January 22, 2025 Joint Assembly & School Board Facilities Committee

I call the Joint Assembly Juno School District Facilities Committee meeting to order.

Mr. Steininger, would you read the land acknowledgement?

We would like to acknowledge that the city and borough of Juno 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. Gugus Chief.

Miss Hendricks, will you call roll?

Ms. Wall? Present. Mr. Steininger? Here. Ms. Adkinson?

Here. Ms. Sorenson? Here. Ms. Haywood? Here.

Mr. Muldoon? Here. Madam Mayor? Here. The roll is noted.

Thank you. That brings us to approval of the agenda. Any suggested changes to the agenda?

See none. That is so moved. That brings us to approval of minutes. Um, we have the minutes from September 26th, 2023. And maybe the— maybe the mayor too won't be the only ones who were there.

Um, Madam Mayor, would you, uh, move the minutes? Certainly. Um, I move the approval of minutes for September 26, 2023, and ask unanimous consent. Any objections? Seeing none, that's so moved.

That brings us to action items. Donsi Kahini Playground Project. Madam Mayor, thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just letting everybody know that I can only be here for half an hour, um, I'm dealing with a sick dog.

No worries. And I did— that was a good moment of clarification. I believe that we, um, sent out a 2-hour meeting notice for this meeting. I am hoping we can wrap it up within the hour. I know a lot of people are here on their lunch break.

Um, so that is our goal. Um, we will see how the conversation goes.

Um, Miss Koch, I'm hoping you can get us started maybe with a little bit of background on how we got here today and anything you want to say about, um, the, the memo or materials that, um, you've provided. Certainly, Chair Will. Thanks for that opportunity. I just wanted to give a very quick sort of overview of, I think, how we wound up at the place that we are here today. So just to remember, initially we had a CBJ assembly member who had created a CIP for $75,000 for design for a playground at Zonta Kahini.

Uh, so we had design money. We didn't have a total budget for the overall project. Um, as the CBJ Engineering and Public Works Department, we essentially work for client departments, and in this case, our client was the Juneau School District. Um, there were— we had hired a contractor, Corvus Design, to help us, uh, with some of the design work and some of the public outreach. Working with the school district.

Uh, I think then sort of fast forwarding to December 2nd, 2024, there was a PWFC meeting. Uh, this playground was one of the items on that agenda. There was, uh, a request from the, the school district. Um, they, they had wanted a, a project that was, uh, approximately $1.8 million in total project costs. There was some discussion, some discussion at this December 2nd PWFC meeting about the size of that playground, the cost of the playground.

And then at the PWFC meeting, PWFC had advised on a reduced budget for the rest of the project cost of $500,000. So then Engineering and Public Works move forward and having some discussions with the school district, uh, to put forward some options for what is achievable with a total project, uh, budget of that size. And that's how we wind up at the, um, the memo that you have before you today, where there are some different options living within the total project cost of, um, the the $575,000, because we already had the $75,000 for design and the $500,000 for construction. And then I know that Superintendent Hauser had requested that this joint committee meet to discuss some of the options. And we're looking for— we're happy to answer questions from the project management perspective, and we're happy to take whatever guidance this group has and um, take whatever next steps you'd like.

Thank you, Miss Couch, super helpful. Um, and you know, I'm really glad the school district requested this meeting. I think sometimes requests bounce back and forth between the two bodies and we don't necessarily get on the same page about what we're doing together. And so I'm excited for this group to kind of hopefully be helpful for all of us to get on the same page so we can make forward progress here. I'm going to start us with questions.

So, questions from, from the committee on anything you like, whether that be the process or the memo that is in your packet. And then we'll talk about how to move forward once people feel like their questions are sufficiently answered. And so I will look for your hand when you're— when you've got a question.

Miss Atkinson. Uh, thank you, Chair Wall. There are a couple options here that don't have ADA sidewalk as a part of it. I was just wondering, legally, what is the— is there any requirement to have the ADA sidewalk? What sort of What barriers do we run into with that?

Through the chair to Ms. Atkinson, I may, if it pleases the chair, pull up our project manager on this, our chief architect, Jean Wren. She might— I think she might be better positioned to answer that question.

Okay, thank you. Um, yes, there should be some ADA access. The intent is that the playground itself is going to be accessible. There's other ways to achieve that, um, with compacting D1 gravel, um, but the original we went with Um, sidewalk is the best option in terms of longevity and long-term maintenance. So, Mayor Weldon, is there any way any of this project could be phased?

So we start with $500,000, maybe a year or two you get other— there something? Yes. And through the chair to Mayor Weldon, some of the options that are laid out here, definitely Option A is— we wanted to present you with an option for something that could actually have— get you to a playground that children will be playing on. But the Options B and Option C are essentially a phased option that I think would only make sense if there was an intention to allocate future funds to, to build out the playground.

Mr. Muldoon. Yeah, thank you for that, Chair Wohl. Um, so this was in front of the Juneau School District Board of Education Facilities, uh, Committee, uh, the revised three plans, and we did not find it prudent at that time to make any recommendations. Uh, I do agree that some of the recommendations are more ADA compliant than others. The one issue that we really struggled with as a committee, and I think a lot of the focus for our discussion as a full board, is that of the 3 reduced proposals that were in front of our committee, 2 of them did not reach ADA compliance, and the only option that did does not even meet the definition of playground.

And so, I just wanted to provide context of where we are on a district level. On a personal level, I definitely do support seeing a playground built.

There. A little nervous about phasing it out, as we've kind of been down that road as a community for some time for this neighborhood. But, uh, yeah, that's just where we are. And, uh, if there's any questions about how we've handled this on the JSD facility side, more than happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Chair Wolf.

Thank you, Mr. Muldoon. And maybe I'll, um, just remind folks, let's start with some questions before we get into the meat of this conversation. But I do think if we have questions for each other, that's totally appropriate. Um, Miss Sorenson, we spent some time looking at the, uh, comparables that were listed, and, uh, most of the comparables that were listed, with the exception of, uh, capital playground, um, really didn't include any site prep. They were mostly rehabs of existing places.

So when we look at just B, I mean, that's basically the site prep. It's ADA-compliant sidewalks and the base for a potential playground. You know, plus all the drainage work. Um, and as Mr. Muldoon mentioned, it does not really meet the definition of a playground, and because it's uncovered, it would be extremely dangerous in the winter, which would leave the children playing in the road like they are now, you know, where they— where there's some gravel and some safety.

One of the things that I noted, we noted looking at the square foot comparables for those, you know, and comparing it to the square foot comparable to the DH playground, is that at the, the comparable for the Capitol Park notes that it excludes essentially the site prep, the retaining wall, and the Phil. So, you know, I mean, one of the pieces that we see is that the idea that the cost for this playground is so astronomical relative to these others, I don't think is really the case. I think that it's actually much more comparable if we factor in all the factors. Um, I mean, the Mendenhall River Playground, one of the pieces of equipment was donated. So, uh, the, the numbers, I think we really need to go back and, and, and look at them in terms of comparability.

Uh, the, the playground itself, I think from a city perspective, provides a a community resource for that area of our community.

The— I mean, all of our schools provide playgrounds for, you know, the community surrounding them, and this would do that too. And I think that's important. I realize that there's another little itty-bitty playground in the area, but nothing that's this substantive.

So I mean, I would— if, if you're in— Mr. Hauser has worked on, you know, some of these comparable numbers, and, uh, Mr. Main. But I really think that it's important for us to make sure that we're comparing apples to apples. And, and it's also important, you know, I mean, we say we— well, we could do this and we can have this little tiny patch and put one piece of equipment on it. I mean, we've got preschool and I believe daycare or preschool, early, early child, whatever, in, in the Montessori program also. So, you know, I mean, we've got kind of a spectrum of students that we need to have entertained on the playground.

I mean, it's So like, one piece of equipment and, you know, what's available in the covered area, I don't really think gets us to the part where we want to have students to be able to be sufficiently, um, both entertained and physically active during recess.

Thank you, Miss Sorensen. Miss Atkinson. Thank you, Chair Wall. I'm not sure if this is for school board members or for Mr. Hauser. I know that we're talking about and thinking about phased plans potentially.

Is there any intention or a plan perhaps to go and seek other community support? Maybe it could be part built into a phased plan or something along those lines. I'm just wondering where the school district is at on that.

Through the chair to Ms. Atkinson. Yeah, I've had some conversations with some groups that have provided support for playground construction. My understanding in some conversation with Rotary, there would be some interest in potentially helping and supporting that. Nothing firm yet, but we've had some conversations about that and would absolutely look to pursue some of those conversations further. Mayor Weldon.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so my question has to do with deed. How does this work with deed? Is this a problem with deed or not? So that's probably for you, Superintendent.

Through the chair to Mayor Weldon, um, my understanding right now would, uh, this would be a, um, construction project, capital projects for funding that would come through to build a playground. I don't believe because it has a community focus as well, which was really from the very beginning a focus of this space, not only as a playground for the students that are now at Zonta Kihini, but really for a playground that— everything I heard, a needed playground for the Lemon Creek area to support the families and the community that live there. Because it has that community focus as well, I don't believe this will have an impact with the Department of Education and funding from, you know, as far as the local contribution. Thank you, I appreciate that. But just for the record, I did talk to Mr. Shoff, and there are actually two playgrounds in the Lemon Creek area right now.

One small one that Ms. Sorensen referred to, I want to say off Mount Grant Marie, and the other one there is in Eagle's Edge that they donated. And both of those playgrounds are getting money from Parks and Rec this year to improve them.

I'm going to ask a question. Um, my question is about timeline. When the assembly, um, made the decision to include the $75,000, uh, design money in our budget last year, I think we didn't necessarily, um, talk about timeline at that time, and I know that this transition for the students has happened very quickly. We often don't work on that timeline in our process. Can you talk to me a bit about kind of the fastest anything could move?

What's, what's more realistic? What, what are we kind of talking about for Knowing that we don't know what the plan is, what do we think about timeline? Chair, well, thank you for that question. Initially, the timeframe for this and the timeline would have been pretty aggressive to have a playground built and in place at the beginning of the next, the next calendar, the next school year, especially with some of the additional discussions that groups are having. PWFC here, thinking about whatever full body of the assembly would want to have a discussion about, you know, transferring the money.

You probably need two meetings for that. We're probably getting close to, you know, several months before we even have the transfer in place. So we're really talking about the beginning of, uh, two school years from now. So I think we're at the 26th 2027 school year.

Thank you for that. Mr. Muldoon. Yeah, thank you, Chair Wall, and I, I believe my question is in a similar vein as yours, is I'm just trying to understand a timeline, but then also, uh, what does the borough envision as district involvement in this process? You know, this is, um, it's parks land, it's a parks process. You know, we've tried to advise on that somewhat unsuccessfully, and so I'm just curious procedurally and structurally what the borough envisions the district involvement on this process.

And I'm excited to hear that there's park support and involvement from the department towards that neighborhood. And so I'm just curious how we can be good neighbors and good stewards and help.

With that process. Thank you.

Through the chair, can I just ask for a clarification? Mr. Muldoon, are you talking about the 2 other parks or rec playgrounds in the Lemon Creek area, or are you talking about the playground at Zonta Kahini? I'm just talking in a general sense to the project at Zonta Kahini that, you know, we house multiple schools in that building, but it's also a CBJ property goes through the parks process and all that. So I'm just trying to understand the district's involvement as the borough sees it. Thank you.

Thank you for that clarification. I think we, of course, would continue to work with the school district. As I had mentioned, uh, EPW in some ways is— we are project managers to client departments, and in this case, the client department is the school district. And of course, there's assembly involvement in terms of the allocation, the final decisions in terms of the budget for the project. But we would be deeply involved in continuing conversations that we would have with the school district in terms of the design of a playground within an established budget.

Thank you, Ms. Scotch. And I'll just add, Mr. Muldoon, I think that's part of why we're here today is to figure that out. I don't think there's a— I mean, the Assembly has not as a body gotten together and had a conversation about this project yet. Um, so, uh, the— we're trying to figure out what the forward movement looks like, and that's going to need to involve both JSE and the borough.

Miss Sorenson, I would like to digress because I think Mayor Weldon asked a really important question, um, when she asked about where deed would be on this. And my, my wondering is, if the pro— if the project is one bite then it's more of a city thing if we piece it over time.

If the, uh, resolution that Deed is proposing for, uh, decreasing the city's ability to support the schools I'm wondering if we think that that will change, you know, the opportunity for piecemealing the playground together.

Do you understand my question? Okay, so you're familiar with what I'm talking about, about the resolution to reduce the city's— okay. So I, I just wonder— I'm just wondering aloud here because I'm never able to quite get to where Deed is thinking— but if the playground goes forward as a city project, will that be different than if it once it becomes a school playground and community park, but it will be a school playground, that once it becomes a school playground, will the money spent to improve it be considered contributions to the schools? I mean, that's, that's my question.

Ms. Atkinson, do you want to do your best to address that? I can take a stab at it. Yeah, thank you, Chair Wall. Um, the— I think the hard answer there is we probably don't know. Their regulation change is broad and sweeping and seems to take everything.

Um, but whether that will be allowed to stand or not and what the problems they will inevitably run into with that broad of a regulation change, I So I think initially we may have issues, but I don't know if those will stand. I'm sure Mr. Hauser also wants to get in on the answer there.

Thank you, through the Chair. I think an important point, we don't know. The other piece I want to point out is, you know, you asked the question earlier, that's based on kind of currently, but we've not seen a final draft of what that possible proposed regulation could look like. It could be completely different than the one that was circulated earlier. And so we just don't know at this time if a proposal for the regulation change goes through, what it could encompass.

It could be more broad, but we just don't know.

Mayor Weldon. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I apologize because I'm going to take some liberty here. First of all, just so you know, my dog is sick, sick, puking up blood. So I called this morning and I have an appointment at 1:00, so that's why I'm leaving. Otherwise, it wouldn't have happened this way.

So I truly apologize for that because this is a great discussion. I understand Ms. Sorensen's concern. I would hope that because we've already spent money on a design that it's showing that we're already planning that. I'm not against a playground, although with that being said, I'm an alumni of Gaston School where I had gravel, a few swings— I'm sorry, Christine or Ms. Wall, I'm dating myself— and a merry-go-round that all it did was cause a lot of skin off your tongue when you licked it when it was cold. So some of us aren't the brightest anyway.

Um, but at this time, I don't see the city having money. We're enmeshed in the flood. We're going to see at our next Committee of the Whole how badly Eagle Crest is needing money. So I don't see that we're going to be able to come up with $200 not $200 million, $2 million. However, with that also being said, I don't— I do see a path perhaps, and I'm not making any promises, um, of some kind of bond going to the public that's kind of a Parks and Rec bond that may include some part of Eagle Crest.

And I can see where this could probably fit into that. So I'm not slamming the door, but I'm saying that, um, in my opinion, um, I don't see where I can get to this figure right now with what what we have dealing with the flood in Eagle Crest. So with that, as well, I will take your leave, and I am sure you will continue this discussion well. Thank you, Mayor Weldon. Appreciate you getting your, your comments in before you have to go.

Um, we will be thinking of your dog.

Yes, and keeping our fingers crossed. Um, and that's a good segue, I think, into maybe getting more into a discussion here. I, you know, I I— this is— this meeting's come up fast and we're scrambling to kind of get ready for it. Um, uh, and I've got some, you know, personal ideas of how I want this to move forward, but I think this is probably a good opportunity for everyone to get to talk about where they are, where they think their bodies are, because this body cannot make any decisions. We will have to bring everything back.

And so I'd ask everyone to kind of— of course you can speak your own opinion, but also be thinking about the rest of your body and where you think they would like this conversation to move. So I'll take a volunteer for whoever wants to start us off. Ms. Atkinson. Thank you, Chair Wall. Just general how I'm feeling, which is that I think there's a lot of the assembly that wants to see a playground like the full project eventually at Santa Gahini.

And it's tough looking at the, you know, abbreviated versions here, and I don't think any of them are quite satisfying. I understand concerns about a phased approach, especially with the potential regulation coming from DEED, but it's going to be, if I'm going to be frank, based on that regulation change, and Mr. Hauser's right, it could change. There's going to be a lot of problems if that passes. And I think if we start planning for it passing, we find ourselves in a lot of trouble. And so I think moving forward as best we can, hoping that that doesn't pass as much as we can, I think it makes more sense because we'll be hamstringing ourselves a lot right now if we act as if it has already passed.

So I think the mayor's right that we have a lot of budget constraints this year, and I would like to see this full project happen. And maybe with some community support in the future, we can build out a phased approach that includes multiple sources of funds and something that we can all agree to. And I think that for me personally, it was what makes the most sense considering where everyone is at financially.

Miss Sorensen. Um, because I've been around the district for so many years, I was at, uh, Mendenhall River when CBJ Risk Management determined that, uh, the bulk of the playground equipment on the Mendenhall River playground was, uh,.

Too risky, I guess. And as a school, we came back after Christmas, and I cannot tell you exactly which year this was, but we had swings and a rainbow, you know, the climbing rainbow left. All the other equipment was gone. And if you were to go out to Mendenhall River today, every piece of playground equipment that is on the big playground has been purchased through gift wrap sales by the PTO. And if a piece of playground equipment costs $50,000, the PTO has to come up with another $50,000 to get it installed.

So my view of piecemealing a playground together is dim. And the, you know, my experience with the city, um, really having a commitment to playgrounds for students regardless of the community or the school is also a little warped. So I would urge us to try and figure out how we can put something that is more substantial than a large piece of plastic equipment. I mean, Mayor, Mayor Weldon mentioned swings. That'd be good.

Um, but I— the A, I think, just doesn't get us to where we have enough, where we have enough anything. And as long as the slab is uncovered with some kind of, of, uh, agent that's going to keep it from being an ice rink. You know, I mean, it's, it's not helpful because, you know, you can't even put a tetherball on that and have it be safe. So, and, you know, not to outdo the mayor, but, um, I lived in a place that was highly risk-averse, and all we had was asphalt and paint on our playground, you know, but everybody became really good at 9 kinds of hopscotch. So, but I mean, what the expectation is— excuse me— what the expectation is in our community of what a school playground looks like is, uh, not one piece of playground equipment.

So, you know, I mean, believe me, I, I know what it feels like to feel like you're squeezing turnips for juice for money. But, um, yeah, but I'm, you know, I mean, I believe that this is important. It— I mean, we have such a broad age range in that building. We need to have more than what any one of these says. And, and the only, you know, plus— I mean, one person on the facilities committee thought B was good because at least it was something that was a plan for a more extensive playground.

But whatever we do has to be ADA compliant. And if you've ever pushed a wheelchair on gravel, you'll know that that's not ADA compliant. So, uh, that's sort of where I am. And, and, you know, I don't like to bore people with my personal stories, but I, you know, I know what it is to piecemeal a playground over 20 years.

Thanks for that perspective. I'm going to quickly interrupt just because you brought up a question for me, uh, for staff. Staff, you know, if, um, we, we right now we have a few options around the $500,000 mark. We have an option at $1.8 million. Um, what would the work be to look at options in between?

If, if that's— I don't know if that's a ton of work or something Easy chair. Well, certainly if we were directed by, by this body to look at designs in between the $1.8 million total project cost and the $575 million total project cost, I mean, that's, that's doable and we could, we could come back and present what those options look like. Thank you. Other comments from the committee?

Mr. Steininger, um, I guess I'll kind of echo things that both Mayor Weldon and Miss Atkinson have said about, you know, the availability of money. And when we're trying to think about how we're funding this and what we're able to achieve with what we have, um, some of the comments Miss Sorensen made about concerns about the new deed regulations kind of You know, sort of maybe shifted the way I'm thinking about that. And I guess it's maybe somewhat of a question for you, Mr. Hauser, but not something I'm expecting you to answer now. But you think about kind of that 2 paths of the deed regulations goes through as they are, and this becomes a project that has to fit within the cap.

Um, how does this project get prioritized within your budget? At that stage. And, you know, the other route where maybe the deed regulations get changed, this doesn't have to fit within the cap, you know, how is this project prioritized amongst the other things that we as an assembly can do to assist the district with its financial issues? Because, you know, we have a limited amount of money, you have a lot of needs, looking for the ways that we can help assist the district. With those, you know, more creative outside of the cap funding items.

How does this fit within, you know, those other needs that you have? You know, when I look at, you know, options up to $1.8 million, you know, that difference of $1.3 million, where and what can that do for the rest of the district if we were to spend that amount of money? And that's kind of part of how I'm thinking about this and why sort of I think I'm, I'm falling towards that Option A. And thinking about it in a phased approach, because I feel like maybe those dollars could go to other needs for, you know, other schools around the district and be distributed in a different way. I guess that's somewhat of a question, but not something I'm expecting you to answer here on the spot to, you know, rank the priorities.

Through the chair to Mr. Steininger, I'll try to address some of it. I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty, but, you know, as we look at two potential paths with, let's say, the deed regulation possibility if it were to go through and it were to have an impact on this project. It's important to note that as this conversation is happening, we're just talking about this one project, but if that were to pass, it would have a broader implication on a lot of the non-instructional support that the Juneau School District receives for what is considered outside the cap, but we really consider non-instructional. We're talking student activities, we're talking potentially transportation, food services, rally, all these, you know, all these additional non-instructional supports would become part of that weight of what do we fund from a district's perspective, because just under 90%, about 87-88%, is salary and budget. Of the district's operating fund.

If all of a sudden you have $2 to $3 million that, you know, we have to consider now as part of local contribution additional, then that comes out of really what is instructional. And those are very difficult conversations to have because then it becomes a conversation of what program are we cutting, how many teachers or staff are we eliminating to be able to have high school, middle school activities, to be able to fund a playground, to be able to— I mean, that's— those are the conversations. So that is a much more concerning conversation, which is why this deregulation is of such concern to not just the Juneau School District but other districts across the state that receive non-instructional funding outside of local contribution, the maximum local contribution. To, to kind of answer the other question you have, um, for if the, if the deregulation, let's say, doesn't move forward or it doesn't have an impact on a project like this, I think there's still a cost associated with it that has to come from somewhere. And if the district is over a phased approach, and I, I don't want to lose sight of just under 250 students You know, there's just about 350 students at the Zonta Kehiti campus with Yakuska Daikahiti Montessori Borealis and JCCS Juno Community Charter School, but about 244 right now based on our October count enrollment numbers, but just under 250 students are pre-K through 8th grade and utilize a playground.

I mean, that's about the size of a lot of our elementary schools right now that have a playground.

They don't have access to a playground, and that's a piece that they have access to a covered play area, but playground equipment they currently don't have access to. And that is, that is a concern and making sure that they have that ability to have access to a space to play a safe space to play. From the very beginning, our focus was on ADA compliance and making sure that that space, that community and school space was available and accessible by all. And so that's a piece I think is always important to these conversations as we stage it out. Even if that money is able to be part of— not considered, if you will, that local contribution— there still is going to be a cost, and that cost is going to have to— from the district side, if the district is putting up a percentage of or a part of it, those are difficult conversations because at this point we still don't know what public education funding is looking like.

In the future. We haven't seen a meaningful increase in the base student allocation since 2017. You know, you know more than most the inflationary pressures and costs put on districts when it's relatively flat funding or one-time funding. And so those are very difficult conversations to look at even as we consider the deregulation and don't consider it in this conversation. The costing still comes through.

And the other piece I think is important A lot of the equipment that will be purchased, if it's staged over time, we don't know what the impacts might be on tariff costs because some of the equipment is coming from outside the country. So there could be additional costs associated that we don't realize in the next 6 months to a year that we might not see at this time. You know, we just don't know some of those increased costs. So we might think that a staged approach is maybe a smarter way of approaching it just because of budgetary constraints, but that might end up costing 20%, 30% more in the long run. We just don't know that.

Mr. Muldoon, you've had your hand up for a while. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Well, I just figured I'd get my 2 cents in if we're at the comment stage of things. Um, so I served on the Parks and Recreation Special Committee for the master plan for the 2019 one. That was an update to the 2007 revisit of the master plan, which is which was originally passed in 1997.

And during that time, 11% of our residents lived in Lemon Creek and sought increased accessible recreation opportunities. The assembly at that time asked the residents to hang on a little bit. We just couldn't afford it. We said the same thing when noting that Lemon Creek was a parks desert in the 2019, asked those folks to hang on a little bit further. The upgrades to Segulu Yi that the mayor had mentioned earlier, that work is a result of that process, and I'm very appreciative of the borough's support on that item.

But I do have to note that it took 29 years for that to come to fruition. And, you know, we have kids in kindergarten through 12th grade in that building. We asked them to wait 29 years. They are not going to be students. And they will not be recreating on that playground as such.

You know, the items surrounding accessibility have been discussed at length. I'm not going to add to that, but I would note that the borough's project manager for the master plan said that the underpinning principle was that we are trying to provide accessible recreation to everyone, and I don't feel that we have accomplished that. So I, um. You know, I can appreciate that times are tough and money's tight right now, but I think that that's always going to be our situation. And I think that we, you know, as someone that has been around Parks and Rec and worked on this item for about a decade or so, the times that we'll have an opportunity like this to build in Lemon Creek and for a school park, it's not going to come back to us.

In any way, shape, or form similar to this one. So I think that there is a sense of timeliness. I can definitely respect us wanting to be deliberate and try and get things done, even if it can't land this year. I would support something landing within the next 2 to 3 years, but I, I don't think that as a district we would have hired a project manager and engineer staff to come back with a presentation of something that is neither ADA compliant nor meeting the definition of a playground. And so I'm hopeful that we can have something that is both and in short order, and I will leave it at that.

Thank you, Chair Will. Thank you, Mr. Muldoon. Um, Ms. Joni Haywood, you haven't had a chance to speak. Is there anything you'd like to add to this conversation? Just going to put my hand up.

Your timing is impeccable. Thank you, Chair Will. Um, so I sit as the site council rep for Montessori, and so they, um, they have a preschool K through 8th grade. Charter has K through 8. Um, I haven't spoken to Charter.

I assume it's a concern of theirs, but I know having been at the site council last week, it is definitely a concern of Montessori. We spent about half of the meeting discussing it. Um, and so I think that there's real concern about both the safety for the children that are in that school. Um, with the current setup, because the street had been plowed earlier this year and the ball field was rippled ice, um, they put cones out. So trying to impose safety, it's still kind of a street.

And so they were playing basically in the street, which optics aren't great, and I try to be cognizant of optics. So, um, so I do want— I know that there's kind of this funding I do feel like there is a joint presence in this with the school district.

And yet, I, you know, I think leads on the project. So, but trying to maybe sort some of that piece out, and like you said, we're all why we're here. Thank you. I'm going to use this opportunity to say my piece and. To before we continue the conversation.

Thank you all for your reflections here. I think we are— I'm hoping there is a path forward that maybe compromises between or, you know, achieves our goal of ensuring that our kids have equitable access to the same things that others in other schools have access to, um, and recognizing that, uh, the original cost of this project is likely not an amount that the assembly can afford right now. And so Um, I— my preferred path forward would be that we, um, send a few options to our assembly sketched out. The assembly has not yet talked about this. A committee talked about it.

They started with a number. We've got a few options associated with that number. I think we've heard from the school board folks that none of those options meet their goals, um, and so I would be interested in maybe Maybe we call that list down to 1, and we ask staff to maybe bring us a few other options, and the assembly can— the school board, it would be great to get your feedback on those options, and the assembly can have the conversation about what they're willing to pull from the budget. So I'm, I'm the chair, so I'm not supposed to be making a motion, but I'll tell you where I'm at right now.

Miss Atkinson, did you want me to try for a motion, Madam Chair? Okay. Um, well then, I—. And you guys can tell me what you think of this motion— I would move that we direct staff to draft, uh, more options in between the $575,000 and $1.8 million project cost. Not with specific number values, but more projects that more completely sort of solve— care for the goals that we've discussed today and just sort of scaled back versions.

I ask for Nino's consent.

Any objections to that motion? Can I just ask staff, is that clear to you all? Do you feel okay about that motion?

Yes, I do, Chair. And some of the initial thoughts that came to mind would be, you know, thinking about something that's in the $750,000 range, something that's in the $1.2 million range, just trying to get— in some ways, I just want to make sure that I'm following your intended directions, that I think we want something similar to Option A in terms of like a ready-to-use playground. What do we get for $500,000? 1,800 And maybe 750 and 1,250 or something like that. So you have options that are in, in the spectrum.

Yes, I think that's the intent with the idea that make, make them functional. You know, you can choose the numbers based on ADA compliance as well.

Yes, thank you, that's, that's clear.

All right, seeing no objection to that motion, that passes.

Any other committee member comments or questions? We can entertain that now. Miss Sorensen, I would like to—. I would like to thank I said I would like to take this opportunity to thank the city for meeting with us today. Thank you.

We appreciate the work you've done on this so far. Mr. Muldoon. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Well, uh, what, what is the borough seeing as the next steps needed for the district? As the facilities chair and somebody who's famous for not being the best at sketch scheduling.

I just want to make sure that I'm able to accommodate and get things agended and, uh, on calendar when needed. Thank you. I'll, um, put together a, a proposal here, and you all can tell me if this makes sense. Um, I would maybe ask the— when the staff have prepared some more information, they bring it back to the school board. The school board you all can provide some comments, um, on those options, and that can be forwarded on to the full assembly for us to have a conversation.

Um, unless you all would like this group to meet again, uh, we could, we could do that. But I was thinking maybe send it to the school board and then send it to the assembly.

Yeah, so, um, once staff had prepared some additional options, that, that those options can go to the school board. You all can, um, ideally provide some comments back to us on those options, and then those options would go to the assembly for further discussion and decision-making. Thank you for that, Chair. Well, if I could just get one brief follow-up for clarification. Um, it sounds like if we follow this timeline that we would not be able to meet deadlines for any construction beginning, uh, this fall.

Is that accurate?

I'm seeing head nods from staff. Perfect, thank you. I just wanted to get that one on record, make sure we're all on the same page. I know that that's going to be a sensitive item there. Thank you.

Thank you for that important process question, Mr. Muldoon.

Any other comments from committee members before we adjourn? Miss Jamie Haywood. I, I do want to thank you for the flexibility and the consideration, um, on looking at other options. Um, I know that we're not going to meet the timeline. It I know that was super aggressive for the start of this next school year, but if there was something that would happen or could possibly happen mid-year, mid-school year next year, if that's a consideration.

And I don't need an answer now, but I just want to throw that out there. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Go ahead, Ms. Koch. Through the chair to Ms. Haywood, that's certainly something that we'll take under consideration. But as we all know, in Alaska we have a construction season, and doing construction, uh, for, you know, fall and winter is, is really challenging and generally more expensive.

Thank you. And I'll add one other comment, which is we'll, we'll see how quickly this all moves forward, but from my perspective, ideally the Assembly is making this decision during our regular budget process. If we're not going to achieve next fall anyways, we would be able to consider this request as part of our, our normal budget. So I'm hoping that we can be on that timeline.

All right, any other comments?

Go ahead, Miss Sorenson. Well, we'll forward our calculations on per square foot cost to you for comparables, just so that you will have that, because I think it really does sort of help because the DH playground is so many more square feet than any of the others. Thanks for that.

All right, um, that's going to bring us to our next meeting date. We do not want to have one on the calendar. I will flag for you all that, um, the assembly is just starting our conversation about whether we want to put any bond questions on the ballot for Next fall, we usually start around now. Schools needs, knowing that you have many, is on the list of potential things that we might want to include. If the assembly decides to move that direction, we would bring this group back together to collaboratively come up with, you know, what are the high priority needs that we'd want to put in front of voters if there's will for that.

Um, and with that, that That brings us to adjournment, so I will adjourn the meeting of the Joint Assembly JSD Facilities Committee meeting. This is—.