Special Meeting May 14, 2026

I'd like to call this special city council meeting, uh, interviewing Matt McLaren for the vacant city manager, general manager position, to order. Would you please call the roll? Finnegan? Here. Matani?

Here. Gage? Here. Kuss? Yep.

Zingy? Here. Gas? Here. Bradbury?

Here. Thank you. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge 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 to respectfully acknowledge the traditional First People of this land in Ketchikan, the T'awqas Thank you. Do we have anything under communications? Yes, Your Honor. Is there anybody here to speak to the council on the person to be heard? Mr. Flavy?

Flavy, please come up here. Or introduce yourself and try not to break anything.

I think we can do better. Can you hear me? I think we can. Can you hear me now? Yep.

Go ahead. Yeah, good afternoon. My name is Captain John Falvey. I am, uh, currently retired for 3 and a half years. Prior to that, I was the director of the Alaska Highway System for 19 years.

Politically appointed by the governor, appointed in 2004 by Governor Murkowski. And received 5 additional appointments with each administration that came in, and I retired about a year into Governor Don Levy's second term. And Matt McLaren worked for me for 9 years at 2 very high-level positions. So I'd just like to kind of lay the groundwork. I probably don't— only have a few minutes here, but I was the director that brought the Green Highway System from Juneau to Ketchikan.

And when we got here, we had about 10 employees, and took me about 3.5 to 4 years to get to a point where we had roughly 16 employees. And, um, I was allowed by Elder Mukowski to make some, some org changes, some organizational changes. And the one thing that I did was, in addition to— I'm always having a, uh, a marine operations manager, marine engineering manager. I created a business manager, a business development position. Okay, the things that the business development position did was scattered around, scattered around, some of it actually in DOT, some of it various places, Highway.

And what I thought was very important was you're going to survive, uh, starting from scratch here in Ketchikan We needed someone that could handle business things because there's a lot of business that goes on at the Marine Highway. At the time that I was managing the system, we had 11 ships. It's a lot less running now, but I managed 11 ships. A lot of money, a lot of funding.

State general fund operating, state general fund for capital, 11 mobile halls in the shipyard. Legislative authority to spend that money. Federal money— we did a large capital improvement federal project about every year and a half or so, a lot of money there. And we built 2 new ships. That all had to be managed, you know, in a business sense.

So I did create, you know, this position, and I'll talk a little bit about that in just a second, but We hired Matt a few years into being here at Ketchikan, and Matt's got a very deep financial background. Matt has a master's degree in finance, and we brought him in as our senior budget analyst to start with. And that position worked under and worked with the new business development position that I had created. The person that we hired, Richard Cleary, he, uh, he was the controller at the pulp mill for years and years and years. He was always general manager of the mill.

Closed. And it was the first guy we hired. Dick got ill and had to retire. And, um, after watching Matt, um, at very high level, bunch of numbers, doing budget stuff, I, uh, I put Matt in the, in, in the business development, uh, position. And I think it's important to understand that that position did a lot of things, okay?

And when I consolidated it, because Pete allowed me to do that, um, Matt handled all of our sales and marketing. He handled the, our, the admin in-house. We had a lot of admin in-house, um, that was handling more than just numbers. There's a lot of business that goes into the Marine Highway. That was responsible for all those staff.

He handled our reservation system, all the reservation agents at the call center and in the terminals. I had Matt build a new reservation system, a major undertaking. Matt had to go out and find a contractor in Europe. Um, the Marine Highway is a pretty complex system, and at least when we had 11 ships, it was very complex. And to try to build a reservation system around that was quite a task, and That was Matt's job, and he did an incredible job at it.

Um, you'd be able to handle a lot of balls moving through the air to put a new reservation system like that together. Matt handled all of our IT. We had 5 IT specialists in-house at the old Portmore building. Matt handled them. And that's tricky because it's not just computers on the shore side attached to the airlines.

The ships are moving around over 3,500 miles. And you got to be able to keep the IT running by satellite and phones. So there's an IT component to what that did. That handled a lot of terminals, 36 of them. Okay.

Half of them state-owned. The other half were contracted. MOUs, MOAs, contracts, staff. One of them, of course, in Prince Rupert. They're running back there again.

They're still running there when I left. You were in a foreign country managing terminals, staff. Bellingham in another state, terminal staff, different things, um, very challenging. Um, Matt handled all our scheduling, scheduling 11 ships, very challenging. I had Matt start building a new reservation system, which was well underway when he finally left the Marine Highway System.

Um, he worked very closely with, uh, DOT, uh, in Juneau, their finance staff. Our budgets were large to a point where we didn't even have enough support staff here in Ketchikan. We paid a certain percentage of our budget for financial assistance, and Matt would guide those folks. We paid for quite a few things off to the side, the AG to Human Resources to state admin, things like that. Matt worked very closely with the governor's office, big picture stuff.

Um, he was frequently working, working with them. The budgets were complicated. 7 Unions, 4 of them on the shore side, 3 of them on the ship side. Ship side union contracts, very complex. Matt managed all that.

Um, anytime we'd get into negotiations, Matt would be right there with us, um, helping us on the financial side of negotiations and whatnot. Um, I, I can say this, I spent a lot of time in Juneau testifying every winter during legislative session, full Senate and House committees, transportation, uh, finance, and, uh, meetings with legislators, uh, community delegations. You guys pass through. Rarely would I go to Juneau without Matt. Matt, Matt, Matt was with me.

Tremendous mind for little, little details. I was a big picture guy. I had to handle the business picture, and that was always very helpful. Matt is, uh, incredibly intelligent. He's, he's, he's very intelligent, and, um, he makes good decisions.

He's easy to get along with. He's even-tempered politically. He knows how to stay in the middle of the road. We have to stay in the middle of the road, the green highway. All of us at the higher levels, was how to look at both sides of the coin and balance things out.

Um, even after a year or two, took an interest in what was going on on the, on the Marine side. That was my expertise. I had years and years running oil tankers as a captain and big high-speed ferries overseas. So I had a lot of Marine background, but, you know, not so much business background. And, uh, Matt started taking an interest in that.

A lot of these ships from what was on with that, um, he's, he's the kind of guy that's not going to just stay focused on one thing without trying to learn new things. And that's, uh, that's, that's quite admirable. He multitasks. To do everything that he did, he did have to really, really be able to multitask.

I think it's a point that all that now lives here. He's not leaving. Um, the one thing that I faced as I was building my staff was to get people to come here. And many of our professional side, college-educated, industry-specific talents— got to get them to come here, you got to get them to stay here. It's challenging.

That's not leaving. He's here. Established here, his family's here, and, uh, he's not leaving. I think I'll probably end with— I was also Matt's prime reference when he, uh, when he applied for the, um, assistant telecom job under Dan Lindgren. And I spent probably 45 minutes on the phone with a group of 4 or 5 people asking me questions about Matt.

And one of them towards the end said, well, you know, But if we were to say, you know, listen, we may have somebody in the lower 48, tends to got a lot of telecom background, and you know, how does Matt stack up against that? First thing I said was, well, he had a lot of IT background. Telecom's got a lot of IT stuff, so he knows a lot about that. But I went out on a limb and said, this guy is smart and intelligent to a point and hardworking to a point where Petra, within 6 months you know as much as your expert counsel. You're not leaving here.

So I, I— this is a lot, and I live here near 604 from the East Coast. Probably tell by my accent, not from here, and we're not leaving. And I, I, I know a lot of people in this town, and I'm, I'm respected in this town, and I would not stand up here before this council and say the things that I'm saying about Matt, pitching for Matt. I wasn't very confident that he couldn't do this job. He can do this job.

Um, I'm very confident about that because he did an incredible job for me, 12 years, phenomenal job, working at a very high level and very tough, tough, tough situation with the Green Highway, as we all know. So what I have to say— any questions? Any questions? Captain, thank you for your services to Marine Highway 2 and the state of Alaska. We appreciate it.

Yeah, it's, uh, retirement's been nice too. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, he's a good man. Is there anybody else that wishes to speak to the council? Please come up and identify yourself.

Dan White, um, if you know me, I'm speaking for myself as a citizen, but I, as you know, I've worked for Matt for several years. KP Telecom. And so, um, well, probably can speak to his past. I, I can speak to these last few years, 3 or 4 years I've been working with Matt. I have to tell you that from my perspective, he's a phenomenal candidate.

And all the things— actually, I don't know, probably, but to hear him say the exact same things that are in my heart and my mind about Matt, it's, it's, it's reassuring actually to hear Because in my perspective, he's extremely smart, extremely hardworking. I think he can do great things for you and for the city, right? Working together, I think this is a great combination. I, I, I—.

It would be a huge loss to lose Matt, but I'm not losing him if he's working for the city as the city manager. So, um, in some ways I feel like a win either way, uh, because he's been phenomenal for me, and I can speak to his servant leadership and how internally the support for his subordinates is massive. I can speak to others and I could represent others, but I'm here for myself. And I have to tell you that he has massive support for those who work for him. And it's because of his steady hands, because of his intelligence.

I recently inquired about why he's so smart, and I found— I got some insight, and I found out from his wife that he actually was able to get that master's degree without reading the books oftentimes, just by listening in. And I think you have probably seen some of that where he is listening to all of you, and I gotten a chance to know you, and I've gotten a chance to know him. I think you can do great things with Matt. This team of people that's up here do great things for Matt. And while it would be a huge loss for me, uh, I feel like as a citizen I, I need to speak up and say what's best for the city.

And I think he would be phenomenal. I think you would not regret making this decision. If you choose Matt as the next city manager. So, no, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Anthony. Any questions? Thank you.

Robert.

Honorable Mayor, council people, thank you for the opportunity to address this issue. Um, part of, of, of being a manager and leading is personality and how you interact with other people. And I can really say that Matt has the soft skills to handle people and problems in a way that shows his leadership and kind of is a strength. He's not afraid to make the right decisions and make up and give you a decision. He's not one that's going to put it off and, you know, come to a thing later.

The interaction with him, he's been decisive and he's made good decisions. And, uh, and he's just a pleasure to work with. So anyway, I wanted to voice my, my support for Matt for this position. Thank you, Robert. Thank you.

I'm Brad. I'm the outside platform for KQ Telephone, and Matt has actually been my boss for a number of years now. He's a good boss. It shows at the telephone department morale's improved greatly. Things are getting done.

I think the city is really good to have. We'll miss him. I think it'll work out well. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Anybody else wish to speak to the council?

Hearing and seeing none, we'll Close persons to be heard. We have, um, under new business, it's the interview of the candidate, uh, Matthew McLaren, for the vacant city manager, general manager position of the city of Ketchikan. We do have a list of questions, and a reminder that we will stick with the questions at hand and not interject new ones for fairness and, uh, openness in regards to, um past interviews. Um, so with that, I'd like to ask Matt to come up, introduce himself, and, uh, we can get started with the, the interview.

Thanks, Mayor. Council members, go ahead and move your mic closer to you, Matt. Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor and council members. Um, Matt McLaren, acting city manager at the time, and also telecommunications division manager. So happy to be here. Thank you.

So we have a list of questions that, uh, individual council members will be asking you. We'll be taking notes through that process. There may be clarifying questions in regards to that question answer. So, um, the first one to begin with, we'll start with your introduction and then, um, After that, we'll go into some of your shared background. What do you, what do you have in regards to— and we've heard, you know, some of that from the general public here, but I think it'd be good coming from you, you know, share some of your background, career path, and key experience to the council.

Sure. So, kind of hard to follow some of that, I guess, but Yeah, my background started with my education. I have a bachelor's degree in accounting and an MBA, master's degree in finance. Out of my early years out of college, I worked as an internal auditor for casinos in Las Vegas. So go around, do a lot of those internal controls and compliance audits for the casinos, both in Vegas and around the country.

So started in the private sector with my career, doing the auditing. Moved from there, I went into more financial planning, investment roles, financial advising. Then from there, I always kind of wanted to get into the public sector as well to feel, you know, I worked in the private sector, it kind of, to me, just kind of felt like a job, I guess, or something to get a paycheck. I wanted to move into something public sector, work for municipality or state or something where I feel like, you know, what the work I was doing made more difference to the public, to the community I lived in, or to the, to the state where I live. Um, so then there's, uh, I got this job at Alaska Highway System, started that role with the state, uh, and I was, as Captain said, I was the budget analyst for a few years, and then the business development manager, Chief Financial Officer for 9 years after that.

And then I, uh, through that time I was interested in coming to work for the city, you know, because I lived here, really enjoy the community, and wanted to, wanted to work for, for the city as well. So I kind of kept an eye on, uh, jobs or possibilities with the city And then 3 years ago, I was hired as assistant telecom manager under Dan Wingren. He hired me there and, and helped me learn the role a lot and taught me a lot in that, that role. And then when he retired, I became the telecom division manager, and then a few months ago, the acting city manager.

Thank you.

So, Dick, um, Matt, what draws you to the Ketchikan City Manager's position at this point in your career, and why are you interested in this community specifically?

Um, well, I guess I can answer second part first. Uh, I mentioned the community, that, you know, I've been here 16 years. I love living here. Um, raised all my kids here. They're now graduated out of the house, but I really enjoy living here.

We're involved in the— my wife and I are involved in the community and different activities here. But what interests me in the position, I saw it and see that the position the city's in right now with, you know, increase of costs Budgets decreasing, shortfalls, having to dip into budget reserves.

That, that interests me because that really plays into my experience that I had with Alaska Highway System as well. It fits right in line, the same situations were going on there for the 9 years before I left, looking at budgets going down, finding ways to increase revenues, decrease costs, you know, what weights can we We think a little bit differently and do things a little bit differently to do that. And I feel like that experience really helps me with this role, and it's really what interests me in this role because I enjoy doing that.

Thank you. Any follow-up?

Great. Thank you, Your Honor. Matt, thank you for taking this step, taking this jump. Thank you for being here. How would you approach negotiating with organizations the city works with, such as labor unions, cruise line agencies, and intergovernmental partners, in a way that benefits the city while maintaining strong communication and positive relationships?

Thanks for that question. That's a great question. I think the big part of that, in my experience, has been communication. And keeping that communication open with those entities. You know, a lot of negotiations may come down— like cruise line agencies or different groups may come every year.

Sometimes there's a new MOU or MOA that needs to be negotiated. Union contracts are every few years. But I think the important part is to have that continued communications with those groups, whether it's monthly or quarterly, you know, just to get together and discuss issues that come up, you know, during that time. Is there, you know, from the city side, is there something that's going on that we need to help? Or from the union side, or from cruise lines, or vice versa, if there's things they would like to see happen with the city, then, you know, talk about those things in the meantime and try to come to consensus of to resolve that issue, because I think that helps then when you get to the time of negotiations.

Then it's a little bit easier because we, you know, we've talked through a lot of issues may have come up. You know, both sides know where the other side's coming from, and then it's, it's easier in my opinion and more efficient at negotiation time to get those, those things put in the contracts or anything like that.

Any follow-up?

Thank you. Abby, describe the kind of working relationship you seek with the mayor and city council. What are your expectations, communication style, and guiding principles?

Uh, the relationship I'd like to see is similar to what I've done for a lot of— a lot of kids just have a Communication, open dialogue. And as the issues come up, we're talking about those. I know there's some limitations on, you know, having certain numbers meeting together, you know, being an open process. But a lot of times there's issues that come up that may affect one council member or the mayor or something.

Residents come up and ask questions, what about this, what about that, then, um, I want— I'd like to have that communication open. So if that happens, then, you know, council member, the mayor, feel free to give me a call and ask about it, you know, talk through it and try to resolve the issue there. Now, whether that's text or email or call I'll be updating those styles of communication that work best, that's most efficient.

Any follow-ups?

Judy. Can you share an example of how you improved an organization's financial performance through cost control or revenue generation? Sure. Yeah, perfect example of that, I would say, Uh, was as a business development manager, chief client officer, Alaska Marine Highway System, that we had every year, uh, for since, uh, well, since about 2016. You know, the first few years of that, that job were, were, I would say, kind of in the gravy.

I mean, everything was great. We're running all the ships we could run. They were just run them everywhere, all over the state, Prince Rupert, everywhere. But after that, the state started getting into a little bit more financial restraints, a little more, you know, some limits on what they, they could provide because the system didn't make money. When I got in there, the system was recovering about 20, 20, 28, 30% of its cost.

Was about all that was coming in. So the rest of it, the other 60% or 70% had to come from the state to subsidize in order to keep the system going. Um, so what we did is sat down, looked at schedules, looked at service, looked at different ways we could increase the revenues. Um, when things were running great, we were running about $45 to $50 million a year of revenue. And about $180 million of operating costs.

So pretty expensive to run. But as we developed business plans, strategic plans, and went through the, the goals for the system, uh, the, the plan I presented before leaving there, coming to work for the city, was, uh, about $58 million of revenue. So we increased revenue by about $8 million. And around $120 million of expenditures. So we also lowered the expenditures by $60 million.

So that brought up the cost recovery for the system from about the 20-30% up to about 50%. So we're— we had a plan to cover 50% of our costs through revenue. So, uh, it took some time. It's a process. It's difficult to do in one year, but Um, you know, with the plan, we were able to do that.

Thank you. Thank you.

How do you evaluate staff levels, uh, to ensure departments are adequately resourced without overextending the city's budget?

Um, yeah, that's a, it's a difficult thing sometimes. Um, the first thing I, I try to look at is look at the divisions, look at the requirements, and look at workloads on the positions in the departments. Some positions are maybe more overloaded, their workloads. Some positions may be less. Oftentimes positions, it's either cyclical a little bit, so monthly, you know, parts of the month are busier than other parts of the month, parts of the year.

Busier than other parts in here. So, um, I think the, the best thing to do is look at if, if we can shift that a little bit, shift some of those duties if that's possible, look at ways that we can be more efficient and streamline some processes to, to help the workloads if people are overloaded. You know, this day and age, there's a lot of technologies and things that can be improved and done differently. I found kind of in the— as I've been in the public sector a little bit, sometimes it seems to be where, oh, this is the way we've always done it. That's just how we do it.

Instead of, is that the best way to do it? And sometimes, sometimes the way it's always been done is the best way to do it, but sometimes it's not. So I think it's important to look at that and then also look at staffing levels as far as, you know, with attrition and some, you know, as people retire, as people leave, can those duties be absorbed effectively by somebody that's in a position? So that is a way to look at reducing costs. And then also with Looking at staffing as far as, as, or, you know, things like overtime.

Are there other ways that, you know, maybe it'd be less expensive to hire another full-time employee if we can reduce overtime by doing that? Look at consultants and vendors. Are there, you know, are we contracting out a lot of work that if we had an employee ourselves doing that work, it'd be less expensive so that All those things would help to, uh, maybe it's, maybe it's more staffing level, but in the end it decreases the burden on taxpayers. So I think those kinds of things need to be evaluated with staffing. Thank you.

Riley, describe your leadership style with department heads and staff. How do you balance support accountability and performance expectations?

Good question. I, I would say my leadership style, I like to lead by example in some ways, and then also I look at it a little bit as servant leadership, maybe define it where my role in a lot of cases is to help department heads or help those that work for me be able to be successful in their jobs and have the tools and resources that they need to be successful in their job. Because I think that in turn, you know, has the impact on both people that they touch. Uh, a lot of the city departments are service-oriented. I mean, they're, they're service divisions, and they're not all generating revenue.

But I think then with that, with the accountability to have performance metrics and be clear about what's expected for the divisions. A lot of times you can, you can tell the success of a division by morale or by, you know, the people that they reach. If it's customer service division, they're, you know, people that come in there are happy. They're, they'll again serve what they need. I wouldn't necessarily say if police officers doing their job, the person may not be happy getting arrested, but they're doing their job.

But, um, but I think the accountability goes, goes both ways as well. I don't think, you know, the department heads, I feel like they should hold me accountable as well, you know, if I'm making decisions that Maybe they don't agree with, but if it's a decision that makes their job more difficult, that makes it harder for them to do what their job is, that I expect them to be open and have that communication with me. I like to have the open-door policy with everyone who works for the instrument. Thank you. Thank you, Matt.

All right, Matt, what does living on the island and being visibly engaged in the community mean to you as a local government executive?

Well, it's important. Yeah, um, I, I think it's important to, to be part of the community out there, be engaged with, with people that live here, um, you know, be out in the grocery store, be at community events where people can see you out in the public, um, where it's not just a name or, you know, somebody behind a closed door sitting in an office and never gets out and talks to anybody. And I've really tried to do that since 16 years living here. I've been I coached high school football, refereed high school football back when they had high school football here.

I've coached Little League baseball, Little League softball, been Little League president, and then also umpired for Little League baseball, softball, umpired for K-High baseball, softball, American Legion baseball. So I think all that's important to get out, be out in the community, volunteer time, and let people see you in a different place and talk to you. And a lot of times being out in the community, you see things, you know, so then when somebody calls in and says, oh, there's a problem here or there, you're at least familiar with, you've been by there, seen it, or seen what the problem is. It helps you understand better what can be done about it.

Yeah. Evening. I imagine you're faced with a situation where the city council is leaning toward a decision that would address their immediate priorities, but your professional assessment shows that a different course of action would better serve the long-term interests of the community and its residents. How would you navigate that situation, and what steps would you take to balance maintaining a positive relationship with the council while still advocating for what you believe is best for the city? Oh, that never happens, does it?

No. Um, I—. Well, I'm a—. When I make decisions, when I look at something, I like to have all the facts. Um, I really, you know, whether that's— whether it's a short-term, long-term decision, I like to have all the relevant facts and look at the pros and cons of each side.

So if there's something that the council feels that a short-term decision is better, I'm sure they're, you know, I probably thought about those points and I think it's important to acknowledge, you know, there's a very good reason council feels that way, you know, has that feeling that's the way they want to vote. And, but I think it's important as well to also give the facts of the other decision. You mentioned a short-term and long-term decision. And why, why I feel like the long-term decision may be better with the pros and cons, because there's going to be pros and cons of long-term decision. There's, you know, if I am feeling leaning more to the long-term way, There's going to be cons to that as well.

The cons will be we can't do— we can't make things better in the short term. The same as if we, uh, make the short-term decision, maybe that affects the long-term decision. So I think it's just important to talk out both sides of it. I don't think, um, I've ever had a boss that hasn't you know, I've had a different opinion of, but my, my opinion's always been get all, get all the facts to it, to the, to my boss, whoever it is, you know, and let them make the decision. That's— they're the ones ultimately responsible for it, you know.

Council's responsible for making the decisions that they feel are best for the city and I think my role is just to get all relevant facts out there so the best decision can be made for the community. Thank you. Dick, assuming you have investigated and evaluated the city's current status regarding the operating and capital budgets and the city council and general city operations, what would be your first 3 actions as the general manager for the city?

Well, I have— yeah, I have spent time looking at operating capital budgets. Um, I think the, the position that the city's in now with, with, like I mentioned earlier, the revenue shortfalls, expenditures going up, I think the first thing I'd look at is what What other possible funding sources are there out there? That's maybe some grants, maybe, you know, we've got cruise ships, we've got lots of tourists coming into town. Is there a way that the city can generate some revenue from that in some way? I think that would be the first thing is to look at other possible funding sources that the city can use that doesn't rely strictly on taxpayer dollars.

The second, I look at streamlining processes, you know, what, what were some inefficiencies, maybe the way we do things, so we can streamline that, try to help save some money in that way. Is there overlap between departments? Are there ways that we can eliminate some redundancy between departments? Can we— fourth, Some things one department does that would benefit another, can we utilize that to, to save the city money so we don't have to go outside and spend money outside the, the city? Um, the third I think would be starting to develop a business plan, like a 5-year, 10-year plan, and, and look at ways that You know, where the city's at now, we're dipping into reserves.

That's not sustainable, and we all know that's not sustainable because, you know, we get to a point those reserves are going to run out and we just go off the cliff. I mean, then it's time that, you know, we've got X amount of dollars and that's it. So then, you know, at that point, all the divisions, all the city departments are going to be hurting. Happening. It's going to be a, uh, I guess I'd say a sudden impact on the services that are provided.

But I feel like with a, with a plan, a business plan, you can work to get to that point. As you know, as we did at Alaskan Highway System, we're not relying on those resources, and we can soften that blow to the, the residents over over a little time, so it's not as sudden. Hey, Paul.

Great. Thank you, Your Honor. Uh, this is a segue to straight from the—. To the last question. Given our limited resources, how would you manage departmental spending and reduce bond debt principal while maintaining the financial impact on citizens, by minimizing the financial impact on citizens?

Good question. I think the first step of minimizing impact is getting a solid budget, balanced budget, and then sticking to that budget and making sure that You know, each department's going to have their budget that's approved by council, and if that's part of a, a longer-term plan that's transparent, everybody knows where we're trying to go 2, 3, 5 years from now. It's, it's one piece of that plan to get there, and, and part of that plan also includes, um, debt service and how we're going to treat that debt service. There's— with most departments that are service-related, they don't— there's not really a way to generate revenue like the KPU. With KPU, look at ways to increase those revenues so that that can pay down that debt service.

And as we get to the point where we have a balanced budget, You know, we can make a plan so that we're part of that paying down that debt service and then planning for the future, uh, putting money in reserve so that can replace the capital items. You know, things that wear out, we have to find a replacement plan to take care of those as well.

Thank you. Abby, a record number of cruise ships are scheduled for the current season, and residents are raising concerns about overcrowding adding an infrastructure strain. How would you address both the economic opportunity and the community concern?

It's— that's certainly a challenge. Um, you know, I, it's— I feel the same frustration a lot of times, you know, when trying to drive through downtown and there's several ships in town. It's difficult. There's— there is definitely an impact on, on infrastructure as well. That's, that's challenging.

But at the same time, we don't want to impact the businesses that rely on, on those tourists and that come in and bring dollars into the community. Those businesses pay tax dollars, and, you know, we want to maintain that as well. But I think what I tried to look at, as I mentioned a little bit earlier too, are there other ways we can we can monetize that and somehow get that— some of that money to come to the city. I know there's CPB money, um, but that's fairly limited on, on scope of what that can be used for. I'd like to look at other ways we can use that money that comes in that we can rebuild some infrastructure, because I mean, it does get impacted with all the buses and everything going going all over town from north, north to south, uh, you know, a way to bring that to make improvements in the community that benefit those residents that live here year round.

Uh, it's definitely a challenge, but that's— I'd like to look at ways that we can do that to help, help the community as a whole for those that live here all year.

Thank you.

Judy, describe your approach to managing employee compensation, benefits, and long-term obligations while remaining fiscally responsible to taxpayers. Thanks. It's, uh, that's a challenge as well. I think the important thing with the, with compensation plan and benefits, it should be part of the overall business plan and the goals that should be part of the package. I think it's important to look at, look at the market, look at other similar jobs out there, look at other communities, maybe similar size, similar cost of living, which may be a little bit difficult to find, but there's other communities in Alaska I think have similar.

But look at that to make sure that we're paying fair wages. Because I think it's important to— you want to be able to attract and retain quality skilled employees, um, you know, that— because turnover is expensive too. I mean, you know, it's hard to— it's hard to recruit people here sometimes, you know, unless they live here already. It's hard sometimes to bring people in, and then, you know, if you're bringing in highly skilled workers, a lot of times you have to pay the moving expense. There's some recruitment costs.

Training costs to get them accustomed. It takes them time to get accustomed to live here and then, you know, find out maybe they don't like living here. But, um, I think it needs to be— make first thing, make sure that we're paying fair and competitive wages so that we can retain those high-quality employees. Because good quality skilled employees, they're going to provide better services to the community And, and that's going to make the whole community better. Thank you.

What is your experience with enterprise funds, and what strategies would you use to address rising costs for infrastructure maintenance such as utilities, streets, and public facilities when capital needs outpace available funding?

Yeah, I've got a lot of experience with enterprise-type funds. Like I said, the— all the years with last Green Highway System, that's— we operated enterprise fund. Of course, we didn't— as I talked about, we didn't always cover the cost, um, but, but we found ways to increase those revenues so that we could, um, decrease the reliance on the state funding the difference, um, capital costs. For the utilities, for the city as a whole, they're rising. I know the, you know, electric division is looking at replacement of a lot of things they need.

Telecom is continually— technology costs go up. So I think with that, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of ways we can help decrease that impact is finding grants and other funding sources that aren't solely relying on taxpayer dollars. So, and if those grants can cover, you know, a lot of times they're not going to cover 100% of the capital replacement, but at least, at least the community gets the benefit and it decreases the city's burden of covering only the match, but maybe 20%, maybe 10%, maybe 30%, but that's lower than 100%. And then You know, those funds that may have gone to the capital funds can go to, to help with some of the operating costs that, that the city needs to cover as well. So that, you know, as that money shifts to operating costs, that also decreases the, the needs for, uh, increased taxpayer rates or increasing, uh, how much you have to go into the reserves.

Thank you.

Riley, controversial decision made by the city leads to strong public backlash at council meetings and online. How would you respond?

Well, I don't think that ever happens either. Um, What I found is a lot of times, you know, there's— in anything, there's going to be decisions that have to be made, difficult decisions that have to be made that not everybody's going to agree with. But I think communication and education about it is important with that as well. You know, talked earlier about the facts. I think having all the facts out so the community knows the facts, why the decision was made, you know, it may, it may not be something they all necessarily agree with because not everybody's going to agree with every decision, but at least the hope is that they can understand the process that went into it, the process that was there to make the decision.

You know, it happened several times when we were doing scheduling, you know, when I was trying to work with our schedule at the Marine Highway System. There were times when budgets were cut, you know, we had to make difficult decisions to reduce service to certain communities, and obviously that, that didn't go over well because a lot of these communities rely on that service. So we've worked hard to find a compromise in there to where you know, what, what level of service would meet their needs so that we could at least get them that level of service, not cut them off completely. Uh, you know, so maybe there's a middle ground, but I would hope, you know, before that final decision was made, we've looked at all the options, had all the facts, and myself and council members and mayor have looked at those and made the decision they felt is best for the community. Jack.

Yeah, thanks, Matt. With respect to getting a sense of what those communities who were facing reduction in service needed in terms of just meeting at least their most— some of their need at least, can you expand a little bit on how that outreach was attempted or accomplished? Talk a little bit about what form it took or how you got that. How did you gather that information from the communities that were being impacted? Sure.

Yeah, that happened a couple of ways. With the scheduling, you would put out a schedule in advance of the season, try to get out 6 months in advance, like a winter schedule, summer schedule, about 6 months in advance. So with that, we would have open public comment periods. We would make sure we got the input from all the communities. They would have a call line that they could call into, and we just go through it.

From each community, you know, as they looked at the schedule, what were their comments. So that gave us time to, you know, if there's some major event going on in the community or some of them needed to get to Juneau, big event or something going on, we could adjust the schedule for that time. So that was part of it. The other way we would We continue, if there's a schedule change from that point, we reach out to the community as well and talk to them directly. You know, we were able to have open communication with them so that we could meet their needs, hopefully try to meet their needs before it became a problem.

Thank you. Canalee.

What do you see as the most pressing challenge for Ketchikan in the next 12 to 18 months? And what specific steps would you take in your first 6 months to begin addressing?

Good question. I think, I think the biggest challenge at this point is the budget's eating into the, the reserves. That's been on both the general government side and KPU side as well. The next 6 months will be a bunch of preparation time for next year. So that, that would be the goal in that time of how we can address those, those issues.

As I mentioned earlier, talking about the, you know, having a plan, a business plan of where we want to go, that, that helps drive those discussions as well. I'm not saying I wouldn't say those, you know, eating the reserves are going to immediately go away. I think that's going to be a process, but that would be the goal in the first 6 months, to start looking at how we can address that so we're not continually pulling out of there. Thank you. Yeah.

Matt, when faced with resolving an issue about which you have limited knowledge, ranging from the specific needs of utility to competing schools of thought on a community issue. How do you seek and assess relevant information, and how do you then weigh and apply whatever information that you gather? Thanks, very good question.

I—. If there's an issue that I'm not familiar with, I first go to the subject matter experts, regardless of what their opinion is. They may have an opinion on one side or the other, but talk to them first, see what their opinion is, why they feel some way. Start gathering all the facts of the issue. Like I said earlier, I'm really fact-based.

I don't like make decisions without the relevant facts. And then it's really getting in front of and talking to whoever may be impacted by those decisions. Decisions, how, how a decision one way or another may impact them. Because it's— I think it's not a good thing to just be making decisions that impact people and not knowing what that, what that's going to be from their side. So I think that's an important thing.

Um, and, you know, like I said before, it's not You know, people are going to have different opinions. I think it's hard sometimes, but important to let somebody give you facts to weigh out, okay, what are the, what are the really facts of the case and what are their opinion or feeling about it? But, um, really to make sure that decision is based on, um, the, the action or the consequences of this decision and have it all So Matt, what, what question do you have for the council?

Um, I guess my question would be similar to Council Member Gates' question. For me, I guess, in the next 12 to 18 months, um, what do you see the biggest issues and, and what would you like the new city manager to focus on in the next 6 months?

Anybody want to go first here? The same answer you gave— get the budget under control, get our spending under control, get a plan to get us to where we're not going in reserves. That was, that was about what I would ask to do. And then secondarily to that is really put the pedal to the metal on figuring out how we can extract more money out of the ships, you know, specifically at the utilities, get them to start, uh, making more of a contribution towards all the things that they use to lessen the burden on our people.

I think balancing the budget, going to the own reserves, figuring out what the long-range plan is for our capital interest spread over a longer period of time, levelize the capital outlay for capital projects, and make sure that we're efficient in our operating budget. It's a tall tale for 6 months. Yep. How long? Your Honor?

Yes. I'm going to go off— I'm going to go off on something different.

I'd like to see— not all the things everyone said I think are important, but I also think one of the issues we have in this community is the community itself is not in a position where they're making the money. Even I think finding ways that our community itself as an economic driver, realizing that they are, and they live here year-round. And how do we incorporate building that community and making it more healthy where they're making money so that they can actually contribute to their— the economic driver of their community? Because right now it's— so, for example, right now, typically we're living paycheck to paycheck. And just paying the bare minimum to keep a roof, utilities, but finding ways to actually build up that economics for them.

Because then it actually benefits everybody. Jay. Thank you. Thank you, Matt, for being here. My biggest question is I'd like to see during budget time, the managers sit down with the department heads, with the finance director.

Over the years, a lot of money has been given to departments or put in the department budgets as over budget and is not being used. I'd like to see that budget, that money come back to the general fund. And come to the council or come to a consensus where if the money needs to be used somewhere else, that the council is aware and not just, you know, be a shell game, move money around within department for other, other issues. Also, when it comes time to negotiation, negotiating with organization— organizations, The city is— should be the first priority, what benefits the city. The second priority would be making sure the skilled employees are taken care of, are comfortable, but not overpaid or given slopes that puts the city in dire need.

Yes, yeah, I don't know whether this could take place or not, but there's way too many line items in our budget. How can they be put together? I think there's opportunities, but there's— do we need all that?

So just food for thought for 2 years out. Jack. Yeah, thanks, Your Honor. Uh, what, what I, what I have in mind is sort of secondary to a lot of the primary concerns that have already been identified, but I think it, it's important as an undercurrent to all the work that's done by any city manager here and by the council itself. But, um, I think it's really to our advantage that we're starting the budget process a lot earlier, that we're talking about budget drafts mid, mid calendar year.

Uh, but I would love to see some of the communication that you've talked about, uh, more information getting communicated to the public in a clear and understandable manner so that a lot of the decisions that come before the council during budget time don't feel like they're out of left field to the public at large. I think it's— we've had that a couple times where I think we've discussed maybe at length in budget, finally comes up as an action item, you know, early in the calendar year, and citizens come with concerns or with ideas. And they feel like it's being sprung on them. And I think we can do more as an entity to get the word out to the community about what's being considered, how it might impact them, and to invite their feedback to us while we're in that process in its earliest stages so that it doesn't strike them as being suddenly thrown in their faces. So I'm glad to hear you talk a lot about communication because I think it's, it's critical for for anybody in this role.

Anybody else? Yes, Judy. I agree with what Jack said about communication. One of the things I'd like to see us do better is when items come to the council that we get the complete package. So a lot of times we get a piece of it.

Okay, we're going to raise this, but we don't know how it affects everything else. We don't have all those answers. The people that are hired and that are professional, they know how that affects the community. And I think we need to understand that so that we make a better decision because we make a decision thinking it's the right decision. And then come somebody comes up to us at the next meeting and says, okay, well, now you have to do this.

So I think just a little more information as you were talking about facts. Just having a little bit more of that presented to us at the time. The same goes for, you know, employee compensation and all of that. It would be a lot better to have the full picture, I think. Abby, so budget, of course, um, doing a balanced budget so that we're not in the state of others' organizations in the community is big for me, but also just efficiencies.

A lot of our staff have a huge workload because of old systems or old patterns that if we could help alleviate some of that stress, then maybe, you know, that would kind of relieve their pressure and then their performance and just overall morale of, you know, going to work would be better. So those are my two top things. Okay. Anybody else? Any other questions?

I guess I, I don't know if we all—. I don't know. I mean, I, I guess the only other question— similar what was asked to me, I guess— what, what would council want to see was with communication, if there's, from the city manager, if there's department head or city manager has different opinions, how, how How would you like to see that best communicated? I mean, I don't necessarily think— go ahead, Sarah. Go ahead, Abby.

I think Judy really hit on it.

We know there's a good side and a bad side, as you mentioned, or there's a 50-50 shot that we're going to do good, either one. But it's just knowing both of those sides, even if we strongly believe that side A is the way we need to go, talking about B as well to make sure that they outweigh each other, but also getting that information out ahead of time. For me in particular, I have a full-time job. I do this on the side, and it would be nice if we had the information a week ahead, the facts and things like that, or even further if it's a larger item, like a budget or something, so that we could really dive into it, ask those questions before it comes to the table. And maybe that would help speed up the process.

For me, communication is share as much as we can so that we can best make the decisions, but also not at the last minute. Jay? Thank you, Your Honor.

The key, and you've You've mentioned that over and over again. The opinion of the city manager or department head, communicate with transparency, with providing us, like Abby said, with full facts. Maybe if the opinion is something large, have a work session.

But you hit the nail on the head. Communicate with transparency, so we— with entire facts, not just one-liners or two-liners, so that we know what we are dealing with.

Anybody else?

Maybe we need—. What's that? I don't know. Um, so everybody seems— the city seems to have a Facebook page. Most people, like, kind of go there.

Having a way to distribute information that people can read that's easily understood to understand the situations and areas. Although, and maybe even an opinion page, you know, the newspaper, I don't know how that would work. But I think that, um, Giddy, you know, every time we talk about CPV funds and how how it affects what we can and cannot do, why we can and cannot do. You have to almost repeat yourself to an in nauseam because it's— there's always someone else that didn't get the info at some point. But if there's a way to like where someone could— where it's posted and someone can go, hey, here's the information, but it's there.

I don't know. I mean, that's my only You know, just having that information out there and having it keep going because, you know, from a personal standpoint, I always thought my mother understood how it worked and she's born and raised here. She's going to be 83 this year. But discovering that she didn't even understand how it worked and you just kind of like everyone kind of takes for granted that people kind understand the maritime law and those things. And I just think it would be good to have that kind of communication.

Thank you. If I was going to do anything, that's what I would do. Thank you. Anything else?

Hearing and seeing that, I think that concludes the, uh, the interview. We thank you, Matt. Thanks for all your—. Um, the plan now is, as Taylor said, this would The discussion in regards to this interview will be taken up at the next executive session on the 21st. All right, so we're not doing anything else tonight, right?

What's that? So I just get— can I get a break? We're not going to do any executive, so we're going to come around. Jack, any comments? Nothing for me, Your Honor.

Jan Lee? None for me. Riley? Uh, thanks for being here, Matt. Appreciate it.

Judy? Just that I think, uh, we got some pretty good candidates. I'm excited about the 21st of the—. Abby. Thank you, Your Honor.

Thank you, Matt. I'd also like to thank the people that came out and spoke on your behalf, not only from the public, but also the department heads or staff that worked under you, and they spoke from their heart, and that means a lot. Thank you. Nick. Yes, Your Honor.

Um, it's hot in here. Uh, thank everybody, uh, for attending this special meeting, and we look forward to having these discussions on the 21st. Do I have a motion? Adjourn. Any opposed?

Hearing none.