Kenai: 06/17/24 City Council Meeting

Kenai Municipal Airport for Aircraft Parking and Loading, brought to you by the administration. Action approval, second amendment to the agreement with Tyler Distributing Company, Inc. for ATM services at Kenai Municipal Airport Terminal, brought to you by the administration. Action approval, memorandum of agreement with the Alaska Department of Health for participation in the wastewater monitoring program, brought to you by the administration. Introduction of ordinance number 3531-2026, increasing estimated revenues and appropriations in the Kenai Recreation Center Improvement Capital Project Fund fund and accepting a grant from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program to replace lighting in the Kenai Recreation Center. Brought to you by the administration.

Public hearing scheduled for July 8th, 2026. And introduction of ordinance number 3532-2026, determining that the proposed subdivision of Denaina Point Estate serves other city purposes, authorizing the city to share in subdivision costs and increasing estimated revenues and appropriations in the general fund lands administration in the amount of $54,219, brought to you by the administration. Public hearing on July 8th, 2026. And that is your consent agenda. Thank you very much.

Are there any public comments, um, on any of the consent agenda items just read by the clerk? Anyone online? Okay, unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objections? Hearing no objections, the agenda and consent agenda are approved.

We have no administrative reports, so that brings us to scheduled public comments. We have 2 tonight. The first one we have is online here, is Clayton Weingartner, MPA, AHAI, AR, Program Manager for the State of Alaska Health Division and Public Health Section of Epidemiology. He's here to speak to us about Alaska wastewater monitoring for infectious disease, for the infectious disease program. Mr. Clayton, you're up.

You've got 10 minutes, and we can give you a little more if you need it. Sounds good. You guys able to hear me okay?

We can hear you. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate you guys' time this evening. As you mentioned, my name is Clayton Weingartner.

I'm the HAI program manager for the state of Alaska Division of Public Health, Section of EPI. Healthcare-acquired infections. My primary role is working on programs that essentially prevent you from going into hospital for a surgery and then ended up leaving with some type of worse, worse illness or disease. But I also oversee our wastewater monitoring program, and that is what I'm here to talk to you guys about today. Are you guys able to see my slides okay?

Yes. Yes. Alright. What is wastewater monitoring? Wastewater monitoring, it looks for essentially pathogens or germs in wastewater.

It helps us understand what illnesses could be present in a community. Samples are collected from the wastewater treatment plant. We also can sample from other locations, but at the wastewater treatment plant, they're already sampling and for their routine wastewater discharge permit requirements, so it's really easy for us to kind of just take a slice of that wastewater. This testing provides information about the community as a whole and does not identify individuals. Thank you.

What is wastewater monitoring? So, it is kind of what you think. You know, humans do shed lots of viral DNA, RNA, and genetic material into waste. It also comes via showers, you know, sinks, brushing your teeth. It's collected at the sewage collection site where it kind of basically forms a composite sample representative of the entire community.

We collect the samples, they're transported to a lab. We have two labs stood up in Anchorage for this. One is the Department of Environmental Conservation's Environmental Health Lab, and the other is University of Alaska Anchorage AIMS Core Facility. Both labs kind of work on different projects for us. At these labs, they do some rather complex advanced molecular detection, kind of a fancy way to say they isolate the genetic material we're looking for.

In doing so, you know, we can look at the presence of certain disease pathogens like COVID, which also called SARS-CoV-2, influenza, RSV, measles, and pox. Once we get those results from the lab, it's reported to public health and— Why wastewater monitoring? Early detection of diseases is the first and foremost. It gives us community-level perspective about diseases circulating in the community. It can help communities make public health decisions, and it can be used and paired well with complementary other health metric tools, like clinical health case surveillance, for instance, when you go into the hospital and test positive for the flu, you know, we can compare those results with wastewater data.

It's also a passive sampling tool, meaning it's independent of healthcare-seeking behavior. Say you are sick with the flu, it's mild, you don't go to the hospital, you know, that's never really logged in the clinical case data. But if you use— if you're on the wastewater system, you will shed into that system, and we will be able to essentially kind of identify that somebody had the flu, but as I mentioned, not on an individual level or anything like that. This is done with trend tracking. We do this 1 to 2 times a week, and it really— looking at concentrations throughout the week and throughout the months really gives us an idea about disease and community disease trends in your community.

This is a national survey conducted in 2024. 3 Out of 4 surveyed adults support wastewater monitoring for infectious disease, and at least 95% of individuals said that if they saw a certain disease was spreading in their area, they would take at least one protective health action, if not more.

Where can we collect? Ideally, we wanna collect from the wastewater treatment plant. Like I said, that is representative of the entire community, with some caveats, obviously, if you're on a septic system or, you know, in a dry cabin, you're not gonna be inputting into the system. The wastewater treatment plant is likely already using an auto sampler, meaning they're already sampling for their own reasons, and so it's really easy for us to just ask for a part of that sample. We also can, you know, it's a little more difficult, time-consuming, definitely more labor-intensive, but collect from manholes.

In certain communities, this might be ideal, just given the infrastructure in place. And we also can do this at single building levels. I'll talk a little bit later about kind of a hospital pilot that we're doing to look for certain antimicrobial resistance genes.

Obviously, Alaska presents some unique challenges. Other locations can do this year-round outside with the auto-sampler. These electronic devices, you know, filled with water, it would obviously freeze in Alaska. We've piloted some novel techniques here. There's a couple different collection options available.

One is what we call the traditional sampling, it's the auto sampler, you can see there on the left. The other is a passive sampling device. It still don't look too high tech, but it's actually a very effective device. You essentially build a contraption that we put together, and you stuff some type of absorbent material in it. You leave it deployed in the system for 24 hours, collect it, wring out the water, and you perform your— Your sampling.

Extraction and laboratory analysis. There's different types of procedures that we can do to collect the sample. One is a grab sample. We don't really recommend this, 'cause it can miss a lot, but if that's the only thing available, we will do a grab. Essentially, you just collect— you stick a jar down into the sample, pull it up, you have your sample.

I already mentioned the passive sampling device, and then, of course, the composite sample. These auto-samplers are a little pricey. Most wastewater treatment plants already have them. If, for instance, there's some— there's a need of one at your wastewater treatment plant and you guys would like to engage in the sampling, we can provide them for you. They're a little pricey, but we will cover all costs and maintenance.

One of the other benefits is we can collect some additional metadata, like flow rate. To make sense of our wastewater data, we do collect additional data points, like, you know, how many gallons— how many millions or thousands of gallons of water are running through the system during the day. These are our pathogen targets or disease targets. The ones in red are the ones we currently have online here in Alaska. Most notable, I wanted to bring attention to measles.

That's what we're really trying to build the system around, is an early detection tool for measles. Then also for a certain subtype of influenza A, H5N1, also known as avian influenza, or you probably have heard it called bird flu.

This is kind of just a quick screenshot of the dashboard that we have. UAA kind of maintains this for us right now. I like using this infographic right here. In the pink, we have our clinical cases, so this is you go to the hospital, you're sick with flu, it gets reported to public health. You can see that our wastewater concentration levels trends very closely with our clinical case data.

You notice right here, this is a December spike in the wastewater data. You know, we kind of hypothesized this is from, you know, when all the, you know, all the college students, you know, returned to visit. Mild symptoms, don't go to the hospital, but they do input in the system. So the wastewater provides us an opportunity to collect things that our traditional case surveillance might also miss. And this is just one example of that.

Overarching goals, we really want to implement a robust and scalable wastewater monitoring system in Alaska. We want to continue to use it for routine monitoring of certain diseases like COVID, influenza, but we also want to have this available for, you know, when the next COVID COVID-19 comes around or, you know, the next disease that's really concerning, that we already have this infrastructure in place, that it's there and readily available for us when that new pathogen emerges.

I really want to highlight that utility partnerships are the backbone of making this work. Without the utility operators' buy-in and engagement, this is not a sustainable effort. You know, the community might want it, but if the utility and the staff there aren't bought into this, it is not going to be— it's not going to be a workable system. So we really do try to prioritize our relationship building with these individuals. We will plan on visiting them, taking a tour of the plant.

And we develop testing plans and schedules that will work along with the utility to limit any type of burden that's placed on the utility. And of course, we cover all costs. The only thing we can't do is reimburse for any time. For instance, if an operator needs to drop off the sample at FedEx and it takes 30 minutes from the job to a FedEx location, we don't really have any ability to kind of offset those costs, but everything else we pay for.

On top of, you know, making sure that, you know, these relationships are well managed, they also provide— these utility operators also provide us a lot of essential information that without it, we can't really make sense of the data. There's all sorts of unique infrastructure in place that's unique to every community, and these individuals are the only ones that can help us kind of tease that all out. Last but not least, there's another program called WastewaterSCAN. I just wanted to bring this to your guys' attention. Only Anchorage is enrolled in this.

It's a national testing program. They're a super advanced lab. They have all sorts of different disease targets well beyond what we have established here in Alaska. Obviously, it's not serving Kenai currently, but if you are interested in this data, I would definitely look at Anchorage because, you know, what you're seeing in Anchorage is kind of a, you know, is kind of a snapshot for kind of what we're seeing in Kenai and other locations as well. There's this hospital AMR pilot that we're also doing right now.

We only have 2 facilities in Anchorage participating. This is not something that'd be publicly available, but as I mentioned, my main role is HAI Healthcare Acquired Infections Program Manager. We are, we really try to keep out with MDROs, multiple drug-resistant organisms. They're essentially diseases that are resistant to antibiotics and other antimicrobials. They are really prevalent in hospital systems, and once they establish themselves in hospitals, they're really hard to get rid of.

So we're also working to onboard hospitals, and we have been in touch with Central Penn to, you know, get some sampling going there to look for these. But this is not something that would ever be publicly available. But we definitely could use the community support to help lobby for this testing. Now I'm running out of time here and I wanna leave some time open for any questions you guys might have. This is just kind of some pictures of the hospital AMR sampling we're doing.

So nothing too complicated. And yeah, any questions, I'm happy to take them now. And here is our contact information if you guys wanna email us. I appreciate your time. Bye.

Thank you, Mr. Weidgartner. Council, do you have any questions?

I'm not seeing any. I think you were very thorough. Thank you very much. I presume that you're working through our city manager or public works director on anything that you might need from down here. Yes, sir.

We are working along with some public health nurse, that's Julie Bunch, that's in the area, as well as several community members. If the, you know, community council approves this work, next steps will be for me to schedule a visit to come meet with the operators and kind of do an assessment of the facility. And then, if you guys are game, they will start testing as soon as that happens.

Very good. Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. Appreciate you guys' time.

Okay. Our second scheduled public comment, something I look forward to, every year. In particular, we have the 2026 March for Meals event. Jerry Nasson is here, Vice President for the Kenai Senior Connections, Inc. And I see you brought some friends too. Hi.

You can invite them up if you want, or however you want to do that, Jerry.

You know how that mic works? Press button. Oh, there's a— but I guess you do. Alrighty, my name is Jerry Nassen, like he said. Vice President of the Senior Connections Board.

And as most of you are familiar with, one of our big, big projects every year is our March for Meals program. So, this is perfect for me 'cause I'm a numbers guy. I've always been a numbers guy. In case you don't know, 10 steps down into this room, 10 steps back up. It's just something I do.

Well, one of the numbers I like is this year our campaign raised, right, round numbers, roughly $75,000 at our March for Meals campaign that we did through the year. We spent months and months and months to put together basically one night. And a number of you were there and we appreciate that very much. So of course we're going to be giving you the $75 plus we threw in a little bit of change out of our pockets there too. So we'll get up there.

In fiscal year '25, the senior center over there, your senior center, served 10,337 congregate meals and 20,759 home delivery meals. That is— 31,000? Roughly meals to seniors in the community. So, and for FY26, to date, we're roughly running 21% increase in the amount of people served over last year, over last fiscal year, and we still have a month and a half to go, month and a quarter to go. So projected meals for this year are going to be 10,775 congregate meals And it was 22,000, the number they gave me was 666.

I rounded it up one. Don't like 666. [LAUGHTER] Some of you might understand that. So we got pretty good. And one thing that they wanted me to also mention too is one of the things we also do is we gather food towards the end of the year and we put together Christmas bags.

And in the last couple, 3 years, we've done 75 bags that go out with— in the community to— and each one of those bags provides roughly a week's worth of meals for 4 people. So that's all an added-on thing there. So we're gonna be giving you a check here in a couple of minutes and stuff. One other thing of numbers. Sorry, guys, everything's down a little bit.

Dow was down to 51.4. 51.4? Nasdaq 2,600 and S&P 7,500 was 74. But still, if you remember, I'm not that old and I remember when 51,000 on the Dow, that was not a number. Or 2,600 or 74.

So let's get another number here.

1,000.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, Jerry, you gonna— for anybody listening online, are you gonna tell us what the total amount is that you've got on the— On your check there? I don't think you said that. You said you're gonna add some change to it. I forget that, yeah. Jerry, you might turn on the mic too.

It clicks off sometimes. Sorry, it is $120,000.

Wonderful. All righty. Well, Jerry, what I'd like to do now is get you and Kathy and— I know the volunteers that are here that helped you. If we can get them up and perhaps council might want to come down and we'll get a picture together. I would love that.

And then we'll do that and then after we get the picture taken, let's take a 10-minute break because I know that there's Missy Cookies out there in the foyer area and we can go out and visit for a few minutes. How's that? I won't need 10 minutes to eat those. You don't need 10? No.

You can bring some back with you too.

Okay, we're back on the record. So that brings us down to unscheduled public comments. Are there any members from the public that would like to speak on any item not appearing on the agenda? Seeing no one, brings us to our first public hearing for tonight is Ordinance 3528-2026.

Accepting and appropriating $42,867.04 to assist forfeiture sharing funds, uh, in asset forfeiture sharing funds for the purchase of law enforcement equipment into the general fund police department, brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askam. I move that we enact ordinance number 3528-2026. I'll second.

Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Ordinance 3528-2026?

Seeing no one, bring it back to council discussion. I see we have our police chief here tonight.

Mr. Eubank, is there anything that he might want to share with us on that? For you?

I can kick us off, and if you want any more specifics, we can ask Chief. You know, in general, the City of Kenai participates in a regional drug task force. This represents proceeds from an investigation that our department and our officer participated in, ended up in some convictions and some seizures of money. When we do participate with that, The feds, FBI, decides they'd like to share some of those proceeds with us. This represents a portion of those proceeds, and we can use those funds for the purchase of police equipment.

Chief, you want to add anything?

Through the city manager, no, I don't have anything to add. That was all accurate, except it's the DEA rather than the FBI, but everything else he said was, was correct. Yeah, thank you for that. Council, questions, comments? Um, Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Daniel? Yes. Vice Mayor Askin? Yes. Councilmember Petty?

I see she's there. We'll come back. Councilmember Kucena? Yes. Council Member Sonnert?

Yes. Mayor Naxted? Yes. Council Member Petty? Student Representative Bowling?

Yes. You have 5 yes votes. Ordinance number 3528-2026 is enacted. Madam Clerk, is there any other way we can communicate with She's there and she— I mean, a thumbs up or thumbs down or— You can take a minute if you want.

I'm texting with her.

Take a minute here just to see if we can get a better—. She texted that she votes yes. Okay, but if that works for everybody through the clerk, I think that would be okay. Yeah, I'm trying to see if there's technical problems why she can't unmute.

Okay, we'll try next round, but the texting will work. Okay, now, now we're on item E2, Ordinance 3529-2026, increasing estimated revenues and appropriations in the general fund, city manager for leave cash out, finance information technology salaries and benefits, and public works administration salaries and benefits in excess of budgeted amounts brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move we enact Ordinance Number 3529-2026.

I'll second. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Ordinance 3529-2026?

Seeing no one, bring it back to council. Council comments, questions?

Council Member Petty? No question. Ah, it works. We can hear you now. Thank you.

Thank you. Clerk, please call the roll. Vice Mayor Askin? Yes. Council Member Petty?

Yes. Council Member Kucena? Yes. Council Member Sonnart? Yes.

Mayor Naxted? Yes. Council Member Daniel? Yes. Student Representative Bowling?

Yes. You have 6 yes votes. Ordinance number 3529-2026 is enacted.

Next we have item E3, ordinance number 3530-2026, accepting and appropriating a grant award to the Kenai Senior Center from the Kenai Peninsula Foundation, Inc. and the Alaska Community Foundation, Inc. through the Elmer and Ruth Schwente Fund for the purchase of Meals on Wheels delivery bags. Brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move we enact Ordinance Number 3530-2026.

I'll second. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Ordinance 3530-2026?

Seeing no one, that brings it back to Council. Council discussion? Got Council Member Daniel. Thank you, Mayor Naxa. Just a quick thank you, uh, really appreciate all the work you do over there.— you and your team in finding these grants.

I know there's a never-ending need of meals, and so every, every dollar counts. Just appreciation. Thank you.

Any further comments? I'd like to echo that too. And, and these aren't just paper sacks, they are special bags for keeping things hot and cold and for transporting. So very, very necessary. So if there's no further comments, Kirk, please call the roll.

Council Member Petty? Yes. Council Member Kucena? Yes. Council Member Sonnart?

Yes. Mayor Naxted? Yes. Council Member Daniel? Yes.

Vice Mayor Askin? Yes. Student Representative Bowling? Yes. You have 6 yes votes.

Ordinance number 3530-2026 is enacted. Okay, that brings us to item E4, Resolution 2026-47. Authorizing binding of the city's property liability, workers' compensation, airport, and other ancillary insurance policies with the Alaska Public Risk Alliance for July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. Brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council.

Vice Mayor Raskin. I move that we adopt Resolution Number 2026-47 and request unanimous consent. I'll second. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Resolution 2026-47?

Seeing no one, bring it back to Council for discussion.

City Manager Eubank, want to give us a report on this?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council. So annually, the city contracts for insurance coverage You know, like all the ones listed in here, property liability, workers' compensation, airport, some other ancillary policies that we do. Remaining in Alaska now with the merger of the Alaska Municipal League Joint Insurance Association and Alaska Public Entity Insurance, there's a single risk pool left for public entities to contract with. This is with APRA, the Alaska Public Risk Alliance. This is our second year being with this new organization after the merger.

This represents about just less than a 5% increase on our premium from prior year. The majority of that premium increase is being driven by coverage increases, not necessarily premium increases. As covered payroll and things like that increase, we're asking for more insurance. And so that's most of this increase is related to that. I would ask Finance Director, because I know we just received a check from APRA for this year's policy regarding what they call a loss control credit.

So there's loss control activities that we participate in as a city, and those generate a refund of some of the premium we paid for the fiscal year '26 Dave, do you know what that amount was? Yes, the amount on that was $47,810, and this is their loss control incentive program. So there were a number of things that we had to do to receive these funds. We had quarterly safety meetings that we had to track and document. We had training hours with a target of being an average of 8 per employee.

Across the city. Also, we had to conduct building inspections, and they had a form that we had to fill out for each of the buildings throughout the city. So the folks that are building— folks, Carmel and his crew did— conducted those. And then Stephanie Randall put those all together and did a great job of kind of herding those cats with all these different things we had to do. But we had to complete that by April 15th, and then submit the documentation by May 1st, and we did that, and we just this week received the $47,810 for that.

So it's about a, about a 5% refund based on our, what we paid last year, or in the current fiscal year.

Okay, any, any questions of City Manager?

Just a comment, actually. I haven't had firsthand experience of how much work work goes into getting that, uh, that credit. And so I just want to thank everyone who is involved in doing that. I know how much work that probably took you to get that 5%. So thanks for doing that.

It clearly pays off. So thank you for that. Unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objections? Seeing none, Resolution 2026-47 is adopted.

Now we're on item E5, Resolution 2026-48, authorizing an agreement with the Boys and Girls Club of the Kenai Peninsula for the operation of the teen center located in the Kenai Recreation Center, brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move that we adopt Resolution 2026-48 and request unanimous consent. I'll second.

Thank you. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Resolution 2026-48?

Seeing no one, bring it back to Council. Council comments? Seeing none, unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objections?

If there are no objections, Resolution 2026-48 is adopted. Next, we have item E6, Resolution 2026-49, amending the City of Kenai Land Management Plan to change the land management designation of Tract E, Boat Ramp Subdivision, from retain to mixed retain/dispose, brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move we adopt Resolution 2026-49 and request unanimous consent.

I'll second. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Resolution 2026-49?

Seeing no one, bring it back to council for discussion. City Manager Eubank, um, would you give us the, uh, rundown on this? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Um, when the city, um, developed and council adopted The city's land management plan, which I have a copy of right here, part of that plan included a designation of proposed use for the property. Some properties city owns have been designated for retention, generally for— well, always for a public purpose, which is outlined in this plan.

Some have been labeled for dispose. Dispose indicates— Disposed. A desire to either lease or sell, one or the other, a parcel. And some have been designated mixed, retain or dispose. And what that designation generally means is that a portion of a parcel is likely to serve a public purpose and should be retained But there are developable portions of the lot that could be subdivided and put into commercial purposes.

This is an example of one of those. At the time the, the current land management plan was adopted, this parcel was labeled as retain only. And, um, since that point, I've had— Hello. Myself, 2 conversations with potential developers. One was a developer looking to put a processing plant for processing of like sport-caught fish and things like that on potentially this parcel.

Most recently, we have had conversations with Xingza about their potential—. Xingza. Interest in acquiring a portion of this parcel. When we look to the land management plan again, it right now is labeled as retain. But the retention on it is to provide alternate access or egress from the city's dock during peak times of the year.

After review, talking with staff, we believe that a portion of this— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] parcel absolutely needs to be retained for that continued purpose. But we also believe that there is a possibility of, um, of accommodating that retention, but also making a portion of this property available for commercial development. We certainly have no planned projects. We have no applications for projects. This simply is just about restating for all the public to know that that that parcel would be available if people were interested in it and could make application on it.

And I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions of the city manager?

Councilmember Daniel. Thank you, Mayor Naxat. For the city manager, more of a thank you than anything. I appreciate administration looking for— looking at ways we can continue to develop of the working waterfront, and as I see it being a huge part of our city in the future to come. So thank you for taking these steps as they come up.

Appreciate it.

Any further questions? I also concur with this, but I do have a question, or just for clarification. The property as it is, there is a use currently on the north side And that's where the dredge material goes. That area is not getting any larger or smaller than I presume where the dredge material from the boat ramp goes. That's just for dewatering, is that my understanding?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So if— I'm sorry, let's see if I can find the page in the packet here. So if you look at the map on 35, I think the mayor is referring to A little square section just to the left of the green block of the proposed potential subdivision area. That area was created by— actually, by our own crew annually before we're able to put the dock in. Our crews have to go down and remove a tremendous amount of silt that's built up over the last year in the ramps.

So they take a couple of days on extremely low tides, take some equipment down there, an excavator and a number of our dump trucks, and they're hauling out the silt. That silt's in the dock that then they're able to get our pilings in place that hold our docks and also open up those ramps for use for the summer. That material comes out obviously extremely wet, sloppy. To haul it at that time would just make a tremendous mess, and it would make a tremendous mess along the entire stretch of road until you got to its final destination. So crews take and they deposit that.

They're using this area now up there where they stage that material. They dump it. They let it dewater. It dries out. It solidifies.

We're actually— we opened the dock this year, middle of May. May? Middle of May we opened the dock there this week hauling that dredge material; it's now dewatered to its final destination. That final destination for a number of years far back as I can remember has been the Twin Cities Raceway who welcome it with open arms and— I don't know what they use it for but they really like it and they take every bit that we can bring to them. We did used to dewater actually on the pad of the dock itself.

Which is always an option. I think they chose this area because if they got in a situation through other work that they weren't able to accomplish it before the PU fishery started in the big phase. But no, that area gets filled up and then it gets emptied every year and then it becomes overflow parking for the PU fishery, which I don't believe we've used overflow parking in the last 5 or 6 years of operating the fishery. But, so we don't think it would be a conflict there. And if needed, we could expand that area.

There's more room to do that, or the dewatering could take place on the actual dock pad itself. Thank you for that explanation. Any further comments? Unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objections?

Seeing none, Resolution 2026-49 is adopted. That brings us to item E7, Resolution 2026-50, authorizing a contract award and correspondence— corresponding purchase order to Vector Airport Systems for aircraft handling, fee billing, and collection services, brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move we adopt Resolution 2026-50.

-50. I'll second.

Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Resolution 2026-39?

I do know that there are a couple of representatives from Vector online too, so this might be an opportunity for them, or we might have some questions of them as we move forward too.

If there's nobody in the general public that has any comments, we'll bring it back to council. Council discussion? City Manager Eubank, do you want to touch base on what this is? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to look to staff to correct anything that I say that's not completely accurate here.

I do know that airport management was approached actually by two commercial pilots who brought an aircraft into Kenai, and I think they came in the office to pay landing fees, as a matter of fact. And they just inquired why the city wasn't using one of these automated services that were out there. And I think it was something new that staff hadn't dealt with. Through investigation, They determined that I don't believe there are any airports in Alaska using this type of service currently. Okay.

Looking back through historical data, Vector was able to look back and determine that roughly 25% of our revenue related to air landing fees is being uncollected. Is an honor system to report, or when staff are on site or— and not tied up with other things, hopefully they get to see who landed and get their tail number and then try to determine how to bill them. This service uses publicly available information out there to determine which aircraft are landing and would be subject to our fees. They then— Excuse me. Implement the billings and the collection of those fees and retain a portion of the revenue collected as a fee for their service.

So it's something new. The estimated uncollected revenue from our landing fees was about $130,000 a year, to talk about how much money we're really talking about. What I would stress is these are not new fees. These are existing fees, fees that have been in place for many years. Um, this is just a mechanism to make sure that all users are paying the fees, which I think should be one of our goals as well, and will result in a positive net gain to the airport as a result of this.

And, um, Mary, did you want to add anything?

I know your information was correct that you relayed on to council. If council remembers, I did tell you during the budget process that this has just come to our attention, and since then, Julie has been working on this and has come to fruition here with this council meeting. There has been— we discovered in the past couple weeks that there is some opposition to this. Using the ADS-B, which is technology that is put out there for safety. It's better for the aircraft, it's better for the pilot for situational awareness.

And there's opposition to government entities or other airports using that information to collect the fees. And some think that pilots may be turning avionics off so they cannot be tracked to pay these rates and fees. I can tell you that with all my years at the airport, I've never experienced any kind of operation or any opposition to paying parking and landing fees. In fact, most of the comments are that we're cheap, that we're low. It's in the airport bill that landing fees is a fair and reasonable—.

Thank you. A charge to airport users and to use for airport infrastructure development, which we do. And yeah, we're in support of it.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And the only thing, the only last thing I would add for council's information is that our landing fees only apply to aircraft greater than 4,000 pounds. Gross takeoff weight, which eliminates virtually all general aviation aircraft out there. Most of them are much smaller than that and don't pay landing fees on the airfield. So most of the fees are paid by either larger aircraft or commercial operators on the airfield.

Councilmember Daniel. Thank you, Mayor Naxta. Just a quick Point of clarification, this looks like a great thing. I think something that would be helpful for staff and the users, but my question is, are our fees changing as a part of this? Are we maintaining the same fees?

City Manager Ubey. Yeah, thank you, Council Member Daniels. Through the mayor, no, our fees have not changed. This simply just represents a new tool to be able to collect and enforce them.

Vice Mayor Askin. I have, I think, a couple questions. One of them is, are we going to be responsible initially for the camera installation? And number 2, has there been consideration for the plane passes? I understand that's a more passive program.

City Manager Eubank. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Through the mayor, I'm going to respond to half of that, and then I'm going to have to punt a little bit here.

As far as installation of cameras, so the technology used by this provider uses a number of different tools to determine users or who's subject to fees. One tool that is available to them or could be available to them is the installation of cameras that takes pictures of tail numbers of all the aircraft as they land. We currently don't have those cameras. They're not required for us to implement this. They will be using the ADS-B technology.

So we are not required to install cameras at this time. If ADS-B is determined to— if there are laws that prohibit the use for billings like this, then we may have to reevaluate.. And at that time we could install cameras, or, you know, we'll make sure we have provisions within the contract that would allow us to terminate the contract, uh, if that technology changes and we decide not to implement, um, other things to make it effective. So, um, as far as the second part of your question, I may ask you to ask that again so Mary could respond, because I'm, I'm not I'm not familiar enough. Yeah, could you repeat that part of the question?

I was curious if Plane Pass is being used. Is that a more passive program than this vector system? Is it more of an honor system kind of collection method? My conversations with vector, Plane Pass is being used at 132 airports. I have talked to at least 5 of them.

Who liked it. They recommended it. A couple airports had not charged for landing fees in the past, so when they started landing— started, they had a few rough spots there with their users. But no, in all in that, they've had very little negative comments to them billing it. I might add that Vector has a 99.6% collection rate.

And as Terry said earlier, our landing fee program is on the honor system. So of course our signatories are required to submit a landing report the following month for the previous month. The transients are not. We do have a registration shack out there where they're Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. If I see them go by my office, I get the binoculars out and the tail numbers, and we look up the tail number, and we try and, you know, track them down that way.

And like I say, we have— I have not experienced any opposition to anyone not wanting to pay parking or landing fees. Okay. I'll just add one thing really quick. So Vector Airport Systems is the company, and PlanePass is what we're planning on using. Gotcha.

Thank you.

Any further questions? Excuse me, Andrew Eubank. If ADS-B ceases to become available for Vector to utilize, is our contract set up in such a way that we can make adjustment. We were talking about going to possible— they might have to go to cameras or something like that, but I was wondering what, uh, how is that, uh, um, going to be? Is that managed in our, in our contract?

Um, I'd have to defer to the city attorney on specifics of what's in it, but I think I can tell council it would be our intent to absolutely make sure we have that ability before we would sign one.

Thank you, Mayor Naxted, members of council. So we're still working on finalizing the contract with them, but we'll make sure that we have an out if it's going to require an expenditure on our part.

Any further comments? Councilmember Daniel. One last question, maybe for the vendor. If we move forward on this, what's the timeline for implementation? What does that look like?

City Manager Eubank, I think that would be through you. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I don't know, staff, Mary, Julie, have they given an estimated timeline for implementation? Yeah, we have every intention to start July 1st.

Councilmember—. Vice Mayor Askin. I'll request unanimous consent.

I probably shouldn't say anything at this point, but there's a lot in here about ADS-B, and I don't know that that's been well defined and what that is and how it's used. ADS-B is something I use in all the aircraft that I fly, and I fly a number of them. And what that does, it uses— it ties into a transponder basically, but what it does is it It sends out a signal and says, "My aircraft, my altitude, my airspeed, and what direction I'm going." And it also gives proximity if I'm near somebody else. And I can see other people. So it's in and out.

So my screen, I can see all these aircraft all over the peninsula. I can see the whole state of Alaska for that matter. I can zoom right in. And it's there. And I think some of the concerns that I kind of was— Yes.

My understanding here is, you know, like a big brother kind of keeping track of aircraft and they were coming and going. But I can tell you with my cell phone that all I have to do is type in the tail number of the aircraft that I just last flew. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And there's a record there of that flight, when it— where it originated from and when and where I was and how— when I landed. And then I could also look at all the other flights. It's just there.

It's a safety thing and it would be foolish to be turning those off and I don't think any reasonable pilot does that. Unless of course they're going into their favorite fishing hole or duck hunting spot or something like that. And then they might, so nobody knows. But as far as airport environment, I don't see that happening here. So anyway, I just wanted to pass that on in case there was some question on what— Thank you.

That is, and it's just readily available to anybody. Vice Mayor Askin. My understanding is, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mayor Nagstad, but the ADS-B is for all aircraft from private up, is that correct? It can be. You don't have to have it to fly the aircraft.

You may have to have it to fly into certain airspace. Okay, thank you. But it's kind of the— you don't even have to have a radio. A lot of places, you know, but, you know, most, most do for obvious reasons. Okay, thank you.

Any further comments, questions? Nan's consent was requested. Are there any objections? Seeing none, Resolution 2026-50 is adopted. So that brings us down to Item I, Commission reports.

Council on Aging, Vice Mayor Askin. Thank you, Mayor Nexted. We did not have a meeting in June. Our next meeting is July 9th. Next we have Airport Commission, Council Member Sonnart.

Thank you, Mayor Nexted. The Airport Commission met last Thursday. They discussed and they recommended special use permit to Empire Airlines A special use permit to the State of Alaska for DNR, Department of Forestry. And a second amendment to agreement for— hold on one second. I want to make sure I am on the right— yep, I'm on the right one.

Okay. I must not have saved my notes because I handwritten— handwrote a lot of notes last week and when I— I can't open it up now, my notes are not there.

And then they agreed to a second amendment to an agreement for an automatic teller machine, an ATM machine at the airport. Those all passed easily. During their closing remarks, several commissioners did express concern about the ADBS— did I say that right? ADBS? Yes.

ADSB. ADSB, thank you. I knew it didn't sound right, ADSB, that we just discussed. And part of their concern was that maybe pilots would be not using it or et cetera. But that was just the concern that they expressed.

And that was during closing remarks. So that was it.

Okay, uh, we have Parks and Rec Commission. Councilmember Gremmie is not here. Does anybody have a report for her?

Okay, so that takes us to Planning and Zoning Commission. Councilmember Daniel. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Excuse me.

Thank you, Mayor Naxted. I got there. Planning and Zoning met on the 10th, and they had a couple things on their agenda. Wasn't too bad. They approved a plat for Mica Subdivision, and that was approved without objection.

And also in their plat that they approved the Thompson Park Myers Addition, that was PZ 2026-18, also approved. And then a conditional use permit was granted for a single-family dwelling at 1510 Tundra Rose, like Airbnb style for the summer, and that was also approved without objection. And that is my report. Thank you. Beautification Commission, Council Member Petty.

Thank you, Mayor Nexted. We did not meet this month, and our next scheduled meeting will be in May. Thank you. Thank you. That brings us to the report of the mayor.

I have a few things to mention. First off, I'd like to thank the Senior Connections for the, for the $120,000 check tonight. I think that's, that's just wonderful. I think the amount keeps going up and up. It just kind of shows the, the dedication of that group and, and also of our community that is, is donating the money into that and bringing that forward for our seniors.

We do have a lot of seniors in our area. And since I'm talking about the senior connections and the senior area there, one of my neighbors, Kathy, was walking down the street with a wheelbarrow and it reminded me that senior— the senior center is collecting rhubarb. And they're collecting rhubarb because they're going to make a bunch of rhubarb pies for the Fourth of July festivities that we're going to be having here. So, Kathy, I'll make you part of the report. Where can we take rhubarb?

Everybody's got rhubarb next to their house and what to do with it. Now there's a place you can take it. So that's what we can do with it. Absolutely. The Senior Center can always use it.

As a matter of fact, we have enough for the July Fourth pies. And the August pies for the Old-Timers Luncheon. But what we're also collecting is for— there's a lot of seniors who like rhubarb. They don't grow it themselves, and so we're putting it in bags and giving it to seniors now. So we can still use some.

I've got some. I'll be bringing it by. Thank you for that, Kathy. I needed some clarification. And a couple other things too.

Flag Day was Sunday.. And there was a flag on every pole, every light pole through town, every one of them. And then if you turn right and went down Main Street, Willow Street, one of those. But anyway, they alternated between American and State of Alaska flag, which is also okay. But anyway, it kind of shows our city's dedication to our country and our state.

And I do appreciate seeing that. I'm a big flag guy. Also, I'm also a big Field of Flowers enjoyer too. And if you drive down the highway now, there was a growth of aspen, and they grow very fast, between the highway and the Field of Flowers. They are not there anymore.

They were all taken down by city crews. Mm-hmm. Took them a few days to do that. I think that's great. It's all opened up, and now the public can see it from the highway, and they'll probably go into that area there and take a look.

The— I did not make the kite festival, so hopefully a council member here did, so I won't go into that. I just heard lots of wonderful things about it. And I do want to remind everybody too that there's a food drive, kind of a quasi-competition between the city of Kenai and Soldotna to see who can get the most pounds of food or dollars that equates to pounds of food. Thank you. So we have till the end of the month.

We, we won the last time. I guess that was a couple years ago, and I don't see why we can't do that again. So that is the end of my report. So that brings us to down to administration reports. City Manager Eubank.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. I'll start with, uh, update on staffing and recruitment. Um, city's pleased to welcome Jason Redinger as a public safety dispatcher, and Benjamin Castrellón— I'm not sure if I'm saying that one correctly— as a rec center attendant.

We— the recruitment for the airport manager position closed. We're interviewing this week. We've completed 5 of 6 interviews, so working through that process. I am— I regret to say we did receive the resignation of Jennifer Anderson, the city's controller. Um, she's been controller here since 2024.

Um, she's going to be leaving the city, so we've started recruitment for her replacement. And, uh, we also have a number of other recruitments going on, um, including a police officer and a utility operator. So anybody looking for a great job and a great place to work, um, I'd recommend you check out the city's website and find the link to our recruitment site. On the Alaska LNG front, there's been a lot of activity in Juneau with the House passing their version of a bill. The Senate's now working on it in this special session to deal with the taxing— taxes for the proposed project.

There was an event held here yesterday where— just to talk about the project and promote it again. The wheels keep spinning on Alaska LNG and we keep monitoring and trying to keep pace. Staff also met with our counterparts or our friends out at Capehead to talk about their pipeline to pipeline initiative. This is an initiative that would expand Avtec to the western side of the peninsula here. They have a new instructional service center here in Kenai.

And we're talking with KPED about partnering on an EDA grant to do some facility improvements, to use some city facilities to help make that happen. You likely are going to see some legislation later this year be brought before council with some joint agreements, but we're continuing to work through that. Working with planning staff for our Beginning the process of doing a land management plan update. I think you saw some of the result of some of that work here this evening. There's many other examples of that.

That plan, I think, was developed maybe about 5 years ago now. A number of lots have been leased or sold. It needs to be updated. And we're gonna start that process to get that plan updated. It's a great tool.

Thank you. For people that are looking to acquire or utilize city land, and we want to make sure it stays in a working condition. DipNet is weeks away now, and staff are starting preparations. You've seen another number of resolutions and things about services we need to purchase for that. But we are getting ready.

And this one's out there in the future a little bit, but they have set the date for Industry Day. It's scheduled for Saturday, August 22nd, uh, from noon to 4. It'll be over on the park strip here, um, as normal. So, um, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions of the city manager?

And we have the city attorney, Mr. Bloom. Thank you, Mayor Naxted, members of council. I don't have anything to report, but I am happy to answer any questions.

City Clerk Skinner. Thank you, Mayor Naxted. In your packet tonight was the annual marijuana license report of all of the open licenses through the last year. Although they didn't change, we did have two come through council when ownerships changed, and we have a new one that's in the review process at this point that will be coming to council here in the next few meetings. And I'm available for questions.

Any questions of the clerk? So that brings us to item L, are there additional public comments? Are there any members of the public who would like to address the council at this time? Seeing no one, we'll bring it down to council comments. Student Rep.

Bowling. I do not have any comments, but I'm available for questions.

Very good.

Councilmember Petty. Thank you, Mayor Nextet. I have no comments, but just want to wish everyone a brilliant sunshine that we are experiencing currently. Thank you. Thank you.

Councilmember Kusana. Yeah, thank you. I did get to attend the Kite Festival. It was awesome. There was a ton of kites.

I mean, like the huge kites that you see and I don't know that I'd ever seen them that close. They're pretty impressive from a distance. They're really impressive up close. The Parks and Rec crew was there. There was a bubble machine.

There was like— seemed like every kid in Kenai was there with a free kite from Walmart. So it was a cool deal. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] And perfect weather for it, I think. Other than that, I would say my dad will be excited to know that there's plenty of rhubarb for his annual pie purchase that he makes every Fourth of July. It's the only reason he goes there.

And I've just been spending a lot of time at Oilers games. So if you like baseball, the Oilers are back. So go check them out. Council Member Solonar. Thank you, Mayor Naxted.

I just want to reiterate all the thank yous to the Kenai Senior Connection for their work and their effort to make the March on Meals a success this year. Just pretty incredible, the amount— $120,000. I'm still kind of wowed by that. I also want to say I enjoyed— I totally enjoyed seeing the flags throughout the town this past weekend, and I'm excited now to see the field of flowers start growing up and And just everybody, just keep enjoying summer and be safe out there. Council Member Daniel.

Oh man, there's nothing left to say but to enjoy the beautiful weather, everyone. Let's get out there. Vice Mayor Askin. Ditto to everything. I'm really impressed with the Senior Center and their Meals on Wheels.

I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to dress up as next year. And I also thoroughly enjoyed the flags. I was working that day and it was, it was great to see that. Thank you. Enjoy the sun and the baby moose.

Watch for the baby moose. We got two in our backyard. Yes, they are everywhere. We have no executive session, no pending items. Having no other business before the body, we are adjourned.