City of Craig, Election Canvas Meeting 2026

Triple tapper. Like, no patience. All right, I've got all my stuff set up. I'm good.

Just wait until 5:30 now. Well, thank you for everybody for coming. What are we going to do with all this time? Oh no, it's our yawn.

I should have prepared a presentation to talk about the employee handbook. Oh yeah, live calculation forms. I just got through doing that at the tribe, so I don't want to hear it.

Let's not prolong the agony for Ms. Milley. I got a nice view in the sunlight behind me. It's pretty cool.

What do you think of Southeast Conference? It was good. There's a lot of people there. I was really impressed with some of the presentations, especially Wrangle. Yes, I need to get, uh, tight at the hip with those guys and find out how they pulled some of that off.

Yeah, they've been—. Since they hired their— that younger administrator, I think it was like 4 years ago, 5 years ago, they really took off. Yeah, it's really impressive. So, but yeah, I made some good contacts, talked to all the state reps, talked to Keith Perkins. That was good.

He's a character, good guy to meet. So he is, he's good to talk to, but he doesn't follow through. Good to know. He does not.

He's a funny guy though. Yeah, been around for a long time. I can be a squeaky wheel though.

All right, we'll call the meeting to order at 5:30. Roll call please. Josh Bennett. Here. Chanel McKinley.

Shawna Thomas. Here. Jen Trojan. Here. Nolan Schoonover.

Here. Mike Kennett. Sure.

I thought I said here the last time. I thought it was my last time. The last time. You— yeah, one more and then you might just keep showing up. Warm up that seat for me, Millie.

Okay. All right, move to certify elections. Well, I think we need to tally the absentee ones first. Yep. Okay.

Yes. So I, per the requirement, have all of them still in their sealed envelopes.

There are 13 absentee ballots.

So I don't know why. 13. So 103 total votes. 89. 89 Total votes.

Oh, I thought it said 90. So one of them was spoiled and then the 13 absent. Oh, I see. Okay, wow, that's down from 2025. But there was other— there was other stuff on the local ballot.

Last year. Yep. And the year before.

And so here, you can help me. Yeah, I didn't know if that would break the chain of custody. I've got eyeballs on it. It's okay, be face down. I will take direction from the C clerk.

And then don't we do like two tallies? I've got tally sheets, um, so whoever would like to be a tally sheet person I will have, um, Maury, if you can run the dry erase board. Sure, just mark your—. I mean, you know, I should have been a doctor. That's the way I write.

I'll volunteer for something surgical. Finger guards. It doesn't have to be you if you don't want to do the dry erase board.

I mean, some folks were—. Some of them just handed it to me and were like, whatever. And some of them, you know, okay.

Pat Gardner's service is going to be on the 6th. Is Pat passed away? Sir, 6th of November. Okay. That was from the other department.

Passed away and his body had to be at his house. Who? Pat. From Thursday to Monday. Why?

Because— no, no, he definitely passed away. You're, you're saying that's right? That kid passed away walking down the trail? In Kawak, there was a young kid, he was like 20. Oh, are you talking about—.

Yeah, there's a trail from the housing down to like the smoke shop, and he was walking up and he looked down. I think they said he had a seizure, possibly.

Oh yeah, where they went in that tidal tower.

We're putting in the title tower back there. I didn't even know there was a shell there until the other day when I went to look where that tower is going in right below City Hall. Oh, where the water— where the water tower used to be.

No, you got a pen? Anybody else want one? Sure. Okay. Yeah, one more.

All right, that's all I've got.

I ran out of people. C, A, C, E, and School Board 1 and 2, because they don't— they don't label their seats. Okay, so I think everybody's done this before, but we're going— I'm going to call out a name for a seat, and if it's the person who ran, I'll call— I'll say their name. If it— if somebody has filled in another name on the write-in, I'll just say write-in. So there's a line for Josh, I'm going to use you as an example.

There's a line for Josh, and then there's a line right in underneath him. That's that, like his competitor, right in. And so then I'll go to the next line and I'll either say the name or write in. If they've left it blank, I'll say blank. And then when we get 5 marks in one box, we say mark.

And hopefully everybody says Mark at the same time. Okay, so the writing, we're just doing a hash mark, we're not going to write the name down? No, no, there will be a test after this. I got the red pen, so I'm like, give me that pencil. Uh, well, so Ben will be up top and then Hans is the second one.

Okay.

All right, are we ready? Okay, I'm gonna start calling off names. Josh Bennett. Oh, sorry. Hannah Coats.

Ben Page. Hans Wirth.

Josh Bennett. Hannah Coats.

Blank blank. We don't do anything with blank.

Okay.

Josh Bennett, Hannah Coates, Ben Page, Hansworth.

Blank. Hannah Coats, Ben Page, Hans Fort.

Josh Bennett, Hannah Coats, Ben Page, Hans Fort. And did everybody agree on that, Mark? Yes.

All right, right in. Hannah Coates, blank, Hans Fort.

Is that Mark? Oh yeah, it's a mark for Hans. Okay, all right, all right. Josh Bennett, Hannah Coates, Ben Page, Mark, Hans Fort. All right, hearing consistent marks.

Josh Bennett, Hannah Coates, Ben Page, blank.

Josh Bennett, Hannah Coates, Ben Page, blank.

Josh Bennett, Hannah Coates, mark. Ben Page. Hans Fort.

Josh Bennett. Hannah Coates. Ben Page. Hans Fort.

Josh Bennett. Mark. Hannah Coates.

Ben Page. Mark. Mark. Hans Fort.

Last one. Josh Bennett, blank, Ben Page, Hans Hort. Okay, so now we tally up the marks next to each person's name, write them over in the left-hand margin. So how many for Josh? How many for write-in?

How many for Hannah? How many for write-in?

Hopefully I didn't fail this.

I'll grade your papers. All you have to do is write your name on top of that. I'm writing someone else's name. Yeah, that's it. Everyone put Casey on there.

And we weren't keeping track of the blank. I see what you're doing. Okay, so you've got 11.

Okay, so then what is— can I grab this? Yeah. All right, so you have— oh, you did your tally. Oh, total votes. Oh, I see you right there.

Okay.

Okay, okay, perfect. So does everybody have Josh at 11? Yes. Yes. And Hannah at 12?

Yes. Ben at 11? Yes. And Hans at 10? Yes.

Perfect. Yes. All right, so if you can all write your names on your tally sheets and keep these I'm sorry, you guys are so good at wanting to hand in your homework.

Thank you. Oh yeah, you lost official one. So all candidates have met the 40% threshold for the election to win their seats.

I would recommend cert—. A move to certify October 13th, 2027 election. Second. Open discussion. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye. All right. Okay.

Perfect. I do have the oaths available to swear in our new council members.

And I have, you know, I'll give you guys each a certificate of the election, um, so that you can have that for your file. There's also a code of conduct that each council member will sign, and another— Josh, you just signed the policies and procedures. I won't make you sign that. Um, but if you guys would like to stand up— you want to together, or—. Okay, okay.

So here's you. Yep, there's yours in front of the camera where everybody can see it. Oh yeah, you gotta aim for the camera. It's on the stool. I got your policy and procedure too.

There is yours.

Okay, and I hand it all my way, but if you guys will just read that. I, Josh Bennett, do solemnly swear that I support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitution and the laws of the state of Alaska, and the charter and ordinances of the city of Craig, that I will perform the duties of I, John Johnson, a member of the City of Craig, Alaska, upon which I am about to enter, honestly, faithfully, impartially, and will do even justice to all persons to the best of my ability. Awesome.

I just don't know how to get it. Yeah, well, we'll go—. Oh, you got a black one there. There you go. There we go.

And then I'll sign these, so I'll have some papers for you guys after the meeting. Perfect. Oh, yep, I'll go through and sign it and put my stamp on it. And perfect. I think that's pretty much— we're good unless you have anything.

Moving on to council comments. Well, this is beautiful. Well, this was a little different. Normally it's at a regular meeting and then the new council people get sworn in and then us old folks step down. This is different.

It's nice. The difference this time was we had to be within a week, right? It had to be within 7 days. So usually the council meeting is— right, I don't know, the calendar just didn't play nice this week. So we could have done it last Thursday and just had our meeting early, I guess, but we had people traveling.

I've always remembered it being a long process, but with 13 that you have to count up, it's like really expedited. Yeah, yeah. So I think, um, we are basically on Millie's last meeting. I just want to say thank you for everything you've done. Me personally, the city, on behalf of the community, and a small token of our appreciation.

Oh, a blue bag. A blue bag. Oh no, it's the colors. It's supposed to be Tiffany, isn't it? It's like, you are going to be disappointed.

Yeah, it feels, um, it's like bittersweet. It's gonna be like winning the lottery.

Um, yes and no, because I've been here so long, it's just a part of my routine.

Oh man, I'm gonna read this later because it has a beautiful card and I don't want to cry in front of you. So I'll read it at home. Okay. Well, I think you're all gonna do great.

Oh nice, nice. I love these things. Oh, it's a vest. Heck yeah. Mm-hmm.

That's nice. You're always wearing vests. Oh. You know, several years ago, um, the city handed out little pins like this, and Wanda had a necklace made out of her. She had gold.

It was laid in there, and then the gold came out like this. And when she stepped down, she gave it to me, and I forgot to wear it tonight. It's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you.

Nice, nice color. We got some big shoes to fill.

This is my third meeting. I have one more, 45 minutes. I thought, who the hell happened to retirement?

My husband says, you're going to do what? You're going where? Yeah, all today. You tell him dinner better be done when I get home. Oh no, he went to our granddaughter's birthday party.

Oh nice. Yeah.

So one of the meetings, one of the meetings, it was a happy event.

Um, Chanel gave Tyler up when he was 8 months old, and Tyna and I raised him until time stepped. So we went to court today and she now has full custody. Oh nice. So when the judge asked him if he agreed, he said, oh yes, 100%. That made me cry.

But they're both really happy. She's worked really hard at her sobriety. She's been sober for close to 3 years. That's good. Yeah.

Well, that was a great birthday present. Yeah, yeah, that was nice.

Well, that's what they want to say. Thank you. Pardon? I want to say thank you, and you know, for all the guidance that I've gotten from you. So, oh, thank you.

Yeah, it's, you know, the other day I was reflecting on all of the people I served Oh God, the funniest one, Dick Jones sat right there and I sat right there and Mayor Watson was here and I just cringed because they did not get along. And Dick, you know, he was called Logger Dick. And you think of a logger as just a logger. This guy was really bright. Like if figures would come up Dick would have it done in like a second.

The first time I saw him do that, I thought, wow, longer Dick's pretty smart. But they would buck heads at almost every council meeting.

But I have served with some really cool people. We've had— I think about some of the staff we've had. I remember the first budget meeting I went to. I swear we did that for 3 months. 3 Months we did.

It was such a long— Marva, Marva was our finance gal. And those budget meetings, I thought, oh my God, why did I get on here? But they've been shortened. It's, it's It's interesting to be on a budget committee, but it's also tough because we've had projects on there, on some of the wish lists, for a long, long time.

And the budget process isn't going to get any easier the way finances are. But when people complain, I thought, oh, I wish they could come to a budget meeting and see what we go through. Through, I think they would appreciate us more. But they think we're just raising rates because we don't have anything better to do. And it's, it's hard.

I tell everybody my rate's the same as yours, you know, because I'm paying the same. And yeah, and I try to explain to them, like the water, we're not here to make money, we're trying to get even, and we're just not there, right? Does everybody know— I think Molly knows— but that fan on the wall, wasn't that Lautiger Dick's fan? When he smoked during the council meetings and they said he couldn't smoke, so they installed the fan. Uh, when I came on, they didn't smoke.

Well, I think we had other kind of smoke coming out of his ears. I think Richard said that he continued to smoke even when there was an ordinance, so That's why the fan's there.

No, I never saw him smoke.

Yeah, interesting times. I remember when the, the logging started growing here, our growth just happened overnight, and it was, it was a hard time. I think about that and I think about the tourism, you know, we knew the tourism was coming, but we just did not prepare because we have so many other things, you know, that are such a high priority. And the growth was— Mayor Watson did great. He really did.

I learned, um, him and I didn't always see eye to eye, but I learned a lot from him. I learned to appreciate him.

But yeah, so those 7— the 27 years were Interesting. When certain people would come in, oh, I cringe. Oh no, here we go, here we go. But we don't see them very often anymore. Yeah, you actually helped, uh, Dennis get realigned.

Oh boy, we don't want to talk about that. I mean, Dennis, he's really strongly opinionated. And he would push council, and enough people finally got tired of it where he got unelected for a term and really served as the mayor. He'd come back on and he had a better perspective.

Well, I think it's called— the term is holding your feet to the fire.

And I always hate to be the bad guy, but we're here for our community and Yeah, do favorites to certain people. You know, one of the comments— I mean, I've heard comments depending on what it is, but I think in the last couple of weeks, and when I hear comments about whatever, it's really not that much, but lately the comments, and I've heard it so many times and it really made me stop to think, is why isn't everyone treated equally? For instance, the harbour. That one was the biggest one, was the harbour. Depends on who you are, you can get away with it.

And that's kind of a hard pill to swallow, but You know, I tell them, we're not— the council is not here on a daily basis. You know, we're here twice a month and we hear from our department heads and we don't micromanage. That's not our job. Our job is not to micromanage. Well, you're a council person and you should know.

I'm not there every day. Sorry.

Yeah. But I wish you all well. I know you're all going to do Great things, a lot of decisions. I worry about Mori because he, he was kind of thrown into a lion's den, but he seems to— yeah, seems to be surviving. And did we hire a planner?

Okay, she has actually, uh, she planned on getting here on the 9th of November, but the ferry canceled on her and moved her up, so she'll be here on the 30th of October.

So we'll get her this month. And does she have a place to live? She has her family's place, so she's at Jacob's. Oh, okay. I did find out she was the one with family.

Okay, okay. So she'll be staying at their place for the time being. And, um, started today actually, or yesterday, we started working from remote. So she's doing all the review of the code and her her job and getting familiarized with email traffic she's gonna get and tasking that I'm going to give her later in the week. So she'll be busy until she gets here.

Nice. I hope it works out. She's sharp. Me too, because that's the one position since I've been here that's been revolving.

She wants to make it a long-term thing, so— oh good, I'm hoping. Music to our ears. And we have some stability in that position for a while.

I think it could be like the administrator angle, a really good push for us where you've got a young person that's really a go-getter. Does she do grant? What's that? Yeah, um, she will be.

Like me, she doesn't have a ton of experience with that, just working with the city on certain projects, but I think the hardest part is depending on the grant, you have the paperwork you've got to keep up. You have to have one person to keep up with that paperwork, and if you're out of compliance or that grant is, is misspent, you will have to pay that grant back and you won't get another grant for 10 years.

Especially the federal grants. Some of the state grants are that way too.

That's the hardest thing about being a grant writer, unless you have someone within the organization that is going to— like probably Maury, because you're the admin, you'll have to keep an eye on it. I'll try to keep it up now. It's a little difficult to wear two hats, but I'll make, I'll make do until she gets here. He'll be all right. I might not be well, uh, rested by the end of the month, but that's okay.

She will manage all of the grants for the entire city, Craig? She's gonna— I mean, I would be able to have oversight over that, but she'll manage a good portion of them. Things like the water grant Oliver wants to keep. There will be a little bit of a distribution of effort, but she'll be mostly pulling the strings, making sure we're keeping track of everything.

She has an assistant, right? Yep, still has Karen. Yeah, she'd send her to— who's Karen? Karen Cruz. Um, Karen's husband is on a flight of commission.

She works full-time?

She works part-time. Iron Blue Horse put one on in Fairbanks. I went to one in Fairbanks, uh, 2016. It was like doing the honors ballet.

You make the motion. We're here till you make a motion, girl. Motion to adjourn. Yeah, all those in favor?

557. 558. All right, we need a new name tag on Better take it. Yeah, better put that on the door.

Still not calling her Hannah. I'm going to call her Millie. Replacement Millie.