November 3, 2025 Assembly Committee of the Whole Worksession

I call the Assembly Committee of the Whole to order at 6:01 on November 3rd, 2025. Uh, Mr. Brooks, would you read the land acknowledgement, please?

We would like to acknowledge that the City and Borough of Juneau is on Tlingit land and wish to honor the indigenous people of this land. For more than 10,000 years, Alaska Native people have been and continue to be integral to the well-being of our community. We are grateful to be in this place, a part of this community, and to honor the culture, traditions, and resilience of the Tlingit people. Gunalchéesh. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.

Ms. Hirsch, would you note the roll and maybe for anyone online do a sound check? Verbal. All assembly members are present. Miss Atkinson, can you do a sound check? I can hear y'all.

Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. A quorum is present. Thank you, Miss Hirsch.

Um, a motion on the agenda, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to make one change to the agenda, and that will be I'm going to pull the Visitor Industry Task Force, VITF, 2, it's not quite right yet. So we won't be doing that today. So with that, I make a motion to approve the agenda as amended.

Very good. Any objection? Seeing none, that approves the agenda.

Next, we have the September 8th minutes. A motion, Mr. Kelly. Thank you. I move that we, I move to postpone approval of the minutes to the next regular meeting of the Committee of the Whole. And ask for unanimous consent.

Maybe if you wouldn't mind, let folks know why you'd like to do that. Sure. I did notice a little issue on page 6 of the packet, a little question that I'd like to let the clerks discuss and sort out before we formally approve the minutes. Thank you.

Any objection to that motion? Seeing none, those minutes will hold over. That brings us to agenda topics. 4 Items tonight. Actually, excuse me, down to 3.

All of them significant. Let's see. First, we have the West Douglas Master Plan and Gold Belt Corp. I won't read the whole topic, but that's, that's what it— that's the beginning of it. Um, Madam Manager, we were going to have a discussion on, uh, the memo from Director McClain.

Um, and then I guess maybe just one thing that my understanding— this is obviously a big project, a big process. There will be more discussion on certain pieces of the process later, but tonight the, this, the the desire from staff is to focus on the master planning and, and, and possible MOU. Is that correct? Yeah, thank you, Deputy Mayor Smith. I'll invite Director Lawhorn up to go through her memo, but, uh, while she's coming to the table, just outline a little bit the purpose of this evening's meeting.

We have not received a final application, uh, for this project. You have a draft application in your, in your packet, um, but we really wanted to give the assembly and the community time to think about how, uh, how you as a body would interact with, uh, this proposed project. And so Director LaHorn is here to walk you through that. And, uh, Attorney Lane is also here to kind of help understand what your role is, because of course your role is different than the role of the Planning Commission. And it's difficult sometimes to understand, like, where, where their jurisdiction, uh, ends and where yours begins.

And so that's why we are really looking for 2 actions from the body tonight. One is to approve moving forward with master planning for West Douglas as the city, because there's a lot, a lot going on there, not just this development and a lot of potential there. And the second is to move forward with an MOU with Gold Belt for city services that they will need for their development. And so keeping that conversation in, in kind of the assembly realm, both of those items, should you move to to move forward on them tonight, will stay in the committee of the whole and you will see them. We just really wanted to have an opportunity to have that conversation.

It's a big project and understand kind of how we fit in. So unless there's any questions on how we're going to proceed through this topic, I'll hand it over to Director Lockhart. Oh, yes, pardon me, just one moment. Mr. Kelly.

Thank you. I just wanted to disclose for the record that both of my stepchildren are Gold Belt shareholders. I have had a conversation with the attorney and she has assured me that I do not have a conflict myself. So if there's no objection from the rest of the assembly, then I will not be recusing myself.

Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Um, I guess just a quick question for me, and hopefully maybe helps the assembly. There, you know, there is something about the CUP application application in the packet, but that is not something we need to discuss tonight and potentially shouldn't discuss tonight. Anyway, good. Just to help us, because I know we're all thinking big, but just to help us frame it in.

Yeah, so what you have in your packet is an overview of the application. So they have submitted a draft because there's lots of back and forth. Course, with staff on, you know, what we need for the project. So it's not the final submission, but it's the best overview that we can provide you in, in the applicant's words of the project. And I think maybe, um, if, if you let Director Longhorn walk through the memo, she can help, um, help you understand those roles of like what, what the assembly— what's the assembly's role and what's the, um, Planning Commission's role.

And she'll do a better job than, than I'll be able to. Thank you, Madam Manager. Director, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will do my best to do a good job this evening. So, um, where do we begin? So, as you know, for one, we have the comprehensive plan underway, and I do want to acknowledge that we have our staff here this night, here tonight, uh, and our consultants, Cascadia, which is great. They were listening in. We're here doing scenario planning this whole week with them.

And have a lot of public engagements scheduled looking at scenario planning, which all of it eventually leads down to the West Douglas Master Plan and Gold Belt's development and the city and borough's future development on West Douglas as well. And I do know that for some time, um, people on Douglas have been asking for plans. And when the comprehensive plan was last undertaken in 2013, it laid out the different areas to be undertaken and the orders in which to do so. And Believe it or not, we are marching along quite well to that direct— those orders or directions that we have been given. And as the Lands Committee heard earlier this evening, we have wrapped up the Douglas West Juno area plan.

And so while timing, you know, from a staffing capacity and so forth may not be the best, we do have so many opportunities, and I like to think of them as opportunities. 2 Things lining up right now to look at West Douglas. 1, We're looking at the comprehensive plan. We're working on that. It's underway.

So that's going to bring everything up to that high level that we would like the assembly to be at and operating at. Um, it's a strategic level, if you will, for you to be looking at, and, um, the policy setting level, if you will. And so when it comes to then working on sort of the West Douglas master plan, Normally you would hope that the comprehensive plan was complete. I would say that one thing we have been good at over the years here in Juneau though is doing public engagement, uh, and plan after plan has, uh, identified the same issues on— honestly, time and again. It's quality housing for all, it's employment opportunities, it's education, it's safe community.

It's what we all want. And so I think we have enough to start moving on West Douglas as well. And we're getting a bit of a nudge from Gold Belt to do so, and we can work with that. Uh, the comprehensive plan does identify new growth areas. Parts of West Douglas are a new growth area.

Um, you know, there's little debate to say whether or not the Gold Belt Phase 1 is or is not. At the end of the day, I'm not sure it makes much difference because one way or another, we need to have the same information to move forward. So, The comprehensive plan and the code say that in, and, you know, the new growth areas, which again fuzzy if this one technically is, but in those areas, Phase 1 can begin, even if you are in the new growth area. So to be clear, you know, there is a path forward for a development to begin while the master plan process is also underway. I think there's the opportunity for CBJ and Gold Belt to work hand in hand.

It's going to take effort on both sides. There's— it's outside the urban service area. I think that's the one important element that the assembly and the commission have to remember. And the key part of being outside the urban service area is generally we don't plan to service you, right? We don't plan to bring you water, public water.

We don't plan to bring you public sewer. We don't intend to, you know, deliver waste management services or have the private entity do so, it's not planned for. We don't plan for transit. We don't plan for the impacts to our harbors, and we don't plan for emergency services. And so when we stretch outside that urban service area, that's when we really need to be mindful of what those impacts mean, because it's not just adding a development in the middle of the valley that already has all of those services, that's surrounded by trass— uh, transit Transit and waste management together there.

Sorry. But it has all those services. So if you think about expanding that out now to West Douglas with one bridge, one crossing, there are major impacts that development could have. And so we just need to be careful to care for all of that. My memo attempts to kind of outlay that path where I see CBJ moving forward on the West Douglas master plan process, and then simultaneously, possibly Gold Belt moving forward on their development.

And I hesitate because, as City Manager mentioned, we still don't have an application to date. And so until that becomes the reality, you know, we can proceed if the assembly directs us to do so on the West Douglas Master Plan. And just— and by beginning, I do mean beginning. We can gather what the scope should be, if there is a cost associated with it, And what's next? And what does that path look like?

What's the timeframe? What's the scheduling? Because, of course, we do have the comprehensive plan and other projects happening as well. I think we do need to continue down that path, though, to see what it looks like. Uh, we need housing.

West Douglas is a huge opportunity for that. Um, I will touch just a little bit then where I see the assembly playing your role. With the Gold Belt development specifically. And I think that maybe let me take a little step back and explain the conditional use process at a very high level. I won't go into detail, but generally when, um, zoning code lays out permissible uses in each zoning district, and it will tell you if it's an allowable or, or by right, meaning you just get a building permit and you're good to go.

It could be minor development, which is sometimes my approval if it's on the land use side, or it could be a major development, which then goes to the Planning Commission. When it comes to a conditional use permit, that means that the assembly, when you adopted the land use code based upon the comprehensive plan, hopefully, uh, that you adopted into code the uses that you think may work in that zoning district. But you've noticed that maybe there's something about them that needs a little condition, a little conditioning or conditions to make them work, uh, with each other well and balance each other out. So, uh, for instance, um, you might have single-family housing. You don't want them right up to industrial uses.

So you might have conditional uses that aren't housing that you'd allow in, in an industrial zone. Instead. I hope that's kind of clear. So essentially, um, everything that Gold Belt to date, and at least what we've seen, it falls under the TPU. It would require a conditional use permit, which means it goes to the commission.

And I will say that generally speaking, because there's always the outlier, generally speaking, if something can apply for a conditional use permit, then the odds are good that it can be approved. Because it should be conditioned to fit in that zoning district. In other words, we should have done the homework before to make sure it worked in that zoning district.

If there's truly life and safety concerns, though, then that can always be a deal breaker. Um, you could imagine if you have a school, an elementary school, and maybe there's a heavy industrial or traffic intense use that you wouldn't want right next door for safety reasons. That could likely be a condition to deny that permit, but it really would have to be of that realm. So what that means is that, one, we want to ensure that Gold Bell applies with a complete and full application. And so when you have a conditional use permit that is phased development, and that's what this will be, phased development— Gold Bell owns a lot of land on West Douglas.

They're only looking at a small piece of that for Phase 1. However, That doesn't mean we just permit and look at Phase 1. We still are required to look at the entire land area and the future phases and what the buildout brings. So, in some ways, having a master plan fully completed helps developers because then they can rely on the plan and that information to build out what their, their buildout would be, what they need for sizing for their water, for wastewater, What do they need for waste management or emergency services? That would be done.

Because we're working in this initial phase of this first development in this area, there's a little bit of back and forth. And so as the applicant developer, then it will be on Goldbelt to, uh, provide that full build-out and analysis for not only Phase 1, but future phases, at least in detail enough for the commission to make a thorough and thoughtful decision, have it conditioned well, and make sure that we are caring for all these services that we do not currently provide to this area of the borough. Um, a couple more things that I do want to hit on is that through the conditional use permit— and I want to thank Attorney Lane for flagging this again today— um, there are commitment letters. And so the commission can require commitment letters from the developer And those would look like agreements between, for instance, engineering and public works for providing public water, for providing public sewer, and so on.

At the same time, with a conditional use permit, now taking it back big picture, not just talking about Gold Belt, but going back to the process and where I see you all fitting in. I'm sorry, I have to take a drink of water.

Um, as some of you know, appeals are a process. They are a lengthy legal process when it comes to the land use code. Um, Planning Commission decisions, if they are approved, generally go to the assembly, which is one reason you want to sort of reserve yourself so that you can be the appeal hearing body if a decision decision is appealed by the commission. One way though to still have some input, and again, this would be working closely with the Law Department too, but is through memorandum of understanding with Gold Belt on what services would look like. What does the policy look like for this development out there?

High-level, um, I'm using the word commitment again, but it is sort of, you know, what are both sides committing to for this development that needs so much groundwork to get up and running? And how do we do it in such a way that the burden isn't placed on the CBJ, the taxpayers, and the rest of the borough when we expand out in these areas? Uh, and the other point I wanted to make too with the assembly— I had it here.

I think I more or less said it, but really, your— I see your role in this is caring for sort of the long-term impacts and mitigating for the future development, not just Phase 1. I'm happy to go into more detail, but without, again, a full application, a complete application submitted, it's still a bit nebulous. So you have my meeting notes, you have what we discussed, To be clear, I did see the letter from Goldbelt submitted this evening. The meeting that myself and Rob— Mr. Rob Dumouchel had on October 21st was with Port of Tomorrow in Turnagain, and my understanding from that meeting was that they were representing Goldbelt— I mean, sorry, Royal Caribbean.

Goldbelt has now said that they will be applicant and, and of course are the landowner. To be—. That wasn't Um, that wasn't being debated before at all. Uh, they can be both. It can be that they're the landowner and someone else is the applicant.

That happens frequently. It's not unusual, but that will be their choice on how they proceed and how they handle the application when it comes time to submit. And I would just say that at this point, we look forward to an application so that we can start responding to the actual application, not sort of these just discussions and conversations that people are having. But I do appreciate the time this evening to clear up where we're at and just to make clear that as of today, still no application has been submitted. And so this is, uh, so our best information today on what the assembly and the planning commission will be working with.

Thank you. Thank you, Director Lockhart. Um, Did we want anything from the city attorney first, or just— Good. Okay, excellent. Um, so we see the 2 desired, you know, directions from staff, but questions from the assembly.

Mr. Seniger, um, and this might be kind of an impossible question to answer, but once we get a conditional use permit, kind of timeline-wise, sort of what should we expect for the length of time all that review, the Planning Commission process, all of that kind of— is there a reasonable amount of time we should expect this to take?

Through you, Mr. Chair, that is a great question, Mr. Steiner, and I'm not sure that I have a good answer. It really will depend upon the amount of information and data. That the applicant submits. So if they have already conducted a full and complete traffic impact analysis that satisfies both CBJ and DOT, that could shave months off their timeframe because a TIA can take months to do.

Uh, I would hope that they have already done that. Um, I know for instance, they need a floodplain development permit. I do know that they have been working on that though already, and that is underway. But it really depends. I think the biggest question I have is the buildout and the analysis for the phasing and how much of that work they have complete.

Once we've deemed the application complete and we've taken it in and we begin that review and send it out for agency review, I would think at that point, once we've deemed it complete, about 3 months or so is usually how long it would take. To schedule and get before the Planning Commission and get to a decision.

Miss Yuskandis and then Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, thank you for all of that, Miss Loughran. It's, um, challenging doing the jump around, so I think I know the answer to this question, but I'm just going to talk through it conceptually.

It's always nice when you have a really easy example, like I think school, industrial, no. Um, and I fully appreciate that in general, not promising anything, but in general, if you can do a conditional use permit, then generally you should, barring something— health or safety are really over the top— you should get that permit.

Something like, I just want to restate what I think I am hearing you say. Lacking commitment letters, if someone is saying, no, we're not intending to provide you— we're not expanding water sewer services to you. And it seems like what you're proposing requires water and sewer, then that would also be something that would be a barrier to getting a permit. Is that correct? Uh, yes, that would be correct.

Okay, thanks.

Mr. Brooks and then Ms. Wall.

Yes, thank you very much for being here and providing us with all this information. Uh, you said that there's no applications to date. Is—. Has there been any, um, any type of paperwork turned in from Gold Belt related to this project with the city?

Through you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Brooks, what we've— the information in tonight's— with tonight's memo, that draft application was the information that we reviewed, Mr. Dumouchel and I reviewed with Port of Tomorrow in turn again on October 21st. And that's the only— it wasn't submitted. Nothing has officially been submitted or provided to the department.

Thank you, Miss Wall.

Thank you, um, Mr. Deputy Mayor. I will say I'm still trying to formulate my question, I think, because I, I am feeling, I mean, pretty not ready to make any motions tonight. I, I, I feel like there's so many different ways this process could happen, and it feels like we're moving quicker than I was expecting, which is, um, is me. But the decision, the recommendation to move forward with the master planning process, you know, looking at this, it looks like there's some debate about whether a master planning process is required or not between us and the applicant. Potential applicant.

Um, and so is your— why not just let the commission figure out whether that's required or not before moving forward with anything, as opposed to, you know, trying to move forward with something that we think is probably needed?

Through you, Mr. Chair, let me clarify if I misspoke earlier, Ms. Wohl. It's not that Um, the code allows an initial development to begin, or an initial phase of a development to begin as a master plan is developed. And so the applicant can proceed with their phase 1 of their development while a master plan is drafted. That's how the code is written.

And so, um, I think the difference is, is that we're saying CBJ would like to drive the master planning process because it's not only Gold Belt's land that would be included. It's also the city and borough's land, and it's critical land for us. And we want to be the drivers behind that master plan while working closely with Gold Belt on their development, of course, as well. But we also have a lot of our land and other resources out there too. Follow up.

And so, I mean, is it— if we don't move forward with the master plan, does that negate their ability to move forward. You just said you can move forward with a master planning process at the same time. If we don't— and I'm not suggesting one way or another, I'm just trying to understand— if we don't, does that mean they would not meet the conditions and not be able to develop?

And you can tell me if—. Sorry. Through you, Mr. Chair, I may toss this to Attorney Lane soon to give her a little heads up there, but I think what we have discussed about this is that we have an urban service area, we have a boundary, more or less we keep services within that boundary, but we have over the years allowed things to occur outside of that without plans per se. And so, You know, we're trying to do our best to mind the code and the comp plan and also be equitable to Gold Belt as well.

And so I think, frankly, and in Alaska and knowing rights here, that we would be hard-pressed to say just because there's not a master plan, you can't do your development. I think what would happen likely is Gold Belt would say, well, if you say we need the master plan, then we'll do the master plan for ourselves, and they would create their own. And I don't know that they would necessarily be required to include all of CVJ's land that's not in that same area. And thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

Through you, Mr. Chair, just to follow up a little bit on that. That is correct, right? They can, they can still go forward without that, the CBJ master plan. They could do their own master plan.

There are a lot of avenues for them to take. I just want to caution the body about getting too in the weeds about this right now, just because we, we are trying to be mindful of big picture ideas, big picture direction, but also be mindful that no matter what happens at the commission, um, and the commissioners are the expert on land use, and they have a lot of conditions they can put on a project. It's in the code. It's so many conditions. It's like almost, you know, so many that they could put on there.

Um, we want to maintain this like separation, um, for the assembly and for the planning commission. We're thinking about appeals. And thinking about down the road what the body wants to be involved in. Um, if the body doesn't care if they are involved in things later on and don't care whether they hear an appeal or part of that process, then the body could get as involved as they want to, um, with the conditional use process with the Planning Commission. Um, however, um, our, you know, our legal advice would be to try to keep those separate and go the MOU route for big infrastructure items, big things, you know, that you would like to see with Gold Belt and let the Planning Commission take care of the conditional use permit and keep those separate.

And I can elaborate more on the appeal process if necessary.

Just so I'm clear, was, was Ms. Wall's question to— was that kind of just a general warning or was that specific? I don't know. That's specific questions are kind of coming in. And they're getting like maybe a little more specific about Gold Belt in particular. I just like, we need to just, you know, be mindful of the big picture versus Gold Belt in particular.

Very good. Thank you, Ms. Lane. Mr. Kelly. Thank you. And I'll try to avoid getting in the weeds, but I feel like this extra little follow-up probably would, would drive this home for me.

So, it sounds like if I'm understanding correctly, Gold Belt can proceed if there is no master plan. Gold Belt can't— I'm sorry, an applicant can proceed if there is no master plan. An applicant can proceed if a master plan is in progress, but once a master plan exists, an applicant would be then bound to the master plan, and the Planning Commission would set conditions accordingly. Is that correct?

Whoever—. I think I was directing it towards Ms. Lane, but either, um, either Ms. Lane or, um—. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Kelly, I didn't quite catch the first part of the first one you said, Mr. Kelly.

Um, I agree with the rest. I do want to be clear though, The part I didn't hear is that the applicant could proceed if they were doing the master plan as somehow the master plan has to be moving concurrently with an initial phase. Who leads that master plan is not completely clear. It could be the applicant, or it could be. But it needs to— the initial phase in a new growth area would have to have that master plan with it.

Thank you. I'm going to try and build off Mr. Kelly's question, but if a master plan was in place, then that could potentially condition any applicant. Through you, Mr. Chair, uh, and so once, uh, so a master plan would be similar to the area plans. And so it would again sort of, uh, highlight the uses and the.

Infrastructure and roads and so forth that we would want there. And then code— the code would be updated as well to say, this is the zoning, these are the allowed uses, these are the table of— this is the table of dimensional standards, and so on. And so it builds off of the master plan, but it's the code that regulates the development, and the code's based on the master plan. Thanks.

I'll hop in for one. I don't know if this is the exact word you use, but you said maybe like a fuzziness on if this needs, you know, if it's in a new growth area, could you, could you explain that a little bit more to me? Sure. So, you know, generally comprehensive plans are high level, they're conceptual. And so the plans in them are conceptual as well, and the boundaries in them are somewhat conceptual, blurry, as we say, unlike, for instance, the zoning map, right?

The zoning map is a hard boundary wherever that line is. Um, the new growth areas, if you've looked at the comprehensive plan, you'll see West Douglas and there's sort of circles drawn, but they're just sort of drawn and there's not a whole lot of, um, tie into where they should be, or it's just when development gets out there, or when you start to talk about development. And so initially, um, it looks like, you know, with Gold Belt, with their land patents, they do own land that would 100% be throughout multiple of the new growth areas. And so what, after a pre-application conference last I don't remember when, I'm sorry, off the top of my head, it was a while ago. They pulled out and they've created Phase 1 so that they are outside of what looked to be the circles shown in the comprehensive plan for the new growth areas.

So, comp plans conceptual, it's a bit conceptual, but they have pulled it out. And of course, then though, as discussed on October 21st, That's great. You've moved out of the new growth area, but you're still a phased development and all your future phases are in that new growth area. So this is the initial phase and we still do need you to do the full build out and analysis. So, they will be giving us the data and information we need, which will be a good basis for much of the West Douglas master plan, along with the information that we get for our, for the land that corresponds to theirs.

So yeah, that is, that's the, I think that answers your question, Mr. Smith. Yep, thank you. It does. I do kind of see these oval type things and it just barely, anyway, interesting. Um, thank you.

Um, Madam Mayor, then Miss Wall. Um, so your first, uh, recommended motion, could you describe what that actually means? And I'll just read it so the public, I move the Committee of the Whole forward the proposed West Douglas Master Plan process to to the full assembly for support. So what is— what are we looking at there? An ordinance?

That's kind of a weird direct— are we directing staff? I'm not sure what that means. Through you, Mr. Chair, if I may, and if I could change my mind, because I, I hear Ms. Wohl as well. And so what I'm thinking is, um, and also looking at the city manager as I say this, is maybe it's more of directing staff to provide an outline of what the master plan would look like, if that would make— I think that was more what Ms. Wall was looking for earlier, and I'd be happy to provide that if that gives the assembly a little more comfort in what we're discussing tonight and give you that bit of a process.

And then also, uh, likely what we think, if we have time, I will say we have a giant meeting week this week with Comp Plan. But I think we've also talked about what would the scope look like and also any budget, if there is any budget needed. So we could work on that for the assembly if that was more in line with what you're thinking is this evening. Ms. Wall, did you still have a question? Very good, go ahead.

Question I have, you know, is, is about kind of where this would have fit on the priority list. Had we not had this Gold Belt project come up, you know, I don't like the idea of a developer driving our capacity and our timeline on things, and I feel like we You know, since I've been on this assembly, we've been saying can't develop out there until we get a second crossing. And so I'm a little like, you know, why the— why the change in kind of strategy? Do you feel like this was kind of the next logical step anyways, and now it makes sense to do it because we want to be proactive? You know, and what are we not doing as a result?

You know, if we do move forward on this, if we weren't planning on it. Thank you. I just want to address the need for master planning in that area as it relates to the city of Juneau. So it is a key piece in planning for a second crossing. So, um, this is definitely a next step that we need to take as a community when we're— when we look at the prospect of a second crossing.

So, um, as it relates to City and Borough of Juneau land and housing, because there's, you know, 900 acres of developable property out there with the potential of a development out there. Definitely brings that conversation to the forefront. And I think what we're looking from you tonight is the assembly's interest in driving that conversation. And, um, and that's why we're looking for a motion of support, because it's important to know that, like, are you interested in having, in having that conversation of a city-led master planning process or not? So, is that helpful from a, like, process perspective?

Good. Um, I guess I just had one question and that's— is it— we would just leave the master plan and go like just Gold Belt. Would it be typical for an applicant or something in a significant, you know, possible development in an area? To participate in the master plan or be a part of it? I don't know how, you know, anyway, what kind of those collaborative efforts look like, and were we planning on seeing if they wanted to be engaged in it or not?

Anyway, just help me with that kind of collaborative piece. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the intent has always been that we would be partnering with Gold Belt. Um, even prior to my time here, I believe that's been the understanding, has always been to partner with Gold Belt.

Just given the amount of land that both the city and borough and Colbell own on West Douglas, that it just makes sense. We know that even for roads and infrastructure and housing, it just makes sense for us to work together and partner on development. I don't matter. I would just add, if it feels like we don't know what we're doing, it's because there's no typical master plan in a new growth area because we haven't done one yet. So when this section of code was drafted, it was like, let's draw some circles and we'll— we know we need to think more about it, but we're going to have to think about it in a while because what's the point of spending a whole bunch of effort thinking about it now when there's nothing on the horizon?

So, you know, in a way that, that means we need to be even more thoughtful and deliberative about it because we are, you know, trying to figure out what this master planning process looks like. Thank you. Ms. Wall. I realized I asked 2 questions last time, one that got answered and one that I forgot about, which was what doesn't get done, um, you know, moving forward if we move forward with this.

Through you, Mr. Chair, I think that would be probably a conversation to be had with the city manager, and I would think the assembly at your retreat. I think priorities will have to be discussed at that point. Um, but that being said, it's a priority project, and beyond Gold Belt, it is critical for housing in Juneau. It just is.

It's the land that's remaining that's truly buildable. And so I do believe it warrants attention. And, um, I think that we have functions that we're trying to figure out right now currently and how to staff them and, and how to best align staff. And so it may look like a realignment I'm not sure, Ms. Wall, but I'm happy to look at it. And I think that if the motion is drafted as stated a little bit ago, that we can work on those answers.

Very good. So I was hoping maybe it would happen when you come back, depending on what the motion is. Ms. Susekandis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is all helpful, the responses to those questions and helping me think about it.

Poking a little bit more about the importance of this process to Juneau's interests in that land because we have a lot of that land and it's natural that we would work with them as a partner. We've had much more momentum more recently with the second crossing to where we got a little funds and did the, you know, we've been taking little baby steps for the first time in a while. Could you characterize where this process would have fit in, in a hypothetical world where Gold Belt wasn't doing this process? And if you could say, no, I don't deal in hypotheticals, but if someone could take a stab at that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

I would be requesting a CIP item for an economic development feasibility type study for the— for this area in the upcoming budget cycle. Okay, thanks. Mr. Kelly, thank you. I think I wanted to circle back around to something you mentioned, um, a little bit earlier.

You were talking about how, um, since both us and the applicant have substantial amount of land in the area that both the city and the applicant would be working a lot together, being as that we are an entity that represents the public. I'm curious if this is known, since we haven't done a master plan before.

What would the imagined involvement of the citizenry be in this?

Through you, Mr. Chair, I would imagine we would have public engagement as we always do with any of our planning efforts. And the information that I was speaking about, Mr. Kelly, I'm just referencing really from reading the West Douglas conceptual master plan. I'm forgetting the title from the '90s, but that is what I'm referencing when I'm speaking about, you know, Gold Belt and the CBJ working together and having said so. And, um, But of course, with any of our efforts, we, we, I mean, we excel at public engagement and will continue to do so.

Okay. Not seeing any questions, Madam Mayor. So I don't see any questions. Can we have a 3-minute at ease so I can see what kind of motion we might be looking at? Very brief at ease.

And we are back. Um, Madam Mayor, thank you. Um, so I move that we direct staff to provide a scope of work, including a process and budget for the West Douglas Master Plan and bring it back to the Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Madam Mayor. You've heard the motion.

I see some confusion as well. Not confusion, but I, I hate to object for a comment, but I think in the space of providing these guys direction, which I think is what they want, I'll say for me, the, the role, what is most confusing, I think, and hardest for this body in land use planning is our role to, um, the land use code and to legally Um, make sure that things fit within our plans, which even if that's the Planning Commission's job, it does often, and it will come to us. And the difference between this as a policymaking body, and I remember when we were talking about what was NCL at the time became Mahuna Totem project. We had a very similar conversation about, about our process moving forward, and we were very intent careful about designing it so that this body is playing the right role at the right time.

And so, as you all come back to us with a plan, I think it would be helpful for me to understand those distinctions when— so we, we're not just, oh, we need to be careful about our questions, but Because I can't make some of those policy calls without knowing what I can or can't—. Won't—. Will or won't need to do, you know, in the future related to our land use code. So I'll remove my objection.

And maybe we heard that, and I'm sure there's others that have similar— I mean, I have similar questions, and maybe it's conversations with certain key staff. Anyway, if we take a note and maybe we can— however is the best way to provide that information, again with some of the big plays in mind. Anyway, um, any other objections to the mayor's motion?

Seeing none, that motion is adopted.

That was One of two, Madam Mayor. We'll try the next one too. So I move that we direct staff to draft a Memorandum of Understanding for services between the CBJ and Gold Belt Corporation LLC that addresses areas of critical concern including workforce housing, emergency services, public infrastructure, and transportation. The MOU should consider mitigating the impacts of the development and determine minimum service levels. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, Miss, Miss Ysgetti, um, I will object because I feel like, uh, for a comment and throw out some of my thoughts, and then we'll see where this goes. But I think for all the reasons illustrated throughout this conversation and through the nature of our questions, there's high level, there's process, there's knowing this exact development and knowing what we have said we need in order to develop over the last many years and trying to reconcile those pieces going on in my head. And I feel a little bit of a— struggling to think of the right word, but there's a little bit of dissonance between these two motions because we're talking about this process and the master master planning and all these different ingredients we need. But we are also— when I look at the MOU, that to me sounds like a project that's much further along. That replicates some of our other, um, previous policy routes when it comes to tourism.

That sounds like something that's happening to me, which feels further along than these further back levels where we feel. So I don't know if anyone has a comment on that, but that's where I'm at a little bit to where I feel very comfortable with where we went with the first one. Um, and I even would have been okay just moving the first one as it was written. Um, but I have a little bit of concern about this and I'd be happy to hear staff comment on that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the comments actually, because I think when we first intended to be here this evening, we anticipated having the application. And so we thought we would be able to give you better guidance on what your MOU may look like or specific examples. And so just by leaving it at water or wastewater, that's not that telling for you, and I can appreciate that.

So, Unless the manager— unless I'm missing something, and the manager could tell me as well, but it may be, if we're coming back to you at our next CAO anyway, that maybe this motion isn't quite ready tonight since we don't have an application yet, or more discussion on the master plan process too. So maybe those 2 things would help, and maybe we're just not there this evening for this motion. This one. Oh, sorry. Oh, Madam Manager.

Thank you. I just want to clarify part of our intention on driving the conversation to the MOU is because this is decidedly in your lane. And so that's why when you talk about those different hats and responsibilities, that's why we're wanting to get your input. Specifically on conditions of an MOU and appreciate, you know, Director LaHorne's comments that you might not be ready to do that, but that's what you should be thinking about when you think about how do we, as the policymaking body and not the land use body, engage in this project.

Ms. Wall. Thank you, Madam— Mr. Deputy Mayor. Hearing that from Manager Kessler, I feel like even stronger agreement with Ms. Huskini is that this is too soon. I think, and I do think, as you come back to us with more on the process, it'll be easier for me to grasp if this is the right way.

But to me, I think the public will take this as we're moving forward on a project, and that is not the intent that I think I want the community to be taking from these conversations. We have a lot to figure out, and we do need to be having these discussions about what the city would need to mitigate impacts of any potential development. But this is a potential development, and This makes me nervous. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If it helps, truly this evening was about— and I should have maybe just opened by saying this in hindsight— it was about setting the stage for all of us. And so we know we haven't discussed this at any real length. And so tonight really was— I fully appreciate your perspective, Ms. Wold, that it seems like we're, we're already down this lane assuming that something has happened and that a permit has been approved. I would say, um, no, please don't think that. In fact, uh, from staff's perspective, our intent on coming before you tonight was to set the stage and say, hey, this is coming, this is a huge deal, it will be hugely impactful to the entire community, and we want to start setting the stage for you of what to come and what you need to be thinking about and what the, you know, a memorandum of understanding services could look like as this proceeds.

But I did not want to be already taking in a conditional use application, have it before the Planning Commission, and then say, oh, by the way, this is coming to the commission in another month. Do you want, do you want to talk about an MOU? So that was, that was what I've been trying to avoid and with the manager trying to avoid. So By all means, trying— not trying to get out ahead of the decision, but trying to get the information out that you will have to be deciding on soon. So, thank you, Mr.

Chair. Thank you.

May your will be done. I understand both Ms. Walls' and Ms. Huskany's concern, because I don't want it to look like we have accepted this project in any way, shape, or form. I think it still needs quite a bit of work, but I do hear what staff has to say, and I think we need to get out ahead instead of postponing and waiting for it to come to us that we have to rush it so much. So, um, beginning to draft does not mean that it's going to be done at our next meeting, but I think they need— I think both parties need to start identifying some of the complex ideas or services that they need to come up with.

And so I think we should start working on this now. So I was going to pull the motion, but I think I will keep the motion out there and see what the rest of the body thinks.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ms. Yousuf-Scandies. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll jump back in and say I appreciate, um, that both of those were very helpful responses.

I do appreciate that, um, Manager Custer saying, I want you to be thinking about this, and this is your tool. So do put this hat on, and this is where we'll put the concerns you have, or this is where we'll deal with those. And, and I appreciate the mayor's comments. I understand, you know, to some extent. I know—.

I, I think I know that the manager is already thinking about this. So, uh, then I ask myself, what, what's the difference between the weight of a full assembly saying, we direct you to draft this thing, we want you to be spending your precious, so overburdened time on this particular thing. And I, I'm not sure I'm there yet, but I will say I feel a heck of a lot better personally Based on those two answers, I'll leave my objection on, I think, just to reflect that where I'm at, because I think that's important that we all are at. But I do appreciate all that. Thank you, Ms. Zuscany.

Mr. Brooks. Thank you. I, I see that most of the stuff that was in the requested motion for the MOU is more related around infrastructure, and it seems like infrastructure is going to be the thing that gets applied to any type of development that's out in the area. So is there a way to, you know, you know, not necessarily an MOU, but some sort of more just general area understanding? And I don't know if that would be the, you know, the proposed West Douglas Master Plan and refining that.

But just the way I'm interpreting it is that it's a guideline for the base level infrastructure for any type of development, regardless of who the developer would be. Uh, not necessarily, you know, just an MOU for Gold Belt, but we need the infrastructure out there. Is there, is there a way to make that more encompassing beyond just an MOU?

Thank you. So I think our intention would be very specific MOU with Gold Belt for very specific city services. I totally appreciate the hesitation. And, you know, as I think this, I'm like, oh, I should have edited it this way and done the, you know, put it before you this way, because I 100% agree with Director LaHorn that we do not want to, um, give the public the impression that there's anything pre-decisional here, especially without a full application. We just want to give the public the confidence that there will be lots of process and that an opportunity to weigh in on this.

So I think that, um, you know, the motion as stated by the mayor, or something softer that's like, let's keep talking about this and bring me back more information, manager, you know, That, that is how I would take that motion is at our next opportunity, bring you back. Okay, here is, here are some things you should be thinking about. Body, what do you have to add to this list? Because that's what we need to start doing is thinking of how to address your concerns, how to address community concerns. So, to answer your specific question, Assemblymember Brooks, this, this motion, unlike the master plan, which is very broad, would be very specific.

Thank you, Miss Hall.

And to speak in support of the motion, um, I think by doing so that allows the manager's office to begin working on this and bring something back to us sooner to allow us more time to deliberate instead of, um, you know, having to rush through the process. So I see this as a positive in giving us additional knowledge and information to go off of. Thank you. Thank you, Miss. I'll object for the purpose of a question.

Do—. And you may have said it in there, Director Lawhorn— when in like another similar project, if there is, would we want— would we be start— would we be starting an MOU or Anyway, where, where in a process of a project do the— does this type of MOU happen? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To my recollection, I can't think of any other than your— the NCL doc, right, had, I believe, MOUs maybe with that one. But the reason that it's being triggered in this instance is because the development is occurring outside the urban service area where we don't have services provided. Typically, when we're reviewing applications for development, they're within your areas that are on those services, or they're reasonable, right? You're— or not unreasonable. Not that this is not an unreasonable development per se, I'm not saying that.

But, uh, if for instance out the road you put in one single-family home and you're on septic and you have well water, however you have your water here, right? You don't It's not as impactful, and we don't have large subdivisions being built that way either. But if they meet those minimum standards, then that's providing the services needed. The difference here is that it's outside the urban service area, and we don't have any services there currently. We would be bringing everything to this site.

Thank you. A follow-up. The proposed Klingon Haida development at Eagle Crest Road, that's outside the urban services boundary, right?

And if so, do we have, or where were we with doing something like this with them? Maybe a different situation because they're sovereign, but anyway. Through you, Mr. Chair, I think your last point is the correct point. And then also, I don't know off the top of my head if the urban service area—.

Oh, thank you.

They are outside of it. Thank you, Mr. Bahr. Madam Manager. Not to squirrel, but you are correct that CVJ treats that as sovereign land, which is why we have not engaged with them in any planning process. I will say that we have engaged in conversations with them about a similar memorandum of understanding.

So it's not that we haven't started having those conversations with them. And so there will be something of that nature. It's not going to look exactly the same because the government-to-government relationship, But there is an acknowledgment of those services. Very good.

With that, I will maintain my objection because I understand the need to get this, to do this at some point.

It seems like, anyway, it seems like it's something that can be done later. I understand and agree with Ms. Wall and Ms. Hughes-Handys in terms of Anyway, optics are understanding by the community, so I maintain my objection. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Thank you. Uh, nice, uh, parliamentary inquiry.

So if it sounds like there's some people who are interested in considering this at a later time, if we were to vote down the mayor's motion at this point, would that preclude us from doing that, or would it maybe be better to, um, to move to postpone this to a later date?

Miss—. It's through the chair. It's, it's up to the body on what you want to do. I, I guess my, my question is, if we did vote this down at this point, we would not be able to take it back up unless we had like a motion to postpone it. I think he's saying, you know, we've heard in the past that sometimes when we vote down a motion, it, you know, kill it for good or whatever, but it seems like we probably have some other ways to word it that we can put a crush on it.

Correct, it can come back. It will be able to come back. So I think it's not— I'm not— if it's not dead, at least my understanding is if I vote against this, it's never that we're going to engage in an MOU. Correct, that is correct. Yeah, yeah, thank you.

Further questions or objections? Mr. Brooks.

For the purpose of a question, just on a hypothetical, what would be the instance if Gold Belt was to develop their own private infrastructure, private emergency services, and essentially make it to where they would meet all the requirements internally? What would that mean for CPJ?

Ms. Lohan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, I, I think, you know, it, it's always a possibility, I suppose, that a private developer could do so. In this case, I do still think that, um, eventually you have to leave West Douglas, whether that's to be transported to the hospital, um, which, you know, we see the cruise ships out our window every day.

I, I don't think a day goes by that CCFR is not in attendance at each cruise ship waiting to take someone and care for them. So you'll be on, I would imagine that they're either using CBJ or DOT roads, they'll still be using our hospital, they'll still be using Juneau International Airport, they'll still be impacting medical flights and other services. Even if they hire their own, I would guess, I would ask, what's the impact then to our own You know, are they pulling from CBJ staff? So, even if they're staffing their own, it could still be detrimental to CBJ and more importantly to the community, not just about the city, city government, but to the community at large. It could be impactful depending on how their development proceeds.

Thank you.

Very good. Seeing no further questions, we have a motion and objection. Miss Hirsch, would you please call the roll?

Um, motion to, um, direct the manager's office to draft a memorandum of understanding. Madam Mayor, yes. Miss Yuskandis, no. Miss Wall, no. Mr. Brooks?

Yes. Miss Atkinson? No.

Mr. Steininger? Yes. Miss Hall? Yes.

Mr. Kelly? No. Deputy Mayor Smith? No.

Motion fails, 5, uh, 4 yeas, 5 nays.

It's me. Um, do you have what you need on, on this first topic, Madam Manager?

Yes, thank you, Deputy Mayor Smith.

Um, the next topic is, uh, regarding tourism. Um, I'm sorry, I'm just struggling to find my agenda now. Is regarding tourism policy. Um, we have a memo from Director Pierce. From what I could see, it is a, you know, for information only, um, and time to ask questions.

Is that Is that the desire here, Madam Manager? Thank you, Deputy Manager Smith.

Visitor Industry Director Pierce is calling in from the East Coast where she is at work meetings. And you are correct, this is an informational item. However, these are really key components, the two topics that we're gonna talk to you about, both birthing agreements and legislating limits. So, legislating limits on both the number of ships and the number of visitors. And so we just want to have an opportunity to answer questions that the body has on that, as it's another tool that you have as you try to sustainably manage tourism for our community.

So I would add your indulgence, hand it over to Visitor Industry Director Pierce. Of course. Thank you, Madam Manager. Director Pierce. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Can you hear me okay? We can hear you. You are faint. Okay.

I sometimes have issues with audio on my computer. I will do my best to project. I apologize to the person in the hotel room next to me.

So as stated in my memo, I'm not really planning to go in over anything that isn't outlined in the memo tonight, maybe add some nuance to that discussion and take questions. I'm— as Deputy Mayor Smith stated, I'm not asking the body to make any decisions tonight, but I do feel like how this development consideration fits into our overall tourism policy and some of the big picture policy things that we've been talking about for a long time, um, it's relevant and necessary to have this conversation now. So as you know, as the body knows, we're one of the few ports in the world that has cruise ship limits, particularly we're one of the few with a mix of public and private infrastructure that has limits. If you own all your own things, you can just decide how, you know, how many ships and passengers take off. We— our situation is more complicated, and that's true throughout Alaska.

We currently have two negotiated limits. A 5-ship limit and daily passenger caps. We also have a behavioral MOA. Those are all negotiated, they're voluntary agreements, and so far they've worked. Um, the way that those agreements have ultimately worked is Cruise Line Agencies does the scheduling in the region for ships.

Those agreements are a constraint that Cruise Line Agencies applies when they're conducting scheduling. No more than 16,000 passengers in Juneau, 12,000 on Saturdays, no more than 5 ships on Juneau. Sorry, you can't bring your ship. Sometimes they reach out to me to resolve a conflict and sometimes I, and then I'm the one who has to say, no, I'm sorry, you can't come to your dock, that, to our dock, that makes us over our limit. So that's kind of how that process works today.

And to be extremely clear, these limits apply to the entire borough. I know there's been some discussion about whether they're just for the downtown harbor area. They are— they apply to the entire borough because the impacts of the visitor industry are felt throughout the borough. And as destination managers, our challenge is mitigating the impacts of the industry, not necessarily of, you know, the ships themselves. It's the passengers on those ships, where those passengers go, how they spread throughout our community, how they impact us, how they impact residents, how they impact other agencies.

You know, our roads, our trails, the Mendenhall Glacier, etc. So our community surveys and other public outreach data have shown continual support for these limits. And we have, you know, a few years of data supporting that the community wants to see some parameters around cruise tourism in our, in our community. Director Lawhorn has presented CBJ's permitting, planning, and multi-agency review process for the Gold Belt development. I know we didn't really dive into the multi-agency review piece.

I think I can talk about that a little bit within the parameters of what we're asking the Visitor Industry Task Force to do, because I think that's important. I think how tourism impacts not just CBJ, but, you know, State Roads and the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies in the community is important and relevant in the discussion about kind of how we manage our visitor capacity.

So as noted in my memo, there are two policy considerations to bring to the Assembly and the public's attention this evening. And first, the original Visitor Industry Task Force. I know it's been 5 years and we're talking about VITF 2.0, but we're still working off of the policy recommendations made by the first VITF, which concluded in 2020, 2021. It like happened right as the pandemic was happening, and I think we finally approved it like after we all went on lockdown.

But they recommended that the CBJ take a more active role in ship scheduling. That discussion has kind of evolved. As I mentioned, this work is currently done by Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska. They do a great job doing it, and it's a tough, tough job trying to figure out how ships fit into all the ports in Alaska. And they use this historical priority berthing system that's actually based on the 1980 CBJ ordinance.

I think what is happening today has strayed very far from the ordinance that it's based on. But it's a system that basically says Cruise Line X has priority at Dock Y on Wednesdays because they've been calling on that dock on Wednesday since 1952.

Well, we've, and we've just kind of let cruise line agencies schedule our docks based on these agreements. We put them under contract a couple years ago because of liability concerns, but really we have this practice. The other docks in Southeast Alaska, public docks, are scheduled through the historical priority berthing practice. We've applied constraints through MOAs. And we've kind of taken a more proactive role than we did in the past, but we are still not actively managing our own facilities.

The way that we would actively manage our own facilities is through entering into berthing agreements with the cruise lines that currently call at our facilities or other cruise lines. You know, we, we could conceivably put our docks out to bid. If our goals are things like predictability and stability, um, in our community, I would suggest that it's better policy for those agreements to kind of solidify, memorialize what we already have today. Uh, as we've had things like limits and ballot initiatives in the region, there has been anxiety among the cruise lines about getting closed out of ports where they don't control dock facilities. And for several years, we've discussed locking down our dock facilities through berthing agreements to create that predictability and stability.

So reiterating that a little bit, but I think it's, I think it's relevant. So rather than the constraint in CLAA's process being because of historical priority, Carnival has priority at the cruise ship terminal on Tuesdays. It would be because of an informal agreement with the city and borough of Juneau. Carnival has priority at the cruise ship terminal dock on Tuesdays. So while cruise line agencies would still be scheduling our docks, we would have more agency over our own facilities.

These agreements elsewhere in the world would typically have things like guaranteed minimums for the number of calls for passengers, right? And like, that's how something like, you know, the Punta Totem dock or the Gold Belt facility might work, right? Like you'd have an agreement with a cruise line saying, if you build this facility, we'll guarantee this many passengers per year. And then that's how you make your business model. Um, in our case, we'd want to be looking at things like the terms of all 3 of our MOAs.

We'd want to be looking at things like relatively stiff penalties for breaking the agreement, with the assembly retaining the ability to release a cruise line from an agreement rather than, um, it being more voluntary than, than what we have today. Um, this would not change docks and harbors operation of the docks. It wouldn't change the fees that they collect. And while things like scheduling docks and berthing agreements would typically be a staff-level decision, we thought it was important to bring it to the Assembly, likely after to the Docks and Harbors Board, at least conceptually because of the policy implications here. So basically what we're saying is, yeah, we'll give you a long-term agreement at our docks, which all the cruise lines want.

All the cruise lines that currently called are interested in entering into agreements. But the trade-off is you comply with our MOAs and you can be released from that agreement by the assembly. So we are working through what the terms of those agreements might look like. We've kind of bounced them off cruise lines in terms of level of, you know, how these kind of port with other agreements that they've signed elsewhere in the world. We've gotten a few examples from other ports, and basically I wanted to make the assembly aware of this discussion tonight because it is so relevant in terms of, you know, adding some teeth to our MOAs.

This doesn't apply to the other docks in downtown Juneau. These agreements would not apply to the Hoonah Totem Dock. It would not apply to the AJ Dock. It would not apply to the Franklin Dock. But the cruise lines that come to our docks, which is most of them, would be— and to come and coming to our anchorage would be required.

Actually, scratch what I just said about the anchorage. I don't think we would do that because likely ships at anchor would be going to a future Punta Totem dock relatively soon. But they would be subject to the terms of these agreements, which means compliance with our MOAs. So it's one tool and it's a tool that gives us a little bit more control over our facilities, which ultimately is, is a positive thing for the city and the community.

Would you like to take questions or do questions and answers on this, or would you prefer that we move on to the second topic and we can talk about all of it?

In my mind, it would be easier to do it by issue, I think. So if that works for you, Director Pierce, maybe we can take questions. Absolutely, whatever works for the body. Very good. Questions from the Assembly on birthing agreements?

Mr. Steininger, Ms. Yuskandis, Ms. Wall.

So I guess my question's on the historical birthing agreements. And it sounds like you said that we're going to, you know, take those existing historical berthing agreements that have gone back to the, like, 1950s, and we're going to memorialize them going forward as kind of our starting point for scheduling and for moving forward with these direct agreements. Is that correct? Yeah. So the historical priority berthing is not an agreement.

It's basically— a framework that is used by cruise line agencies to schedule the facilities. But what we would be doing is using the current schedule, our current customers at our current facilities, and offering them the space first because our policy direction at this point is predictability and stability. Um, you know, of course, if a cruise line wasn't interested in that, we could certainly put our facilities out there. Follow-up, I guess. I'm trying to think of how to ask this as a question.

I'm, I guess I'm thinking about, you know, there's been a lot of changes in, you know, the cruise lines that come to Juneau. And, you know, we had a cruise line come and speak to us a couple of months ago that is, you know, looking at coming to Juneau in the future. You know, there have been a lot of changes there, and I'm curious why we're not kind of adapting to the market on a more regular basis and sticking with, you know, kind of a schedule that was set in the '80s. And, you know, when I think about other areas where a public facility is being used by a, you know, certain party, you know, we routinely go and put it back out to bid and do concessionaire agreements that get reviewed every 5 or 10 years to ensure that, you know, one public resource isn't, you know, held by a single for-profit company in perpetuity. And I'm just trying to understand the public good of continuing with historical— the historical bursary priorities or or whatever the term is.

Director Pierce. Thank you, Mr. Steineger. And, um, through the Deputy Mayor, there's, uh, there's a couple reasons for that. First, these are 5-year agreements, so it gives us an opportunity to kind of test the efficacy of doing birthing agreements before, like, completely disrupting— or before we made a decision on whether or not to completely disrupt the region. Um, two, it would— if CBJ putting our docks out to bid and changing how Juneau operates would disrupt the scheduling of the entire region.

And so I would be more comfortable as a policymaker moving forward with 5-year agreements, preserving what we already have while working with the other ports in the region through Port Communities of Alaska to develop a regional strategy and have a proactive discussion about our future as a region and how berthing works in the region instead of kind of blowing it up, to say, in, in, in kind of one fell swoop. At a time when we're trying to use this as a tool to promote stability in our port. And currently the lines that are coming to Juneau, the new lines, they have the opportunity to use the anchorage. They're fitting in at the Hoonah Totem dock when that's built. Right now, within our current capacity, we do have space for those other lines.

Thank you. That helps a lot. Very good. And just to add one thing that I think is relevant, Cruise Line Agencies uses that historical priority berthing throughout the entire region. So it's not just a Juneau thing.

It's like the framework for the puzzle that they put together for scheduling all of Southeast Alaska. Us making that move would be pretty destabilizing.

I had Miss Yuskandies and then Miss Wall. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I think my question is about the terms of the agreement. Thanks for bringing this to us.

The oversight authority we have allowing the Assembly to release the cruise lines from an agreement if there is another dock dock. If you could just speak to that. If I'm full of hypotheticals tonight, if within that 5-year time limit you have the Assembly say no, Five Ships isn't working, we want to use our docks as a tool, thank you so much for berthing with us, but we're, you know, we're releasing you, have a nice day. If you could speak to how this would work with that. Thanks.

I mean, back to the predictability and stability piece, I kind of look at this as the other way around. Like, we have a proposal for 7 docks, and this is an opportunity to say, hey, you have space at our docks, and We can release you from your agreement if we support the idea of 7 Docks as a community. But until we're comfortable that we do, you know, you, you get to park with us. In terms of an assembly saying, you know, we, we want to shut down our own facilities. I mean, I don't think there's anything currently written in an agreement that precludes that, but I see it as a hedge in the other direction.

Follow-up. I'll just—. I appreciate that, and I understand that, and that I see as the value in this, but I will just say that for me, it's important in maintaining That is a goal of predictability and consistency at this point. And a lot of what we do, you, you do knowing that every year there's an election and you could have as many as 3 seats. So it would—.

You cities work in longer time frames, and so we have to work in longer time frames, but it would be important to me that we also do maintain that because I like hedging and I like being— having a strong defense, but I think it's important to maintain your other tools and make sure you're not tying your hands. So I just— that's why I wanted to ask that question. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Youskandee. Ms. Wall and then Mr. Brooks. I think I'm going to hold my question. Thank you. Thank you.

On the MOA that we currently have, it doesn't include all, all the cruise lines. And like Mr. Steinger was saying, that the industry is evolving and growing, and as new cruise lines come about, you know, how, how are we going to, you know, work towards establishing relationships to where it's symbiotic, to not have a huge impact on the community, or with the ones that we do have, or sorry, just that first part. Thank you. Director Pierce. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Brooks.

The new cruise lines that are calling on Juneau in 2026 have committed to signing our MOUs. So we will have MOAs with all the major cruise lines following June.

And there's no possibility of another company coming through that doesn't want to be part of the agreement?

Right now, we don't see anybody— sorry, through the Chair, right now we don't see anybody on the horizon that is another big global cruise line planning to come that's, that's not part of the agreement. But I also would add that, again, these agreements act as a constraint within the scheduling for cruise line agencies. So while— so we still kind of retain the ability to use those MOAs to enforce our limits. So I don't see that happening. All the major cruise lines that are in Alaska have announced plans to come to Alaska, are members of PLEA, and PLEA helped negotiate the MOAs, PLEA is committed to the MOAs.

So I don't see that as an eventuality. Right now. And if we did, we would have several years to plan for it. And that does kind of lead me into the next item about legislation, which would be taking this a step forward so that we're not in a voluntary agreement world. Thank you.

Any further questions on birthing agreements? Seeing none, good segue into legislating limits. Go ahead, Director Pierce, if you had more to say on that topic.

So as stated in my memo, there was a ruling in the Bar Harbor case. For members of the community who don't know about the Bar Harbor case, the Assembly certainly knows about the Bar Harbor case. Bar Harbor, Maine passed a cruise ship limiting ballot initiative. There was a landmark lawsuit over that initiative. It was appealed and ultimately kind of like CB, the ruling from CBJ's lawsuit regarding passenger fees, there was a murky decision that cited, that decision sided with the community.

So the upshot is that communities can legislate limits with supportive data. So as noted in my memo, we have several years of community survey data plus limits that the cruise lines have agreed to. If we choose to go down the path of legislating limits, we can either be an example for other ports or we can be a cautionary tale. We'd be the first community in the country to do it. So Well, I don't, um, I don't know that this is a topic for a lot of debate this evening.

We will be asking the Visitor Industry Task Force to consider long-term tourism goals for that community. An important piece of that will be the type of data we need to collect in order to support growth, and this needs to be a multi-agency discussion between parties, like including the CBJ, DOT. We had a previous discussion about how a second crossing fits into housing growth, probably also a necessary discussion for tourism growth, and as well as like activity on North Douglas and then off bay and in other areas where the industry might need to expand. The US Forest Service, the Mendenhall Glacier is already at capacity and they're doing some improvements that will increase their capacity, but that's kind of to manage the visitation that we Emergency services capacity, we've talked a lot about that tonight. And, you know, other infrastructure needs, just managing volume and number of people are concerned, are concerned.

So we arrived at our current limit based on the levels of visitation that we are supporting today. If we do legislate limits, we would want to look at future growth as like a measured and proactive exercise, maybe not quite so prescriptive as like the Forest Service at the glacier, like 50,000 people equals a restroom trailer. But in broader terms, what does the community need in terms of kind of infrastructure and capacity to support growth? And that could be growth, you know, within the limits that, that we have today with 5 docks. That could be additional docks.

And so while we're not asking you to make any decisions tonight, we'll come back to you further as the Visitor Industry Task Force discussion progresses and have kind of a nuanced discussion about whether legislation is something that we want to pursue as a community, kind of legal opportunities and constraints and, you know, what, what that might look like if we do choose to go down that path. However, I think it's important to bring up the concept of legislation and the Bar Harbor ruling in the context of the conversation that we're having tonight because it is so directly relevant. For, you know, many years we've pursued on this negotiated agreement track. SITKA has a negotiated agreement as well because this was considered legally untested. Now it's been legally tested.

You have an analysis in your packet from the Alaska Municipal League. We have some options for moving forward. This is something to discuss and consider over time, but I believe it's important in this context to introduce the concept.

Thank you, Ms. Pierce. Questions from the Assembly on legislating limits? And of course, if we were to do this, it would be legislation, it's legislating part. So anyway, where'd it go? Ms. Euskandiz.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Ms. Pierce, I just wanted to make sure I'm tracking along with you. When you say if we chose to do it, we'd be the first municipality in the country to do so, you're just making the distinguishing between a voter ballot or voter initiative versus council-led, is that correct? Thank you.

Through the chair, yes, that's correct. We would be the first municipality to do a council-led legislation. Okay, thank you. And also, we would be the first municipality to be legislating limits that are supported by the industry, and I do think that's a distinction as well. This wall—.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. Um, my question is for you. I know we have no action planned tonight, but Do you envision space for those who want to make a comment to make a comment at some point on this topic? You know, Ms. Wall, this is an agenda item, so we know they can be live. And, um, I was— if people would like to speak, they're welcome to.

Um, also realize the memo said no action needed, so understandable if you don't— anyway, no, no requirement to do so. So I'll wait till to see if others have questions, but I would love to speak at some point. Very good. Thank you, Miss Wall. Were there other questions on legislating limits?

Mr. Brooks.

Uh, on the, um, on the Bar Harbor, uh, case, do you know how much they had to spend in litigation against that on the municipality side?

Through the chair, I don't have the exact figure in front of me, but it was 7 figures.

Sorry, what was that last part, Miss? I said I don't have the exact number in front of me, but it was 7 figures. I can get that information for you. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Steiner, um, this might have been in the AML write-up and I missed it, Do we know if the Bar Harbor case is being appealed further up the chain, or is that still kind of out there in the ether, might happen, might not?

Through the chair, we have not seen any indications to appeal, and I talk to Bar Harbor a lot. Nobody has expressed any anxiety to me.

Further questions on the topic?

Any comments?

Miss Wall and Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. Just a few things. Thank you, um, for bringing this topic to us. I think it's a good time to have it because I, I'm having the opposite reaction as I had to our first conversation, which is like, we need to be, you know, doing this as quickly as we can.

To me, if we can tackle this before this body has to make decisions about Gold Belt development, I just think that's going to serve everyone, um, you know, no matter how— what you feel about the issue. Um, the second thing I want to say is I know we're not going to talk about the VITF 2.0 here, um, yet, um, but I do think that the more specific this group can be about what they want, um, to come out of that, the better. I think if we want to be thinking about legislating limits we should give the body some direction because they're not a policy body. They're—. That's going to be a spooky topic to anyone who's not in this seat.

And so I'm hoping we can at least, you know, get the temperature of this body on moving forward with that before. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wall.

Mr. Kelly. Thank you. I think that's a great invitation because that's exactly what I plan to do with my comments. I am warm to the idea of legislating limits. I do like a lot of what I— some of the ideas that I read in the memo offered by the Alaska Municipal League.

That talked about having things data-driven based off of what the needs of the community are, what the infrastructure can handle.

I think something along those lines is something that I might be looking for.

I think I'll leave it there for now.

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Madam Mayor, I'll just give some food for thought too. I'm not— it's too early to decide how I feel about legislative limits. In some way, I think they're good. In some ways, I'm a little concerned with them, and I'll just speak to my concern tonight. And that would be my concern that if we limit by legislation to 5 ships a day And, um, 2 docks do get built on North Douglas.

I just don't want our docks sitting empty when— especially when we still owe money on them. So we just have to be very careful with this and be thinking of this all the way through. So, um, and Director Peer said that we have— remember, have agreements with the cruise lines, and even the cruise lines that aren't coming here yet And so it's a mutual agreement. And sometimes those can tend to be more binding than doing legislation. So, but I don't think that we're ready as a body to do with this thing.

But I just, I think that's what my worry would be is are we legislating ourselves into empty docks?

Miss Youskandis. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will just add that From where I sit, I anticipated that decision for a long time, and it's been nice getting to have some clarity going forward. I think we're well familiar as a body with the benefits to using MOUs.

Personally, I think, uh, ordinances are more binding than an agreement, at which point the cruise lines can always say, well, this is not, you know, we're walking away from this. The—. For dependability and consistency and everything we just talked about with the last topic, or the first topic in this memo, I think having that degree of specificity It will continue to be an ongoing temperature check with the community as they express what they want to see. But if we are saying this is our kind of stop point, this is our safety valve here, then I would like to make that a little bit more ironclad. So I am interested in this as, as a way to do that.

Understand that it's a lot of moving pieces and it does come with its, uh, its own risks, having been on this body while we were in a legal battle with the cruise industry, uh, in the past. So something to be pursued mindfully if pursued, but I do have interest in that myself. And I think it provides a community with a little bit more surety.

Thank you, Ms. Zuscandis. Ms. Hall.

And I do think we need to be making decisions based on data-supported parameters for sustainable growth. And so I, I think we need to move forward with this. And what we ultimately decide to do, at least we won't be making that decision in a vacuum. So I think, um, in the FITF 2.0 process, um, you know, this is important information to have. So I, I support going down this road to explore this, um, possibility.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Hall. Um, not required, but again, go ahead, Mr. Senninger. Yes, I'll chime in. Um, and I share the concerns that the mayor expressed. If we legislate limits that aren't thinking about the changing and evolving nature of cruise tourism in Juneau, we can lock ourselves into a position where you know, we could have 2 empty docks downtown because we set limits that weren't based on projects we know about to potentially expand.

And I, but I'll add to the concerns that, you know, putting ourselves out there as the, you know, effectively first community that would be doing this outside of Bar Harbor. When there's not absolute clarity in this ruling as to what the boundaries that we have are, and it's not, you know, it's not the circuit court that we would be subject to if we got sued by cruise lines, you know, would not be going to the same court, you know, we're in a different circuit. This is not a binding decision over our circuit court. It's something they would refer to, of course. But, you know, I have a lot of concern that if we do something that is so restrictive as to go to the point where we have 2 empty docks, and it could put us in a situation where being less collaborative with the industry to try and guide forward and how tourism impacts Juneau, and instead is imposing limits upon the industry.

Rather than negotiating them with the industry. I have some concerns there that we could get ourselves into a position where we're being less collaborative on a way forward, what's best for our community, and being more dictatorial to an industry that we're watching change. I'm not— that's not to say that I'm against legislating limits entirely. I just think that it's something that, you know, we should be very careful as we as we walk into and have discussions on.

Thank you, Mr. Saniger. Mr. Brooks.

I would just, you know, state my concerns again with moving forward on the legislation side and then running a potential risk of litigation. Just with the new financial constraints we're going to be facing here soon. And if the litigation was in the 7 figures for Bar Harbor— Bar Harbor is a town of 5,000 people— it's like the stakes are a little higher here. So I wouldn't want that cost to be inflated because, you know, we're a larger city and a capital city amongst other things. So, uh, it, it would seem that having stronger MOUs or MOAs in place, uh, might be a more financially sound option.

Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Um, Good comments. Thank you all for speaking up to that.

Where I am, I appreciate the thought of, you know, if there's a question regarding these, you know, limits and potentially— anyway, if there's a question that needs to be brought to the VDIF or VDIF 2.0, that they know that they are welcome and they can ask us for guidance, or if we need— or when someone helps determines that we need guidance, um, having— making sure that, you know, line of communication is open. I would like to see that. Um, I think, you know, we have spoken about, yeah, the current limits, um, which I think is the right spot. And I was— talked about it for the last few months, um, and I also like that we have those 5 ships downtown. Um, any further comments or questions on this topic?

And Miss Pierce, do you— and, Madam Manager, do you have what you need? Anything? Very good. Miss Pierce, if I could add something, just in, in the spirit of helping to prepare the Assembly for the discussion around the VDF and the, um, and what you want, and, you know, the, the information marching orders that you're giving them. When we're asking the VDF to consider parameters for growth, what we're really saying is like, what data do we need to collect?

What do we need to— what sort of proof that the infrastructure that we've built is adequate to support growth. Do we need? And then that would then allow if, you know, if we did go down the path of legislating limits, one direction we could potentially take is that that would then allow the Assembly to approve an increase to the limit. So thinking about downtown only, say the Hoonah Totem Dock is developed. We have some new high-throughput shore excursion stuff.

The cultural center is great. It's super popular. We've built the seawalk all the way around. We are really seeing those transportation dynamics that have helped. We have, um, other— Glacier's expanded capacity.

We have some other shore excursion things that are helping spread things out throughout the community.

What does then You know, could the Assembly then say, okay, based on this and X type of study, we would consider raising the limit, or based on that, we have thoroughly evaluated the transportation needs for 2 additional cruise ship docks and we feel comfortable with that, we would raise the limit if that's the direction that the Assembly chooses to go. I've heard mixed responses here, and I think You know, I'm not necessarily suggesting one path or another, but I do think that proactive conversation about under what conditions can we grow is relevant regardless of, of if we are working through voluntary agreements or through legislative limits. It also likely informs a master plan. So all of that information, I think, is real. It's a really important and timely discussion for that body to have.

And I don't remember which assembly member said it, but they are not policymakers. You are. And ultimately, all of this would come back to you. But hopefully you'll be there listening along as they hash through it and take public testimony and we hear from the community on this.

Thank you, Director Pierce. See no other questions or comments. Director Pierce, thanks for staying up quite late with us tonight. We appreciate you. Um, and let's take 10 minutes.

Very good. We'll return at 8:05.

Bring the committee hall back to order. We have 1 remaining agenda topic, um, since the Visitor Industry Task Force 2 was removed, and that is a Telephone Hill update. Have a memo and some other documents in here, but, um, Madam Manager, please take it away. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Smith. First, I just want to acknowledge how difficult that this topic is for the community and for the assembly.

It's been a really hard topic for everyone to, you know, struggle with, and I know that everyone involved really does want what's best for the community. I know that it's been hard for our friends and neighbors to move out of these these 13 dwellings over the last few weeks. And I also know that this assembly has really been given bold, bold direction, and they've taken a really bold move to want to do something that is, you know, in the end, one of the only things that truly can move the needle on housing in Juneau. And I say I think that's why you've been, you know, willing to have those hard conversations. This represents— Telephone Hill really does represent some of the most developable property, well located in our community.

And it's been really hard to struggle with those decisions. And so I just want to acknowledge that and share my empathy and appreciation for everyone who's been involved in all of those difficult conversations for really since 2019 when The state put this up for disposal and transferred it over to the city. So my memo really just talks a little bit, reminds us of how we got here and the long public process to get here. We did a count of how many times since 2019 this topic was mentioned in one of our many news media sources, and it's 75 times and counting, I'm sure. So no doubt a topic that has captured the interest of our community.

Um, you know, there was a lot of public process involved, a lot of surveys, a lot of outreach, and the assembly ultimately landed on really, again, trying to move the needle on density and try to point us and set us up for success for maximum density housing up there. Where are we right now in that process? Tenants were given notice, legal notice, to leave their dwellings by November 1st, 2025. And as of drafting of this memo, only 4 out of those 13 units were still occupied. I've gotten lots of questions on, you know, what are you going to— what's CBJ going to do if people don't leave?

And we'll just follow the legal process that takes time through the court system to have people to leave. So there's no— we're not going to be overly aggressive. We understand that that takes time, and we'll take those necessary steps. And, you know, nobody, nobody took any steps over the weekend to do that, but that's kind of the next steps. We've gotten a lot of questions about what the plan is for development.

And, you know, the plan is right now, as those dwellings are being vacated, We are doing hazardous materials testing. This will allow us to develop bid specifications for demolition. So once we have all that information, then someone will be able to bid on, on that demolition project and know exactly what the materials are, what they're dealing with, where those materials need to be shipped, how they need to be handled, because that all will inform the cost of that demolition process. So we can't bid that until we have all of that information and that information takes It takes time, but we are able to do that as, as units get vacated. And then, you know, we would bid that contract and we would work that with that contractor to demo those properties over the winter, weather permitting.

You know, I think the longer we wait, the higher risk there is that we will have a lot of snow load or icy conditions that would delay that. But again, demolition isn't, you know, something that you could do it, you know, when the snow clears or when conditions allow. So that's kind of the physical plan. In the meantime, the plan is to really work with developers and do some really proactive outreach with developers. We're working with Nealon Consulting, a group out of— I think, I'm not sure where they're out of, they're in the Pacific Northwest, and they work work with First Forty, who's done our, um, our planning on this, to develop a list of developer contacts.

We have local contacts, we have materials that we're working on to really gauge that interest and have those conversations with developers that will then inform either a solicitation, either a request for qualifications or request for proposals from developers. So we can then bring to you, oh, answers to some of those questions that are like, how much, you know, would it cost for a developer to do this project? Is a developer able to deliver on our affordability goals?

Do they need to go higher to make this, you know, pencil out for them? So those are all the questions that the more kind of serious we are about the project, I think the more certainty we will get from those solicitations. And I just want to, you know, acknowledge that it's risky for sure, but it's also bold. And I think that it would be difficult, you know, the question's also asked, well, do you need to get all of that information, you know, before you do any demolition? And I appreciate that, and that makes a lot of sense in some ways, but it also makes it really difficult to move forward with with getting engaging in those real conversations with interested parties because there's a lot of risk.

There's a lot of political risk still. And it's just because it's been such a controversial topic to developers and it costs, you know, a lot of their time, effort, opportunity cost to put together those proposals. And I think we'd have a far better chance of getting a kind of a— getting that real input, real feedback in a real project if we demonstrate the commitment to the project moving forward. Because demolition of those homes to produce the project that the assembly originally envisioned, you know, that's how we get there. Just so that we can have the footprint, right, that's developable.

So all of that is to say, we are continuing to progress on this project. We had the opportunity to pull together an FAQ. There's been a lot of misinformation information out there about the project, and it was just a good opportunity to put all of those questions that people have asked in one place. So that FAQ is in the packet, but it's also on the website. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that the body has.

Thank you, Madam Manager.

Questions from the assembly?

Mr. Brooks, I know that a lot of people in the community are wondering, you know, why, uh, the first 40 feet was hired before there was community input on the topic. So there's been a lot of input on the project, and I can't tell you if we had public meetings before First 40 Feet was hired, but probably. But First 40 Feet is a consulting firm that was hired specifically to do community outreach. So that's why they were hired.

Miss Suskendieh, sorry. Thanks, Mr. Chair. My question is just about our work that, you know, we're going to churn the earth and dig up some more proposals as we move forward on this. The—.

You do have to draw, you know, a specification somewhere, I imagine. I was just curious with our work with Leland, we're contacting Pacific Northwest developers? Was there any conversation about casting an even wider net? And, and I say that because I imagine they have experience in this. So, you know, at some point you decide where you're gonna focus on, and it makes sense that the people who are closer to us, I'm just thinking there potentially could be the right developer in Colorado or, um, I don't know, I'm just going to start naming states, so I'll spare you that.

But was that part of the conversation at all, or did we lead on what they had to say in common sense, because that's close to us? Yeah, I guess I will say that those solicitations haven't gone out, so there's no reason why we wouldn't be able to reach a developer further afield. It's just a matter of kind of the travel and, and the expertise. And, and so there's no, no, no reason except for, um, except for those that we're focusing on the Pacific Northwest. Okay, thanks.

Madam Mayor, Miss Wald, Mr. Brooks, it's in the frequently asked questions, but it's one of the ones we get all the time, is why telephone Telephone Hill and not some other properties.

Thank you, Mayor Weldon. Uh, so, um, as I mentioned in my opening comments, Telephone Hill really does have the opportunity to move the needle on a need that we have identified, uh, time and time again in all of our studies, and that's workforce housing because of its location, the walkability, transit center right there. Um, it's also the largest parcel of, uh, of CBJ land downtown. CBJ land, we have 450 Whittier, we have 2nd and Franklin. Those are all exciting possibilities for development.

2Nd and Franklin, we, you did approve working with a developer on a potential development there, and we are waiting to kind of hear from them and some of their ideas. Um, but really the unique This is a unique gem that a community doesn't get an opportunity very often to have property so centrally located with utilities, with infrastructure in their community.

Miss Wall. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor, and thank you, staff, for putting all of this information together in this way. It was helpful for me. I knew lots of this, having been here for the last 5 years, but not all of it. And one of the things that I— I wasn't here in 2019, you know, when maybe this— when this conversation first started, and you may not know the answer to this question, but was it when the state identified it as an underutilized property?

Was their intent to, you know, they wanted to see it developed, or they didn't want to be paying, you know, being landlords anymore. Do you have a sense of kind of their motivations, or was that really us going in advocating when we realized it was underutilized and we were in a crisis?

I, uh, I, I do not share that, uh, that history because I was not here in 2019 either. I do know that we advocated for the transfer to the City and Borough of Juneau, um, and I don't know if there's— if, if Director Lawhorn, uh, has more, more, uh, pristine knowledge or anyone on the body. But sorry, I, I don't have a great answer to that.

Do you have an answer, Madam Mayor? Half answer. Um, they were trying to get rid of it and people heard that they were trying to get rid of it and told us. That's what I remember of it, but I don't know their reasons behind trying to get rid of it. Um, let's see, I had Miss Hus— actually, I think I had Mr. Brooks next and then Miss Huskandies.

It was just a response. Oh, go ahead, Miss Oh, it's—. I'll add another quarter answer to the mayor's half answer to say partly because the state was looking. The governor had asked the state to identify everything that was underutilized that could be divested. So it was part of that process.

Thank you, Ms. Scandies. Mr. Brooks. Thank you. Was it strictly because of you know, the existing infrastructure that Telephone Hill was chosen over the Whittier and 2nd and Franklin? Because is anyone living at 450 Whittier or 2nd and Franklin currently?

So 2nd and Franklin is adjacent to a parking garage, and they're both for parking, and 450 Whittier is parking.

So, I, you know, I will, I will summarize how I understand the assembly's motivations to pursue Telephone Hill, but I think the size and the location, I mean, it is really the only piece of property that is large enough to be able to support maximum density housing and really move the needle on, on housing in Juneau. And I believe that is why assembly has, you know, prioritized redevelopment of Telephone Hill.

Mr. Senegar. I guess maybe follow up to Mr. Brooks' question. It's my understanding that we are working with a developer potentially for 2nd and Franklin. Just want to make it clear that Yes or no question, just to make it clear that that site is also going to be, or potentially going to be used for housing as well, correct? You are correct.

Yeah, thank you.

I had a question, um, Madam Manager, the Leland Consulting Group. I'm sorry if you said it in your, um, in your statement at the beginning. Any—. Where are they in that, you know, Speaking to a developer, I mean, anyway, anyway we can like get more information back faster.

Nice. Or maybe just let me know where we are with them and the timeline for that now.

Yeah, so I really think that, you know, they have a list. That's not a hard thing to pull together. It's really the manager's office doing that outreach and making those connections. And so I think that can, you know, begin as soon as I get that direction. Um, I, I, when we did our timeline for how we would approach that, we wanted to make sure that there was a serious commitment from the city by initiating demolition so that we could have those conversations in, you know, with a project underway and with that certainty.

That was—. That—. So that is our kind of— when I look at the timeline, that outreach and those meetings happen after demolition has started.

Madam Mayor, here's your bizarre question for the evening. Apparently there's a phone switchboard on the Hill. Is there any way we can can preserve that either through the museum or the library or something like that?

I'm sure that we can, you know, make those accommodations. I don't know anything about it, so you'll have to connect me with that, those resources.

Any other questions from the assembly on this topic?

Seco, appreciation for pulling it together. And maybe take a quick moment to comment because we have lots of people who are in the room and have maintained, you know, really steadfast engagement throughout this public process. Um, to say that for some of these things, just to— I guess I'll add on a comment because one of the things that I've also heard a lot is about 450 Whittier and, um, 2nd and Franklin. And I would just add, because I don't think I said at the assembly meeting, that just for this particular assembly member The effort that will be needed to actually move the needle in a serious way would not be choosing between this property or that property. We need—.

Really, we need to develop all of them. And there are— they each have unique features that would dictate kind of what kind of housing we would build on them. Um, but it's not like, for me, it's not a choice between should we develop this parking lot or should we develop Telephone Hill in order to really dig our way out of the level of crisis we are at. We will need to develop all of those, um, because the magnitude of housing need is that much. I just wanted to add that because I don't think I'd gotten a chance to, um, in previous comment.

Thank you, Miss.

Give me some time because I know I'm, you know, as I'm getting more information and hearing your questions, I'm also coming up with, you know, new— working through this. Please, Miss Hall.

Yeah, you know, when I ran a year ago, I came to an assembly meeting, you know, or a few of them leading up to joining the assembly, and that, you know, Telephone Hill was on the agenda then. It's been, you know, so, so frequently on our agenda and discussed and engaged and read the emails. Um, I guess I would just like to say I'm a little sad that I don't see the same level of engagement for the people living in homeless shelter on Teal Street in the encampment. Um, this has taken up, um, a lot of staff time, as it should. You know, it needs to be very deliberative and thorough.

Um, But I, I feel like we're— we've made the decision. I feel it's the right decision. And, um, you know, if we have senior citizens that are needing to move, it's nice that they can move before the eviction process. You know, you don't have to go through the eviction process. You can, uh, you know, you can move out ahead of that and not have an conviction on your record.

Um, but anyway, I, I appreciate all the advocacy and would love to see that directed towards people that are in a tent on the side of the road. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Hall.

Madam Manager, I have a question for you. Um, you know, this is a It is, you know, bold that there's uncertainty as there is in everything. Um, I guess, should we, should we not find a developer who's able, willing to do 150 units or something up there, you know, with or without affordability? I mean, I guess, I mean, it's pretty obvious once I say it, but I think it's important for me and others to hear. It's not like nothing would be built up there.

It just— we'd maybe have to scale back our dreams and we wouldn't get as many units or the affordability or something. I mean, that is— that's not like there would be nothing built up there, or, you know, we would— there would still be probably more housing than is there now. But just anyway. That's, that's what happens if we have to dial things back. Could you speak to that at all?

Yeah, I mean, you will be making decisions, trading cost of a project to affordability. And so the process that I envision is that we will have a solicitation process after there's been a lot of active engagement with potential developers. And, uh, in that process, you will have to review different proposals that have different levels of viability and meet your needs differently. And, um, and then you'll be able to make that informed decision on, wow, this project that really meets our affordability needs, you know, requires tax credits and affordable housing fund.

Maybe we can only do that for 1 parcel, and we're going to need to make sure that for the other parcels, you know, something different happens. So, I mean, I think that the likelihood of finding a viable project is, is high. I mean, it's very attractive property, and there will be policy decisions along the way that you'll have to make and tradeoffs that, that that you will have to make, and I can't articulate exactly what those are, but likely, you know, there's a cost affordability trade-off that, that will be— you will wrestle with cost affordability density, right? Trade-off. Thank you for that.

Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is there any— has there been any mention or any possibility whatsoever of relocating relocating any of the structures?

No.

Do you think that that's something that could potentially, uh, what, you know, whether it's just like the oldest house, uh, up there, do you think that relocating could offset, uh, abatement in a sense? Wouldn't you think you foresee the demo cost of a bunch of hazardous material homes exceeding what it would be to relocate a structure to somewhere else? So, we haven't put any effort into design or engineering of what a relocation would, would cost or even look like. So, I really can't answer, like, what that financial tradeoff would be, because it would be disturbing a house. There would still have to be significant, like, hazardous material measures taken, right, just like when you disturb any, any older, older place.

So there would be expense with that. I don't know if it's even possible with the age of the structures, you know, for them to remain intact. So I really don't have much good insight for you on what, what relocation, or even where we would relocate, right? I mean, we don't really have a lot of land available to relocate. So, so that's a long way of saying no.

Oh, from earlier discussions tonight, we have 900 acres in West Douglas, and, you know, something to just consider as far as cost goes, like, what is our history worth in the community? That's all. Thank you.

Additional questions or comments, if you'd like. Again, not required, it's an informational item. Ms. Hughes-Handys. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'll jump in just because you opened it up to comments. You know, sitting here, which you'll regret, and I appreciate your indulgence for letting me talk so much tonight. Um, I think, you know, it can be in a difficult position, or at least I feel that way, to sit here and not have a lot of questions. You know, I'm acutely aware that each one of you took the time to come down here tonight. I did that myself for issues I was really cared about before I was on the assembly, and I recognize it's 8:35 on a Monday, so you normally are doing something better on a Monday.

Um, although what's better than this? Um, it— I, I weigh the feeling of what does it take to, you know, what does it take as a citizen to really feel like you've been heard by your body of elected leaders and that you are being represented in a way that you want to be represented and balance that against— I've been on the assembly this entire time throughout this process. So for me, at this point, at this stage, I feel like I've gotten my questions answered. It's a decision I made that you don't agree with. And so I guess I just— I want to thank you for coming down, and I appreciate that you care passionately about this issue.

It's just we— when we look at these set of facts, we disagree. Um, and I think sometimes we lose that two things can be true at once. You know, we can be— it can be a beautiful gem of a neighborhood with, uh, a rich history, and it can also be a really, uh, attractive piece of development if we don't want our town to— you know, if we're looking at our population demographic and we're looking ways to provide housing so that we can have young citizens come to this town and maintain, uh, this town that we value. So I just, I just want to, I guess, acknowledge that and say I appreciate you sitting there. So please don't interpret my lack of questions for a lack of, uh, awareness that this is a really, you know, a topic that, that not everyone agrees on.

And I do appreciate your engagement. Thank you, Ms. Escandese. I mean, on that, as of, I think, maybe a week ago, this meeting was not planned. And so we're wanting to provide some information and anyway, give you all again to ask questions and have an opportunity to anyway, get those answered as well as ask them for the public. So seeing no other comments or questions on the topic, we are done with that.

That is our last agenda item. Madam— oh, Madam Mayor, I'm not speaking to that topic. I just wanted to, um, say that we lost a great citizen about a week and a half ago with the loss of Pete Caron, who was the voice behind News of the North, and a great individual, um, uh, journalist, broadcast journalist, Hall of Famer. So just a really great guy. Mrs. Rice, thank you, Madam Mayor.

Any staff reports?

Our next meeting date is December 1st of this year. With nothing else before the Committee of the Whole, we are adjourned.