09.22.2026 Whittier City Council Rescheduled Regular Meeting

Yeah, come on up, come up to the podium here. You can press that gray button, make sure the light turns red. Please state your name.

Well, good evening, everybody. It's a pleasure to be here in beautiful Whittier, where I'm sure the weather is like this all the time, as we know from personal experience. My name is John Boyle, and I am running to be The representative for this district in the House of Representatives, District 9, and I just wanted to come tonight, introduce myself to the council and to the members that are here in attendance and let you know that I'm very interested in making sure that Whittier has a voice. So looking forward to getting to know you and understanding more about the issues that Whittier faces. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is anyone else in the audience who wish to speak during the citizens'— this comment period?

All right, next item on the agenda is the approval of agenda and consent agenda. Is there a motion and a second to approve tonight's agenda and consent agenda? I'll make that motion. Second. Thank you.

Yes, I would like to remove item number 5. From the consent agenda, Resolution 26042. I'm fine.

Any other amendments?

Okay, hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on this? Voting on the motion to approve the agenda. Mrs. Borg. Yes. Mr. Wagner.

Yes. Mr. McAlto. Yes. Mr. Pincush. Yes.

Mr. Denmark. Yes. Mrs. Loan. Yes. Mayor Shen.

Yes. The motion passes and the tonight's agenda is approved.

At this time, does anyone wish to declare a conflict of interest in a matter appearing on the agenda?

Mr. Denmark, there is an agenda item regarding leases, and I would offer once again that I am a leaseholder.

Yeah, Miss, Miss Wild. Council Member Denmark, through the mayor and mayor, um, as our discussion yesterday, uh, because it's under informational items, you don't have to worry about declaring a conflict because it is just information for you.

Thank you nonetheless. Next on our agenda, we have presentations and reports.

Do we have any— no test— okay. Um, for Mayor's report, um, I'd like to really commend, um all the folks who are responding to the Dock Fire we had last week. We had multiple departments as well as, you know, our department and additional Whittier staff on that. And then I personally got to go to a site visit after the fact, and that tremendous work for all everyone involved. And I thank you for your hard work and like Just amazing that nobody was hurt.

With that, I want to put a plug in. Our fire department is a department that has paid staff, but there is also lots and lots of volunteer opportunity, which would strengthen our community greatly for people to volunteer. It's a great way to contribute to your community, and they provide free training and great experience. So, thinking about that as well as we have openings on our commissions, both our Port and Harbor Commission and our Planning and Zoning Commission, both are struggling currently because we do not have enough people involved. So, we have an upcoming election, but we also need these commission seats filled as well.

So, please visit our website and you may fill out letter of interest there. Thank you. Um, Mr. Vice Mayor? Yes, please, and thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Um, yeah, I would like to use the, the Vice Mayor's chair here for, uh, to make a couple comments.

Um, congratulations isn't the proper word to address this circumstance, um, but I do wish to welcome the good news of the dismissal of charges of voter misconduct against members of the American Samoan community in Whittier. It has been stressful and traumatizing experience for the individuals involved as well as the community at large. And I'm hoping that some closure can be achieved, uh, through common sense prevailing in the judicial system. And, um, as a resident of Whittier, however all this may have begun, I know of no one in town whoever believed that there was ever any intent to break any law by any person. And once again, welcoming the good news that this chapter is closed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Wild. Do you have your city manager report? I do, Mayor. I will start with my wild recognition, and, um, while I know that we have a proclamation coming for our October meeting that will address the entire, uh, amount of people that did help with the fire, uh, this month my wild recognition goes to Whittier Fire and EMS. Department and the city staff.

It belongs to you and an entire city team. During the Glacier Creek Terminal Fire, I watched our employees step outside their normal roles, work together, and simply do whatever was needed to be done at the time. Our firefighters, our volunteer, our police, our harbor, our public works, our administration worked side by side. Mayor Shen did help with the fire and Councilmember Borg also stepped in and helped in supporting our crews where wherever they could be helped and used. I'm incredibly proud of the team of the City of Whittier, and I'm grateful for every way, for every way that anyone came forward and showed up for Whittier.

It stands a testament when you see that for 15.5 hours, our fire crew were there from the very beginning to the end. And I think it's very important that, for me, you get a round of applause, and I will always say this, we're thankful for you.

On other notes, we did have a good turnout for the town hall for the USS Ted Stevens commissioning. I know that you hear us talk about it quite often, but this is such an honor for Whittier and for Alaska, and it has been an honor working with the committee and, and and the events that are planned, you know, they do focus and care about the citizens of Whittier and want to make sure that you are as proud as we are for it. Though a lot of you did not attend, I'm hoping some are watching. So when it does, the ship does come in at our little barbecue, I would love to see our entire community down waving flags and saying hello because that is an event that is strictly for the community. So I hope to see everybody.

Mayor, I would like to introduce the city to our new Fire Chief, Rob Mathis. He has joined us as— he joined us as the interim, and then just last week he accepted the full-time position. Rob comes with over 40 years of experience in fire and EMS, and I think we, you know, the fire that happened and the incidences that have happened over the last couple weeks show exactly how lucky we are to have him right now. So thank you, Rob.

Welcome.

Welcome. Um, you have any questions for the city manager's report?

Okay, next we have resolutions. Item 5, Resolution 2026-042, adopting the Whittier City Council Operation Manual.

Is there a motion and second to approve Resolution 2026-00 or 042?

I'll make a motion. I'll second. No, thank you. We have a discussion, um, following the staff report. Mayor, I'm going to let the acting city clerk and assistant city manager go ahead and give you a brief update of of this.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, attached to the resolution, you'll see the draft version of the Whittier City Council Operations Manual, which was requested previously by council to be created. This is—. This has never been adopted before, so this would be the first adoption of an operations manual for the council. It comprises of standing rules and special rules.

Special rules are regarding the meeting. Um, the council has adopted Robert's Rules of Order, newly revised, to guide how meetings are run. Special rules of order are like special rules for your Monopoly game, your house rules. Um, and so that's what those rules are. And then we have standing rules, which are more about the administration of council.

So what happens when a council member travels? What are the—. What's included in orientation and items of that nature?

Council has had several work sessions regarding the operations manual, and this is the culmination of those and City Attorney review. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Assistant City Manager. Questions, Mr. Denmark? Yes, thank you.

We have been discussing this for, I believe, years, and I have an issue with a couple of things in the text of the manual, and it's not that long a document either, but we just got this on Saturday morning.

And basically would like to see this pop up at the next meeting to address two specific issues.

In the end, uh, one of the issues I have is Rule Number 2, agenda items, requiring 14 days notice for the addition to any discussion item onto an agenda does not allow for any late-breaking temporal, temporal issues to be addressed in the ensuing council meeting.

And I would like to see that change to prior to the posting of the agenda.

And that is my single issue at first glance.

Make a motion to postpone it till next meeting.

Good, that's what you'll need to do.

Yeah, so I'd like to motion— make a motion to postpone this till the next meeting.

I'll second that. Okay, discussion?

Any additional discussion?

How does that work? Would we have a, a workshop to look at this, or would you make these edits and then we will bring this resolution forth in the next meeting? I think that would be a question for Mr. Denmark. Mr. Denmark, pardon me, how would you like to proceed with this if we postpone that? Do you want to have a workshop session to look at it further, or would you just— I guess, how do you want to bring forth the amendments that you'd like to?

Well, I would— we've had a number of workshops, been discussing it for a couple of years. The document is close to completion. Um, like I said, received this on Saturday morning. That's the one issue through gleaning this document that I flagged.

Um, maybe, um, in this—.

I don't know if we need a workshop, but just through—. How about, would you say a, a committee to meet with the clerk? Is that possible? How about a brief workshop before the next meeting? To— I, I don't know if anybody else has had enough time to read this or not, um, but in a, you know, in my gleaning, this is the one issue that caught my eye, and we bumped up across against this, um, a couple times in recent history.

Mr. Mayor, if I could add that, um, we did have a work session this year recently on this manual, and the changes that were made to it since then were very minimal to accommodate the attorney's requests. So this draft really has been in front of the council for several months. I mean, a long time, but definitely several months. But if a work session would be helpful, Prior to the next meeting, I would just ask, what, uh, is there a presentation that you're looking for, or are you just hoping to have some discussion before the meeting about it? I would just like to— well, I would like, I would like time to read it, and at this moment it's just that one specific issue with which I have Concerns, Mr.

Pincushion? Yeah, as a seconder of the motion to postpone, it's just, it's been a very busy September and no more time to read it. I don't think we really need a workshop. I think the amendments are so minor they can be made during the meeting. I mean, I, I've only seen one other thing that I questioned that I kind of need to clarify.

So I think, I think it's so minor that a workshop's probably Not necessary. We can— minor amendments can be made to the resolution as a secondary motion without a workshop.

You want to make these amendments at the next meeting or this meeting?

That work? Okay.

Any other, uh, any other questions or comments?

Okay, uh, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on this voting? Oh, sorry, voting on the motion to postpone Resolution 2026-042 to the next regular meeting. Mr. Denmark? Yes. Mr. Pinkush?

Yes. Mr. Wagner? Yes. Mrs. Loan? Yes.

Mrs. Borg? Yes. Mr. Mccallto? Yes. Mayor Shen?

Yes. The motion passes, and Resolution 2026-042 is postponed to the next regular meeting.

Our next resolution is Resolution 22-26-043, approving the Community Beautification Matching Grant Round 2 awards recommended by the Council Beautification Grant Committee.

We have a motion and a second. Make the motion.

Second. Thank you. We have a, um, staff discuss, um, reporting. Yes, Mayor, um, after the first phase of the beautification, uh, we realized that we had extra funding, so you allowed us to open up a second run, and the Lane Sisters and Lazy Otter did receive the matching grant. They were the only ones who had put in an application for the second round, and your committee had agreed.

So congratulations if it gets voted on. Thank you, Miss Wild. Any questions or comments?

All right, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on this? Voting on the motion to approve Resolution 2026-043, approving the Community Beautification Matching Grant Round 2 awards. Recommended by the Council of Beautification Grant Committee. Mrs. Loan? Yes.

Mr. Mccolto? Yes. Mr. Wagner? Yes. Mr. Pincush?

Yes. Mr. Denmark? Mrs. Borg? Yes. Mayor Shen?

Yes. The motion passes, and Resolution 2026-043 is approved. Now I'll say congratulations, Three Hills.

All right, all right. Next resolution. Resolution 2026-044, authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Alaska Roof Restorations LLC for roof restoration work at the Public Safety Building in an amount not to exceed $29,636 and appropriating funds. Is there a motion and second to approve Resolution 2026-044?

I'll make a motion.

Director Scott Corby to give that report. Good evening, Council. Um, we have a heck of a facility here called the Public Safety Building. Um, was built and completed in 2018. Um, We've noticed we've had a couple leaks the past year, year and a half, and they're progressively getting worse and a lot worse.

Every time we get a large easterly wind and a tremendous amount of rain, we're not only developing leaks in the public's public safety side as well as the administration offices as well as public works, and they're starting to grow. A lot more volume, not just a drip, a flow. Um, we have a contractor that was in town. Um, they sealed the roof across the way in the old fish plant. Um, spent a lot of time with them looking at their product and what they've got.

Um, they've recommended that we get on our roof, we seal every seam on our roof, uh, with a polymer, um, silicone-based, uh, kind of an epoxy. They clean it, they etch it, they spray it down. It is slick, and they guarantee it for 20 years. I feel this is the appropriate action to take at this time, um, to heal the cracks or heal the leaks. Um, it's a viable, uh, fix.

If it lasts 20 years, that's great. It saves us a lot of money. If this product does not work and they cannot warranty it, we will have to look at alternative means to seal the roof. We don't know what that is right now. This is a great interim, um, fix at a, at a decent price because we're looking at a building that's 100 foot by 150 feet, and to re-roof this is astronomically expensive.

So this is the first step. So think about being on your house and sealing your, your chimney with Henry's, or this product is a lot better than Henry's, but that's the first step you take before you rip off all the roof and all the shingles to repair it, especially when you have an 8-year roof on a— 8 years on a 30-year roof. So if you have any questions Mr. Denmark, sir, just, um, you indicated that the warrantability will be determined after application. No, that they warrant the application, uh, for workmanship and, uh, that for 20 years.

So the application that they put down onto the roof, they say will hold and last for 20 years.

There are inspections to do annually on it, but if it, if it comes off, peels off, doesn't adhere, or it's leaking through the same spot, they will come fix it.

Thank you.

Any other questions, Council?

Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mr. Kirby.

Any additional questions or discussion on this?

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Voting on the motion to approve Resolution 2026-044, authorizing the City Manager to execute a contract with Alaska Roof Restorations, LLC, for roof restoration work at the Public Safety Building, and an amount not to exceed $29,636, and appropriating funds. Mr. Wagner? Yes. Mr. Denmark?

Yes. Mr. McAlto? Yes. Mrs. Lone? Yes.

Mr. Pinkush? Yes. Mrs. Borg? Yes. Mayor Shen?

Yes. The motion passes and Resolution 2026-044 is approved.

Thank you.

Um, we're going to be— that's all for resolutions. We're moving on to new business now. First item is our 2027 to 2028 biannual budget draft calendar.

Do we have a staff report for that? Yes, the finance director will be working with you on that. Okay, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. You have in your packet the draft budget calendar. This year we're planning 3— we have available 3 days for budget work sessions, October 7th, 8th, and 9th.

Ordinarily, our goal is to try to— well, we find that passing the budget by Thanksgiving allows everyone to have their holiday schedule. So we try to craft a budget schedule that fits with that. But you know, it— we're not held to that. So I just want to assure council members, you, you control the budget process, you control how many work sessions you want to have. But tentatively, um, the calendar that's in your packet meets the goals of trying to accomplish passage before Thanksgiving and also avoiding the Alaska Municipal League conference that a number of council members usually attend.

And some of the dates that council members said they couldn't be here, we've avoided those as well. So please take a look at that calendar. If anything, any of these dates don't work for you, or you want to propose different dates, you know, it's— this is not set in stone. Our goal is to get as much participation as we can. Usually the way it works is we'll have 2 work sessions where the administration will just present the budget to you.

Answer your questions, um, and for budget prep, feel free to make those comments through the city manager. Um, and, um, we'll also be doing the, the capital improvement plan. Just a reminder, this is a 2-year budget cycle, so we'll be budgeting for 2027-2028. Um, and this year's budget, I think, is going to be a challenge. And it obviously, you know, given what's happened recently at the the Glacier Creek facility.

There's a lot of uncertainty, obviously, for them, for us, for the community. And so we need to think conservatively about how we approach, you know, the next couple years and where we might be. So I will be interested to hear council's approach when it comes time to that, you know, to considering impacts on the community and the the industry and those types of things. So anyway, feel free to provide any input you have and we'll be happy to hear it. And if you'd like to have, you know, 2 additional work sessions or whatever you guys want, feel free to just let us know what works best for you and what you'd like to see.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Schindler.

Yes, Mr. Pincush, can we get a copy of the draft before the first workshop? It's a lot easier to have reviewed it prior to the workshop for me. Sure, I, I'll do my best to get it to you as quick as I can, and, and I'll do what I've done in the past, which is try to just highlight some of the major assumptions. I usually have a for each of our funds, the assumptions that went into building that budget, and then the major changes to the budget from the status quo. I'll make sure and highlight all those things.

So if you don't have a lot of time to look through the numbers, you could at least look at the narrative, and they'll, you know, things will be hopefully easy for you to walk through before first night.

Yeah, the questions are coming.

Item 9, City Manager Performance Evaluation, requested by Council Member Wagner.

Mr. Wagner? Yes, yes, this item was requested by you to be on the agenda. Request to be in executive session. Okay, okay.

How do you want to, um, see your question in executive session? Yes, Miss Wild, do we want to—. I, I would just like to clarify, Mr. Wagner requested it to be under new business as well as an executive session, and you have those both on your agenda, so it would be up to Mr. Wagner and the council. Yeah, you can choose what— if you want to bring this— these items up in the executive session, we may do that. And if you don't want to do anything in new business—.

Yes, executive session. Okay, all right. Next item, council comments.

Mr. Denmark. Yeah, thank you. Would like to, uh, request of the city clerk, uh, to reserve council chambers for the 2027 Prince William Sound Stewardship Foundation Symposium on May 10th and 11th of 2027. It will be done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dermark. Other council comments?

Okay, citizens discussion at this time. Time is limited to 5 minutes per speaker on any subject over which the council has control. And again, this is not a time for dialogue. It's a time for citizens to speak and the council to listen. And Madam Clerk, is there anyone signed in for citizens discussion at this time?

First we have Kai Holland. Mr. Holland.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. Kai Holland representing House District 9 here. Just a couple things to touch on tonight for you. Of course, first, uh, very, um, surprised and sorry to see the, the fire, but impressed with the response to everyone. I just want to offer, if there's anything our office can do in terms of liaison to public safety or any of the other agencies that we can assist with, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Let us know how we can be helpful as you start planning the repairs and the work that needs to be done ahead. Since our last meeting, the state did certify the revenue necessary for some of the waterfall funding, so a couple things that are coming through in terms of additional money that's flowing into the education school districts, including Chugiach School District for you in this area. Also, the extra $200 for energy relief will be provided along with the $1,000 PFD checks. So later this month when those come out, you'll see the additional $200 in that. That was part of a waterfall provision that was funded if there was sufficient revenue because of the high oil prices in there.

On natural gas, obviously you guys have been working through the natural gas in a way that none of the rest of us in South Central fully appreciated, and it's really amazing to see the work. I had a chance to see a presentation by N-Star of the work that they did to replace that crossing. It was, quite frankly, I was really surprised and amazed at what they were able to do with as little impact to the area and the access, particularly. They were able to bring in some of the tunnel, the boring equipment that actually is in another part of District 9 doing— it was a remarkable project. But in terms of natural gas, we've been, of course, watching the situation, and I think following the joint House and Senate Resources Committee meeting on September 9th, and that's recorded on KTOO if you wanted to go back and listen to it.

I think we're getting a greater clarity on the gas situation for this winter. You, of course, saw the headlines in the last couple of months that there was going to potentially be 18 days of a shortage of gas, and that's caused a lot of people to ask me a lot of questions about are we really going to be running out of gas for 18 days? And two things I like to clarify here. First off is that from the standpoint of electrical power, Chugach Electric, there never was a gas issue with them. They've always had a sufficient supply for this next year.

They have their own contracts and ownership over a lot of the gas in the Blue Gas field. So they were always fine. People ask me, were we going to have brownouts and stuff like that? The lights were always going to stay on. The issue was whether or not Enstar, for purposes of gas that we use for firing our heat and, and some of their other contracts, whether they had enough gas under contract.

That's where they had a shortfall of up to 3 BCF, and they equated that into X number of days, which caused all of us to get pretty darn surprised. Well, what DNR has helped show us in their reports and presentations we've had with Hilcorp is there is plenty of gas in storage at this point. There's a contractual problem of figuring out how it's cold, but they've been approached by multiple utilities that have extra gas allotments. There's a lot of options at this point. One thing that needs to be clear, however, though, is that the gas that they may be able to get that's in storage or is attributable to one of the other utilities that owns gas is really kind of borrowing from the future gas.

So we still do have a gas long-term challenge over the years to come. But at the moment, this winter, this January, there's a a lot of gas in storage. So we'll be trying to hold another hearing in early December to try and bring some more clarity to the fact that hopefully everyone has gotten this all clear, that we don't have to have any more of these questions about are we going to have brownouts or cold days in January. And we're also going to be talking about whether or not they're really on a good path towards a longer-term solution for gas supplies, because at this point we still know that while this January may be something we know how it will get addressed, as we look out to 2029 and beyond, there are still definitely some challenges for having sufficient gas supply in there. Beyond that, I've met with the commissioner and presented at RCA, bringing more attention from the work I've done on House Energy regarding making sure that our gas storage and our gas import projects are being managed in a way that will ensure we don't end up with a lot of duplicate complicated new infrastructure that ends up being higher cost for ratepayers.

So if you have any more questions about gas down the road, I'm happy to go into the details. And then lastly, I'm helping organize a Startup Weekend. If you have any entrepreneurial— it's going on October 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in Seward. And if you know of anyone who's interested in entrepreneurship and starting businesses, this is something I've been doing for about 14 years. I'd be happy to talk with anyone who's interested.

So thanks for the time tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Holland.

Mr. Mayor, next we have John Boyle. Mr. Boyle, did you want to come up again?

Well, good evening again, Mr. Mayor and honorable council. I guess I misunderstood the earlier time, but, um, I wanted just to introduce myself again to the council. So I'm John Boyle. I'm running for House District 9. Prior to my running for elected office, I was the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources, and it was my honor to extend to the city of Whittier their option on the land selections that they have heading out to Shotgun Cove.

And so I just wanted the council to know that I am a huge proponent of building the road to Shotgun Cove. I think there's an incredible amount of economic development potential there, you know, looking at the opportunity to potentially build a small boat harbor, obviously developing those, you know, 300 or 400 acres and providing more of an economic base for this community. So I'm very bullish, I think, on the opportunities in this town. It's, you know, I like to say District 9 is where Anchorage ends and Alaska begins, and this is really at the forefront of the incredible resources and beauty that we have in the state. So I'm very interested in working with this community, you know, particularly as we look at a lot of property that have contamination issues, looking at how the state can play a more proactive role in helping Whittier advance its agenda in building more infrastructure, having more access to land, being able to develop its economy and really turn into, I think, what should be one of the premier go-to destinations in the Prince William Sound.

So it's— I think you guys have an incredible place. I've spent a lot of my career in local government. I worked for years for the North Sooke Borough and lived in Utkiavik, formerly Barrow. So I know the struggles of smaller communities. Sometimes it's hard to have a voice, particularly on the state level.

And I think, you know, Whittier needs somebody that will look out for Whittier's interests, make sure that you guys aren't being overlooked in exchange, you know, over Anchorage or some other areas that maybe punch above their weight. So I'm just, again, want to say how much of an honor and a privilege it is to be here. You know, looking forward to again understanding more of the issues of this community and hopefully working for solutions to improve the quality of life. And I, you know, hearing the comments on energy, I think we fundamentally need to make sure that we have the energy infrastructure in place, that we don't have natural gas disruptions as you guys experienced. And I'm also very concerned about long-term energy solution for South Central.

Cook Inlet is a very mature oil and gas basin and is running low on natural gas, at least in its current phase, and I do think we need to focus on a long-term solution. So thanks again. It's a real—. Really a pleasure to be here.

Thank you. Next, we have Sherri Currie. Miss Currie?

Good evening, Mayor, Council. I just had a couple updates. I know we did the town hall. I'm not sure everyone was here, so I wanted to address a few things. Um, first of all, this last week the city was amazing to help us pivot to what, um, we were able to save the ship coming to Whittier.

The firefighters came out and helped us decorate the Hoonah Totem Terminal, and I hope they're going to help me— some of the help we've gotten, of course, your donation. Thank you. Your in-kind donations that continue. Mr. Spencer here with Prince William Sound Museum helped me work with a ship modeler for the Ted Stevens. We're going to have it here in the museum.

It was too big to fit in the airplane, so we're working on that, but FedEx is going to deliver it on Wednesday, I do believe. So we jumped through those hoops and it's going to be a beautiful addition to the museum.

Nick and Bree at Prince William Salt and Whittier Fudge, Kelly and Mike and Be Wild, and Dave and Lori with their business, all those wonderful Whittier businesses that are going to be in the sailors' gift bags. We just really did our best to feature Whittier more than anywhere else in the state. So I just wanted to thank everyone I do talk about the fact that we only have 122 RSVPs from Whittier. So if you didn't get your invitation, please go to the website, click on that support button at the top so we can make sure. They—.

Some of them did go to spam because it came from the Navy and it had a really interesting email. Support plus [email protected].

So some of that went to your spam. So if you want to attend, please let us help you find your invitation because the tickets are starting to go out tomorrow. And, um, I think that's all I have now. I'm excited the ship is actually going to be here. I know I've been talking to you guys for a couple years, so, um, we will see everybody next week, right?

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Curry.

Next is Kelly Bender.

Ms. Bender. Thank you. I'm here with my Whittier Chamber of Commerce hat on. I just want to follow up with what Shree said and talk to you about our community reception. So hopefully you have seen it in the elevator or at school, or you got a letter talking about our reception.

Whittier Chamber of Commerce, City of Whittier, Hoonah Totem, Princess and the commissioning committee are having a welcome reception. So it's about 3 o'clock, the ship's gonna come in. We want as many people as we can have. We've already had about 180 people from Whittier RSVP, waving flags and welcoming the ship in. And then we'll go up to the terminal and we'll have a party and we'll wait for the sailors and the captain to get off where we can properly welcome them.

We'll have a band, there'll be games, we'll have cake. If you have not put in your RSVP, it's still open until tomorrow. We just want to know as many— you will have to go through security if we're going to get closer to the ship, so we just need to know who's all coming. It's really going to be a fun event. It's going to be a little bit flex because we don't know what time the sailors will get off, but it will still be a party for us, and we really want to welcome the ship.

This is such a huge deal for us. This is really such an honor. We want this event to be for Whittier community, and that's That's why you haven't seen it on What's What, because if it goes to What's What, everybody from Pennsylvania to Anchorage gets to see that. And we want this to be the Whittier community and the Whittier Chamber of Commerce. So if you haven't signed up, or if you know somebody hasn't, please, it's open till tomorrow, or they can always reach out to the chamber or myself.

Thank you. I hope to see you there.

Thank you, Miss Bender.

No others are signed in. Okay, is anybody in the audience who would wish to speak? Mr. Bender. Okay.

Hi, good evening everybody. I don't know if you're aware of it, but last Thursday and half of Friday we had the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council meetings here in, in the, in the room. They wanted me to pass along they appreciated your hospitality and enjoyed being in Whittier for that, that brief time. And somehow we pulled it all together to fit about 85 people in and around town for lunch and dinner reception over at the, at the Inn. So they wanted me to pass that along.

In addition, we, uh, we have a chart I think it's, uh, I think it's important to recognize that a place that we all live— Dave, do you recognize that? That's okay. I didn't see a nod or anything. Oh, don't— Cordova. Uh, yeah, so it'd be nice if we could display this in, uh, in the council chambers.

Kelly and I are happy to give it to you. Um, so thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Bender. Well, we'll be careful not to show Cordova this chart.

Well, this chart is so important that they, they extended the chart. Uh, Woodier is way over here, just barely got in, barely got in on the frame. So that's, uh, did you show them the back? Oh, everybody, I'm sorry. We'll just keep that our secret.

So anybody in the audience who wish to speak for citizens discussion?

Okay, gone once, gone twice.

Okay, Council administrative response to citizens comments, citizen comments.

Anybody? Oh, I have a comment for Mr. Holland. Thank you for bringing up the natural gas. I almost forgot. We just wanted to commend, you know, all the efforts into restore— like bridging that gap in service and then restoring it.

That's pretty amazing. Whittier, we have a lot of contingencies because we live in a pretty tough place. We have backup generators. We have, you know, we have big pieces of machinery to blow through any snowdrift out there. But then natural gas stopped flowing.

And that, you know, I think we're very fortunate that it happened in September— August and September. And that really exposed the weakness. And I think that we might have been overlooked Luckily, I think some— there were maybe a couple entities in town that could run on diesel, run heat off diesel, but we found that a lot of entities, when there's no natural gas, there's no heat unless, you know, electric heat and stuff. So I hope that— and as well as with the fire, the Dock Fire and stuff, I've been hearing— I guess I do participate in social media and I see a lot of comments on there, but I urge everyone to You know, look beyond that, look at the lessons that we can learn from it and how we can move forward and strengthen our community so that we can be more resilient to natural or man-based, human-based disasters in the future. So thank you.

Next item we have is our executive session. Mayor, per the code, um, since this is an evaluation of the city manager, I have the ability to request that this discussion be made in public, and I am doing so. Thank you. Okay, let's see, we have 2 items on our executive session. Do we want to switch them around?

And go in reverse order there.

Mr. Benkush, you agree? Is that— yeah, I think it'd be better to handle Doc first.

I would have to beg to differ since I was listed first. I do believe that it's the public's right to hear mine, and if we have them removed from the room, then they may not come back. You may not be able to have that type of discussion, and I think that the public needs to hear what you are worried about as your city manager.

Either way, I'm going to request a 8-minute recess, and I don't care.

How long do you think it would take to cover the Harbor discussion?

2 Minutes. Okay.

Any, uh, further council comments or questions on that?

Thoughts? I mean, sorry, Council Member Wagner just said he didn't care, and our city manager requested that she go first, so—. Okay. All right, um, should we go into recess first, or should we go into— can we have a recess and then move into this open session?

Recess? Okay, have a— let's have a, um 8-minute recess. 8, 10 Minutes.

Yeah.

The city manager performance evaluation.

Um, how do we want to go forward with this here? Do we have a— do you want to request forms to be sent out? Do you want No, first I have a question.

When we did this with Jim Hunt, Jim Hunt wanted his evaluation in open session. It was denied. We were literally forced to go into executive session. Probably mostly due to the advice of our attorney. So I would like an explanation on why this has changed, because there is a legal precedent here that we're about to cross.

Do we have a city attorney present that we can—. Will Earnhardt is present.

I could take a second to look at the city code, but under state code, and everyone else has it in it, there are certain things that are confidential that you're allowed to go into executive session for. And in regard to personnel issues, they are confidential unless it has to do with someone's reputation, and in which case, if you're going to have an executive session in regard to someone's reputation, that person has the opportunity to ask that it be public.

Thank you. Does that answer? No, not really, but I will say this.

So speaking for myself, I believe that the community I'll just say this. I believe that, um, our city manager has lost the support of the community, and I believe that she has lost the confidence of the council, specifically me.

I do not wish to state anything more, and there is a reason, but I am going to leave my statement at that.

Thank you for that statement. Miss Borg, did you have a question or a comment?

Isn't the city manager's evaluation in November? Why are we having this now? What's your—. What's your reason for this? Why are we having it now?

Is it because of different— I mean, things that have happened in the recent past here, the last couple, the last month and a half or something?

No. So anytime something doesn't go the way someone wants on this council, we can just say we're going to have an evaluation of our city manager? This couldn't wait for 2 months until November? No.

And speaking from this seat, I have not lost anything with our city manager. I think she's doing a great job. Understood. Mr. Mayor, the code section is very clear, 208040, Section B, about what can be in executive session if it deals with the reputation it, um, the person has the option to ask that to be in public session. Now, another thing in regard to the city manager is whatever the result of the evaluation is does become public.

City manager can't protect their personnel file as far as evaluations and pay or anything else.

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Wagner, so in— as Ms. Borg said, in November we have an evaluation, and I know that you have requested an executive session for evaluation. However, um, we can start the process of an evaluation that we normally do where we send out paper paper surveys that survey everyone, and then we can formulate. I think one second to discuss this with the attorney, because this is not what's happening. This is not exactly an evaluation. That is the wording that was used, but it is not.

Okay. And I am not going to discuss it any farther because it's going to have potential problems.

The council has the power as the supervisor of the city manager to take action at any point if they want. It can be, you know, we're going to pay the city manager a million dollars, we're going to fire the city manager, anything in between. That can go on the agenda anytime.

Miss Lim? I'm sorry, I guess I'm gonna have to piggyback off of what Miss Borg said. This is so vague, and I don't, I don't know why we're why we're here. And, um, because I don't know why we're here, I, I have to say I, I personally haven't lost faith in Jackie. So I, I mean, if, if no one can tell us why we're here, like, what are we doing?

All right, thank you. I guess maybe to help narrow down what you're looking for here is, are you— what's the outcome you're looking for? Are you looking for, um, disciplinary action? Are you looking for, um, a feedback session to reevaluate our goals and priorities and her, um, and her, I guess, the efforts she puts forth for our city? This is a trap.

If I say this out loud, it's going to affect what's going to happen next. I cannot do this. This was supposed to be an executive session.

And Mr. Pincush, can we go into executive session with the attorney for, for legal counsel? Just the counsel?

You already had executive session. You can do it as a suborder. Yeah. We can have legal counsel on that issue. That covers two ways you can go executive session.

Is proposing going into executive session with, with our legal counsel without our administration? Just legal counsel and counsel to, to, to ask to, um, answer Member Wagner's questions about his concerns, it seems, seems appropriate to—. And we're going to go into council any—. Or in executive session for another matter. We could do them—.

Well, we can't do them together because it's just— but yeah, that's what I'm suggesting, so that Council Member Wagner can have legal advice before he says anything else.

Do you have a comment? Um, we could have clarification for that. I think there, I mean, needs to be a discussion of what the boundaries are here, and I don't know Councilmember Wagner's particular concern. Um, you know, obviously just the law I can lay out here in front of everyone, but if there are particularly sensitive concerns, we could do a quick executive session Um, you know, I, I think there's getting a lot of confusion between where you start and, and maybe where you end. You know, any council member can put forth a resolution to do X with the city manager, and that gets debated and, and gets done.

Um, council members can't meet more than 3 of you to discuss the city manager's performance individually, not on official business. But I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Go—.

Is that better? Yes. Okay, sorry.

Um, you know, you, you don't want to avoid— you got to avoid the Open Meetings Act. You can't have more than 3 council members sit privately and, and discuss what to do with the city manager. Um, although obviously, you know, you guys are always going to be talking about performance of the city in every aspect, not just the city manager. Um, but as far as what to do at a council meeting, I mean, it's very clear as to executive session. If it's in executive session because of someone's reputation, they have the opportunity to ask that that be public.

And, you know, because basically it's under that provision that you're saying, you know, this is not for the public to consume, we're going to talk bad about this person, we want to have a frank discussion. If that person— you're going to talk about them and it's reputational. On the other hand, the higher-level employees of the city, the city manager, the finance director, the public safety manager, are all in a position where their evaluations, certainly the results of that, are public, and any materials you take into that.

And this is an awkward position, uh, councils get into a lot of times, unfortunately.

Okay, thank you for that explanation. Yes, Mr. Wagner, if there's reluctance to go into an executive session with just the council, maybe you and I can have a sidebar so I can ask you some legal advice, because I did talk to the city over a week ago— or I'm sorry, the city attorney Um, however, not you, and, um, it's conflicting. We'll just leave it at that.

I can always— the city attorney can always speak with a council member one-on-one. That seems like—. Yeah, another recess to allow them to to have discussion. Are you requesting a recess now? Yep, 10 minutes.

Um, I guess before we go any further, I just want to say, like, so what your concerns here, can they be addressed with our normal city manager performance evaluation or scheduled one? No, it can't wait. No, if you knew what I wanted to say, you'd understand this. I cannot say it out loud.

I'll talk to you about it, right? How much time? How much time do you want? 2 Minutes. Can we request recess for 5 minutes?

Mr. Mayor, did you have a motion and a second for exiting executive session? A motion to exit executive session.

Second that.

Any discussion? Oh, I'm sorry, who made the motion?

Oh, no one. I was asking for a motion. Is there a motion to—. I will.

Ready to vote? Yeah. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Voting on the motion to exit executive session. Mr. Wagner?

Yes. Mrs. Borg? Yes. Mr. McAlto? Yes.

Mr. Pinkush? Yes. Mrs. Loan? Yes. Mr. Denmark?

Yes. Mayor Shen? Yes. The motion passes, and Council exits executive session at 9:08 PM.

Thank you.

Okay, we have another executive session. We need to get into to discuss harbor dock contract terms as per W Municipal Code 2-08-040.

Is there a motion and second? I'll make the motion. I'll second. Any discussion?

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Voting on the motion to enter into executive session to discuss Harbor Dock contract terms as per Whittier Municipal Code 2.08.040: Mr. Wagner.

Yes. Mr. Pincush. Yes. Mrs. Loan. Yes.

Mr. McAlto. Yes. Mr. Denmark? Yeah. Mrs. Borg?

Yes. Mayor Shen? Yes. Um, uh, who would you like to stay for this? Like, um, Master, my finance director, and our city manager.

I think that's all. Anyone else? Deputy, please. Deputy Harbor Master. Yes, just those three.

Yes, answer. Deputy Harbor Master, Harbor Master, and Miss Wild, City Manager. Motion passes and council enters into executive session at 9:10 PM. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Mayor, do you have a motion and a second to exit executive session? I do not. Do we have a motion and a second to exit executive session? Make the motion. Second.

Thank you. Any further discussion?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Voting on the motion to exit executive session: Mrs. Sloan. Yes. Mr. Mccolto. Yes.

Mr. Wagner. Yes. Mr. Pinkush. Yes. Mrs. Borg.

Yes, Mr. Denmark. Yes, Mayor Shen. Yes, the motion passes and council exits executive session at 9:25 PM. Thank you.

There's no action from this last executive session.

Seeing no further business— yes, go ahead. I'm just.