Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of August 27, 2026

All right. I will call the Kodak Alhambra Assembly Work Session of Thursday, October 27th to order at 6:30 PM. We will begin tonight with citizens' comments. This is the only time for citizens' comments at a work session. For those who wish to call in, the local number is 907-486-3231.

Toll-free is 1-855-492-9202. Please turn off your radio or any listening device to prevent feedback. And for those in the room who wish to speak, you can come to the podium and sign in. Turn on the microphone, make sure the green light is on before speaking, and speak directly into the mic. And please state your name for the record and address all remarks to the Assembly as a body and not to any member thereof.

And we have somebody in the audience today.

My name is Dale Wildey. Is it on? Yes, I think you're good. Okay, you guys can relax. This is a thank you.

So anyway, I want to thank you guys for helping out with the noise and pollution that was going on down below my house out in Bell's Flats on the river. And you guys were super prompt. It was awesome. Um, it ended up, after all the rigmarole that went on and everything, that you guys ended up putting boulders down there, which is too bad, but it's helped enormously. It's— and I hope it keeps helping this winter.

So anyway, um, thank you for putting the boulders, going through all the trouble it took. I appreciated the promptness. Casey, the code enforcement guy, was awesome to work with. He was very nice. And, uh, and the other thing is, um Uh, I don't know if it's okay, but I wish Amy was here because she wrote me a really nice letter and she, uh, thanked me for all the litter pickup that I do around the community.

And I, I just wanted to thank her for that too. So it really meant a lot to me. So hopefully this Boulder deal will hold up. It's already been breached, but, you know, that was kind of to be expected. But it's like 90% better than it was.

So I want to thank you guys for helping out. Cool. All right. Thank you. And yeah, Amy's probably busy right now, but I'm sure she's going to listen to the meeting later on.

And so, but we'll pass along the thanks. So thank you. Have a good meeting.

Any calls? No calls. Okay. No calls. So we will jump right into Manager's comments.

Thank you, Chris, for filling in. No problem. Thank you. So for the Manager's Department, the Borough has joined last week the Association of Defense Communities and there is some additional information attached to the Manager's Report. I think it should be the first attachment.

Amy is in Fairbanks for the Defense Forum, Alaska Municipal League, and Alaska Municipal Management Association meetings. And then under current recruitments, uh, Engineering Facilities is looking for a maintenance employee and treatment plant operator 1, and assessing has hired a new appraiser tech, and she will start on September 8th, uh, 2026. For the finance department, no changes from last week's meeting. For the IT department, uh, IT department is making progress on two main projects, one being the cybersecurity infrastructure project Project and the Proxmox Test Project. Both of these are progressing as expected and are anticipated to be completed on time.

The Cybersecurity and Risk Mitigation Infrastructure Project is ongoing and IT is working on rolling out some security patches and updates to the Bureau's computer systems and also working to install the new Fortinet equipment capabilities for the existing Bureau of Security practices. In GIS, the staff are continuing to work on documenting our GIS system and data while migrating to GIS resources in anticipation of departure of the GIS analyst. GIS is also— GIS is also working on completing new plats that have been recently recorded and they are also working on some maps and information for the Comprehensive Plan. In assessing, the only change there is under— under senior citizen and disabled veteran exemptions, uh, two items there. One is that the assessing department sent three late-file denial notices, and there's also a good cause hearing scheduled for October 15th, 2026.

And then under Community Development— we are working to do an annual review for the hazard mitigation plan that was approved by FEMA in August of last year. I outlined the steps here for that. We have two questionnaires as well as we'll be contacting individual agencies from borough cities regarding some of these action items that are in the hazard mitigation plan. For updates. The main thing for the Assembly to know is that we will— once we have all that information together, we will be putting a report together that we will present to the Assembly at a future work session.

Under Engineering and Facilities, under Upcoming Contracts, the contractor roster— staff has received some submissions for the Request for Qualifications and Pricing. And those contracts will be awarded as outlined here. K&B Facility Snow Removal and Ice Control Contract, they are preparing an agenda item and that will be for the meeting cycles for September 10th and September 17th. Attached to the report is the August report from the Projects Office.

And I believe that is everything unless you have questions. I will do my best to answer or at least talk to Amy about what the answer should be. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Any questions for Amy via Chris?

There we go. Any questions or comments? Okay. All right. Thanks, Chris.

All right. Our agenda, our one agenda item for tonight. Is to discuss an ordinance amendment to the procedures and timelines for declaring and filling assembly vacancies. And we had a little hiccup this time around, so I'm glad we're right on it to address it. So, Nova, I'll let you take this one.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly. I am proposing some key improvements to the code. We had a little hiccup at the last assembly feeling the seat for the last assembly seat. So I made some proposed revisions to the borough code, and the key improvements first would be clear timelines. The process will, through that ordinance, will now officially start the exact day a resignation is accepted by the assembly, not when the person says, I'm resigning as of this date.

It needs to be clear in the code. My countdown starts once you as an assembly accepts that resignation. Okay, and then removing any guesswork about deadlines. Second would be easier application process. Community members can now— will be able to apply online, making it easier to submit an application.

And I already created a sample application Application right here. Distribute those, please. And third would be a better vetting. Applicants must use the official form. Right now it just says that a letter of interest or an application, or I think that's how it says in the code.

I can look it up. But I think it's better if we have an application form so they can check off that they can confirm up front that they are registered voters, that they have been a resident of the borough for at least a year, and that they have— they are willing to fill out the financial disclosure after appointment. It would be terrible for the assembly to go through all that and then a person would say, I really don't want to fill out the financial disclosure. And then we'll be stuck again with redoing the whole process again. It would be a lot of wasted time.

We had an occurrence in the past that we had someone that was appointed at the Commission and then later on find out about the requirement to fill out a financial disclosure, and we had to start over because of the change in circumstance of that person that he was not willing to fill out the financial disclosure. So lastly, I, I think this new code will provide a better seamless transition because right now it just says that they will serve until the election, but technically they just don't serve until the election. They serve until a new replacement is appointed, and that new replacement also has taken an oath of office. So that's what— how it's stated in the code. So it just clarifies all these ambiguities in the code.

So if you're supportive of it, I would like to introduce the code, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thanks for doing this, Nova. Questions? Mr. Woods. Less question, more statement.

I think everything you said makes a tremendous amount of sense, and I I'm glad that this process moving forward could potentially be made better, easier. And, uh, if nobody brought that to your attention, you saw it yourself. Um, big brain move, and that's what we expect from your level of excellence. So thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Ms. Roberts.

Um, I love the idea that it's going to be made electronic. Um, how does that work with the notary portion of it? Do they still have to come in and get that notarized? Yes, so they can get it if they're out, out of town and they want to apply, they can go to any notary and get it notarized and then just email it to us. That's what I meant with electronically.

But if someone wants to maybe just— I don't— I didn't even think of it, like, you know, if it's a fillable form, maybe that would be a little difficult. Maybe I could just say, you know, as long as you send me the notarized original or something like that.

Before the deadline, that's something that we could even consider because we allow that type of thing with the nominating petitions. As long as I received the original by mail before the close of the nominating period, we, we allow that. We can do— we can— I can add that language if you'd like to see that there.

Yeah, I think just making it more available, easier for people to apply is great.

Yep. Would you like to see this introduced sometime soon? I would. Okay, yes. Okay, if I can get it—.

Across the board. Okay, if I can get it done by Thursday, I'll add it to the agenda. Fantastic. We have a couple of light agendas Um, so this would be— it's a good time to clean things up. Thank you.

Okay, moving on then to, uh, packet review. So let's pull up, um, the regular meeting packet of September 3rd. Uh, first thing is a proclamation declaring September 13th through 19th, 2026, Adult Education Family Literacy Week. We've done this for a few years in a row. Now, and it's just good to kind of support that workforce and education pipeline for the community.

And then Resolution— to talk about next Thursday, Resolution FY2027-04, designating Engineering Facilities Director Cody Allen as a temporary administrative official during the absence or disability of the Borough Manager and the Designated Administrative Official. And I don't know, Chris, did you have anything to say on behalf of Amy? I would only say that it's probably my fault that this is happening, just because I have meetings in December at the same time as AML, and I would not be able to be a temporary administrative official at that time, and so Cody has agreed to take that over. But I have been the temporary official for the last year, so it's his year to do it. I dig it.

Any questions? It's okay. Look at that, moving right along. And then we will have an executive session to discuss the Kirtick Landfill bear management. We are awaiting some legal opinions on some things and DEC has come back with some things also.

So we will have an executive session next week to talk about that. Any questions about the executive session? And I think this was Mr. Woods' recommendation to do that, and it was a good one. Mr. Smiley. In the handout, the email that was sent out, it said the state said that they could fine us up to $500,000 for violations on this.

Is that realistic?

So, okay. The item that we're discussing is not discussing is that. It's the item is to discuss going into an executive session. So I don't want to go ahead, I don't want to preamble our discussions before we get to them next week, if that's okay, unless— if that's okay with the group. And yeah, I mean, we just saw that information from AEDC today.

I haven't fully processed it. Did you have something? Yeah, Mr. Gardner. Just really for Mr. Smiley, um, I have spoken to several people, many people, and were that ever to be the case, there's like many facets and steps to that. It's not like we just get a bill and be hammered right away.

So there's, there's a lot more to it, but I think that's all probably for next week. Thank you, Mr. Gardner. Mr. Woods. Echoing what Mr. Gardner said, this is probably best to stay on topic of what we're talking about. Going to executive session, yes.

Talking about the topic, no. All right. Thanks. Is this the shortest meeting ever? No, hold on.

We're almost there.

And okay. So that's everything on our regular meeting agenda next week. It looks deceptively short, but— But perhaps, perhaps not. All right. That takes us back to the work session agenda.

And to Clerk's comments. Thank you. First off, I would like to thank all our election workers who served during the absentee voting period and on Election Day. It was a successful and smooth Election Day, which was only possible because of the hardworking teams and the clerk's office, my staff, who did a lot of work that day. Uh, we have been assisting the Division of Elections staff to coordinate the pickup of remaining election materials.

The pickup is scheduled for tomorrow. It is interesting that they send us all the equipment the before election, and they are also sent back to Juneau. So there's a lot of hauling. You should see our records room. It's just filled with election equipment.

So the voter pamphlets are available in English and Filipino on the borough's website and will soon be posted on social media. We also created QR cards or QR codes, and I emailed those to you so you can email those out to people that you think would be interested in them. They will— the actual pamphlets will be coming from Anchorage, and they will be mailed to registered voters. So over the next couple of weeks. By mail voting ballots to Chignak and the rest of the villages are also expected to be mailed out within the next 2 weeks.

Ballots for the upcoming election have been ordered and are expected to be shipped to Kodiak by next Friday. Upon receipt, we will be conducting testing alongside the City of Kodiak Clerk's Office staff, and after successful testing, the voting machines will be configured and set to election mode. We will be conducting our election training for election workers on September 14th and, and September 18th. For individuals who want to submit their write-in candidacy filings, the filing period is now open and it will close at 3 PM on Tuesday, September 22nd. A canvassing team has been established for the local election.

Canvassing activities are scheduled to take place on October 14th. Certification of the election will occur on October 15th, and newly elected officials with will assume their roles on Monday, October 19th. A candidate forum is scheduled for Monday, September 8th, here in the assembly chambers. For those who wish to receive their ballots by mail, absentee by mail ballot applications are available on the Kodiak Island Borough website and here in the clerk's Office. Early voting for the October municipal election will start on Monday, September 21, and it will close on Monday, October 5.

Voting hours will be 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM here in the assembly chambers. The rest, um, I'm just gonna let you read them. Um, some miscellaneous items. We released the updates to the Borough Code. Uh, there is also an invitation for you to to attend an event honoring Senator Gary Stevens, and it's on September 13th, 4 to 6 PM at the Kodiak College.

And then I gave you a little Jurassic Parliament article at the very back for you to read. That's all I have. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Nova. Any questions for Nova?

Ms. Roberts. So I say thank you for the little education in the back. That's really useful.

Yes, for all of your outrageous and insulting comments that you make, Ms. Roberts.

The—. Make sure that you do Register RSVP for that event for Senator Stevens. They want to get really a sense of food, and because there's only so many people who can be there. So yeah, make sure you RSVP. NOVA have— so there have been some directions from the federal government, and I think with the USPS about mail voting.

Have you all had discussions about that? Do you feel pretty secure that our villages in Chinniack will We haven't had any discussions, and there was nothing that's coming from the— that has come from the state yet. We're planning to proceed with our by-mail voting, and we're also doing our absentee by mail. But I can, I can check on it and check with the state if there's any, any directives yet. Just, you hear things and you see executive orders and things, so you just want to make sure that all of our village residents can they can vote in the manner that they can, that they are used to.

Okay. Assemblymembers' comments. We will start down at the end with Mr. Woods. No comment. Ms. Roberts.

No comment. Mr. Ames. No comment. Mr. Smiley. No comment.

Mr. Gardner. Great to see you all.

Mayor's comments. I have a lot to say. I think I am going to save it for the regular meeting.

After my first year as mayor is kind of coming to an end, there are some things that I want to kind of change before the newly elected officials come in. And basically just like how committees are organized and taking some on and putting some on. So I think you will see some kind of organizational things coming through in September. And that is it for me. Seeing nothing else, we are adjourned.

Wow, 6:52.