May 20, 2026 City Council Regular Meeting

Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, you're just the father of sunshine, aren't you? The message, deliver it. Okay, we're on YouTube.

Cameron, maybe. That just made my whole day, and now my week.

And see, I vote, see. She just heard everything.

That's cool. That it's working.

Turns out I had way too much to drink there. Yeah, choices, life choices there.

Yes.

This clock, why don't you just take them down?

7 O'clock right now. Yeah. All right, are we ready? It's the real time. 7.

Yeah. Yes, are we ready online? Ready or not, I sing. Okay, you're ready. Excellent.

Great. So, uh, I'm gonna call the regular city council meeting of May 20th to to order at 7. Um, will you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Take the roll. Mayor Smith. Here.

Deborah Adams. Here. Lee Collins. Here. Aaron Hanson.

Here. Daisy Genson. Here. Mike Mitchelson. Here.

Here. Here. All the council is present. Wow, great, thanks everyone. Um, we've got the regular agenda before us.

Are there any modifications to the agenda as presented?

Hearing no objection, we'll consider the agenda approved. Disclosures of conflicts of interest and ex parte communication— anything to declare based on the primer that the clerk has been including, which is great. Okay, communications by and petitions from visitors. We don't have any scheduled guest speakers. Are there audience members who want to come and comment on agenda items?

Yes, there are. Hello, my name is Chris Marino. I'm at the 10:00 AM gathering. Um, I came to make some comments on agenda item 9, uh, the discussions about raising the mill rate and school funding. Um, reading through the budget memo included with agenda item 9, tonight's meeting packet, you can't help but have a strong feeling of frustration toward the city administration's attempt to use the school district funding request as a scapegoat to push through an unnecessary property tax hike.

City administration has laid out a grim narrative. We're being told that Cordova is staring down a downward financial spiral. We're told our resources are bare bones, our fishing forecast is poor, and the funding ongoing request is unsustainable without extracting more money from local citizens. To fix this, staff is recommending a mill rate hike to 12.07, forcing the average Cordova family to take a $404 a year hit to their household budgets. We're told this is a necessity to cover the Cordova School District's $181,000 budget increase.

I don't believe it's a necessity, and the provided budget memo clearly defends that point. It's time to stop pretending Cordova has an unavoidable revenue problem when perhaps Portola has a bad decision problem. Just a few meetings ago, revenue was quite literally knocking on the door of City Hall. This exact council had an offer on the table to sell city land for $171,000 in cash. The proposer was willing to make an upfront cash deal, which would have put that land onto our tax rolls permanently.

Instead, this council voted to reject that upfront cash. He chose to hand the land over to a nonprofit with $0 to its name and zero obligation to ever pay a single penny in property taxes. The irony is impossible to ignore. He walked away from $171,000 in cash, and after all the city fees and permitting attached to the development, that number would have drastically risen. Now tonight, you're sitting here debating a recommendation of city administration to force a tax hike on local property owners to generate $181,000 for our schools.

The math is very troubling, to say the least. He passed up nearly that amount of money a little over a month ago. And now you want local families to pay for your charity. And it gets worse. On top of that rejected revenue, the memo states that the government just announced $610,749 distribution in Secure Rural Schools money.

Even after fully funding the $124,000 Second Street grant match, the city's sitting on $486,613 in un budgeted cash. But instead of using that federal cushion to bail out taxpayers, or fund the school. The city admin wants to pocket the entire half million dollars for a municipal capital project account while keeping our property tax hike locked in place. The recommendation provided by the city is double dipping on the backs of Cordova residents while using the school district as a scapegoat to build a cash cushion to cover up questionable policy choices. You cannot reject for sure revenue and then turn around and look Cordova families in the eye and say you'd have to raise your taxes to keep the schools funded.

In addition to the Secure Rural Schools money designated to aid municipalities in school funding, the city also has ordinance 1231 funds to cover unexpected cash flow needs that may arise, currently around $2.5 million. I'm asking that you protect Port Owens from a senseless tax hike. When the June 3rd meeting comes, reject the proposed 12.07 mill rate, use the federal Secure Rural Schools money for its intended purpose, and start making decisions that value the taxpayers of this community. If an increase of the mill rate is to be approved, I want it to be made clear that that tax increase is not a consequence of the school district's funding request. It's a consequence of this council's decision to prioritize padding the city's bank accounts to the tune of $629,613 over the affordability of community.

Thank you. Many do.

Any other audience members?

Oh.

I'll try to. Great, thanks. Any other audience comments about agenda items? I see staff, you're welcome to comment. Chairpersons and representatives of boards and commissions, I think we have— okay, approval consent calendar, we don't have that, we don't have minutes.

We don't have bids, proposals, or contracts. Reports of officers.

I had Secure World Schools written in my report of officers. Imagine that. I did not include a written report. I'm sorry, I didn't get to it last week. And see.

I've just been trying to track what's happening with the state operating budget, and I think most of you probably saw what happened with the legislation about the defined benefits legislation that went down along with the— or because of— not because of the Governor not getting the terms that he wanted for the natural gas pipeline. Anyway, that was kind of a bummer. We're still, I guess, waiting to see how he approves and what form the governor approves the operating budget legislation because he has line item veto power. So we'll wait and see what, what comes through from that process. My comment about the whole budget process, which is Apropos of what Chris was just talking about was, I wanted to urge people who are listening and to people who are following this issue, especially here, to not to oversimplify what's happening with our decisions here tonight, because I think the whole issue around school funding is it's not just there's a gap locally and we may or may not raise property taxes to cover it.

We know that funding coming from the federal level is a lot less than it has been. In many forms, which means that the city is having to make up for a lot of different things. It's not just the school. We know the fuel costs are increasing. We know that— I don't know if people saw the opinion piece that Mayor LaFrance of Anchorage and Mayor Hopkins of Fairbanks had in the ADN a couple days ago, talking about the fact that if the local property tax valuation goes up, then the state contribution goes down.

So It's automatically built into the system that we're getting less funding from the state than we should be, even to keep up with inflation. So I just wanted to encourage people who are following all this, like I said, not to oversimplify the whole dynamic because there are so many factors feeding into the fact that we have a lot less money to work with in general to do chip sealing on our roads, to pay our maintenance staff, to maintain our vehicles, to maintain our recreation facilities, to pay our staff, to support the school. So there's a whole lot going on. Um, yeah, and yeah, please just don't oversimplify, I guess, is my message, because, um, so that's my main report. I did want to also comment on, uh, the Secure Rural Schools program is about to open up applications for seats on a committee to help with allocating the Title II money.

That's more, considered more discretionary, I would say. It's money that can go to fund projects that are on or adjacent to Forest Service lands, and it can be for things like, I know that the Watershed Project has applied for money for culvert replacements. There have been trail projects funded with that money, a bunch of different things. And it's really cool to sit on a body where you get to spend money and get to help make things happen. So if anybody's interested in serving on that committee, I think the notice of applications will be coming out in the next few weeks, I would say.

Yeah. So, and it will be a Chugach region-wide committee. We used to have a Prince William Sound committee and there was a committee over on the Kenai. They're going to combine those two because Over on the Kenai, they couldn't field enough people to apply. We had a really active, hardworking, committed committee, have had for years, and have found lots of good ways to spend that money.

But they have been unable to field enough people to fill those seats. So now it's going to be one committee for both regions, but still spending two pots of money. We don't have to— we're not combining our money with Kenai money. So Lots of these 16 seats, 8 from Cordova, 8 from the other side. Okay.

Yeah. Great. Yeah. So it's a really great opportunity for anybody who wants to participate. The meetings happen at the most once every 2 years.

It's not a committee that meets a lot. When it does meet, it's kind of an all-day thing or maybe 1.5 days, but it's not a huge lift on an annual basis.

So yeah, so happy to answer questions about any of that or anything else that we've been talking about.

Thanks. Great, then I will— we can move on to the city manager's report. And also the city manager report into this packet. Um, Do you have some pretty cool news that, um, the audit team is leaving early because we are so good, and I'm super proud of the finance team and how they pulled that together. I mean, the auditors are like, wow, from last year to this year is just unbelievable.

So I think we should be very grateful for our finance director. Yep. And the team knows too, because I have to pull on stuff at Mach 90 every morning when the auditors are doing stuff at 4:30. And it's just because they've worked together so well over the year, you know, worked out the craziness. '24, Because, you know, we're doing the '25 audit and it's just, yeah, it's impressive.

I mean, the auditors in Gavin are just, they fly. Because it's so nice. So I just want to say that they're doing a great job. Cheryl's got a great handle on it. Team does a great job.

Brendan Nemitz, Tammy Merritt, Pam, it's just, it's incredible. So just want to let that know. Everybody gets hit by that. We all get to pull something, but those guys take the brunt. Um, so they're leaving tomorrow.

We're having lunch after they're gone and celebrate a little bit. But yeah, it's good things.

Um, other than that, I've just been, uh, finalizing the police truck. We're almost there. It's a lot of paper stuff back and forth. That truck should be here by mid-June, which will be really nice. Well, no, I'll have to say that's contingent on Alaska State Police Federal.

But that's good. Um, I'll get, um, all good running vehicles in, you know, the door with K9 unit, and maybe we can have another K9 dog in the future.

Just been working on liability insurance a lot, learning a lot, talking to a lot of different brokers to talk about some of the deductibles and some of the other things that maybe we could look at to help us save a few bucks. Insurance, medical insurance, have been talking with that broker as well. Things are looking better. We are continually looking at where we're at. We're doing some alternatives where maybe we split from the hospital for some crazy reason.

Smaller groups are getting better options than larger ones. So we're investigating every route possible. And then we've also looked into the And I'm going to say this wrong, HSA, okay, HSA, which is having a health savings account. And we are doing that this year, and so we're going to continue to do that moving forward. And that has saved city employees savings.

So we're trying to, you know, figure out ways to make things a little less, little less expensive but still good. So that's all I got. Would be nice to get questions, certainly open. Thanks, Sam. Any questions from council members or council member online or the management?

Hey.

Let's move on to the city clerk's report. Um, I've included in there the vacancy of the PSWAC board member that is a city rep. Um, the next meetings they have are in October, so it'd be great to get that filled before then. And those meetings are in October, probably be like the first week of October. Um, so please spread that around. Hope the people are listening and looking at it.

It's on Facebook and the website and in this packet, sent in gov delivery. So we'll see if we can't get someone. It's kind of a unique individual because it can't— we can't hold a, uh, permit, Area 8 permit, because there's enough of them already on the board. Um, I, I see that last meeting though you guys built the Housing Supply Accelerator. We appointed the last TRAILS member, so we're in good shape on boards and commissions minus this month.

That's all my report on. Anybody else's questions? Thank you. Yeah, I, I asked around a little bit last night to see if you meeting with anybody Because it has to be somebody who's not a permit holder, not, um, not, or not related to a processor, not doing— yes, affiliated work, affiliated with a processor, village, or— yeah, or I guess either of them, and/or a processor. So somebody who runs a tender wouldn't be— no, no, no, no, I could ask though.

Depends who's funding their process. I mean, generally have a contract with the processors, right? So, but yeah, right, that's right. Yeah, but not if they're— maybe if they're not an owner, maybe if they're just a tender loading man. I don't know, I, I, I have to look into it.

Yeah, we have somebody in the— uh, I'm sorry, Ryan Schutze.

Yeah, good. The Venn diagram is— yes, the little one in the middle is pretty small. Okay, um, all right, so we don't have correspondence in this packet, and that brings us to an board, uh, a resolution.

Resolution 05-26-21.

Entertain a motion. Mayor, who was after? Uh, I move to approve Resolution 05-26-21 adopting the City of Cordova 2026 Local Hazard Mitigation Plan. Back end.

Excellent. Did you hear me? And the last— Astro and second lady, Council Member Astro. Yeah, uh, obviously we needed— when the last update was 2018, and we've been moving through a process with city staff as kind of with public comments since '24. And I guess I didn't realize too that having this in place makes it able for us to have a mitigation plan that's within 5 years allows us the opportunity to pick up some federal dollars as well.

So we're missing out on those opportunities that might come up. I haven't looked it over with a fine-tooth comb, but it looks like it's very comprehensive and Time to move it forward.

I did look through it with a fine-tooth comb when it came out for public review in '25 with the Planning Commission and put comments in through them. And so, um, yeah, and I would have checked it out online. So, and they addressed everything I had a concern about. So it's pretty comprehensive. Any other council member comments or Yeah, council members at table or online.

Well, it's great that this puts us in a position to be eligible for grant money. That's really a good step. So, okay, all those in favor of adopting Resolution 05-26-21.

To approve the local hazard mitigation plan, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. That was everyone.

Motion carries.

Okay, so let's go to the big issue at hand— council discussion of Port of a School District funding Other revenue shortfalls and setting the 2026 mill rate. So we have a memo in the packet from the city manager, which follows up a little bit on the memo from the May 6th meeting where manager laid out some options. I think the one new piece of information in here is, as was brought up in the agenda comments, that we have learned about the second payment for Forest Service receipts were, as the city manager points out, we're booking them both in 2026, but they came in 2 payments because one was effectively for— I don't know if you say that one was for 2025 and one was for 2026, or one was for 2024 and one was for 2025, but effectively they are both showing up and being entered as revenue this year. So, but so now we have the amount for the second one. Yeah, um, and did you want to make any other comments, Sam?

I— no, I feel like there are a lot of things. I'm kind of curious to see if there's any questions what y'all want to talk through.

Um, you know, I didn't just throw them down on the paper what we're dealing with every day at the city, so I'm more than happy to answer your question.

I guess just to recap, when we— I mean, maybe people went back and looked at it also, but, um, at the May 6th meeting, the options were, uh, in terms of the school's request for additional funding: lower or don't fund the request. We did lower it. Uh, raise the mill rate, take some portion or all of it from the $3 million that we've borrowed from the permanent fund and use at the time the unknown amount of Forest Service receipts. We now know what that number is. And those are, I think, still essentially the options in front of us.

We—. I think the important point that I'm trying to make is sustainability. The only sustainable way to have that revenue for the future for the school is to do it. We may never see commercial seats again. I don't know.

Nobody knows. I mean, we're not budgeting— they're not budgeted in '26. There's no anticipation to be budgeting them in '27 at the direction of council. So it's not a guaranteed set income. We do well above the minimum amount, the school.

And, you know, I'm not— I think it's great. Like, we could do it, we can do it, but we can't continue to cut the city's budget to funding. And that is where we live right now. You take $181,000 and we don't decide how to fund it. I mean, we don't have any money for the $192,000 that we spent on the oil and gas team taxes that we didn't know about, the pool, $100 grand, $35,000 for a master building.

We're kind of hurting ourselves, like we're cutting our own throats by doing— we need to have a sustainable way to continue to fund the school. We're hurting the school, we're hurting ourselves. That's just my take-home point. Like, how are we going to keep moving forward? We don't know what's going to happen between now and the end of the year.

The money that is in the $2.5 million, we've already eaten $500,000 of that out. It's gone. This keeps us running from June at our lowest revenue point when we're paying a lot of money out. But we're not getting any revenue. It's for cash flow.

That was the intention of that. So I think we really have to be considerate, that's probably a better word, of how we're spending the money and what we're spending it on. And how we're going to sustain if it's for something that goes over again and again. You can't hire an employee. Talk to them during the meeting.

You don't have the sustainability. It's, it's important to really think this past right then. Thanks, Council Member. Council Member Cronin, do not see who, who was first. I don't have— I know it was Aaron.

I'm not the hell—. But okay, Council Member. So I, I do want to start off with that land sales topic. Fail to sit you out, in my opinion. Um, there are too many things, uh, working against us, um, as far as the budget goes.

Um, I do appreciate, you know, the member coming in saying what he did and, um, being here and adding his opinion, but we are— we're in a really bad spot. Um, and I will beat this to death every meeting that we have completely stripped our maintenance budget for every department. Our facilities are aging, our equipment is aging. That requires more attention and more cost. Our facilities are aging, which causes raised utilities.

The, the overall cost utilities are raised. Um, the schools are important. I just went to the 6th grade graduation, each class, big kids, this, uh That's why young families are coming back. It's because of school and Cordova. We don't have a huge revenue gain, in my opinion, that is right now.

There's—. We, we need to continue on the road that we are with expanding the housing to have more sustainable room and growth for the community to, to continue to flourish. We are up against a, um, cannery that's not going to operate, that's going to lower our general revenue. So I think if we want to maintain things that we have, want to maintain the school and the amenities that we have, it's going to take more money. So that brings to raising taxes.

Which only goes so far. And then you have to ask your question of what— at what point in the city's budget, when we can't pay for the things that are necessary, can you keep the workforce busy? They can't afford the tools and they can't afford the, the items that are necessary to complete their job. Then what? We're, we're up against raising taxes and cutting employees.

I don't understand. There's no other way that I can run it through my mind, knowing that even though that we're balanced, we are behind.

So that's, that's my two cents.

Thank you.

The word sustainable, though, I don't think is a good word to use because sustainability also applies to the mill rate. We are on a very steep curve here and a teetering piece of wood, and you can only tax the community members to a certain point, and then people are going to leave. I think we've reached that point. Fuel alone. The sales tax we're going to get from fuel is going to be, I believe, more than we budgeted.

But just as an example, in 2025, my sales tax for one month in April for last year doubled this year for fuel. So I went from $875 to $1,750. And that is one month, and that's across the board. We get the tax from the fuel dock, we get sales tax online. Those prices are increasing and that tax is increasing.

So I think that we will see more than we budgeted for that, but we cannot continue to solve our problems by taxing the property holders of the community. We cannot. That is not sustainable. That may be sustainable in the definition of where the money is going to come from, but it's not sustainable for the people who are carrying the burden. Taxpayers cannot afford it.

We cannot afford more taxes. I think the $436,000 that's coming in off those Secure Rural Schools will take care of that extra money we wanted to bring to the school district. And no, it may not be here next year, but the answer is not to raise the mill rate. The answer is not to put more burden on the community at this point. Everything is going up, and we did just raise the mill rate again.

We can't, we can't continue to suck dry the folks that are, that are sustaining the community that we have.

Any council members want to add to Just one point I'd like to bring up is that things might change for the better in Juneau with the November election, and the attitude towards funding schools might change. I mean, right now we have a pretty unsupportive funding source, guttlu leader in Juneau. Who seems to be hostile towards schools. And I, I'm hoping that that changes. And that the base student allocation will, from that point, go up.

And so, yeah, there are some grim future outlooks here, but I'm hopeful that something's going to change in June.

Yeah, I mean, what I'm hopeful for in the near term is that the money— they've allocated an extra $144 million for schools for this year, so really hoping some of that comes to bear. But we'll see, not guarantee, and we won't know for another, I don't know, 6 weeks. Yeah, Council Member Zaster. Um, a couple of thoughts going back to a few things that have been said already. Ashley, uh, What Councilmember Adams said really resonates with me.

We're in a very unusual time right now. Fuel prices are going through the roof because of what's going on geopolitically right now. I mean, it's just a weird bubble we're in with tariffs and oil prices just going through the roof over things that may change here in the next year or so. Let's hope they do. Let's hope they do with changes of leadership.

I also want to go back to Mayor's comments about in general what we're facing isn't just about what, what we approved for additional funding to the school. It is so much more complicated. I just want to reiterate that for folks that are listening, that it's not just about the school. It's a million things we've been dealing with for the last several years when it comes to the budget. It has been getting gloomier and gloomier.

So I think it's disingenuous to say any decision we make on mill rate is specifically because of school costs. That's just not the case. Um, I, and again, I think I, again, I just want to recognize that what our council member Randy just said, uh, you know, the mill rate we raised it last year, costs have only gone up for community members for a variety of things— food costs, fuel costs— and there is truly a point at which people won't be able to continue to pay higher rates. What that means for this year's mill rate, I'm not exactly sure yet, but that is something we have to consider because it's, it's, yeah, it's certainly not a status quo from where we were last year. We raised the mill rate.

Things are vastly different. They are a year from that time to where we are today. So, I mean, it's, it's, yeah, it's dramatically different to where we were a year ago. So lots to consider there.

Any comments online? Just want to make sure everybody gets a chance to chime in if they want, or anyone has comments. I definitely have comments here. Can you hear me okay? Yeah.

Well, I think the way that I come in on this is You know, fuel tax has certainly gotten brought up, and if you consider there's 400 boats in the gillnet fleet, when I was only gillnetting, I burned about 5,000 gallons of gas a year. So if you say that the whole fleet burns about that much, that's 2 million gallons of gas. And I've heard it from multiple members of the fleet, from our our Russian community, from people that live here, from people that are coming here, that they're planning on not coming to town nearly as often. So that's gonna, that's, people are gonna camp out and that's gonna reflect in local businesses. I mean, you know, after this winter where we're seeing very few businesses open, it's not gonna help the ones that we have.

And so I think if there was ever a year to throw the community a bone, it's this year and don't raise the mill rate. And, you know, I understand that we shouldn't be budgeting for forest receipts, and I'm glad that we're not. But in my mind, it makes sense to pull that request from the school district out of that forest receipts and use the rest of it for unforeseen fuel costs, maintenance. I think it's not going to be hard to absorb that. Just with cost overruns from a variety of factors.

I just ordered some stuff from AML and there was a 30% fuel shipping surcharge. So that's going to have a big effect on our community as well.

I think the other thing in terms of the mill rate is, you know, when we're looking at processors that have other locations in Prince William Sound, there's sort of a balance to strike here because you know, the number of, of county workers that it takes to operate one of those plants, you know, they have a lot of money in facilities down there. And so the mill rate affects them a lot more than it's going to affect the average person. And so I think we need to at least discuss that when we're making our decision. And, you know, $400 for a household doesn't sound like that much, but, you know, there's a big segment of our community that doesn't have a regular job where you get annual raises or raises every once in a while. I mean, fish prices are lower or similar to what they were 10 years ago.

And when you add inflation in, they're generally less across the board. And so I just want to be conscious of that before anybody starts making decisions here because, you know, there's, These are not simple, simple issues, and it's been, been brought up, and, and, and there is nuance to this. But in, in my mind, it's really clear that we need to use those forest receipts to pay for the school and the, and the rest for maintenance and cost overruns related to fuel.

Thanks, Council Member Mickelson. Um, Council Member Kinsman, yeah, and again, just coming from different communities. Um, I've always seen a mill rate or anything associated with tax is tied to the school district. So if we're saying we have 1 mill or a percentage— generally it's a percent, right? A mill, whatever you want to say— 8% is for the school, 8%.

If we're raising property tax 100%, whatever, 1%, then, then we're going to say 0.25% of that is going to the school, 0.25% is going to preventative maintenance, 0.25% is going to these out— we don't have that accountability. So that's what ties a mill increase to sustainability, is we have all of those mills accounted to something. And so I think that's probably what we need to get a handle on is where are our current mills going today and where do we want them to go in the future? I say mills, the money. We have the money that's there.

Where is it going and where do we want it to go? Where as a community do we want it to go? Do we want to go to school? Do we want to go to darkie? Do we want to go to EMS?

Do we want to go to our roads that are freaking atrocious right now to drive on? And I think this is a good broader conversation of what do we want as a community? What do we want with our monies that we currently have? No one wants to pay more taxes. Great.

Then what are you willing to give up? I mean, that's what it is. What are you willing to give up? This is where we're at and what service, what amenity, who, which one of— I mean, to Councilmember Mann's point, which one of your neighbors do you want them to lose their job? I mean, that, that as we go through and look at and break down the cost of us as a community, staff, well over 50% is tied to personnel.

I think that that's Where the funding— and that's for any organization. And that's not just the city. That's— we can talk to school, we can talk the business I work for, we can talk to any, any place. If you're going to attract people, you want them to be here, you're going to pay them. And so, but I think this is just a much broader conversation.

So if— no, if the appetite is— and I can actually agree with some sentiment from Councillor Mickelson and the state of our community today in relation to, uh, relation to raising, not raising the mill rate. But as a community, that's fine. We don't have to raise the mill rate.

Everything still costs money, and I don't think people understand that our opportunity to raise that revenue is today. And then in 6 months, we're gonna have our budget. So we don't really know how we're gonna end our year. And here's— here we are today. And that's just how code and how we handle our finances.

And I don't know if we need to shift that or change that. I don't know that process. And I don't know that if we have a way to allocate mills to certain pockets of money to certain budget codes, to certain departments, certain things that we as a community want to spend our money on. But that's how I have my own personal budget. I mean, I know where my money comes from, and I know which percentages go to things.

So my vision of how we get to the sustainability— and if we are raising the mill rate, then we can go to the community and this is what we're raising it for, not abstractly to We need more cash flow, which is great, but where needs more cash flow? And we can be more accountable for that. Okay, I think that's a good discussion point because yeah, we can take the money out of the forest receipts for this year. So there's $180,000 out of that, we get $400,000 out of that. We don't know what our fuel costs are going to be.

We pumped the lake for months. On diesel fuel. And yes, it wasn't at its highest point, but during part of that time it was. We don't know what we're moving forward to. I know that the fire truck engine has a mechanical issue that we need to deal with.

We can't have— we have a fire truck that's 24 years old and the backup is 32 years old.

I remember a council member saying, I want the fire truck to come to my house. Well, these are things that we have to deal with, and we, we have to think about this. Maybe we spend $300,000 of that $400,000 to just get through '26. What are we going to do in '27?

And what, what, what is it that we're going to give up. Because, and I, I mean, every person who works at the city lives in the city, pays taxes in the city, and I feel like it always comes back to the city budget, right? Where's— you know, it always comes back to the city budget getting cut, and we cut, and we cut, and we— how many positions we covered every time it's in the memo? How many times we read that list? I just, I don't know what, I guess I just don't know what we need to do.

And like how municipalities' revenue unfortunately is generated from taxes. I mean, I didn't create this rule, right? This is how it works. Yeah. And I want kids to go to school.

I want kids to have a great education, but I also want my streets plowed. I want the people who work here to feel secure in their jobs. They work hard. Look at what we've done in finance in a year.

I mean, I just—. I mean, nobody is saying this isn't hard. I know, but I'm just trying to see the other side of it, right? Right. I mean, I think people— yeah, yeah.

I know it's hard for everybody, but I still feel like it always comes back to the city. They've taken the biggest hit. Well, I think the thing that you— we also need to consider is, you know, this year one of the gillnet sources, which is the Maine Bay Hatchery, is basically going to be a run failure, is what's happening. There was a big die-off that happened. Some of the fish got a disease It's a naturally occurring disease that's in all sockeye populations, so there's already going to be less revenue from that.

Just, there's, there's a few different factors that are happening, but the good news is, is that the prices across the board are getting better. They're substantially better. I mean, people are getting paid really well for halibut right now, but, you know, That's sort of the thing is that we're likely to have a pretty good year next year and we're likely to have a lot more fish coming through town. Processors are going to be gearing up with more people. There's going to be, there's just going to be a lot more money in town next year, just in general.

I mean, you can never say with certainty, but there's, the likelihood is very good. This year, the outlook is poor kind of across the board.

There's also been some news today that the Board of Fisheries, which has a pretty great sway over our community, has just basically had their hands slapped and said that they need to follow their ethical obligations, and that's really good because, you know, one of the reasons we're looking at, what we're looking at is, you know, there was a few different things that went into moving the gillnet fishery back 7 days, and you look at fishermen coming here that much later, and that usually that's a big boost for our community, that's a bunch of money that comes in. And so, you know, there's just a lot of factors why this is a challenging year that's more challenging, frankly, than a lot of the other years that we've had. And I do think that the future is brighter. I don't think that the decisions that we're making this year are going to be nearly as drastic when we're looking at what happens in the future. But we just need to be aware when we do have these better years, we, we still need to be really cautious and conservative is my, my thought here.

So we've been— we're basically kind of hashing through the options. We are not, um, scheduled to make a decision tonight. I think people know that. Yeah, we all know that this is discussion item, but we are going to have to make that decision at the next meeting. So, and I appreciate we're having this discussion now before the next meeting.

Yeah, yeah. And thank you to the clerk for putting that summary page together because that definitely helps with looking at the different scenarios. I know for me the last 2 years we got to this point, having this in front of us tonight, have to make decision, wasn't very, very helpful. It's nice to talk about it first. I guess just thoughts as everybody's been speaking, that you have all the unknowns and everything.

I guess there are one comment earlier today from the public about padding the budget, which I just don't disagree— I don't agree with that because you do what you can to put money away for a rainy day. You know, we have ability to put money away for what we know we're going to need in the future. As our manager has mentioned, we've got incredibly aging emergency medical or emergency fire equipment with our engines. And medical. Sorry?

And medical. And medical. Yeah, you know, we've got so many things that could fail at any moment. We just don't know when that's going to happen. So, and again, to key in on what Council Member Kempton said, you know, what are we going to choose?

What are the choices we're going to make if we get to a point where we can't fund everything? What do we decide not to fund? And what we don't want to happen is being in an emergent situation where we have to make that decision. We want to be a little more proactive, I would think, to make that decision before it's an emergency. So, um, having a little bit of money on hand— I'm talking a huge amount of money here that's, that's being held for potential needs in the future.

So I just take exception with that thought about somehow the city's adding their budget at Shiff's Mountain.

Yeah, thank you for that perspective. Right. I mean, that's— as I was saying earlier, I'm urging people not to oversimplify because we have all heard about the capital needs, you know, the water distribution system, the water treatment plants.

Yeah, we really are banking on it all continuing to function as it always has. No guarantee, right? No guarantee. Yes, along—. I mean, since we're talking mill rate, and I understand we're discussing what we're going to really set for next week, I— there's been some conversations, been things that other municipalities have done, and that is really tying a mill rate to a local business, local resident, and we can— that can be done through one.

You have— you set your mill rate. 20, 20 Mils are simple math. But if you can prove, or you can claim, similar to a CELS or a veteran or any of these things, if you can prove that you're a resident, this is where you live, you live in Cordova year-round, okay, your mill rate— you get a discount on your mill rate. We can say you— you can't say you have a different mill rate, but you can offer a discount, I believe, is how I've seen in other communities, or a reduced mill rate. I think it's just off the assessed value you can do.

So then it's off of— so it's the same mill, but then you have less of an assessed value, or, or accredited—. It's called a homeowner's exemption, and I think it can be up to $75,000. And based off of what specifically? Well, it would be onerous to administer that program That because it would be similar to the senior exemption, except tenfold, because everybody's going to claim that they live here year-round kind of thing. And that would be doable, but onerous.

And it's not a conversation after next meeting. I hope everyone knows I'm really just trying to look at, you know, just poking around. Susan and I have had conversations about what Valdez does for their mill rates. Obviously they have a much different pot of money, but also then maybe even more important for us in our limited pot of money, there, there are people who live in our community who have homes in our community who do not live in our community and have no intention of living in our community.

So, and just the thing here is we look forward to the future, and obviously the, the The piece— there is a threshold here too where the ownership is, yes, us administering this is not— you're going to pay us more and we're going to have to go with outside consultation or insert all these additional costs, and then it's not— you're right, at that point it's not.

It'd be a calculation to undertake, come up with some kind of scenarios for that. But there is the conversation that does happen Why can we not tax them more? Well, this is a way. Is it worth it? I don't know.

Yeah, someone brought up to me today as a suggestion along the same lines of ownership and living in Cordova and the senior exemption all kind of tied together and just putting this out on the table as well. I thought it was an interesting suggestion. Is that, um, the senior exemption— and there are seniors who have two homes. They have a home in Cordova, they have a home elsewhere in Snowbird. And this community member's take was that if you can afford two homes, then perhaps you don't need the senior exemption.

Pardon me, I'm just thinking administration on that. Well, I think it's a state law, state statute. We don't—. And we can't— pretty clear. Okay, we can't—.

Right. I wasn't on—. You know, this is something brought to my attention today, and I said, well, yeah, raise it. Um, and that floated. I'm thinking, so maybe that applies to maybe 20 people, and what, what does that gain us?

I mean, that would be the question, is $150,000 times 20 times the mill rate. Yeah. And taxes. Yeah. So it's something, something, but it might be more than 20.

There's like 250 seniors on the list, right? But how many of them have second homes is what I was thinking. Well, but how many are truly here for the correct amount of time, right? And who just signs the piece of paper that says they are? Yeah.

I just don't know that it would—. That's enough to Although, if the statute doesn't allow us to do it, it's no point. We could raise changing that statute, which nobody would like, but a lot of other states have it that the senior exemption is need-based. So you don't just get it because you're 65, you get it if you fall below certain income levels and are 65. But that's not the case for Alaska.

A lot of other states do it that way. You know, one thing that was talked about in the past that probably still wouldn't be popular, but, um, is a real property tax, a personal property tax, because there are lots of people who fish here who don't live here who have their boats here. Those are not taxed. And you know how that conversation goes every time we have it. Yeah, I do.

But I'm saying, I mean, if, if, you know, people are upset enough, this is, you know, this is where we're at. This This is, you know, we can't tax—. We can't tax just people who don't live here, right? No, no, we have potential to do something where you— that somehow you offset that. Like, does that enable you to lower— if you get some property tax, some, uh, personal property tax revenue, does that enable you to lower the mill rate a certain amount to give the people who do live here a break?

Yeah, does that offset some of the tax burden for other folks. I can speak to that personal property tax to some extent. There's places where they do it like Bristol Bay where there's basically one fishery that's happening. They—. There's— it's a fairly simple fishery, it's a short time of year, really makes sense out there.

But, you know, like I have 14 gillnets. I think the average person that participates in this fishery has somewhere between 10 and 12. And then you're looking at, well, what's a gill net worth? Like, because a new gill net's like $7,500, you know, and a thrash gill net's maybe $500. So how do you evaluate that and how much staff time is it going to take for the fleet?

And there's a lot of fleet that just like is going to leave more of their stuff other places, spend less time here if you do that. I think it's going to be really hard to administer. There's going to be people that have lockers and gear. It just really, it's not going to be easy to implement that. And it's, you know, my take on all this is how do we get people to spend more time and spend more money here?

And so when you're looking at things like raising the mill rate, like let's say you have a load of halibut, the processors The reason they have survived is because they're really paying attention to their bottom line. So every single cost that they have kind of gets passed on to some extent when someone delivers halibut. And so it reflects with a lower price. So, you know, fuel is more expensive here because we tax that at a higher rate or so on and so forth. And so, you know, there's a real conversation You know, when you're looking at mill rate and looking at senior exemptions, like, that's a little bit of money.

But, you know, every gillnetter that's here on average, from a lot of people I've talked to, looking at my receipts, they're spending $40,000 a year on their gillnet operation. Like, that's a significant amount of money. That's a lot more than you're getting from changing someone's house assessment to get $5,000 a year versus $4,000 a year. You know, we want, we want to be making it so that those people that, that are coming here to fish want to continue to fish here, want to keep their gear here, because they spend money here. That's just the bottom line.

And so I, I think if you put a personal property tax, you're just going to drive people away. And, you know, if you ever get a chance, it's worth taking a field trip to Yakutat because their, their fisheries have really declined Um, for a variety of reasons, but it kind of reminds me of Cordova in the '90s after the oil spill when things were really going poorly and there was a national salmon fishing depression. And, you know, we're headed that direction the way we're going right now. And I understand that we need to generate money, but we just need to be really cautious about what the unintended consequences are going to be of some of these things that sound great on the surface.

It just makes me think, if we had a state income tax, would people not come here? Yeah, I mean, I totally—. I think Council Member Nicholson is so knowledgeable about the fishery and everything he just described, but one thing I do kind of hear often when we're talking about raising any kind of a fee in Cordova, well, people are just going to go somewhere else. That's not necessarily always the case. That's what you're getting at, you know.

It has to be a balance, right? You have to make it worth their while and worth, worth the city's while, or be able to have a functioning community here. Um, obviously you wouldn't just go wild with any kind of personal attack, but you figure out what that balance point is. And, um, just to say that, oh, you're just going to drive people elsewhere That's— I think that's just too, um, black and white, honestly. I, I wanted to be clear too, when I talked about a personal property tax, the way it was being discussed earlier, which I remember from maybe 15 years ago, was, um, I, I never heard it applied to fishing nets, Council Member Mickelson.

Maybe that's what they do in Bristol Bay, but I was thinking mostly boats and planes is what I remember hearing applied to. But that doesn't— I'm just I was just saying that that is something that has been discussed. I'm not advocating for it, I'm just saying. And that's something you can determine usually through registrations, right? Yeah, right.

And you can do it based on value, or you can do it— we were considering doing it just flat rate based on the number of feet of the boat. So literally $100 for a skiff, right? But $150 for a bowrigger and $300 for a sailboat. Some, yeah, like that. Yeah, place you could— and Bristol Bay is based on value and it's both.

So pretty sure. Okay, so that's everything I've known in other states I've lived. Everything—. When you register your vehicle, you're paying your tax on your vehicle every single year. Not saying that's what we need to do here, I'm just saying that's very common source of revenue for everywhere else.

Right. I mean, that would just be one way everybody says, how do we, how do we tax the people who come here because we have a harbor, because we have a fishery? Oh, and they do it every single year. Yeah. Not every other.

So yeah, it, yeah, it's very much a balance, you know, and I am not suggesting that we completely load on new revenue and not offset it somehow in other ways because you don't want to keep increasing the burden on the people who live here. Obviously, that's the point, but it is to distribute it a little, you know, to council member Hansen. So yeah, I mean, this has been a topic over and over again. It's—. We're all reaching into the same pocket to try and pull more money.

The goal is to find that outside revenue to, to add into the pot, not just hand it from So-and-so, so-and-so. And I mean, we've had many great discussions, I mean, adding homes to this community to add to the tax base, to add to the workforce. All great discussions. Problem that we have is right now it's in our face. How do we fund it?

I think too that the same question becomes the other way. When do we stop spending money? Right? I mean, if we, as Ms. Muslim said, you know, if we are pushing people away, then maybe we need to stop spending some money. And we have to give up.

But I'd like to suggest that we're not chasing people away. I mean, look at the population of our schools. There are growing families here. The grade school cannot— it's just about at capacity with classrooms and the number of people in classrooms. Classrooms are not big enough for 36 children.

So I don't feel like we are pushing people away. In fact, people are staying, in my experience, just based on being at the school. And I might be wrong, but that's the evidence in our school population.

I guess I'm just gonna throw one other question out and to explore, and that is, The interest on our permanent fund money, where does that go? Where does it stay? Is it something that can be considered in an emergency budget shortfall? Not the permanent fund principal itself, but its interest. Currently, it's reinvested into the permanent fund.

No, I, I think the end goal is not to pull and take and pull and take out of the permanent fund because you're selling— you could be selling at the worst possible time. And so you're, you're not only taking that money out, but you're losing money.

We're just talking about the interest. I'm just talking about the interest, not, not pulling funds out, just like—. But you're not reinvesting any money into to move. Well, I think just— so the answer is at this point it's getting reinvested. I think that was approved by—.

Was that ENCO? Uh, I don't know who it was. ENCO, we would have to look that up. We had— I mean, when we did 2, 3 years ago and we changed who was investing our permanent bond and how they're doing, I mean, great presentation, and his recommendation was— and I would have to look back the dollar amount— he's like before you start using your interest as part of your budget, you should be at this amount. When you're at this amount, then it makes sense for you to take a portion of that interest, and you can include that into your budget.

And there were different projections on that of when we could reach that point, but the whole idea was— I mean, we were what, $12 million in there Or whatever we were at, $5 million in there. Yes, I was thinking of where our whole budget was. Yes. Yeah, I mean, we can look into that, and we can also have Blake come here, and he has been asking to come. I think he wanted to come in here.

You have that already? Yeah, Blake is the, um, Alaska permanent capital management. Permanent sounds like construction to make this, but, um, yeah, I mean, and I'll throw this out on the table because we have this discussion every year, so might as well get it out there now. We're at 6% on that tax in the vehicle accommodation tax.

Yeah, they, they, they got, um, is it a modular? I mean, that's all they call site prep, but yeah, they—. Today, uh, Amanda went and checked out their foundations to make sure they're within their, um, badass. Thank you. And so yeah, they're moving.

Cool. Good, good. That is a potential revenue source. Well, I mean, it'd be interesting to know, so what is that figure? What's— what if we if we bump it up to 7%, what's the 1%?

I just bring the budget in here. Yeah, yeah, I mean, but that might— I think we've talked to like about Cheryl, take the amount in the budget for that and add a percent. I think that was like we did that, but we don't know what the math— we don't know what the marijuana tax is going to be like. But you know, we just do one-on-one. No, it should be better than what we have.

We had that figured. It was like— yeah, it was like 80 grand. It was, it was proposed. Yeah. And about—.

We—. It's an unknown amount from AmeriWest, right? But, uh, wasn't the issue that the bed tax is 7% but the other one is at 6%? The bed tax is 6%. Everything is at 6%.

Our taxes are 6%. Okay. Sales tax That's—. Do we have a head tax for the tourists who come on cruise ships? Yes, it's very minimal.

It's an only tax at Harmony. There are rules about where you can put that head tax. It is also very minimal because— and we don't meet the threshold for state funding. State funding? Yeah, what is that called?

The cruise passenger vessel tax, or then it be a share where you get a share.

Yeah, we were— be a lot of cruise ships. We already had one sailing this year, right? Yesterday. Yep. Well, cruise was here this week.

Yeah, I think we had 5 people, like 5 or 6. 5 Or 6 this year. Yeah, I like 30 people. Okay, I know that So, well, so I would say, are there, are there specific things that we want to ask the manager or the finance director to prepare? Like, if you're looking for figures for comparison's sake that you'd like to have for the next meeting, is there anything that— or perhaps we could get that information if you, if you come away with— I mean, the next meeting is June 3rd, so the deadline for that packet is next Wednesday.

So if you have ideas for things that you would like to see in the packet that would help with the discussion for June 3rd, um, can we get that to the manager by—. How about right now? Anybody have anything? Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, sometimes you think about it a couple days later, so I'm just saying.

But Monday, get it to Sam or me by Monday. Yeah. Monday is Memorial Day. Yeah, I would say Friday. I mean, we're off Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday is the packet.

You'd have to be able to pull together. I mean, depending on what the question— it's hard to know if you don't know what the question is. I mean, we can do the math. Tax season, I mean, I mean, kind of have a rough guess right now. $80 Grand from last year.

I don't foresee our sales tax going up next year for fiscal year '27. Other than we will have marijuana tax. Yeah, so our math should increase even if we don't.

I, I will say though, we lost, um, huge workforces with these federal grants that are not there. Uh, aren't we going to have a lot of work starting this fall?

So the— you mean for ODAC? So ODAC, ODAC might be in September, but I mean, we're talking like a group of what, 5 people? And not— I thought maybe Whitechapel Road, or that's the spring of '27. And the same with Second Street. I wouldn't see those projects bringing in like exponential sales tax things.

They're going to bring all their supplies, and then yeah, you're going to have a crew here that's going to be spending a little money like, again, we're not talking hundreds of people covering this project. Yeah, yeah. But some—. We do have a group of people staying at the school starting next week, and I don't know if that's National Guard or—. That's the readiness team, the NDE.

Are they paying rent in the school? The National Guard is, yes. Um, Okay, I—. Additional revenue. I don't know, I can't answer definitively.

Sorry. Yeah, well, I'm just suggesting that if folks think of things they would like a little bit more information on to help with this discussion, it'd be good to get that to the manager. Let's just say by the end of the day on Friday, ideally.

Yeah, are there other considerations, other things? I'm just trying to think of other information we might want or other ways we can make this as constructive as possible. Um, I mean, it seems like the main— the, the most immediate levers we have are the property tax, the MAT tax.

I see. Employees. Yeah, cutting staff. Well, we don't have to do that now, but if we don't— if we do certain things, then it will become—. I'm just saying.

Yeah, I mean, it's services. It's cutting services, which equates to the work staff. It does. But that is what the community needs to hear, is what service are we cutting, right? Which is in turn going to mean letting people go, firing people, because we can't afford this service in our community.

Yeah, and I also think the thing that, uh, we were made very aware of by the manager last meeting when we made a decision to approve the 181 for the school district was that was coming out of '26. That's right. So that's—. It's urgent. That's got to happen this year.

We need to build a power of that.

And I, I hope everybody understands that doesn't alleviate our school payments. That just keeps it from increasing in '27. That's all it's doing. It's not taking it away. So we still have large payments in '27, even payments into How you—.

Making the skew less skewed, right? That's the opposite, which is beneficial to both the school and the city. True. Okay, well, are there any other points folks want to make tonight? I don't want to cut anybody off.

I also see— yes.

Discussion is possible then.

Okay, why don't we take a quick look if we have anything else? I mean, the pending agenda, this is a huge pending agenda item, but is there anything else we feel like we need to put on pending agenda or the calendar? Next meeting is June 3rd.

There will be a public hearing also that the woman said they ready for a fee. We need to do a public hearing, and you know, is it ready? Okay, yeah, maybe, yes, I think put some of this on here, but moving our, um annual— I'm not annual, but our, uh, state of the finance, where we're at. I know there's been— I think I've been going about on here on a quarterly basis, but that's not sustainable. But thinking the near future, if we can get a year to believe where our finances are— that was wildly productive last year to be able to just have a— and it ended up being about a mid-year stop, end of June or our 1st of July meeting, audit was done.

Um, I just want to throw that out there. Sometime in the next month, Finance can get that to us, and just— and hopefully that helps us all on budget cycle, because we're seeing where we're at today. Well, we'll see. I mean, um, All we have right now is the first quarter's figures, right? And we won't have additional figures till the end of— till June 30th, or whatever the lag time is after that.

Yeah, so potentially we could get a budget versus actual report maybe in mid-July. Yeah, seems like that would be— and with the audit, would we get an audit presentation from the auditors in June? Are they—. No, no. When do they—.

We're not that good. Even though like this week we gotten through that part of the process. Sorry, I just invited— um, if audit isn't over, yeah, there's still follow-up back and forth, right? Um, so that's a process, and then the reports to be written. We do anticipate that it will be sooner than the past couple years.

It's been like September 28th when it's due to the state by the 30th. We're hoping for sooner than that. Um, yeah. Okay, well, good. So, okay, so we should maybe just look for the budget versus actual for this year by the middle of July, and after July 31st would be better because then you'd have your second quarter sales sense.

Oh, because it's not due until July 31st, right? Okay. There's always updated information. Like, at some point we just need to pick a date and say, let's do it today. Um, I think that's fine.

I think one of the things we could see in the 1st of July is what the impact to the, to the city was for electric fuel. Yes. And we can see where that's trending even without— I mean, it's revenue is one thing, but it's the Sure, expenses never stop going. That, like, in June. Yeah.

Okay. Last year we had a work session. It was a, I don't know, probably 30-45 minute work session or something like that, really, where we were able to just ask questions, have some dialogue. Where are we trending? What do we need to start thinking about for our actual budget cycle?

It was just really nice. Instead of October when we really started the budget and then with past administrations, this— okay, oh shoot, we're— everything's on fire. I wish we would have known this in June. Wish we could have seen this on May. And this is where—.

So, so that meeting, or maybe first July meeting, that work session previous to one of those two, like energy costs, utilities, okay. Show the fuel, show the electricity. Yeah, we won't have revenue. Revenue is not going to be in very good shape. Yeah, we won't really have an idea on that yet just because our largest revenue quarters are second, third, right?

Okay, thank you. All right, so then That's so— audience participation. Any of you audience people want to participate? Okay, then we'll go to council comments. We're going to start on this side with Council Member Kinsman.

Uh, just right off the bat, thank you Cheryl and Brenda and Tammy. It's Cam. Former Great Mountain Institute. And really, it's fantastic. We see year over year, we know where we were at last year and how much we added to it.

And I'm excited to see when they actually finish their audit and can get back to us, because I'll go and track and see when they did their presentation last year. We can escape. But anyway, it's great that they're leaving, um, because they feel confident, and what they're seeing is why they're leaving. It's I think that's really something I want to highlight as we're talking about all these, all these cuts, all these things. That's great, but this is an accomplishment.

This is what gives our city credibility. This is what really hopefully makes everyone who's listening feel better about the minor spending. It's all accounts. We don't have— I mean, It's, and it's being accounted for based off of financial principles and guidelines and guidance that's all set at even a national level. So it's a great accomplishment pointing to us finally having a financial director.

So a position we've been, had been vacant for a long time, and having someone here. I know we've gone back and forth with having some outside services to fill some of that position. So thank you for that. That was great news, actually, to just highlight what, what we do at the city. Um, I answered some public comment.

I think there's a public hearing next week about the mill rate. Love to hear some suggestions on Well, what you would like to see us do besides just don't raise the mill rate? It's not productive. It's not, it's not productive for anyone. It's not a conversation piece, um, really isn't.

Come to the table, hear from us. And generally you see us around in the community, or all of our emails are posted online. What, whatever you feel like you need to do, if you have a message to get it out, get it out. This is our community, our community. And at least I'm— I, I feel very fortunate, you know.

I still plan on living here. So, um, I know property taxes I paid in a lot of other communities are far more expensive than property taxes here. Just other cost of living items here. That's That's accurate. There is also a price to live in paradise, and the amenities that we have here, um, are they amenities that you truly want?

And how do we want to pay for them?

Thank you, member. Uh, congratulations, Cheryl and finance team. That's great work. I appreciate every comment that's brought in to the table. Comments brought to us, helpful.

Bitch Festivals on Facebook, not helpful. So if you have something to say, bring it to us and say it on the record and have the discussion. That's about all I got.

Member Adams.

Uh, echo the congratulations to Cheryl and the department for, um, successful audit. I know that when we have it at the school, it's a stressful time for that department as well. So, um, congratulations on that. Um, just a hopeful wish for the fleet, uh, for good fishing and safe fishing. And I have one thing I wanted to share that I thought was appropriate tonight.

And Councilman Kinsman, you brought it up about the privilege of living here. Dave Janka wrote today on Facebook, and I think it will just end on a high note here. I recently hosted a couple of friends from Anchorage for Shorebird Festival. Showing them around Cordova reminded me of what a wonderful place this is. Built with amazing people and so much going for us here.

And he has a list: State Ferry, Alaska Airlines, US Coast Guard, Fish and Game, US Forest Service, Native Village of Eyak, Prince William Sound Science Center, Copper River Watershed Project, Community Medical Center, Alonka Health Center, Cordova Center Library and Museum, the Darki Rec Center, Cordova Community Foundation, Alonka Cultural Center, Volunteer Fire Department, Pioneers and Moose, modern small boat harbor, operating fish processors, world-class commercial and sport fishing, oysters and kelp, trails, diverse, caring, involved, and talented population, volunteers to help with our long list of festivals, special events, in times of need, good schools with great teachers, dance, music, and theater, charters and outfitters, significant power source from hydro, So many great small businesses: Net Loft, Copper River Brewery, Baja Taco, Orca Adventure Lodge, Whale's Tail, Reluctant Fisherman, Little Bakery, Jen's Pizzeria, Pet Projects, Cordova Gear, Seafood Sales, 2 grocery stores, Napa, Ace Hardware, LFS, Sue's Knives, Powerhouse, and so much more. Envy of any small town and surrounded by nature's wilderness, Beauty and bounty. Remember, no place anywhere ever stays the same.

So I just— I think we all need to hear that. Great, wonderful tribute. Um, I want to go online to you, Council Member Bengelson, for council comments. Yeah, I—. Well, first, uh, wish congratulations to the graduating seniors.

That's super exciting. And yeah, thanks. It's nice to hear some good stuff on the audit, and I appreciate all the hard work that's happened there. I'm glad we're starting this discussion early, and yeah, I hope our community comes out. And that sort of brings me to another thing that has been brought up in the past is how are people that are out on the fishing grounds, have we come up with a way that they can call into meetings and comment because, you know, I'm leaving here in a couple hours for this first opener.

And if we get back on our Monday and Thursday schedule, which hopefully we will, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be anchored up in their spots Wednesday night. So I just like to put in another plug for having a way for those, those of us that are community members that would like to participate in our local government to call in. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Nicholson. Councilmember Zester. I'm just thinking about what Councilmember Nicholson said. I'm sure there's a way for people to do written comments that could be brought in during sessions so they don't know they're not here for them. So hopefully there's some way they can provide those.

It's a good point. Um, uh, congratulations to our finance team as well, and I love seeing our manager with that bright, cheery look on her face when she was telling us about it. A very bright spot, I'm sure, for staff, which is fantastic. Um, um, I too am really thankful to have this discussion tonight before we actually have the hard decisions we need to make next week. And I know for myself, I'm going to spend quite a bit of time thinking and ruminating and asking questions of staff before the next meeting so that, um, I'm as prepared as I can be for decisions that we make on how we're going to deal with this problem.

I'd also like to thank Councilmember Adams for bringing up Dave Janka's description of why Cordova is so special. And coming from Dave Janka, that's huge. I just recently had the pleasure over at Councilmember Rainey's lodge to meet a couple of people that I had worked with over 30 years ago here in Cordova through an international program program called Raleigh International, and this person that I met there was only here for a short couple of months, and they had the opportunity to take advantage of Dave Bianco's boat to get transported to different work sites. She remembered how amazing he was, how friendly, how welcoming he was to our community, and that's something I think that people will spend a couple months here, a couple days here, and they feel so welcomed in our community, and they remember that, and they talk about how special Cordova is, even if they've only been here once for a short period of time. Literally 30 years later, she said it was one of the most formative times in her life being here for those 3 months.

So that's a testament to how amazing a place we are. Thank you to City staff and all the hard work that you guys put into everything. Um, for another tough situation once again. Um, and I hope to never be in the situation where we were last year, where, uh, Emily came and sat down with her kids after she was terminated, and I apologize for you to make that—. Have to make that call and do that.

And that still sits with me today. So I don't say those things lightly. Um, Cordova is an amazing place. I mean, I, I should have appeared— I never left. Um, I've grown up in a commercial fishing family, and commercial fishing was my whole life.

And, uh, Growing up, the ebb and flow of funding— we lived high, we lived low—. How it always was. Um, for this community, uh, it's, it's seeing some lows and it's seeing some highs, and it's going to continue to ebb and flow. And I'm glad that we're here to make these decisions, have conversations to, to move forward. And, uh, thank everybody at the table for all their comments.

Thank you. Comments? I guess I really appreciated a lot of thoughtful discussion I heard from entire council. I think I didn't, uh, contribute much to it. I'm still in this learning process, so sad.

And council as well. This stuff is going to give people a better, uh, understanding going to this next meeting. So I appreciate everyone's different perspectives on it. Thank you. I wanted to share too, I got a thank you card from the Alaska Democratic Party after the convention in April, and their comments were a little bit briefer than Dave's but echo, um, Let's see.

Cordova reminded me of home and I'll never forget it. That was one comment. There are like 4 people who wrote on this card. And let's see. Your city is stunning, warm, and friendly, and such a great community.

Thank you, and please don't hesitate to let us know how we can support you. Um, 600,000. Very nice.

On behalf of the Alaska Democratic Party, we send our sincere thanks and appreciation to you and the people of Cordova, all of whom were warm and welcoming. The event was an overall success and provides great momentum. And with gratitude, Alaska Democrats. But anyway, they also felt like it was welcoming and friendly and a great place to have a meeting. Everybody raved about this building.

I think I said that already, but super impressed. So yeah, again, just echoing, reinforcing all the comments that people have already made about that special community. So yeah, thank you.

All right, well then, we will— I guess there's one more motion.

Move to adjourn. To adjourn.

Okay. 8:31 By the phones. Want to give me that card? I'll put it in my next packet. Be there early.

Did that come to me? Yeah, yeah, but as mayor or as— yeah, yeah, so I'll put it in the next one. You don't want me to? I don't have—. I mean, I mean, there was— yeah, I had the parts of.