Mat-Su Borough: Regular Assembly Meeting - June 2, 2026

So.

My name is Jade Laughlin. I'm literally the most unpopular guy in the room because I own Central Gravel Products in Palmer or on the Palmer Wasilla border. I've spent a lot of time reading this ordinance, listening to other planning commission meetings about this ordinance, listening to Alex Strawn explaining and getting deep down in this. And what I think is happening here is very. Gravel pits are very emotional, and I get that.

The first thing I'll say is there's nothing easy, Stephanie, about getting a gravel extraction permit. It took me two years, $300,000, and took about six years off my life dealing with getting this permit. So there's nothing easy about it. Secondly, Mr. Sumner, there's a lot of emotion in this, in this topic, and I. I commend you for taking it on. And I think we're not diving in and looking at the.

The. The nuts and bolts of this and what I think and the way I interpret it. And this is me personally, not as a gravel pin owner, just me as a borough employee, borough taxpayer. You're cleaning up language that protects the comprehensive plan you have. KGB is a very distinct area of the valley that has no service for gravel.

I delivered four loads out there today that, if had I delivered those in my service sector that I normally work in, would have cost my customers $400 less. But because of the truck time and putting extra trucks on the road to service these clients, we're talking about public safety, we're talking about wear and tear. And the gravel industry pays its fair share of wear and tear. It's called a federal excise tax. We pay 12% on everything we buy that relates to a truck, Tires, fuel, a fan belt.

We pay 12% on that. So we're using. We're paying to use our roads on top of the property taxes that I pay for my gravel pit, which is in excess of $40,000, I'm happy to pay those. I'm happy to be a contributing member. I'm one of the few gravel pits in the valley that had my community council support me on getting my gravel extraction permit, because I spent a lot of time with my community council, listening to their concerns and coming up with a plan that we could all agree with.

And I really think that this is a lot of what Max is trying to do, is to get everybody talking, get everybody working together to come up with a plan that works, that benefits everybody. And if that means that the gravel extraction permit doesn't go through, then that's what it means. But what I don't want to hear anymore. And I think is. Is.

Is bad for our. That you guys aren't listening. I think you are listening. So please, I vote in favor of this only because it clears up language to protect our comprehensive plans for future development. Thank you, Jeannie Trishinski.

I live off of kgb. And God help us, the last thing we need is a gravel pit out there. Well, just a couple meetings ago, you had people from Kepler Bradley here talking about their lake rising, so I did a little research. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to do some research. Gravel pits can indeed cause lakes to rise.

Look it up. There's so, so much gravel pits on both sides of that road there. I am certain that is an unintended consequence. You are causing more problems than you're helping. If it's true that wherever that guy's from that he worked with this community council, good on him.

That's what we should be doing. But this ordinance does not support that. We should not be taking away the power from the people. What are you doing? I do not in any way understand this assembly.

There are so many things in so many meetings, and this is an egregious, egregious abuse of this that you do not listen to your people. You just wad up things and throw them at the wall and see if they stick. You do no research. Come on, do your job and start listening. For one thing.

And three of you at least up there. I think it's more than that. Need to recuse yourself from this vote because it is an ethical conflict of interest for you to vote if you are in the construction business anyway, on this ordinance or any related ordinance to gravel pits because you serve to gain money. Now, look, we had to vote off the last guy that was big into making the assembly his money thing from construction. I guess we can do it with some more, but it's really gross.

It is disappointing. It's gross. God help us. How? Why are you even on the assembly?

Anybody else would like to testify on this ordinance?

Good evening, Madam mayor and assembly. My name is Jackie Goforth. I'm going to be brief, and if. You know me, that's rare.

I am against this gravel ordinance or any change to a gravel ordinance because I've been here on several assembly nights. Where we were after midnight discussing gravel. It's been discussed and discussed and discussed, and this just seems to be thrown at us as a way to undercut all of the other discussions that we did. And I don't understand why it was. Why it's on there.

I don't understand why we have to. Redo what the people have already told. You about and talk to you about. You were here for that meeting. A lot of people were here for that meeting.

It was well after midnight, two times in a row. So please vote it down. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah.

Good evening. My name is Eric Hesnes. I just want to say a couple things. First of all, I'd like to thank Stephanie Naurs for her continued public support. She listens to the people.

She knows that 99% of the population is against this ordinance. I'd like to thank the mayor. And last time, if memory serves me correctly, despite all the public opposition, it still passed. You guys passed it and our mayor vetoed it. Now, I don't know why this is brought up again for the third time.

It just seems like it's a crime, a waste of time. And Edna, once again, the press is watching. The public's watching. Thank you for your support. Thanks, everybody.

Anyone else?

Do we have anybody online, sir? We do not. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and close public hearing and assembly first and summit. Thanks. Madam Mayor, I'd ask that we can address some of the concerns that people have about conflicts and recusals.

I would like to state that I did consult with the attorney and I reviewed the borough code on ethics. And I have never operated a gravel pit and not plan on operating a gravel pit. I do not profit from gravel. And though I may purchase some gravel, I do not mark it up for my clients. Any potential benefit from this ordinance is conjectural, hypothetical.

So it's my opinion that I do not have a conflict. Okay, go ahead. Did you want to move the ordinance? Yes, I'm going to move to adopt ordinance 26 021. Okay.

And I would ask for two or some more. I'd like to ask for a staff report before I speak to it. Sure. I think there is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about it.

Go ahead, sir. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Alex Draughan, planning director for the Matsu Borough. I am the author of this ordinance and I actually am the one who brought this to Assemblymember Sumner after he asked the question why it is that we're having limited gravel, specifically in the Knick Fairview area. And I thought that I might might have an explanation.

And I ended up producing this ordinance for him. And I just want to give you my perspective of why I brought this ordinance to member Sumner and why I thought it was a good idea. So it eliminates one of five general standards that are within The Burrow gravel. Code,.

That is that the use is not inconsistent with the applicable comprehensive plan. So. If this were. If this one provision were to be removed from code, there's still a very robust public process for gravel pits. There's still four other general standards, including that the permit will not be harmful to the public health, safety and general welfare, that the use will preserve the value, spirit, character and integrity of the surrounding area.

That particular standard, you could actually consult the local comprehensive plan to help make that determination. As one of the findings that the planning commission would make. It has a robust notification process. The planning commission hears it and hears public testimony. There's noise requirements, there's reclamation requirements, there's requirements that we consider the safety of traffic.

There's water quality provisions in there. There's provisions for if you're going to be mining in the water table, to protect water table issues, hours of operation, dust pretty much. There's required compliance with state and federal laws. A lot of the concerns that people have would remain within this ordinance and would be part of the public process if this were to get adopte.

The problem that I have seen with this particular provision is that it makes comprehensive plans self implementing. And our comprehensive plans have been adopted and incorporated in title 15. We have dozens of comprehensive plans all under the umbrella of the borough wide comprehensive plan. And I have instances where this has been problematic when trying to make these comprehensive plans plans into strict law. They're great policy documents and I do want to not want to devalue the importance of comprehensive plans and the effort that went into those.

But they should not be used as self implementing regulatory documents. Some communities do that. They have self implementing plans. Especially if like you're in an urban area and you have a small area that you want a very specific plan, how it's going to be redeveloped or developed. But those comprehensive plans are regularly updated and given a lot of resources to make it a very accurate and useful document.

Our comprehensive plans, our newest ones are almost 10 years old. Our oldest ones are 30 to 40 years old that are currently in code right now. The Knick Fairview one is our most glaring example of how this code provision is problematic where they essentially say that gravel extraction is only allowed within industrial areas. And then it has sort of a hand drawn map with two properties that are labeled as industrial areas, one of which is already being used by Alaska Block and Concrete and the other one that is a junkyard. So there's a de facto prohibition of the entire Knick Fairview area because.

It essentially restricts it from happening in there. And so, yes, we have a higher approval rate of conditional use permits for gravel, but if somebody comes in with a conditional use permit request in the Knick Fairview area, we generally tell them this is going to be a very uphill battle and we're probably going to recommend denial because of this provision of the comprehensive plan. So it is very restrictive in that. There's also many other examples that I have where it's either restrictive or at least conflicting within our code or within our comprehensive plans, where you could read it one way or another because you have this large policy document that you're turning into a regulatory document. I could give examples if you'd like.

But that is why I brought this to assemblymember Sumner. And I guess I'd be happy to answer questions you have.

Deputy mayor. You know, I've, I've been getting a lot of feed from the public. They're trying to throw out the comprehensive plan. They're going to railroad gravel across us. What problem is this ordinance trying to solve?

Yeah, I mean, I think when I, when I put this forward, I didn't think it was going to be controversial. I was wrong. I thought it was going to be sort of a cleanup ordinance. The problem is that, that I don't think our comprehensive plans were intended to be self implementing, meaning they were not intended to be regulatory. When we adopt regulations, we have to consult the comprehensive plan that is required by state law.

That's why in the IM it says, you know, it addresses the comprehensive plan, the borough wide comprehensive plan.

But I don't think that they're ever intended to be regulatory documents that are hard law. Does the ordinance apply to more than just gravel pits?

So this particular ordinance only applies to gravel pits. However, there are other conditional use permits that have the same provision within it.

If this ordinance is adopted, are there other protections in place within the gravel code that would remain? Yeah, as I listed before, there's a robust process with a lot of standards.

Assembly Person McKee, go ahead. And I always listen to you, Alec, But I got a question about this one. If we're granting basically 90% of the conditional use permits, I don't see a problem. It seems like this is a problem, a solution in search of a problem, and I don't see the problem. And then when I hear all these people, it's like nobody wants it.

You're right about being. Yeah. Contradictory. I don't see the need for it. If there hasn't been a need for it, it hasn't impeded anything.

The only thing that I see is that the public feels that they are being. And I appreciate all of the process still. But if the public says we still want this one piece, why is that a problem? And I have to tell you, before this meeting started, I had Talked to my limited 2 folks on this thing, and I didn't really see a problem. Now I do, because nobody wants it.

And if it isn't causing a problem, let's just all stop talking about it. Or we could talk about zoning.

I think it's a great question.

The. The problem is not necessarily very tangible. What I can tell you is that when we have. We have. We get a lot of tire kickers and.

And people want to. They have a piece of property, they want to utilize it. Say they have a hill they want to take down or they want to start up a gravel operation. If they come to us and they're in the Knick Fairview area, we give them what we call the free. No.

Right. We. We let them know this is going to be a very difficult. Because of this provision and code.

So the effects of that are you don't have a lot of gravel pits out in that area. And then. But people. It's still developing. People are still putting in septic tanks and.

And developing driveways. And so they're having to import gravel, which results in more wear and tear on roads and has impacts in other areas of the borough where they have gravel pits. So gravel pits. Nobody wants to live next to them because they are noise producers and dust producers and all that. But people are best served when they're at least in somewhat the same proximity as where development is occurring because it's just less travel time, less expensive, and less wear and tear on our roads.

I agree with everything you just said. But if I come to you with a product and I say this is dynamite, it's gonna solve all your problems. And everybody that's a customer of yours says, we're not buying it. Can you sell it? I completely understand.

I'm just giving you my perspective.

Assembler person hours. And then. Next. Okay, I have the same reaction that Ms. McKee has. I'm trying to figure out what problem we're trying to solve because we're proving 11 out of 12 conditional use permits in the past six years.

So this has been in place since 2005, this stipulation, and somehow it hasn't caused a problem. We're still permitting gravel pits and just confirming that it was 2005. So it's been in place since then. How Many times in the last five years has somebody come and said, I want to put a gravel pit in Connecticut Fairview, and you've had to tell them no.

So thank you, Madam Mayor. So.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two or three times, but that's just me. We have an entire department. We have current planners. I don't know all the conversations that people are having. I don't see all the tire kickers.

I can think of at least two or three times where I personally have been involved in the conversation with different people. Correct. And so I guess I'm just looking at again, who's turning up. Somebody asked, you know, do you pay attention? And we've had 25 people testify and one in favor, and then we've had more than 25, 30.

I kind of lost track of all the emails. They're all opposed. So why aren't. Why have we. In seven years on the Assembly, I have never been contacted or heard from a single pit operator, potential pit operator.

Why aren't they here supporting this? I. I don't know if you have a rhetorical, you know, it's kind of a rhetorical question, but. And then the other. Yeah, maybe because they feel like the Assembly. Sorry, it's.

Sorry, no. I don't want to get into any kind of sort of back and forth, but I just look at this and I wonder what the need is. And I do know on kgb, I don't know if this is part of the factor, but this is the gravel pit map. I didn't bring copies, but this was a gravel pit map that the borough produced when we discussed gravel years ago. All that white on KGB is where there's not a lot of gravel.

So I don't know if that's part of the picture. I. And I'll save my comments for. I just had questions, but I do have additional comments, but I just want to confirm this has been in place for 20 years and the numbers on approvals is correct. Similar person.

Sumner, go ahead. Yeah, Madam Mayor or Ms. Naurs, I can actually provide some additional clarity to your question because after your infographic, you sent out to the rest of the Assembly, I. I had some questions about gravel pits in the Knick Fairview area. And more than just the past five or six years, I went all the way back to the beginning of. Of this conditional use permit, and I had the planning department look up how many applications for gravel pits. There have been 184 applications for gravel pits.

A lot of them were approved. I have lists of review expired. And you know, a lot of them never made it to the planning commission to even get denied because they were requested for additional information or they were applied and then just never followed through on. Now, out of those 184 applications for gravel pits, this also includes grandfather gravel pits. There are six in the Kinnick Fairview area sick permits.

All of those are grandfathered. So in 21 years in an area where there needs to be more gravel because there's poor soils, there has not been a single new pit opened in 21 years. Okay. Simply for some hours. Go ahead.

I think that would have been good information to have in front of us before this was brought up. I know one of the permits was for Sumner company, So I do wonder. I know it's closed now, but I know that Sumner Co. Has had a gravel pit permit. I looked all the way after I did that intro because I'll just say I started with, okay, what's the problem? Are we having a problem?

Because I want to say to Jade, you did an amazing order. This is a. This is a period for questions, I. Believe for staff report.

I mean, are we getting into discussion now? Are we done with questions? I thought nobody else was. Okay,.

Deputy mayor, so does this ordinance eliminate any of our community comprehensive plans.

Through the mayor? The answer is no. This does not affect any comprehensive plans. It only takes away it as a borough standard for. For gravel.

It takes away as a. As a regulatory standard. So all these emails and stuff that they're throwing out the comprehensive plans are wrong?

I'm not going to say that they're all wrong. What I'm saying is that the comprehensive plans are not being affected by this. It only applies. It changes how comprehensive plan relates to gravel pits. The comprehensive plan, still, if there is a gravel.

If there is a proposed gravel operation in an area with a community comprehensive plan, even if this gets adopted, it does not stop the planning commission or the planning department from reviewing that applicable comprehensive plan for consistency with the neighborhood values, essentially. Thank you. So again, we don't have some rules. Oh, I'm sorry. Let's go this side, please.

Thank you. Oh, okay. Thank you. Madam Mayor. Very nice tap dancing tonight, Alex, by the way.

So can you describe for me again, what did you say? I mean, is this non conforming? Is the way the comp plans are written? Are they non conforming with some state statute because they become regulatory in nature? Is that correct?

So the state of Alaska requires that the Matsu borough. One of the powers that we have is to implement land use Regulations and the land use regulation has to be based on a comprehensive plan. So any zoning ordinance that we adopt has to be. We have to take a moment of reflection and look at the applicable comprehensive plans.

Generally, these are plans that describe a community. It lays out what their goals and objectives are, how they want to grow, how they want to develop. And it is up to the assembly to adopt regulations to implement those comprehensive plans. That is how it is intended that the comprehensive plans be used. What this does is essentially bootstrap the.

It takes those comprehensive plans and makes them regulatory documents. So, for instance, the meadow lakes comprehensive plan says that gravel pits should have a bond. A bond requirement. They said they must have a bond requirement. So if you were to take it on face value that it has to be in accordance with the comprehensive plan, then when we do a gravel permit in the meadow lakes area, we should require a bond.

It also says that, you know, strongly suggests that you should maintain the natural contours and. And keep as much vegetation on a property as possible. But it also says that they should allow smaller gravel pits and discourage larger gravel pits. So it's a little bit conflicting. It's these sort of goals and desired standards, but really the appropriate way to implement those standards is through zoning ordinances such as the gravel code.

So if you wanted to say this is the standards that apply in this area, it should be incorporated in the gravel code, not just adopting the comp plan wholesale as a regulatory document.

So instead of just removing this language completely out of the comp plan, is there no way that we can massage the language in there so that it is more conforming with what we're trying to do and not take away from what the community wants. Through the mayor, I. I think ab. Absolutely. In. In fact, I was sitting here thinking, why didn't I just say, you know, write it to where the planning commission has to consider the comprehensive plan?

That could be language that you could propose, make an amendment, not necessarily say that it is the regulatory document. Right. And. And I think that would be a lot more palatable. And I guess I have to ask the question, why did the planning department allow this language to be inserted in these comp plans if it was in violation of state statute?

So the mayor. I don't think it's a violation to. To prohibit gravel pits. You could say no more gravel pits in the borough. So I don't think there's any violation of state statute here.

The Connecticut fairview comp plan was written in 1993. So I don't know what The. I don't have knowledge of what the planning department was thinking at the time that they wrote that. Fair enough. Thank you, assembly, for some bowls.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So just. I, I don't have any skin in the game with gravel. I'm a healthcare admin guy. But I, I do have a question for the attorney, if you don't mind.

The way I've read this, after reading the information memorandum, it seems like it's almost. I don't know if unlawful is the correct term, but referring to a guidance document as code or as law is unlawful. Am I incorrect in that? I think that's kind of what Alex has been saying, is that you're taking this guidance document and you're just saying, well, kind of refer to it. And one of the problems with that is it has conflicting goals and standards and, and there's not just one which says applicable comprehensive plan.

In any part of this borough, there are at least five to 10 applicable parts of the comprehensive plan. We have a healthcare plan. We have an economic development plan. We have a. I think we have an air quality plan. I don't know.

If we have an air quality plan,. Then we have the overall borough comprehensive plan, then we have the streets and highways map, then we have the local community comprehensive plans. And when you have to go through all of them and figure out, okay, well which standard are we not violating? And I guarantee you you will be violating a aspirational standard of one of them, because that's what they are. So it is correct then, that this really is a cleanup effort in our code.

This isn't an effort to increase gravel extraction and neighborhoods or any of those things. This is an effort by the planning department to clean up our code. And we just. Planning department needed a member of the assembly to put the, put his name on it. And Sumner was the person to take the hits.

That's what it seems like to me. Assembly person, fan out. I think both you touched on good questions that a similar one I had when I was listing a planning commission. There was a discussion between few of the planning commissioners, an attorney, and they kind of, kind of summarized what Al. There was a few other things that I thought were brought up that were worth.

If you would do have a recollection, if you could summarize what was the discussion, because it was. They actually discussed this in detail. And I found that to be very interesting from the different attorneys perspective. So not just Nick's, but. And I don't mind Nick's answers, but.

Assembly personnel,. Can he answer it? Please. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, so I did just today go back and listen to the March 16th Planning Commission meeting.

And I paid particular attention to the attorney's comments. And I'm just going to sort of summarize what I think she was saying. And she said I took some notes here that comprehensive plans are not reliable standards for quasi judicial matters. They often have conflicting goals. They're good from a policy perspective but become problematic when applying a standard to individual permits or applying it as a standard to individual permits.

And then she referenced a conflict in our borough wide comprehensive plan which is adopted in 20 years ago, 21 years. Ago,. Where you have one standard that says you need. Our goal is to create an attractive environment for business investment and there's another goal to protect and preserve natural resources. And two different reasonable minds could come to two different conclusions based on those conflicting provisions.

Okay, so did you earlier said that the middle is comprehensive plan requires for there to be a bond for a growl pit which is comp plan. But if that is yes. Does the state like state of Alaska do they require a bond or do we require bond? Because I'm trying to see if that's the standard of comprehensive has a higher standard than a state or a local government.

The mayor so I believe the state is still requiring a reclamation bond of like $750 per acre. I did this was years ago now. But I did talk to the person who administered the reclamation bond program that they have. They've never actually used it. And the way I think it often works is they'll.

They'll do one acre at a time. So at any point they have $750 up and it's not a very effective program. I think keeping bonds for compliance with permits is often pretty problematic. And that'd be a whole discussion for. Do any of the comprehensive plan prohibit different kind of line of business, let's say a gas station or marijuana shop or or something similar that besides growl pit the ones that you would say.

I'd have to do. I'd have to look at all the comp plans to really answer that thoroughly. There probably are some provisions that are expressly prohibited in comp plans. I imagine perhaps adult entertainment. I'm not sure.

But I'd have to go through the comp plans and really look at that. But recently for the CPUs that.

You. Can't recall what you denied or gave them a soft no based on somebody coming for a CPU and you're saying yeah it's not in comp plan you're Going to have a pill climb. Yeah. So this Kinect Fairview comp plan as it relates to gravel is the most glaring example I have of a use that is prohibited. It's effectively.

It doesn't outright prohibit it, but the way it's worded, it's essentially prohibited. But I haven't come across any other examples like that. There's a lot of conflicting language in comprehensive plans and that's part of the problem. Okay, just one more line of business like a salvage junkyard. Do a lot of them prohibit that or that you can call and how we denied an application for a qualified applicant because of that?

Because I would say that, you know, both are making noise and kind of not pretty at the time of operation. So through the mayor, I would not be surprised if there are comprehensive plans that have very strict and prohibitive language for junkyards. But I can't answer you that 100% standing here right now.

But I can say that 1760, which regulates junkyards and refuse areas, does not have a requirement that it be in line with the comprehensive plan. So I guess that kind of. You helped me understand. So junkyard does not require to one of the five pillars, I guess, to comply with a comp plan, even if it was written. But junkyard would not require that to be cleared.

But the grout pit does. Correct? Correct. Our junkyard code does not have a provision that it has to be in accordance with the comprehensive plan. It's not to say if we're look, if we're processing conditionally use permit for a junkyard, we very well may look at the comprehensive plan because there's, you know, has to be in line with the character integrity of the surrounding area.

That is one of the pieces of information that we can draw in and use in our staff report to make findings of fact and conclusions of law. So it's, it's not like the comp plan. This does not make it so we don't have to use the, you know, we don't just put on blinders. Ignore the comprehensive plan. It can still be part of the calculus when.

When make your recommendation to the planning commission. Okay. But I believe even if this is repealed, the staff will still going to be looking in the comp plans and taking this into consideration. Am I understand to my understanding this correctly? Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Madam. You still have your tap shoes on.

You. I think there was a comment that you basically solicited this did. But I saw you kind of shaking your head like you didn't seek out an assembly member to change this specifically like it was, if you want to tap your way through that. So through the mayor, I don't remember the specifics of how it went down. What I can say is that it was a result of a manager's report where myself and Emerson Krueger gave a staff report on gravel borough owned gravel pits.

And then assemblymember Sumner brought up this issue that we have of specifically lack of gravel within the knickknack Fairview area. And so that is. That's why I brought it. And then just, you know, with the. With the stipulation that's in there now, I kind of feel like we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

You know, that these comprehensive plans kind of express, yes, somewhat conflicting, but it's community saying, yeah, I want safe neighborhoods and I want economic development. Like that's what we want. We want to do it right and we want to balance it. I guess if you take that out of the considerations, I don't know how you bring that back in, because what we hear all the time is dismissal of the comprehensive plans, that they are not anything that you can take to the bank and the assembly needs to enact code. And so, you know, you can't consider it.

So I guess the like, if you take. I don't know how you on the one hand say we got to take it out because it's not a guiding document, and then say it'll still be a guiding document.

Is there. I don't know if there's a question there.

I mean, I will say our competence plans are aging, and I did present to the assembly not very long ago saying that they're old and they're getting older. And we have a couple of requests for updates to the conference of plans, and the decision was made to not fulfill those requests.

Okay, person gamble. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, Alex, I. I just want to be clear here. The comp plans do not prohibit gravel pits, is that correct?

They do guide in location, size and things like that, but they don't prohibit. So there is one comp plan that I know of that prohibits gravel pits because of this. This language that's in here can not. If you read their comprehensive plan, it says gravel pits are only allowed in industrial areas. And by the way, we have tiny.

Two tiny lots that are industrial area. Well, tiny, but two lots are industrial areas. And so there is a de facto prohibition because of the language that's in the comprehensive plan and the language that's in our gravel code right now that's up for discussion. Okay, so once again, though, we can fix that by just modifying the language and the comp plans and not by totally removing it from the comp plan, that is. The other option is to update the comprehensive plans.

That's one of the other options. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you,.

Person. McKee. So in to get a comprehensive plan amended, does that mean you call these folks? It's like amending the constitution. I'm supposing you get the original players back in there and they say, okay, we want to do this or this.

Yeah. No. Who does that through the mayor. So amending a comprehensive plan is done by the assembly. You could do it without even letting the community.

Well, you'd have to let them know by advertising the agenda. But it is strictly up to the assembly to modify comprehensive plans. Now, normally it's a quite extensive process where a planner gets assigned, they go out to the community, they form a working group, they talk about their values and what they want to see. And it takes a year or two. Honestly, it takes quite a bit of time and effort usually to develop or update a comprehensive plan.

And it eventually goes through the community council to the planning commission and is ultimately adopted by the assembly. And I'm not being facetious, that sounds like a good process. However, if having done all that, that's going to take a year and everything. And then it comes to the assembly and we say we don't care or we don't hear, you know, the pen is mightier than the sword. And if you just changed it by saying that, the comprehensive plan would be considered.

And if you put that word in there, I don't know if the people would be happy with that. But if you put that word in there that says we're going to look at this, and then you put that with your record of like, you know, you're like 11 for 12, maybe that's an okay thing. So you're not. All you're doing is just doing what you're doing. If you put that kind of language as saying considered, that's really obviously what you're already doing.

So I. Well,.

What. Can you. Let me ask him a question. I believe we're still on the staff report. That's what I'm talking about.

I'm talking to staff.

Sounds like staff report to me. So I just. I guess I'm not up for re election and I wouldn't care if I was. I just think that this is inflammatory on its face. And Alex, I love you, but I.

Think. If nobody'd ever Said anything and nothing would ever change. It's like, geez, Louise, that's poking the bear.

I do have a question for Alex.

So the comprehensive planning question that makes the de facto ban on gravel pits connect Fairview. Do you know when that was drafted? 1993. Do you know when the initial use permit for gravel extraction was drafted? 2005.

So in your opinion, do you think the people that wrote the 1993 comprehensive plan knew that they were creating a de facto ban on all gravel pits in their area? Likely not.

A couple things. One, I'm a concrete contractor. I buy my concrete from valley block. I do not make my own concrete. So gravel is a product, part of the recipe for concrete, but that's on valley block.

The other thing is, are you sure we're not gutting the comprehensive plan by doing this? Because that is the main thing. I couldn't. I couldn't vote for this if we're getting the comprehensive plan. But,.

Yes, I am sure. Thank you,.

Assembly persons. Now go ahead. But we have permitted gravel pits on. In Kinnick Fairview. So.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. I actually.

So these numbers that we looked up that were six grandfather rights was done in a bit of a hurry. I can recall one gravel pit that was permitted in Knick Fairview. I think it was in Knick Fairview. It was definitely well down KGB Road that we went through an extensive permitting process with them and eventually got it approved. But I think that at the time, we were not.

I don't know if we didn't do as thorough a review of the comprehensive plan as we would nowadays. I'm not sure how it got approved, but it did. And perhaps it was deep enough down KGB Road that it was not in the Knick Fairview area. I'm not sure because there looks like on the graphic that was provided four years ago from the borough that there's two pits by North Shore Drive, one on the water side of Kennett, Goose Bay Road, and one basically across from it.

Yeah, I don't know if those are. Does that map include grandfather pits? I don't know. That's. Are we done with questions?

Are we past the staff report or. I have an amendment I'd like to make. If there's no other, make your amendment now. Yeah, thank you. Had a couple of amendments because there.

Since we're getting into the gravel code, there's a couple things that have come up, and I'd like to move to amend Ordinance 26021 by adding language to subsection F of MSB 17.3 0.025 nonconforming uses as follows. Amendment of subsection MSB 17.3025 F is amended as follows. Non conforming status shall expire if material extraction or earth material processing activity ceases for longer than five years. For the purposes of this subsection, ceases means the extraction or processing of less than 2,000 cubic yards of earth material during a calendar year. And I'll just speak briefly to this one.

So the thing I hear most about is reclamation. This is a picture of the Palmer area. So these pits have been promised to be houses, trails, marinas, a high end equestrian subdivision. And so far we've been left with 100 acres that is undevelopable, that is worth $284,000 and is being used as a lay down yard. It was originally sold to a company that was going to put construction debris in asbestos dump on it.

And if you just view the visual image, you'll see it's just a moonscape. Some of these areas are done graveling, but they're not getting reclaimed. And what this does is just address what is a loophole right now that you can stop extracting gravel but say that you're I'm taking a bucket out, I'm still doing it. So it just sets a floor to say, hey, cease activity means 2,000 cubic yards or less, not one bucket full of gravel every two years. Assembly Person Sumner.

Ms. Naus, I'm, I'm frankly shocked that someone that says that they are so such an advocate for the public process and notification and comments from the public could make an amendment like this that has almost nothing to do with the original ordinance. I think you should pull this amendment and do the proper thing and create a new ordinance and refer to the planning commission to get their opinion, get public comments from the industry and the community at large. This is embarrassing. In my mind.

I don't support the amendment because once you grandfather rights into somebody that's there's some things you ought to be able to count on and grandfather writes is one of them and you shouldn't have to worry about, well do I need it this year, five years from now, do I need it today? Maybe I'll go out, take a couple thousand yards out of there because I got to preserve my grandfather rights, that's more uncertainty and I can't support that there's a reason for grandfather rights.

Deputy Mayor, did you have your light on earlier? No. You didn't? Okay, assembly person, now we're just to. Clarify what this does is clarify when somebody's done with their pit and so that it gets reclaimed, because otherwise you could just indefinitely keep the pit unreclaimed and say that you're still graveling when you're not doing very much.

And I appreciate the comments from Assemblymember Sumner. And depending on what happens tonight and with this, I could certainly bring it back and put it out for additional comment. But I think this is a pretty simple measure and it sets a pretty low bar for continued processing. So I'd still like to move forward with it. Further discussion on the amendment.

Assembly person, phone up. So we kind of saying that, oh, grandfather, we're not bugging those previously, but now we're gonna take that away because somebody had maybe a not very productive year of less than 2,000 cubic yards. The reality is some of the pits don't. They have a. Like a year that there's a high demand if there's a road built by or something like that.

And other years they're just, you know, there's no big customer, you know, they might have sold. But to meet that threshold, I mean, you're almost forcing maybe those same grout pits to lie that they've extracted 2,000 cubic yards just to stay at. So I think there was something honorable and grandfather rights. And I think when the new thing that was the grout ordinance came, I think there was assurance made to the existing grout pits that grandfather meant grandfather. Whether it's setback, any other things, there is something I believe special about that.

And there's no way I can go back and drag the rug underneath those. People somebody for some bowls. Did you have your. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was just going to say I agree with Simon Sumner.

This has nothing to do with comprehensive plans. And I think that this is probably better at a different assembly meeting as. As its own ordinance.

So I believe there's probably an objection assembling personnel. I can just clarify briefly. So this is not just one year. This is five years. And as far as comprehensive plans, this is about gravel permitting.

And so this is in the what. How we permit gravel pits. So I think it's contained in what we're. We're looking at. I think there's objection to the amendment.

Madam Clerk. I can get the members in the room to vote on the amendment.

Madam Mayor, it failed. Of the assembly member nowers in support. Okay, so now we're back to the assembly person hours. I have one more amendment I'd like to put forward. I move to amend Ordinance 26021 by adding language to repeal subsection section C and D of MSB 17.3 0.020, section C and D are hereby repealed in their entirety.

And what this does is right now there's a exception for large gravel pits that are either being cleared because it's an accessory use, like somebody wants to put in a commercial development, or if they say that they're not selling the gravel and there's some really large pits that have been done where people are clearing a lot of gravel, it's having the same impact on the neighborhoods in terms of noise and dust and traffic, but they're not having to go through any permitting process. So this just closes a loophole that treated large gravel pits differently even though the impacts are the same for surrounding property owners. Assembly person Sumner, you can rinse and. Repeat my comments from the previous amendment because they are also again applicable. I'd like to also add that I think that this is a really insidious amendment that hasn't been well thought out because there are a lot of instances where people move a lot of gravel because of a development and they don't need to have the expense and the dampening, economic dampening effect of going through a very expensive permit process.

We just heard of a $300,000 permit process. I've heard of minimum 50, $60,000 just to create a small development. I think what would happen, the unintended consequences if you were to pass this is that a lot of people that probably should be getting the gravel permit per code would not be doing it. So you would have scoff laws and you'd be rewarding scoff laws. And then some of the people that would try to obey the letter of the code would be saddled with a egregious additional costs and it would have a dampening effect on development in the Matsu Borough.

So once again, it hasn't been properly noticed. It may be legal to make this amendment, but I do not think that this is in the interest of a public input. Assembly person. Follow. Oh, you want to go this way?

Okay. Deputy Mayor, I cannot vote for this at right this point. I encourage you to write an ordinance, take, send it to planning and go through the steps. And I'm all for reclamation. Look at the ranch.

We get thousands of dollars of tax from the ranch and all the properties. And the, you know, people have actually made their dream come true, you know, new homes and stuff like that. And that's the way it should work. So. But I think you should take it, take it through the steps okay.

Did you still want to talk? Yeah, I guess. Kind of guy in the echo. I was gonna pretty much get the staff report opinion slash for this, but I think I also say proper, not proper time doesn't address what we're on our main motion, so therefore I can't support it. Okay.

Deputy Mayor, can you move to extend the meeting?

I move to extend the meeting till 11 o'. Clock. Is there objection from the assembly? Okay. If not, okay.

Assembly person hours. Just to respond, I think I know which way this is going, but when it comes to people being scoff laws, one of the problems with this loophole right now is somebody can do a really big gravel pit and just say, I'm not selling it. I'm just. I'm giving it away. And there's no way for the borough to basically know if they're not doing that unless they tried to sell it to the borough.

So this kind of closes a loophole that. That people could exploit. Deputy? Yeah. Subject person McKee.

Yeah. On what Dimitri said, I think maybe there's room for that somewhere else, but I don't think that's the issue tonight. And so I wouldn't vote for that tonight, but I'd sure like to talk about it later. But what we got right now is almost urgent. Given the number of people that showed up tonight.

I think we should concentrate on that. We said a lot, but maybe there's more to say. Okay, so I guess we have an objection. So I can get the members in the room to go ahead and vote.

Summary. Member Bernier.

Madam Mayor, Bill to the Assembly. Member now is in support. Okay, so we're back to the main motion. Any further amendments? Assembly Person McKee, you have your light on?

I do, and it's not. It's. Again, that's not a continuation of the other thing. So many times people say, you are not listening. There's been some really eloquent testimony out there, and I can't see how we can bring forth something in good faith that nobody wants.

There are certain things that you have to do for the common good. I'm not sure that meets that standard, that this ordinance, this thing meets that standard. So it just seems to me that if we say, elect us so that we can represent you and then we say, no, I don't think so. We're. We.

We're not listening to the people. They're saying, no, hell no, we don't want it. So I don't know how we can say, yeah, but you're going to get it.

Assembly Person Sumner. Ms. McKee, we've. We've listened to dozens of people and dozens of letters written to us. We have not heard from 118,000 other residents. We haven't heard.

We heard from one. He's right there.

I. I would argue that most gravel pits, in their best interest would, you know, now that they have a gravel pit, would not want other gravel pits around because that would be competition. Assembly Person F. I think, Ms. McKee, you answered that question. There was a lot of misinformation and I think Ron Bernier, Mr. Ber asked a lot of questions specifically. Nobody's taking away comprehensive plans.

They're still in place. They're still going to be considered and they will be. I know that, but I think once you clean up the language, it's just, you know, it's something that we must do, whether we support it or not. So I think we heard from the legal department, from the planning department, a lot of good questions have been asked. I really think there's no more reason with all the other things we got going on tonight.

So I'd call it a question for this one.

Question. Okay. And I hear moans down here, so I guess there is some objection. So if you'll please proceed to vote.

Question.

Yes, cuts off the public input. Madam Merit filled with assembly member FO and bulls and support.

All right, assembly person Bowles. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So all, all I was going to say is I can't speak for anybody else but myself. I spent the last two weeks driving around on quite a few of these ordinances, the various tax ordinances. This one, I've made phone calls, I've spoken with contractors.

So there are people that want this. I know people showed up here tonight, and I understand the people that showed up tonight overwhelmingly are opposed to this, but there are people that want this. So to say that everybody here is against it. Sure, the 40 or 50 people here might be against it. Actually, I think it was only about 20.

But there are a lot of people in the borough that want this. And in my mind, what the borough attorney stated is more important that we clean up and ensure that we have code that is lawful. Because right now it's technically not lawful. And there's definitely language in our code that protects residents, protects property rights. I mean, I'm looking at it right now.

The permitting process is still there. It still goes to the planning commission for approval. So all of that still exists. All this does is clean up this kind of odd back door zoning law that was, that was created. So I'm Absolutely in support of this.

I'm not in support of every neighbor of mine having a gravel pit. That's not what I'm supporting. What I'm supporting is this cleanup effort to ensure that our code is lawful. Okay, I'm already.

Yeah. Okay, you. Then back to you. And then back to you. Okay.

Ping pong. Ping pong.

Yeah. I mean, this odd back door thing has been there for 20 years and not caused a problem. When you're approving 90 plus of the permits and just you, you, you know, the. We have some great gravel pit owners in the valley. One of them is here.

And. But gravel pits have impacts. And your fist stops at my nose. You know, you, the people here, I think what they're saying is your home is your biggest investment and you pay property taxes. And if somebody's going to come along and do something that has impacts on your use and value of your home, you want a seat at the table.

And it seems like even giving you maybe more seat at the table than you should has worked out pretty well. So this is one of the cases where you're not totally wrong, but you're not right. Like, people want to be heard. And when you have. I guess when I looked at this and I said, okay, is there a problem permitting gravel?

If I would be jumping up and down if we had a problem permitting gravel pits, and if the problem's in the Knick Fairview area, let's get that solved. Not touch the rest of the burrow.

I just. I come back again to what people have been saying tonight and telling them that we are listening to keep saying, like, well, there's other people. They didn't show up, but there's other people. These people showed up and they emailed. And I don't know why we put so much books.

I can't support taking something out when I like, why, what for? When we're approving 90% of our gravel pits, like, let's fix the underlying problem and not erode public input even more. And it just comes as it's come after years of trying to erode that public seat. So it speaks more than just the. The details of this.

It does send a message, I think, and it sends the wrong message to the public, and it doesn't solve a problem, that there doesn't appear to be a problem. So I. I really can't support this. I really urge my fellow assembly members, I think this has stirred up more than you wanted to, and I really urge you to send a message to the public that we are listening and come back with something that solves the problem that you're talking about in Kinnick,. Fairview assembly person Gamble. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Yeah, and I mean, we could do a win win here tonight. We could, you know, modify the language in the comp plan so that it's not stricken from the comp plan. The community councils or the community in general, you know, gets a say it's still in there. And we can modify how it's applied so that it's not statute, that's not a law or regulation. I think we could do a win win here for, for everybody.

And I would like to say that I know this affects the entire borough, but it's targeted at my district. I really wish I would have been a little bit more involved in this ordinance. And if you drive down kgb, I mean, it is growing so fast right now to the south that any new gravel pits that you develop out there are going to be next to a neighborhood quickly. And then after that, you, you build a gravel pit, then the shaker plants come, and then the rock crushing plant comes, and then the asphalt plant comes, and you just have another eyesore and a loud nightmare out there. So I wish we could just modify the language in the, in the comp plans so it fixes the problem for everybody instead of just taking the language out.

And the other side effect that you get from this, when you, you slap people down enough, you know, after they spend years and years working on these type of plans, and it goes for the boards and the community councils and all of them, you get people that just throw up their hands and they don't even want to participate anymore. They don't want to be involved because, you know, they spent years and, and hours and hours and hours doing this. And then, you know, they get slapped down. So that's what I got to say on it. Somebody person.

McKee. Yeah. So when Alex was talking to us about amending the comprehensive plan and he said it take like up to a year, that's. That's kicking the can down the road as far as I'm concerned. How.

How come we. Why can't we just say we'll be considered? Wouldn't that, do you think? I don't know if that would. I can't talk to the audience.

But if we just said the comprehensive plan will be considered, it says, okay, we're taking a look at it and we're doing all this other stuff as well that would, I think, mollify me. I'd still be watching you closely. But at least it would say your work has not been in vain. Your voices have been heard. We're making a change because it.

Because it's really, you know what not going to affect it anyway if we have that success rate of all but one. And I live on you Fairview Loop. I don't hear from anybody out there. So I don't think anybody's upset about that. About that.

There aren't a lot of gravel pits out there. So it's just one word considered.

Maybe I'm making an amendment. Yeah, let's do that. Can we do that? Okay. So the amendment would read that I would like to amend this resolution ordinance, whatever the heck it is.

I. I understand your intent and I can. I can phrase it for you if you would like. Maybe you can do that. Simply for simple. Okay, Ms. Mickey, I was getting ready to phrase.

If she. She can. I want to answer that please before I. I do think Ms. Mickey, the Alex did answer that question. An example kind of as we had the discussion. We said junkyards, right?

No, this was a good example. Require one of the requirements is not there. But they still. The planning department still reviews comprehensive plans and considers. So I think by doing this the comprehensive plans will be considered.

And that was clearly example. And there's all the other businesses that are gravel pits are the only ones that are the requirement where I think we're cleaning up the loophole. So we're not don't have state conflicting laws. So I. I think they're still going to be considered. So you for you for it or again.

I think the way we'll repeal it. They will be considered based on how you said the junkyards or different kind of businesses. Even though it does not require it. They always review those comprehensive plans as is. So this.

This is. But it will be considered in their decision making even if we pass as is without any amendment. You got a deputy mayor. I'm in favor of an amendment using Alex's language because he got us in this mess.

So what's your language, Alex?

I believe you need to ask the mayor. Yeah, we need some wording there, Alex.

Madam Mayor, may we have some staff come up to assist?

Madam Mayor,. Do I have your permission to ask him that question.

Now? Go ahead, sir. Okay. Give us some words, please.

Yeah, I'm looking at here. I'm just trying to figure out. Trying to wordsmith here on the floor here.

So leading up to this standard is in granting an administrative permit or a conditional use permit, the director or commission must make the following findings And I think this language can be modified to say.

Mayor, maybe we can take a. Yeah, we might. If I can jump in, maybe we can take a little five minute break. I can get with Alex. We can eventually recommend that. Yeah, take a.

Okay, let's have a five minute recess. I know.

I can have the assembly come back to order, please. Everybody ran to the restroom. Yeah.

Where in the world. I thought you were walking down the hallway.

Okay. Okay. All righty, assembly person. Sumner, go ahead. Madam Mayor, I move to insert a new Section 3 to read Section 3, Adoption of Section B.

When making the determination under a 2, the Director or commission shall give due consideration to the applicable comprehensive plan. Okay. And I understand we have an explainer. Yeah. We could get up.

Would you come, please?

We are all ears. Go ahead, sir.

Go ahead. Yeah, you need to see the wording or you got it in your head? Sure. So the wording was just read out loud. You're.

I mean, what this does, is it. I wish I had done this in the first place instead of just done an outright repeal of that. That section of code forces the planning commission to review the comprehensive plan, knowing that there's potentially conflicting provisions. Comp plans also get very old and stale if you have a 30 or 40 year old comprehensive plan. Things have probably changed since it was written, so they at least need to consider it, but it doesn't make it a regulatory document that they have to comply with all the things in there.

So I think it's a good compromise. Okay. Discussion on the amendment is there. Assembly person hours. Yeah, I'm just.

I'm trying to think how this will work in practice because. So now you say consider the comprehensive plan. Okay. So. And then you have.

The other thing they have to look at is the useful. Preserve the value, spirit, character and integrity of the surrounding area and, you know, some other stipulations. So. How do you see that working at the planning commission level when you change this? Yeah, so when the staff receives an application, they.

The first thing they're doing is they're helping the applicant navigate a sea of regulations and asking for additional information, going back and forth and making sure that they have a complete package they can submit to the planning commission. At that point they sort of switch hats and they become a fact finder. And they will go to the area, they'll send out notifications, they'll hear from people, they'll look at maps, they'll go on a fact finding quest, they'll look at the comprehensive plan, for instance. That'll be one of their stops along the way in making the findings and findings of fact and conclusions of law in the staff report that they present to the planning commission with a recommendation, they will need to incorporate their findings that they find that they have gathered from review of the comprehensive plan. And so it will.

It will be one fact or maybe a couple facts based on the language in there in a suite of facts that they use to come up with their conclusions of law.

So I want to get this right, because one thing is when we redid the rules for grandfathering pits, we allowed this situation to happen, which is a bunch of gravel pits in the water table and leaving land not reclaimed and basically valueless, and they're grandfathered, and we can't go back in time with those pits. So is there any language to require? Like, when you say it's going to be in the findings? All I hear is that they have to consider. Like right now, they have to make a finding.

Is it consistent? Is it inconsistent? And I think what they've done is said, hey, there's this part that says economic development needs to happen. It's consistent, or neighborhoods need to be good. So it's consistent.

But when you say just they have to consider it, I don't hear that. Is there a wording that could be added to consider and state how it aligns? Or. I don't know, I'm just like, consider just seems a little bit light to me and could be interpreted as, like, they never even reference the comp. The comprehensive plan when they make their findings.

Like, it doesn't seem to require. Is there some wording that we could add to just make it clear we want them to consider it and state how it does or does not. So I think in practice, if the planning commission were to adjudicate a conditional use permit for gravel and this language is in there, and nowhere in the staff report or the resolution that they adopted is there mention of the comprehensive plan. That would actually be pretty good grounds for appeal. If there is no discussion and there is no findings.

There is nothing like that within the body of evidence that they're evaluating, that very well could be subject for grounds of appeal and could be remanded or overturned. Get the attorney to maybe weigh in. Sorry. I think what you're asking is you're trying to make it a concrete standard. And the whole point of this discussion tonight is, is that it cannot be a concrete standard.

So this is the best way to get the planning commission to consider it without mandating that it be a concrete standard. I'm not Asking to be a concrete standard. I'm asking that it's concrete that they have to, in their findings, state something about the comprehensive plan. Yeah, I mean, if Alex says they're going to prepare all the staff reports and the draft findings and conclusions to include it, then they will. Because if it's at the staff report, that's part of the record and it's going to be presented before them and they will be considering it.

And if I may. So when our planners write up their staff report, it's this big, long document that's kind of hard to read because it's sometimes repetitive. But we make findings and conclusions for every standard in borough code. So we'll go through every single standard and we will make findings and conclusion based on that. Since this is written into code, we will be compelled to address it, and it will go in the staff report and in the draft resolution we present to the planning commission.

Okay, I appreciate that. I think I'm still going to have trouble supporting this because I feel like the only problem is Knick Fairview and there's no other problem. So let's solve the Kinnick Fairview one. But I think we were getting closer, but I just cannot support this.

Person. Assembly. Oh, I was just going to comment that it may have been unintentional that you didn't draft it this way, but you did get the assembly thinking about updating the comprehensive plans. So kudos to you on that one.

Assembly Persona. When I was Ms. Naurus was walking by, I said, make let's vote together one time. And I think we'd vote for different reasons, but I'll support you on this. I'll vote against it because I think it doesn't change our outcome of how we're going to vote on the other things. But for this time, I'll support you.

I'll vote against this. Deputy Mayor, I was going to support this just because it doesn't gut the comprehensive plan. And I'm just very blessed that Alex didn't ask me to sponsor this. Thank you.

Okay, so is there anybody. Oh, some balls. Thank you, madam. I just like to ask the sponsor if what his opinion of this amendment is. If you're okay with that, Go ahead, sir.

I think it achieves my outcomes and it still respects the efforts put in by the community councils for the comprehensive plans, which I think are very valuable documents. I just think that, you know, it's problematic taking a policy document that has conflicting things and kind of nebulous goals and saying that this is a. This is A regulatory document. And, you know, when I first had the conversation with. I mean, the timeline of this is when Alex and I first had a conversation about this.

It didn't really. We didn't move it right away, you know, and I had to think about it a lot longer, and I was like, yeah, that is problematic. Like, that is kind of a big issue to take something that is really unclear. You know what. You know, when you.

When you apply for a permit, you need definitive standards. And, you know, referencing a document that is not definitive in any way is. Is kind of problematic. So I think this is a good outcome, and maybe, hopefully everyone won't be mad at us. Okay, assembly person Campbell.

Yeah, just real quick, and I think, Alex, correct me if I'm wrong, but when you go back to modify the comp plans, you don't have to do the whole thing. You can just do it section. If there's a problem section in a comp plan, you can go to that community and say, hey, we need to clean up this language. It's. It's conflicting or whatever, and just deal with that section and then bring it back to the assembly.

And we wouldn't be going through what. What we're going through here tonight. Okay. Is there objection to the amendment? Oh, you have objection?

Okay, I can get the members in the room to vote for the Amendment.

Assembly Member McKee, Madam Mayor. It passed with Assemblymember Fanoff, and now we're opposed. Please don't delete that.

Madam Clerk, can you put the results back on the screen?

Okay. Similar personnel. I just want to say something about comprehensive plans, because I hear nebulous and conflicting. I don't think they actually are. They are the.

The vision the community has for their area. And it's like, we want good life. It's like we want to be the best place to live, work, and play. And it's kind of like a contractor. Like, I want the lowest price but the highest quality.

It's not conflicting. It's like, it's. You have to try to find the balance to get there. And I think with gravel pits, we're trying to find. We don't have zoning, so this cup process is a way to find a balance between the property rights of the gravel pit owner and the surrounding home who are affected by it.

And this is our only way for those people to come together. And, you know, we don't stop the pits. We put a berm in. We water down the road so it's not dusty. So, you know, this is the.

I think it's I just want to be on record that I think these comprehensive plans unfair to say that they are not a document that you can look at for the community's vision. So. But I think we're ready to vote, so. I know I am. Okay.

Anybody have objection to passing or 26021 as amended? Okay, we do have an objection. Can I get the members to vote please?

Assemblymember Bernier.

Madam Mayor. It passed with assembly member now is opposed. Okay. All righty.

Ordinance26.0. Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. Go ahead. Ordinance 26054 and ordinance extending completion date for the steam thaw truck project funding to June 30, 2028 with accompanying resolution 2644 resolution amending the budget for the Thaw Truck Cold Pl Planer pickup truck purchase and improving the scope of work and budget for the road and pathway sustainment project.

You're on the phone and would like to speak to this press star three. Okay, I'm going to open the public hearing on ordinance 26054 and resolution 26 044. Do we don't have a sign up sheet anyone would like to to testify on this ordinance or resolution?

We have nobody online. Okay. I will close the public hearing and Deputy Mayor.

I move to adopt Ordinance 26054 and the Resolution RS 26 044. Okay. Discussion. Anybody any objection? See no objection.

The legislation passes. Ordinance 26055 an ordinance accepting and appropriating 37,700 received from surplus sale of road service area equipment for the road and pathway sustainment project with the company. Resolution 26045 A resolution amending the budget for the road and pathway sustainment project. If you're on the phone and would like to speak to this press Star. Three okay, I'm going to open the public hearing.

We do not have a signup sheet. Anyone like would like to testify on this ordinance 2655 or resolution 26045 seeing and hearing no one doing. Nobody online. I'm going to close the public hearing. Deputy Mayor I move to adopt Ordinance 26055 and Res.

Resolution 26 045. Discussion by the Assembly.

Is there any objection? Seeing and hearing no objection the legislation. Passes Ordinance 26057 and Ordinance accepting and appropriating 75,000 from the Alaska State Department of Transportation and public facilities for West Suitna Parkway improvements with the company. Resolution 26046 A resolution improving the scope of work and budget for West Suitna Parkway improvements. If you're on the phone.

Would like to speak to this press. Star 3 okay, I'm going to open. The public hearing on Ordinance 26057 and Resolution 26 046.

Anyone on the line? Okay, close the public hearing. Deputy Mayor I move to adopt Ordinance 26057 and Resolution 26 046. Any discussion by the Assembly? Assembly person Gamble, go ahead.

Yeah, this is in my district, by the way. It's just the end of Wesley sitting at Parkway that is going to end at the railroad bed where the West Sudna Access that the state plans on building is going to join there. It's my understanding that the work has already been done and this is just the state reimbursing the RSA for the money that's already been expended and that everybody is really happy according to the RSA board member, with the work that's been done out there already. Thank you. Okay, any objection to the adoption seen in here?

You know, do we have anybody in line? No. Okay, so Ordinance 26057 and Resolution 26046 does not have any objection. So it will become legislative pass legislation. Ordinance 2660, an ordinance accepting and appropriating $523.73 from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and $583.74 from the Alaska State Department.

Department of Fish and Game pass through this Palmer Soil and Water Conservation District for a total of $1,107.47 with the company. Resolution 2647, a resolution approving the scope of work and budget and authorizing the manager to enter an agreement for the Caswell Creek Caswell Lake Stream Bank Rehabilitation Project. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing. We do not have a sign up sheet. Anybody that would like to address the assembly on ordinance 26060 and resolution 26 047?

See no one do we have. We do not have anybody online. I go ahead and close the public hearing. Deputy Mayor I move to adopt Ordinance 260660 and Resolution 26047 discussion by the Assembly.

Any objection by the Assembly. Okay, seeing and hearing none. Then the ordinance and the resolution pass. Ordinance 26061, an ordinance increasing the marijuana sales tax levy from 5% to 10% and submit the question to the qualified area wide voters at the November 3, 2026 regular borough election. If you're on the phone and would like to speak to this press.

Star 3 okay, I will open the. Public hearing and we do Have a sign up sheet. Bailey Stewart? Yeah. Good evening Madam Mayor and assembly members.

For the record, my name is Bailey Stewart. To give you an idea of my qualifications to speak to the effects of this ordinance. I am the chairman of the state's Marijuana Control Board. I am an owner and operator of the borough's first recreational license and I've been operating that since 2017. And I am an executive board member of the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association.

But today I speak to you as your constituent. I represent myself, a small business owner in this Great Valley and as a person who collects disease taxes from locals consumers every single day, I am here to oppose ordinance 26 061. This industry is unique in one critical way. We are the only business this assembly is targeting that competes directly against a thriving black and gray market. When Alaskans voted for legalization, they did not intend for a legal market to become untouchable, let alone thrive.

Yet that is exactly what has happened today. We operate under strict regulations to protect public health and safety and keep cannabis out of the hands of miners. However, raising taxes on compliant businesses makes it harder for us to compete with unlicensed sellers who pay nothing. No taxes, no testing, no regulatory cost. Every time we increase a tax burden, we push more consumers toward the unregulated market.

When the borough receives zero revenue and public safety suffers, this not only harms licensed businesses, but undermines the very tax basis policymakers are attempting to strengthen. Last year the state drug task Force seized 319 pounds of marijuana. More than triple the 95 pounds in 2015 during prohibition. The difference in 2015, law enforcement was actively pursuing marijuana related crimes. Last year, these, these seizures, they happened incidentally while investigating other crimes and not one was prosecuted by a da.

Just ask any task force officer or a USPS postal inspector. They will tell you today that they are seeing hundreds of pounds come into the state of Alaska. But there is no DA that will prosecute those crimes. This is, this is the wall we're up against. We are already one of the highest tax cannabis industries in the nation.

Further increasing the tax rate from 5% to 10% will not generate the revenue you hope for. Instead, it will accelerate the shift to the black market and hurt the very businesses trying to support their local communities. I respectfully ask that you oppose this ordinance. Please do not place an additional tax burden on the backs of those responsible local businesses and working Alaskans who are already struggling this economy and ultimately reducing the long term stability of the tax base. Thank you for your time and consideration.

I ask that you Vote this ordinance down. And I want to echo the comments made by my fellow industry members. Thank you, Randy Wells.

Thank you Madam Mayor, assembly members and administration. My name is Randy Wells and I. Made the long trek up today. As a two term former Seward City Council member, I felt it very important. To drive up here today and speak against this proposed tax increase on the legal cannabis market.

Everything that the speaker before me stated, there's no reason for me to drive that into the ground. The fact is that if you increase. Taxes on this particular commodity, all you're going to do is push people back. To the unregulated market because that's where they will be able to afford to purchase the product. By implementing a syntax, you're not doing away with the sin, you're just going to stop generating any tax based revenue from it because people are going to go back to the unregulated market.

And I don't believe that in 2020. When your assembly voted the will of. The people to implement a legal, regulated,. Safe cannabis market, that their goal was for you to tax that market out of existence. So I respectfully ask that you vote down this proposal proposed tax ordinance.

Thank you,.

Sarah Omar.

Thank you for letting me speak again. You're probably sick of me by now, but I just want to give a little breakdown. I kind of spoke earlier on public comment, but I just want to give a little breakdown of what it looked like back in 2020. When we opened in 2020, a pound of cannabis wholesale was approximately $4,000. That's, that's what it costs for us to buy it.

It's taxed at $800 a pound. So then that goes to the state of Alaska. Current market, a really, really good pound is about $2,800 and it's still taxed at $800 a pound. We're currently contending with that with the state of Alaska and our tax rate is, is one of the highest in the nation. So just with that calculation, that's 28% tax that we're already paying.

And that doesn't, that doesn't include the 5% we're paying to the borough right now. And I get the tax reports and. I see what we pay you and. We, I know our store pays top one or two, two out of these shops. We know what we write the check for every quarter.

So we're paying you guys a lot of money as it is. And battling with that straight pound tax that we're battling with the state, it's just going to push people back to the black market. You increase our tax, it's going to put people to the black market, or it's going to send them to Anchorage, it's going to send them to other. Other communities to purchase their cannabis. I want to continue to write you guys that check.

You know, we both make money, but if. If you guys increase this tax, we're gonna. We're gonna suffer. So thanks. Thanks for listening.

Darcy Morgan.

Hello again, my name is Darcy Morgan, and I'm speaking to oppose the cannabis tax. Work closely with small businesses and the cannabis industry in my professional life, and while increasing cannabis taxes may appear to be an easy way to raise revenue, the reality is the excessive taxation often. Has the opposite effect. When legal marijuana becomes too expensive, consumers don't simply stop purchasing it. They look for lower cost alternatives.

Unfortunately, those lower alternatives are frequently found in the illegal market. As previously spoken about, illegal marijuana products are not subject to the rigorous testing and quality control standards required of licensed businesses. Consumers who purchase from illicit sources have no assurance that products are free from pesticides, mold, heavy metals and other contaminants. They cannot be confident that potency is accurately labeled or that products have been manufactured and handled safely. By increasing taxes and making legal products less affordable, we risk steering people away from regulated market and towards products that are less safe and less accountable.

This also has a direct impact on small local cannabis businesses that are trying to operate legally. Many of these are independent operators, not large corporations working within tight margins while complying with excessive regulations, licensing fees, and compliance costs. When taxes increase, these small businesses are hit first and hardest. They don't have the same financial cushion or pricing flexibility. Larger operators, they are far less able to absorb additional costs without raising prices or cutting staffing.

We also have to recognize our economic reality facing consumers in our community. Many people can easily choose to purchase cannabis outside of the city, in Anchorage, or through unlicensed channels if prices are too high. Every customer pushed away from legal businesses represents lost tax revenue, lost support for compliant local operators, and increased activity in an unregulated market. The legal cannabis industry was created to replace the illegal market with a safer, regulated alternative, while supporting legitimate small businesses and local jobs. Raising taxes to the point that legal operators can't compete undermines both of those goals.

If we care about public safety, consumer protection, and sustaining small business growth in our community, we should keep legal cannabis accessible and competitive, not make the illegal market more attractive. Thank you,.

Checkerberger. Is that Eichelberger?

I don't know.

Does anybody know? No. Okay. And then is it Noel or Neil Low yeah,.

As I stated before, I've,. I've lived in the borough my whole life and I run a number of businesses in the Matsu Borough and I, I want to thank the Matsu borough for taking a pro business stance in the last few years and it's, it's been felt around the borough and I think that a lot of the business owners appreciate you guys stance and some of the things that you guys are. Doing to support small business. We want small businesses to thrive in the Matsu Borough. We want them to hire employees, we want them to provide incomes for families.

And I want to thank our AMCO board president for talking about how our industry is overtaxed already. But she didn't mention that we're the highest taxed cannabis industry or second highest tax cannabis industry in the entire United States. And it's not a, it's not anything that we're proud of and it definitely places a burden on small business operators. And while in the alcohol and tobacco space there isn't a black market, you know, you can't buy black market Michelob. There's not somebody on every street corner with a still pumping out wine and homebrew and you know, it's just not a problem in the alcohol and tobacco space.

But we had a thriving black market cannabis industry prior to legalization and the goal of legalization was to move cannabis from that black market, unregulated, unsafe industry and bring it into the light and provide a highly regulated, safe product for consumers to enjoy responsibly. Every one of these businesses has an age gate, the check IDs that makes sure that only responsible adults are consuming from their stores. And we really are going to see, we're already seeing a lot of them going out of business. It happens. It's a conversation at every one of our AMCO board meetings where small operators are going out of business due to the taxation.

And it has a lot to do with the fact, like Bailey said, that the price of cannabis or the tax on cannabis is not a percentage of the sale price. It was fixed at $800 when cannabis was $4,000. There are many instances where you can buy a pound of cannabis now for under $2,000, but the tax is still $800 on that pound of cannabis. So it's approaching 50% of the retail value or the wholesale value of the product. So every.

I know that 5% increase doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're taxing an industry that's already taxed at such a high level you're going to put the smaller operators in jeopardy of having to give up their license. And many growers have already started doing that. There's been a number of them that have just been handing their licenses back in because they can't afford to continue to operate with that tax structure. And the AMCO board is working with the state legislature to try and change it to be a percentage of the value of the product instead of a flat fee. And that will go a long ways towards making sure that our legal cannabis industry survives.

Because it's not, it's not a sure thing today that it's going to survive. I mean, it's talked about a lot at the MCO board meeting that it may not. Thank you for your time. Anyone else that didn't sign up that would like to testify?

Okay, do we have anybody online? We do not have anybody online. Okay, so I'll go ahead and close public hearing. Deputy Mayor, I move to adopt ordinance 26061 and I'd like to speak to it. Yes, go ahead, sir.

So I had two schools in my district close because of one. We could supposedly save two and a half million, three million, supposedly, if they had the appetite for it, I guess. But I had a lot of parents saying, hey, you know, how can we raise money to, to save these schools? And then I had a lot of them saying, well, didn't they legalize marijuana? Was supposed to, you know, save the education industry and all this.

And so I brought this forward and I don't like taxes. We pay way too much in property tax, even with a conservative assembly. We're trying.

And I'd like to just vote this down. Thank you.

Yes. Assembly Person Fona. Mr. Berner, you usually. Don't ask for a lot. And I was going to support the, the sponsor in this case because I think you always have good intentions, even though maybe sometimes people disagree with us.

But people that spoke today, I would say every time we've had this in three years I've been here, they've been always respectful and they come and they argue point like, hey, we're doing, trying to do this the right way. And there's people that are competing with us. And I think Bailey, one of them, my first actually tourists took me on the. Just to see this because I'm. I don't have any connection to the industry, whether consuming or growing it, but I found that there's a lot of hard working people that maybe wouldn't be working some of them if they didn't have that kind of job.

It's like I said, it's not something I consume and I would not. I probably, I didn't vote to make illegal. I'll say that. Okay. But in this case, seeing how they operate and the taxation that they're currently being taxed at state, which is not very fair system, you know, because the.

I think that's. I don't know if there's anything else that's being taxed based on the flat fee, you know, so could it market drive so low that it's taxed more than what it actually cost? I mean, theoretically it could. Right. If there's a lot of illegal operations.

So I don't know if there's any statistics how many people because of this kind of, they went excited in it, but then because the, I guess doing it the old school way was more profitable, went back to that and it kind of took away the whole idea of those people who wanted to do it the right way, you know. So I'll respectfully support you in this decision. But I did want to say thank you for you guys speaking up. You guys been always respectful when you speak in your mail, emails and everything. Because I think you guys trying to earn the money.

Not like I said, not because I support, but because you guys are doing it the right way. So thank you for you guys too, you know, and I not wishing you well or success or anything like that. I'm just saying you guys are doing it the right way, the way the laws were made. So I guess that's all I have to say. Okay, I'd like to extend the meeting till 11:59.

Is there objection to extending the meeting to 11:59?

You object?

Okay, assembly person McKee, go ahead. I appreciate that you are small businesses. I have had a business of my own, but that doesn't touch my heart. But I'll tell you what does touch my heart. You're absolutely right.

And I brief as I can possibly be. One of the most terrifying experiences of my life was when I was. I used to smoke weed. I haven't since this incident. Somebody laced it with pcp.

I cannot tell you. I cannot tell you how terrifying it is to lose your mind. And I would come back in and then I would tell my husband, hold on to me because I don't even know where I'm going. It was the awfulest, awfullest thing that I ever underwent. And if we allow people who are not regulated, I mean, fentanyl, all the stuff that they put in weed, it's so deadly and it's so dangerous.

I haven't touched it since it made a believer out of me. I just think if for nothing else, if you really care about your kids getting. These guys aren't gonna let kids. And my granddaughter tried to come in and store with me. They just wouldn't let her in there.

So people will think. This is kind of funny because I'm not necessarily often a very liberal person. And this is not about being liberal. This is about being health and safety. You guys are the firewall between a lot of awful experiences.

So I urge you, very unlike me in this situation, but if they're gonna do it, make sure it's okay. Assembly person Summer, did you have your hand up? Yeah. Oh, well, I looked down. Even if your initials are here, would you put your hand up or something?

Because I look down and I don't see nothing. So go ahead. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I. I heard the sponsors ask us to vote it down. And I appreciate him being.

Bringing this forward and putting the work into this. I did want to say, I did spend the last two weeks going through District 1 to speak with people in the industry. And a lot of what we heard here is what I heard. I didn't speak with Bailey, but I did speak with owners. I spoke with people that I know that are consumers.

And the thing that I heard the most is that the taxes are pushing people to the black market. And that's concerning for me because of what assembly woman McKee stated.

So other. Other concerns are agree or disagree with this. Our aging population is utilizing marijuana when they can't get pain medication. And so one shop owner in particular said 80% of her clients are elderly and they go there to get pain medication because for whatever reason, they can't get pain medication to assist them. Agree or disagree with that.

This is an industry that is legal in our state. And so I would actually. So if the sponsor said vote it down, I'd actually like to maybe run an amendment if there's appetite, rather than vote it down, maybe amend the percentage down to 3% so that we can get some of this off the black market and we can support the industry and keep some of that industry in the borough versus pushing it to Anchorage. So I would. I would move to amend 5 to 3% if possible.

Okay, so there's amendment on the.

Madam Mayor, can we ask the attorney for some input on this? Yeah, that's a. That's a pretty long and involved amendment. It's going to be way easier to run a standalone ordinance dropping into 3%. I can write that up very quickly and get that for you to amend this on the floor, because raising it, you need voter approval, reducing it, you do not.

And so, because if you, if you wanted to make that amendment, we have to amend more than just that because you have to take off the ballot question. You have to remove a couple sections of the ordinance, you have to remove the contingency on the effective date. So that's a much bigger amendment than simply changing the number to three.

So is there appetite? No. Okay, then I pull my amendment. Okay. Okay.

Assembly person,.

Read my lips. No new taxes.

I'm talking about the. You pulled your amendment. So I'm talking about the original motion. But I, I did come in here, but most people are not opposed to sin taxes and they are post property taxes. I entered this meeting tonight ready to support this, put it on the ballot.

But I found you guys testimony, professional, succinct, compelling. There were some strong arguments that I had not considered for why this particular syntax should, should not increase. So thank you for coming out. And the assembly does listen to people when they speak contrary to some people opinion. Assembly Person McKee, you have your light on.

Just a footnote. I'm assuming that right now the tax is 5%, is that correct? And nobody's screaming about that. So given, given, if you care about your babies and I taught middle school for 26 years, it's out there in the sixth grade. And if you don't know what they're getting, oh, dear God, you can't do that.

You got to get it from somebody who or somebody's looking at the product. And I'm with you, Ron. I just think, you know, syntax is a really easy way to make money and wish we could do this, but I don't think in the interest of our kids and just anybody else who's consuming, that's their choice and it's legal. But don't kill them for doing it. Because if it's not regular, if it's not regulated, you don't know what you're getting.

Okay, assembly person Gamble. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah. A couple years ago I read an article about Oregon, and Oregon was one of the early adopters of legalized marijuana. And within, I can't remember, it was like eight to 10 years, over 50% of the legalized marijuana businesses went out of business because Oregon didn't see a tax that they didn't want to increase.

And so they basically ran over half of the businesses out, which goes to what Assemblymember Fauna was talking about creating jobs. People you know can find employment in these businesses and I think that we need to support them and I may have an appetite to do what you want in the future. Thank you for the discussion.

Yes. Assembly person panel. During an emotional time it's easy to say like hey you know, let's do this and you know let's. But even looking at the industry I guess leaders over there they're like no bueno when it comes to lowering I think the percentage there is a set correctly. It's I, I wish less illegal market takes place and so that you guys have more sales in a way so that we get more revenue.

But I think that state has to do their job to make those adjustments. So no, I, I, I think that's good as it is. Like I said I thought regardless this was going to go in front of the ballot. We were not going to be able to change that and I would have supported sponsor either way but this way I, that's all I have to say. Further discussion.

We have, we do have objection. Okay. And get the members in the room to vote.

Failed unanimously. Madam Mayor, Ordinance 26022 Ordinance 26062 Ordinance levying and tax up to 10% on the sale of alcohol beverages and to submit the question to the qualified area wide voters at the November 3rd, 2026 regular Bureau election. If you're on the phone and would like to speak to this press star. Three okay, I'm going to open up the public hearing on ordinance 26 062. I do have a sign up sheet here.

First person is Frank Bel.

Good evening Madam Mayor, Assembly My name is Frank Bell. I am the owner of Palmer Brewing Company. Palmer Brewing is a small family run brewery and like many small breweries in Alaska, we operate under what the state calls a brewery retail license. As a result, unlike a bar or restaurant, we are required to adhere to a significant amount of state restrictions specifically designed to, and I quote the state limit the competitiveness of brewery retail stories spaces. Some examples include 36 ounce poor limits.

Restrictions on live music, televisions, pool, darts, karaoke trivia or organized games of any kind, even board games are technically illegal in our establishment. We are also restricted from offering specials, discounts, happy hours or even having seats at the bar. We're also required to close our doors by 9pm Outside of small craft producers of beer, wine and spirits that operate under a retail license, no other type of business that sells alcoholic beverages in Alaska is required to abide by these restrictions. The restrictions placed on small breweries in Alaska are very unpopular with Alaska citizens and are by far the most extreme out of any state in the nation. Unfortunately, on top of state restrictions that significantly hinder our ability to sell our products, we're also hampered by extremely high costs.

Tariffs on aluminum, Canadian grain and more have raised costs dramatically. Freight forwarding from the lower 48 has nearly doubled in just a few years and current fuel surcharges for said freight are up by over 50% in the last three months. We also already pay federal excise tax, state excise tax and are subject to the city of Palmer's 4% sales tax. What all of this results in is small craft breweries being forced to charge a premium for our products. I remind you in this instance that we are not only competing with the above mentioned Alaska businesses in the industry that are not saddled with similar restrictions, but we also compete with global multibillion dollar organizations that can package and market their products at a significantly lower cost at retail stores.

As a result, many would be consumers are already priced out of selecting high quality locally made craft beer. Five breweries closed last year alone in the state of Alaska. If the proposed area wide sales tax, as well as this alcohol excise tax is implemented, it will raise the sales tax charges for our customers from 4% to over 20%. I'll repeat that 4% to over 20% if both of those pass. With the assortment of headwinds we are already facing, this is the last thing we need.

If you must move forward with an alcohol sales tax, which I hope you do not, I would respectfully urge you to add an exemption. Whether that's an amendment or a different way to this tax. For breweries, wineries and distilleries that operate under a retail license. We make up a very small portion of the would be tax base for this ordinance. As there are only a handful of us in the Matsu borough and the playing field is already tilted with wildly against us.

Please don't tilt it even more by increasing the cost to our customers by 16% or more in one fell swoop. And do I have time left to say it? I do. I yield the remainder of my time. Thank you.

Okay, let's see. West Art.

Hello everyone. I'm Wes Arts, owner of the Palmer Bar. Just let you know small businesses right now, especially bars and restaurants, most of us are operating a very very low profit margin. 5 To 15% on average. We've been hit with inflation, cost of goods, everything.

I try to carry Frank's beer on. Tap to support them. I try to carry Bleeding Hearts products to Support them. But we're struggling too. There's been a lot of restaurants and bars that have had to close down in the last couple of years.

10% Is a business killer. Okay. We've had to deal with our insurance going up over 300% in the state in the last couple years, the last four years. So this is all the Palmer Bar used to be the bar that was open until 5:00 in the morning. The younger people don't drink.

We don't see the numbers that they used to see. See, we're struggling to survive. We now close. Close the doors. 12 O' clock during the weekdays and 2 o' clock on the weekends.

We, the younger people are not drinking. Food drives alcohol sales. Okay. I do make. Not making any money off of food.

Okay. I make very little. Half my staff makes more money than I do. This 10% would be a restaurant. It'd be a bar killer.

It's going to kill a lot of small businesses. If you guys pay attention, a lot of bars and restaurants have gone out of business in the last two years. You're going to kill the economy by doing it. We're going to have economic leakage of people going to Anchorage to drink where they don't have to pay the tax and then looking at the stuff, talking about registration. That's what liquor licenses are for in the bill.

Yeah, this is not good. It's just like, yeah, it's going to go to the vote. Hopefully the population votes it down. But this is a small business killer. There's going to be a lot of places that are put out of business by this.

A lot of bars. And yeah, I've gone from where my sales have gone from 80% of alcohol sales to right now I'm running it out about 53% alcohol sales because I have to have food to survive.

Please pay attention. And this is to even think this is okay? It's not. Look at what taxes everyone. Not just targeting a few in the community, please.

Yeah, I would. This tax would probably drive me out of business if not the other bars in the community. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Okay. Do we have anybody online? No, nobody online. So I'll close a public hearing. Deputy Mayor,.

I move to adopt ordinance 260 62. Okay. You want to speak to it again? The reason why I brought this up was our schools closing and trying to come up with some money and alleviate property owners from all the property tax.

So. Okay. Madam Mayor. So I want to ask the attorney a question. I think with the previous failure, Nick Is it correct that this limits this to 5% like it does?

Like it would not be able to be passed at 10%. Yeah. If I may, Madam Mayor. So the state laws regarding alcohol taxation say that if you're going to levy a sales tax on alcohol, it cannot exceed one. You have to have a sales tax on something else.

In the municipality, which we do, we already levy sales tax on marijuana at 5% and a bed tax at 5%. There's a specific provision of Title 4 which governs alcohol which says your taxation rate on alcohol cannot exceed that of other products. So this was written, if you read it very closely, it says up to 10% because it came in conjunction with the proposed marijuana to go to 10%. If marijuana would have gone to 10%, then alcohol at 10 would be legal. If you're going to pass this, you should probably amend it to read.

Instead of up to 10%, it should just say of 5%. To avoid any confusion, I move this ordinance to amend this ordinance 26062 to read 5%. Okay, discussion on the amendment.

Go ahead. I support the amendment and I do support the legislation. Okay. Is there any objection to the amendment? Okay, then the amendment passes.

So before you, you have ordinance 26 062, but it's up to 5%. Discussion is that next slide. Okay, assembler person McKee, go ahead. Just really briefly, I do believe in. I mean we talked about the fuel tax.

People said we don't want that, but you got to find a better way to make money. And so this is a way. People don't need booze. They really don't. And so 5% tax on something wouldn't deter me from having a beer or a glass of wine or whatever.

I don't, I don't think that's onerous. I'm hoping that the gentleman that just testified would appreciate that because I, I don't think it's at all unreasonable. So I would support the legislation with the amendment. Okay. Discussion.

Further detail. Yes, assembly person Bowles. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I just want to. A couple things.

So Frank mentioned that this would, if it passes now, 5% would be on top of the 6.5. I want to clarify that if, if that ordinance moves at 6 to remove and repeal area wide property tax and introduce a sales tax at 6.5%. This would then shift to 6.5% as would all sales tax, bed tax and everything. It wouldn't be on top of. That is correct.

It would all be subsumed into the 6.5. It would all be 6.5. Okay. So with that as well again when I was traveling through District 1 I stopped off at package stores or beer stores, whatever you want to call them and there was some concern. One in particular spoke to him for a good 30 minutes.

He had a customer walk in and saw the price of a six pack was 50 cents more than the store down the street and walked right out and went down to that store. So will will a tax increase change that 50 cent? I don't know but that's where people are. And the, the owner. I didn't catch your name.

I'm sorry the owner of Palmer Bar. He's absolutely correct. The younger generation isn't drinking and so this I think everybody knows I'm in the low tax, no tax guy. I'm trying to find ways to lower taxes in the borough and I don't see this as my concern with this is that if we are to move this it brings in a new 5% tax on something. And I understand the intent is to lower the the area wide property tax but a future assembly in three years can come in and just raise the mill rate.

And so it's now we have a new tax on top of the taxes that already exist. And so that's my concern there. And I have listened to the small business owners in District 1 and they have concerns with new taxes. So that's where I'm at on this.

Okay Senator. For some hours. So maybe question to the attorney. So if this was passed by voters in the city of Palmer, would it be stacked on top of their 4%? So you'd be paying 9%?

Yeah, that's a hard number. That's a hard number to support.

I just think at a certain point you get high enough you really do drive people away and especially if it's a big jump, they're going to change their habits. They're going to be like I'm going to go to Costco and Anchorage and buy five six packs, whatever. And it does stack.

Further discussion. Yeah assembly person panel.

I don't think Costco sells six packs because they sell them a lot bigger cases and I think they and tax and Anchorage I think already has 10. So there'll still be. I, I do think that 5% is reasonable considering the fellow industry is being taxed at 5%. I know it's but ultimately the people will get to decide. That's what I like about this process the most.

And the question to attorney this does apply. Any alcohol sales whether it's at the store or drinks at the bar, is that correct? We're not just targeting one or the other. That's all alcohol sales. Okay.

Yeah, I think that number is very reasonable and I do think voters will get to decide or not. Now we, so I want to give the people the vote to, to, to, to voice their opinion. I think that will go, that's, that's ultimate. People who should decide it? Assembly PERSON bowls Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So that actually sparks a question. Is there a way to, I mean it, is there a legal way to add an amendment that targets not bulk sales? So local breweries, they sell their kegs to a bar, then that bar sells a beer, maybe that beer is 5%, but not, but not the sale of that keg to the bar.

This ordinance is drafted so that it's a retail sales tax so that everybody knows. I don't know if it's in the IM or not. It's been a while since I drafted for assembly. River Bernier this is modeled off of Anchorage's alcohol tax. Anchorage has a 5% alcohol tax and this is largely modeled off of their tax and it is a retail tax, it is not a wholesale tax and it does not double tax alcohol as it goes through the system.

Okay, can we, can we exempt local breweries versus supermarket, you know, package stores, you know, large corporate entities, if you will. That's not a question that I had considered in drafting the ordinance and I would not know that answer sitting here tonight at 11 o'. Clock. I would have to research it, get back to you.

Some of the person gamble. Yeah. And so when this goes on the ballot, it's not going to say, the language isn't going to say, oh, by the way, in Palmer your new alcohol tax is going to be 9%. And it's not going to say in Wasilla your new alcohol tax is going to be eight and a half percent. It's not going to say that it's stacked.

And so I think there's a lot of people out there that aren't going to understand that this is going to in the cities and I don't live in the city, but in the cities it's going to significantly raise the price of, of alcohol. So I don't know how you go about educating, you know, the people in the cities that this is going to severely affect them. And I'm with you, assembly member Bowles. You know, I'm a low tax, no tax kind of guy and I, I just can't get behind this. Thank you.

For discussion.

Assembly PERSON Sumner.

I'm I'm with you guys. I am also a low tax, no tax guy, but that's how we get to the, you know, the point where everything is stacked on the backs of the property tax owners. So I just wanted to point that out. I think I'm also voting no, but because I'm right there with you. No, no tax, low tax.

But that's where we get got to where we are.

Okay. I assemble for some bowls. Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree.

But if things happen well in the next couple of weeks, we could get rid of property taxes or a large portion of it. November point of order. Understood. Oh, I said November. Oh, no.

Correct. We can't change. We can't pass your ordinance in the next two weeks. Correct. But that's.

That's kind of what the way I'm thinking is. You're absolutely correct. But if we remove two thirds of property taxes and then bring in a sales tax and spread that burden across everybody that comes to the borough, it's a little different than adding a new tax on top of all the other tax, in my opinion.

Simply put, some gamble. Thank you. Yeah, so if you raise these taxes significantly and you start running businesses out of business, then your revenues start drying up and so you're kind of, you know, not accomplishing what you've set out to accomplish. Assembly motion, follow. I didn't see.

At least I'm looking. I am right now as scanning, maybe. Question to Shan. Do we have a approximate prediction the number that would come with it? I know it's almost impossible to predict that considering we got that.

But I would like to see if. If that's okay with assembly to ask her opinion what this might do number wise, based on the estimates that you. Would have through the mayor. I'll open with this, like for all the new tax proposals. Marijuana, alcohol, sales, and then we'll get to another version of the sales and the severance tax.

All of that been talked about. There's a website out there for the public where all of that's been consolidated. And the finance department has created a memorandum for each tax proposal that estimates what the revenues for each of those taxes are. So that's already on Granicus and available to the public. Now, with that said, we can go specific on this one because we've been texting and she's got the numbers to.

Assembly member Fanoff Scheinheidel, finance director. So the memo that went with this legislation when it was submitted at Timberset, said we could raise potentially between 6 and 15 million. So if you drop the percentage in half, you're talking 3 to 7.5 million in revenues. But that's just based on per capita estimate of how much was. Has been raised in Anchorage.

Okay, thank you. I still support it. Okay. Further discussion. Huh?

Assembly person McKee. I was surprised to hear that alcohol wasn't currently taxed. I. I just thought that was. Everybody did that. So.

But we don't. There's not been any tax on it so far. Is that. That's correct. There is no tax on that.

That's. That's stunning to me. And I'll tell you, we are a. America is a. We are a culture. Who drinks?

We just do that. It's just part of who we are. And we already went through the prohibition thing and everybody got even. Then people managed to have a drink. I'm not going to drive to Costco.

If I want a beer, I'm going to be out here and I'm probably going to go to his bar, but because I have a lot of times. So I think this is perfectly reasonable. It's not that big a hit, and I think it should. I thought we were already doing it. Mr. Attorney, do you have some input?

So it is not currently taxed by the Mat Su borough. Of course, in the cities, they have a general sales tax that applies to all goods and services. And so it is taxed within the cities, but we don't tax it. I sent my person hours and that. Was the point I was going to make.

So suddenly you might have a 9% sales tax. You go to the bar in Wasilla or Palmer and then, you know, you have a 5% outside of that. So it is already taxed in the cities, which is where a lot of the drinking goes on. Assembly person Gamble. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Question for the attorney. Is there a state tax on alcohol?

There is. I know, I know. On spirits? I don't know. I'm looking at these guys.

Yeah, yeah, there is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. But not sales. They're.

They're. They're excise taxes. So they're a little different in terms of how they apply, in terms of the percentages and stuff like that. Right, but a tax is a tax. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. For the discussion.

Okay. Is there objection? There is objection. Okay. I can get the members to go ahead and vote.

Madam Mayor. It is passed with assembly member Gamble. Bulls in now. Opposed,.

Everybody. So.

Ordinance 26063, an ordinance accepting and appropriating grant in the amount of 444,000 from the Alaska State Department of health and social services for a project for the continued management of points of dispensing sites that will be used to distribute medicines or vaccines to residents and visitors in our area. In the event. In the event of an incident that requires large numbers of people to receive preventative medicate medicines and medications with accompanying resolution 2648 a resolution of proven the scope of work and budget for a grant the amount of 44,000 from the Alaska State Department of Health and Social Services for the continued management of points of dispensing sites project. Okay, go ahead and open the public hearing on Ordinance 26063 and Resolution 26 048. We do not have a signup sheet.

Is anybody here that would like to testify either this ordinance or this resolution?

Do we have anybody online? We do not.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. Deputy Mayor I move to adopt Ordinance 26063 and Resolution 26 048. Okay. Discussion by the assembly. Uhhuh.

Simply person both right here. Thank you Madam Mayor. So I've got concerns with this. Just recently resigning from the state with a healthcare admin background. This also kind of screams of the COVID era.

I'm curious if we can get maybe a staff report as to why this would be necessary. Why with the third largest grossing industry being the pharmaceutical industry, why we as the government would need to set up mobile entities to give vaccines on their behalf. And maybe I'm just misunderstanding the intent behind this grant but I just reading this, it just. It's not sitting well. Go ahead ma'.

Am through the mayor to assembly member Bowles Schein Hendel Finance director this is a grant we've gotten for at least three years that I'm aware of, probably more that allows us in the event like a Covid type incident to set up dispensing sites. This grant, currently the way it is written pays for a portion of our EOC staff wages. It pays for training, travel to training and supplies and software to manage the the program.

Seperson Campbell thank you Madam Mayor. Cheyenne so what points of dispensing sites do we currently manage?

I cannot answer that question. I can just tell you what in the grant document that would be a question for Casey. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Mr. Assembly Person Bowles. Thank you Madam Mayor Cheyenne I appreciate that. So with this grant I know there's usually due outs or requirements. So if we receive these funds from the state, if another Covid situation happens, is the borough then under the direction of the state because of this grant or can the borough still say no?

We're not requiring all of the silliness like was going on in 2020.

Go ahead. So through the mayor, I don't know if we can say no, if there's any hooks in the grant specifically. But remember, these points of dispensing sites are all voluntary. They're not. This isn't like mandatory vaccinations.

What it is is a preparedness thing. So if the state has to do something, we have this funding, which is not an extraordinary amount of money to help pay em staff to manage the program, be trained, it offsets some of their wages. So if the state were to call on us, we are prepared to assist and set up these sites. We don't typically execute it, but it's. I, you know, you look at it and you go, yeah, it's probably a spinoff of COVID where they were looking at how can we be better prepared as a community to offer this to residents should they be needed.

I still, I still have concerns with this. I just, I see this as, as too much government. If there's another situation where we have. A,. You know, an industry led pandemic, then, you know, we're stuck with a grant to participate in that industry led pandemic without the ability to say no or maybe hand the money back.

I just don't know if this is a good idea. I think that we need to maybe maintain our autonomy. And we also, as the second class borough, don't have code that regulates health services. My understanding, unless maybe there's something that allows this. Mr. Attorney.

Yeah. So the points of dispensing grants do a couple of things. If you, if you go through the page seven of the IM talks about paying for the EOC specialist and the EOC secondary specialist, I think it's 0.6 of an FTE for a year at a rate of 20, 22 thousand dollars. And then the rest of it's travel training for that staff to be trained. And then the rest is basically office supplies, pens, markers, totes, training aids and equipment, gaffers and tape, cord keepers, gloves, replacement shelving, janitorial, housekeeping supplies.

So the points of dispensing my understanding from talking to Mr. Berkeley in the past is, is that if the state needed places to house, store and then distribute from, that would be their agreement with us. We do not have health powers. You are absolutely right. And during COVID doesn't matter what type of grants we have. It doesn't matter who gives us money.

We lack the power to Tell people you must wear a mask, you must take a shot, you must get treatment. Because we don't have the power to do that. What we do have the power to do is enter into agreement with the state to let them use our facilities, let them store things, let them potentially provide dispensing from their end out of our facilities. And that's my understanding of more so what this grant is and to help pay for our personnel in those facilities to keep them up and running if an event happens. Happens.

Okay. Deputy Mayor and then Sumner and now. Oh, okay. Person. Yeah.

I share your concerns that there, you know, if there are hooks in this grant. I think there probably are not. I would suggest that we just pass it tonight, you collect more information from staff tomorrow, and then if you still have reticence, then you could file for reconsideration. And I would support that the next meeting with that additional information. But I think that I didn't see any red flags and it's getting pretty late at night tonight, so let's keep moving.

No, no. Okay. Assemble person Cara. Mr. Bowles. I think.

Let's just assume. We think like, oh, this money comes with something. For one, it doesn't have a local match, which is a good thing. But the second. Do you think if we just say no to it and money stays with the state, do you believe they would spend it better than we do?

I don't think so. So for that reason, I'll go ahead and support this.

Assembly first. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So for me this isn't about us receiving free money to spend. This is.

This is about control and. And higher echelons of government can control lower echelons of government through grants and these types of things. And I know this because. Because I worked for the government for a long time. And that's my concern.

44 Grand is nothing. That's a drop in the bucket. My concern is the tie. Will the borough be tied and have to follow orders from the state if we accept this grant? If something like the COVID industry led pandemic happens again?

That's my concern.

Okay. Further discussion. Assembly person Summer. I call a question.

Some McKee.

Okay.

Oh, thank you. Okay. Is there any. Is there any objection to calling the question?

No objection. Then Madam Clerk, I can get the. Members in the room to vote on the ordinance and resolution.

Assembly person hours pass with assembly member roles opposed.

Ordinance 26064 appropriating 10,000 from the 2023 fiscal year areawide budget appropriation to fish passage improvements for the Cottonwood Creek Pike Barrier Project. The company resolution 26049, a resolution approving the scope of work and budget for the Cottonwood Creek Pike Barrier Project. If you're on the phone and would like to speak to this press star three. Okay, I'll go ahead and open the public hearing on this ordinance and this resolution. We do not have a signup sheet.

Is there anyone that would like to testify on this ordinance or this resolution?

Do we have anybody online? No. Okay, I'll close public hearing and assembly person. Final I move to adopt Ordinance 26064 and Resolution 26049 and if I will speak on it. If Mr. Bull said $44,000 is nothing, $10,000, it would less than nothing.

So. But this is for a good cause. I think Mr. Bernier was explaining importance of the pike and trying to, you know, minimize that. So good, let's just pass it and move.

Any other discussion, any objection Seen and hearing no objection and the legislation passes. The next item on our agenda is audience participation. If you didn't testify at the first audience participation and would like to testify now, then you are welcome. Foreign.

Good evening, mayor, manager, assembly staff. My name is Moki 2. I put a bid in for doing the big lake rsa. I sat up there on that podium when it all started. The contracts went up over 200.

200%. It's crazy. I couldn't do anything about it. I'm here now to do something about it. I put in a bid for you.

I'm gonna do a great job. I hope you awarded me the contract. Thank you.

I seen some movement back over there. If you testified under the public hearing, you can still testify and you didn't testify under the first audience then you can testify. Testify. Now, it seems like you had figured that out before I went through that whole rigmarole. Yes.

West Hart's, Palmer Bar. One of the things that I want you guys to think about is inflation has gone through the roof. Perfect example. Last summer, at the end of last summer, I was paying about $36 for a case of lettuce. Now it's about 78.

You guys are, I think, maybe out of touch of what some of the issues with some of us are dealing with. Please talk to people. The common people are hurting. Yes. You guys are looking at property taxes and going, hey, how can we get this?

Everybody is hurting right now. How about we look to see if there's major corporations we can tax and up the taxes on them? Maybe we can make it where everyone pays property tax and where there's no exemptions. There's a lot of different things to look at. I saw your eyebrows go up and it's.

It's hard for everyone out there. And it's like I was saying earlier, I'm. I'm paying for my employees to keep them going. I'm trying to keep them moving and going. They're all struggling.

Okay. At what I'm trying to. Pam. It's. Everyone is having issues.

You guys got to realize that. That we're all struggling, survive. And yeah, I'm the Palmer Bar. I'll probably do fine in the long run.

And I'll change it. Yes. Have I already seen people start coming in? Yeah, they used to come in like three or four times a month. Now they come in once a month.

Sales is down. Another thing about the sales tax, when I buy my kegs from Frank, I pay retail. Okay. So by the time we're getting hit that 5% twice, if it's on the alcohol tax that the people are going to pay, I do not charge taxes. Taxes are included.

When I do my pricing in the bar, people want to come in and spend $4. But the way everyone's talking about taxing with the city of Palmer and the Assembly, I'm going to actually make a tax line. And that's going to come back on you guys. When they were like, oh, we are now paying 9%. That's going to the assembly and to the city.

We don't do it. We're a lot of businesses are sitting there struggling and they're just trying to keep their employees employed. We're getting ready to see a hard, hard time come. So we have to look at seeing where the money actually is. Is there any corporations that we can go after as a community?

We have to save our communities.

But it's just watching the way prices are going up, I don't understand how some of these businesses are going to be able to make it. Thank you.

Anyone else that would like to address the Assembly?

Okay, do we have anybody online?

Oh, we do have one person online. Go ahead, go ahead. Who is ever online, please.

Hi, I was calling in on the ordinance 26075 for the Big Lake RSA Award. And I would just wanted to be heard that. I think that you guys should take a real long look at that. There was tons of complaints. It wasn't done well the first time around.

It's been a point of discussion and people were not happy. And is it going to be better for less money? No. Is it going to be better for more money? No.

So can I get you to the record?

Vicki Cutler. Thank you.

Sorry. You can continue.

In what order? That's pretty much it. I'll keep it short, but 26 075.

Alrighty. Thank you. You have anything else, ma'? Am? You have more time?

Nope. Just that if you would. I just caution you guys to look at that because it was not well done in the past. And I think that speaks for itself if you look into it. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else online? We do not have anybody else in line. I'll go ahead and close.

Audience participation. Now we are to the consent agenda. Does the assembly have anything to to pull now? Mayor, I would like to pull AM 26075 from the king agenda. Okay.

Anybody have anything else to pull?

Okay, Madam Clerk. Resolution 26053 Resolution extending the date of completion of the Brett Ice arena storage building project through June 30, 2027. Resolution 26056 A resolution requesting the State of Alaska to designate the Old Glen highway as an official safety corridor and provide funding for the planning, design and construction of a multi phased improvement project on the Old Glenn highway to address traffic safety concerns and ensure adequate alternate access to interior Alaska. Resolution 26057 a resolution supporting a free disposal of earth materials to the Alaska Railroad Corporation for use at the as an in kind match for completion of the Port McKenzie rail extension. AM 26064 approval of contract amendment for contract number 13 025P with Harris Consulting to extend the contract to June 30, 2028, an amount not to exceed 80,400 per year subject to annual appropriation for State Lobbyist Services.

AM 26065 approval of additional UD utility relocation cost in the amount of 27, 150 to Magnus Electric association for the Jolly Creek drainage improvement phase one and phase two project in Big Lake service area number 21 and approval of the Extend the complete. Excuse me. Approval to extend the completion date to December 31, 2026. AM 26067 approved approval of utility for relocation costs in the amount of $130,923 to NStar Natural Gas Company for the Jolly Creek drainage improvement project in Big Lake Road Service area number 21. AM 26068 Award of quote number 26155Q to P& D engineers in the contract amount not to exceed $123,550 to provide engineering consulting services and construction management for upgrades to to Lewis Loop Bridge under term contract number 26096 p. AM 26069 approval approval of utility relocation costs in the amount of $125,647 to MTA Communications for the West Herkimer Drive and South Spring Drive improvement projects and Meadow Lakes Road service area number 27 and approval to extend the project completion date to December 31, 2026.

AM 26071 approval of change order number six for contract number 22135B with Shannon and Wilson for the Central Landfill Water quality Services contract to add $22,532 for fiscal year 2027. AM26072 awarded bid number 26149B to Battleground in the contract amount of 113,000 to provide right of way debris removal from the 2025 winter windstorm. AM26073 authorization to vacate the existing section line easement from Lot 9, Enchanted Forest Subdivision. Plat number 7150 to be known as Lot 9, Block 15, Enchanted Forest Subdivision. The property is located directly north of West King Arthur Drive, north of North Parks highway and west of Prater Lake.

Located with within the Southwest 1/4 section. 25 Township 18, North Range 3 West Seward Meridian.

Deputy Mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda as read into the into by the clerk. Is there any objection?

Okay, then hearing none. The consent agenda has been Approved. Madam Clerk. AM 26075 awarded bid number 26157B to Choose Inc. And the contract amount of $1,160,116,525.33 for the big Lake Road service area annual road maintenance rebid pulled by some member gamble. Okay, we gotta move, sir.

And then discuss. Thank you, Madam mayor. I move AM 26075 and the accompanying bid 26 157B would like to speak to it. Yes. So there's been a lot of discussion tonight about representation of our communities and the people that live within those communities.

And I've been asked to have this bid pulled and that the contract not be awarded to Twos Incorporated. I'd like to remind the assembly that the RSA 21 board forward a resolution to us not supporting the contract being awarded to Twos, Inc. This contract does not affect any other district. It only affects mine. Doesn't affect any other RSAs except for RSA 21, and it doesn't affect the borough as a whole.

So it's just specific to my district. And so I'm asking that you support me in this because this is the wishes of the vast majority. Majority of my constituents in RSA 21 and the RSA 21 Board of Supervisors. Thank you for the discussion. Deputy Mayor.

I heard two people talk against you today.

We in my district, we took a Ficklin. They had problems within last 18 months and we gave him a pass and. Okay, they're gonna do a better job. Moki had complaints in 2015, I believe, or 13 or something like that 10, 11 years ago. I think it's time for to give him a pass and to honor our bidding.

That guy out right back there. Russell and his staff, okay, they go through a lot of work to get these out. And if we start taking number two and number three, the contractors are just going to lose faith in us. I would.

Assembly person McKee. Yeah. We went through this whole thing before. We spent a lot of time on it. We heard everything Bill said before we heard it tonight.

There's nothing has changed. I am not bound to vote for something in your district because it's not in my district. And so. But a whole other trip is redemption. That's what our laws are about.

You do the crime, you do the time, and then you're done. Then people can't just, you know, you're coming out of the jail cell, start throwing rocks at you. Can't do that. That's not how we operate. So second chances and redemption is something we ought to do.

Otherwise, perhaps someone should introduce an amendment looking at you that never again, never ever allow this man to bid again. We got a guy back there. That's what he does for a living. He says this is a responsive, responsible and lowest bid. There's nothing else to be said about that.

And I heard people who had voted against this Mr. 2's bid last time say should go to the lowest bidder. Well, if Russ ain't doing his job, then we need to get. I'm sorry, Russell. You. You need to come in.

I would. Can we have him come up and talk about staff stock, talk about this thing he did before. But maybe it's time to refresh our memories.

Yeah, I mean, before the meeting's over,. I'll make a quick statement about the process, if that's okay. So to be clear, both times Mr. Two's or Twos Inc. Was brought forward for the RSA 21 bid. I want to speak to process. He was deemed responsible and responsive.

Okay. So we followed borough code and bringing it. It is totally within the purview of the assembly to decide what contracts get approved. That's why we bring you so many ams on the consent agenda. It is correct to say that the performance issues that were discussed happened 10 years ago or.

Or longer. Ish. I had a conversation with Mr. Two last week, similar to conversation I had with Mr. Fickland when we had a question about those, you know, performance concerns. In the end, we'll make it work either way because that's our job. Our job is to bring it to you and Russ and his staff, Public works and their staff followed borough code and brought you the answer.

It's still your discretion to determine how that contract or what contracts get approved. So I recognize that, but there have been some public comments around the process and why and how. Because it was 10 years ago. Yes, we brought it forward. Yes, he was the low bidder the first time it got voted down by the assembly.

So we ended up having to go back out to a rebid. That's why we're where we are today. And again, I would, you know, in the essence of being consistent in the process, if this gets voted down, I'll probably bring you the next low bidder that was on this bid, just like we did the last time. Just so that you understand where we are, we're bringing it forward. Twos was responsive and responsible by code.

Okay. For the discussion, assembly person, follow. Yeah, I don't think there's a reason to delay. We kind of went back and forth, and there was some personal animosity in the past. And then when, you know, one assembly member, I think it was 27, wanted to see things, vote one way, and then the rest, assembly kind of dispersed.

So I think ultimately we get to. Not just one individual gets to decide, but we as a body. So. So rebid went and, you know, the price got even lower. The other contract, the other ones are higher overall.

This lowers compared to the what the current price is paying a significant less. I think, regardless who's holding this contract, I would instruct the Tom Adams and those people who, you know, implements contractual home to same standard. I believe when somebody went through a suspended period or was not allowed to bid, they're gonna be kind of, like, washed under microscope in some ways to find flaws. And I don't think we should be the kind of government that has a double standard. If they are performing well, if they're doing their job, regardless what happened 10 years ago, we'll have an opportunity to go in one year from now or even earlier, about 10 months from now, for us to get the staff report and say, is the Performance been good, mediocre or there's need to be improvements.

I think we'll have a discussion at that time to say, all right, maybe we need to look for a new contractor because this was a. Was saved us so much money. But we also sacrificed partially, maybe the quality of service. But if we get same service and significant price savings, I think we should, we should award this today. Further discussion.

Is there objection to the motion? I can get the members in the room to vote on AM 26 075.

Assembly member. Thank you, Madam mayor. It has failed. With assembly member fauna mckee and bernier in support.

So now we're to unfinished business. Right? Unfinished business. Ordinance 2615, an ordinance to purchase the adjacent lot next to the Big Lake Lions Recreation center and the amount of 110,000 and to classify the land as a reserve use lands for the purpose of sewer system lot. Okay, the main motion is on the floor.

Is there any discussion?

Is there any objection Key. Yeah, I went through, when we went through this before, I thought we had pretty much exhausted the sale of the Big Lake thing and, and then all of a sudden it's like kind of new things kept getting sprung on us and I voted for the first package. This is 110,000 bucks of our taxpayer money that if we needed it sometime in the future, maybe we talk to the person who actually does end up buying it. But it's not a good look right now. Sorry.

Yeah. If I may, Madam Mayor, through the mayor to Ms. McKee. This was brought up because a couple of assembly members expressed concern and wanted to go out and look at it themselves. This was disclosed in the initial report before we ever bought this rec center. So this was not a surprise.

This was all on public record and done well in advance of the sale of the, the rec center. I think it became unfinished business because two assembly members wanted to go look at it. So I'll defer to Mr. Sumner, since he's waving his hand. Okay. Yes, I was one of the two assembly members that went out and looked at it.

I, I did have questions about it, you know, why we need to buy this lot if we already have a septic easement on there. I looked at, you know, I. Professionally, I do install septic systems and even large commercial septic systems. And I, I believe this is a, you know, an instance of stepping over a dollar, save a dime. Like, this is an expensive lot, but there it is, a large parcel. It's an asset.

I think the fire department's expressed interest in using part of it. And I think they would probably. If, you know, if and when. Well, not if, because all separate systems do eventually fail. When the big league Lions Club setup system fails, it'll have to be replaced.

And if you have the entire lot, you can place a separate system besides the existing septic system, which is far, drastically cheaper than a replace in place. I estimated probably 40 to 60 thousand dollars in additional cost to replace in place in the same exact spot, which is what would have to happen if you did not own this lot and you had to put the septic back in the same easement. I did consult with the attorney. It does seem like the existing easement does grant the ability to replace in place. So I don't know if that makes any sense, but I think that it's a better decision in the long run to purchase this lot and for the benefit of the taxpayers.

Okay. Yes. Assembly person Gamble. Yeah, real quick. I. I went out there to listen to assembly member Sumner because he is the expert in this, and I just wanted to hear what staff had to say and, and Max.

So I'm relying on his expertise, and since he's recommending it, I'm going to support it also. Thank you. Is there objection to the motion? There is. Okay.

Madam Clerk, if I can get.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was going to just say a point. This is one of those things that it makes sense and in some ways. But I guess I kind of want to connect the two dots here.

In some ways, it's a. I think. What. By default, it seems like when we vote in favor of something and against favor of something, there's a personal interest to, you know, not award contract to somebody. But in this case, knowing that this, overall, This, I guess I could say, like, oh, I oppose this just because you oppose something that I did, I'm going to support in this. But I would love for you to take something from this discussion that we should do the right thing, regardless of personal animosity or previous bad behavior or opponents and things like that.

So I'll support this, but I just hope that in the future we don't trade votes for something. I think it's. It's the wrong thing to do. So.

You so have objection then? Yeah, I just want to reply to that. If Assemblymember Sumner would have recommended not to do this, then I would have gone along and not wanted to do it. This isn't trading bullets. It's doing something that's going to benefit the borough in the long run.

Yeah. So thank you. Assembly person Bowls Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna. I have to speak to that assembly member Gamble's rsa.

We supported him. We supported his district. We supported his rsa. I would hope that everybody here would do the same for me, and we would do the same for you. This isn't.

I think that the language of trading votes is inappropriate, so I just want to make sure that's on the record.

Okay. Assembly person. I don't know which one of you. I think I was first. Oh, okay.

Versus McKee. Go ahead. Yeah, well, we're kind of mixing up two of the different. Two, Two different things that we're voting on. But I, I, I don't agree with Mr. Campbell.

When I hear somebody say, well, I voted for his because he voted for mine. That's called trading votes. And that's not nobody. I don't trade votes with anybody for anything. And sometimes I've agreed with somebody on something, and then I hear more tests, testimony, say, nope, not me, baby, I'm.

I am now, because I listen and I. And I. 10 Minutes. Yeah. Well, so have the other two speakers been off topic?

So I just wanted to throw that in there. As far as this thing is concerned, though, big lake is. It's a recreation area, even if it didn't have a freaking building on there, because that's a big lake. There's boats and all those kind of wonderful things to do. And now we've just said, let's just pop out of another 110,000 bucks.

I don't think we need to do that. Okay. All right. 70 Person assembly. Yeah.

Back on topic. One other thing that I forgot to mention is when I went out there, visited, it was still winter, and what the. I can't remember his name. The operations manager pointed out that the big league Lions Club, unfortunately is built very, very close to that property line, and there's really no place to store snow, which operation, operationally, is a difficult thing if we don't buy this lot. So.

So that's that also kind of, you know, may wait on my decision. You know, this might be the wiser course to buy this. It has nothing to do with trading. Call a question.

I was just asking if I could call the question, because we have 10 minutes, and we still have a lot of stuff to do. So anyway. But we have do have an objection. If I can get the members to go ahead and vote.

Madam, Merritt passed with Assembly Member McKee and Bernier. Excuse me. Yeah. Assemblymember, McKee and Bernier. Opposed.

Okay. Alrighty. So there are no vetoes And Madam Clerk, when you get a minute, would you read the items into the introductions? Introduction for public hearing on June 16th. 16Th is Ordinance 26039 with accompanying Resolution 2625.

Ordinance 2666, Ordinance 2669 with accompanying Resolution 2654. Ordinance 2660 with accompanying Resolution 2655, Ordinance 26071 and Ordinance 26072. Yes. Deputy Mayor, I move to introdu the legislation as read into by the clerk and set the public hearings for June 16, 2026. Is there any discussion from the assembly?

Any objection?

Okay. Hearing none and the legislation has been introduced. Deputy Mayor Vacancy report. I move to confirm the mayor's recommendation as follows. MSB Fish and Wildlife Commission resignation of Michael Bowles Cladding Board.

Roman Fonoff, Big Lake RSA number 21, Jonathan Tyler, Chase Trail SSA number 134, Christopher Boer. Okay, discussion.

Move to divide the question and take the nomination of Roman Fon off separately. And they can speak to that? Sure. I just have the same objection that I had the last time a family member, an assembly member was proposed for the planning commission. There's already a fan off sitting on the.

On the assembly. There's now one on the planning commission. This would put one on the platting board. And there's no prohibition on doing this. I just.

I know in code we're supposed to also avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. So it is not personal in any way. But I think these are the keyboards that have decision making capability in the borough. And to have a member of one family, whether you got a big family or not, blood is thicker than water. And I just think it.

It has a bad appearance and there's a lot of boards. So I do not think we should put Mr. Fauna forward for the planning board. I do think he applied for some other advisory boards and I think that would be good. But it's just the same objection I had last time.

Okay, so it was a question to divide the question so we vote on that first. Right. Okay. Assembly person Bowles. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, I just want to speak. There are no other applicants. So to me, in my mind, if the person's qualified, which this person is, it's the only applicant. Roman, I'm looking here. Okay.

Okay.

Is there objection to dividing the question still? Objection. Yes. If the person's qualified, we need to move them forward.

Okay. We do have an objection to dividing the question. Can I get the members in the room to vote on dividing the question?

Madam Mayor, it failed with assemblymember nowers in support. Okay, so now we will go back to the recommendations of the vacancy report. Do you see any further discussion by the Assembly? Does anybody have an objection? We do have an objection.

We're. It's five minutes, sir. I'm sorry. If I can get the members in the room to vote on the main motion of the vacancy report.

Madam merit pass with assembly member now is opposed. Okay, so there's no other new business. There are no referrals or no recommendations. Parting remarks, Mr. Attorney.

No more comments. Thank you for the evaluation today. Everyone have a good night. Assembly person McKee parting comments. They're going to be brief.

This is again one of the second times that I've been embarrassed by this assembly with a vote on Mr. Two's contract. I think that's outrageous and I don't trade votes and nobody owns me and I don't do anything for anybody but what I believe is right. And I think what we did tonight was wrong. Some believe Sumner. Parting comments.

I have no comments. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Parting comments. I agree. It's sad to see politics take a toll on the borough residents themselves where we actually have to spend more money of the taxpayers money.

Lord, please forgive us for our sins. Please bless the valley. Lord, thank you for our veterans, our first responders. We love you, we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

Yeah, I'm also disappointed. I think there were so many people that came out tonight to share their concerns as property owners and taxpayers in the valley and we are not listening to them. There's so many problems with gravel pits and the thing we do is weaken public input. You know, a couple weeks ago we said there's nobody in the room so people must be happy with it. And then we have a filled room and lots of emails and we say what about the other people who didn't show up?

I don't think we. I think it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But I do think that we need to address the things that are happening to property owners in the valley and listen to them when they say this is my right as a taxpayer when my property is affected and not put them on the sidelines. The good news is we will be talking about gravel more. We have gravel tax coming up next week as well as other taxes.

I hope you'll look at the proposal I have as well as Mr. Bowles and pack some snacks. It could go along.

No parting comments. Assembly person, one minute. Oh. Oh. I thought you.

Sorry. The bows. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So just thank you District 1 for putting me in this seat it's a privilege to serve you and I just I. I think it was a very good meeting and and I think that I understand that there are personalities as far as that big lake area but when a fellow member of the assembly that RSA board essentially every entity out there agrees I think we should probably give that assembly member respect whether it be Bill, Dimitri, Stephanie, whoever and that's where my mind was so just yeah just putting that out there it's midnight. I'm tired thank you parting comments no comment Morning comments.

Again I will echo what Ms. McKe said I hope one of the four people considered because there was a personality and personal agenda was involved and and I don't think we should be doing that we're setting a bad presidents twice in a row and and we need to hold the same standard everyone not just one person I. Adjourn a meeting 11:59.

Right on time thank you everyone.