Regular City Council Meeting

Testing, testing. Hello, Jeff. Okay, that This meeting is being transcribed and summarized. I'd like to call this regular City Council meeting of May 7th to order. Please call the roll.

Singy? Yes. Gage? Here. Goose?

Here. Katani? Here. Finnegan? Here.

Gass? Here. Bradbury? Yes. Here.

Thank you. Would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America And this is the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you.

The Ketchikan City Council would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional First People of this land in Ketchikan, the Tongass Tlingit people. With that, it brings us to public hearing on Ordinance Number 26-2028, amending subsection C to D of Section 3.051 of the Ketchikan Municipal Code entitled Professional Service Contract to provide that solicitation of proposal is not required when the estimate cost of the contract does not exceed $100,000. Is there anybody here to speak to that? Hearing seeing none, we'll close that, move on to the next public hearing of ordinance number 26-2029, amending subsection A.6 of Section 3.12.50 of the Ketchikan Municipal Code, entitled Purchasing When Competitive Bidding or Quotations Are Not Required. Is there anybody here to speak to that?

Hearing and seeing none, we'll close that and move on to the public hearing of Resolution Number 26-3014, amending the 2026 General Government Operating and Capital Annual Budget to provide supplemental appropriations for the Museum Department in the amount of $16,000. Is anybody here to speak to that? We'll see nobody here. We'll go ahead and close that, move on to Communications. We do have a proclamation.

Whereas over 100 million Americans voting continues to be a popular recreational activity And whereas, from coast to coast and everywhere in between, people are taken to the water enjoying time together, boating, sailing, paddling, and fishing. And whereas, during National Safety Boating Week, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Safety Boating Council, along with federal, state, and local safe boating partners, encourage all boaters to explore and enjoy America's beautiful waters responsibly. And whereas safe boating begins with preparation, the Coast Guard estimates that— excuse me, sorry— accounts for more boating accidents and that life jackets could prevent nearly 75% of boating fatalities. And whereas through basic boating safety procedures, carrying life-saving emergency distress and communication equipment, wearing life jackets, attending safe boating courses, participating in free boat safety check and and staying sober when navigating, we can ensure boaters of America coastal, inland, and offshore waters stay safe through the season. And whereas National Safe Boating Week is observed to bring attention to important life-saving tips and recreational boaters so they can have a safe, more fun experience out on the water throughout the year.

Now therefore be it resolved that I, Bob Siebertson, Mayor of the City of Ketchikan, of Alaska do hereby proclaim May 16th through the 22nd of 2026 as National Safe Boating Week. And along with the U.S. Coast Guard and our federal, state, and local safe boating partners, encourage all boaters to explore and enjoy America's beautiful waters responsibly. We have somebody here to say—.

Thank you.

Just to remind everybody, you're going to see advertising by the Coast Guard Auxiliary for vessel inspections for the month, so you can call and sign up. We'll be at Thomas Basin this Saturday doing vessel inspections of the boats, making sure people do have their layers and smoke flares as well as part of the process. So that if you— and through that process, you'll get a sticker on the side of your boat saying you have been inspected. We will also be having later this month a Suddenly in Command, what happens when the captain is incapacitated. It's a 4-hour course, and you'll see a couple signs.

Thank you. Thank you for what the opportunity does. Appreciate it.

Bring this down to person to be heard. Who do we have? Do you want to do this communications? Yeah, communication. Yeah, so, um, we're looking for a letter of support for the Ketchikan Marine Highway Systems, uh, dry dock capacity and reliability project.

I brought this forward for forehands from the council to provide attached letter of support to Ketchikan AA maintenance dock capacity and Reliability Project through the Federal Transit Administration, Very Safe and Real Community Program, to approve the letter will be forwarded to Randy Rovada for distribution. Do I have for him? Thank you very much. Also in our communications, we have some information on item 3B. We have communication, uh, which is MB the Healthcare Advisory Board minutes and our calendar.

So with that, we can move to persons to be heard. Remember, we have a 3-minute limit on persons to be heard. If you could arrange your thoughts, comply with that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you. So who's our first up?

First up, Casey Paxton.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council members, clerk and manager. I am here tonight, uh, my name is Casey Paxton. I'm representing myself, I'm not representing any organization or entity, um, and I want to speak on, um, uh, support for two items that you're discussing in executive session tonight. The first, I want to speak in support of hiring Taylor Lee as your next Municipal clerk, I've had the pleasure of working with Taylor for several years. I've been a municipal clerk myself for almost 24 years, and I can speak to the value, the responsibility, the burden, the balance that it takes, the skill level, the skill level, and the sacrifice.

And Taylor has all of those qualities that you want in a municipal clerk. I took the time to write a list of the top 10 reasons why you should hire Taylor as your clerk and pay her appropriately, meaning whatever she asks, get her a little bit more than that. The reason that I say— I'm not going to read all 10 because I don't have that much time tonight. But the reason that I say that is because it is truly a sacrifice. These positions are not easy.

Taylor will have to give up vacations. She'll have to give up personal time, family time, hobbies. Other community service type things that she might rather be doing. And it is a, it's a sacrifice, it's a lifestyle, and she'll do it for love of community. She is a Ketchikan, she's Ketchikan girl raising her family here.

She understands the citizens. She has heart, she has compassion, but she's also very strong and wise. She's become a resource. She's valued in the, excuse me, the municipal clerk profession throughout the state and throughout the country. You are extremely lucky to have her already ready for you to hire.

So please do the right thing. The second thing that I want to address is my support for Abner Hogue as your next city manager. I worked with Abner for years. I apologize for not coming to speak to you sooner. He is probably the strongest leader I have ever had the privilege to work with.

He is a strong communicator. He's the best listener. He listens and invites input from all sources, positive and negative. He weighs all of that information when he's making difficult decisions. He has the ability to work with citizens, with staff, with elected officials, and he can pivot and change when needed.

He can deliver very difficult information and do it with diplomacy and courtesy. He can see a vision, break it into bite-sized pieces, and delegate appropriately. He's a team builder. He can find success and potential in individuals and plug them into key positions. Brandon, he may not have utility experience.

Maybe he does. I don't know. But he is such a strong leader that he can put the right people in the positions, and he will work well across government lines. He will communicate well. And I believe he is absolutely the right person.

I would love to have the opportunity to work with him again for as long as I am working in local government. Thank you. Do you have any questions? Any question? Thank you, Casey.

Um, next we have Kyan Reeve. Good evening, honorable mayor. You're here, Taylor. I vote for Taylor too. That was great.

I just want to briefly say, and I'm speaking to item 7C, briefly say that I appreciate the council and the public works department. They've been working really collaboratively with the Creek Street property and business owners down there, and we certainly encourage the what's being proposed tonight in terms of looking at a safer, better location for the garbage pickup along Creek Street. The proposal for a location just south of that, near the propane tanks, we feel like is safer for pickup, less conflict for solid waste and conflict with the visitors there, along with, you know, it protects the viewshed. It creates a much-needed viewing platform to bring some pictures in, but you get enough of that, so I didn't want to do that. But it was very packed today.

I think a big part of that was the additional Ward Cove traffic that we're seeing in there. So it seems like a very— to do that new spot for the garbage pickup, make that viewing platform happen, seems like CPU would be a great source of funding and I would definitely talk to the borough about that because there's certainly a lot of, a lot of impacts from those WorldCo visitors coming there as well. So again, thanks to Public Works, and we encourage you to support that different location on map 7C. Thanks so much. Thank you, Karen.

Any questions? Appreciate it. Next we have Mr. Weaver.

Good evening, and I'd again like to thank you all for all the work you do with the records. It's a huge sacrifice and greatly appreciated. Uh, and although I can't speak about what Taylor Lee's done, she has been very instrumental, uh, with assisting in a recent Alaska Public Records request that I felt Mr. Mike Fitzgerald requested. The request was placed to assist the city as we come up on the Gateway review. This is called for by the lease, is allowed for in the lease.

I have provided to you by email, and I apologize for the late delivery of this. I've been out of town for a long period of time with very slow cruise ship internet, but you do have emails that explain as best I can, speaking On my behalf only, although I'm the moderator for the Ketchikan Citizens Holding PSLF Accountable, this is my opinion, but there are enough concerns that I have determined, not being a lawyer, not being an accountant, that are very worthy of further counsel's deliberation. The lease has specific requirements of PSLF. PSLF has had issues not only here in Ketchikan. Speaking as a former surgeon, former chief of surgery, med exec committee member, significant issues not only here, but as you perhaps have found from following the website, if you do or if you can, down in Eugene, Oregon, where they've discharged or attempted to discharge longstanding emergency department physicians in favor of what has been proven by a federal judge to the corporate practice of healthcare, pretty much, but pending that they were pretty harshly found against.

Longview, Washington was found by the city council of not paying some required Washington state taxes, entirely different situation than Alaska taxes. A significant sum is felt to be at risk. 14 Years when a B&O tax was not collected. By the city as due from PeaceHealth. They did a tremendous job, it seems, of finding this wrong and developing a two-pronged approach.

They're still working on the second prong to see how many of those 14 years of taxes were lost. They can reclaim by Washington state law 10 years. They're still working on that, to the best of my knowledge. Again, I've been out of town for a period of time, but they also took additional steps to determine the exemption, which brought in, and it's anticipated to bring in starting July 1st, 2026, a significant sum of money to assist the, the community with its community needs. So things can be done through this council with ordinances or action or other actions that are well explained in that document as best I can to help level out the asymmetric knowledge.

No one here in this room, on this island, particularly most of the Pacific Northwest, have a thorough understanding of the complexity of healthcare financing and the management and accounting principles that go into determination of what is a community benefit. In my vision, I see E-Cell functioning here as providing a service, first and foremost, a citizen's catch can. They're paid by federal agencies. Medicare pays 101% of the cost, 101% of the cost of care delivered to Medicare recipients. So I don't understand, and it's my not understanding, but seems like if 101% of the cost for Medicare is covered, some of the elderly might have some benefit of not paying additional charges above that.

But perhaps I could be wrong. I could be wrong on all of this. I don't think so. Additional information I have found and provided into the email indicates that there may be financial issues. Please call for clear financial reporting.

So release of information that is— you know, she did a great job. I'm sure it was thrown on her back, but Burke Stanford. And Ms. Lee did provide all the information that's been provided to the city. To the best of their knowledge, it was sparse. It was insufficient for the city to perform proper oversight.

This had been known for a short period of time because the report of concern was produced only a few short months ago. I wonder if it's ever been produced to HAC committee representatives, uh, previously. Council members, and we currently— Jay Mahi, which by the way did a great job the other day. Um, so you need to question these things. I think it's within your right, it's within your duty, it's your obligation to be certain that the lease is followed.

But also you need to follow the money. I hope I'm off. I hope these large sums of money— truly, because Peace House is truly benevolent organization If not, the corollary and the opposite is that they're not running a fiscally sustainable operation and it's at risk for departing Ketchikan under their terms instead of working collegially with the council to figure out a solution to these issues. So I stand here alone, one voice, letting you know that I've done my best to provide to you information that may be of consideration. Uh, please consider reading the attachments.

There's a lot, it's long, but it's important. This is the year of the Gateway review. It should be considered strongly. Thank you. Thank you.

That's all, Your Honor.

That brings us to the consent agenda. There's been a request to move item 6A—.

No, not 6A. Not 6A, 6B.

So not 6A but 6B, is that right? Hopefully. Um, 7A, 7B to the consent agenda. I have a motion. Move to consent.

Second. It's been moved. Wait a second, Your Honor. Yes, you said 6B to consent?

Yeah, all right.

Would you like to rather leave that off to consent and discuss this? Okay, we can do that. Vote on it anyway. All right, Madam— we have a motion to consent. Madam Clerk, would you please read the items?

Approval of minutes, regular city council meeting of April 16th, 2026, and special meetings of April 25th and 30th, 2026. Award of contract number 2624, Ted Ferry Civic Center flooring replacement, Sea Island Construction. Council review of beverage dispensary license renewal application and restaurant endorsement application for 108 Tap House and Burger Bar. Council review of package store license renewal, package store shipping endorsement renewal, and package store sampling endorsement renewal applications for Golden Nugget Express. Resolution number 26-3014, amending the 2026 general government operating and capital budget to provide a supplemental appropriation for the museum department in the amount of $16,000.

And then we're doing alternate motion number 1 for, um, council review of liquor license transfer of location and transfer of ownership application, Glacier Bar Alaska LLC, doing business as Glacier Bar.

Discussion, question? Yeah, let somebody talk about 7A, please. Yeah, 7A is the, um, $16,000 for the museum department. Anybody here? Yeah, sure.

Um, we do have Samantha on the, um, museum director, but, um, she can explain more detail. This is a a couple of grants that were received by the museum. So this is the revenue coming in. So this just gives the museum director authority to spend that money on art. And let me pull up what's got here.

Yeah, we'll get Samantha. I am online. I'm putting a baby to sleep, but I have a few minutes here.

So, one of the grants, so this, one of the grants is from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, and this was awarded to us, meant to go to cultural resilience. Can you all hear me okay? Yes, we can. Thank you. Okay, great.

Thank you. It was meant to go to cultural resilience. This is a $15,000 grant. The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, this is a— they're a private foundation and they reach out to people rather than applying. They reach out to people who are doing good work in the community and offer grants.

So this money was offered to us. The project that I've proposed is to commission a design commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Totem Heritage Center from a local artist who created a design which we will then get copyright of and ownership of for us to use, and then we can print it on some merch material. Some of that merch will be used to kind of give away at the ceremony that we will have commemorating the 50th anniversary, but then the remaining materials will be sold in the following tourist season, and we will get to realize that, that money. So it's a really good opportunity for us to, one, kind of try out what is it like if we have more merch, um, and with kind of a low risk, and, uh, also giving a local artist an opportunity to have a design. That is $15,000 of this.

The other $1,000 is funding that we got from the Foundation for the American Institute of Conservation just a $1,000 grant to make an interpretive rail down in the basement— excuse me, the lower level of the Totem Heritage Center— to help explain totem pole preservation. Because we are opening tours down there, we want to— which we're selling the guided tour program— we wanted to have a little bit of additional interpretation on what, what kind of work is done, especially in the basement of the Totem Heritage Center where we do a lot of of that preservation work. Thank you, Angela. Yes, just follow up, Your Honor, just to follow up on the local artist. Was the artist chosen from a pool of artists or was it a specific artist?

We have not chosen an artist yet. The call for art is live on our website, but we have— we've been waiting for this before we've really been promoting it to make sure We have the write-off and we will put together a panel of community members to make a selection from the artists that will submit designs. The call for art is local artists in this area, specifically people who have a tie to the Totem Heritage Center since it is commemorating the Totem Heritage Center.

Thank you. Any other questions in regard to consent? Hearing seen, none. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll? Matani?

Yes. Gass? Yes. Bradbury? Yes.

Singhi? Yes. Gage? Yes. Kuss?

Yes. Finnegan? Yes. Thank you. That brings us to unfinished business number 26, 2028, amending Section C2D Section 3.12.051 of the Ketchikan Municipal Code entitled Professional Service Contract to provide that solicitation of proposal is not required when the estimated cost of the contract does not exceed $100,000.

Second reading. Do I have a motion, please? Your Honor, I move the city council approve Ordinance Number 26-2028 in second reading, amending subsection C2D of Section 3.12.051 of the Ketchikan Municipal Code entitled Professional Service Contracts to provide the solicitation of proposals is not required, and the estimated cost of the contract does not exceed $100,000, and establishing an effective date.

Do I have a second? It has been moved and seconded. Questions? Yes, Jay. Your Honor, I'm not going to be supporting this because I believe that this could be used to spend, spend, spend.

I'd rather see it stay at $50,000. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I have one question for the acting city manager, perhaps for finance. How frequently do we see contracts exceeding the $100,000 threshold?

Um, sure, I'll— finance director probably be able to answer. I think she had some numbers before, the ones over $100,000. I don't think it was a large percentage, uh, the majority is under $100,000, but I'm, I'm sorry, I don't have that information. Um, we can certainly bring that back to the council, but, um, $100,000— this specific item was the rest of the code for Section 312.050 and 051. Section 312 purchases and sales, all of the other thresholds have been increased to $100,000.

This was, this was merely a, it was a missed, it was on the list, but it didn't get into the ordinance. So if we have one item under a threshold of $50,000, it throws the rest of the code of 312 off. So to have one at a lower threshold of $50,000, where the whole rest of the code, even Section 312.05.1, has another item that is already $100,000. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention. It was a missed item, so it would throw the rest of it out of alignment.

Yeah, like, but this was what was voted on by the people, correct? Yeah. Yeah, so we're just fixing the code. The charter changed 030 And, and that was approved in January or December of last year. So, 312.030 was changed in December after the vote of the people.

Yeah. Then we brought back the rest of that section because you can't change the rest of 312 without first changing 312.030. 312.030 Says any contract that is required to be approved by the council and set that threshold, and that threshold was set at $100,000 in December. So then the rest of that, the code— so you don't change the rest of it until you have what is going to be approved by council. So then the rest of the code was brought back to be in alignment with 312.030.

And this one, when we brought that back in February, February 19th and March 5th, This section, this one, this one item was missed, unfortunately. So it doesn't mean that it doesn't come back to the council. It just means that you don't have to go out and do solicitations necessarily for that. Yes. It sets the level of RFP that is required to be out in the public for RFP.

Yeah. It's still, you can still request proposals. It just says this level requires a competitive RFP that is public and advertised.

Yes. This particular item would allow us, let's say, uh, to just— if there is one person in town or the community that could do a task that we specifically wanted them to do, we wouldn't have to wait for 3 to come in when we only know one person on the island can provide that service, or in this area. This would allow that. And then thank you for confirming that. And the second point is, it mentions that it's only what's in the budget.

So if we approve it in the budget, then it qualifies for this. But if we don't approve it in the budget, it would have to come back to us. Correct. So ultimately, it's our duty then at budget time to be more mindful of the items that are in there and the projects and services. At that time when we have the dedicated time versus going back in the summer, right?

Or not summer, but winter, whenever. Yeah, uh, Your Honor, council members, I just wanted to point out too that this doesn't change our, our fiscal controls that we have over purchasing, because we still have process, we still have approval processes within the city departments that You know, they go from the division head to the accountant, to the finance director, to the city manager. So those controls are still there to make sure we're following the process right. We're not purchasing things we shouldn't. We're not wasting money or anything like that.

So those controls are still in place. This just changes that on the professional service to match up the rest of the KMC. Thank you. Any other questions?

No questions, just a comment. Yeah, I agree with Jay on this one. I've been opposed to all these increases all along, and even though this is only one part out of being consistent, I still would oppose it. And I think that we haven't done an acceptable job, generally speaking, in past budget years by scrutinizing things. So, I don't really feel we've done a very good job of that, so I'd be opposed to this as I've been opposed to all these changes.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Hearing and seeing none, Madam Clerk, may you please call the roll? Bradbury? Yes. Singing? Yes.

Gage? Yes. Butani? No. Finnegan?

Yes. Gass? No. Cuse. Yes.

To Ordinance Number 26-2029, amending Section A6 of Section 3.12.050 of the catch-can municipal entitled Purchasing, when competitive bidding or quotations are not required, second reading. Do I have a motion, please? Your Honor, I move the City Council approve Ordinance Number 26-2029 in second reading, amending Subsection A6 of Section 3.12.050 of the Ketchikan Municipal Code entitled Purchasing When Competitive Bidding or Quotations Are Not Required, removing the requirement for city council approval of purchases made under the subsection in excess of $25,000 and establishing an effective date. Second. It has moved.

Discussion?

Just, just for clarification, so we're just changing the $25,000 to $100,000 to align with the other Or did I miss it? That's right. Yeah, that's correct. So, yeah, so this one, Council Member Bradbury, this, this section of the KMC, there's a, a, a 2. Yeah, A2 has $100,000 limit already, which is the sole source, meaning there's only one vendor that could provide that.

So this section is incompatibility, which is essentially the same, even though the language is a little different. So it's if something's already been purchased, just, you know, something only one vendor can provide the support or other parts to match that, then that's the only place we can go. So yeah, we're just matching the limit amount with the other section, other part of the section. Thank you.

Anybody else? Chris? Yes. Ben again? Yes.

Matomi? No. Bradberry? Yes. Dingy?

Yes. Gas? No. Gage? Yes.

That moves us on to Item C, appointments of boards, commissions. This is regards to the ad hoc tourism committee. Uh, we received applications and we went through and I appointed, um, the members that are listed in the in the packet. And you want to read those? Yes.

Georgia Cain, Alexandra Anderson, Ty Rettke, Adam Minshall, Terry Wonzer, Sheldon Johnson, Marcus Weaver, Daniel Michelsen, and then yourself. So, and again, this ad hoc committee will start in place to provide the structure for this committee and some direction in regard to what we're going to be discussing and how we're going to go about some of that. We'll work through the clerk's office in regards to advertising and holding the meetings. And it's an advisory committee, so it will advise us on items that either the council can bring to them to look through or things that are going on in the community, as tourism community, to look at that in ways to improve the balance of tourism and local participation and talk about the many issues that we have away from this table to do some fact-finding and then bring that to the council for consideration.

Yes. So this, this would be the tourism committee, or is this the group creating the tourism committee? This is the group that's starting the creation of the committee to start it and bring it back. Like, this is what we want. Okay, I am just a little worried.

There's 8 minus you. I'm not going to include you in this. There's 8 members, and 5 are from the borough and 3 are from the city. And so I was just a little concerned about that ratio. In terms of creating the tourism committee.

I like that there's both on there. I just am worried about the ratio for what the purpose of the committee is. Yeah, I appreciate that. But again, we're all in the borough. We're all borough members.

I understand that the bigger impacts are within the city area, but there are some people that are not directly related to tourism. That, that will have input. There's retired individuals that have worked in, uh, the hotel and restaurant hospitality section and stuff. I think it's a fairly good balance to start with this process. Um, there's individuals there that have worked with the, the homeless populations, and, and as we all know, there's many issues in the community that we need to address moving forward.

Uh, to give a better experience and, and manage the needs of the community. So again, this is the group that will start putting that together. I appreciate your comments. Just a follow-up, I just was hoping it to be more split 50/50 with city residents and borough residents so that both— because there is a lot of people in the city that also aren't directly impacted by tourism and have to live with a lot more traffic. So I was just hoping to have it more split 50/50 versus heavily on the borough side that doesn't have daily impacts here.

Thank you.

Your Honor. Yes. I think also what comes into play is the people who applied. And it was heavily those folks. So I think it's a good mix based on that, and we'll see how it works out.

You know, I don't know. I can't remember the— how long people will be appointed for. It's like the other boards, isn't it? For 3 years? Are they going to decide that when they—.

This, this, I think this ad hoc committee, because we're not actually there yet, is a year. That's right.

Setting the groundwork, right? What's that? Setting the groundwork. Yes.

Any question?

All right, that moves us on, uh, Item C, update and, uh, direct staff to appreciate bear-resistant dumpster enclosure. Do I have a motion, Your Honor? Yes, I move City Council direct staff to initiate the process of relocating the dumpsters from their current location to an alternative site and to evaluate associated impacts, logistics, and costs, and direct staff to return to City Council with a proposal for a new capital improvement project, including a detailed scope project timeline and recommend— recommended authorization of funding. Do I have a second?

Move. What? Second. It's been moved and seconded. So, um, Matt, would you like to have Seth come up and explain what we're doing here?

Sure.

Yeah, I didn't want to get that.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. Seth Brackey, the Public Works Director and Engineering Manager.

This action is to look at alternative locations based on, based on the comments that we received about the existing location and the potential to put a structure there. They were pretty much all against that location, so thought it was prudent to drop back, take a look at it, take suggestions about an alternative location. That could work better for that area. So, one thing we also are impacted by is the historic district there under the borough code, and that brought about a process of requesting comments, and those comments came back, you know, suggesting this alternative location. So, that's where we're at right now.

I do think for the alternative location, It is on city property. It would open up more of the existing area for a viewing platform. So, I think it's workable from an engineering standpoint. So that's why we brought it forward. How about an operational standpoint?

Is there enough room for the 2 dumpsters that they don't have to move them to fill them both? Yeah, I think so. Um, get it set up in conjunction with the Solid Waste Department. Brian Gilson there. We can back the truck in.

There is a wheelchair ramp there, a curb cut ramp, where we can bring the dumpsters out in a way that's less impactful to pedestrians like the existing area. So, and then the crews are going to have to push those up a little bit of a grade, I would imagine, because it's a little lower than that wheelchair ramp area. Yeah, there'll be that wheelchair ramp grade to push back up. But so currently they do have to roll them out over a wheelchair ramp down into the parking lot where the waiting truck is. So it'll be similar to that.

Yes, I guess I'm just looking for a little bit of an update, or, uh, yeah, an update as to what's been going on. I know that Southeast Fence volunteered and began quite a bit of construction on a deal down there, and a lot of people had questions and I don't have the answers. But all of a sudden it went from being built to apparently there was, uh, some vandalism and stuff, and then now it's gone. So did they come and remove the structure, or where are we at with that? How did we get here?

Yeah, thank you for that question, Councilmember Gast. We have been working in conjunction with Southeast Fence, with Spence and Julie. We worked with them to get the chain-link fence enclosure taken down after it did receive several bouts of vandalism. When it became— we did that because it became clear we weren't going to be able to get through the borough's process before the cruise ship tourists arrived. So it was felt it was best to just pull that back out of there.

Another component that it didn't have a roof on there, and because we didn't have the borough permitting, we couldn't add a roof. So we're concerned about a bear getting in there and then having to climb back out. So that was my decision to ask Southeast Fence to take it back down.

What's the plan for the bears now? I mean, this whole process started because there was a massive bear problem, and now I feel like we are now back into that time frame. So what's the plan for that so we don't have any incidents like last year? So we do have one of the dumpsters that's there has a metal lid that can be snapped down, and the second dumpster we're working on getting a bear-resistant dumpster lid there. Also have been reaching out to the users of that area because a key component is getting the garbage into the dumpster so bears— it's not an easy attractant.

So, in the meantime, that's our plan until we can move over, get an actual enclosure constructed.

Jake. Thank you, Your Honor. Question, I mean, the gas tanks are around that same area. How are we handling the safety concerns about maybe the dumpsters getting pushed against the gas tank and maybe creating an issue? And also, second question is, what's the timeline like?

I mean, this thing has been going back and forth like a football. Thank you for that question, Councilmember Vacani. So we'll have The new structure proposed, um, it'll be structurally sound such that the dumpsters are contained. Won't be any way that they could roll over and impact the propane tanks. So that'll be taken into consideration.

Um, as far as the timeline goes, this is the— an important step, getting your direction to go ahead and investigate the project at the new site, and we'll bring back a timeline and potential cost. In the future. Thank you. So, Seth, my understanding is this is going to be chain link interior, wood clad outside to meet the historic preservation look. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's, that's the current plan. I think with the alternative location, we could open to an alternative design. So I've got my staff looking at that. Um, it needs to fit the historic, um, district requirements, which is with wood. So we'll take another look at that.

Thank you. Anybody else? I, I do have a question. Yeah. And I don't mean to be the bad guy or whatever, but I'm just curious, where was the— because there was quite a bit of work that went into putting up that, that thing before Was there just kind of a lack of communication with the plans, or I mean, didn't we know what we were getting when we gave them the go-ahead to start putting that up, or where was the disconnect there, I guess?

Yeah, it just, it didn't work out the, the way we wanted as far as planning. Um, and I guess what I'm wondering is, are we doing this because someone came down and destructed the property? I mean, it, that's kind of my question. Councilmember Gas, thank you for that question. I think the main issue came from the initial, initial direction, or I guess, position from the borough planning that we wouldn't need a permit from the borough.

And then that decision was reversed. That put us down the historic district zoning requirement path. And that because it had to go to public comment, that opened up the whole. Um, for a process as well, that's really where we ended up having to pull the structure back out. Because of that process.

Thanks.

Anybody else? Hearing seeing them, please call the roll. Yes. Yes. Page?

Yes. Sorry. Bradbury? Yes. Matani?

Yes. Finnegan? Yes. Kuss? Yep.

Zingy? Yes. Motion passes. I am— the Memorandum of Agreement between the City of Ketchikan and Cruise Line International Association. Do I have a motion?

Your Honor, I move the City Council approve the Memorandum of Agreement between the City of Ketchikan and Cruise Line International Association as presented. Concerning the collection and use of passenger wharfage fees pursuant to Ketchikan Municipal Code Section 13.10.030 from passengers arriving in the city on a cruise ship, and direct the city manager to execute the agreement on behalf of the city council. Second. Second. Any discussion?

Yes, Jay. Your Honor, thank you. Uh, just as soon as this agreement is signed, we need to resolutely ask for what things that need to be done and provide them with all the proof that these are necessary projects that will also, that will also enhance the visitor industry and the cost of living and also the lifestyle of the local population. Thank you. Anybody else?

Yes. Yeah, I'm glad— on one hand, I'm glad to see that we are at this point. It's been a long time coming. It's a good thing to be moving forward, uh, and I hope that, uh, once this is signed and goes into effect— I mean, I, I think everyone would agree that there are areas of this that are a bit vague, so it's going to require collaboration, communication, discussions with the lines and whatnot. And, uh, I agree, I hope that we get on that very quickly and very strongly.

Uh, and I'll take the opportunity again to repeat what I've been saying, which is, uh, they need to step up and start putting— contributing to, uh, specifically our utilities. We had that meeting with with them. There was only one person there in person, just for the— so the public understands. Um, but the issue was brought up, and I think it's being brought up more and more around town, is that, uh, you know, they're plugging more and more people in here. We're grateful for the business and the economic impact, but we also are at a point where, uh, a lot of people are not seeing the benefits of this 1.6 million people come to town as much as we would like, and it's fair that we ask them in some way or another, we come to an agreement to get them to start contributing to all of our rates that are going up.

They use the roads, they use the water, they use the sewer, they use the power, and I would like to pursue a mutual agreement with cruise lines, uh, to start contributing to that because it's necessary and it's fair and it's the right thing to do for them and everybody. So I hope we're aggressive and I hope we get right to it with some of these ideas. Thank you. Anybody else?

Hearing and seeing none, would you please call the roll? Bradbury? Yes. LaTawny? Yes.

Finnegan? Yes. Age? Yes. Gass?

Yes. Koos? Yes. Zingy. Yes, thank you very much, Pastor Moses.

Adam E. And, uh, in regards to item E, uh, it has been suggested that we scratch the wording that says, uh, acceptance and acceptance because, um, we don't have the grant, so we can't accept it yet at this point. So Resolution number 263 16, authorized the submittal of a grant application to the U.S. Department of Energy funding electric utility infrastructure improvement necessary to support system reliability, increase industrial loads through the DOE SPARKS program, committing local matching funds. Your Honor? Yes? I move the City Council approve Resolution Number 26-3016.

Authorizing the submittal of a grant application to the U.S. Department of Energy for funding of electric utility infrastructure improvements necessary to support system reliability and increased industrial load through the BOE SPARK program, committing local matching funds, and establishing an effective date. Second. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Matt, uh, thanks, Your Honor.

We have, uh, Robert Briggs, Electric Division Manager, is here. He can speak to this and has a few PowerPoint slides to show. Perfect.

Honorable Mayor, honorable council people, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm Robert Briggs, Electric Division Manager, and I do have a PowerPoint prepared that may answer your questions in advance if you'd like to see that. Please do.

Okay. So, this grant would be a total of $23 million, $17 million in federal funds, and almost a $6 million match on our behalf. So, it's a once in a generation grant. Time with 74% paid by the federal government. It looks, it looks forward to the economy.

It looks forward to the load and the increased future of our economy. It addresses the shore power. It addresses the increased load at the shipyard. It would look at the Coast Guard and the increased maritime operations like homeporting and things like that. And, uh, it addresses the SEPA hydro spill where they spill power, and we, we pay true-up for that.

So it kind of addresses all those items that affect our community. Next slide. Okay, this is, uh, the main corridor of our 34-kV transmission backbone. Uh, the yellow part that you see there is 4/0 aluminum on the 34 kV coming from Bailey and then going up Third Street right there. And then where you see the orange part is the underground portion going up and ending at Schoenbauer.

So those two sections of the line, especially the first section in yellow, are kind of the constraint, are kind of the small weak link in our transmission system. And by replacing that part and the orange part, where we'd be just double up the existing underground conductor, will strengthen the backbone. And that also meets the compliance of the grant. The grant requires you to upgrade your transmission system greater than 50%. So this would upgrade that section of our corridor, um, up 75%.

And that would allow for any future load, any shore power, any cruise ship power available, and make it available to do that. Next slide.

Okay. So, along with this, I managed to tie in as much infrastructure improvements as I possibly could and be compliant with the grant. So, at Bailey Substation here that you see there, there's 2 34 kA breakers that are 1998 vintage. We would replace those. They're, they're more than 25 years old.

They're at the end of their life. And the same at Bailey substation, there's 3 of those breakers over there. Those are actually not really breakers, they're reclosers, and they're not rated as high as a breaker. So replacing those would be a very good thing for our system.

We also— I'm sorry. We also get, as part of this project, we get the 5 new breakers, and we get the relays and the automation to go with those 5 breakers. We get 9 automated pull-top reclosers. We get the SCADA and the PLCs to go with that. And we have money in there for the fiber optic backbone going to those components, and I'll talk more about that on the next slide.

Okay, so with this—. With this—. What this grant will get us first, this gets us the system-wide system study by Schweitzer Engineering, and that's where this is really the backbone of all major projects for a utility. You need a good system study and a good protection system. And then they go in and they'll analyze what your relay settings should be, what the protection should be, the weaknesses of the electric system, you know, the— how the power flows and back.

And on top of that, we build our projects in a smart way that say, hey, this is what's needed by the electric system and this is what needs to be done. So the that getting us that study is, is pretty huge. Um, it gets us the modern SEL relay panels. I've got enough money in there for modernizing, uh, the relay panels at, at both Ketchikan and at Bailey substation to bring up the relays up to modern, uh, you know, modern standards. And it's the same relays, kind of what I was showing you.

It'll look the other, the other time I was presenting here. Also, what these relays will do, they'll coordinate with those pole reclosers I was talking about. So the pole recloser will be out there, and if there's a system fault on this side of the pole recloser and the, and the, and the station is right here, it'll see that fault and it will tell the other relay, don't open, I've got it. And it'll open up and and isolate that section of the line. So you don't get the whole line relay.

So it'll only be a portion of the line that goes out, and then it's coordinated. Once the fault is clear, it, it'll automatically reclose. Also gets us documentation and the training for our in-house staff as part of this project. Next slide.

Okay, so this is a picture of one of the, uh, poke-top, uh, reclosures I was talking about. This is actually right outside, like 4 poles down from my office right there. So that's what it kind of looks like. It's an automated switch. It's like a circuit breaker on top of the pole, but it's smart.

It's got a relay in there. Um, next.

Okay, these are the, uh, some of the explanations that I'll just go kind of real quickly through, uh, that gives us the ability to grow in, in the future. Uh, the capacity, uh, right now is 20 megawatts on our backbone. It raises it to 35 megawatts on that section of line that I was talking about. Um, uh, the outage minutes from having the, the automation and the relays Right now, it's about 301 minutes per year. With those automations, it should drop to about under 200 minutes a year.

That means basically, right now, customers experience about 3.5, 3.6 outages per year. With that automation, it should drop to about 2.5 outages a year. So, less outages for the customer, and they're, and they're shorter outages. Outage restoration right there. There's really no automatic outage restoration with this automation.

Some of that restoration will be automated. The undergrounding, the cruise ship, you know, right now it's inefficient. The backbone's inefficient. If we had power at the dock right now for cruise ships, we couldn't do it. With this, we can supply that power.

And the SEPA hydro spill that we talked about before, that's just wasted energy that's not being used. Next slide.

Okay. And so this is where the heavy dollars do the lifting. 74% Paid for and enables the load and enables us to sell the power in the future date. The project goes over 48 months. So, with the first year, it would be the engineering and the planning, and the years 1, 2, and 3 would be the construction and the commissioning in the very last year.

And next slide.

And I guess my ask for you is to help me bring this grant home. Uh, these grants are highly competitive and, uh, the reviewers look at them and, uh, they look for local, uh, commitment to, uh, matching funds. So if they don't see the resolution in my grant application that has a matching funds resolution in there, they may deem it noncompliant or they may dismiss it. So having this support from the council really gives me a fighting chance for these grants, and I appreciate your support of that. Thank you.

Questions?

Yes, Jay. I mean, I hear a lot of talk about this will help us show power, provide power for the cruise ships. Otherwise, it would not. Can we use funds for the matching grant? That'd be a good question for finance and legal, but, you know, there's other ways to get that $1.2 million.

There's still AEA out there has grants for upgrades and development, things like that. So the funding portion of it would come into play once we've been granted the grant, then we would work on what that funding source is. And I think that also ADA has a low-interest loan program that runs over 40 years that we can get a loan for and do that.

And the loads that we're talking about on these ships— I was on the Star the other day talking to the Princess representatives, and that ship itself, when it plugs in, is 10 megawatts, right? So that's, that's, you know, 10,000 kilowatts. And so if they plug in for 4 hours, it's about 5 grand. About the right number, something like that. Yeah, that is huge.

Yeah. And this would only enable our system backbone and strengthen that and allow for future power, which is actually the next the next presentation with Wayne. Yeah. Yes, Your Honor, my concern is where are we going to find the money? And do we want to go and get a 40-year loan again, commit to a— commit to debt service?

If we could use CVV funds, that will ease up a lot of pressure. Thank you. Abby, this is a lot of money that can potentially help start stabilizing our infrastructure here. And what was the final amount, like $30 or $20? $23 Million total, $17 paid by the federal government.

So $23 million, oh, we don't have that, nor are we even going to get a loan for half of that. For us to just have to give $6 million, I mean, that's less than what we're spending on infrastructure CIPs for the electric division just this year alone, and we have that money. KPU and general government are separate. The deficit is not as large in KPU. We have those funds.

I just— we sit here and talk about grants, and if we have to put up $6 million to get $23 million, why are we even questioning this? Like, I feel like it goes against any discussion we've had before. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to express how much I appreciate the forward-looking nature of this proposal because I feel like so much of what we talk about with respect to electric has been how do we fix what we have that is broken, or what should we have done in the past. And it's really nice to hear that an opportunity has been discovered where, on a relatively small contribution on our part— $6 million is no small sum of money, but relative to the lift that we'd get from the federal government, I think it would be absolutely worth the investment.

Yeah, I'm really hopeful that we're successful on the grant. I've been working really hard to, uh, to make sure the grant is, is in the best possible, um, best possible place to be, uh, you know, to be competitive. And this is kind of the icing on the cake. Once I get this, I can put it all together and get it submitted after this. Yeah, Lee.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. It's a long time coming, but, um, just that corridor from the Bayliff Through the— that's the bottom piece under the street in the bridge section, right? Um, that, that's the part that, that comes from Ketchikan, then you go up kind of over the hill over, over Seward, and then going, going down, uh, this to where you see, uh, like Bethy. So, right, right. And then turn right and then all the way to Bailey, which hasn't been dealt with in Yeah, it hasn't been dealt with in a while.

No, thank you for the work that you put into this. I'm, yeah, I'm for it. And it's a huge lift, and that just, if we could get that grant, would take some of the burden off the community. Thank you. Thank you.

Matt. Thanks, Your Honor. Yeah, I just wanted to point out and mention, reiterate also that this resolution just allows us to apply for the grant. It doesn't commit any future funds. And if we do apply for it, that gives us time to look into, as Councilmember Matani said, CPV funds or other sources of funds that we could potentially use for that match.

We'd have to look into it some. I know some other grants I've looked at, you know, if we provide the labor, that counts for in-kind match, which I don't know if that applies to this one or not. But, um, so there's, there's potentially other ways that we could come up with that match without coming up with dollars out of the city or KPU budgets. Um, but that would— and then, you know, once we get to that point, then we would come back to council with that and the proposal for council review and approval at that time. Thank you.

Any other comments? I appreciate the work you put in on this, Robert. I know that you and I have gone back and forth, talked a little bit about it. Um, and this is what we've asked of, uh, when we were looking at hiring managers opportunities, and I appreciate you bringing it forward. So with that, um, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Poose? Yeah. Finnegan? Yes. Singhi?

Yes. Gass? Yes. Gage? Yes.

Bradbury? Yes. Matani? Yes. Bring this to item F, resolution number 263017, authorizing the submittal of a grant application to the Maritime Administration for funding of shore power infrastructure, committing local matching funds.

We have a motion. Your Honor? Yes. I move the City Council approve Resolution Number 263017, authorizing the submittal of a grant application to the Maritime Administration for funding of shore power infrastructure, committing local local matching funds and establishing an effective date. Second.

Been moved and seconded. Thanks, Rhonda. Again, this, this is another grant which again would authorize the application, just send in the application. And we have Ports and Harbors Director Wayne here to— Wayne Phillips— to explain that a little bit, I think. I don't know if you're tag teaming on this or—.

Your Honor, council members, I can mention McLaren. I just want to speak to this a little bit. This is, uh, port electrification. We've been talking about this for a few years. Um, 2026, you gave me, um, we started the CIP project that you funded for a feasibility study.

This dovetails exactly into what, uh, Robert Briggs has been doing with the other grant. Robert's actually been helping me. He's kind of spearheading the grant side of the house. We've got a grant writer also involved. He's doing the technical side for the electrical so we can possibly bring port electrification to the city of Ketchikan.

I've reached out to P&D, and they brought in Hyde Electrical. They're the same team that put together the feasibility study for Juneau, and they were successful. So what this is going to do, what we've done right now is I've got them in, they're going to put together a technical memo so we can include with this grant. As some of you may or may not know, we had a recent meeting with Senator Sullivan and with the MARAD, Marine Administrative Director, or actually the administrator from DC. We talked to him about this project in particular, and they seemed very amenable that this might be something that they'd be willing to fund.

They asked us to go ahead, they've opened it up again. So we went ahead and put in this paperwork. We're scrambling to get that in. I think it's due—. June 1st.

June 1st. So, um, we're just standing up here to bring a resolution to you to see if you will support us in this effort to get, uh, port electrification. Uh, kind of the same thing, um, this will dovetail into what, uh, Robert's been doing with the electrical grid itself. This will further bring the power down to the port, and, uh, we're just asking for your support. And, uh, if you have any questions, I'm here.

Yeah, yeah, I have one question that I don't know if you'll be able to answer now, but to what extent would the, would the work that's required of the electric department need to be completed or accomplished for you to be able to begin a project of this nature? I guess the concern I'd have is I know a lot of these grants have sunset clauses where the funds aren't expended by a certain time, they're withdrawn or pulled back. So, uh, Is there any sense of what the timelines might be and how they might correspond with the SPARK project that we've just been asked to endorse? That's probably more of a, uh, a question we should direct Robert, but what I can say is there is certainly going to be upland work that needs to be done before we can, uh, get that electrification down to the port. Um, if you saw that, um, uh, map of the electrical, basically what will happen is they'll put in some sub— some different substations, additional equipment, The plan is to run that down Schoenbach and then take it in from berth 4 over to berth 1 through 3.

So that's kind of the plan. I don't know, Robert, if you want to speak a little bit more about it. Sure.

Yeah, the timelines would match very well, and it would be dovetailed right into when we're about done putting the backbone in and strengthened in. We can just continue on and then run it underground down Sean Barr, down to the port. So it would be a good match. And then our project manager and the project manager on that would be working together to make sure, you know, everything's coordinated. Thank you.

Yes. So, Your Honor, I need to make an amendment. Yeah. So you want to speak to it? Your Honor, Councilmember Sue.

Mitchell brought to your attention, so we missed one more part in the motion where it says committing to committing local matching funds. That should be removed, and we may need to go back to the previous one as well to remove that for now. For now, yeah, because we don't want to commit those funds until we have— yeah, yeah. So then we would come back for the commit. Commit the—.

The committee would be next time. Yes. So do I just need to amend that to remove it, or—. Yeah, go ahead and move to—. Okay, so I amend, um, the resolution to admit the committee and local matching funds and establishing an effective date, um, so until we have the grant.

Second. And can we add that correction to the previous motion? All right. Yes, Abby, removing that line, does that still meet the grant guidelines that we're needing today?

I think as long as we have the memo that says that you guys are, you know, you're in agreement with what we're doing, you don't necessarily, I think, have to commit. But I think we do need to at least be able to provide something that says, that, you know, you're planning to back us and you're in favor of this. And I think that will go a long way. Something that I've learned about these grants as well is the more information you can provide to them and prove that you're shovel ready and that you have support from the community gives us a better chance of actually getting the grant. Thank you.

Anybody else? Yes, Abby. And this might be a question for Mitch, but can't we put community and local matching funds if received so that it's still in there and it shows that we are committed, that the funds— I just don't want to—. You need something like, if we—. If it's available, or yeah, yeah, just—.

I didn't know because I just—. I want them to know that we are serious about it and that we have— like, if this grant comes up and I just don't want to lose this grant because of one line.

The body of the resolution makes very clear that we're not committing any funds.

And we're not in position legally to commit any funds. My concern is you have a heading that doesn't match the body of your resolution. I'm reading, I'm going, well, what are these people trying to say? What are they thinking? It should be clear.

I was not involved with the grant. I saw this for a couple of minutes yesterday and raised the concerns to the body. I just discovered now that the changes were made to the heading. Oh. But so if they, if they decide to award the grant, they'll put in conditions of that, which means they could ask for a match.

And at that time, we would take up the discussion whether or not the main funds. As it was explained to me, the purpose of this resolution was to have some showing of council support. Booster the resolution. As we all recognize, and the body of the resolution recognizes, we're in, in, in no position to commit to those funds. We don't have—.

There's not been an appropriation, uh, right? And from what Robert's memo says, he wants this in by the 17th. Federal government does. I'm not sure what else to tell you. Sounds good.

Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. So first we have the amendment. Would you please call the roll on the amendment?

Gage? Yes. Zingy? Yes. Matani?

Yes. Gas? Yes. Kuss. Yep.

Bradbury. Yes. Finnegan. Yes. Now would you call the roll on the motion?

I have a—. Yeah. On the main motion, I am in favor generally of the idea of bringing power to the ships. I'm happy to see that if awarded, the grant would cover the majority of it. Uh, but, and I'm, I'm thinking back to a while ago when we kind of first started these conversations, uh, and obviously one thing that was brought up in favor of this would be that if we went ahead with this project and we got to where the ships was hooking up to our power, it could— the utility could generate revenue hopefully offsetting rate increases, which is my ultimate goal.

That's why I'm in support of this generally. But I also remember it was stated, I think you stated and I agreed with you that, at the time I agreed that whatever happens with this, if we were gonna do it, it wasn't gonna be off our ratepayers' backs or our taxpayers' backs. That if the project were to go forward, it would need to be funded totally by either grants or— but the idea that was stated at the time was that if we would have to come to an agreement with the cruise lines, if there was a matching grant such as this, uh, and it was stated that our people are not going to pay for this.

So I'm a little between— I'm kind of seeing both sides here. I don't want to jeopardize the opportunity, uh, but I also I'm not hearing that piece anymore. And I think that, uh, if we were to get this money, I mean, is there still an appetite to involve the cruise lines on our $9 million portion? I mean, I'd like to see that. So, uh, just a little background on that.

Presently in the capital budget, Senator Steadman has proposed, and it's in the budget at this particular point in time, there was $15-some-odd million that was split between Juneau and Ketchikan for port electrification. So that's a little over $9 million that would become— that's not one of the matches on this thing. Um, so that money I keep hearing about could be our matching portion? Correct. Oh, okay.

And then not only that, um, Also, there was a notice that the cruise industry, along with the AEA, at the direction of the governor, is moving forward with the dock electrification in Whittier. And the cruise industry, even though that's a private dock, they're investing in that. So there's some precedence being set with regards to helping along with these projects. So that would be a conversation for future stuff. But right now, as it's in the budget, barring any vetoes or anything, we're looking at about 9— a little over $9 million in port rectification to get you in.

Perfect. Thank you. Yes, Abby. On the shore power, I know we always focus on the cruise ship side, but having power at the dock would actually help promote more layups here with JAG to where we could not only increase, you know, jobs here at JAG, but we could, you know, more revenue and whatnot into the community. Is that a correct statement?

Like, that would be long-term? That's the correct statement. Everything that they do doesn't necessarily have to be done on a ship lift. It could be dockside. And so they could be doing that at the port for whatever vessel or agency has work to be done, they can pull alongside and there'd be sufficient power there to provide it.

Including ferries. Yeah, we could tilt berth 30 there, power them up. That's why we have the one on berth 3, is it has power to it.

Any other questions? Hearing and seeing none, would you please call the roll on the main roll? The motion is amended. Zingy? Yes.

Bradbury? Yes. Gas? Yes. Finnegan?

Yes. Gage? Yes. Matani? Yes.

Kuss? Yes. Thank you very much. That brings us on to vouchers, which I see there is none. Uh, what do you have for us in the way of a management report, Brad?

Thanks, Your Honor. Um, so the first thing I just want to mention, the manager's report. Um, some— there are some stats in your report about the spring cleanup. Um, just wanted to thank the staff and everyone, um, the crews and Solid Waste, the Public Works Department to help with all that and collect all that. There was a total of 2,774 vehicles totalling 1,287,551 pounds of material, which is about 60% more than were received in any of the previous 2 years.

So, a huge, huge increase. So, that's, uh, it's good to see the community take advantage of that time and get a lot of these materials off the streets and out of the homes and wherever else they came from. So, So that was a successful event. The next thing, just wanted to mention the council talked about a work session for preparing the 2027 draft sometime in June. So if council would like, we can have— we can send out— Taylor can send out a survey or invite, try to schedule a time in June for that meeting.

Okay, that's good. And then the, the last thing I've got, um, just to make council aware, um, Monday's borough assembly meeting, they have on the agenda to discuss the termination of the library services agreement. So they will be discussing that and potentially, if passed, given, given the 180-day notice to terminate that agreement in in an effort to renegotiate that agreement with us. So just want to make sure everybody's aware of that. That's about $700,000 or something like that.

Uh, the request was just over $725,000, was the— was our request for the borough.

Thank you. Question? Yes, just out of curiosity, just because the, the, the volume for cleanup week shot up so dramatically. Would you attribute that, to the best of your knowledge, to just the, the, the good weather that we had? Was there better outreach this year?

Is there any sense as to why there was such a market uptick in contributions? Sure, um, Councilmember Fingan, my take would be the weather a lot, but Seth could probably answer a whole lot better than I can. Weather-related garbage pickup. I figured, I just, you know, I didn't know, I didn't know if we had a, a greater effort to get word out about it. I did see ads running in the paper, um, which is always good to get, you know, I think maybe 2 or 3 weeks in advance I saw ads in the paper putting word out about it, which I thought was great, just getting it on people's, on people's minds.

But it was really impressive, and I, I interacted directly with the crew when they were in my neighborhood and dealing with some really narrow streets that were kind of crowded with cars, and they were handling it all very professionally and well. I was really grateful to see them doing that work. Yeah, and I, and I will add too, I, I took a trailer full of junk out that's been piling up for 6 months, and they did a great job. It was very efficient out there. They had people guiding and backing everybody in and moving people through quickly.

So I think that helped with getting the numbers up too, because they were really efficient out there with it. So It's very impressive if you do a time and motion study in regards to that, because at times they're getting cars through there every 2 minutes. It's amazing. I'm passing the picture to you. Any questions for the manager?

Did we need to go back on that last—.

Oh, did we never go back on Yes, if that could apply to both of them. Um, if we're going to go back on that one, it's already been passed, so we would need to do a motion to reconsider, and then, and then we can bring it back up, make a motion to amend. So if we want to follow Robert's rules, then that's, that's how we should do it. So let me get back to my notes. So your honor, I move to reconsider 6—.

No, 7E.

Second. Okay, you are all—. Oh yeah, I was in here. Okay, so, and again, seconded. Okay, so now we're going to vote on the motion to reconsider that one.

Barbary? Yes. Gage? Yes. Zingy?

Yes. Kuss? No, say again, what are you trying to do? So what we're doing right now is they want to amend that motion, that motion, the motion that was made regarding Resolution 26-3014. We've already voted and passed it.

So we're going to bring back a motion to reconsider so that we can open it back up. And so then you can make an amendment to remove the community or local map committee. Yeah. Oh, does it say 26? I'm on the wrong one.

I'm so sorry.

For E, for— yeah, E, um, to fix the language, just to fix the language, and then we'll vote on it to pass, or then we'll vote on it again to remove the language.

Okay, so, yeah, okay, um, we'll fight it out in a minute. Matani? Yes. Gas? Yes.

Okay, Finnegan? Yes. Now we need a motion. Yes, to amend. Your Honor.

Yes. I amend, um, uh, Resolution Number 26-3016, authorizing the submittal of a grant application to the U.S. Department of Energy for funding of electric utility infrastructure improvement necessary to support system reliability, increase industrial load through the DOE's SPARK program and establish an effective—. Second. Been moved and seconded. Heard the discussion.

Any, any further discussion? Hearing none, please call the roll.

Bradley. Yes. Lee. Yes. Cruz.

Here. Matani. Yes. Finnegan. Yes.

Gast. Yes. Engage. Yes. Thank you.

Don't we have one more vote? That was the motion to amend, wasn't it? So now we have to vote to pass, right? Yeah.

Did you say it without the committing thing though? She said without committing. So we don't have to amend it. She stated it without committing. And that's sufficient?

Yes. Make sure we're tidy. I didn't think that motion was already on the floor, so she had to amend it. Then we just put it on the amendment. Never voted on that.

She read it with—. I read it all the way through. She— we reconsidered the motion, and she read the motion without the language. She stated to amend the motion. That's the only reason.

If it's on record, she stated to amend the motion. But yeah, so it's an amendment. It's fine. I just, um, bring us to item 10, Council Committee Reports. We have one from the Mayor's my charging board yet that's submitted.

Do we have anything under the clerk's file? No, your honor. To the attorney's file? Nothing, your honor. Future agenda item, your honor?

Yes, um, I submit an agenda item to look into, uh, contracting a, uh, healthcare ombudsman. Ombudsman. I can't speak today. Ombudsman. Ombudsman.

Um, and obtain an, uh, uh, an ombudsman to advocate and represent both the city and patients of PeaceHealth with knowledge to address issues that we've all been grappling with, with our lease agreement and looking at the best way that maybe we can look at on what it would cost and how we would pay for something like that. So, because we have, there's so many things. And the other thing with the lease is maybe if we have a third eye on this to look at the holes and the gaps, but also to kind of give us some guidance when we get to the lease part. Well, I don't know that the ombudsman is the place to do that. We'd probably look for some legal counsel too and forensic accounting to try to deal with some things in the lease.

And there is a state ombudsman's office that we can utilize in regards to issues that may or may not be of concern to us. So we already have that option available to us. I understand that. The research I've done is that other municipalities and cities have actually used Unbuspen to work with their hospitals within the communities that are partially— not necessarily partially city-owned, but property-owned. So I, I think it's a good idea that we start and have management look into the options we have in regards to fortifying our position in regards to that lease as we open it up and see what actual, um, items that we can address within that.

Yeah, Brian, I was just going to say, I see she's got the form properly filled out here, so I look forward to a vigorous debate when it comes on the agenda. Your Honor, yes, I have to agree with Councilwoman Gage on this because honestly, the hospital team has been very, very aggressive and very, very anti-city. And also, I mean, I asked for matching the funds that Medicare and Medicaid was providing this East Health Hospital, we haven't heard from that. We need to look into that. We need to get the forensic accounting to see what is going on with the funding locally because, I mean, our seniors after Medicare, they claim Medicare pays 101%, but they're still being charged without being told what the additional billing is for.

And I've questioned that. The answer has been basically, oh, federal, uh, there's a drop in federal funding. But if Medicare is paying 100% and if Medicare and Medicaid is sending funding back to the city, uh, Speeds Health, that should be enough money to avoid seniors and others paying extra for their bills.

I think it's— it would be wise for us to have the facts in regards to the those things. Yes. All right, we'll bring it up and put it on the—. Yes, Your Honor, I watched that meeting, um, and I agree with Councilman Matani. Um, the hospital went to the— what they wanted to do was force the meeting in October at the DIA's, um, and we all know that There's not enough room really here, the people.

But what, what concerned me the most is that there's 3 people from the hospital and there's 3 people from the city. So if they get to a point where there's a tie, who breaks that? How does that work? I read the lease and stuff and I don't see how that happens. So I'm not sure how that moves forward.

And I think we should know about that. I think an ombudsman would solve a lot of the problems that we're having just as a council with people bringing all these concerns to us that sometimes are not in our lane, and they would be able to sort through that and bring what really belongs in our wheelhouse. So I think it's worth at least a conversation if we direct the manager to maybe look to look into that and see what options we have, I don't think is a bad idea. But I think this, this review is going to be difficult. We are going to need some help.

And we all want a hospital, but we want a hospital that serves our community. And right now we're having problems getting there. And hopefully, you know, an ombudsman might be able to resolve that. There might be other ways, but I think we really need to get serious about this start with this process now so that when we go to the table in October, we know what we want, we know what the problems are. There's many things.

I mean, the whole time I was on there, I don't recall once seeing a financial statement, and that's in the lease, but I don't recall ever seeing one. Um, those kinds of things to me send me a message just how interested they are in us as a community. And I think that we need to start paying attention and making some movement. So, sorry. Yes.

Just to follow up on Councilwoman Zingy's concern, the conversation towards the end was, oh, we will take a vote next HECT meeting to see whether they want to keep the October meetings, HEC meeting in chambers here. That—. And I thought that, and Amanda Robinson thought that, basically that will eliminate the public from addressing deep concerns. I mean, maybe we need to send— piece out a letter that, you know, there should be no motions, and if there was a motion, This time the chair of that committee is the hospital, and if the chairman has to, or chairperson has to break the tie or rule against it, it'll be the, go on the hospital side. Does not, does not help patients or the city residents or the owners of the building, this, uh, the city.

So maybe we need to send them a letter through the manager saying no such motions should be made. I believe it's in the lease agreement too, so I think the HAC has the power to change the lease.

All right, so we'll bring that on as an item on the agenda, and clerk and managers can figure out what agenda that comes on to. Your Honor, I have another agenda item. I, I left my form at my office desk, so I'm going to read it from my notes. I'd like us to receive some information on the Firefighters Cadet Program. There was an interview with Chief Hynes back in July of 2024, and he made a great presentation on a Firefighters Cadet Program for youth.

It would—. I think it encompassed grades 9 through 12. And then it— I don't know. No, nothing ever came of it. We never heard anything else about it.

I understand that the program didn't go forward for some reason, but I don't believe the council was ever told that. So I would like to hear about that because I understand that we had some paid firefighters that actually went through that program and were successful. And I think it's important for our youth, especially now in our community when things are dwindling, that we have something else other than— I mean, everybody says, well, you can join the military or you can do—. I'd like—. That's another one that we could do.

I spoke with the chief about this and he said that they could come forward and discuss it, and I think it would be a great idea. So if you could coordinate with him and see how we can support something like that, I think it would be great. Thank you. And I'll have my form. Yes.

I had a motion at budget time that we eliminate the Department of Tourism. And we were asked to postpone it till the ad hoc committee was formed. Now that the ad hoc committee is formed, I'd like the clerk or the manager's office to bring that motion back to the council at the next meeting. Okay, I guess, you know, just to be upfront about this, uh, we put in a process where you put the paperwork in and you get that done, and then you got another person signing on, which I think is— yes, this is not a new item. It was actually stated that as soon as the ad hoc committee was done, it automatically should be brought back.

It's not a document. Perfect. Thank you. Um, so next item is mayor and council comments. Abby, Oh, you still have something?

Go ahead. Yeah, on that note of budget, I did also have an item for a redundancy study, um, and we have received no updates or any information on the status of that. Are we working on it? Are we not? Are we 50% done, 20% done, whatnot?

Just an update, would you say? All right. Anything else?

Hearing, saying none. Mayor and Council, come. Abby. I'm very thankful for the sun. I hope everyone got time outside and soaked it up.

Looks like we will be back to the rain tomorrow. So, I just hopefully everyone enjoyed that and then happy Mother's Day to all the amazing mothers in our community this weekend. Thank you. Generally, I have nothing. It goes so well, I needed this.

Judy, I have nothing, Your Honor. Dick, nothing, Your Honor. Jay, thank you, Your Honor. I'd like to commend the Electric Division head and the Ports and Harbors director for taking the initiative to find grants If this was done previously or over the years, we would have had a better infrastructure at the utility. So I commend both of them.

And hopefully going forward, we'll find more grants. And hopefully, my ask would be to hire a city grant writer so that we— all departments can look into making sure we use funding that's available outside so that we are not taxing our ratepayers in the city. So, and happy Mother's Day to all the mothers. Thank you. Riley.

I second what they said. Happy Mother's Day to everybody. Also a reminder, today's not over yet. Today's the National Day of Prayer, and the theme for this year was calling on all nations to glorify God. So if you think about it, say a little prayer.

Prayer for our town, for our country, can only bring good things. Thank you, Jack. Yeah, I'll echo Council Member Matani. I really appreciate the energy brought forth, no pun intended, from Fulton Hovers and the Electric Division. It's just really, it's enlivening to, to look at, uh, projects that build a bridge toward a brighter future for our community, which is something we're always striving for here.

And, you know, I think we spend so much time in the weeds talking about the condition of our utilities or the nature of our of our infrastructure. It's really exciting. It's really uplifting to talk about what might be possible instead of how to fix what's already been broken. So thanks and best of luck in those projects, and I hope to hear more about them in the positive in the near future. Thank you.

I have, you know, just a few things. It was good to see the lake opening ceremonies. All the kids that are involved here in the community and sports and the parents and the volunteers that support those groups. I was at the dedication of the new art over on the Schoenberg Trail. That was very, very well received and a nice event.

We had the Star Princess in town. It's the largest ship, I think, calling into Port of Ketchikan. It's the first LNG boat on the West Coast and the first one coming into Alaska. We had a good visit board and a tour.

I talked with the president of Princess Cruise Lines about Ketchikan, the need to participate in stuff. I talked to them about power and dock electrification, and we had a good conversation on all those issues.

It was, it was nice to be, uh, be able to sit down and talk to those individuals, uh, over a cup of coffee. So, um, and I have nothing else except for Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers. So with that, it brings us to a request for an executive session in regard to the appointment of the city clerk and an employee contract. We have a motion. Your Honor, I move that city council go into to executive session in accordance with Ketchum Municipal Code 2.04.025 for the purpose of discussing the appointment of Taylor M. Lee to the position of city clerk, to discuss contract terms as determined appropriate, which may involve discussion of subjects that tend to prejudice the reputation and character of any person, provided the person may request a public discussion.

Second. It has been moved and seconded Would you like to have a public discussion? Don't think so. Um, so, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Kuss?

Yeah. Finnegan? Yes. Matani? Yes.

Bradbury? Yes. Zingy? Yes. Gage?

Yes. Gas? Yes. With that, we'll take a short break.

All right, we met in executive session, had discussions. Is there a motion? Your Honor, I move to appoint Taylor M. Lee, uh, city clerk effective July 1st, 2026, at an annual salary of $126,732. Second.

I've been moving second. Okay, thank you for everything you do. Um, I'm really excited you're in this position and can't wait to see the great things that you do.

So I'd like to thank our, our present clerk for mentoring, uh, and training. This is what succession planning should look like in the department. And, um, she gave her the, the ability and gave and, and suggested classes and worked with her to get to the point where she could take this job. And I really appreciate that, and I'd like to thank Kim for that. And Your Honor, yes, I, I'd just like to add that, uh, I think it's a real testament to Taylor's professionalism and her potential that our borough city—.

That our borough clerk, Casey Paxton, spoke so strongly about her support. And for Ms. Paxton, who's worked in the field for nearly a quarter century now, to speak so enthusiastically about Taylor's appointment, I think speaks volumes. All right, any Joe. Yes, Dick. Thank you, and thank you for keeping my stinking iPad working.

Please call the roll. Library. Yes. Yep. Nani.

Yes. Gas. Yes. Gage. Yep.

Dingy. Yes. And again. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you. That brings us to item Um, what is it? 15? Yeah, 15B.

Request for the executive session on direction of city manager. Your Honor? Yes? I move that the city council defer agenda item 15B, request for executive session on direction on city manager, KPU general manager, to the council's next regular meeting on May 21st, 2026. And add Matt McLaren to the matters to be discussed in that executive session.

There's a second. Second. Been moved and seconded. Discussion?

Hearing and seeing none, please call the roll. Age? No. Zingy? Yes.

Goose? Yes. Matani? Yes. Gas?

Yes. Finnegan? Yes. Bradbury, yes.

Thank you. So with that, we should set up a, a special meeting, uh, in regards to bringing all candidates fairly and have interview with Matt for the position. Your Honor, I move that the city council hold a, hold a special meeting in May to interview Matt McLaren as a candidate for the position of city manager, KPU general management. I guess I should have gotten the date before. I'm sorry.

Great. Is there a second? Second. What do we have on calendar? We have a calendar in front of us.

No, and I think I left mine in. I'm so sorry, I left. You don't have anything going on? So next Tuesday is a Port Harbor meeting, but we do Wednesday, uh, 13th or the 14th, next Wednesday or Thursday. Or if you wanted to— yeah, because we'd have to have this on the agenda, which we send out on the 16th.

But really, you have the 13th or the 14th. Your Honor, may we be able to do the 14th? I'll be out of town on the night of the 13th. I'm also not available the 13th, so the 14th would be my preference. Yes, can we do it on May 9th?

Saturday there are no ships and everybody should have some advertisement. Oh, the public notice. 14Th works. 14 Works. 14 Works.

Okay, at 6 PM. 6 PM. Okay. Yes, sir. Thursday.

Any other discussion? Hearing and seeing none, would you please call the roll? Zingy. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Bradbury? Yes. Finnegan? Yes.

Gas? Yes. Matani? Yes. I'm sorry, Gage?

Yes. So just, uh, for information, in our packet it shows that the Women in Safe Home gave the FY 2026, uh, Quarter 1 Community Aging Grant report for city players. Also and Ketchikan Area Arts and, uh, Humanity Councils to approve. So with that, adjourn. All those opposed?

Hearing none, adjourn.

All right, congratulations about meeting. Thank you. I'm excited. Brilliant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What, what you're working for, and I think the time period just fits perfectly.

You know, it takes most of us to get all together. So yeah, and so chemistry—. And then they change the machines or something. I know, right? Well, thank you, I appreciate it.

Well, these are—. Oh yeah.

Thank you, thank you. Of course. Rob is out of town. He flew out tonight for the first time. We were separated for a whole week.