterprises, when we think about community infrastructure that our residents have talked about, like a rec center, hopefully this helps, you know, further our understanding of what we can do. And as these guys have said, I think we have resources folks out there, they, they didn't say it here, they've said the bond bank is more than willing to kind of talk through project concept at the concept level and help us build our understanding and get to get to things getting built that benefit our residents. So appreciate, you know, the time. And yeah, so Mr. Mayor, thank you, and thanks to the assembly.

These are, you know, this is a lot to go through. I guess what I would say is bonds are not, they're not anything magic. They're just like, you know, taking out a mortgage on your house and you just need to be able to make sure that you can pay off your mortgage. So it's really important that your project, you know, pencils, that the numbers work because bonds can't fix, you know, overpaying for a house or or not having enough salary to be able to pay your mortgage. There's, there's no way of fixing that.

So, so, but if you have a solid economic plan with numbers that are reasonable and projections that are reasonable, then, then we're, you know, we're happy to work with you as well as the bond bank to, to make your, your project, you know, go smoothly.

Yeah, well, thank you very much. Okay, thank you, and we'll talk to you later. All right, thanks, Joe. Bye. Good night.

Brings us back to our agenda at the, uh, approval of our minutes from the August 12th meeting. Following a motion to approve the minutes from August 12th meeting. Second. Moved by Ms. Zapon and seconded. Any discussion or changes to minutes?

Anyone opposed to approving as submitted?

Okay, call that unanimous approval. Brings us to, uh, partner reports. And we have Chamber of Commerce. Did you cover that one? Hello.

Hi. Uh, my name is Eliza Cordova, and, uh, I'm excited to introduce myself as the new executive director for the Denali Chamber of Commerce and the Discover Denali Visitor Center and the Denali Community Foundation. I'm really excited to be in this role and to be working with the, with the borough and to be working with community members across the borough and across the state as well to, to see what we can do in the future. I wanted to give you guys A little bit of background on myself. I moved to Healy 8 years ago, and throughout my time here, I've worked in a variety of roles across the, across the borough.

So I've worked from north to south. And I started working seasonally in Healy at Black Diamond, then I transitioned to working with the National Park Service doing interpretation park ranger work while working in Campbell as a teacher winter, and then I got a year-round job working in administration with the Park Service and did that for a number of years.

And most recently, prior to my current role, I've been working at CLEAR for the last few years doing environmental compliance and then shifted to contract compliance. So I think that work experience in the area gives me a unique perspective, having worked all across the borough. I've made relationships and connections with community members across the borough that I'm content— I'm excited to continue working with during my— in this role. I'm excited to continue those relationships with business owners and community members and working towards bringing business to all of the communities. And then helping with, helping the business owners in all these.

So, I'm, I'm excited to also continue working with, Borough staff, and local government, on projects that we're all excited about for the Borough. And I look forward to kind of two-way communication with, projects that you would find helpful to have a nonprofit partnership with. Um, and speaking with borough staff earlier today, um, I'm excited to have a, like, a two-way street kind of a mutually helpful relationship. Um, I, I don't have too much of an update for you guys as far as, um, I, I just started in this role, so, um, I've been in my role for about 3 weeks now, so, um, I can kind of give you a look forward at what we've what I've started working on, and a little bit of a 2027 tourism outlook as, as we figured so far, just with myself and our board members. So as far as what I've been working on, the, you know, in these few weeks getting my feet under me, it's been a lot of, a lot of learning, a lot of, you know, information and kind of just figuring things out, how these organizations operate and kind of getting up to speed on that.

We've—. We're excited about, um, getting started with 2027 membership enrollment and connecting with, um, with our membership, recruiting additional membership. So that's something that's exciting for us. And then I've been doing a lot of community outreach with community members and business owners, um, to kind of see what— where interests lie, where needs lie. So that's been something that's very interesting to me.

I'm really interested in the community planning side of things as well as, you know, how that ties in for business and for tourism and how the community, business, and tourism roles all support each other. It's kind of a circular relationship associated, and it's all intertwined. So connecting those three is something I'm really excited about. I'll leave you with a brief update for the 2027 tourism outlook. So far, sales are looking positive, booking trends are solid.

For 2027, Holland America Princess is opening the new rooms that they've been constructing, so there's plans to net around 80 additional rooms next summer. At the start of the season.

And also something that's good to note is that some of the larger companies have already started, already opened 2028 for booking opportunities. And then the general consensus across the board members for our organizations have been that, you know, again, 2027 looks positive with something of note of interest might be that in general, 2027 bookings seem to be happening earlier this year than in other years. So I don't know what that exact, you know, how that would translate into actual visitation numbers, but in general, booking has been happening earlier.

I'm excited to continue working with you all, and thanks for having me. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Good to have any questions.

Um, I don't know if you guys have thought about it, but the, the bridge opening up is probably partially why people are trying to get in sooner. Yeah, and that's something that, that we had kind of mentioned and discussed, is especially with the more independent travelers that are using travel agencies that are aware of things like the road and the bridge opening up, um, that might have an impact on especially the independent travel. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. Yeah, congratulations to you on new job, and congratulations to the board on successful recruitment.

Yeah, I will thank you very much for the— to the board for, uh, supporting me in this, in this transition. I felt, felt very supported and, um, feel prepared to take on this role.

So, representing the board, uh, of the Visitor Center, uh, thank you for your patience with with the process. Uh, very excited to have Eliza on board. She's done fantastic so far. We also have 3 new board members that have joined us. Um, they'll be confirmed in our next board meeting, uh, which is the end of this month.

Um, so very excited to have those updates. Uh, yeah, I can agree with the 2027 booking comments. They're looking really good. I think it's also, um, as prices have risen, I think people anticipate that continuing to be the case. Um, so they book now, confirm now, then they can, you know, plan for those things later at the cost that that they've already incurred.

So a little bit of that, but it's also an intuitive factor. But yes, thank you again for your patience with the process. I think this process was refined quite well. Very happy to be a member of the boards that we're on. Everybody's been stepped up.

It's a volunteer organization for the most part, and it's been really fun getting to know everybody a little better and working with everybody. And very happy with results and looking forward to Eliza's success. So thank you.

Any other partner reports tonight?

Uh, we do have a written one, um, from— looks like she'll send an update, um, an updated one. So if Wait, let's freeze that. Yeah, if you would. I didn't have a chance to before the meeting. Um, is it the one that came today at like 11?

Uh, came in at 4:38. Okay. And after the time of service, I'm sorry, I can read it here. That's from 11:30. Oh, there's no—.

I'm fine. I'll, I'll just read it. It's a little— it's longer than I printed off. So, um, it says, on behalf of DPLC, I'd like to thank the assembly for its continued support of DPLC through our, um, MOA, Memorandum of Agreement, with the Denali Borough. Um, DPLC is working hard to provide high-quality child care, strengthen our early childhood workforce, and support the non-native children and families.

We continue to pursue excellence throughout our operation, and the funding provided through this partnership plays an important role in making that work possible. A school year update. EPLC has had a positive start to the school year, including the successful launch of our early learning program for our children ages 2 to 4. Miss Teresa is leading development mentally appropriate activities that help children build early skills through play and prepare for their transition into preschool. Overall, full-time attendance is currently a little lower following the transition of a significant number of children into preschool or back to school.

This is normal seasonal shift, but it has a noticeable effect on DPSC's full-time enrollment. Uh, workforce development. DPLC is also making a significant investment in workforce development with support from grant funding and the borough's MOA, which helps fund training and wages. DPLC has made important strides over the past 6 months. Uh, a bullet point list is a Learn and Grow Level 1 completed, work towards Level 2 is underway, uh, one full-time teacher completed a bachelor's degree while working full-time.

The director began a bachelor's program in early childhood education and is completing state-required education and training for the administrators of licensed child care centers.

And then ongoing training is completed by all staff.

Summer archery program. DPLC was approved by the state to offer an archery program. 4 Community children in 5th and 6th grades participated and really enjoyed that experience. We learned a great deal from our first season and hope to continue the program with a few adjustments.

State child care assistance proposal. At the state level, changes have been proposed to Alaska's child care assistance program. The proposal would expand eligibility to families earning up to 105% of the state median, median income, create additional assistance categories, update provider reimbursement rates, and reduce the loss of support that families can experience when their income increases. If adopted, these changes could make licensed child care more affordable for additional families, help parents remain fully employed, and provide DPLC with more stable enrollment and reimbursement. DPLC plans to submit comments supporting changes that improve access for working families while strengthening the sustainability of child care providers.

It says public comment opportunity. Comments on the proposed changes will be accepted until 5:00 PM on September 14th, 2026. And there's a link of how to provide public comment for that State Child Care Assistance Proposal. That's the report. Okay.

Thanks to the folks at APRC. Do you have any kind of new MOA this year, but anything from the administration side of things in terms of how the MOA is working out as a mechanism? Yeah, I would say it's working great and nothing, nothing of note other than we have made one of two payments and expect reporting in time. Similar to our grants. And, um, it's been great, you know, great to work with the DPLC, and I appreciate them kind of highlighting what some of this support is going to do.

Thank you.

Uh, bring us the school district report. Superintendent Murphy. Since the last meeting, school is in session, students are, uh, in the, in the schools everywhere. And, uh, and everybody's excited. Um, the students came in with smiles.

I was there for opening day at Tri-Valley, and I think everybody smiled when they walked in the door. That's always great from an educational standpoint to see it. Teachers are happy too. So, uh, even after a number of days of in-service, which are not always the most exciting, um, for people, but really, really great to, to have. We do have a new teacher that just started this week in Anderson.

Uh, Joe Kaiser came in, um, so he gets his first day tomorrow by himself. We've had, uh, Sandy Kumpfauer, who's been filling in, and a call out to her, and she's been working with him the last two days And he's, he's on his own tomorrow. So I believe that Anderson is having a potluck at 5:30 that I just heard about right before I came here in celebration of Saba. So really a good thing. We still are waiting on a couple of teachers.

One's got visa paperwork. They're in country, but just waiting for a transfer. We're hoping that to come very soon. Our out-of-country teacher has a visa appointment in 2 weeks, and we're hoping that's the last step. And we're planning that he would be in Anchorage to get a number of different, uh, paperwork started the first week of October.

So it could be here as soon as the end of the week October 3rd. We're hoping that everything, uh, goes through. And, uh, Kate Stone and Emma Bloom have, um, they are filling in, um, the district. I want to give them a call out because they're helping us, uh, in those spots. Uh, the Department of Education has released the state testing results.

You can go online to the website and look them up by state, district, school. And if you're a parent, you'll see those results for your own kids coming out within the next 30 days. So Denali as a district did about the same as they had in, in the past couple of years. So they're staying pretty consistent and of course Of course, we always want to do better, but we have a pretty solid educational system.

Maybe the test data scores have leveled out a little bit so that we can really start using them. They don't—. If the state doesn't change that, that testing. August 31st has passed and the oil prices stayed up. So we did get our one-time Duma safe funding, which is about $630,000, which will be paid out over each, each month or 9, um, prior, and then a catch-up toward the end.

We also got the energy grant that was proposed. That's another $140, uh, about $141,000 to offset some of the high energy costs.

Seeing the assembly talking about the CIP projects that we just completed this summer, thank you for your support. And we still have the possibility of one more. Those are generators in Anderson. Well, we'll know December 31st. Oil prices are still about $80 a barrel, they on average, then those would be funded.

There are 3, 3 projects statewide, and ours is one of those. So there will not be an additional vote. It's nothing the next legislature— it's either a yes or no. And right now oil is over $100 a barrel. So if we got a really good possibility that that will that will happen.

We also put out our 6-year plan and our new CIQ grant that went in September 1st for our future projects coming along. Thanks. And we had our big check and little check presentation just this week. So the support that the borough has given the school district over the years, and that both the school district and the borough are working very hard on understanding that our students are very important to all of our communities. Is, is wonderful.

That support, you can't— we can't do without it. We do recognize that. And lastly, since we've been talking about money We do have the district audit coming up. Assembly member and business manager Stanfield has been working on preparing for that, so we will have that, all that information here in November. So sports are going on.

If you haven't seen a soccer game or cross country then let me know and we'll make sure that, that you get a personal invite. Thank you. Free tickets. Thank you. And we have, uh, finance reports from June and July.

No notes. Motion to receive? I'll make a motion to receive our finance reports from the months of June and July this year, 2026. Second. Moved by Ms. Apolo, seconded.

Discussion? Uh, no notes, but I was curious, the hazard mitigation, there's something that happens that, that made you guys go there, or like it's just, uh Kind of jumped. It just stood out to me, and I'm not putting you on the spot. You can just say no. It's a minor one, Jerry.

Oh, sorry. Um, are we talking amendments? He's talking type of mitigation in the—. Oh, in budgets, or—. Yeah, okay, you got it.

Okay, okay, thanks. I'm sorry. Not— yeah, not in the past anyways, but coming up in the budget amendment. Yeah, get ready, ready to take off. Thanks.

All right, anyone opposed to receiving them, the financial reports from June and July? Okay, call that unanimous reception. And that'll bring us to the mayor's report. Okay, assembly members, thank you. And those who, you know, our candidates, thank you for attending and visiting the communities.

Appreciate that. And those who are here for, um, the meeting. Thanks for coming. Those of you who chose snacks in the back, those who are hungry, um, I'm going to highlight just a few things from my written report. And again, just got it in right under the wire.

Appreciate the assembly's grace with me here. Um, I wanted to highlight borough elections. They're coming up. Um, it is open for those, um, seeking to be a candidate on the ballot. And so just The seats that are open do include the mayor's seat, um, assembly seat, uh, for District 1, Camwell, District 3, Healy, and District 5, which is Anderson and Clear.

And then for the school board, District 2, McKinley Village, District 4, also Healy, and then District 5, the Northern District. So thanks to those who put in packets. Um, more information is available on our website, and packets are due by September Wanted to highlight, I had an opportunity to attend the Polychrome Bridge ribbon-cutting ceremony, kind of hosted by the National Park Service with partners from Federal Highways, the contractor Granite. They had a host of subcontractors, Jacobs Engineering, and then a bunch of National Park, both regional office and local to Denali. Employees.

And wow, I hadn't seen the bridge. For those who have not been out there, it's— you're in for a treat when you do visit. It was really fascinating from an engineering standpoint to hear how, just how they bridged the gap over this 750-foot-plus rock glacier and over an ice lens and stabilize things. And it's quite the, quite the engineering feat. So it's a beautiful day.

There are a couple grizzly bears on the slope. A golden eagle flew overhead that nests right there next to the bridge, so it's just perfect. And there is a celebration tomorrow at the Denali Visitor Center for those, I think, for business community and community members. That does include Kate. 5:30 Start time, I believe.

Check it out. Wanted to highlight, I attended the Alaska Defense Forum. This was my first time time visiting, attending that conference. It was hosted up in Fairbanks and just really appreciated— there's a lot of military partners, a lot of military in the business, like the defense contracting community was there. And I chatted with our Lieutenant Colonel Williams from Clear Space Force Station, and you got to connect with him.

Mayor Grevy with the city of Anderson was there, and I think, you know, some of the themes that I heard is Alaska is going to continue to play an important role in our nation's defense, and our installations are going to continue to see investment that correlates with that, that strategic, our strategic location. And there was a lot of emphasis from those who are visiting from DC on relationship building directly with installation commanders. I think that's something that we as local leaders have tried to focus on. And so it was reassuring to hear that we're kind of, you know, on the right track that way. And there's a lot of discussion about energy and especially Golden Valley's grid and kind of our capacity to take on new loads.

And the military is intimately aware of that and pursuing a number of different strategies to mitigate that. On the emergency planning front, I just wanted to highlight Bear Creek Fire road repair project is still underway. They're laying geotextile fabric and are placing screen material. From what I've heard from property owners out there, it's going— things are going really well, and they've installed all the culverts, and it's going to be a really much improved road. The, the contractor, Fox Enterprises, is willing— if homeowners haven't reached out to them and they're in the kind of Bear Creek, Tune Creek area and want to have some work done on private property, they're, they're willing to to discuss that.

Wanted to highlight, I went down to a Cantwell Fire and EMS meeting. Assemblymember Zappone was there. Chiefs from McKinley, Tri-Valley were there, including other members of those two departments. And topic of conversation was really how the department is really struggling, as so many rural departments are, recruiting and retaining volunteers. EMS response continues to push.

It's just a really, it's a really big lift. And I think the message I would leave with the assembly and just the public is one, if you're in Cantwell and want to get involved, the Cantwell Fire Department would love to have you. The other message that I would leave is, you know, how we have thought about providing EMS service in Cantwell over the past two decades, basically. I think that model, we're going to need to think about it differently moving forward, much in the same way that Tri-Valley Volunteer Fire Department, you know, at some point we came up with this novel summer medic program. And we need to, you know, I think we need to think about it in that way.

If we need a new model that provides the care that both the community needs and the protection for that pretty large segment of the Parks Highway, down to even including the northern Nassau boroughs. So, More to come, but that was— it was, you know, a difficult but I think productive meeting overall. Highlighting some community development updates, we have the fall vaccine clinic scheduled, so save the date for October 22nd. That's going to be at the Tradeline Community Center. Vaccines will be offered free of charge, and that's with our partnership with public health nursing.

Moving on to our housing needs assessment, quite a bit of work has been done. In part, you know, kind of instigated by conversations with the Denali Chamber of Commerce, the Minnesota Housing Partnership has drafted this housing needs assessment and it's available on the website. And so I'd encourage everybody to check that out and consider commenting. It's open for comments until the 30th of the month. It includes kind of an assessment and in many ways a lot of the themes will sound true.

It's hard to find housing. Maybe there is housing, but it's not quite what the market's desiring, or it's, it's a dry cabin and somebody would like a 2-bedroom, 1-bath, something like that. But there's a section on strategies, and so I call your attention to this opportunity to comment. Please review it and consider commenting on that. And the one other thing I'd highlight on the community development front, there is another, a second Community and Outdoor Recreation Committee, or CORC Committee.

Work session at 7 PM on October 13th, looking at a Healy area shooting range. So for those who are interested, please attend.

On the land planning front, and that conversation that we'll have at the next Joint Planning Commission assembly meeting, we did get an appraisal back for 8 residential parcels in the Boda subdivision. The average Um, appraised value of this share is $11,900. These are about 5-acre parcels. And so this will be a conversation that we'll have next meeting, but really appreciate the appraiser, you know, kind of the quick turnaround there. So, that last little bit there, my brain skipped the first part.

$11,900 Per acre or for—. No, per parcel, per 5-acre parcel. Yeah, yeah, there is some variation. Those parcels that are closer to the road, there's, you know, Rochester Way, and I don't know the cross street off the top of my head that's partially constructed. Those two parcels, appraiser said it's slightly higher.

There's quite a bit of information in this appraisal. It's going to come out. It's, you know, it's not on the website or anything, but I think just stay tuned for more information on that. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no, you're good.

I just—.

Yeah, thank you. Happy to answer questions too afterwards. Can we share pictures? I'm going to move on to solid waste. Yeah, we had a little— the upstairs bathroom at the landfill, so we were going to just, for the good of the order— okay, so we'll just share a couple.

This cute. So what are we looking at here? So we're looking at the up upstairs bathroom, the upstairs landing. This is the, the ceiling. This floor that we're looking at is the ceiling of the office with our scale computer system, our telephone, our printer, um, and another bathroom.

So we had a leak, the water line broke, flooded the ceiling and into the drywall and ruined unfortunately some of our equipment. So we did have to close on Tuesday, but we're back open and there's some work to be done. We're going to be in touch with our insurer, and it was a big, big mess. For those who have ever dealt with water damage, you can see in this photo, you know, insulation, uh, peeling drywall. We did just have the windows and doors replaced not too long ago.

Unfortunately, the casement around these windows is kind of waterlogged.

And so wanted to give the assembly an update that this may come up in the context of our budgeting and/or capital.

More soaked insulation. And really, I, I guess I'd, um, offer some, um, appreciation and gratitude to our land staff who kind kind of pitched in, jumped in, helped take down wet drywall. And thankfully it was just like throw it in the backyard of the—. All the way to the link. So, uh, and then I just highlight, as Superintendent Burr mentioned, we had— we hosted, um, the Nellyboro School District staff and presented the big check of $3,265,846.

$1 Million, and that really represents a commitment by the assembly on behalf of our community sports. So was, was proud to attend.

We are— I guess the only other thing I'll say, our emergency manager position closed, and we are scheduling interviews at this point.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Brings us to, uh, assembly comments, and we'll start online with Mr. Alexander.

Uh, thank you everybody who came to, uh, McKinley Village to attend the assembly meeting, and I apologize for not being one of them. Um, I'm glad Feels particularly lame when it's in my own neighborhood, but, uh, that's just kind of the way it worked out. But thank you again for, um, everybody that was involved in hosting it there, and I'll keep the rest of the comments until the end.

Uh, Mr. Johnson?

I've got no comments at this time. Thank you. Mr. Canali? Yeah, nothing for me with the exception of gratitude for the reports tonight and the presentation. And as Mr. Alexander mentioned, those who are attending the meeting either in person or via Zoom, so thank you.

Mr. Stanfield, thanks.

Yeah, um, thank you. Uh, quick apologies for missing last month's meeting down in Cantwell. Uh, I had a scheduling snafu with my day job and just couldn't, couldn't quite make it. Um, so I apologize. I do enjoy kind of being on the ground down there in our, our quieter area of the borough.

Uh, as Mayor Null mentioned, I did attend the Cantwell Fire Department meeting on the 1st, and it was a pretty tough meeting, but hopefully going forward we can collaborate and try and find a solution kind of short-term, long-term, and, and, you know, forever as we work together.

I did review the minutes from last month's meeting, so I'd like to take a second to highlight the positive feedback that we received from the Gobbins and the Fat Truck Denali Fat Truck Tours and the work that they're doing out on the trails there. There was another comment from a name I didn't really recognize, mentioned the ATV trail along the highway from Dry Creek Bridge to Stampede as maybe something we could improve for bike traffic. I know a lot of folks ride bicycles along the shoulder of the highway there, and that comment kind of mentioned maybe we could flatten that ATV trail or do something like that. So Um, I don't— like I said, didn't recognize the name, but would encourage that person to reach out to me because maybe the Lions Club or something could, could help do something like that. The other thing— I have a couple more, sorry.

I did miss last month's meeting, so I have to make up for it. Um, I'd like to extend appreciation for the assembly on behalf of the Healy Valley Lions Club. I did notice that the appropriation for next Summers project capital improvement, uh, permanent solid toilets, some electricity, and some groundwork for some future developments, and new playground equipment going at the one of the only public use areas in the Denali Borough, specifically for day use only, no camping. Anybody listening, I will forever say, do not camp at Otto Lake. There's plenty of room somewhere else.

Um, and then there was a comment in the minutes about the folks at last month's meeting being concerned about the gas shortage in the Southeast. Um, to put on my other hat from the Golden Valley director board, one of the things I'd like to mention is that Golden Valley's generation is not directly tied to the gas shortage. We are independent. Unfortunately, our generation is a little bit more on the older side, so we are reliant on the price of diesel, which is why our rates continue to rise. Um, without disclosing too much information, there are some things happening at the Golden Valley level that are trying to address those things.

I'll happily talk with anybody offline about that. And then the other last one here is the comment from, uh, Miss Mulry. She did attend the meeting, it looked like, and just expressed her concerns for fire and emergency response in that Cantwell area. And I just want to make sure that as a board, we're, we're highlighting that until we can again find a solution that kind of works for everybody. Um, with that, I guess I'll save the rest of my conversations for the rest of the meeting.

Yeah, uh, just like to Yeah, just happy to see the Bear Creek Fire Road repair project happening. It wasn't directly related to the Kobe, the Kobe Farm community and the work that they were doing out there. But I will say just kind of from my perspective on that, the advocacy and the work that they've done in the past, I think really primed us to be able to partner with the state on that and extend that project, I think, in a way that maybe we wouldn't have if it was just a state road repair grant coming in. I don't think we would have been ready to kind of take advantage of that opportunity to make some, some real improvements there. So glad to see that happening, and I hope they take some, some credit for seeing that happen up there as well.

Yeah, and then, yeah, with Campbell Hall Fire and EMS, I think it is worth Yeah, I think evaluating on a, you know, a worldwide basis, it's not just what's happening in Cantwell, but whatever, if there is a role for us to play, I think what I see is a largely successful model of that summer medic program, I think is a great place to start. And then just us being able to kind of figure things out on our own, not necessarily doing it all in-house, but being able to work with partner organizations and certainly worthwhile. Um, that is a public service, cover a long stretch of the highway, a lot of that outside of the borough. Um, so, um, but super important. I, everyone, I find myself on that stretch of road at 2 o'clock in the morning in the middle of winter.

Yeah, nice to know there's somebody on the other end of the line, even if they are still— better they're, they're 20, 30 miles away than 120 or whatever, whatever it is. So, yeah, I would encourage us to be, you know, good partners with the people down there that are trying to fulfill that service. And, you know, we got money. I know the state gives, you know, some of those community organizations kind of pass-through grants and whatever that is, and we support them in different ways. I think it does bring up that question of the 9% cap.

On the nonprofits and like where, you know, if we're kind of considering that more, more critical, critical service than just, you know, grant monies or whatever, we just need to be thoughtful about that. And yeah, if that— how those programs are oriented and how they all kind of fit within our restrictions and I don't know, I kind of feel like with, with the increased revenue that we had with, uh, the, uh, the Alkamal marijuana tax and the increase in the bed tax, I think was passed by the voters with the expectation that we would do good things with the extra money. Um, and I think that guaranteeing— not guaranteeing, but doing what we can to support EMS service year-round throughout the borough is one of those things would be high on that, high on that list. So, um, yeah, I don't, don't want us to feel, feel limited, you know, be, be creative and make sure we take full advantage of volunteer effort we have out there.

Yeah, that's what I got. I don't think I have anything that hasn't already been well articulated. Sorry, Walter. All right, that brings us to ordinances. And we have 4 ordinances for introduction.

First up is to accept an appropriate Rural Health Transfer Education Program funding.

I'll make a motion to introduce, right? Introduce, yeah, ordinance for the success.

Move by Ms. Zippone and seconded. Up for introduction, uh, Mayor Nolan. Okay, thank you. I will just highlight a few aspects of this. This is one of 4 projects that we applied for in year 1 of this RH, what we call the Rural Health Transformation Program, or RHTP, $272 million per year for the state of Alaska.

So one of our 4 projects, we, we're very excited and thankful one of them has been We've received a letter with a notice of intent to award. And so this will allow us to accept that award and allocate the money, appropriate the money for reimbursement. And this is for a health, a rural health project coordinator. So in many regards, this will be in, this person will continue much of the work that we've tried to do, bringing together partners, helping our nonprofit partners like fire departments and their applications through this grant program. Program and just continuing to help try to solve the puzzle of the closed chronic injury case.

I think that's another big one. So happy to answer questions, but appreciate the support on this and excited to hire for this temporary position. If we— I should say, we do— we've considered this internally. We do feel like we have space in our office. We did take on a new what I'll call them— we'll call the mayor's office.

So we've got a little bit of added capacity under our new lease at the fire department.

So the goal for this position, um, like, like, obviously it's going to be a multiple area approach, but what, like, in your job description looking for this person, what's, what's main What is the purpose of hiring this person?

That's a great question. We do have a draft job description, which I don't have in front of me, but I would be happy to share it. I think the mission is strengthen healthcare in the Denali Borough, reduce barriers, increase access.

Those would be kind of job number one. There's a lot of partners that are doing, kind of doing work already. And so part of it's like making sure we're highlighting and celebrating the successes that are happening, whether it's Campbell Clinic, we're about mental health and addictions, things that are available through that service. But then also, you know, strengthening our applications for year 2. That's another one.

This is a 5-year grant process, you know, program. We want to make sure that we're doing as much as we can. And it really takes the workload off of Currently, this is under the Community Development Director and kind of nestles in neatly under its own thing.

Don't forget the addition of—. Sorry— of marketing the health provider loan program so that maybe we can get some applicants for that, which is also going to be part of their duties. Yeah, um, you mentioned there was a draft, uh, job description, which I'm sure will answer the question I'm about to ask, but I want to ask it anyway. Um, qualifications for this kind of position includes medical background or project management, or just kind of ballpark spitballing, what is that ideal list of I can do this look like for this position? It's a great question.

I, I wouldn't want to— I guess I don't want to spitball too much because the job description is still a draft until we publish it. Okay. I think maybe a word I would look for— the ideal candidate is going to be, in my mind, somebody who's a collaborator and can help pull strengths of our different partners together, um, is problem solver, can, you know, help creatively think about what some of our barriers to access are and how can we those in a, in a, you know, kind of limited funding environment, limited local government resources. Yeah, and I put you on the spot, so actually I really enjoy that word. That's perfect for now.

I mean, it's grant money, but, you know, it is $108,000, which is not an insignificant sum. You know, it'd be nice to get something actually concrete out of this. You know, like, like, is this our chance to get a clinic? I mean, that's what we're look— in my view, that's, that's what we're looking for, for these next 3 years of funding. You know, we, we want a clinic in, in Healy.

I'm pretty sure that's what we want. Um, so yeah, find somebody that can make that happen. That's it. Small ask. $8,000.

Very small thing. This is your job. Make it, make it happen. You have 3 years. Ready, go.

Can you show us, show us the best, the most viable path? Yeah, whatever it is. In one year. I mean, I do think that the federal program is Rural Health Transformation Program, and I think Keeley's been asking, asking for a transformation of our health infrastructure for a long time. So we are primed for, for it.

Um, this is our opportunity. So I think excited to get somebody in that position that is dedicated not just to a clinic in Healy but making sure it serves the, you know, the world and all those things the right way, but putting, putting some thought into it and making sure we take full advantage of the opportunities that are going to be coming down, coming down the pike. So for sure, I, I get the sense just generally, like, we weren't to borrow when there was all the big money flowing from the pipeline days that we missed out on a lot of that kind of big infrastructure stuff that you see in some of the other rural communities. So I do think this is a chance to, um, to, to fill that, to fill that void, um, a little bit, at least in this one kind of healthcare sector. For sure.

Right. And if they're really good, then they'll be able to collaborate also a shooting range and a, a recreation center. Because that's all good for our health.

No, keep the gun trained on the target. Everybody swimming, good. And the basketball—. You might have interjected just a little bit. Yeah, it was curious to see that we— there were a number of applications that came— that went in from our borough.

Some of them had pretty specific and I thought valuable projects that, like, it seemed that, like, they were pretty easy. Like, we want to do this and there's going to be this outcome, you know, very specific. And the way things just turned out, this is the only one that ended up getting grant funded. Or I'd be curious to know how that scoring happened, but this is the only one that ended up getting funded. So, I mean, in my mind, they're like Okay, we heard you in your other applications, so here's the money to make that person kind of throw the quarter, you know, flesh out that plan.

Yeah, like put it all together and giving us the support to kind of have that position, I think. So maybe you're right, but I think either way, I think we're in a good spot.

Thanks. Other discussion? The vote is for introduction. The motion is for introduction. Then I would ask for a roll call vote on that motion.

Jeremy Stanfield? Yes. Krista Zippone? Yes. Dominic Nally?

Yes. Walt Warner? Yes. Jim— uh, Mark Johnson? Yes.

David D'Alzante? Yes.

Yes.

Uh, I'll make a motion to postpone Ordinance 26-15 till next month's meeting. Seconded. Anyone who's opposed to postpone? Seconded. Any discussion?

Um, timeline on this one?

We—. Question. I'd say we're priority number one 1 is our leasing manager hired, and I think priority number 2 is to be hiring, timeline-wise, soon. And then, uh, anyone opposed to postponing to the next meeting? So that's unanimous.

Move on to Ordinance 26-16, appropriate funds for the Tri-Valley Septic Replacement Project. I'll make a motion to introduce ordinance number 26-16. Second.

Moved by Mr. Warner to introduce and seconded.

Mayor Nolan. Okay, great, thank you. This project is done and it's great to be allocating our, our local participant share. This amount, $230,451, is higher than what's going our CFP list, but it's the number from the deed-approved major school maintenance list for FY27. So we felt like that was a good number to use.

Um, maintenance manager Curtis Hamill has said it's probably going to come in under, under this number, so we feel very good about this. They're still kind of finalizing invoices, I understand, but basically the project's done and the field looks great. It's hopefully softball next year. I think the field looks better than it did Before they started digging it out. I've been informed that it's actually flat instead of the pocketed, the outfield or whatever.

I haven't been on it, but driving by the soccer field, it's better than it did. And most important question really is the water's flowing the right direction, right? Yes. Okay. That's what we're hoping for.

I would ask for a roll call vote on introduction of ordinance 26-16. David Alexander?

Yes. This is the pump? Yes. Dominic Finale?

Dominic Finale?

Yes. Jeremy Sandberg? Yes. Walt Orman? Yes.

Mark Johnson? Yes. Jared Zimmerman? Yes. Unanimous.

And ordinance is introduced.

Motion postpone? Uh, yeah, I got a motion from ordinance 2663. Thank you, Mr. Stanfield. And a second. So motion is to postpone.

Any discussion? Anyone opposed? Okay, we'll see that at our next meeting. And that'll bring us to Ordinance 26-17, which is to appropriate funds for the comprehensive school facility assessment project. Uh, make a motion to introduce Ordinance 26-17.

Second. Moved by Mr. Warner to introduce and seconded. Mayor Hall. Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman. I, you know, say you this came up at maybe last December.

Ask and you shall receive. Ask and you shall receive. I think it's a great idea. This plan, you know, for those who are not familiar, this comprehensive facility assessment, the having this improves the scores when the district applies for capital money through DEED. It sounds like it's a 10-year— I think it's between a 5-year lifespan, so we're not getting the points for this plan anymore.

And so this update will allow us to— it'll improve our chances of continuing to see success, which we have in capital improvements of the schools. And it'll inform the administration as they consider their repair and maintenance program and inform both entities when we look at big capital projects. So this— we may try to continue to refine this number, but this is kind of a first, first go, or what can I say? Do we actually anticipate it costing the first—. So, yeah, I'd like to—.

I was curious on what the last one cost. Yeah, it was the same. It was about this much. No, it was 10 years ago. 10 Years ago.

Ouch. It might be $400,000. But update, I think that was the first time a comprehensive assessment had been done, so Yeah, maybe. Um, this might be an unfair question because it's your first few months here, uh, but 10 years ago when we did this, I know that we used it as a cornerstone for kind of our applications and some of the maintenance procedures that they were doing through the district. Is there an idea of the list that we got in 2016?

Are we 15%? Are we 50%? Like, are we— I guess my question is, if we're going to redo this, how, how well did we utilize the last one? If, and if it's not a fair question to answer today, that's fine. Um, but I just was curious, like, if we got through 50% of the list or less or more.

You may not know through, through the chair. Sorry, I don't know the percentage specifically, but as the reason for this is so that we don't add things to the CIP list that would be superseded by something else without a comprehensive look at it, then we may be putting things and the Bureau may be supporting things that are— I'll give an example that you can't, you can't fix a roof if the foundation is down. They won't support it from the state CIP list. They have their own level. So without that comprehensive plan, then that's where it really matters.

It's not a percentage of the list because things adjust, populations decrease or increase. And that may have, uh, but if we don't know what that plan entails, then we can't adjust correctly on the 6-year plan and looking through. So it, it's essential. And as a former maintenance director, we spent more money than we thought we had to get that, and it saved us a fortune because we found things out there we know were wrong that would have invalidated if we had been successful. So 100% in support from history of, of that.

And, uh, Mayor and I have talked about it, and we need it to happen. Yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not challenging the idea. I just, for the record and for folks who maybe weren't here 10 years ago, We are good at completing. I just don't know the percentage. Sure, that's fine.

Pretty consistently there's a large project that gets done every year, at least one, one of the schools, at least in the few years that I've been at. Yeah, like I said, I'm not, I'm not challenging the idea, just for the folks that are tuning in that maybe weren't here 10 years ago. And yeah, I guess I would say, um, prior to comprehensive facility assessment There was also, um, I think less court, less communication between the school board and the, and the assembly at the time. So we had CIP lists happening at different times of the year, and the things around the borough CIP list for schools were not the same things that the school district had on their CIP list for schools. So there was a lot of, um, yeah, just as a unified force going to Juneau, talking about the same things and, and all that stuff, having a outside source that comes in and tells us what we should be doing is really, is really helpful.

So look forward to, to that. And then I would also say, like, probably like after this next election when we have the, the new members for bodies and stuff like that, a joint work session at some point I think would be really good. I do feel like it was maybe a lot of times like January, February before people start making those trips to Juneau and stuff like that and just kind of coordinate lobbying campaign and your budget cycle is at a little different point, but kind of going into our budget cycle, it's a good time to, to get together. So look forward to scheduling that when, when the time comes.

But we digress. The motion at hand is to introduce this ordinance, 20-26-17. Yes. So I would ask for a roll call vote on approval— or, uh, introduction. This is a vote?

Yes. David Alexander? Yes. Jeremy Stamfield? Yes.

Dominic Nally? Yes. Walt Warner? Yes. Mark Johnson?

Yes. Jared Zimmerman? Yes. Nandness? Ordinance introduced.

I'll move to postpone Ordinance 2617. Second. Moved by Mr. Stamfield to postpone. Seconded. Any discussion on that?

Anyone opposed? That's unanimous. See that next month. And bring us to our last ordinance for introduction, which is Ordinance 26-18, which is a fiscal year 2027 budget amendment.

I'll make a motion to introduce Ordinance 26-18. One second. Move by Mr. Powell, seconded Mayor Nolan. Okay, thank you. I have some notes that I'll kind of go through highlighting some of the changes, and then happy to kind of work line by line or answer questions.

Um, so, um, some highlights from our Treasurer. The top line, item 3110, overnight accommodations tax, we're amending that upwards, and that is based on our FY26 year-end amount of $6.32 million. And so we're revising that, and I'd say conservatively, up 3% from the FY26 amount. And especially based on some of the things we've heard, which is great, you know, we want to expect, expect great visitation next year, but feeling good about that conservative increase. Does that like also include the extra 80 rooms that are coming on board?

No, excuse me, this is just— it's just a flat 3% over actual receipts from FY26. So that—. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I, I didn't know I don't know, you know, what 80 rooms amounts to tax-wise, but it's got to be something.

Yeah, Mr. Alexander, I think you're exactly right, and I think we— our, our method has been to kind of budget conservatively, um, and base, base it on percentages. Um, but happy to bring this back to our treasurer and maybe have a, you know, have another discussion about it.

I like conservative budgets. I'm good with that. Conservative on—. Yeah, I mean, I think something like that will get absorbed as you get closer to the end of a fiscal year and have a better idea. But correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't get any occupancy data or rate data.

It's just strictly a percentage of of that. So I mean, that seems like a good, good number for right now in the year. Yeah, and to highlight, you know, we know FY26 was 10— actuals were 10% above FY25 actuals. Is that right? So again, it's— we, we could probably— maybe it's, you know, happy to continue this type of conversation.

And I should mention, this is Amendment number 1, we typically amend also, we typically amend definitely in the spring, but this is, we have some key things that we want to take care of now. So I'll keep going. I would, I guess I would just like one, one other factor there is just inflation across the board, whatever it is. But if folks are booking rooms for FY27 now, just to be able to kind of compare if they're whatever, I'm not sure how, how, how that price scheduling goes for those guys, but if they've already incorporated some of the existing inflation into next year's numbers, that might be a little indicator too, because it is based on their— based on the room rates, not just the occupancies. So, but if we're budgeting too conservatively, we could— if inflation continues to increase, or whatever that is, that there could be a lot of meat left on the bone.

I'm not thinking about it because it had been pretty dramatic last. Yeah, overall. Yeah. Um, okay, I'm going to keep going here. The PILT line item 3210, we're amending that up.

That's a transfer payment from the federal government for all of the untaxable federal land in our borough, which is over 50%. Um, $386,921. And one thing I'd highlight is we have a huge national park within Suffolk. You know, and so that $382,921, we can think of that as a payment from the federal government to provide those local services on to the communities that live and the visitors that come to those federal lands. And that's, I think, important when we look at our fire and EMS service and think, okay, well, how does this compare to the level of effort we're spending on fire and EMS service?

Moving on kind of along those same lines to the intergovernmental transfer from the state, the Community Assistance Program, which I do like to highlight, used to be called revenue sharing, and is, um, we've amended that to our actual number, which is $366,612.

Um, and that payment has already hit, and this I just want to give kudos to the state there. I think a bill just passed the last legislature that had to do with prompt payments, and the state has really sped up the timeline for those community assistance payments coming out. City of Anderson also gets— receives a assistance payment. So changes to total revenue.

And then on the expense front, I think the main thing I was, you know, I would share is we wanted to capture the increase in both salaries, staff salaries, and, and staff benefits that corresponded with recommendations from the salary minimum adjustments and step placements that came from our compensation study. And so rather than kind of trying to fit it into what our— the adopted budget was, which we had increased it a little bit to provide capacity to accommodate those recommended changes, we wanted to just go ahead and acknowledge exactly what the change is that is necessary to make these recommended changes this year. So that's an increase to staff salaries, line item 4006, 3.7% or $20,000. Staff benefits increased 8.8%, $42,000. And I do want to note, um, our Treasurer Allison Johnson just wanted me to clarify, there was— we did have a budget error due to an incorrect premium amount that was calculated, that was used in estimating the percentage increase.

And so that's why that 8.8% doesn't correspond to the 3.7%. There's a budgeting error.

Okay, moving on. I guess I could pause there. Any questions about staff salaries or benefits?

I just really, really, really am bummed that that report did not take our entire compensation package into consideration. That really bothers me because we have no idea, you know, and, you know, I, I would like to know. That's all.

Okay, maybe if I may, one response I would have is we do, you know, as public employees, we participate in the PERS, the Public Employee Retirement System of the state. And so in some ways, we know that we're generally comparable to other municipalities in the same tiers. Many of us are Tier 4, which Tier 3, Tier 2, Tier 1. So, you know, we could think of ourselves as a So that piece of the benefit package, retirement, is kind of uniform across municipalities. Our healthcare benefit is unusual.

It's generous in that we pay 100% of the premiums for both individuals and couples and families. And so that's worth— that's a plus up. And the employer contribution, you know, are up to 6% or whatever it is. You know, we have a very unique benefits package. And, you know, when we're looking at this report that tells us that our benefits package, or that our employment package, is so much under the national average— not state average, they were comparing us nationally, not, not statewide— um, you know, I think that I, I would just like— yeah, if we're going, if we're going to spend all this money on, on a big study to get it fed this super in-depth report.

Um, next time, if we could, it would be nice to— because I'm sure we'll need another one in 10 years, you know, or 7 years, whatever it's going to be. Um, you know, it would be nice to just have those numbers so that we actually know, because right now we don't know.

Uh, rent, I'm going to move down. We've increased that to the actual number. That's annual rent for this, for our space at the Tredon Community Center. Um, some minor tweaks in other insurances, bumped up hazard mitigation. That's kind of—.

There's an—. The intention there is to have a focus on, um, fire mitigation and in particular brush disposal. And, um, I do, you know, looking back, we did not fully utilize last year's hazard mitigation, but just really wanting to make this a focus. And this would be in addition to the annual amount that we have from forestry to help with brush disposal. So that's the intention there.

How does that typically get spent out? It typically gets spent— I think we used it for flood mitigation when Campbellville Transfer Station flooded. I believe we used a portion of that. It has also been used for brush disposal on years that we didn't have, or if we had fully expanded our forestry—. We had to pay to have brush chipped or burned.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So this amount allows us to do kind of some what I would call landscape level. We might look at a field treatment along a road, around our school buildings, is another idea.

Water leak protection in buildings. Water leak protection. Yeah, like that. Good question. Yeah, I'm saying, if a district office asks for—.

No, freeze alarms. Yeah, things like that.

Okay, I got off script here. I think that's basically did. I will say we didn't have any changes in land management, and as I mentioned, no changes other than staff insurance and staff salaries and solid waste. And we're learning more about this leak and the implications, and we'll have more, I think, at next meeting. It may want to adjust our solid waste operating budget to accommodate the repairs that are So stay tuned for more on that.

And we have a conversation, maybe I already mentioned, with our chair, Afra, that we're going to have that meeting tomorrow.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Um, the motion is to introduce the budget amendment.

Okay, I'd ask for a roll call vote on introduction.

Dominic Canale?

Yes.

Walt Warner? Yes. David Alexander? Yes. Jeremy Stanfield?

Yes. Mark Johnson? Yes. Krista Zafon? Yes.

Fred Zimmerman? Yes. Unanimous.

Ordinance is introduced. Make a motion to postpone Ordinance 26-18 until next month. Second. Move by Ms. Zepeda to postpone. Seconded.

Any discussion there? You want to oppose the postponing? Call that unanimous. We got one ordinance up for consideration and/or approval tonight, and that is Ordinance 26-14, which is to amend Municipal elections code.

I'd like to make a motion to approve Ordinance 26-4. Second. Second. Mark Johnson. Go ahead.

Move by Mr. Warren to approve and seconded.

You want to speak to that one? Um, well, it's, uh, Mr. Johnson's ordinance, but it just brings us in alignment with, um, state federal law. Small changes, but important changes.

Alexander? Uh, yeah, I'd like to address this ordinance. Uh, first of all, I have a couple of comments. The first is that it just seems totally redundant for what's already in there and just complicates the code, you know, referencing the same state election law and all that. So that seems unnecessary to me.

Excuse me.

In addition, You know, it's the state that administers the voting rolls, so we have really no part of that, so that doesn't quite make much sense to include in there either. It also, I think— sorry, I got a frog in my throat.

You know, it sort of highlights a current fiction that fraud is some sort of issue, which is not the case. And I think that this emphasis on, um, somebody might be voting incorrectly or in two places at once is just a general fiction and has got really no place in here. I think that our election should be a celebration of democracy.

And to say, put ominous language into the election packet seems unnecessary and against what we're trying to to have happen. So I would be voting against this.

I would respond that the purpose is not necessarily to be ominous. One, it does reiterate existing law, which for the Fed and state, but it also does encourage people to remember, or who may be ignorant, that if say they have a place in California or Florida, wherever, that is unlawful for them to vote in both places. And if I remember correctly from my conversation with Amber, she does do some updates to the rolls and does forward those to the state, and she can speak to that when it's appropriate.

Yeah, my response to that would be that, you know, there's many things that you could use your car illegally, but there's not a sign on your car that says don't use this car illegally. Or it just— people know what the laws are, and, you know, it's just unnecessary. And it's specifically, you know, the redundancy of this first paragraph and the paragraph below it. It seems like we're just— we go through, you know, all this stuff to clean up the code, and now we're just making it more complex unnecessarily. I think that it was fine the way it is.

We haven't had any problems. There is no voting fraud in our, our community. When you go to vote, they say your name, they recognize you. It's just not an issue, and to make it one is disingenuous at best and maybe counterproductive. I think it is counterproductive.

I have a question, I guess, for the— I guess for the clerk or or for others, is there anything in this language that changes existing code or existing practices? I think there's a reference to distribution of materials, but in terms of voter registration or qualification, it does not change anything from existing. It, it won't change anything that, that we currently do. Okay. And what is the Bureau staff's role now in registration, in developing our voter rolls?

Like, how much of that is handled by the state and then we use that, or do we manage a separate voter registration process and a separate voter, voter roll? Yeah, so voter registration is managed 100% by the state. However, when, after every election, we do keep notes of local information that we learn on Election Day and provide that to the state.

I couldn't tell you what they do with that information, but we, we do what we can to, um, to try to keep the rolls updated as, as the local knowledge that we have. Um, so that's, that's what we can do. So that's what we do. Like, if somebody votes a question ballot, like they're not on our rolls but they think they should be able to vote in the borough, is that like the question? No, it's usually more like, um You know, well, this, we know this person moved away from our area, you know, 5 or 6 years ago, or, or this person has passed away recently, or, you know, it's more things like that that locally, you know, we'll notice that someone's name, someone at one of our locations will notice someone's name is there that it shouldn't be and just provide that information.

I do know Recently, for my oldest son who hasn't lived here since 2009, I just got a notice for him from Division of Elections. And so at some point his name must have come up that they were investigating. So I don't know. Like I said, I'm not sure what they do with the information, but we do what we can.

Yeah, I know. And part of it is I think when you're voting, if you're registered to vote in one location and then you're voting in another, like when you, when you register to vote, I think you declare that you previously voted in a certain area. And I'm not sure if the individual is responsible for deregistering or if you notify the state of Alaska that I'm voting here now. I used to be registered in Arizona or whatever, and then the state of Alaska is responsible for for that. Like, I don't want anything in our code to allude to— it's like, it's your fault that somebody someplace else didn't do their thing and you registered to vote in two places, or whatever it is, um, that somebody would be kind of liable for somebody else not doing their, their, their piece of, um, their piece of that job in terms of like managing the voter rolls, which I think we know are there's a lot of people registered to vote, more than vote or could vote or whatever that is.

So thank you for clarifying that, I guess, in terms of kind of what— and I guess overall, like, I want to make sure that we're not asking Bureau staff to do like more than they need to do to administer the elections. Like, if we can get voter rolls from the state and use those, and that serves our purpose for what we're doing, I think that's the most efficient way. And they got paid staff that's just there, work for the Lieutenant Governor to manage the elections and come up with those voter rolls. We want to focus on that and not kind of duplicate that effort or spend our staff time doing something that the state is required to do anyway. Well, one of the things that this change here does is require the borough staff to report somebody who they think voted twice to law enforcement as opposed to just reporting like they normally do to the Division of Elections.

So that's the requirement that they're supposed to call up the cops and report a neighbor based on one of these things. And that strikes me as inappropriate and unnecessary. It's never come up, never. It's unlikely to, and it's not the elections, their role anyway. They report, they normally report any changes to the Division of Elections, not calling out the cops on somebody.

I mean, this is just a very ominous changes. And, you know, these things are supposed to be put into the, to the election materials, and I, I don't see any point in it. It's been fine, and let's not make it scary to vote. We want to make it that it's wonderful to vote.

If responsibility is scary, then you don't have any business exercising your responsibilities. And it's no different than putting up a speed limit sign or don't drink and drive, anything like that that we see on the roads every day when we're exercising our right to drive. It's saying, you may— just in case you're not aware, it's unlawful to vote in two different jurisdictions. Some people may just be ignorant, and to say that nobody's concerned about it is untrue, because that out of four districts I've heard of, and I've heard it the concern that has been going on. So you may not have heard about it, some of the others may not have heard about it, but there's nothing illegitimate in reminding people to not break the law.

The same reason that we have speed signs and says slow down when you're going from, uh, Denali Borough up to Fairbanks and you're going— you hit 65 and then the blinky light says, hey, slow down, this is a 45-mile-an-hour turn. The difference is if speed limit changes And so that's actual information. This would be like having a sign in your car that says, you know, don't do something illegal in your car. It's unnecessary and dumb, frankly. I've got a rental car that I'm sitting in, Saldana, and when I hit 55 in a 45-mile-an-hour zone, a little red light comes on, says, hey, don't go, you're running a red according to the to, to it.

So same thing. I, I think it's much different, but you know, I'm just— I've said my piece and that's, that's it.

Yeah, I, I think if one were to register to vote in any state, they have to declare that they're only registering in that state and They have to certify under perjury of law that that is in fact true. So they're already aware that it's unlawful to register and try to vote in two different municipalities or states. And the language as it presents does seem more of an intimidation and a threat, which, you know, I don't think that's appropriate to include that with voter information. So that's my opinion.

I don't—. I don't— it does not come across to me as threatening. Um, I, I will ask Mr. Johnson, so, um, I, I've read over this several, uh, last month as well, um, and I had missed in Section 2, the last sentence there, that it, it does already say, you know, it says in including the requirement that a voter be registered as required by law and not be registered to vote in another jurisdiction. You know, I can see Mr. Alexander's point that it is redundant. I don't have a problem with it being in there.

You know, we're saying that you should know as a voter that you shouldn't be allowed to vote in multiple jurisdictions. Well, the reason that you would know that is because it's written down somewhere. Um, so having it written down I think is important. Um, but I, I had missed that when I looked over this before. Um, it is written down, um, so I, I can see it being redundant.

Um, and, but I, I, I don't see it as being threatening.

And which piece is— are you saying is redundant? Make sure I'm close. Just, uh, You know, so the main part of the, you know, your amendment here, it says, you know, it's mostly about people already being registered to vote in another jurisdiction not being eligible to vote here. But in the previous, you know, or previous paragraph, you know, last section, last sentence there, you know, it says that, you know, it's already there. It says including the requirement that voter be registered as required by law.

And not be registered to vote in another jurisdiction. So that, that is already there. That language is already in the code. Sure. So if it's redundant, you know, we can cross that out.

That doesn't hurt my feelings at all. And I, I, I don't see it being threatening. I just, you know, we—. Yeah, it could be done. Yeah.

And I guess I, I do have specific questions about that, um A person registered to vote in another jurisdiction is not eligible to vote in a borough election. I'm not sure if that is— if that aligns with state law. I think to vote in state— to vote in state elections, you have to be properly registered to vote at your residence in Alaska. And I don't know that if you're still registered to vote wherever you were previously registered. Like, if you're still on the rolls there, I don't think that disqualifies you.

I think voting with that previous registration intact and voting here with your new registration is illegal. And that's what I think the intent of Mr. Warner's language here, just kind of clarifying that piece. But Mr. Johnson, sorry. But I don't know if that is conflicted with state law or kind of those board rules practices. I because the—.

But I think you become aware of the law when you actually go to register to vote in whatever jurisdiction. So you, you already know that you would be violating the law when you register, that if you try to vote in two jurisdictions, it's an unlawful act. So I don't think we need to put it in your face, which I would find intimidating and perhaps even offensive, because I already know that when I registered the vote, I was educated to that. My concern, my, my response, or my thought would be most of us go and register to vote when we get our driver's license, and mine renews every 10 years. Now, whether— and it's in sitting in, in line for 3 hours at the very fast DMV in Fairbanks, or anchorage or wherever you may be.

You may not have paid attention, may not have cared, want to get in and out, get back to work. This is just a reminder, just a speed limit sign.

To Mr. Canali's point, um, that portion, you know, that, you know, that reminder portion was already there. That was already in Section 2, and nobody's complained about that in however many years the borough has been around. Having that, that, you know, this is, this is, you know, election law. This is how elections are run. Having that written down somewhere is not a problem.

That, that's—. We—. It needs to be written down. Otherwise, I mean, just saying that, yeah, I registered to vote, now I know all election law, that's, that's not how I work, at least. So having it written down is fine.

The fact that it's already written down, you know, maybe we don't need to add this part on there, or at least most of that part because it's already there. So I, you know, to Mr. Alexander's, you know, original point of most of his original point just being redundant, I think I'm going to agree with that. But the fact that it's written down there, I think, is important. You know, I think it should be written down. I'm glad it's written down, but it was already written down.

So, so, I'm glad that, you know, most people weren't offended, um, by seeing it written down. But most— I, I've never read this before. How many people read this stuff normally? Like, most people don't, but it should be written down.

It falls under the common knowledge, you know. Common knowledge is a thousand. Big time. And into voter information, the reference is voter information distributed by the borough.

What, uh, what voter information do we distribute and how do we distribute it currently? We send out ballots, but those only go to registered voters. Um, do we send out other election information? Yeah, well, I mean, we do like, um, election postings.

Is how I would have interpreted that. Okay, like at the— they get posted at the post offices? Yeah. And on the borough website? And our borough website.

And I routinely, um, you know, include code language in most of the postings, at least in the first, the initial post, and then in the one after the candidates have all been issued. I usually reference Already. Okay. Yeah, in terms of candidate qualifications, it goes out with before— yeah, that closes. Thank you.

Um, so I again will apologize for missing the initial discussion on this, but listening to everybody, um I wonder if maybe we might entertain an amendment that kind of nullifies what I'm hearing people are seeing as aggressive language, but still kind of addresses Mr. Johnson's concerns about just having it plainly stated. Um, if the group would so entertain, I've kind of chicken scratched something here. Okay.

Um, so Mr. Johnson, appreciate this effort. And then also, please don't be offended, but just again hearing the room here, my proposed amendment would be to have it read, the borough shall administer its elections in accordance with, etc., etc., all the way through, um, the word jurisdiction there as it's written here. So I'm going to just read it, I guess that's easiest. Shall administer its elections in accordance with applicable state and federal law. Only persons qualified to vote under Alaska law are eligible to vote in borough elections pursuant to Alaska Statute 15.05.010.

Qualified voter must be registered as required by Alaska Statute 15.07 and shall not be registered to vote in another jurisdiction. I would then propose striking the next sentence, which reads, a person registered, not eligible again. Maybe start a new paragraph. Voting in more than one jurisdiction or otherwise violating applicable state or federal election law is prohibited. And then striking out the following: shall be referred to appropriate law enforcement.

And then finishing with voter eligibility and qualification information shall be included in the voter information materials disclosed by the Bureau. I don't know if that materially changes what you're going for here, and I would very well remove my proposed amendment if, if it's not in the spirit of what you're going for. I like it. Great. So then I will go ahead and put that amendment out.

I'd maybe suggest a further deletion of the shall not be registered to vote in another jurisdiction. I think that unless that is directly from the Alaska state statute, I would recommend deleting that from here. Because I don't think it's the responsibility of the voter to— like, a voter can't remove themselves from the registration rolls in another jurisdiction. That's up to that jurisdiction to manage those rolls. So yeah, that's—.

That should probably—. The registered should go away. The vote— yeah, registered should go away, but the vote should stay. They can't vote in another jurisdiction, but yeah, that's their responsibility. The deregistration is not theirs.

End of everything I said? Uh, just say be registered, I think. Just take out the be registered there. Shall not vote. It should read shall not vote.

All three shall be registered. Section 2, just word for word, Section 2. Yeah, I mean, and that, and that's where the, the redundancy comes in. Section 2.

And in Section 2, it says not registered to vote, and that's the way it's always been. No. Okay. And if I may clarify something, because I think just to be clear, the purpose is not the code amendment language. The purpose— it does repeat what— but the code amendment language is what's in green.

Okay, so that Section 2 purpose is not in existing code. That is just for this. The purpose of the other versions are to do this. This is how we're going to do that. What follows— so existing code just reads Chapter 08.05, Municipal Elections, and then goes directly to a person shall be qualified as a— correct.

Okay. All right, well, I misunderstood that enormously. Okay. All right, so then I'll keep my amendment on the floor. Um, It would be looking for a second.

Um, did you, did you second that, Mr. Johnson? Uh, yes, second that.

You shift, does not work.

Can we ask for a repeat of the motion, please? Yeah, sure. Um, so again Uh, Mr. Johnson, with your second, I'll read it. The borough shall administer its elections in accordance with applicable state and federal law. Only persons qualified to vote under Alaska law are eligible to vote in borough elections pursuant to Alaska Statute 15.05.010.

A qualified voter must be registered as required by Alaska Statute 15 .07, and shall not vote in another jurisdiction, period. We'll then strike out the next sentence. Voting in more than one jurisdiction or otherwise violating applicable state or federal election law is prohibited. Striking out the next little blurb there and then wrapping it with voter eligibility and qualification information shall be included in the voter information materials distributed by the borough.

Yeah, I apologize. I, um, man, I was stuck on the budget where the highlighted sections were just something that changed and everything else around it was actually already in there. Um, So this is not redundant. The only—. I mean, you know, Section C, you know, it says— so the only thing that really links to this that's already in there, unless— okay, somebody please tell me if I'm wrong here because I don't trust my own eyeballs.

You are wrong because it says the requirement under A is a United States citizen who is qualified to vote in state elections under Alaska Statute 15- which is exactly what you're repeating above. Why are you doing it twice? It just doesn't make any sense. Would you expect somebody reading this to be able to, uh—. Nobody's reading our code.

And, you know, I mean, it's just, is qualified to vote under, you know, this Alaska statute. That's— nobody's going to read the statute. Nobody's— the point is, this whole— I say forget the amendment, let's just vote on this. And the whole thing is pointless and mean-spirited. I don't understand how it's mean-spirited.

I don't understand that. Because it— because it's— the idea is that it's supposed to be intimidating. It falls into this general, you know, larger political argument that the administrators is making about how elections are corrupt and not to be believed. And let's just not— let's just not buy into all this. I disagree.

I don't think it's mean-spirited.

I, you know, that would open up a much, much larger conversation about any time a law is written down or statute is repeated, you know, whether that would be offensive to people. And I think that that conversation would not be worth anybody's time.

I, I, I, I am fine with, uh, you know, discussing what's in here. I'm fine discussing whether it needs to be in here or not, but assigning motives, um, you know, I, I'm not the one who wrote this, but reading it, I, I don't see— like, it does not come across as offensive to me. It does not come across as mean-spirited at all. Um, Well, it certainly does to me. Yes, I want to, I want to just bring the conversation to— Ms. Zupone has an amendment to the language in the, uh, ordinance, um, and just to focus conversation and discussion on that amendment now, and then we can go back to the general discussion of the approval of the ordinance as a whole.

But is there any discussion on the specific amendment that Mr. Bone, I think that it still is redundant in that what's in code now under A is the exact same thing as this pursuant to Alaska Code 15.3, a qualified voter. That's all the stuff that's in the code. So you're, you're, you're saying the same thing twice. So that's, that seems pointless to me.

And I also disagree with the, you know, in having including the, the new requirement to include this language in the— as a requirement to include this language in the election materials, which it wasn't before a requirement, and there's no reason for too big. I think we did have voter education materials as referenced in the existing code. Yeah, but if you look on the next thing, it says voter education information, and then it's included in here in the green part, including voter eligibility and qualification information. That's a new addition. Yes.

So, so I, I finally just looked up, uh, Alaska statute 15.05010, um, and it's— we probably should have started there, Mr. Alexander, because it's not redundant. Um, basically the redundant part is what's already there. So, um, Alaska Statute, uh, 15.05010 says a person may vote at any election to is a citizen of the United States, is 18 years of age or older, has been a resident of the state and of the House District in which the person seeks to vote for at least 30 days just before the election, and has registered before the election as required under Alaska Statute 1507, and is not registered to vote in another jurisdiction. Um, I, I, I, I don't—. I—.

So we already have basically We already have essentially repeated Alaska Statute 15-05010, and we left out that final number 4 subsection in the statute for our borough. So, so already the whole thing, this entire section of our code is redundant. It's, it's basically a copy of Alaska 15.05.010, and the only thing that we left off is the part that says he's not registered to vote in another jurisdiction. So, um, adding that to our code I think is fine. You know, is that in Alaska State Code there?

That is, that is what it says under 4: has registered before the election as required under AS 15.07, which I don't know what that says, and is not registered to vote in jurisdiction. That's, that's what the Alaska statute says, and we've already repeated all of it here except for point 4. Um, so basically Mr. Johnson's, um, amendment includes that point 4, which is in the Alaska statute, which, you know, if we're going to talk about things being redundant, then this entire thing is redundant because all we would have to do is say, oh well, it's Alaska State, you know, it's already Alaska statute. All of these things, why do we even include this? We include it because this is a borough election that we are running, and it's just good to have a reminder.

This isn't, you know, about intimidating people. It's not about being mean-spirited. It's not about being offensive. It's about being informative. You know, if you're registered to vote in another jurisdiction, you should not be voting in this election.

And this is just a polite reminder written down. And if we want to take out, you know, the law enforcement and all that stuff, I'm totally fine with that, but I don't think that this is— that this is, you know, like, uh, Ms. Apone's amendment, I, I think, addresses that part. But, um, you know, I, I, I don't think it would be a bad thing to include this.

Um, I, I guess I would say I think the intent of— the intent of our municipal code is to make sure that Pro Staff knows who's qualified to vote and who isn't. It is not a message to— it's not a reminder about state code and all that other stuff. It's just so that when we administer the elections, we can do it effectively. Um, so that our qualifications are you have to be— and this is what's in existing code— the qualification is you have to be a US citizen was qualified to vote in state elections, has been a resident of the borough. Like, that's not a state thing, that is something that we are adding on, that to be qualified to vote in our elections, you a) have to be qualified to vote in state elections, been a resident for 30 days, be registered to vote in state elections, which to me covers all of those you have to jump through all of the required hoops.

All we care about as a municipality is that you've done it and that you've been registered at an address for at least 30 days before the election. So I, I feel like if we want to make it clear when we're running the election who's qualified to vote and who's not, I think that does it. And adding language in code to Do anything other than that, I don't think is good administrative code.

And I think the rest of that— I think election code is pretty, um, it's pretty good. It's our— it's our— it's written as a rule book, and I think that's effective. I'm not exactly sure where you went with that, but my— though, in the primary intention was like the modification of 6 when the rest of it was to build to that, which voter education information is already there. I'm just saying it includes voter eligibility and qualification information, but that's the— that was the entire purpose of the ordinance ultimately.

We can scrap this whole whole thing and then just change those things.

Yeah, to basically include whatever that is, A through— A through D or A through E, um, in the voter information, like include that in our vote education information.

Yeah, and then if you're seeing that at the post office, it's like, what do I need to do to register to vote in the borough. It's like, oh, it lays out those qualifications there. So I think you got to register to vote in the state if you want to vote in the borough election. Updated amendment then. Um, so one more thing, um, because it's not been here anywhere else, but every other part of 1505.10 is, um, and maybe include that under C, because like you're saying, that's there but not like it is under the Alaska statute, just add, you know, half a sentence there, you know, and not be registered in another jurisdiction.

That, that is Alaska state law. Um, you know, just have that there. And then that last point, um, have that included in voter education information. That would be a lot simpler. We wouldn't have this, this whole paragraph on there.

I like that, making it a lot simpler. Would be nice.

And I guess you've got that state code in front of you now. I, I don't want to be like we're cherry-picking which parts of the state code we're adopting in here. So as long as it seems like it's inclusive of the other—. Yeah, and, and, you know, the only—. Including that.

Yeah, yeah. The other part that isn't in there is that they have to be 18 years of age, of age or older. I don't see that on here anywhere else, but every other part basically copies the last statute.

I mean, it already says that they're qualified to vote in state elections under AS 15.05.010. I mean, it's all, it's all, it's all in here. This is just meant for, like Jared says, it's, it's, it's meant for our administration of elections, and that's how it should stay. And I think that changing it in any way is unnecessary because there's been no problem, and there will continue not to be a problem. And I'm not claiming there's a problem, Mr. Alexander.

What's the way that I see this going is, you know, 18-year-old me, um, you know, I went to vote. I, I moved away from home, you know, as soon as I turned before I turned 18. And, you know, I moved up to Fairbanks, and I honestly didn't know where I was registered to vote. And I honestly, uh, tried to vote in two different local elections. So it does happen.

Um, no, it doesn't happen. He just said it did. I did it myself. Me, I did it. So, so you say, and, and it wasn't because I was being malicious.

I mean, so, so on, on you know, November Election Day, you voted twice? Uh, I tried to, yes. Um, you know, I, I was like, oh, I'll vote for, you know, um, Fairbanks stuff and I'll vote for Willow stuff too, because I kind of lived in both places. I, I, you know, I was a student in Fairbanks but I still lived in Willow. Um, so it's, it's not— I wasn't trying to swing an election, it was just like, oh, I just want to participate.

And it didn't occur. Right. But, but, you know, having somebody there that just said, hey, you can't do this, I would have been like, oh, okay. And so having it written down saying, hey, you can't do this, I don't think is a bad thing. Like, this isn't, this isn't, you know, trying to attack anybody.

It's just informing people, hey, if you're registered to vote somewhere else, don't try to vote vote in this jurisdiction as well. That's all it's saying. It's not trying to—. I think including it is, is intimidating, and I'm against it.

Uh, I've got one more food for thought. Uh, you mentioned barriers for voting, and, um, you know, as an 18-year-old, depending on how closely you're paying attention in civics class, might depend on your understanding of how voting works in general. And if we've already got the statute with every item of the statute listed out here, in my mind, if we were to make it not redundant like you're asking, where we're just saying, oh, follow Alaska Statute 1505.01, that's like giving somebody who's already taken the initiative to find the code, find this, find this, and then say, cool, check point, now go look it up somewhere else. And that's not been the way that our code has been organized historically, and I don't necessarily see any point in trying to do that over this one issue. I would like to remove my amendment from the table, please, and start over, but I would like somebody else to make an amendment because I already tried and that wasn't good enough.

Vote on the, uh, ordinance. Just as it was presented at the beginning. Then start over. Well, I guess right now there is a motion, so you'd like to remove your motion? I'm withdrawing my motion.

Okay, so that, that brings back the ordinance, or the, the motion is to approve, and that is the motion on the Yeah, topic of discussion would be—. Or I, I think we could make the two amendments. Make them, um, so, um, make amendment to C, just add on and not be registered to vote in another jurisdiction, and and then, you know, have that be included in the voter eligibility qualification information, voter education information. I think that's all we need. I think that's the point.

Um, I don't think, I don't think we need to include anything else.

So if I'm hearing your motion correctly, it is to add not be registered in another jurisdiction and strike out the green. Yeah, just strike this all out, um, and then just that. I think we could tack it on to Section C there, um, or, or make its own little section. Not, not— maybe that's the best way to do it, you know, instead of having A, B, C, D, have A, B, C, D, E. Um, I don't know what's the smoothest way to do it. That's what we're trying to figure out, kind of Is there a second?

I'll second. Second. Just as, as discussion, I, I would not like to see that amendment in there because by adding not be registered in another jurisdiction, putting that in our municipal code, I feel like is direction to our staff to make sure that people aren't registered in other jurisdiction, and that is not what they're equipped to do. So I don't want to put that— I don't want to put that on our staff. And then in terms of including voter eligibility information and qualification information in item number 6, that is referencing a mailing that only goes out to people that are receiving ballots that are already registered to vote.

So I feel like the eligibility information and qualification, they've, they've got that because they're registered to vote and they're receiving that mailing. So I don't, I don't see the need for it to send that out to people that are already registered. I feel like the people want to reach out to are the people that are not yet registered to vote that are wondering how do we— what do I need to do to, to register? So the post office postings or whatever that is, is, is a more appropriate place. And I'd be comfortable just with a, a motion to, to direct the, the clerk to add that to the information if it's not already there, and it may already be there.

I don't read those real close anymore. I'm very sure though, actually. No, but I do appreciate the effort that goes into those postings.

So, okay, so, um, I guess other discussion on the, the motion? Mr. Warner did make motion to—. I, I, I think I agree with what you said, um, on the mail and for sure. And, um, on the, on the other part though, I mean, it is included there that, you know, qualified to vote under state elections under Alaska Statute 15-0510, and that's what it says in there. So we're already saying that.

So I, I, I don't think that we'd be putting more onus on Bob Stats to put in the— because we— it's already vote. It just—. You would need to reference the Alaska statute. I guess I read that, that the borough staff can check to see item number 8, are they registered to vote? And like, if that's what I mean.

Which brings us back to Mr. Alexander's original question, which is this practice whole thing. Yeah, yeah. But my—.

My purpose of the measure was particularly voter information.

It wouldn't make any sense to really modify the code without having the voter information. So, you know, if someone's moved up to Healy, Cantwell, wherever, has a place in California, they register to vote up here, But they, you know, they don't know any better, whatever. Again, 18-year-old coming up from joining the military and moved out, whatever, that they get the information when they get their ballot. This is a reminder, you can't vote in Oroville, California or Tampa, Florida and in Denali Borough simultaneously.

I, I think it's good to have the information. Um, to Mr. Zimmerman's point though, um, do we need to write that here? You know, it might be more appropriate to have that somewhere else. Like, I'm all for— because, you know, I did not understand things well, right? Um, and so having information— I, I, I just like information.

I think information is good. Uh, but I think Mr. Zimmerman Mitch's point that it might be more appropriate to have it somewhere else is a good point.

So seeing as— and this will be a question— seeing as 6 already exists in code, it says voter education information. I'm really just amending the end of that sentence, making sure it include— includes the voter eligibility and qualification. So where else would that go?

Good question. Might be a different section of code where it's— if, if we wanted to require it to be included in the postings or whatever, I feel like the— probably another section of code that has, that's noticing, has noticing requirements. But okay.

I don't know. Yeah, so right now you have a motion on the table to amend. So I think I'm gonna withdraw my motion. I think, I think that as this is written, um, that's not what we need. Um, and thank you.

Vote on it, and if— and maybe address this differently because it may be needs to be addressed, but I think after hearing everybody, I, I guess it's not the way we want to do it. Okay, well, I would ask for a roll call vote then on the approval of Ordinance 26-14 as presented in the original— as presented, yeah, no amendments.

Okay, Mark Johnson? Yes. Don McCanally?

No. Christopher Zippone? No. Jeremy Stanfield? No.

David Alexander?

No. Jared Zimmerman?

No. Not to say let's not find somewhere, Mr. Johnson, for It's not me shutting down the idea. I just— I think we can find a better place for it. That's all.

Yeah, the motion fails. That'll bring us to other business, and we have the confirm a Community and Outdoor Recreation Committee seat. Seat D. Is there— do you have an appointment for us? We have an— I have an appointment, um, Michael Christie of Healy. Um, he has shown an interest, uh, When we first set up the court and ongoing interest with the resignation of our previous member, he's, um, yeah, lives in Healy, is very passionate about biking, bike trails, but is very willing to contribute to the larger board conversation.

So I think he'll be a good fit for the body. Who is it? Michael Christie lives—. Yeah, uh, you mentioned that he's was already interested. Has he been participating as well, or less so?

Um, we, you know, it's interesting, we invited those who didn't— we had a lot of interest up front, and we invited the folks who weren't appointed to attend future meet— you know, the first few meetings. A few did, um, including him. And then that, I think that did taper off, understandably so. Um, but recently attended their last meeting and is very interested and has learned more about like what's— what is the role, what would be required of him, what does the commitment look like, and has committed to that. So I think he'll serve.

Yeah, I know Mike. I can vouch for him.

I think he'd be good.

Okay, all in favor of Confirming the appointment of Mr. Christie to the board, show of hands.

Mr., Mr. Johnson, get an eye for—. There you go, there you go. Okay, thank you. All right, that's unanimous. That option—.

Oh, the, the motion to confirm? Yeah, did anybody make the motion? Motion to confirm? Okay. I just thought I missed it.

I didn't. Oh, Mr. Chambliss, would you make the motion that we just voted on? I'd like to make a motion to confirm the Community and Outdoor Recreation Committee, CD, as Michael Christie. Michael Christie as—. Second.

All right, now Mr. Johnson, show of hands, all in favor? Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you, Mr. Christie. Mhm. That'll bring us to item number 2, which is the Oklahoma Marijuana Control Office license consideration of non-protest for the Denali Grass Company transfer application.

I would like to make a motion of non-protest for the transfer of the application for MCO number 20221. Second that. Moved by—. Is this Ms. Apone— to not protest, and seconded. Any discussion?

Anyone opposed to not protesting?

Call that unanimous, and that'll bring us back to public comments.

You can go again.

You guys are awesome. You guys are really serious about what you do here, and I'm just super impressed. Thank you. Welcome back anytime. That's great vibe here.

You know, we've been attending a lot of meetings around the district, and yeah, it's just really wonderful to see how you all work together, honestly.

All right, we'll start online with, uh, with comments. Uh, Mr. Johnson. Um, thank you everybody for the meeting tonight, and, uh, staff for doing work that they're doing. That's all I've got for this evening.

Hey, Mr. Canale. Yeah, I just want to express, uh, my apologies for not being able to make that Cantwell Fire Hall meeting. Um, I had a prior engagement I couldn't change. However, I was and have been in conversation with Mayor Noll as well as Marge Nord, so certainly apprised of the issues. And fully want to support whatever efforts can be undertaken by the borough to help fund or come up with a funding plan for not just Cantwell, but as Mr. Zimmerman also pointed out, the entire EMS apparatus and community of the borough, which is, you know, I think everybody agrees, are one of our primary responsibilities allocating resources at the assembly level.

So with that, I just wish everybody a good evening and see you next month.

Mr. Alexander. Yeah, I want to thank everybody for the meeting and the hard work that goes into setting all these things up. Thank you for everybody that came to McKinley Village. I hope they enjoyed their visit. Also, as you can tell, I'm very passionate about democracy and voting, and I think that it should be as friendly and as pleasant and as encouraging experience as possible.

And if I came off at all less than welcoming, whatever, I apologize for it. But I think it's a very, very important issue. And anything that we can do to increase the percentage of people that vote is a good thing for our democracy. That's it, but thanks.

I would like to thank Mr. Alexander and others who disagree with me sometimes. Um, it's good for me. Um, you, you make my next arguments that much better. Um, thank you. I, uh, uh, definitely want to thank the staff for the work that went into this, the food.

I thank those members of the public who showed up, um, those who are visiting. It's nice to have actual people here, so thank you. Um, you know You know, winter's coming fast. I hope everybody got some meat in the freezer and got fuel in your tanks because she's coming. That's all I've got.

I'd like to thank everybody. Thanks for the public for attending here tonight.

Yeah, um, you know, it's been a great meeting, and Mr. Johnson, I know you're new here, but Man, you have sure taken some initiative and I can appreciate the conversations that you're bringing to the table. And again, don't want you to be discouraged. I think what you're going for is not necessarily a bad idea, just maybe we need to find a different place for it to be. So don't be discouraged. And yeah, public safety in the Denali Borough, whether that's EMS, fire response, or food, shelter, water.

You know, we've got a nonprofit that kind of addresses that issue as well. I think that one of my goals for this winter is to work alongside staff and everybody else in the community to try and drum up a solution that kind of works for everybody, whatever that may look like. So other than that, it is dark. I am on a motorcycle. So I, I sure would love to get the heck out of here, but thank you for tonight's meeting, and, uh, we'll see you guys soon.

You first. Somebody better go in front and behind me because I already hit a moose once, and that's not fun.

It was a baby, so it's all right. Just a baby. Yay! Next meeting will be 2 weeks from now, joint work session with the Planning Commission at the Denali Borough Office. Topic at hand is— Mayor Noll, remind me.

Coming together as we speak, one of the topics at hand will be the proposal to sell residential land in the Cordes subdivision. I just looked at this before the meeting. Minnesota Housing Partnership folks are going to are going to be here to do a presentation on their report. That was the main gist, and we found a few other topics that would be worth discussing. What was the date on that?

September 23rd. The next regular meeting will be October 14th at the Anderson School.

And, uh, I guess we did have, uh, Miss Ford sent us an email a week ago or so ago that they're doing comment on the housing plan, and that is open through the 30th. So anybody still listening online, get your feedback, get your feedback in there. But with that, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. I would like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting.