Ketchikan: Recurring City Council Meeting of June 4, 2026

Thank you.

I'd like to call this regular city council meeting of June 4th to order. Would you please follow the roll? Gage. Here. Zingy.

Here. Matani. Here. Bradbury. Here.

Coos? Yep. Finnegan. Here. And Gas?

Here. Sorry. Please rise for the Pledge of.

Allegiance. To the flag of the United States. Of America and to the republic for. Which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

The Ketchikan City council would like respectfully acknowledge the traditional first people of this land and Ketchikan, the Tongass Tlingit people. That brings us to public hearing on resolution number 263021, amending the 2026 General Government Operating budget, Public work Building maintenance department by 1,150,000. Police department, mine, 25,000. Public works engineering department, 276,000. Public works cemetery department, 170,000.

In public works street department, 664,000. Fire department 15,000. Is there anybody here to speak to that?

Harry. And CNN will close public comment. It brings us on to communications. It's a mayoral proclamation in regards to Pride Month. Jack.

Thank you, your honor. Whereas the city of Ketchikan is committed to fostering a community where all people are treated with dignity, fairness and respect, and whereas lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and two spirit individuals are valued and vital members of our community, contributing as residents, families, educators, business owners, public servants, artists and neighbors. And whereas Pride Month is observed each June in recognition of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, a defining moment in the movement for LGBTQ rights, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn stood against discrimination and injustice, inspiring generations to continue the pursuit of equality and human dignity. And whereas the city of Ketchikan affirms the principles of equality, inclusion and civil rights for all people and remains committed to ensuring that every resident can live openly and safely without fear of discrimination. And whereas Pride Month provides an opportunity both to celebrate the resilience, achievements and diversity of the LGBTQIA2S community and to recognize the ongoing work toward full equality, understanding and belonging for all.

Now therefore be resolved that Mayor Bob Seaverson of the city of Ketchikan does hereby proclaim June 2026 as Pride Month at Ketchikan and encourages all residents to recognize the contributions of the LGBTQIA2S community, reflect upon the importance of mutual respect and inclusion, and reaffirm our shared commitment to justice, compassion, and equal rights for all people. Signed this fourth day of June 2026. There's somebody here Receive that. Thank you, Jack. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, members of the City Council and Mayor Sievertsen. I would like to acknowledge that we're gathered on Twinkett, on the land of the Tonquan and Simon Tlingit. My name is Ryan McHale, and I am the president of the Ketchikan Park Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing education, support, and aid to the local LGBTQ community and allies. Thank you for this proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month and acknowledging the contributions of LGBTQ people in our community.

Pride began as a civil rights movement more than 50 years ago. LGBTQ people stood up and demanded the simple right to live openly, safely, and with dignity. Their courage helped spark a movement that expanded freedom and opportunities for generations to come. LGBTQ people have always been part of our communities, and Ketchikan is no exception. In recent years, we have seen meaningful progress in visibility, acceptance, and community support.

In 2020, Ketchikan became just the fourth community in the state to pass anti discrimination protections. We showed up, spoke out, and our community listened and supported us. Those advances matter especially for young people who deserve to know they are valued, welcome, and that they belong. This progress has been possible because of people, communities, and leaders who choose to bring people together rather than drive them apart, who choose inclusion over exclusion, and who choose hope over fear. So I thank you all for this.

Our community is strongest when every person can participate fully and authentically in civic life. When queer residents, families, and visitors are welcome, Ketchikan benefits from the diverse talents, perspectives, and contributions of all of its people. While we celebrate how far we've come, we also recognize that our work is ongoing. The Ketchikan Pride alliance remains committed to building a community where every one of us can live freely, safely, and with dignity. And we look forward to continuing that work alongside you.

Thank you and Happy Pride Month.

With that, I'd ask for a change in agenda. I'd like to move the executive session. Oh, we have a person to be heard first.

Mr. Hines,.

Good morning, good afternoon, or I guess good evening. Mayor, City Council, as required. Chief, I'd like to introduce Lieutenant Willie Schultz, who's accepted the position of Division Chief of Community Risk Reduction and Fire Marshal for the Ketchikan Fire Department. He's taking Gretchen's position, as you know, as recently retired. A little bit about Willie.

He returned to Ketchikan with his family in 2005 and immediately began serving the community as a volunteer firefighter with South Tongass Fire Department. After five years of volunteer service, he joined the city Ketchikan Fire Department as a Korea firefighter in 2011. Over the past 16 years, Willie has distinguished himself through his dedication, professionalism and leadership, rising through the ranks to become a lieutenant. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated strong commitment to public safety, firefighter development and service to the city of Ketchikan. Before entering the fire service, Willie attended Arizona State University and then worked in San Diego, California as an organic chemist, synthesizing small molecules for a variety of scientific and medication applications.

His education and professional background reflects the analytical mind solving and the problem solving skills that he brings to the city of Ketchikan. His new position. Willie and his wife Kathy have developed deep roots in the Ketchikan community. As you know, Kathy serves as a resource teacher at Howling elementary and their daughter Adrian is the principal, the new principal at Shbar Middle School. Their middle son works as a commercial fisherman and their youngest son is a pilot.

Willie's long record of service, leadership and commitment to the community make him a. Is. Excuse me. Exceptionally well suited to lead our community risk reduction division and serve as a fire marshal. I am confident he will continue to strengthen our department's mission of protecting lives and property through prevention, education and public service.

Please join me in congratulating and welcoming Division chief and Fire marshal Willie Schultz.

Hi.

To be here. It's gonna be busy, so any questions,. Don't hesitate to call. I don't hang up on you. I'll answer your question,.

But I watched this guy get on step real quick. And I called him a seasonal. Yeah. So I'd like to thank you for the service to the community and the fire department. And I'd like to thank the chief for promoting from within.

It's always the best that we can grow our own and use those that are in service. So thank you. Thank you.

So with that, I'm going to move executive session a up in the agenda to this time that we have right now. So I have a motion for the executive regard to negotiation of city and general manager employment contract. Your honor, I move the city council declare consistent with the acting assistant city Manager's memorandum dated May 29, 2026, it is in the best interest of the city to review and discuss the employment negotiation terms and conditions conditions of Abner Hogue as the selected city manager slash general manager and executive session in accordance with KMC 204025A1 to discuss matters the immediate knowledge of which would clearly have an adverse effect upon the finances of the city. It's been moved. And second, any discussion if not, please call the roll.

Bradbury. Yes. Zingy. Yes. Matani.

Yes. Finnegan. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Goose. Yes. Gage? Yes. Darn tent.

Will go into executive session, have some discussions and then we'll write in at a later time. Good.

Can you hear me?

We are ready for you to come into the executive session. So you'll be receiving that invite here in just a moment, okay? Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Oh, she went to.

Convene back into the regular session. We met in the executive session, had discussions and gave direction. But with that, I'm going to take a five minute break and then come back.

Thanks.

All right. Welcome back to order. We are now reading on. What are we missing? Dick.

Okay, we'll wait. We'll come back.

There's been a request to add 7D and 7G. Do consent and then remove item 5D and move it to 6A. And move 6. Move it 6A1 and move 6A to 6 8. Your Honor?

Yes. I'd like to remove 5E from the center.

5E. Okay. Begins.

IV will be removed. And that will come after we'll add that the new business item.

Ib removed. And.

Seven, seven, eight.

I have a motion to consent. Motion to consent. Second. It didn't move in second today. Discussion.

Madam Clerk, would you please read the items? Approval of minutes. LEO work session of April 28, 2026 and regular city council meeting of May 21, 2026. Award of contract number 2631, fuel supply, petromarine services. Award of contract number 2630, vehicle fuel supply, petrol marine services.

Council review of beverage dispensary license renewal application. The asylum permit for ice machine at Bar harbor ramp to Ketchikan Agricultural Producers association and the Council reveal of beverage dispensary license renewal. Creek Street Cabaret. They have paid all their taxes, so. We can just move forward with their renewal.

Any questions? Hearing C9, please call the vote. Gage? Yes. Zingy.

Yes. Bradbury. Yes. Gas. Yes.

Finnegan. Yes. Kuss? Yes. Matani.

Yes. Thank you. So that moves us to 6A1. Resolution 26 3021, amending the 2026 General Government operated capital budget to provide supplemental appropriation for the Public Works Building Maintenance Department in the amount of 1,150,000. Reducing appropriations for the police Department in the amount of 25,000.

Reducing appropriations for the Public Works Engineering Department in the amount of 276,000 and reducing the appropriations for the Public Works Cemetery Department in the amount of 170,000. Reducing the appropriations of Public Works Street Department in the amount of 664,000. And reducing the appropriations for the fire department in the amount of 15,000. I have a motion, your honor. I move the city council Approve resolution number 26 3021, amending the 2026 General Government Operating and capital budget to provide a supplemental appropriation for the public works building maintenance department in the amount of $1,150,000.

Reducing appropriations for the police department in the amount of $25,000. Reducing appropriations for the public Works Engineering department in the amount of $276,000. Reducing appropriations for the public Works Cemetery department in the amount of $170,000. Reducing appropriations for the public Works street department in the amount of $664,000. Reducing appropriations for the fire department in the amount of $15,000, authorized certain budget transfers and establishing an effective date.

Do I have a second? Moving second, Matt. Thanks, your honor. So this resolution is in response to the discussion last council meeting about the city hall H Vac system, where the request was to find potential other projects that could be deferred and to use those funds this year rather than having to pull money from reserves for the city hall H Vac replacement project. So the projects listed are outlined in finance director Michelle Johansen's memo of where those monies will be pulled from various projects, as in the motion, various projects and fund source, the fund source there.

So question. Yes, Jay. Honor to the manager, to the mayor. My biggest concern is we are pulling these funds from these various budgets that were authorized. So my concern, my eye opens up were these budget asks, just as placeholders, number one.

Number two, what happens if there's an emergency in that certain area? Then we go back to the reserves. I'm very, very uncomfortable with this because either these budget items or budget asks were just placeholders or we might might experience an emergency and go ask for money from the reserves. Thank you. Anybody else?

Yes. Well, I guess I can answer through the chair, council member Matani. The. These projects were not just placeholders. They're projects that were planned and would be done this year, but they're projects that can be put off to future years if.

If we don't do that this year.

Abby. I am concerned about the Martin street staircase repair and demolition of 365,000 and it being taken out of the CIP program for this year. This one in particular was actually brought specifically to the council last year. We directed them to execute that as we had a lot of issues with citizens and complaints and it being a safe pathway to transverse in that area. And I really have a hard time taking that away from the citizens to put an H vac into city hall.

So that was the only item on this that I was not really in support of. The other ones seemed reasonable. So, yeah, I would like. Before I make any other statements, I would like to know if there's other options besides this one. Sure.

Through the chair, council member Bradbury, we can bring Seth up here, the public works director, to speak to other possibilities if there are.

Good evening, honorable mayor, council members. Seth Brackey, Public works director and engineering manager. Thank you for the question, Councilmember Bradbury. If it's the direction of the council to identify other projects to substitute Martin street stairs back in and thus recommend other projects or project to be deferred, I think there, there is an option there, but it's really up to wrestle with to make that determination. So specifically looking through the list, which we did spend a significant amount of time looking through all the different projects, talking with folks what could be deferred, what needed to be prioritized, what didn't.

We did look at the potential for the bridge repairs capital improvement project for this year. There's one component of it, that's the Dutton street bridge that we do need to absolutely execute and. But the remainder of that fund that project rather for bridge maintenance. I do think there's an opportunity there to defer. So I'll outline what part of that project could potentially be deferred.

You look out the window right across the street. That's the call it Tonga straightening parking lot. That's a city owned parking lot. That's out over the water. So it's an elevated structure.

So we had planned in that bridge project to do resurfacing in that lot this year. You'll see that there's degradation of the surface from. From over the years, the concrete surface there. We could. Our plan was to repair that if that had to be deferred.

It was the direction of the council, then that's what one project that we recommend. The second component of that bridge project was for the Centennial parking lot and Dock street, the elevated portion right in front of what used to be Tongas Business center and is now Kelly Connect. That's an elevated structure there. You can drive underneath of it. It's parking.

For years we had planned to resurface that. It's got degradation in the concrete surfacing there. If we had to, we could defer that next year at the council's direction. So those two bridge projects, the lot across the street and the Dock street and Centennial lot we need to. That would make up the 365,000 that would need to come back in for Martin Street.

Yes. Judy, with regards to the stairs, I, I agree with Councilwoman Bradbury that there's a need for those stairs, but isn't there an issue with safety in that area with those stairs, that there's homeless camps there? Is it. Are we addressing the design or how that's going to work or.

Status of the Martin street stairs Design is it's completed and the next step would be to go for bid and then execute the construction. So we don't currently have any impediments to bidding that project out other than the funding.

So if, if it was not funded and we deferred it with the stairways stay open or closed or is there a maintenance issue? And then it would remain closed. It would need to remain closed until such time as we could rebuild it. So it's been closed since the. Since we did that initial inspection and closed it.

So it would stay closed. So in our. In our discussions and directions to Seth, we asked him to come back with this. And my thought was, you know, see how close we can get it. So if there is a consensus in the council that they want to leave the Martin Crete and we need amendment and we could take that money out of reserves.

Your Honor, I would like to amend this to remove the.

The deduct. Right. The Mark street stairs. Yes. Project Martin street staircase repair, demolition of 365,000.

This motion. Second. Second.

Replace the funding with. For the H vac out of reserves. Correct. That's. That is not what I would like to do.

Somebody else is more than welcome to make that. I would like to replace it with the projects versus take it out of re served. So I guess I could have known that. Okay, so right now the motion is. To.

Leave the mark which the staircase is funded.

Discussion.

Yes. Excuse me. I have a question for Ms. Brackey, if I may. With respect to some of the projects that you mentioned that could substitute for the Martin street repair project, which I'm in alignment with council members Bradbury and Zingy on that count. The.

The repaving. I think I see. I see the value in perhaps putting that off for a year or two. But with respect to Downton street, is there a safety concern there? Because I know there's both vehicular and pedestrian traffic on that roadway.

Is that a project that you're comfortable deferring for any period of time or are there more pressing needs there? Thank you, Council member Finnegan, for that question. My recommendation is to leave the Dunton street portion of the bridge project in for this year. And that would still allow 365,000 to come out. Do Dutton take the other two projects out and do Martin street stairs.

So just follow up, just to clarify with the defer. With deferring those. Those repaving projects, we'd have enough funds to cover the $365,000 that we're not going to spend from the Martin street project. From the Martin street stair replacement project. Correct.

Or place out the. Keep Dutton minus out that parking lot, minus out the Centennial parking lot and resubstitute Martin street steers back in. Thank you. Right now we got a motion to move the March street stairs or continue with the Market street trade project and not have as a deduct to make up the difference. Right.

Any other discussion on that? Under this motion, is there anything. We're not identifying which projects to put back in or how do we. You can amend it. Put that in there if you want to use the two most.

The two projects that he thought about. I think we're just being ourselves in a pickle over this air conditioning thing. I think we're just proving the point that it's not the time to spend the money. But it's just me. I support the motion at this time.

All right, so. So it's only to remove the Martin. Please do. That's the only motion that's on for right now to remove it from the portion of this motion that brought it out or deferred it. And we're putting it back in the capital.

Eric, would you please vote? Rule. Finnegan. Yes. Gas.

Yes. Bradbury. Yes. Gage. Yes.

Zingy. Yes. Natani. Yes. Coos.

Yes. Wilson passes. Now we have a three hundred and some thousand dollars deficit. Yes. Dick.

Yeah. I've got a question.

This is all under public work sales tax, I believe that correct? That's correct. So be from finance. What is the minimum reserves that we're required to have in the public work sales tax?

Deferred to finance director on it,.

Your honor and council members. The question was what is the minimum fund balance for the public work sales tax fund for the fund balance policy? Is that correct? What is required? Required?

Because I think there's more there than what's required. Correct. So required amount is 2,268,807. Projected amount with all of the capital projects that were budgeted is 4,816,808. So before this resolution to change the.

Projects,. All of that if we had reduced it by the 1.2 million, that would have left 3.6 million in reserves, which is still over the required minimum of 2.268. So. So if we were to take this $350,000 or so out of that. That's still way above the minimum.

Correct. You'd have approximately 4.36. I usually use 10.

I move that we take the money for the stairways out of reserves and. We take the extra money we need for the. Yeah. The equivalent of what? 350,000 Out of reserve.

365.

Public works.

Second discussion.

See none. Please call the rule. Goose. Yes. Matani.

No. Bradbury. No. Gage. Yes.

Zingy. Yes. Gas. No. Finnegan.

Yes. Four to three. All right, so that brings us on to unfinished business. Item A. Budget.

Okay, let's vote on motion. Sorry. Thank you. Keep me honest. I like.

Yeah. So I believe with that change, that's going to change the motion dollar amount of where the funds are coming from for this budget transfer. And then we may need to also change the resolution, I guess. Mitch, maybe I'll have you can amend. It at the table if you've got the right words.

Okay. Can you give us the words, Mitch? Yeah.

So the public works appropriate for the public works department of 664,000 will be reduced by 365. 365,000.

That brings it to.

299.

Better make sure. That's right. 299. It's right. I was just in my head.

So I want to make sure. So. So that'll change 299,000. And then the resolution.

It'll change in the resolution as well and remove that out of the fund source that we list in the resolution as well. So.

Do we. Mitch, do any change anything in the resolution or that can be changed. Okay, so in Section 2, City Manager would be authorized to transfer 365,000 from the appropriated reserves of the public work sales tax fund. In addition to 100,000 from the building maintenance department vehicle project. You'd have to add another line.

For the reserves. For the appropriate reserves.

With those changes noted, can we move forward with the rest of the motion approving that and then move on to item ab, which is the.

Yes. Let's vote on the main option. Gage. Yes. Singing yes.

Bradbury. No. Kuss. Yes. Matani.

No. Finnegan. Yes. Gas. No.

All right, so that brings us to the unfinished business. Budget transfer and awarded contract number 26.6. Catch. Again. City Hall H VAC replacement 2 Dawson Construction authorized administration Service payments to respect engineering Postone from the May 21, 2026 meeting.

So there is a motion on the floor. But there's a recommended amended motion.

So do I have the amendment? So it's a recommended motion. The second one. Yes, your honor. Yeah, I moved the city council award contract number 2626, Ashcan City Hall.

H VAC replacement to Dawson Construction in the amount of $2,742,144 $114. Establish a project contingency of $257,000 $2,886 for a total authorized project project cost of $3,000,000 to Section 3.1 2.051 C2A of the Ketchikan Municipal Code authorized amendment number 2 to the Ketchikan City Hall H VAC Professional Design Service Agreement with Respec Engineering for construction administration services in the amount of $128,722. And direct the temporary city manager to execute the contract documents on behalf of the city council. Second, it did move that question.

I'm repeating myself, but I think it's worth repeating. I am against this because we are seeing our citizens quite. I personally know people who have been. Gotten their power shut off. Our people are leaving.

They can't afford to live here. Or raising rates faster than anybody can turn around every rate going up, up, up. We're talking about taxes. All this stuff's going on. And this is an enormous amount of money.

And we're. We're bending ourselves backwards trying to take it from all these different areas. And I don't think it's responsible. I don't think it's such a good precedent to the community. A priority list.

To me, this is not the top priority over things that our people are suffering under. So I think it sets a very bad message to the people. So again, I'm very much against it. I don't think it's responsible to move forward with. I didn't think it was responsible before, and now with the huge increase of what we were expecting, I really don't think it's responsible.

Thank you. Anybody else? Jay? Your honor, thank you. Yeah, I'm not going to support it.

I've never supported it because it's a huge burden on our taxpayers. Also, the biggest concern was about the cooling system for the computers and the IT systems. They can be moved to the telecom area where they have those systems. And that would solve the problem. The rest of us, if we feel cold, we put on sweaters.

Employees feel cold, put on Sweaters, warm clothes, or if it's hot, like light clothes. But we cannot. Cannot burden the taxpayer.

Thank you. Well, from what I understand, this isn't raising taxes. This is already within the funding ability of the city of Ketrikan. The. The monies that we have are for building maintenance and managing our deteriorating infrastructure.

This building been under consideration for added heating and air exchange, meat, professional standards of the day. And so I think it's an important project for the community. If we don't do it now, we will be doing that later at twice.

Yes. With all due respect, mayor, this wasn't budgeted, and it's way over budget. So this wasn't something we. We just took money from a bunch of other important projects to make it happen. So.

Yep. Just want to clarify that this was not budgeting. Well, the project went over cost, but it's. We're not raising taxes because of that. We're not raising rates because of it.

Not yet. Okay. Yeah, let me clarify. We're not raising taxes or rates in this for this project, but we are raising rates and taxes in other areas. We're raising 8% across other utilities.

And so we are. I mean, if this project was not in the budget initially, we would have mitigated those expenses on our citizens. Thank you. Anybody else hearing that, please call the rule. Zingy.

Yes. Kuss. Yeah. Matani. No.

Bradbury. No. Gage. Yes. Finnegan.

Yes. Gas. No. Your honor. Four to three.

So that brings us to new business size. Implementation of 2027, 2031 Ketch Can Museum strategic plan. Do I have a motion? Please, your honor, Move the city council authorized staff to proceed with the implementation of the 2027, 2031 Ketch Can Museum strategic plan as appended to the museum Director's memorandum dated May 20, 2026. Do I have a second?

Second? It has been moved in second now. Thanks. Your honor, we have our museum director here with a presentation on to discuss the strategic plan.

Okay. Good afternoon, council mayor. Good. After. Good evening.

Excuse me. Where. Where did time go? So I did include the strategic plan in the memo that I had sent. I.

A brief presentation to kind of just walk you through the. The plan and happy to answer as well. So I think. Yeah, you can go ahead and pull it up.

Great. So this plan will bring us through 2031.

Go ahead and move to the next slide just to briefly talk about the process. We did have a consulting firm help us lead the process. We did that so that I would be able to fully participate in the planning process, which I think was very helpful. The consultant led interviews and a written analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the museum. The consultant interviewed community members,.

Former former. Acting city manager Lacey Simpson, among many other people in the community to kind of get a feeling for the institution and its priorities. The consultant then came on site and led a day long retreat. Half of the day was with the staff to kind of talk about these results. And then the other half was with our team, advisory board and Totem Heritage Advisory Committee.

The consultant led or followed up with with recommendations about what he saw as common themes that came up through all of these conversations and interviews and staff and analysis. Then the staff took those recommendations and kind of put together the strategic plan that you have. And the advisory board accepted the strategic plan on our meeting of May 19th. So quick overview process. Next slide.

To kind of get into what we did while we were looking at the strategic plan, we did do a quick look at sort of our mission vision statements as well. We didn't actually have a vision statement, so that was one thing we thought we should add and sort of have that goal that we're working towards. We slightly revised and clarified our mission statement. We did not change any of the core values that already were involved in that. And most importantly, we set the goals for 2027-2031 along with objectives, which again you will see in the memo.

Separate from this, we have a work plan where we are going through, you know, how we're actually going to get to these objectives. I didn't include that because it's way in the nitty gritties and we are still kind of working on what those, what the actual steps will be to get to these objectives and goals. So let's look at some of those things that the outcomes that have happened. You can go to the next slide. This is the new vision statement that we agreed upon which is Ketchikan Museums is an essential and trusted community resource.

Next slide is our slightly revised mission statement. Excuse me. And the thing that we added was the kind of second part of it. The two sections on the bottom, the top where it says Ketchikan Museum educates, engages. And the bit about the Totem Heritage center already existed.

We felt that there was some kind of confusion about what is it in Ketchikan Museum. So we thought it was important that we note that the Towns Historical Museum is also part of the organization, but then also emphasize that we work together as one unit. So that was the addition, the slight revision to the mission statement. The core values are on the next Slide and as I said, didn't change. These were what they always have been.

The next slide are the four goals that kind of came up as if you go to the next slide that kind of came up as our important things that rose to the top over and over. And I'll go a little bit more in depth on these, but overall they are strengthen our education efforts, Maintain and evaluate our facilities. Facilities, Steward our resources responsibly and strengthen the identity of the organization. So then each of these goals have the objectives underneath them and we'll go to the first one. Strengthen education efforts.

For sake of brevity in this, I've just highlighted one of our objectives, but one that really came up as an important thing that we wanted to do is really make an effort with our school aged groups. I think a lot of the programming at the museum has been more adult focused and we're seeing a lot of benefits to getting. Getting children involved in museums. So that's something that we're hoping to really grow again. There's some other objectives as well, but that was one that really came up through all of our conversations over and over.

The next slide will show our next goal, which is maintain and evaluate facilities. I chose to highlight the sort of evaluate expansion possibilities because we get a little bit more when we're talking about expansion, what that means more of expanding what our facilities are actually doing and how we can make them work for us. So for example, behind the Totem Heritage center we have these woodsheds that I think we could be doing a lot more with. So expanding into those sort of things to kind of help us make sure we're using our facilities properly. And of course, spinning the pest spare building that we might use, that would be great too.

But you know, kind of looking at what, what we have and how we can make sure that it works for us. The next goal, I think everyone will agree, is a very important one. Stewarding our resources responsibly, increasing our financial stability and support is the, the one I chose to highlight there. I think as many of you have said, we have a lot of opportunities and at the museum to be generating additional funding. I will just a fun aside for the month of May, actually, since we have implemented the new tours and the admission prices increase we have seen just for the month of May.

This month of May compared to last year's month of May, We've seen a 17% increase in visitation, but we are seeing about a 45% increase in revenue. So I think we are headed in the right direction. There. And I think with putting this forward as one of our goals, we. The sky's the limit on that one.

And then our last goal we have is strengthen our identity. The objective that I chose to highlight here is really strengthening our media and branding plan. I think that kind of goes along with the previous topic I was talking about in trying to make sure people know that we, we have these, these, this, the tour options and what we have going on there and we are a destination. So I think there's more involved in that. But making sure our brand is something that people recognize both on island and if they're coming to visit.

So yeah, that was a very quick overview of the plan. I'm happy to answer questions about it. And we're looking forward to getting started. On on the web. Great.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Yeah. The one thing that this council has been suggesting and has been suggested elsewhere among the public. Have we raised the fees enough for the visitor to visit and by how much this year and the years to come?

Yeah. So I think that was part of what I. What we want to do in this is look at that and what are the ways we can raise our fees? And not just I think raising fees, but also creating other experiences that we can then sell. Right.

So for example, we have started our summer Saturdays program, which we particularly asserted the summer Saturday program to. It's for kids, children. And the. It meets some of our strategic goals in that it's. It's hitting school age group.

But that's also our Disney cruise ship day. So we've already seen an increase in visitors of children on Saturdays there. The Disney cruise ship families are paying to come visit and we're getting more of that. But we're also then providing an opportunity for the public as well. So I don't think it's just the raising of the, the rates in and of itself, although that is certainly part of it.

And we've, we've seen that that's. But also creating more chances for people to be becoming as well. You want to follow up? Yes. So we have raised the rates from last year.

Yes, a substantial raise. We raised a dollar all around. I will say we moved our. The museum pass, which is the two you get to go to each. It's now an even $10.

And we are seeing by changing that that most people are actually opting to buy that museum pass whether they go to each museum, maybe not, but they're just going for that $10. So I do think we need to find the sweet spot. How High. Can we raise it without driving people away? It is potential we could continue, continue raising it.

I do want to kind of keep an eye on what other museums do. As I had mentioned last year when we were looking at budgets that the state museum only charges about $8, $9 ahead also. So if we get too high above that, then we might see diminishing returns. So trying to figure out where that sweet spot is is what I think we're aiming to do. Great.

Just to follow up, I think 10 is, I think people compared to the state museums and our museum, the traffic that we get, our visitors are very, very keen to visit the museums. And I think we can go about another 20% higher and generate revenue so that the museum can be self sufficient. And my second question was, have we looked into a program of selling museum tours on the different cruise ships like other tours are sold on cruise ships? Yes. So I'm actively looking at that right now.

And yeah, that's definitely part of what, what is involved in that, in that goal as well. We wanted to kind of establish the program this year first. So that has been sort of where the focus has been this year has been getting an actual product we could then sell like that. So. But yes, that's the next logical step and I am working towards that.

Thank you so much. Anybody else? Thank you. Thank you.

So there's a motion to proceed with that. So yeah, Your honor, we're, we're just look for recommending a motion to proceed with implementation of the plan. Okay. Your honor, I move the city council authorized staff to proceed with the implementation of the 2027, 2031 Ketchikan Museum. We have a motion.

Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Finnegan read it and then Gage seconded it. There's a motion on the floor.

Please call the roll.

Rodbury. Yes. Gage. Yes. Finnegan.

Yes. Gas. Yes. Natani. Yes.

Zingy. Yes. Yes. If you bring this order number 26 2031, menu chapter 11.12, Telecommunication Service and rates of the Ketchikan municipal code. First reading.

Do I have a motion please?

Your honor? Yes. I move the city council Approve Ordinance Number 262031 and First Reading. Amending Chapter 11.12, Telecommunications Services and rates, the catch cam and the school code provided for public hearing and establish an effective code. So it had been moved and seconded.

Matt, what do we have? Thanks, your honor. So this, this ordinance on the first reading does a couple things. We had issued an interim tariff, so this ordinance puts those changes into the Code essentially what we're doing since we had improved a lot of equipment in our core, we're now able to offer faster speeds to customers. So we've changed our pricing and plans that we offer.

So we adjusted things so we can now offer faster speeds for the same price that customers were paying before or maybe even a little bit less. So a couple of plans went down, but most of them stayed the same. But now they're getting faster speeds for that. And that's for both residential and business. We did have a little bit of glitch.

Some people this month got charged a little more because we didn't have the package together. But that'll be corrected. And I just want. And the other, I guess on that point I wanted to point out too. So this being able to offer 10 gigabits of speed to customers is a really big deal.

I mean it sounds just like a. Number, but. Not only. I mean, for one thing that's the fastest of anywhere in Alaska. So we'll be the premier provider there.

But even in the lower 48 in the entire US there's only, there's less than one third of the population of the entire US can even get 1 gig of speed and we're offering 10 times that. So when you get into the 10, 10 gigabit speed, you know, I, I tried to do some research, but there aren't many. There's only a very small handful of companies in the entire US that can even offer that. So I think that's a, a big huge step forward for Kitch can and being able to offer that and people that potentially come remote work, live here or you know, do business here, it's a big improvement for them. The other thing, we change a couple prices on more premium managed router.

So that's we, we have price added for those and then the big, as you look through, you'll see a lot of line through sections. Basically that's removing all the IPTV section out of, out of the code. So we'll keep a placeholder there if we ever go back to it. But that's the main, the other big part of, is removing all that language. So thank you.

And this is an elective service that they pay for if they want, you know, they can. What kind of customers use 10 gigabyte? Well, we haven't had any sign up yet, but it's. If people are doing a whole lot of the streaming gaming, you know, some people, they could be having five, six computers set up and framing streaming, then they may need that. We've been able to test to that speeds.

We have one of our or some of our employees testing that and it, it works. They're getting that speed. So it's the biggest thing I mean the other thing to remember too that's download and upload speed. That so the download speed mainly if you're streaming things. But gamers, the upload speed is huge to gamers.

So that's because they're you know that information is going back and forth. So essentially it's kind of like a super highway. So the one thing now is people getting their computers to be able to handle that speed. So the fiber will handle it so their computers can handle it. Thank you.

Questions?

I'm seeing none. Please call the roll. Zingy. Yes. Coos.

Yes. Bradbury. Yes Finnegan? Yes Yass? Yes.

Matani? Yes. Gage? Yes. Thank you.

Brings us to item d, Ordinance Number 26 2030. Amending Ordinance Number 181867 with drop rises Junior lien obligation payable to the city sewer fund in a principal amount not to exceed 15 million to finance cost of wastewater system facilities for freedom. Motion, your honor. Move the city council Approve Ordinance number 26 2030. And first reading, amending ordinance 181867 which authorizes junior lien obligations payable from the city's sewer fund of the principal amount of not to exceed $15 million to finance costs of improvements to wastewater system facilities and establishing an effective date.

2Nd it's been moving. 2Nd Matt. Thanks your honor. Yes, this honest will bring our finance director up to speak to this and answer any questions on it.

Finance director Michelle Hansen. What this does is the council's aware voters approved $50 million in bonding capacity in October 2025. So this amends our bonding capacity. In addition, it reflects the two wastewater loans for the disinfection facility waste and the first piece of the disinfection facility and then the second phase of water street. So we have two loans ADEC has offered us and we will be bringing back an ordinance once sorry a resolution once this ordinance is passed to to accept those loans.

So we have to do this piece in order to do the second piece which is accepting the loans.

So this is the ordinance that reflects the bonding capacity and the change to that bonding capacity with those two loans. Thank you. Questions? Yes. Just for clarification, your honor, what will that accepting those loans do to our debt service?

It will increase our debt service and we will be bringing that back when we have the resolution that will show you what the debt is and then the actual Debt service. So that accepting those loans at that point will is a separate resolution. This just reflects that in our bond authorization.

We aren't obligating the debt service at this point. This just gives us the authority to do so.

Yes, all of them. So once we this body votes on this ordinance authorizes it. So we will be eventually creating a debt service when you bring the resolution to accept the loans forward. Correct. Thank you.

This reflects what the voters approved and then the two loans against that bond authorization. So we haven't accepted the loans yet. That's coming. Ms. Crel, do you have those numbers? I didn't hack.

That would be my next memo with the resolution to accept the loans is the loan forgiveness. You have to do that through the chair. We do also have the potential for loan forgiveness through the DTC loan plan. So that will come back to the council with the full well and all the full loan information and loan forgiveness and the impact to debt service all come back. So I just want to point out we think we will get some loan forgiveness on this, which is a good thing.

Also to speak to the sewer projects. So the wastewater treatment plan, disinfection upgrades, very important project required by the EPA under our new permit. We have a very tight timeline. We have five years which we're almost one year through. So we're ticking down.

But this is all part of the plan to finance this and get the project executed. The second project is the water street sewer based Bravo. Very important project. And so we're. We're lining things up to do these projects and get them done.

We just need this authorization bringing this stuff back to the council for their review and approval.

So Seth, while you got you there, we're talking about projects of this magnitude as we saw with the H Vac system and how that project came about. Is there a potential to do a design build on these projects to lock down the cost effectively and reduce the amount of training order due to a design build project?

So for the water street sewer based Bravo, we already have the design in motion with Steppel Engineering that's been awarded. They're most of the way through it. We're poised to bid that project out later this year. There wouldn't be an opportunity to do design build there. But for phase A we did bring that project in on budget.

So just keep in mind that the utility project is a little bit different bidding environment than say the building project that we went through with H Vac. I understand that. And for then for the treatment plant, there could be a potential for design Build for the eventual disinfection improvements. So that's something we could look at. So.

And again, the treatment facility is an unfunded mandate handed down by the federal government and the regulations in regards to effluent. Is that correct? So if we don't do it, then we're in violation. Definitely not recommend go that route. No, I'm just making it clear.

Yeah, exactly. All right. Appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. Anything else?

Hearing. Seeing None. Follow the rule. Zingy? Yes.

Atani? No. Gas. Yes. Finnegan?

Yes. Bradbury. Yes. Gage? Yes.

Coos? Yes. That brings us to item.

E.

Award of contract number 2639, professional service agreement Phantom Dolphin and DOC PND Engineering Inc. Do I have a motion? Your honor, pursuant to section 312051C2A of Ketchikan Municipal code, I move that the city council Authorize contract number 2639, Professional Services Agreement Birth 1 Expansion Dolphin and Dock. PND Engineers incorporated in the amount of $290,000 to prove funding for the 2026 Birth 1 Expansion Dolphin and Dock Capital Agreement Proven project number 4013 and direct the temporary city manager to execute the contract documents on behalf of the city council. Second.

Thanks, your honor. So this.

This is to authorize the mainly the design contract for the for birth one. The ports harbors director and manager's office concurs that this is should be directed to P and D engineers due to their their previous experience with working with the city and their dock. You know, their experience in the area. That's a recommendation. If there's questions with ports harvest director Phillips here.

So Wayne, could you tell us what this project is? Yes, your honor. Good evening, your honor, Council members, temporary student manager McLaren. This. This was a CIP project that we put in for 2026 that's already been approved.

What this project is is to look at coming up with a design to expand berth one to accommodate these larger vessels. As you know, these vessels are getting bigger. One of the things that we're looking at is trying to expand berth three. We've already got that design ready to go to accommodate those bigger vessels. And we're also looking at the possibility of doing that for Burp one.

What I'd like to do is be able to utilize P and D to come up with an initial design. What I'd like to do and what I kind of put in here was I'd like them to bring it to 30% design to give everybody here an idea of what exactly that's going to look like. And do an estimate as well. With the ever changing marine engineering environment going on right now, the costs are kind of getting pretty high. So before I completed, you know, I went ahead and told him to go with us and run it all the way to 100%.

I wanted to take 30%, bring it back to council, show you the design, and then also give you an initial estimate before we continue. That initial estimate will end up being $87,000. So they can get the, the estimate and that 30% design. Once I bring it back to council, if council agrees, I can go ahead and move forward and get this taken to 100%. There's always value anyway of doing this to 100%.

You know, even if we're not going to do it right away, we can have that design ready to go. But I thought the best way to do this was to do that, initial up to 30%, bring it back to council and also get a pretty clear estimate of what, what the cost may be. So what additions are you going to make this particular.

Project? I believe the design would end up being making the Dolphin, the Dolphin further out. And then also the, there would be a floating dock that would expand that out to accommodate larger vessels. The floating dock would be along all of the pier face on Earth one. It would be not along all of it.

It would be further down along Pier 1 to expand that out. So you would have additional space further out on Earth one. And you would still be able to probably more than likely be able to possibly either use one larger, larger vessel there or even possibly two vessels on Bert one.

So in regard to how we fund these projects, as you see in the private sector, they reach out and see if there's any interest to partner with the cruise industry or prep for birthing or birthing rights or whatever to help reduce the cost to our community. Has any thought gone into that process in regards to this type of expansion? I have certainly thought about that. I, I think the initial, my initial idea is to get, get the design and then once that's done, if we decide we want to go with that, then we can certainly reach out to, to the particular cruise lines to see if there's interest. One of the ideas that I would think would be, you know, probably appealing and say, hey, if you help us with this, you'll have first right to use Birth one.

Is that, you know, is that something that you, you know, the cruise industry or particular line might be interested in? Of course they'd have to, you know, get an agreement with the city and those kind of things. But that's, that's an idea that I think we should really look at and something I would like to look at. Thank you, Jay. Your.

Thank you. Just to follow up on that answer just now. Yes, sir. Holland America now has preferential birthing rights. What happens if you go to negotiate with different cruise lines?

I'm sorry, I'm not aware of a preferential for. For Holland America on. They've been grandfathered into preferential birthing on 1 and 2. You see Holland America all the time, and that's the excuse we always get. They have the right for first birthing.

We've always heard that. What happens to all that? I don't know. That would, that, that's a, that's a question for the city attorney. I don't know what would happen there.

I'm not aware of any such agreement. Okay. I mean, that's what being told by. Yes. Stephen Oring and everything.

No historical burden seen. Right. I'm not aware of that either. Okay. I, I stand corrected.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess this sounds. Funny coming from me, but I, I'm not too sure why we're trying to expand for the bigger ships when we've got a concern about the number of people showing up in town. I, I think, at least in my mind is, you know, I'm, I'm thinking what's going to happen is there, there seems to be a move in the industry to go to bigger ships and the smaller ships are going to go away. I don't know if that's going to be right away, but that, that, that's kind of what I'm seeing that's happening.

They're bringing in these bigger ships and, you know, I don't know, as they grandfather out these smaller ones, you know, they may just end up being with pretty much the bigger ships. So I think, in my mind anyway, we're trying to maybe be a little proactive and make sure that we're, we're moving with the industry a little bit. If we want them. Another question is, is there going to be a conflict getting into Bar Harbor? I mean, to getting into Thomas Basin?

No, sir. One of the, one of the ideas that we put in here when we got the, the initial estimate from P and D for this particular park project, that was one of the, the points that was made, that we need to make sure that whatever we do here, that there won't be a conflict with anybody going into Thomas Basin. And they've assured me that they've looked at that and that won't be a problem. Well, that seemed to be an issue whenever we were trying to get somebody about 10 years ago to come in and do the whole thing. The people that are in the harbor didn't really care for it because of the jigging and jagging you got to do to get in.

So it's, it's an issue. The other one is spoken to a little bit. But the cost is who pays.

And if you can get somebody maybe to pay for it, fine. But if not, where you can get the money. And that's, that's exactly right. And I think that's why I wanted to do a 30% design and bring you an estimate to say this is how much it's going to cost. Is this something we want to continue?

Yeah. Is this one of this something we want to consider? Because if that birth three dolphin out there cost us $9 million, this down here is going to cost us three times that. Birth three is going to cost us more than 9 million. Well, that's what was the original.

But this down here is going to. Be a lot more four. That's in the book.

Right? Thanks. Maybe not so much a question for the Ports and Harvest director but just some thoughts. Over the last period of time I've kind of been, my opinion has gone more down the path of what Dick was saying.

We have been hearing as the Ports and Harvest director said that the ships are going bigger, we got to accommodate the bigger ships. While now whenever I forced to go through downtown, it seems like we see three or four of these major ships and with berth four expanding, Berth three expanding, I'm not too sure that, I mean, what's the worst case scenario? We can put a huge ginormous mega ship on four, a huge ginormous mega ship on three and then if the smaller ships do phase out, oh man, maybe we can only put one more, a third major ship down on the one and two. I, I am of the opinion that that's plenty and I'm all for the economy and the free market and the money, but we have reached a saturation point. I'm hearing more from people now.

People are at their wits end with it and they're saying we have to do something. So I don't necessarily, I have been contemplating but I don't necessarily like the idea of putting in, you know, a limitation like Juno has done. That's a topic for another time. We did hear for a long time that that would just ruin the whole cruise industry and now Juno has done it and they seem to Be doing just fine. But this could be sort of an unofficial way of at least maybe not limiting, but not opening ourselves up for more, more, more.

So at this time, I don't support the project because I just think it's too much. And we've already started going down this path with, down on this end. And really, if you boil it all down, what are we trying to do? We're just trying to make it so we can put four of these ginormous ships in and we're going to have 20,000 people a day and another, however many they can put in Ward Cove, two more major ships. So I, I don't think I want to continue down this path now.

And I think, final thought, if the council agrees with me or has the same concerns, it's much easier to put the brakes on it, either permanently or at least temporarily for now, than to spend a bunch of money, do a bunch of studies, come up with designs further on in the process, and then come to this opinion. So I would like to put the brakes on it. Maybe in a few years we decide we really need more tourists. But that's not where I'm at. Thank you, Jalen.

So.

Aside this project, where are we at on the, the actual maintenance of all these port or docks? We're in the middle right now. You have P and D right now coming up with plant specs and estimates that should be done in the fall. And the idea is to get that on the street in the fall so we can get it bid out. And the hope is to have local firms bid on that.

A lot of this work can be done by local firms and the hope is that they'll bid on that and then they can start working over the, through the, through late fall into the, all the way into early spring and start doing some of that work and start doing some of these repairs and putting cathodic protection on. It needs to be done. Vinyl wraps, coatings, because I think it's not protection. I'm, I'm with the thought that.

I,. I actually don't agree that the little ships are going to go away. I, I do not necessarily. I, I understand the concept of. We've looked at this a few times, but I'm at the thought that I'm also hearing the same thing regarding the issues downtown and just the congestion and just if we over populate, it's not, it does two things.

It doesn't benefit us and it leaves for a very poor visitor experience. So I'm not, I'm kind of like, you know, I don't think the community should have to pay for it if we're going to do this. Thank you, Abby.

I think I'm in the same situation as Jake here. I got to be careful. But I just don't think this is the right climate for the expansion of birth one.

I mean, we've seen the last two. You know, those are moving forward.

A lot more potential there, A lot more space that doesn't block, you know, access to. To a harbor as much as this one would through previous drawings that we saw. But I'm also really more focused on shoring up docks one and two. They haven't had a lot of maintenance underground, like proper maintenance to shore it up in a long time. And I would prefer to see this money move to just making sure that dock is gonna hold and that the ballers are gonna hold.

They're not gonna break or anything of. That like they had in the past,. Versus going into an expansion with this climate that we have at the moment.

Jake? Yeah, this is a tough one. I'm on birth one. It would benefit me, but I don't support the project because, first, maintenance of 1 and 2 has been deferred for a while. I think that needs to be shored up.

Second, we've got to take into account the community sentiment, and the community that lives here wants a pause for a little bit. And I also think our cruise line partners, if they are going to bring in bigger ships, should pony up. I know some people will kill me tonight that have businesses in that area, but we are elected by our community to look out for what their voices are speaking up. So I wouldn't be supporting this. Abby.

Totally throwing this question out. Is it possible to do this project just the dock versus adding the dolphin? Because, like, having a floating dock is safer and better for the vessels. And so I just didn't know if in this, like, do we have to expand it to make it bigger or could we just make it safer by a floating dock and less movement in. The docks or things like that.

I don't know if that would really do anything other than you would end up just having a dock out on the other side of what you already have. So I don't know if that would do a whole lot other than, you know, have a floating dock outside our dock. So the short answer is, I don't know. We could do anything. I mean, you could build anything, but I don't know if that would really, you know, bring a great, you know, addition to the.

To the dock or, you know, Help the dock a lot,.

Dick? Yeah, I can. When was it, Bob, that we had the big contract go out and looking for partners and it was going to be a floating dock off of both 1 and 2. And what it did is it gave them easier access to the dock and it also gave us more space on the dock because we don't have enough space down there for all the buses and vans right now. But we got to get that those ramps off the dock.

So if you want to work on a project to get floating docks off 1 and 2 outside of them, I can support that. It's only going to cost $100 million.

So right now we got a proposal to look at expanding or bringing a concept back with the estimated cost in regards to a dolphin and a float or earthworm, Correct? That's correct. That's what it's like. It's. It's.

It's looking at it to see if it's worthwhile pursuing the project due to costs and returned or if it's not. So that's before you write down. Your honor. Yes. I'd like to make an amendment to postpone this for a one year period to revisit this one year from now.

I second that. And moved and seconded further discussion to do what's now postpone the. The. The proposed project for a year just to beat it.

Any comments? Yeah, you ain't seeing that. Please call. Was a. With the motion seconded?

Yes. Okay. Please call the rule on the.

Gage. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yes.

Sorry. Thanks, Jack.

Yes. Okay. Getting way too late tonight, Tawny. Yes. Then again.

Yes. Bradbury. Yes. Zingy. Yep.

Yes. Yes. I'll just blame you. What's that do to the name motion? It's been postponed for one year, so I'll come back in a year.

Okay.

Your honor, do we have to ask. For an extension at 10:00 clock or 10:30? We don't have that at all. We don't have that. Oh, that's just in our.

Yeah, we tried. We tried to bring that forward. So bring us to items. Yeah. Procurement of pumper tender tanker cus.

Custom Fire Apparatus Inc. Do I have a motion? Please, Your honor, I move the city council approve the procurement of a municipal pet pumper tanker on a custom chassis. Southwest custom pumper 25 from Custom Fire Apparatus Incorporated. Utilizing the competitive Bidding Source Bell MN Contract Number 082025 CSM Price of $1,056,919.75. Direct the temporary city manager to execute the contract purchasing documents on behalf of the city council and I further move that staff bring forward an ordinance utilizing the city's bond council that authorizes the federal financing for the purchase of the pumper tanker.

Second. It has been moved and seconded, Matt. Thanks, your honor. So, yes, fire department's in need of a pumper taker. And this.

What we're trying to do here is move forward with the purchase agreement for this vehicle. The finance director is currently working with bond council on the financing side of it, and that part will need to be bring forward later once that's resolved. But an effort to try to reduce the risk of a potential price increase. We'd like to move forward with the agreement anyway, so then. And then come back later with the ordinance on the financing.

So it's my understanding that right now we had a financing mechanism in place when we bought the aerial. Correct. And that is coming to payout. And so by moving this forward, we will actually reduce the ongoing payment that we're looking at in replacing apparatuses over time. Chief.

Mr. Mayor. Council. Yes. As you know, a few years ago, we were in a unique situation where we had a lot of aging and failing equipment. So I worked with the finance director to develop a little bit of what I would like to call more sustainable plan.

Initially, the thought was to purchase this pumper tender in 2025, but in talking to the finance director, we finance the large apparatus for seven years. The useful life of a fire engine is somewhere around 21 years. So in order to do a sustainable funding every seven years, once or if. If you approve this purchase tonight, every seven years, we will bring forward a purchase of a new fire truck. Our oldest one then will become 21 years.

And while we are taking on new debt, we're not increasing the money that we're setting aside for payments. And I think if you approve this and we bring back the agreement, it's somewhere It'll be about $65,000 a year less than the current payments we're making.

Thank you. Any other questions there? Ain't seeing none. Please call the roll, your honor. Oh, yeah, go ahead, Jake.

My biggest concern right now is we financed two other vehicles in the last two budgets, and they have not yet been delivered. And is there thinking that they might be delayed further? And why do we want to add a third purchase and delay that one of the few years? So the apparatus industry, large apparatus industry in the United States is very difficult to predict right now. As you know, we.

We will have paid three years on two fire engines that are projected to arrive in November. So in essence, we have paid almost half of their financing bill before they arrive. It's unfortunate that the large conglomerate corporations are doing this across America. It also is making it more difficult to purchase used apparatus because people are keeping them longer, because they're having to wait longer to get new apparatus. So we started looking at all of the companies out there to look to see who could provide us a good quality product and reduce the weight.

And quite frankly, that's why you have the proposal for custom fire apparatus. They manufacture excellent equipment. One of the things that I like about them is if we get a damaged piece of equipment, we call them up, they fabricate the replacement piece that comes here. Our shops will remove the damaged pieces and replace the new one. As you know, we had a damaged fire apparatus that spent a little bit over six months at Anchorage last year getting repaired.

The second thing is this custom fire apparatus doesn't use proprietary equipment, meaning if I need a valve for it, I could go and source that valve directly from the same place they bought it from. Whereas like Pierce and some of the other equipment we have, you have to buy it from Pierce because of the way that Pierce manufactures it and wires it.

So we took a lot of that into consideration and we're looking at, if you sign the agreement tomorrow, we're looking at an estimated delivery time of next November. Not this coming November, but November of 27. Potentially could be sooner. It just depends when he gets delivered the chassis to start building the back on our two new engines. I'm constantly in contact with the manufacturer.

They told me November. The last time I got a message from them, they said potentially August. But then I got another message that said potentially November. So we want to try to eliminate that with the purchase of the pumper tender. You want to follow up?

Yes. The pumper tender that we have now, what is, what's the condition of that? Does it work? The pumper tanker we have now, it spends a little bit of time out of service. It's approaching the 20 year mark.

It was manufactured by a company that is no longer in business. So it makes it very difficult to source the parts for it. And the second thing, it would require a pretty major pump overhaul because there's simply valves on it on the pump that takes the water from the tank to the hoses that are not working properly. The second thing we were purposeful in our design because the current, the current pumper tender we can't really run is a first out piece of fire equipment, meaning I can't run it when I have an Engine broken down. It's not the design and the purpose of the intention of it.

This one we can. And with the growth we're seeing. North. Of Walmart, it's pretty amazing. You know, there's a large marina going in just north of Walmart that we will be responsible for covering large amount of boats, a fuel farm.

We've had three new buildings built, with the fourth one scheduled to be built in the Walmart area, plus protecting the shoreline members. So I. I think it's time that we upgraded and put a reliable piece of equipment. I was in Station 2 the other day, and there's a sign hanging on the door of the bumper tender out of service. As we were waiting on some parts that Nick had a little bit of a difficult time sourcing to come in to make the repair. Is that the engine you have to use the pipe wrench on to turn the valve?

Yes. Yeah. Or you have to use a pry bar to open. You can't physically open them just the way they were manufactured and made in there. Unfortunately, we don't have design schematics or the ability to go back to that.

Manufacturer and say, fix this. Thank you. Anybody else hearing stand on, Please call the rule. Gas. No.

Gage. Yes. Singing? Yes. Bradbury.

Yes. Matani? No. Then again, yes. Goose.

Yes. Thank you.

So with the hours that we have before us, I'm going to forego the reports and. Oh, you still have the new business? Oh, yeah, we have H by that, which is 5E. That would have to be resolution number 263020.

That's resolution number 26 3020. Living in general property tax for municipal purpose upon the real property and business properties in the city of Ketchikan year 2007 tax providing for a collection of taxes due in 2024 tax. Do I have a motion? Your honor, I move to city council Approved resolution number 263020 levying a general property tax for municipal purposes upon all real and business personal property in the city for the year 2026, providing for the collection of taxes due in 2026. Prescribing penalties and interest for delinquent taxes and establishing an effective date there.

Second. Second. Been moving. Second. Matt.

Thanks. Your honor. Yeah. Alaska statutes require property tax be levied before June 15th. So this is.

Levies. That tax keeps the general property tax the same as it is now.6.6 meals. And finance director Johansson's here to answer any questions. If there's questions about it. Yeah, try to.

Yeah. I wanted to move this off of consent because I found it interesting. I know. My understanding is it's kind of standard that I guess every year the assessments go up. I noticed in this, it does state that this year that with the increased assessments in the city, there's an additional 20.

They've increased it for 27 million 545 of taxable property, which is generating quite a bit of extra revenue. And so I just wanted to talk about a little bit. I recall maybe a couple years ago, the bureau actually did a small decrease on the rate percentage to offset that. And I noticed that we're collecting more than we anticipated. So I'm just wondering, I guess, a little more detail on where the money is going to go and if it is worth looking at, seeing if we might do a small decrease to, to give the people a little break and still break even or make the amount that we made last year, if that's been thought of at all.

MICHELLE so, your honor, Council member Gass, there are two schedules in my memo. One is addressing the change from 2025 to 2026 assessed assessments. And the second schedule is what we budget because we do try to budget somewhat of an increase or getting feedback from the assessor's office what they anticipate the increase will be if, if they don't have a specific number, we look at the average over a certain period. So we factored into the budget 6.9 million. So there's only a $33,480 difference between what we factored into the budget, what we're projecting to get.

It doesn't always mean that we will get it. Sometimes there are people that come back and say, oh, I'm filing for my senior exemption. And that wasn't factored into the current assessments because they hadn't filed yet. So they can, they can still potentially file. And then that's increasing the exemptions.

So there's still fluctuations people may see. Still, I think they still have an opportunity to contact the borough and have their property valued or revalued. But I'm not 100% sure on how long that process takes or when that would take effect if they objected to their assessed value and their property tax bill. So having said that, at this point, based on the value in the certified role, there's only $33,480. So 1.1 mil is approximately $105,000.

So we, if we decreased the mill rate 0.1 mil, it would reduce $105,000 worth of revenue. So is it, given that the assess values go, am I Correct in saying that they go up every year. Is that a fair statement or no? Yes. I think that what we've seen on average is about two and a half percent when you look at over a longer period of time.

So that's what we factored in was about 2 1/2% this year and it was 2.7%. So when we're factoring these numbers in the future, you know, if they're going to keep going up like this, I mean that's quite a bit. Is there any thought that goes into the idea of maybe not every year, but looking at a possible decrease. In. The property tax to offset those assessments?

Council MEMBER Yes, I would say that what we're potentially able to do is not increase the mill rate. We have costs that increase, we have wages that increase, we have inflation. And so while we didn't increase, we haven't increased the mill rate since.

2013 Was the last time we increased it and we decreased it in 2017.

There was a significant increase, it was last year, 2025 of 8%. But we needed that increase to fund operational costs. In 2020 you were supposed to have increased the mill rate 0.5 mils and we didn't. So that was specifically to fund a 2019 comp plan for general government. So that didn't happen because of COVID So the council made the decision to not do it.

But those costs were still there. But thankfully we've been seeing this on average 2.5% increase per year. So that's offset. So that's help offset. Yes.

So thank you. Michelle, what did the property tax pay for? Property tax pays for at this point it's paying for library operations, library debt service, fire debt service, a small percentage of fired operations. It doesn't pay for all of it. We need sales tax revenues to pay for that and then a share of the software doesn't pay for.

The only thing it pays for is library and debt service for the library in total because we, we need to be able to pay for that from property tax revenues because that's within the city and that's property tax revenue. So. So the borough pays for their share with the non area wide mill rate on any borough resident. Library mill rate, it's a specific line item on theirs. So I believe it's about 20.

So I believe it's about 21% of the property tax goes to pay for fire, 48% of the property tax goes to pay for police. But again that's not paying for all the police. I believe it's 3 million of police approximately. And 1, maybe 2 million. But have a schedule that I have coming in the budget work section that specifically shows that.

Yeah, just round numbers. That's. I'm not ready. Yeah. So.

But the 33,000 that you talk about in the increase this year doesn't even keep up with inflation, Right? Yeah. And the wage increases that we didn't fund via the sales tax increase. Yeah, go ahead. Just to be clear, the 33,000 though, was above what was forecasted.

It's more than 33,000 from last year. It's 33,000 more than we expected. It's 33,480 more than what we budgeted. So we projected an increase and budgeted for that increase. So it's 33,000 above what we budgeted.

I don't have it in front of me. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. If you don't have it, it's fine. But do you know off top of your head what the total increase is from last year to this year that. Is attached in the schedule?

It is 27. I think you even referred to that 27 million. It was the total assessed value increase. But as far as tax dollars collected. Oh, do you know how much more tax dollars collect?

I saw the 27 million more of assessed value, but I didn't see.

That is in the schedule.

So last year we had 6.8 million and so this year it's 6.985 million. Thank you.

Thank you. It's not like any other questions hearing seeing none. Would you please call the roll coos? Yes. Matani Bradbury.

Yes. Finnegan. Yes. Gage. Yes.

Singhy. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Thank you. That concludes our business. Like I said, I want to probably defer the reports. You can read them as you wish. And that concept will move into the item B.

Executive session question executive status negotiations to the representative employee the port staff. Your honor, I move the city council declare that consistent with the acting assistant city manager's recommendation, it is in the best interest of the city to discuss strategies relative to negotiation of an interim letter of agreement between the city and the international brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547 to be incorporated into the general government contract and executive session. In accordance with that finding, the city council go into executive session in accordance with KMC 2.04025 A1A to discuss said negotiations and subjects, the knowledge of which would have an adverse impact upon the finances of the city and upon the city's ability to negotiate favorable labor agreements. Second and second Any discussion? Would you please call the gage?

Yes. Zingy. Yes. Coos. Yes.

Bradbury. Yes. Matani. Yes. Gas?

Yes. Finnegan. Yes.

Success to executive.

In executive sessions.

And gave direction to staff. We'll go back, I think councilman of course has a question under the manager report if you want. Dick. Yep. The question is probably Michelle.

We got almost $90 million in reserves. Have we got that invested anywhere making any money,.

Council Member Cruise? Yes, we have money invested and we have currently 40 million invested in money market. Only 20 million. 40. 40.

I'm sorry,. He's the one doing the investing. That's okay. I just want to make sure we're getting money back out of it as every dime that we can't, we don't need to land in our pocket, we're going to be getting money back out of it. Yeah, I think we are.

I think our interest last year was. About $3 million in interest that we made. Again, I think our interest last year was about $3 million that we make. Can we double it?

How many more million can we, can we put out there? We still earn interest in. We have a, we have an A sweep account with Wells Fargo, so they take whatever is in our account every day and give us interest earnings on everything that's in just our general banking account. So we are technically investing that on a daily basis, it's just not in a long term investment like we have with the cargo and Treasury. No, I know you have to be able to get to it because it's reserves, but how much of that reserve can we actually invest?

You said only, we're only doing 40, 40 million at this point. We're working on increasing that, putting more in, but we have to make sure that we have enough coming back out so that if we need it so it's spread out so we piecemeal that over time so that at least is it monthly. Yeah, so when we invest in the T Bob, we usually like credit stagger them out so at least 2, at least 10 million mature every year so that we have those funds and if we don't need them, then we just. Reinvest them right away with. And those are sitting right around 3.5.

To 4 point percent interests for that. And then when we do our sweep,. I believe last time I looked, I think that was about 3.5%. So we need, especially during the summertime when we got all the construction jobs and everything else, we need those funds available and not locked up somewhere just. In case we need them and to.

Spend on our school Summer. Okay, so it's, I mean, all the funds that we have are invested in. Our accruing into it. It's just a matter of the public. Where they are is the issue.

All the funds you have, we got $88 million in reserves. So how much is invested? 88 Million? Well, I think 87,700,000 maybe because we keep a small amount in our checking account. It is invested.

It is invested, yes. Okay. Thank you. The other thing about the liquidity, we property tax, we don't receive that until October. So later in the year, in addition, the higher sales tax revenues, that's also later in the year.

So start receiving the June 30 quarter, and we don't receive that until August. So we want to make sure we have enough in the actual checking account for the first half of this year to make sure we have. We can make all those payments. So you're saying, are you saying that what is in the budget that we're going to spend this year is not part of the reserves?

It is not what was what we've got in the budget to spend project? That's not in reserves. That's already. That's over here. Some of that isn't in reserves because we're earning revenue throughout the year.

So with wastewater port, we're earning that throughout the year. Property tax doesn't come in until the end of the year. And while we're still earning property tax, the bulk of the big portion of our property taxes until we don't get that until August. So, I mean, we are still receiving some revenues, but it's not the big revenues for the general fund. Okay.

I think so. Some of what we do have as in reserves that we're paying for as we go along, and we're still earning revenue, but we have more costs than we have revenues, typically the first part of the year, just because of when we receive our big sales tax.

Thank you. Thank you. Anything else, guys? I have a motion.

Opposed? I did have a few, but I submitted it, so I guess I don't need to talk about it. That's a thank you.