February 14, 2022 CBJ Assembly Committee of the Whole Work Session

Alrighty, we'll call the committee, the whole— great, thank you— meeting to order. It's, uh, February 14th. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. Thank you for coming on your Valentine's Day. Um, uh, clerk will note the roll and, uh, we'll be off.

Minutes. Madam Chair, before we do, just for the listening audience, we'll note that the roll consists of all but— Yes, thank you, Madam Clerk. That's perfect. She won't be joining us today. So, approval of minutes, December 20th minutes.

Anyone object to their adoption? Okay, I'm seeing head shakings, so those minutes are adopted, December 20th. And we'll go to our first topic, hazard mapping update, the Glory Hall grant. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So we've kind of bundled two things into this agenda item, and they're both related but independent. So what I'd like to do is do a brief update with a recommendation on the hazard mapping, and then there's a, I think, a decision, dangling decision on the Glory Hall grant that you can make that I think is going to be a little bit informed by the first part of the discussion.

You've got in your packet a memo from myself, a little piece of literature about risk in Puget Sound from Mount Rainier, and really a very good technical memorandum from the Geological Survey of Canada about the intersection of policy and hazards. I found them both to be excellent reads, and I hope you did as well.

I'm just going to briefly go to— there were some red folder drawings. I'm going to hold them up. I think you all should have colored copies. Walk through a little bit of the thinking. So in the memo, I make a recommendation about risks and time periods.

And I will acknowledge that avalanche and landslide really are kind of different. Avalanche is a lot more measurable. We have a lot more data on events that have occurred in historic time period. So while in the memo I make a recommendation about a 50-year time period, I'm really kind of thinking about landslides more than I am avalanche. But I think the philosophy I think informs the whole discussion.

So, so briefly, this red and blue drawing is the draft avalanche map. And the red area is the severe area and the blue is the moderate. And the nice thing about avalanche mapping and risks is that you can quantify them a bit more. So in, in this case, you've got impact pressures, uh, up to 600 pounds, uh, per square foot for moderate and greater than that for severe. Uh, so we, we have, uh, real data and information from events in Juneau and other communities on avalanches where, where you can make a more quantifiable, uh, effort.

So just want to point out that In some ways, from a policy standpoint, avalanches are easier than landslides to work on public policy. Flipping to the next one, this is the color-coded downtown map for your orientation. The, the blue 7-sided building is our, our home away from home here, City Hall.

Getting a quizzical look there. The one that looks like this.

And this would be City Hall. Okay, I'm getting head nods. Okay, for orientation's sake. So in, in the landslide regime, if you go to the next page, you've got a low, moderate, high, and severe category. So if we flip back to that first page that shows the City Hall, you'll see that here we are in a moderate zone, whatever, whatever that means.

And then you'll also see that the orange color, which is high, this long snaky ribbon by the draft maps, that's Telephone Hill. Okay, so I think what happened with the geologist, and they looked at slopes and steepness, and they made an assessment. And I generally think that that kind of thing belongs in kind of a building permit type activity. You've got a steep slope, you've gotta figure out how to deal with that as opposed to identifying that kind of thing in a special hazard area. So I think that's, that's one piece that I want to point out.

And then as you're looking kind of at the yellow here, you're probably thinking moderate, like how could a landslide be City Hall all the way over to the Sea-Drome building and be moderate? And that's a little bit of a head-scratcher. But in the memo, I talk about the difficulty of distilling hazard areas necessarily down into a discrete number of categories. And I think what we have in the, um, severe example is we have two really different kinds of events. We have the, uh, high-frequency, relatively low-hazard events, which I've called, say, the gully washer events, and the low-frequency, catastrophic events, which are sort of like what happens if the whole mountain collapses.

Two very different kinds of hazard events. So on this map, there's a— it will be the one after, after the legend. Oh, it's up there. Okay, good. Very good.

Thank you. So on this map, the blue oval On the side of Mount Roberts, there are dozens, if not more, of these steep gullies that periodically accumulate debris and then release. And when they release, we're talking a dump truck or two dump trucks or some relatively manageable amount of debris material and a rainfall event that's usually gone awry. And cause some problems as opposed to a catastrophic, um, type event. Uh, that red event, I think, uh, pretty well understood.

Everybody that lives and owns property, uh, on the influence of those, uh, gullies, um, pretty, pretty well aware of that. And if we go to the next slide, um, at the bottom of that, a very different kind of event. And so if you look at the bottom of that gully, and you have a big fan. Okay, so what that envisions is that wasn't just the gully cleaning itself out. That was some type of bedrock failure.

The side of Mount Roberts generally shallow to bedrock, and that is a much more massive event. So that's your very low frequency, high damage type event. Two really different kinds of things.

So in the memo, I sort of identify that in downtown, I mean, couple things. We wanna update the hazard maps 'cause we know they're outdated and they've been hard to work with for property owners and they've been hard to work with for the planning department and the planning commission.

And so there— it's worth updating them. They— and we have newer technology, and that makes sense. And we want to do two things with the results of those studies. We want to inform the public about risk, uh, and we also want to make, uh, land use policy decisions about restricting development and/or requiring higher or higher degrees of engineering to protect against those kinds, um, of events. So complicated topic.

Um, but I think most people really wanna know, as I say in the, the letter, how do we responsibly live and redevelop and develop downtown? This is where we are. Uh, and not to be cavalier about hazards, but everybody's got hazards. There are many kinds of hazards the world over. Um, we don't just have steep slopes.

In downtown, across the channel. We've got steep slopes on much of Douglas Island, Lemon Creek. We've got steep slopes off Heinzelman Ridge. And so we're trying to calibrate, I think, in the thinking here, what is— what do we need to specially identify and manage in the downtown area as opposed to what are more global communication issues? A little bit long-winded.

But what I am suggesting, bottom of packet page 18, that you accept the recommendation that we address the risks that are predicted to occur in understandable timelines, 50 years or so, as opposed to geological timelines. If anybody made it into the Canadian Geological Survey paper. They have lots of really great graphs and categories, and you'll see probability and quantitative or qualitative descriptors, and you see things like something that is possible, expected to occur every 100 to 1,000 years. And my premise is, if something is possible on the 100 to 1,000 year timeline, it's probably beyond the level that we want to restrict activity. It's pretty, pretty fuzzy, possible 100 to 1,000 years.

So that is the recommendation I have, bottom packet, page 18. If the Assembly is good with that, we'll feed that to CDD and Planning Commission. The last time you touched this, you accepted the Planning Commission's recommendation, which was Don't adopt the maps now, developed code in concert. And what I'm suggesting is develop code in concert with a little bit of more philosophical sidebar. So that I'd be happy to answer any questions on that, or I could jump into the memo on the Glory Hall grant.

Thanks, Mr. Manager. Who has questions on this for the manager? Ms. Dream, Ms. Wall, Mr. Smith, you weren't here last time, so thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, first of all, thank you, Professor Watt, for the readings. It very much felt like I was in grad school again. Um, I— how does— how do these map? Two questions.

First question is, how do these maps inform the code development process, if they do at all? And then second question, um, 100 years seems a little too short for me to be putting off, given that I think, you know, climate change is accelerating the frequency of events that used to be 100-year events and now they're not anymore. So, um, I guess that's really more of a comment than a question. Mr. Manager.

Um, I, I think the, you know, we'll take the first part. How do the maps inform the code? I think, I think what's going to happen is people are going to look at the maps and then they're going to look at the probability of events. And in the case of something like avalanche, where you've got kind of these impact pressure ideas, that leads you to more direct, you know, must build to this kind of engineering standard. Landslide is a little differently.

Landslide, you're going to get to, you know, if you're in a kind of gully washer scenario, you might be able to calculate an impact pressure. But if you're into a deeper bedrock failure, I don't think it's possible really to build around that. We here are in a moderate zone, and our moderate zone extends all the way over to the Seadrone Building.

You can sort of imagine that, that is a catastrophic failure of the side of the mountain, in which case this building would be buried for it to reach all the way over to the Seadrone Building. There's really not anything to be done. To be a little bit quantitative about it, we do have good history understanding in the aggregate. So if you think about the gully washer type channels on this one, you might wonder, okay, on this one, how likely is that one to happen? Maybe we, you know, it's happened every 10 or 20 years, there's been a gully washer, but how do I know the big one isn't coming.

We have dozens of these along the side of the mountain. You can extrapolate a little bit, a little bit, because we have recorded history for 140 years for dozens of these. So we have kind of 140 years times 20 is going to get you several thousand years of experience of the side of the mountain not falling off. So I think you're kind of You can think about it in that way. I think that sort of answered your question.

It got a little tangential.

Oh, okay. Um, so we've got Ms. Wall, Mr. Smith, Mayor Weldon, and then Ms. Hale.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I was trying to remember— I, if I remember correctly, the avalanche forecasting was a lot more detailed in terms of frequency of events Can you remind me what those like buckets were? And, you know, the suggestion of 50 or so, is that kind of inclusive of a lot of the avalanche zones or exclusive of a lot of those avalanche zones? Mr. Watt. It's really exclusive.

So when I went down this thought process, I was thinking about landslides as a practical matter. The avalanche mapping in the new draft maps doesn't change very much from our historical ones. And I think the impact pressures, I think, make sense. And I think in the severe avalanche areas, I think we have a good, well-founded policy idea of not adding dwelling units in a severe zone. I think that makes sense.

And we're gonna balance that with the fact that we have a number of people that already live in the severe zone, and they're thinking, I'm happy, I'm happy with this risk. And I think from a policy standpoint, that's the razor's edge that we're walking. Not more development, but continue to live peaceably. I will say that when you dive into the historical record, There were a number of avalanches prior to 1960 that reached Tidewater out of the Barron Chute, multiple, I think on the order of half a dozen. So getting back to Ms.

Stream's question about climate change, quite a few avalanches that made it to Tidewater or to Glacier Highway prior to 1960, yet very little activity moving forward in the last 60 years. So that's what climate change brings us. I think arguably more erratic weather, including higher peaks and lower valleys. So I think avalanche is on one path and landslide is on another. Good, Ms. Wall.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. My— I guess there are kind of two questions, and one is Just curious for a brief update on what Sitka decided to do. And then also curious in terms of what role the private market, mostly insurance or financing, kind of plays in terms of a safeguard or limit on development.

Manager, I have not— thank you, Deputy Mayor. I have not done too much of a deep dive on Sitka, but I think their stance— there's a couple things. I think their stance is more informational than restrictive. They've got a really different situation geologically over there, where they have a lot of their slopes underlain with volcanic dust, which just creates a different geological hazard, maybe not so analogous to us. I'll freeform and I'll go to Lynn Canal to Haines.

So, so in looking at the Haines, I have not been up to Haines since it happened, but I spent quite a bit of time looking at aerial photographs and, and Google Google Earth, kind of my favorite app ever. The thing that worries me about Haynes is we have a lot of slopes like Haynes, less steep, less shallow to bedrock, forested, no obvious signs that this might be the location. So I think studying Haynes, I think, is worthy. And then Mr. Mathias advised me today that there's a workgroup out of CITCA that's trying to contemplate some monitoring, early warning type issues, and we're going to participate in that and see where that leads. So I think CITCA on the informational side as opposed to the restricted development side.

And I've lost your second question. Oh, and it was just about insurance or financing kind of slowing development or restricting development. I am not 100% sure on this, but I'm not sure that our hazard maps have— I think they affect insurance and they affect bank loans. But they're not prohibitive. I think they make it harder, but lots of people are buying and selling homes in downtown, buying flood insurance, whether or not that flood insurance is really targeted to the risk at hand.

I think we wanna be careful with it though. So when I look at the yellow, the moderate zone that we are in right now, You know, the initial recommendation from CDD to the Planning Commission was don't regulate in the moderate zone. And you heard some pushback from the public of, I don't want to be on a map, you know, even if you're not regulating me, because I don't know what banks and underwriters and insurance companies might do in the future. And I think, I think while not an issue right now, I think that's a legitimate concern. We've made several changes to city code recently to help people with changes that banks and underwriters have made.

So thinking about the nonconforming certificates. So I do think, I do think we want to be mindful of that. So again, that's another, that's another balancing act between making responsible choices and not chilling lending.

Weldon. Thanks, Madam Chair, and Mr. Smith kind of segued into a little bit kind of a comment and then a question. Thank you again, Professor Watt. I'm with Ms. Treme. I'll probably never look at Mount Rainier quite the same again.

So But it's interesting, a few organizations and approving authorities have formally adopted methods of evaluating landslide hazard and risk. Most others have not. So I was surprised to read that. But my question kind of falls around the new term ALARP, ALARP.

And here it says that moderate low risk typically fall in the ALARP risk zone. And then it says that You can have development in the LARP zone. So just any more comment on what that's going to entail, or just anything yellow and lighter color? Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Warms my heart that the mayor would read the Geological Survey of Canada attachment in the packet, and she's referencing the graph that looks like this. And this graph fatalities versus probability, and the ALARP zone is the as low as reasonably practicable. So conceptually, um, conceptually, you might permit low-density development in a hazard zone because if something went wrong, there would be lower fatalities where you might not put a, you know, multi-thousand-unit new city in that location. So that's, that's, that's the kind of idea that I think we're trying to get at, and I'm trying to get at with the 50-year recommendation.

I think it's a good—. For those of us that like data and graphs, I think that's a good idea, good concept. Good, Madam Mayor. Um, Ms. Hale.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a comment about the insurance. It's my painful experience that you actually have to have insurance for earth movement in order to be insured for earth movement. And if you don't have it, you don't get it, and they don't typically grant it in places where earth movement might happen. So you actually have to have insurance for it.

So which I didn't. Anyway, these bottom red areas where that would be like a big landslide, so that would be like the Juneau Cold Storage landslide.

Senator? Yes, actually I had meant to speak to that. So we do have, and Ms. Hale, Assemblymember Hale is right, like the Cold Storage slide. So for those of you not familiar, I believe we had two major slides in downtown Juneau, one in about 1921 and one in about 1935. The '35 slide, referred to as the Cold Storage slide, because there was mud on South Franklin Street, I think by the historical photographs, at least 10 feet deep, and there were fatalities in the 1935 slide.

What—. So I think those are cautionary notes to us. However, we as a city did two things in the early years that are the two things that you don't do on steep slopes. Number one, people cut down all the trees for lumber and firewood, and after several decades, those trees that they cut down those root wads probably all rotted and lost their ability to hold the side of the hill together. And number 2, the mine built a railroad that side-hilled along the side of the mountain laterally, which necessarily changed drainage in order to make a nice railroad bed to get to the mill site.

They dumped lots of rock over the side until they got a good purchase for the railroad. So they, they loaded the side of the hill with weight. Uh, you— those are absolutely the two things that you would not do in a hazard area. Um, so I think we have to be mindful, um, that we have had those events. There were fatalities, um, but, but we have not seen, um, that type of activity in a long time.

And I think it is reasonable to attribute at least some of the cause of those slides to that human activity.

Good. Ms. Hale? I am, and I appreciate you raising those issues. Thank you. Ms. Youskandis?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was wondering, you started to touch on it when speaking to areas where people already are, maybe we just we don't allow more development in those areas. And I think Mayor said yellow or lighter, talking about as we develop regulations. Could you speak to, do you think that for new development, engineering to a certain standard as a way of reducing risk, but do you think that at any point for somebody who's in an orange or red adding some kind of structure, or I feel like that's something that came up at the Planning Commission, you know, could I build a wall in my backyard? And if you could just speak to that a little.

Mr. Manager.

Thank you. Yes, so, so, um, the— in kind of racking my brain here a little bit. So if we go back to the avalanche, the snow avalanche, mechanism that we now have, and we don't prohibit people to continue to live in a severe avalanche area, but we restrict the addition of dwelling units. So your question is actually a really good segue into the Glory Hall grant request. So the Glory Hall's essential proposal is—.

Mr. Manager, could we not do the Glory Hall until we're done with this? Sure. If, um, to finish the, the whole hazard mapping, is that it? Yeah, we'll definitely come back to that.

We'll definitely come back to that. So, uh, but the, but the idea of not adding units in a hazard area is different than pivoting your use. So I think we're on existing buildings I think we have that issue a lot. So if you think about our Upstairs Downtown concept, can we figure out how, uh, existing buildings could be renovated to restore old apartments? Um, that's a different burden than a new development.

New development, a lot easier to, uh, contemplate the engineering necessary. Um, existing, existing ones. Frankly, I think it's going to be a lot harder. And I'll touch on one last thing. People are also going to object to the details of the mapping.

So in this one, the, the severe red comes all the way across Franklin Street. In the old ones, It kind of stops at the backs of the buildings. The old mappers acknowledged that existing buildings would stop some of those events. So I think there's going to be some additional public comment. I don't think you quite have these lines drawn correctly.

Mr. Bryson, any questions? You're the last one besides me who hasn't—. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I don't have any comments on this, but I have failed to mention that I'm the newest member of the Glory Hall board, and I don't recall what if I'm able to participate in the Glory Hall discussions, as that just got raised for the next topic. Okay, we'll get to that, um, after we're done just chatting about the hazards theory in general.

So I have a question, um, and that is regarding— so this study was done by some national firm who came in and overlaid colors on our land. I presume these— they have used the same criteria as they did in Iowa, or Indiana or Montana. And is that, you know, first of all, is that correct? And do they— what do these maps mean in those places? I mean, we're trying to now apply policy to the colors.

And do you have any knowledge of that sort of thing?

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So, so, so I think to the extent that it exists, they've tried to apply the same rationale that other people have used. So the Canadian Survey document, I think, is a good one. I think different communities make different decisions. I think we're all kind of on our own on this type of thing.

And as I, you know, allude to in the memo, you know, in some places might be earthquake might be your focus. But I think the people that worked on these worked on similar mapping exercises in other communities, and I'm not particularly familiar with what has happened in those communities. And so the, the other thing about the current maps versus these, I just don't recall, are they the same categories— moderate, severe, low, and high, or extreme, or whatever, low, moderate, high, and severe? And are they the same categories? And now these are just different colors.

So for example, was the yellow that is downtown, which is moderate, was it a moderate zone before or did it not exist? Or did we just have high? All I remember is high, something akin to high. I don't know what the word was. And then certain things you can do in that kind of zone.

Do you recall, or how does the current versus this? Go. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So, so one of the, one of the issues with the current maps is it doesn't distinguish between avalanche and landslide. And we have two categories that are severe, where we say no new stuff, and special engineering, where you, you've got to do some special activity to make sure whatever you build is, is safe.

In our current regime, We also have the additional, and you can go hire an engineer who can do a more detailed study that may determine that the map lines are not actually proper. So these maps would have more categories than are existing. Okay, thank you. So it's only two, severe and special engineering. So presumably the orange and red Or some version of that is special engineering.

Is that basically correct? That's more or less a good analysis. Okay, more questions for Ms. Dream, then Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I just wanted to ask whoever's phone keeps beeping to turn it off, please.

Okay, Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I guess I was just curious about the city's liability in terms of if something were to happen? And like, what if we had no restrictions on what could be built in certain hazard zones and something were to happen there? Would we be—.

Could we be held liable by people injured or killed in that event? Mr. Palmer.

I thought this was a good omen that my mic wasn't working. But not my lucky night. Sorry. Uh, Mr. Smith, so your question I think is really challenging, and I say that because the law on landslides and avalanches is rapidly changing and it is hyper fact-specific. So let me describe some details for you.

There was a massive landslide in Washington, uh, I don't remember the actual year. It was the Oso slide. North Washington, Northwest Washington. And the basic facts were there was a logging operation up on a hillside, and that hillside was above a few handful of houses. I don't know if it's half a dozen to a dozen, plus or minus.

And the— there was a massive landslide that went down complete— completely eroded similar to what happened in Haines. And there were a number of lawsuits suing both the county and the state for various activities. And most interestingly, the court in that case found that the county was liable, not because there was any land ownership issues, but because there were some imminent signs of risk that the county took the burden to notify the public that there was some of landslide risk occurring and then stopped. And so under this kind of assumption of the risk doctrine, because the county assumed some risk of notifying the public, the county in the end was partially liable for the damage and the fatalities that were caused, even though the county was not involved as a landowner, involved in the logging operation or the permitting operation. So there is some risk there.

In contrast, you know, look at what happened in Sitka. Sitka developed the area that ultimately slid and had some exposure because the Sitka was the property owner that then sold the land to the various homeowners that slid. I haven't seen anything from Haines. I'm not— I don't want to jinx anything there. So I say that just to describe that The landslide and avalanche liability issues are really complicated and really fact-specific.

And because we tend to be a stable financial partner in the community, there's likely gonna be a target on us if something happens. And so the balancing act that we walk is trying to describe activities where we have discretion. And as long as we apply that discretion reasonably, We have the best defenses that we can to say that we're not liable and you can't sue us. If, if we do something, if we assume the risk, kind of like what happened in the Oso slide, that might change the fact pattern a little bit. I have not seen that case happen in Alaska yet, but obviously it's not far from us.

It's true. Madam Deputy Mayor, I thought I have a follow-up to Mr. Smith's question. So if we were to mandate some kind of disclosure, like if you sell a house, add that to your other things you have to disclose, or if you're renting a unit in one of these places, you have to disclose it. Does that, um, that make us more at risk of being held liable? Seems like it would disincentivize making this kind of risk information more available.

Mr. Palmer. Yeah, thank you. So I don't know yet on that piece. The—. It's not really that different than our current landslide and avalanche maps that we currently have.

And You know, right now there's a statute that gives us immunity for regulatory permitting actions, and so if that disclosure was required through Title 49, I think there's a good connection to say that we have immunity and we would not be liable. But if it's required outside of Title 49, it's probably a little different.

More questions for Mr. Palmer or Mr. Watt? Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'm just basically looking at the recommendations on back of page 18. I move we direct the manager to work with the Planning Commission to develop code recommendations that address landslide and avalanche risks that are predicted to occur in understandable timelines, no more frequent than every 50 years, and develop recommendations on information strategies about communicating hazard risk for non-regulated scenarios.

Comments on the motion?

Any objections to the motion? 50 Years, Ms. Dream?

Ms. Dream, page 18, bottom.

I would like to make an amendment to the mayor's motion, uh, to change that to every 100 years. Other way.

I have a—. You bet, we'll take a short break.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just change my motion to no more frequent than every 100 years. Okay, you all understand the motion and we— okay, any objections? Okay, that is adopted. So the second part of this is about the Glory Hall.

Mr. Manager. Mayor, I don't— there's a memo, uh, I don't have a lot to add. This is kind of a dangling, uh, chad from the 12/20 CAO. Uh, I've given you 4 options on how to make a decision here, and I guess I suggest you select one or more of them.

You could select more than one of them, in fact.

Okay, let's first ask about people being on the board. Aren't there— are there two? No. Mr. Bryson. Um, so this would be the first time that I've had a discussion about the Glory Hall as a board member, so I wanted to announce a possible conflict of interest, but I am a board member of the Glory Hall, and I'm looking for a ruling for Mr. Palmer.

Mr. Palmer, your opinion? Can I have a brief— at ease to chat with Mr. Bryson real quick? You bet. Uh, we're gonna take 5 minutes. Thank you.

All right, we'll call the meeting back to order. Mr. Palmer, before we go on this, um, regarding a conflict of interest, if you could refresh here, because, uh, the word was Mr. Palmer ruling, but I believe— is it not the body that rules. So go ahead. Yeah, no, thank you, Madam Chair. So you are correct, I get to advise, and you as the chairperson, Deputy Mayor for the CAO, get to make the decision that can be challenged by the body.

So, uh, Mr. Bryson does not have a conflict, uh, by code because he does not get a compensation. There's no financial interest here, and our code specifically exempts nonprofits from having personal conflicts or giving rise to personal conflicts of interest. So what I've advised for Mr. Bryson and others in similar positions is that if you're on the board of a nonprofit, to make sure you declare that potential conflict to the body every time. And if there's anything unique or special about that specific topic or vote that night, then the chair and the body can make a determination. But my recommendation for tonight that he does not have a conflict of interest.

Mr. Palmer, so just to be clear, because this has been a little fuzzy, the chair makes a ruling and anybody can object or whatever. So I rule that Mr. Bryson should deliberate on this item. Thanks. Um, okay, Mr. Watt.

Deputy Mayor, you have quite a bit of information in your packet on cruise dock electrification. Nope. Oh, heard Glory Hall grant. Glory Hall. Glory Hall.

Just short memo, recommend you choose one or more of the items 1 through 4 on packet page 48. Okay, who has comments, questions? Ms. Hale. Thank you, Madam Chair. This came before the— before the committee, a committee that I was chairing.

I can't even remember which committee at this point, I guess.

Housing and Economic Development, and, and we really ran out of time to completely discuss it. I'd actually like to, like to propose a fifth option and see what the Committee of the Whole thinks of that fifth option.

I think there was real concern at that committee that the the scoring committee was actually ruling on something that was not in their experience. They were actually—. They actually recommended the Glory Hall as their top choice, and then they got information about these new hazard maps and that Glory Hall might be in that hazard zone. And so then they took it out of consideration. And as we see in the discussion tonight, those hazard maps have not been adopted.

And we're trying to figure out what to do with them. So I would recommend a 5th option, and perhaps Mr. Manager can tell us if it's possible that the scoring committee meet again and look at the Glory Hall, given this new information that we're looking at, and see if they recommend to the assembly that we appropriate the $300,000, because it's an additional amount beyond, I believe, what the, uh, what the, uh, what is available for the affordable housing. So that would be my recommendation. So, uh, is that a motion, Ms. Hill?

Yes, it is. So let me, um, my— the manager could correct this— my recollection was that there was enough money to do this, but I've totally lost my grip as far as the money part. There was an X amount of money and this would go up to X. Maybe I— could you please clarify what, what that is?

So, so to clarify, there, there was an appropriated amount of money, um, and the, the committee, uh, did not recommend the Glory Hall project because the planning director determined that a building permit couldn't be issued under today's code, um, which then the applicant has appealed. And the Planning Commission will be taking up shortly.

The, the recommendation to the assembly allocated all of the budgeted amount, and there was another project that has yet to come back because the recommendation was a collateralized loan, and that applicant advised us last week that they will be coming back with a proposal to collateralize the loan that the committee recommended. I think all of that aside, um, I, I do think, uh, the Glory Hall project seems like the kind of thing that we're trying to figure out how to make happen downtown, and we're trying to figure out how to make policy recommendations that in their instance would allow for a a continuation of a risk level. So I think that's a— it is a reasonable argument that I've seen the Glory Hall make, that we had this use and we, whatever the risk was, we had that use. And if we redevelop into apartments, the continued risk is the same. But that's got to go through, you know, the director read the code and felt that that was the right reading, however inconvenient it might have been.

And it's got to go through that appeal process. And I, you know, unfortunately these things just take a while. Planning Commission appeals take a while, and if the Assembly eventually wants to adopt new code, that's also going to take a while.

Miss Hale.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I did fail to mention that even though we ran very short on time in that committee meeting, the committee actually did vote to move an appropriation of $300,000 for this Glory Hall project to the Committee of the Whole, or to the full Assembly. So we actually did make that motion and vote on it in that meeting. And, and so I'm, I'm really happy that we're talking about this now. And since we have also learned that there are mechanisms, for example, for an engineer to provide a study indicating that the, the development could occur.

We didn't have that information either, and this committee did not have that information. I do worry that the committee was doing something that it was not actually established for, which is actually trying to understand whether a permit would be approved and understand hazard maps. And I don't think that's right, the, the right place for that to happen. Thanks. So, Ms. Hale, if you could repeat your motion, that would be great, just so I'm clear.

Yes, I move that the affordable housing scoring committee look at the Glory Hall request for funding again. Given the new information that we have, and I may be wrong, I believe from this what Mr. Manager said it was using the current hazard maps, but given new information that we've learned, for example, that an engineer can actually make a recommendation and demonstrate why a project could happen. So I move that that scoring committee review the information with that new light, and if they recommend the Glory Hall, uh, project, that it come to the assembly for funding.

Okay, um, Ms. Huskianis. Uh, thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I guess I'm objecting for some questions, or for a mix of questions and comments. Just process-wise, the fact that there's an active appeal with the Planning Commission. Hypothetically, let's say the Planning Commission says, yes, the director had the correct interpretation of the code.

I sort of feel— I appreciate what Ms. Hale is trying to do. I feel like we're going into a Bermuda Triangle of being tripped over by our own process. So, and I'll make the comment that I don't think the affordable housing scoring folks did anything wrong. They in fact had ranked it most highly and then ran into this, and I feel like that's out of their power. If the city says they can't have a building permit, I think it's appropriate for them to say, well, let's give that money to someone else.

Although I understand where you're coming from, Ms. Allen. I, I think I'm with you in sentiment, but I don't think that motion gets us where we want to go, if where you want to go is moving this forward. Because based on what Mr. Manager said and what I've seen in the Planning Commission, I think we're— for lack of a better word, I think we're entering into a triangle of red tape. But maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, Mr.

Manager. Okay, Mr. Bryson had his hand up. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, I'm really concerned if we say no here. We have asked and begged the development community to build affordable housing downtown, and we have the most affordable housing project is this one that's in question right now, or in discussion.

And if we say no, how could we expect another developer to look at that building buy that building and develop that building? It'd be— it's the lowest hanging fruit for developable housing. How can we expect another developer if we say no to this project? How can we expect developers to look at downtown with any level of seriousness? Because we're just going to hold up the flag, sorry, it's in this zone, and we would be eliminating potential housing projects.

I like Miss Hale's motion here because it gives another opportunity with better information to maybe produce a better result. If we say no here, we're saying no to a lot more than just the Glory Hall project. We're, we're letting the development community know that it's going to be harder than you even thought. To develop downtown if we say no to the lowest hanging fruit. Thank you for the time, Madam Chair.

Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I guess I'm seeing it a little differently in that I mean, there's really nothing— there's nothing we can do tonight. I mean, the code is the code and the maps are the maps. There's—. I mean, really, I think it has— I mean, the next process stage is an appeal by the Planning Commission. My personal thought would be to go with Option 4, and that's saying we support this project, we will provide the funding.

When I've spoken with people at the Gloria Hall before, that helps them with grants. But it— I mean, if they don't— if they can't get an appeal, and if it can't— if they can't get approval for the building permit, then The project doesn't— that doesn't happen. I feel like, I feel like the whatever the group was that determined the amount and did the ranking, they ranked it highly as a project, but I could understand why they wouldn't recommend it as a project if they were kind of advised that they weren't— the project couldn't be built.

So I guess I'm not quite sure what sending it back to that committee does. I personally, I like Option 4 of say give it the funding, assuming it goes through the steps. And it's unfortunate that it is—. It is—. It is a burdensome process, but it is the one that's on the books right now.

Anyway, I'm leaning more towards Option 4. Thank you. Okay, so Madam Mayor and Ms. Dream, and then Ms. Hale.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I could read the geological study, but I couldn't open the packet with the minutes. But listening to the discussion, I'm understanding that— yeah, my computer does not like our packets— that it wasn't just because a permit wasn't issued that they actually had scored this pretty high. So I will actually agree with Mr. Smith that it seems to me number 4 seems to be the path forward, and Ms. Hale's motion just puts in an extra step that we may not need. Miss Dream.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I really like Miss Hale's motion. I think it keeps this process within that committee or task force or whatever it is, which goes along with what Mr. Watt is advising, is that we kind of standardize this process.

Doesn't solve the Planning Commission problem, but I think we could burn that bridge later. When we come to it. I also just wanted to make a comment. I listened to that Lands Committee meeting and Ms. Hill did a great job of managing that meeting in a very short amount of time that we had. So I really commend you for that.

I, and I think we were maybe— well, I wasn't on the committee, I was just listening to it. I think maybe we were caught off guard by the fact that the Glory Hall was there and appealing kind of in person. I don't necessarily think that's fair. I don't know that other applicants who were denied were told that they could just come to a Lands Committee meeting to, you know, appeal this decision. And that's why I think I like Ms. Hale's motion here, is that we're keeping it within a process that we told everybody about, and we're not going outside of that process.

For one applicant and not others. So yeah, I like Michelle's motion. More comments on the motion? Oh, Michelle, that's right, you keep missing me. Sorry, it's okay, I'll wave my arms.

Um, thank you, uh, thank you, Miss Tream. And I, I appreciate Mr. Smith's motion of what I'm trying to do is exactly what Miss Tream has just mentioned, which is respecting the process. And my concern here is that that process was somehow a bit circumvented. That scoring committee is not the place for the Director of CDD to make a determination that a permit can't be issued, but that's what happened. In that scoring committee, the Director let that committee know that a proper reading of code meant that the permit couldn't be issued.

The scoring committee is not the committee to make that determination. There are other entities that will make that determination. And so what I'm trying to do by sending it back to that committee is saying, yes, we can appropriate the additional money, take another look at this. Um, there's more information that's come along, for example, that an engineer can make a determination that it is acceptable. Um, so I felt like that was out of order in that instance, and that's why I'm recommending this, this additional do loop, even though I don't like doing that, but I do like respecting the process.

Thank you. Um, Ms. Wall. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I appreciate where everyone's coming from. I, I think I'm with Mr. Smith on this one.

I understand what Miss Hale's supposed— is trying to do, but if I was on this committee, I'd be like, well, I've got the same information I did before. I'm going to rank this project the same way I did before. And even— I'm still going to have information that we don't know that this project is going to be permitted. So it just feels like an unnecessary step. Thank you.

Mayor Weldon and Ms. Youskandis. Thank you, Madam Chair. After listening to Ms. Hale say why she was going this way, I'm removing my objection. Ms. Youskandis. Yep, Mr.— Ms. Youskandis, and then we'll get to Mr. Major.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I 100% am with— in spirit with respecting the process, and so that's why it's a little tricky because I fully am with you. And I really do want us to standardize this and then it's predictable and have future rounds of this. So I really am with you on that front. I will say though that I just want to point out again that this committee is— has just got a banker and a developer, but other than that it is staff.

So I, I think it makes sense for the CDD director to be part of that. Um, I imagine Mr. Chambore was involved, and I just— I don't think it was staff overstepping. I think it was staff with the benefit of some private sector folks helping us, you know, make the best choice possible. But I'm gonna leave my objection just because I think, like I said, it's that gray area, and I think they're not going to give us a recommendation different than they did, which is that they do support this project. So I'm with Mr. Smith, and I would support the project but skip that step, make it incumbent on them getting the permits and going through that process.

Mr. Watt, you have a comment on the motion? Yeah, I just want to clarify one thing. The, the reason that there was a director's decision is the Glory Hall was trying to get the project queued up and did a pre-application meeting at which point the department said, oh, we have to tell you, you can't do that. So it wasn't part of the grant process, it was the glory hall beginning the permitting process that revealed this problem. Um, okay, I'll just make a comment, um, on the motion that, um, it's such a weird swirl of process we're in, um, and I am now coming down on the— the committee did meet, they did like the project.

I don't know what additional information they'll have, so I also prefer 4.

I don't know what will happen if we send it back. They already said they scored it high. It got swirled up in a permit issue, which is separate. So everybody ready to vote? Okay, a roll call, please.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So for Miss Hale's, uh, offer of the fifth option. Miss Hale? Yes. Mr. Bryson?

Yes. Miss Hughes-Scandies? No. Mr. Smith? No.

Miss Treen? Yes. Miss Wall? No. Mayor Weldon?

Yes. And Miss Gladyshevsky? No.

Motion fails, 4 ayes and 4 nays. Mr. Smith? Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I'd move that the, the assembly take action described in number 4, and that's provide the requested funding to be distributed disbursed on the condition that the project obtains necessary permits and approvals. Comments on that motion?

You people kind of commented already. Okay, a roll call vote.

Any objection? No objection. Okay, well then, never mind, Madam Clerk. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Appreciate the help. Um, okay, so, uh, Need a break? Okay, we'll take 10 minutes.

Okey-dokey. So number B, item B, yay, number 2, dock electrification update. Mr. Manager. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

You've got two memos in your packet, one from Port Engineer Eric Shaw and one from Tourism Manager Ms. Pierce that I had some hand in writing as well. Big picture, we applied for the RAISE grant. We were unsuccessful. We did get a lot of feedback from the public who wanted to participate in making our application better. There is a new funding opportunity again with the RAISE grant that just opened a week or so ago.

And so I've got several issues to give you an update on. I did talk with our federal lobbyist, Ms. Katchel, and ask if we could have Mr. Sherman from her office. You'll recall Mr. Sherman from the retreat who specializes in applying for federal grants, if we could have him review our grant and make suggestions. And Ms. Katchel has agreed to let us have Mr. Sherman. I have been in some communication with the JCOS chair, and I think our goal would be to find a way to let those community advocates participate more fully.

I think in this, in this case we've got— well, it was 90 days, but it's less than 90 days now and we're not starting from nothing. So I think we can work together to get that input.

A number of people, including staff, both CBJ Engineering and Docks and Harbors and Ms. Cattrell and Mr. Sherman and members of JCOS, and at least Ms. Treme participated in the debrief with the U.S. Department of Transportation, and lots of people took notes on what we could do better. So I think we're definitely looking at all those things. And, you know, as is alluded to in Ms. Pierce's memo, the RACE grant might— I think we have to be realistic about our chances. In the debrief with Ms. Katchel, Her take-home message, if you had to distill it down, is, you know, what transportation problem are you solving? We had to do a better job answering that question.

And that might be hard for as good a project as we have. The RISE grant might be a difficult application. Fortunately, there is another grant program where the Notice of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, was issued today. For the Port Infrastructure Development Program, the PIDP, and we got an assist from Senator Sullivan on this. So this is a program that funds ports across the country, and the PIDP is looking, amongst other things, to help electrify ports, traditionally cargo ports, but with with some nudges from CBJ and some nudges from the cruise ship industry, Senator Sullivan was able to expand the language to make that program eligible for passenger ports.

So there's, there's, I think there's a really good fit there. So we'll be doing two grant submissions. And I think, you know, every time you fill out a grant document, you get better at it. Ainsworth, with their winning the RACE grant. You know, 20 years going at it, and they finally, finally got the RACE grant.

So I guess in summary, I will, I will shepherd the grant process and make sure that we're communicating as well as possible. Certainly Mr. Ukadel and I communicate a lot. There's a really good alliance between Dachshund Harbors and the engineering department. They work very closely together on a lot of projects, I think we can thread that needle on those grant applications.

Whether we are successful or not, I don't know. I think we're going to do our level best and really put our shoulder into it. There are a couple other issues. We have the manager's recommendation for passenger fees out for public comment, and in that we are recommending around $2.6 million for the dock electrification project that will come to, I believe, the Finance Committee after the public comment period has finished. The Assembly can correct me if my assumption is wrong, but my assumption is that dock electrification is a priority for the community and that we are not on a timeline where we're waiting to be successful for a grant.

I think we are applying for grants, we are hopeful for grants, but we also need to be simultaneously developing the project and developing financing for the project. We have support of the cruise ship industry, and we have a readily available funding stream through our passenger fees, our local ones and our state ones. And it is not difficult for me to imagine that we can figure out a funding package, even if it requires us to do some type of debt vehicle to move the project forward. So a lot happening, a lot of work and coordination needs to happen. I will, I will personally help make sure that happens.

We will enlist our federal lobbyists to make sure that we're putting the best application forward possible for those two grant opportunities, and if, and if others arise. And the Assembly will also get updates through the passenger fee recommendation and eventually a proposal on funding, and actually a third discussion about the actual procurement method. So we've discussed this a little bit this, this fall. Again, this is a project that maybe is not the best fit for traditional low bid. Number of vendors who make proprietary systems that are specialized, and we might go for a different procurement path.

We've got the Port Director, the Port Engineer, the Docks and Harbors Board Chair all here. And I'm sure they would all contribute to conversation as the body desires.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Manager. So to summarize your summary, uh, the next steps are the applying for the two grants, good news about the port infrastructure development, and you are going to coordinate all that with, with Docks and Harbors and with our lobbyist who has applied for a bunch of transportation grants and make them, uh, submit them again. What questions does anyone have about that or anything in this memo, these memos? Miss, uh, Madam Mayor has a highlighted version of the memo.

I went a little nuts with my yellow pen, I have to say. Um, first of all, uh, thank you to the Senator. That's great. And also thank you for Miss— to Mr. Shaw and Miss Pierce for their memos. They're very nice and easy to read.

You guys are doing great. So, um, I liked a lot what Mr. Watt said I'd like to see him be the shepherd. He went from professor to the shepherd in the span of a meeting. And report back to Public Works Committee, so I'll throw Mr. Bryson under the bus if the assembly involvement is necessary. I agree with spending the passenger fees and remind the public that they're up for recommendations right now, so please comment on that if you would so like.

And then since Dock and Harbors is so well well represented. I'd like to see, um, Docks and Harbors present a financing proposal to come back to the Finance Committee on dock electrification. And those are just my thoughts, and if any of those need to be motions, although it just seems to be an update rather than a move for action, I would be happy to make those. Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor. Any, um, comments, questions?

Miss Hill— Miss Hughes-Candies then. Uh, thank you, uh, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, I'm reading the memo, it's on packet page 51, the conclusion about the the study and the intent to review, catalog, and categorize the comments and identify those comments which can be addressed within the study through corrections or additions. And then I think finalize the study with a comment matrix. I am concerned that that study did not do what the Assembly asked it to.

And I'd really like to see a draft again with it called out very clearly what our request was so that we can, before it's finalized, that we can actually review that draft and make sure it actually was producing what we were asking for. So I would like to see a draft before it's finalized.

Okay, um, you can make a motion later as we're Anybody can make motion. Ms. Youskandeekee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had a question. I wasn't able to attend the debrief with DOT, and I heard from a lot of folks who did, and it sounds like it was a lot of good information of ways we could improve applications in the future. And I was just looking for clarification because I heard today that perhaps the city had submitted multiple applications for the race grant, or is that crazy? Okay, not— would have been news to me.

For the record, Mr. Watt shaking his head no. Yeah, who's—. Oh, um, Mr. Yucatel has a comment.

For the record, we did submit—. Uh, Mr. Yucatán, there you go. We did submit 3 RACE grants FY21. So there was 3 grants. One was a design for the Fisherman's Terminal, and one was for the small cruise ship infrastructure.

That's the most you can— you can apply for 3, up to 3 grants. And if I may continue, um During the, during the debrief with the USDOT, Mr. Howard Hill was specifically asked, is that hurt a municipality's chances for, by, by maybe miscommunicating the priorities? And his response was no, it does not. He said you can submit as many as the NOFO allows you to. And just for the record, you, we got none of them.

Right, Madam Chair, that's correct. Okay, great. Did you have something, Mr. Watt? No? Okay.

Ms. Treme. Thank you, Madam Chair. Oh, go ahead. I didn't know we just submitted 3. Was the debrief specifically for dock electrification?

Okay, I'm seeing nods to the affirmative. Okay. Liz Cream. Um, thank you. Ah, I didn't notice.

Uh, I thought the debrief was really, really helpful. Mr. Hill was— gave a lot of really specific advice for the application that I think, um, people who are attending that meeting could easily use that information to improve the grant application. I—. My take I took away personally was that the RACE grant is probably not the best fit for dock electrification, which I really had no idea of before attending that, so I'm glad I did. And I'm happy to hear that the Port Infrastructure Development Grant, just based on its name, sounds like it might be better.

We don't need to give you any specific— we don't need to take action to tell you to apply for that, right?

Mr. Yucatel, do you intend to submit the other 2 again in this cycle? The same, you know, because you submitted 3 and now you—.

Madam Chair, so, well, one of the takeaways from Mr. Howard Hill was look at the NOFO exactly, follow the NOFO exactly, and tailor your grants exactly. So we're in the process of doing that, and we will continue to to pursue all grant opportunities. And we do, we've been applying for RAISE grants, BUILD grants, TIGER grants. We do so all the time with the hopes of improving them as we move forward. I mean, the RAISE grant, again, there was over 800, approximately 800 applications.

They approved 90. So it's a 10 to 1. Similarly, there's a billion-dollar grant opportunity. There was over $10 billion of, of submissions. And, and if I may, my takeaway from Mr. Howard Hill was, you've got a nice project here.

It was rated to be recommended, not highly recommended. There was 274 highly recommended projects. But he, Mr. Hill, said, um, if USDOT is anything They are a safety organization. You may have a nice project for sustainability, you might have a nice project for quality of life, but you really don't have a safety project. He didn't say don't, don't continue applying for grants.

That was not a takeaway. But he also gave other aspects as far as questions directly were Does grant— does a match money matter? He said no, match doesn't matter. So there was, you know, good information that came back from, from that debrief. Did you find out that your other projects were possibly more likely for that pot of money?

Uh, Madam Chair, we've had Mr. Hill debrief us on, on past projects. There was such an emphasis from the community to get this brief in, and we were respectful of the federal bureaucrats' time, so we only asked for one debrief from DOT this year. Okay, thank you. Ms. Wall and Ms. Tree. Thank you, Madam—.

Excuse me— thank you, Madam Chair. I just had a quick comment. I appreciated the part of the memo from Mr. Shaw about the policy questions at the end of the memo. I think those are policy questions we will have to, at least some of them, you know, deal with as part of this process. And I don't think we need to do that now.

And I don't think we need to do that as part of, you know, finishing the study.

But I would just ask that Docks and Harbors, you know, consider that these are policy questions that, that, you know, we will talk about these things. And so there are multiple scenarios for how this project gets developed. And if that can be reflected in the report and can be reflected in our grant applications, then we're just going to better represent what the potential scenarios are moving into the future in terms of how much this project might be able to offset greenhouse gases into the future. Thank you.

Stream. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Just one more comment about that debrief session. From my reading between the lines, it sounds like the administration change changed also the kind of priorities that they're looking for in the environmental environmental impacts are, are more important than maybe they have been. I totally understand the fact that we don't want a board of volunteers to be driving the multimillion dollar grant process, and we need to keep that within the manager's office and Docks and Harbors.

But we, we do have a very committed and enthusiastic group of really exceptional people who I think could really help on that part, given that JCOSS kind of specifically exists to talk about those environmental issues. So I hope there's room for them to be involved as much as is appropriate. They definitely want to be. I'm also the JCOSS liaison, and the last meeting they spent basically the whole meeting talking about this debrief session and their desire to be part of this process moving forward.

More questions, or— Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Just a slight—. Sorry if I've missed this, it was already discussed— a slight question on the report. Does the findings of the report, does that affect how viable our grant applications are.

So who wants to take that one? Mr. Yucatel, or someone at the debrief, I imagine. Go ahead, Mr. Yucatel. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. So we always try to specifically tailor our grant applications to the grant's NOFO.

And so I think to answer your question, I would say that the grants do not— the grants are answered as best as we can explain the scenario. So to answer the question about working with JACOS specifically, the Coordination has been about data that we can quantify. And so when we talk about emissions reductions and we, we tend to come from a point of past performance is a good indicator of future performance. And so if we look specifically at greenhouse gas reductions using the Franklin Dock as a shining example, 20 years of, of being a world leader to move into a interruptible customer service would show less reductions than to be a completely firm user. And so those are the numbers that were used during this grant application.

And so we'll always do our best to share the information as we understand it to, to fine-tune it towards a grant application. The numbers that we shared with the raised grant application were not viewed as insufficient to rise to the level of highly recommended and to move into the top tier of 274 grant applications. As Mr. Hill said, they were focusing on projects that scored highly in the first review section, which was safety. And so we will always try to share our grant applications that speak to the highest levels within each grant requirement. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Smith, you have another question? Just to follow up, just so I was clear, so the information from the report is used in the grant, but maybe they don't look at the report as part of— explain to me there where the inform— how the report might impact or is used in the grant application. So thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. So the report is used to gather the data that would be used for the grant application. So the report was not cited in the grant application.

The grant application was written specifically for the grant opportunity. Okay, great. Uh, more questions, comments? I have just a comment. Oh, you have one?

Go ahead. Just, just that, um, there's been— we've gotten a fair— we've gotten a lot of public comments, some of it very detailed, and just encourage that. I know you will consider it as the report is being revised and everything, but so just encourage to pay attention to some of that very good public comment. Ms. Hale, you have a question? I have a motion.

Before that, I just— then I have one thing. The memo says that the purpose of the study that this is intended to evaluate the availability of power which can be provided by the local utility to assist the decision-making process. That's the second sentence in the second paragraph. So, um, I thought that was a bit startling to me because from our May finance meeting we, we said a bunch of different things. We said, you know, figuring out the next steps to connect SHIPS you know, come up with a preliminary design.

And then the third thing was implications regarding power. So I just wanted to comment that when you go and look at all the comments and you revise this, you know, look back at what we said, because I don't think we emphasized the sentence like you suggested. That's all. Go ahead, Ms. Hale.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. We did receive a lot of comments on that draft study. It's a— it's very complex. It's a very— not an easy thing to wrap a person's mind around, especially my mind. But we received comments from people that looked at it in great detail.

I think what I would prefer, and my motion is that the Assembly see draft study again with details of the assembly request and that table of comments so that we can actually look at that draft study before it's finalized and make sure that we actually are understanding how the comments have been addressed in the final— in the draft before it's finalized. So that's my motion. Comments on that? Is there any objection to that? Mr. Bryson.

Miss Gladyshevsky, could I have Miss Hill please repeat the motion? I'm sorry, I was really wordy. My motion is that the assembly be given an opportunity to review the draft study once the comments have been addressed in the study and be able to see that draft along with the categorized comments and along with the assembly's original request for the study.

Mr. Bryson, you had a comment. Uh, yes, Madam Deputy Mayor. I was going to, uh, offer up that this would be perfect for Public Works and Facilities. As the mayor already indicated, we'd be able to do an update there, and I think this would be a perfect location, uh, for the report or the information that Miss Hale wants the assembly to look at. I'll be more than happy to have that at Public Works and Facilities, ma'am.

Ms. Hale, for the time—. Yes, I'd be happy to modify my motion that the Public Works and Facilities Committee receive that draft. Okay, study once all the other things have happened. Thank you, Ms. Hale. Any objections to that motion?

Okay, there you go. Thanks, you guys. Thanks for all your work on this, um, really appreciate it. Good luck applying for more grants for, for everything you need. Okay, number— look at this— number 3, Eagle Crest Gondola.

Mr. Watt.

Deputy Mayor, in your packet you have an appropriation ordinance that you forwarded to yourself from the Finance Committee.

The—. I would also report that the Eagle Crest Summer Operations Task Force met on Friday. Chair Smith had a good conversation there, and then Friday night the Eagle Crest board and the task force made a motion to forward the appropriation ordinance to the assembly. And on Friday night, the Eagle Crest Board also met, and they sent you a, a supporting resolution that you have in your red folder. It's a simple one-sentence support of the ordinance for the purchase of the gondola, and I don't have anything further to say on the matter.

Okay, do we have the Eagle Crest Board Chair or Mr. Scanlon unavailable?

Bring them on over. Deputy Mayor, I'll bring— I'm bringing over Mr. Hanna, hopefully, and not Mr. Hanna, Mr. Saytri and Mr. Scanlon.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Saytri, Mr. Scanlon, for joining us.

Mr. Scanlon, did you have a presentation? I'm— I can't remember.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a very condensed couple slides that I could go through if that's the will of the body. As you know, I love to speak on this topic, but Would be honored to keep things brief and run a couple slides if that's the will. Stand by, Mr. Scanlon. Mr. Satri, would you tell us what happened at the board?

And I mean, we see the one sentence, but could you characterize that for us? Thanks. Yes, thank you very much, Madam Deputy Mayor. Appreciate the opportunity to join in the committee of the whole tonight. Appreciate the assembly's work on this item.

So I will actually go back even one more board meeting, our normal monthly board meeting on the first Thursday of February, where I specifically did not bring a resolution to vote on, but rather set this up as a long discussion item amongst the members. We had a very good discussion at that time, as well as public comment before and after that discussion. And in general, you know, the— The board has been working very hard over the past few years to look at ways to, you know, get to it at the bare minimum revenue neutral at Eagle Crest. And to do that, to be able to fund our infrastructure going forward, you know, we need summer activities and we need some sort of covered, you know, conveyance system, lift, gondola in the summer to do that. And so the discussion on that, that That board meeting really was a summary of all the questions, concerns, comments, and support that the board had had.

We then brought the ordinance to the summer task force because that's the venue that's been designated for any conversations with the assembly and the board. We had that meeting on Friday and then brought— and then set up our special meeting of the Eagle Crest board to consider a resolution of support, a simple resolution of support to capture, you know, all— everything that we had discussed for the previous years up to this time. So we have the $2 million funding ordinance in front of us. The board supports that ordinance to purchase the used gondola. And obviously there are things that need to be done after that purchase.

That $2 million gets the gondola to the parking lot, if you will. And Dave has certainly created many different options going forward from simple installations to, you know, phased-in summer operations as we go forward, but ultimately utilizing this lift to not only enhance our winter operations and infrastructure but also to provide a platform, you know, as the Board and the Assembly decide is appropriate for implementing any future summer operations at Eagle Crest, and so we can and pick from that menu of items that Dave has worked out, you know, once the gondola is purchased to figure out what the next steps of funding and installation are. And that, you know, ultimately everything starts with picking the conveyance, and that's what we're trying to do here. And then we can narrow down the rest of it. So I think unless there's any questions, that's a synopsis of how we got to where we are at today.

Thank you, Mr. Satri. Just to be clear, we had asked for the Eagle Crest Board and for the Eagle Crest Summer Operations Task Force to review this. I want to clarify that the task force did meet, but I don't believe that the motion was to support it. It was just to move it to the, uh, COW. Is that correct?

As a task force chair, want to characterize what happened there? Yes, thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, we had a meeting that I maybe didn't give enough time time for. We went about an hour and 15 minutes, and at the end of that we did vote to move it from the task force to the Committee of the Whole, but it was, it was not a motion of support for the project. And so is Mr. Smith— it was because it wasn't enough time or something, but I just wanted to clarify that it wasn't a motion of support.

A motion to move it and to put it back in the whole Assembly's lap, yeah? That is correct. It was a motion to move it from committee, knowing that that was the trigger to get it before the CAO.

Obviously, this is a quick-moving situation, but an opportunity anyway to try not to derail those triggers. We voted to move it from the task force to the CAO. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to clarify for the akau what exactly happened in those two meetings. Um, okay, Mr. Scanlon, do you have a short, um, thing you want to talk about?

I mean, we will have questions for you, so if you want to queue up pictures or whatever you have, um, I think that'd be fine. Okay, uh, thank you. I'm sure there's a bunch of questions. Pardon me? I'm sure there's a lot of questions, so why don't you go ahead with your slides.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. I will try to be brief so we can answer all the questions that I'm sure folks have. Allow me to share my screen here.

Okay, great. Um, I wanted to just reflect back on, uh, First off, can you all see my screen OK? Yep, you look great. Looks great. OK, great.

So just wanted to reflect back on why we're having this conversation. As Mr. Satri alluded to, as you all know, we've been working on ways to, as Mr. Satri said, make ourselves revenue neutral and make sure we have a really vital, sustainable, healthy ski area going forward. And the two big things that we're most concerned about our future is our ability to fund the repair and replacement of our existing aging infrastructure to— from our older buildings to our older lifts and knowing that there are some large capital dollars that will need to be spent in the next 10 years. And really importantly, supporting our competitive wages for recruitment and retention of staff. Thankfully, we've been able to make one small correction to the pay scale, but we've got some more room to go.

We also want to continue the steady growth of our winter visitation to balance out our tourism industry, support our local businesses during the wintertime, and create more opportunity for independent operators to, to have some winter tourism. We also want to protect against our winter operations against the impacts of climate change. As we know, the weather has been very erratic, and, and that has a big impact year to year in the past on our revenue generation. Thankfully, our investments in snowmaking— thank you to the assembly and lately from some additional community support— we've made some big strides to protect our ability to open the ski area with really great snowmaking system. We really want to also engage more non-skiing and snowboarding Juneau residents in activities at Eagle Crest.

We see this gondola installation as a really key piece of infrastructure that'll allow us to do that in all seasons. Obviously, in the summer season, bringing people to the top of the mountain to do hiking and mountain biking and other activities is great for both the locals and dispersing our summer cruise visitors. In the winter season, the location that we've envisioned would allow us to have snow tubing and high-elevation Nordic skiing. And some really fun, low-cost, uh, snow play activities that, uh, people of all economic, uh, backgrounds, um, and demographics could come up to Eagle Crest and engage in activities and, and broaden our appeal across the community. Um, wanna talk about why we're talking about this used gondola and the changes that have happened in the ski industry, um, regarding ski lifts and ski lift availability.

So there's really been this extreme overcrowding at these large corporate ski areas, which have led them all to ordering many new ski lifts. So now the major ski lift manufacturers have a 2 to 3 year backlog on, uh, on availability for new lift installations. This increased demand and supply chain restraints have caused an increase 25% on new ski lift purchases. Used gondolas with the ability to have a midway loading station so we can have those tubing parks and the Nordic skiing and, and be climate change protected are very rare, especially in the length and vertical that we need to install at Eagle Crest. So since we know there's a 2-year backlog, we have a good horizon on used lifts that are becoming available.

Since people place an order for their new lift and we know they're going to receive their new lift in 2 years. So we know a used lift is going to become available. So we don't see any other used gondolas coming on the market now for at least the next 2 years, possibly 3 years out there's a gondola but with no mid-station. So that makes this particular opportunity that much more compelling. We did get an analysis from our ski resort master planning firm, the Essie Group, that arrived in your emails today.

I know many of you may not have had an opportunity to read it. They are the leading ski resort planning firm in North America. They gave some great context talking about this particular lift and, and their opinion of this being a good investment for Juneau. This here, quick picture of the gondola. These are It's a wintertime or summertime ski lift, an enclosed cabin.

As Mr. Satri mentioned, you can fit 15 passengers in each cabin. It'll provide an hourly capacity of 600 passengers per hour. May be able to be increased in the new configuration that we've been talking with engineers about that would put the hourly capacity very similar to the current hourly capacity of Tarmigan chairlift. We know the Ptarmigan chairlift is the backbone of Eagle Crest and is a huge part of the ski experience at Eagle Crest. So this lift in its current configuration, it has enough capacity to be positioned in many different locations on the mountain.

It's long enough, it's, um, designed for enough vertical lift capacity. So this would create some redundancy to our Ptarmigan chairlift. So if we had some mechanical issues with the Tarmigan chairlift, this would give us a lot of redundancy to our winter operations and would keep us very strong in the face of that adversity. Um, process moving forward, if we were able to secure the purchase of this lift, it would really give us clarity on the additional money we would need to get the lift installed and to build out other recreational experiences around the lift infrastructure. And opening up opportunity for private tour operators to expand their businesses and develop new tour products using this lift as a backbone.

So this would be a really core piece of summer and winter operations, but would allow us to expand out and create more opportunity for the private sector. So we'd continue working with Eagle Crest Board to refine the alignment options using input from our engineers, getting geotechnical data, and continue to work with the Eagle Crest Summer Operations Task Force to evaluate desires to use this as a summer lift, which we know that's where the financial strength is, and selecting funding options to support that financial plan. Ideally completing these tasks by around July 1st and contemplating different funding mechanisms, which might be a 1% sales tax initiative. Potentially a central treasury loan. List of the capital costs here.

I stripped this down or removed any Summit Lodge, any talk of a mountain coaster. This is the purchase and installation of the lift. Our ski resort master planning firm suggested that we bring up our contingency funds to allow for extra unforeseen things during installation, so I accommodated that here. Which has the purchase price for $2 million, as you can see, allows us to purchase the gondola, allows us to transport it here into the parking lot, allows us to do some initial engineering and ground survey and some of the geotechnical analysis so we can really refine those construction costs. And that was coming from some recommendations from contractors that just finished the installation of the gondola in Hoonah.

So having that geotechnical engineering work will really let us know and refine down those installation costs. Last screenshot here, kind of our base case analysis for visitation. What we have here is showing that a capture rate of our summer visitors of a 3% capture rate, baseline operations. Doing just the lift rides to the top of the mountain without other activities added on that could actually boost revenue and, and add us an additional return. In the base case here, at 1 million visitors at a 3% capture rate, $45 generated, still with our, uh, GF support for Eagle Crest at $875, is, is kind of the break-even case.

We know we're likely to get a lot more than 1 million visitors. So at 1.35 visitors, our visitation that we had prior to the pandemic, again at a 3% capture rate, we're just about eliminating the general fund needs for Eagle Crest with a net income of $721,000. Basically almost gets us to that net neutral position that we've talked about. Then if we grew cruise visitation to 1.5 million visitors, Now we've eliminated general fund support needs, we're neutral, and we're generating net profit. If we're able to build the other summer activities around it and add on other components through different funding mechanisms, then that— the average visitor spending goes up, the percent capture rate goes up, and the financials become even stronger.

Mr. Scanlon, just while you're on this, let me just clarify. So you're assuming 3% for this model, 3%, and the amount that comes to Eagle Crest is how many dollars? It's $45. $45. Okay, thank you.

That's correct. And so this is our baseline financial model scenario. At that, that's the kind of the nuts and bolts that I wanted to cover. I can stop sharing my screen if you'd like. Or I can leave this up for future reference.

Stand by, Mr. Scanlon. We have a question on this from Ms. Hale. So I'm just trying to understand. I also have a question about what the funding mechanism would be, but I'm a little bit hung up on this million visitors. And when you say however many visitors we have now, Are you talking about discrete visits like a skier goes up 30 times a year so that counts for— that counts as 30?

So, Mr. Scanlon. Through the chair, thank you, Madam Chair, Miss Howell. This is referencing the cruise visitation that's forecasted to arrive. So when we're looking at these million cruise visits, those are our cruise visitation to Juneau and us capturing 3% of that visitation. Visitation.

Some of the backbone we used for those numbers in the previous exit visitor surveys from McDowell Group back, I believe, in 2017, they determined that 15% of our cruise visitors did tram rides, 15% did nature hikes and walks, 1% did zipline, 1% did bike tours. So that gives us a total of 32% of the total visitation that's already doing the activities that we could also offer here at Eagle Crest. So we feel that these numbers are very conservative, saying we're only going to capture 3%, knowing that 32% of those people are already doing the activities that we would also be able to offer. OK, so just to be clear, 3% is 30,000. You're, you're assuming 30,000 people come up to Eagle Crest to ride the gondola and they're charged some amount of money, but you get 45% of that.

That is correct, Madam Chair, and if you distill that down to how many people does that mean per day, that's around 300 people per day. Ms. Hale has a follow-up. Yes, I do. Thank you, that was extremely helpful. I was not following that.

So what— how many cruise ship visitors coming to Juneau is your break-even point? Because I can't read that spreadsheet. So the break-even point is basically that 300, um, at a million visitors, or let's talk about how many daily visitors to Eagle Crest. So our break-even—. No, no, just tell me that, that million, that number, that's what I'm looking for.

The million number, um, yeah, that of that is 300 visitors to Eagle Crest a day. So at a million cruise ship passengers coming to Juneau by this model, you'd break even? Correct. Thank you. If you would break even with no general fund support?

No, no. Um, to clarify, we would, um, cover all of our costs still with the general fund support that we get right now. Okay, thank you. Eliminate the general fund support entirely, we need to be around the 425 visitors per day. Which would be if we were receiving 1.35 million visitors and still at that 3% capture rate, that gets us to that break-even point.

With a million visitors coming to Juneau, if we're attracting a 4% capture rate, that gets us right around our break-even point as well. So that super spot is receiving around 425 visitors or 420 visitors to Eagle Crest per day. So you need 400,000-ish visitors— I'm sorry, 40,000 a season-ish to break even. That's correct. But what about repaying— well, that's another question— repaying the bonds on getting this installed?

Um, yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, if we, if we carry that general fund support during our bond repayment issuance and build out our extra activities, we can model that we think we could pay down that debt with a 5-year term. Okay, more questions on anything on this, or one wanted to stop sharing your screen? We can't see your— stop sharing your screen, Mr. Scanlon, because I don't know if anyone could read that. Ms. Treme and then Mr. Bryson.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I have a I have a lot of questions. Go ahead. Obviously. So when I listened to Friday's special meeting, the board was talking about how they don't know if this would or could replace Tarmigan.

And I guess I understood from that that the board didn't know if this would or could be for summer only or for also winter. Winter, but it sounds like, based on your presentation, that the plan is for this to be kind of really geared specifically towards summer operations. So I'm curious what kind of public process Eagle Crest has done on that summer operations issue. We as the Assembly have the Summer Operations Task Force that is kind of supposed to dig into the question of whether we should do that. So what has Eagle Crest done?

Because I think that, you know, North Douglas residents would probably have something to say about the projected 45,000 or 70,000 visitors coming up there every summer. Mr. Scanlon or Mr. Satri, you both have— maybe Mr. Satri, you were around for all the outreach the Eagle Crest board has done on this issue. Yes, thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. The—. Over the past few years, this has been noticed on our board meetings.

It's been the subject of our planning committee meetings. It's also been the subject of our board retreats. However, also pre-pandemic— and Dave has the numbers at his fingertips, I don't, and I apologize for that— there was a series of public meetings that Dave did in addition to targeting, you know, Chambers of Commerce and breakfast clubs and coffee clatches around town to try to get a sense of what we were doing. So there was some pretty significant outreach before that. And, you know, ultimately, you know, what we believe the Eagle Crest, you know, Task Force charged to do is evaluating these options and finding a way for the Eagle Crest Board and the Assembly to move forward on this.

You know, ultimately, and I mean, now I want to get back a little bit to Ms. Freeman's question. In regards to Tarmigan and where this goes. The key with this purchase is that we actually have some pretty unique flexibility. If the purchase is passed by the— you know, the authorization to purchase this is passed by the Assembly, then we can go back to— you know, there's really 4 options of where this lift can go. One of them is a direct Tarmigan Armageddon replacement.

That does give us summer operations as well, but it may not give us the, you know, the optionality in the future to continue to add to that summer operations. And there's a list of pros and cons that go with that, as a list of pros and cons that go with each alignment. So that allows, you know, if the purchase is authorized, then it allows the Summer Task Force and the Eagle Crest board to work through those pros and cons, the different financial models that Dave has developed for each of them, and what, what those mean, and make that ultimate selection. But it's hard to do any of that without knowing what piece of equipment we're, we're planning for and what we can design around. Absent that, then we're left to basically look at what is, you know, what would be new on the market for a detachable gondola that could be upwards of $15 $50 million and start designing around that hypothetical.

But here we have something that's potentially a bird in hand that we can then, you know, go through the alternatives, have additional public process, and select the one that best fits the vision of the Eelcrest Board, you know, the policy vision of the Assembly, and reflects the public's needs. And, you know, I tried to raise my hand a little bit earlier. I'll just touch on this quickly so we can move on. But, you know, the financial model that Dave is presenting tonight is the absolute bare-bones base case. All we are offering is people ride up to the gondola and then they're coming down.

What it really doesn't include is the fact that there's a potential of other vendor options that come into that. So we, you know, we heard comments, you know, from the Assembly Finance Committee, we heard them in the Eau Crest Task Force, is give us the bare bones. So we have bare bones in front of you here tonight. We have the ability to add on to it that actually enhance the revenue model. But this is like many other discussions with the city.

You have to invest capital to save money later on, or you will be stuck continually putting Band-Aids on aging infrastructure. So thank you. Thank you. Can I just jump in to follow up on the fundamental question? We are really scrambling in a, in a incredibly advanced timeline for a government body to analyze something.

It's not on our— so please explain how it's so vital that this is the thing. You said that, uh, you know what's coming up because people are buying a new one, and so every 2 years. So presumably this happens every ski areas all over. Why is this such an emergency right now?

If you could explain that, because it's— I mean, what time do we have to make this decision? Is someone really going to buy this thing? Nobody, if it's such a— yeah, just explain the emergency, if you would, either one of you, whoever wants to jump in on that. Dave, I'll defer to you first. Great, thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, so this particular gondola is, is what we call a fixed grip gondola, and they're very rare in the ski industry. And what's unique about it is it has much, much lower operating costs, much lower maintenance costs, and it's a very simple basic machine, yet it's able to do what we needed to do, as Mr. Satri described, in both summer and winter season. So used gondolas are very rare in general. They don't come up on the market often, but this type of gondola is even more rare. And, uh, so that's where we create the urgency, um, and the timeline gets more urgent because they're planning to start dismantling this lift.

It's currently running right now, so they're scheduled to start dismantling this lift by April 1st. So if they don't have a buyer in hand, and there is another buyer that's very interested in this lift, but if they don't have another buyer in hand, then it's— it is likely to— it won't still be available. So we have a short window to secure this lift before it goes to another buyer, has a different fate. And if I may add to that, Madam Chair? Go ahead, Mr. Saytri.

So Dave's given you the ski market perspective. Let me give you the Eagle Crest board's perspective, ever since I joined the board, there's— and I applied to be on the board because I'm concerned, or I was very concerned about the aging infrastructure at Eagle Crest, and I wanted to do something about that. And quickly learned that with budgetary constraints, CIP schedules, it was going to be very hard to do much more than, you know, try to keep what we had running. With, you know, not a lot of hope on the horizon for replacements and always subject to, you know, the decisions of the Assembly about whether or not they would have general fund support for the ski area. It's quickly evident to myself and I believe the other board members in our conversations that we have to follow the lead of what just about every single other ski area does is they get their revenue in the summer to ensure that they're winter operations can go forward, you know, regardless of what climate throws at them.

So if the board had had this available 2.5 years ago, we probably, you know, would have jumped right on it with the funding request to the Assembly. Every time we miss out on an opportunity like this, we're losing potentially multiple years of construction schedules to get Eagle Crest to the point where it has the potential to be financially viable And, and I believe that we have the potential to put funds back into the general fund and ensure the survivability of Eagle Crest long term. Thank you, Mr. Saytri. And I, I wasn't— I was just trying to probe about this gondola, not whether, you know, summer is a good thing to be doing. I think you've done a lot of outreach on that.

And I think there hasn't been opposition to that, and most skiers apparently understand summer is necessary for winter to happen. But the question for the assembly is this gondola today. Mr. Bryson and then Ms. Wall.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And then Ms. Stream. Um, so I have a statement and a question, and the statement that I wanted to make is that he had a $7 million price tag delivered and installed. And as we've been talking about summer operations, we were initially— before the pandemic, we were told a potential gondola installation would be $22 million.

There was a figure on Mr. Scanlon's slide that says costs have gone up by about 25%. So that means that if we were looking at a brand new gondola today, we'd be looking at about $27.5 million. We've got it on here, we can have the gondola in Juneau installed for roughly $7.5 million. There is nothing else that I've seen in the 4 years of being on the assembly that gives us an opportunity to bring a $20 million value to the community by taking advantage of a smoking deal we're bringing extra value that we wouldn't have to charge taxpayers for. If we did it any other direction, we would have to charge taxpayers a higher rate to get the same value.

So there's an extreme value component to this by getting a used gondola on the market in a time when they're not available. My question is, what happens to Eagle Crest in the future if we don't buy this gondola? Eagle Crest has required more and more CIP. They've had aging infrastructure. They had a ptarmigan chair issue this year.

If we don't take a significant step towards the future of Eagle Crest, um, could somebody please explain to me what happens in the next 5, 10, 15, or 20 years to Eagle Crest? Because I have a feeling that our subsidy would be significant, and the community says we're not going to shut things down. We don't shut down pools that need extra money, and I I can imagine what would happen in this community if we said, hey, we're going to shut Eagle Crest down. Okay, Mr. Bryson, we got your question. Who wants to ask, answer that one?

Mr. Saytree, Mr. Scanlon.

You know, Dave, why don't you go? I mean, I think we're aligned on this. I mean, there's, there is a— Mr. Bryson and Madam Deputy Mayor, thanks for the opportunity. But, you know, through the chair, Mr. Bryson is correct that the area will be facing significant, you know, capital spends as we look to, you know, replace infrastructure that was installed in 1975 and 1980. I mean, that's where we sit today.

Okay. You good, Mr. Bryson? Okay. Ms. Wall, Ms. Treme. Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr.

Citri and Mr. Scanlon, for being here and for all the work you're doing to think about the long-term future of Eagle Crest. I wasn't on the assembly when we— when the task force was set up and when the Eagle Crest summer plan was put together, so I finally read the plan this weekend and just really appreciate everyone who worked on that. Great vision for the future of our ski area and our community. One thing I really liked about the plan was the idea of the gondola replacing Tarmigan because it, you know, at least from my viewpoint, seemed to kill two birds with one stone. It provided opportunities for summer visitors and took care of our aging Tarmigan.

And so I'm very excited I'm curious why, from what I'm hearing tonight, you all are planning on, you know, maybe replacing Tarmigan with this gondola or evaluating your options. So why wouldn't you use this as an opportunity to replace Tarmigan? And if we don't, what is, what is Tarmigan replacement going to cost ultimately? Thank you. Thank you, Miss Wall.

Mr. Scanlon, or whoever.

I'll begin. Put the other question back, back to Dave, but through the Chair, this may very well replace Tarmigan. That is one of the options on the table. We, however, believe that selecting one of the other options allows us to create further revenue opportunity that then would allow Eagle Crest to self-fund its capital infrastructure. Or get its own revenue bonds such that we could then take a fixed-grip quad or a fixed-grip triple and replace Tarmigan, you know, on the used market, but getting a lift that was built in the '90s or 2000s as opposed to the current lift, you know, that was installed in the early '70s.

But I'll let Dave speak to the cost. Mr. Scannon, anything to add to that from his wall? Yeah, through the chair, thank you. The one thing I would add to that, the critical thing for, for being able to generate summer revenue and give our summer visitors the experience that I think they're desiring is having that top terminal station be on the ridgetop. So you can see these just magnificent views of Admiralty Island and Stevens Passage.

So when we talk about having a lift on the ridgetop, it definitely is a more exposed to the weather location. And what I've learned over my 5 years at Eagle Crest is, boy, we get some erratic weather. And Ptarmigan's current configuration, being lower down on the mountain, is really ideal for our really nasty inclement weather. So I see the value in, as Mr. Saytri described, some of the other potential placements allows a robust financial model that should allow us to address out of our own home capital raised through the project, the replacement of Tarmigan. So from what I know, talking from lift designers, a brand new fixed-grip quad replacement of Tarmigan is probably going to cost us around $4 million.

If we just did a straight one-to-one replacement of Tarmigan and replaced it with a fixed-grip double chair, we're probably around $2.5 million. So that's, what we're looking at for the cost of a Tarmigan replacement, and all of the thoughts that go through our minds, both the state, Mr. Saytri, and many of our board members, of whether we put this exactly where Tarmigan is, or if there's a different alignment that might better serve us in the future. Okay, good. Ms. Wall, Ms. Treme. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor.

Hi there. My question has to do a little bit with both of that. In the public comment on Friday's special meeting, somebody asked about, you know, vetting this for the weather conditions and the wind conditions, and I think if I remember correctly, you talked about that in the Friday task force meeting, that that that's happening. Is that—. How long does that process take?

Is that going to be done, that kind of weather wind analysis? Will that be done by the 28th? Mr. Scanlon. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. So that will be an ongoing process that'll be months in the making.

We, we have some wind monitoring equipment that we can install in a couple locations along the ridgetop so we can gather months' worth of data and then analyze the relationship of that wind speed data that we would get over a month's period and, and do some graphs comparing it to all the historical wind speed data that we have coming from the top of our Ptarmigan chairlift and be able to determine what those exact weather impacts would be and if one location on the ridgetop may have less wind than another location. So that would be equipment that we would be— if this moves forward, we would be able to install this summer and start gaining that data. Ms. Treen? Thank you. Quick follow-up.

Does that kind of analysis— is that kind of generic? Could you do that now and then be able to apply it to kind of any equipment purchase? Because it sounds like it'd be good data to have. Or does it have to be kind of specific to the piece of equipment that you're looking at? Mr. Scanlon.

Great question. We could certainly apply that data to many different types of lifts or types of equipment. So, um, you're exactly correct, really valuable information once we can get that wind monitoring station in those spots. It'll really inform a lot of future decisions on various equipment. Okay, we have Mayor Weldon, Ms. Youskandies, Ms. Hale, and then Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Satria and Mr. Scanlon, for being here tonight. Ms. Treme hit some of my questions because of my understanding where this gondola is operating right now is at a lower elevation than what we're going to probably ask it to be, and so the winds were a concern and just the higher elevation. You mentioned that its timeline is they start dismantling it April 1st. So my question is, why are they selling it? And if it's a 20-year-old lift, can we still get parts?

And then my third question would be, where would we store it? Because my understanding is it's several conex boxes. Mr. Scanlon. Thank you, through the Chair. Great questions.

So they are dismantling it or replacing it because they need more uphill capacity where this lift is currently serving because their business has increased so much. They're simply upgrading to a gondola that has twice the uphill capacity to meet their business needs as their mountain has been growing. So that's the reason why they're looking to install it. Um, the company Pro Alpin that is doing— that does these lift relocations, they have the ability to continue sourcing parts for us and servicing us. I will also reference to the analysis that we received from our ski resort master planning firm.

With the proper refurbishment before reinstalling a lift, they, in their opinion, foresee a 20-year service life without having to do any major maintenance or improvements. So the best time to refurbish or rebuild some of the key critical critical components is when the lift is on the ground. So, we would be intending to do all of those things. This is a really good, durable, well-built machine that we should have a lot of good service life off of. Then, in regards to our storage capacity, within our CIP budget request this year, we would have some funds available to build some additional parking capacity, which we've needed the past couple years.

So we would be losing parking capacity, and we would be able to store 25 Conex containers without losing parking capacity. That would also give us additional parking and future expansion ability for, for other things that we need regardless. Miss Mayor Walton, all your 3 things answered, is that it? That's it for me in the gondola right now. I have other questions on your proposal.

Okay, Mr. Saytri, you had some comments. Apologies. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to actually get back to what the Mayor was referencing at the beginning, Eagle Crest is just barely above sea level, so I'll guarantee we're much lower in elevation than the Austrian lift. We have certainly significant wind and temperature and precipitation data at various different different points around Eagle Crest that can be used to help model what we have, and then we'll validate that with, you know, the actual on-site data.

But, you know, we are not alone in designing lifts or in trying to site lifts in these types of conditions. You know, there are many, many other places in the ski world that have similar conditions to us. So certainly, you know, we'll have the right engineering teams, and I think Dave has put the right money in the cost estimate for that work. Thank you. What ski area is it currently at?

The lift, the gondola, the name of the place it currently is? I can forward that along. I would put the name right now. It's an Austrian name. My pronunciation would, would not do it justice, but I—.

Okay, that'd be great. Then we just go look at it. Um, uh, Ms. Hughes-Candies. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to both of you for being here.

So I wanted to clarify some of the other members have already touched on. So for Tarmigan, it sounded like you had offered two different price estimates of what it would cost if we were just talking about replacing Tarmigan. And obviously we'll try to get as much life out of it as possible, but I heard $4 million and then I heard $2.5 million.

Mr. Scanlon. Thank you, Chair. The two price differences are different size chairs. So the $2.5 million would be for a 2-seat chair, the $4 million would be for a 4-seat chair. So it'd be nice as if we were going to do a replacement to Tarmigan, we would want to plan for a growing ski area and add some additional uphill lift capacity, which would lead us to making the investment of a 4-seat chair instead of a 2-seat chair.

So that's where those price differences come into play. Okay, go ahead. Thank you, Philip. And what at this time, as a reference, I think obviously we'll try to make it last as long as possible, but what is the board's thought on how long tarmac could go before being replaced? So, Mr. Scant— oh, Mr. Saytree, go ahead.

Um, yeah, so let's remember, um, The lift opened in 1975, but it wasn't brand new when it was installed. It was a used lift, and I've heard varying stories on how many years of life it had even before it was in use here at Eagle Crest. But, you know, now we're starting to creep up on 50 years of life at Eagle Crest, and, you know, we are definitely getting towards the end of its usable life. Barring, you know, major component replacement. And Dave, you have some better details than I.

You good, Ms. Huskany? Or Mr. Scanlon, do you have anything more?

I don't have much more to add. It is a good machine. The manufacturer, Riblet, built very strong machines. With the right maintenance and repairs of the major componentry, we can— we still have some useful life. But the fact does remain that it's 50 years of active service at the mountain, and it is something that many of us talk about needing to be addressed in the future.

You can— excuse me. Thank you. Just one more. Go ahead. And just to make sure my notes are right here, With the, with the gondola, what is the expected— it sounded like you said 20 more years of life since this one is used.

Mr. Scanlon. Yeah, I was referencing 20 years of service life before doing just the regular larger rebuilds. Like typically you'll rebuild a gearbox every 20 years, you'll rewind an electric motor on that same schedule. So, we would be doing a lot of those things as we reinstall it. So, typically you're going to get 20 years before doing some of those bigger service maintenance items.

The fact of the matter is, we could likely get, you know, another 30, 40 years out of this lift doing a good maintenance service. Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. And I'll definitely be more nervous next time I'm on the Ptarmigan Chair. And so it's 20 years old now, correct?

The gondola, is that correct, Mr. Scanlon? It's a 1989 model. Okay, thank you. Um, Ms. Hale?

Uh, I actually have a motion, but it sounds like we might have more people. We do. We have, um, is that what you're going to do, a motion? Okay, so I can wait. Stand by.

We have Mr. Smith and Mr. Mayor Walden.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I was just—. Oh, go ahead. Oh, thanks. Um, let's see, I guess my question was going to be, Mr. Scanlon, just in terms of vetting of the pro forma and the financial model.

I did see a letter of support from Melanie Shyvins yesterday. Who knows numbers, but just wondering who— who— if there— if there's been sufficient time for people to vet the pro forma and financial model. And I did see that Brian Holst from JDC offered to take a look at that anyway, but wondering who else maybe has had a chance to look at that. Mr. Scanlon. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Yes, you're correct, Mr. Smith, that Brian Holst and JDC has time in their schedule if we were able to move this forward to our next meeting schedule that we could have, have them review the financial model. Most of our local Juneau organizations usually do that work for us, are all extremely busy and haven't had time to fit us in their schedule. Mr. Rogers did give me a couple other folks as a reference to reach out to, but we do have JDC and I have another person I'm going to be contacting tomorrow so we could ideally have one or two people look at that financial model so we can hear opinions from various sources.

Okay, Mayor Wilden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And once again, Mr. Smith just segue nicely into what I was talking about. So in my spare time, I reached out to several of the financial people in Juneau that are leading the banks and credit unions, and they looked over for me, so I'll pass those comments on to the Summer Operations, Eagle Crest Summer Operations Task Force. But some of the things that they poked at was on the revenue side, have you challenged your percentage rate with the 3.5%? And one even went so far as to say, why would you ride it?

We all love our mountain views, but would anybody else ride it just to go up the mountain? For instance, you take Goldbelt Tram. They have a restaurant, a gift store, cultural, you know, art trails and all that kind of stuff. There's something there at the top. Here we're just relying totally on nature, and on a day when it's windy and rainy, they may not want to go up there.

So, I think you picked 140 days of operation. What happens if you lose 5, 10 days of that? And on the cost side, your salary costs are being challenged. You increase your FTEs, but your salaries remain flat. The reserve set aside for replacing equipment seems to be low.

Your contingency for building the— or contingency for installing the gondola appears to be very light, in fact. Your report that you sent us from, I think the group was SE, said it's probably closer to $7.5 million, which brings the whole thing up to $9.5 million. And after talking to Mickey Richardson at Tohono O'odham, he said the installation costs were much, much more than they ever estimated. So these are just some of the thoughts out there. And so right now you guys have a little bit of work to do.

On that pro forma. But, um, that's all I have. And like I said, I'll share these comments with you.

Okay. Um, um, I have Ms. Tree, Mr. Bryson, Ms. Wall. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I had similar things. I dove into the spreadsheet this weekend, um, also noticed the personnel costs don't the wages don't increase.

And I think, um, I think you got the, the recent, uh, board action in the FY22 tab but not any of the other tabs. But I was also going to ask about, um, the expenses don't increase, which was a, uh, something I noticed. So I, I guess I would I would ask that this pro forma be worked on with like a financial industry professional because I think Mr. Scanlon is incredibly knowledgeable about the operations part, but I think we could use some help on the financial part. Um, and I have a comment, but I'll wait until we have a motion. Okay, then we have Mr. Bryson with a question and then Ms. Wall.

Uh, thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, just a brief statement. I wanted to say that I am not a skier. I'm not going to ski. I'm probably not going to use this gondola.

I am a business owner, and I see this as the best deal that has ever been in front of us. No one's ever going to come and bring us a road and say, I'm going to sell you this road at 25% of cost. No one's going to bring us a city hall and say, I'm going to sell you a city hall 25% of actual cost. We have an opportunity where somebody's gonna say, hey, one of the projects that you're gonna do, we can sell you at 25% of its original cost. We just haven't seen anything that's presented that great of a deal or a value to our citizens.

Thank you very much for the time. Okay, Mr. Brison, there'll be time for, you know, statements when somebody makes a motion. Miss Wall. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is actually for Mr. Watt.

We just spent like a year on a rezone, a primary objection of which was traffic, and I'm curious, you know, a rezone that would go from residential to commercial and create too much traffic Do our plans for Eagle Crest— is there a process that evaluates that, or any kind of barriers to something like this moving forward as a result of kind of our planning processes?

Deputy Mayor, so I get a couple things. I'll try and I'll try and get to the root of the question. I think one question is, has the public been adequately apprised of the concept of commercialization of the ski area in the summer? And I think arguably yes and arguably no. I think there's been a lot of work done, there have been public meetings, but there hasn't been a vote of the Assembly.

Yes, we want to go this way. I don't think it would be a great surprise to the public, though, if the Assembly endorsed a pivot in that direction in some formal way.

With regard to traffic, I've looked at the financials and just, just kind of doing the math. If there were 30,000 or 30,000 people going to Eagle Crest over the course of a summer, generally a 100-day season. So generally 300 a day on average, and maybe a high day is twice that, maybe 600 a day. And most tour operators are running, uh, 50-passenger motor coaches. So, you know, around a dozen buses up or a dozen down.

So I don't, I don't think there is a traffic issue, you know, for North Douglas Highway. Certainly it's got lots of capacity. Anything that we do, we go through our own permitting processes. So the sheer fact of an appropriation doesn't mean that a city project will survive the Planning Commission. We had a city project that didn't survive the Planning Commission last week that we have to work on some more.

So, you know, I think we can get in these overlapping CBJ processes.

There are a number of issues about commercialization at Eagle Crest with regard to land and the Land and Water Conservation Fund restrictions, I think, which steer us in the direction the owner of a conveyance system on those lands that are restricted by Land and Water Conservation Fund. So I think it— I think the, the Eagle Crest manager has, and I said this Friday at the task force, you know, he has taken the initiative to follow up on the most likely weekly business model that the Summer Operations Task Force, you know, hasn't been able to fully get. And, you know, we— myself, Mr. Palmer, the assembly— we haven't really been able to lean into that process as much as we would have liked to. Hopefully, hopefully I got your question in there somewhere. Good, Miss Paul.

OK, I have a— oh, Mr. Satrian has I see a little yellow blur, so it must be your hand. Go ahead. Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to take that down. I was— Mr. Watt responded exactly how I was going to that question.

I was putting my former Planning Commission hat on in terms of traffic and permitting. But if I just might add, you know, I heard the question before is why would somebody do this? You know, we forget We're very jaded that we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and the bus ride up to Eagle Crest is actually new and exciting for a lot of people. We sell tours to ride bikes, or people, private, you know, industry sells tours to ride bicycles on Back Loop Road right next to our children. People buy whale, or, you know, charter boat trips where they're trolling for hatchery chum right outside the breakwater.

You know, they're on, you know, in our picnic areas and places that we don't necessarily think of as extra special, but for them it's a unique lifetime experience. And if you've ever been on top of that ridge, it's, it's a lifetime experience. If you're not from here, it's a lifetime experience. If you are from here, there, there is demand for these types of experiences. There's no question.

Um, we already are, are leveraging, um, just this past year with the limited cruise ship visitation we had, you know, visitation from Lindblad Expeditions. And, and Dave has a contract with them to significant amount of people up this year and continuing to add to, you know, the gondola. You know, I'll be frank, in the Eagle Crest board's mind, the gondola is a start. If we can get that in, then we can add the lodge, then we can add the drink service, and we can have a place for reunions and weddings and on and on down the road. But it gives us the ability to do that, you know, largely on our own.

But thank you for the the time, Madam Chair. Uh, okay, thank you. I, I have some questions. So the, the $2 million includes, um, getting the equipment here, and does it pay for— I take it there hasn't been any geotechnical surveys completed, you know, to where this thing would go. So those are included in the $2 million, is that correct, Mr. Skinner?

That is correct, Madam Chair. Included— you're correct— is the purchase, the transportation. We've done some aerial LiDAR surveying that allows us to get a 1-foot contour profile so we could then establish where each lift tower base would go to allow us to go in and do preliminary geotechnical work. So it might not get us the full geotechnical suite that we would ideally need, but it'll give us enough preliminary geotechnical data to make sure that we have it sited in the best location to keep those construction costs down so we don't run into a similar situation as what— in Hoonah went through. Okay, thank you.

And you've heard various assembly members say they've started to, you know, look through your pro forma and This is an assembly that does its homework, so you know you have your homework to do if this gets out of this committee. There's lots of questions on that to respond to. I'll note that I reached out to some tourism operators to ask them about the revenue side, the, the estimation of 3%, whether, you know, was that realistic or is that way too high of an estimate, or, um, and they actually thought it was, it was, was conservative. That the tram gets more than that. Obviously it's downtown, it's a shorter trip, it won't take so many hours.

But this would have to be a trip that's at least 3 hours, a bus ride out there, a ride up the thing, etc. So you're competing with time as well. So you wouldn't probably get as many as people go up the tram. But anyway, just FYI, general, general notion was they didn't seem outrageous to them. So thanks, Mr.— Ms. Hughes-Andrees.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Just one more question for you folks, and maybe it's for Mr. Saetre, uh, just about the board. And it's another clarification, a restatement, which you might notice I'm a little obsessed with Tarmigan. But I just want to be clear, the— you're looking at several different— if you get this, you're looking at several different alignments, only one of which would be sort of a ptarmigan replacement, and if you did that, you wouldn't be able to develop more. Is that a correct understanding, or could you sort of restate that about the alignments?

Thanks. Mr. Scanlon. Oh, go ahead. Who is opening their mouth? Apologies.

Madam Deputy Mayor, I heard my name and assumed that that was going to me first. Oh, sorry, you go ahead. No, through the Chair, thank you for the question. Of the 4 proposed alignments, yes, one is a direct and indirect, basically direct path of the existing tarmac in. But the cons of that is it does limit the summer opportunity if it cannot go all the way up to the ridge.

And if it does go all the way up to the ridge, then it, as Mr. Scanlon stated earlier, then it doesn't become the Tarmigan replacement because you're gonna have to do significant work to develop kind of the path back, you know, from, from the ridge to where the existing top of, top of Tarmigan is. So there's, there's some more work to do. It's a viable option, but it gives us the least future flexibility. And then there's you know, pros and cons in terms of, you know, future flexibility versus, you know, present service, you know, for the other options. You know, we— and that is exactly, you know, the analysis that the Board looks forward to doing with, you know, with the public, you know, through stakeholder engagement and public meetings, but also with the Summer Operations Task Force to nail down the best opportunity But many of the questions that need to be answered in that process really have to be determined by what conveyance is going to be purchased.

Good. Ms. Hughes-Cainey, can I just follow up to that? Mid-lift doesn't mean top of Tarmigan and then further up the ridge? That's not a possibility? That's not a thing?

You said, you know, there's a mid-chair stop Mid-chair doesn't mean— can you span from the bottom to Tarmigan and then go on from Tarmigan, or that's not a thing?

I can't speak to that. It sounds technically infeasible because there's— but I'm not 100% sure. I can't say. Mr. Scanlon, any comment on that?

I'm not sure I completely understand the question. Would you mind restating one more time? I'm sure I can respond accurately. Sorry, I just— this gondola, you said, has a mid-mountain stop station. Mid-mountain can't mean the top of Tarmigan and then go on from Tarmigan to the ridge.

OK, yes, I understand your question perfectly now. So this lift, because of its unique design, will give us 3 different options for midway loading potential. The option would be at the exact midway point of the lift. OK, which in some of our alignments puts it in a very ideal location, and then could also be 1/3 of the way or 2/3 of the way. So we are fixed into where we can have those midway points, but there is flexibility to locate it in various spots.

OK, thank you. I, I was trying to turn your lift. Miss— Madam Mayor. Thank you. So let's pretend we get this and everything is good and you get all your projections.

So this is a funny question, and it might be because I'm female. Do you guys have the septic system, the drain field, to have an extra 30,000 people up there? And do you have the water system? Mr. Scanlon. Fantastic question.

So our— both our water system and our septic system is designed for a 1,200-person visitor day, so we're well within our design standard of our current potable water and wastewater system.

Um, Ms. Hale. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I have a motion if the time is appropriate. Go ahead. Thank you.

I move that we forward Ordinance 2021-08B as amended Z to the next assembly meeting, which I believe is February 28th, for public and set it for public hearing. And I would like to speak to my motion if I could. Thank you, I appreciate that. I think we've had an incredibly robust discussion and there is more robust discussion to follow. Obviously, there's refined information that this committee is looking for, for example, refined pro forma information and additional information to base a decision on.

We're not making a decision at this meeting tonight. We are actually considering this and wondering if we should forward it on for an actual decision. My recommendation is we allow this additional 2 weeks to get the information, the, the more robust information to allow the assembly to make the decision. And we actually open this up for public comment on February 28th at the February 28th assembly meeting so that we can actually hear from our public and find out what people think, both by email and obviously by commenting. So that is, uh, that is my recommendation.

Thank you. Um, Mr. Smith, then Mr. Tree— I mean, Ms. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I was also going to add, if it would be desired by the, by the body, we could schedule a summer operation task force meeting to get further review from JDC and others to evaluate the data before the meeting of the 28th, and we could dig deeper into that and come back with a with the response from the task force. I think you're seeing nods all around.

We'd appreciate any more review possible. It's very good. It's your committee, so you could schedule it. Um, Ms. Hale, wasn't this introduced on the 7th, and then it— the board needs us to take action by the 28th, isn't— is that right? Can I It is, so it would be set for public hearing and decision on the 28th, right?

Okay, your, your comment about public comments threw me off. So it will be up for public hearing? Yes, it will be up for public hearing. It will be up for the assembly at the time to do what it will with that. It could keep it for another public hearing, it could accept or reject it.

Just thank you. Good question. More comments on the motion? Ms. Wong. Madam Mayor.

Object. I, um, I really support the vision of this, uh, project and, you know, have some of the same concerns, but I'm really, as some of the other assembly members, that I'm really just objecting because I think I would like to see the assembly do some strategic planning around the financial state that we're in right now instead of kind of chasing after, um, each thing that comes in front of our face. So that's why I'm objecting to passing it on. Okay, great. Um, Madam Mayor, I'm objecting for purpose of a statement, which is kind of unusual for me, but, um, I hear what Ms. Wall says and I agree with that.

But quite frankly, $2 million is probably not that big a deal right at this moment, although the other $9 million or the other $7.5 million will be a big deal. And we will have to remember that if we vote vote for this, we're basically voting for that too.

I'm only would agree to this because I'm letting Eagle Crest have some more time. And I don't know, 2 weeks of time, if they can come up with enough information about for their— to support their pro forma and enough information on this gondola. But with that, they have 2 weeks and I'll withdraw my objection. Ms. Tree and then Ms. Huskandy. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor.

I'm going to object because I don't think that we have actually settled the question of summer tourism development at Eagle Crest. I—. What I am hearing tonight and from the board meeting on Friday is that we are being asked to buy it and then have the public process, and I don't think that's the appropriate way to do this. The mayor set up this task force Task Force to address this question, and we've only just restarted that process, and we haven't really— yet this is the only thing that has happened in the restarted task force. And also the Visitor Industry Task Force recommended an analysis of growth and impacts for North Douglas and Eagle Crest, and I don't think we've done that yet either.

Ms. Hughes-Scandies. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to object. Primarily, um, if this passes, as Miss Hale noted, we're not making a decision tonight. We're giving Eagle Crest more time.

And I want to thank both of you for providing as much information, and that was a really great in-depth, um, provided me with a lot more to think about. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to read what you sent over at 1 PM, Mr. Scanlon. So just from a process standpoint, I don't think I'll ever say, even though we're in a pretty good financial position right now, that $2 million of taxpayer money is not a lot. So it— I just feel like without a sort of strategic process, I do understand this is a great opportunity and maybe we'll still end up taking it. But I, I also agree with Miss Treme.

I don't think it's fully settled yet. I'm really starting to see the vision, and I appreciate the work of the Eagle Crest board, but I think at this point it's too fast, it's too out of order with— we have community goals and community priorities, and I sort of feel like this is jumping the line. Um, so I'm going to object. Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor.

I'm going to vote to move this ahead. I think this— there is an opportunity here. I hear some of the questions and concerns about public process, and I appreciate that. I do think if we do have a goal of financial stability, financial independence of Eagle Crest at some point, I believe the community will get to a point where it— that some are— some commercial operations at Eagle Crest is going to be necessary for that, and I, I believe we will get there. Um, I also just want to have another couple of weeks, some more time.

Again, this is, this is moving fast, um, but it sounds like an opportunity that I think we should at least consider. Um, 2 more weeks gives us time to have more people look at the pro forma more conversations, more digging, another summer operations task force or two. And that's why I'll be supporting the motion tonight. Thank you. Mr. Bryson.

Thank you, ma'am, Deputy Mayor. I want to say thank you to you guys, because as I look at this project, I saw it with straight-up business eyes, and I really appreciate every one of you having your part making sure that we go through this process, that we do this.

I get excited about stuff, and this one definitely got me excited because of what a great opportunity it is. And I really appreciate that I've got colleagues that will help remind me to take a deep breath, and then let's make sure we're walking towards this instead of letting me sprint up ahead.

The one thing that I will say in terms of time though is that while I appreciate the, uh, the slowdown in the time that we're taking as an assembly, we're in competition with the private sector and we can't ignore that. We have enterprises, we are business owners regardless of how you want to look at it. We own the business of Eagle Crest and that unfortunately does put that put us in competition with the private sector. And so while I greatly appreciate the depth of your guys' thinking about all these different components of it, we do have to keep that in mind that we run a business that the better business-minded we are, the less tax subsidy that we provide to keep our businesses open because we know that we're not running it straight business. So that's where some of my enthusiasm comes from, what a great deal it is.

But I appreciate the thoroughness in the, the, in the process that you guys are reminding me that we're going to go through. I ask that we do pass this to the public, let public testimony come, give Eagle Crest a couple more weeks to put more of the details together, And let's put our business hats on and let's see if we can't make some money. It's not against the rules for Eagle Crest to be profitable. That should actually be one of the goals here. So thank you for the time, Madam Deputy Mayor.

Are you ready for the question? Okay, Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is a motion to forward Ordinance 2022-02. 21-08, Version B, as amended. Um, Z. Miss Hale?

Yes.

Miss Huskandies? No.

Mr. Smith? Yes. Miss Treen? No.

Miss Wall? Yes.

Mr. Bryson? Yes.

Miss Kladyshevsky? Yes. And Mayor Weldon? Yes. Motion carries, 6 yeas, 2 nays.

All right, thank you everybody for your great questions. Mr. Scanlon, Mr. Saytri, you heard what all everyone's concerns are, and you have not that many days. So, um, thanks for all your work, really appreciate it. Um, we need to take a break. We'll take 10 minutes.

You guys, we're gonna wrap it up with item number 4, just one more thing. Assembly Rules of Procedure, Mr. Manager.

Or Mr. Anybody.

Mr. Palmer. Oh no, Mr. Barr. Mr. Palmer. That was good.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. So in tonight's packet, there are a few things to note. And I'll just identify, there's a memo that Mr. Barr and I wrote for the Human Resources Committee meeting last Monday, a week ago. There's a revised— there's a revised draft of some amended assembly rules, and there's a minor tweak in there. And since when the Human Resources Committee saw it, and then there's a new memo for Mr. Barr which was requested by the Human Resources Committee.

Specifically focusing on the Zoom tools, and maybe that's a good place to start tonight if you want to start with that conversation. Um, there, the other kind of component here that was looming in the background, we had a nice healthy discussion at the Human Resources Committee, uh, on the draft resolution amending the assembly rules, a little bit of a light touch on the Zoom some kind of features. Mr. Bars here can help with that. And then the other piece is the potential criminal ordinance, and specifically I just want to be super, super clear on this.

There—. I have not been requested to draft anything, nor have I had discussions with any of you to try to limit viewpoints, trying to limit people's ability to talk to their assembly members. Nor have there been any discussions to restrict people's access to you, even in this building, related to COVID mitigations. That's not what we're talking about at all. The, the concerns that have been expressed to me have been specific to sexual assaults on, on certain staff members and assembly members, including displaying pornography to different committee meetings and to different, different, let's say, Zoom meetings of the city.

So that's the topic, that's the focus that I have been working under for the last while. Be happy to hand this over to Mr. Barr if you want to talk about Zoom tools and features, if that's the desire. Mr. Barr, anything to add?

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Maybe, maybe just a handful of things. I won't dwell too much on the memo, but just, you know, by necessity of the pandemic, we've moved oral testimony into the Zoom-based world. The memo attempts to kind of philosophically explore the pros and cons of that to a greater or lesser degree. No question that the significant majority, the vast significant majority of public comment that we get is good and appropriate.

It is most definitely the minority, the distinct minority of comment that we get that falls into the categories that Mr. Palmer described. I think we can think broadly from a societal perspective and reflect a little bit on the, you know, relatively recent advent of social media and and say similar things, right? So, uh, great, great deal of good there, um, great deal of good communication and connection, uh, unfortunately shaded by, um, again, a minority of, um, of participation that, that is not, uh, not beneficial, uh, to our community or society. So, um, to, to avoid the type of anonymous this Zoom bombing type of harassment that Mr. Palmer described in the future. It's our recommendation to return to pre-pandemic rules of procedure that permitted in-person oral testimony only, while, while maintaining, of course, the ability for the public to engage with, with their assembly at any time via email or writing, for that matter.

But we, we do go through the different Zoom-based options here and, and would recommend maintaining one or more of them regardless for either certain ADA accommodations or in the event that we find ourselves in another public health sort of situation or emergency that requires oral testimony to be held remotely or in whatever, if not where the Assembly family was meeting solely via, via remote purposes. So happy to go into more details on those Zoom options if desired. Thank you, Mr. Barr. Ms. Yuskandis, being the chair of the Human Resources Committee, you received the memo on the 3rd, and then you guys had a discussion, and then this memo from the 11th. Is this correct?

You did not discuss that, right? Or just wanted to characterize what happened at your meeting. Uh, thank you. Yes, correct. Um, the memo from the 11th, this is a requested memo.

We discussed the changes to the resolution and we discussed— we spoke with staff and discussed the issue in a more abstract, larger sense, but not the Zoom specifics. And the changes, or the ordinance as it's written here, is the ordinance you reviewed? Correct, with 2 changes. Mr. Palmer made 2 additional changes, which I think are outlined that you asked them— him to make.

Oh, Mr. Palmer, I just want to clarify who— where we— who did what. Yep. No, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Miss Hughes-Scandies. So just to be super clear, the 2 changes to the resolution on the assembly rules, one was on line 23 And it was 59 of 72. Okay.

So line 23, I added special orders of business to the, to the regular assembly agenda to capture current practice. And then the second issue was lines 293 to 296. Excuse me, 392 to 396. 392, Page 68. And that's to clarify that when people are using Zoom, they must notify the municipal clerk to provide oral testimony, but not for in-person testimony.

And the difference being that we have these— the sheet in the back for somebody who can show up in person and provide testimony here. Okay, so Ms. Hughes-Scandies, your committee did not discuss this language prior to the meeting on line 393?

Correct. Okay, thank you. Okay, um, Mr. Smith has his hand up. Go ahead. Yep.

And then Madam Mayor. So I was—. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, I was just curious, is before? What was the reason that there was not a remote way for people to testify prior to March 2020?

I mean, is it— was it purely technological? Was it a— I mean, was there a, if you want to testify, you have to sit and wait through the meeting and really mean it or something? Or anyway, I'm just curious as to what the, what the rationale— what the what the reason for no remote public testimony option being. Anybody want to go ahead, Mr. Watt? Deputy Mayor, I think the answer is pretty simple.

I think it's tradition. Yep.

We just never— you could— you can't call into the Planning Commission, you can't call into the assembly. Just people came here. We're— it's unlike the legislature where people come from all over the state and you sort of have to have that. In a city, you don't have to. I guess, but you can because we are— Mr., um, Miss— oh no, Madam Mayor was on next, and then Miss Hale.

Uh, thank you. Um, this is a quick question for Mr. Attorney so he doesn't have to do rock-paper-scissors over there. Um, looking at, uh, page 3 or line 392 to 396, I'm just making sure that that allows for combination of number 2 and 3 because that's what I'm interested in.

Because I like the idea of requiring, requiring a Zoom account for people that have Zoom accounts, but also allowing people to register with the clerk if they don't have a Zoom account or by phone number. Member. So I'm just making sure those lines allow that to happen. Mr. Palmer. Yes, uh, thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Miss Deputy Mayor. Uh, short answer, yes. If you want to be more explicit in the rules, we can definitely codify any decisions that the council makes tonight. But, uh, my idea was to be a little general here, but to specifically articulate that people need to sign up if they want to provide oral public testimony. Thank you.

Sale.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I'm, I'm trying to sort of reconcile what's here between 392 and 396 with these options that Mr. Barr laid out. And I, I'm not quite sure I understand, but I also had a comment. We did have, uh, I remember her very clearly. We had somebody testify that had to take the bus home, and it was pre-pandemic, and she was advocating for the ability to participate by phone because it was so hard for her.

I mean, I think she was waiting for a, like, a special bus, and it was terribly difficult for her. I remember that. So it's a good thing if we can provide it. But back to my original question, I'm just trying to figure out what, what these 392 to 396 is relative to the recommendations or the possible Zoom possibilities. Mr. Palmer.

Yeah, thank you, Ms. Hale. If so, this, this draft of the assembly rules was drafted before the memo. I see. And so it's not technically incorporating any of those changes. Identified in the memo, if you feel strongly that you want to have those changes decided tonight, I will make— put them into the next draft.

And if you— if the body ends up giving a green light to this resolution tonight with or without changes, it could go to the 28th assembly meeting for adoption if you desire.

Miss Oh, who else? Um, Ms. Treme, and then Mr. Bryson. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. So just to clarify though, we don't have to codify the Zoom part because I think it would be probably better if we let the specific technology be able to change without having to revisit this, right? Mr. Palmer.

Yes, thank you. And Ms. Treme, you're correct, we do not have to codify the Zoom decisions those, I think, are relatively small compared to the sign up with the municipal clerk decision. I think that's a big fundamental change in Juneau. And so it was probably good to have that codified, but the other things I think are minor technical pieces. Mr. Bryson.

Ma'am Deputy Mayor, I've given a little bit of thought about this and what it really comes down to is We don't want people to be able to testify to the assembly anonymous. We're removing anonymity. So however we codify these rules or whatever procedures we come up with, as long as we have a reasonable ability for a person to identify themselves and register to be able to give us testimony, I think we're serving like a duty to the community by making it not— what am I trying to say— by making everybody introduce themselves, we're satisfying a duty to the city so that we're not taking anonymous random comments or the offensive stuff. And so requiring that people either recognize themselves or address themselves, however we want to say it or put it in here, that's all that we're really going for. That the person who's going to talk to us, we know who it is and we can hold them accountable for their actions.

So we're just trying to really remove anonymity. And so however you guys want to do that, I'm on board with it. I would say that the reason why they probably didn't have phone testimony in previous is because they just didn't have it set up. And how many times did it take for somebody to say a jerk thing online and then all of a sudden they said, okay, we're not going to do phone testimony anymore. So we just want to remove the anonymous component of it so that we know who's testifying to us, really know who it is, like not just a screen name, but that's that Juneau citizen.

And that way anybody that did something offensive could be held accountable. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Mr. Bryson. Um, I'll just, uh, say that I completely agree with Mr. Bryson. Um, it's just trying to make people accountable for their words and how however technically that's done, the easiest way possible is the way possible I would advocate.

I don't like the sign up prior to the meeting or 24 hours in advance. That seems like a bigger burden than necessary. But anything we can do, people should be held accountable for their actions, and we shouldn't allow anonymous random people. So whatever the technical solution is, to Zoom or sign up on Zoom, or I don't need to know which one it is, but I personally would like it to be, you know, right before testimony so that the person is John Smith. We have a reasonable knowledge that it really is John Smith and can find John Smith again.

And, uh, and the other thing that talks about public testimony, line 218 and 238, talk about permitted by call of the chair at least 24 hours in advance. I don't think that's necessary. Um, it— we have had that vague for a while. I don't see why we would constrain ourselves to that. If, like, for example, this Eagle Crest thing, if it's— sometimes things move fast.

So anyway, those are my objections to the language in the, um, bill right now. Ms. Dream? Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, I have specifically asked in the draft that the— we do require, uh, sign up ahead of time. And I think that a lot of the offensive, uh, comments we've received have been kind of a crime of opportunity that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

So I think that probably to me makes me feel the safest in addition to the other kind of Zoom tools we have available. So that's, you know, I— that's why I want that in there. And then this is a discussion for a totally different time, but I think the public comment in committee meetings is— I don't think public noticing that is a problem, and I think we should take a look at meetings that should be work sessions that have public comment, but that's for a much different time than tonight. A Miss Hill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So in Mr. Barr's memo on page 57, he says that staff recommend a return to pre-pandemic rules of procedure that permitted in-person oral testimony public testimony only while maintaining the ability for remote testimony for certain ADA accommodations.

I'm interested in that. I mean, as we get back to normal, I am interested in public testimony in person. But then if we are not in a normal situation, having that ability to provide testimony by Zoom. I'm— I, um, I don't know, I see a shake of the head, but I'm actually interested in pursuing that, um, because I don't know, I guess I'm a little bit torn actually. I can see reasons for not pursuing that because people are provided a greater opportunity to participate, although if they needed it for ADA accommodations, they could get it.

Um, but if, if we coupled that with— anyways, I think it's not a bad idea. More comments or questions? Ms. Treme? Sorry, I, I had something that I was going to say that I forgot. I also looked up quite a few different other cities, both in Alaska and some large cities down south, and we are the the only community that I have seen that doesn't require somebody who is not, not participating in person, so participating on the phone or by Zoom.

We're the only community that does not require that kind of testimony, testimony to be signed up ahead of time for. So I just wanted to share that piece of information with the assembly.

Miss Dream, can I ask you, are they— have any of these been updated? Basically post-pandemic. I mean, because we didn't allow it either. So if you looked up at our rules, we— our rules wouldn't allow it either. So I looked up, um, how it— how it's done currently in Seattle, New York, Anchorage, and then I talked to my friends in Petersburg and Ketchikan.

So these are all— these are all COVID, um, accommodations. All of these places have moved to this kind of testimony for COVID, except maybe Anchorage. They only allowed testimony by phone. That might have been prior to COVID. I'm not sure.

Any questions? Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, I guess I'm just— I'm curious about this, the verification or the authentication via Zoom. So I guess, do we have an idea how that would, how that would work?

And, and what do we, what do we see on our end? Anybody know the answer? Mr. Barr. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, essentially what we see on our end is dependent upon what we ask the individual who's registering to enter.

Right, so first name, last name, phone number, email address— those are all options. The only required options are first name and email address, and then we can, we can decide how much more we want after that. The Zoom authentication piece, I'll note though, all that requires is that an individual have a Zoom account, and in order to have a Zoom account, you have to have a working email address. So that's That's the only true requirement there. So I think the kind of—.

Mr. Smith, go ahead. On that, and then in both Option 1 and 2 wouldn't allow telephonic participation. Well, it says via a smartphone, but no one could just call in with one of the— you can just call in through Zoom. Mr. Burke. Madam Chair, that's correct.

If you're, if you're registering and you're going to participate via option 1 or 2, you would need to be doing so via the Zoom app. If you have that app on your phone, then, then you can do it via your phone, but, but only through the app, not by dialing in.

Ms. Wall and then Ms. Hale. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry, this is just coming to me now, but do you consider the option— in the committee meeting we discussed, are these attacks happening via phone or via Zoom? And they were all via Zoom. And presumably when people call in on their phone, there's more accountability because their phone number shows up on the screen.

Was there consideration in this, in going through the options in terms of just saying people can only call in via phone and they just can't do the raise hand thing, they just have to do the star 6 thing, and whether that would be effective at making sure people aren't anonymous. Mr. Barr. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. That's, that's essentially what Option 3 is.

If you take away Option 3, or either with Option 3 or as you described it, only doing, you know, using our current process but via phone numbers, it's similar to how it is not impossible to spoof an email address. It is not impossible to spoof a phone number. So there are different levels of sophistication, perhaps, that someone might need to employ to do either of those things, but neither is perfect.

Go ahead. But Option 3 includes registering beforehand. You could, in theory, just do phone numbers without registration. That is correct. You could do phone numbers without registration.

Okay, thanks. Um, Ms. Hale, uh, I just wanted to speak to spoofing email accounts. You can create them like that. I mean, it takes no time at all, and then you have a valid email account. So, uh, that would really be a concern.

As I— even though I asked the question, why shouldn't we just go back to pre-pandemic rules, I, I do realize from a lot of the testimony that we've had that people are able to watch the assembly meetings remotely and, and participate remotely, and that's I think that's not a bad thing to leave in place. So I guess what I'm really leaning towards is the registration, and I understand that staff are telling us the pre-registration, and I understand staff are saying that they would need additional staff time, and I think that's our responsibility to provide that. We have heaped duties on our staff for a couple of years now. And if we do need additional staff time and we also need to have safety, which we do, and end harassment, I, I'm leaning towards that manual registration. Um, can I ask Mr. Smith a question?

Because you work the legislature and you get people, and I thought you were talking about calling about how LIO does it, and, and And has there been a lot of obscene or whatever comments to legislative hearings increased, or what do they do about it? So I called them today and asked the— when people call in, and it's all phone-based through the legislature, there's no Zoom or Teams. Anyone who's trying to give public testimony calls in and is routed kind of through an operator, and they're required to give their name where they live, they have the phone number, and then any affiliation. And they do get harassment. There are people that are inappropriate and that say inappropriate things.

My sense from talking with them though is that because that phone number is captured, that there is a little bit of accountability held that they— anyway, it does happen. I think it didn't I mean, I've listened to a lot of public testimony, I've listened to a lot of— and it, you know, people say all kinds of things, but most of the time it isn't rude, you know, gross, harassing, or whatever. So it seems like the phone number does provide some accountability. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I appreciate Mr. Barr looking through all these options.

And I personally favor the combining of the two, number 2 and number 3. Why number 3 would be probably a little heftier registration, it would only allow you to do by phone only, and I think that this is a little bit of a step that if we allowed Zoom, and if there's still problem with Zoom, then we can certainly take that out. But for now, I think allowing people to make a Zoom account seems to me to make sense. And then if they don't want to, or else they can't for whatever reason, then that gives them the option of calling ahead with the clerk. So that would be what my preference would be.

Um, Ms. Hale, just a question for Madam Mayor. When you said combine options 2 and 3, so would that mean that they would pre-register with the clerk, um, but they would pre-register with the clerk and be able to use a Zoom account to provide testimony? No, Ms. Hale, that's not what I'm looking at. I would have them register on a Zoom account if they want to be on Zoom, and if they couldn't be on Zoom for whatever reason, they would pre-register with the clerk.

Um, Ms. Tree, just a question for Mr. Barr, if that combination is technically possible. Mr. Barr. Thank you, Madam Chair. Combining 2 and 3 is technically possible.

It is, it is significantly more complex than doing one or the other, but, but it is technically possible. And if I might, Madam Chair, just add one other thing that Miss Hale reminded me of when she was talking about assembly meetings continue to be streamed and available to the public. We are planning on switching platforms from Facebook to YouTube effective with the assembly meeting on the 28th. Primary reason behind that, Facebook requires people have an account and YouTube does not. So I wanted to give you a heads up on that.

Thank you, Mr. Barb. I think that's terrific. Um, more comments, questions about this mystery? And did you have your hand up, Mr. Mystery?

Um, I just, I have a question about providing the kind of Zoom account that allows whatever this kind of meeting is where you have attendees and panelists to everywhere else within CBJ that has public meetings, because I know that the Assembly is not the only one that's been the target of this. If that costs money, I am more than willing to pay for us to pay for that so we keep everybody else safe. I don't know what that would require. That's my question. What would it require?

Mr. Barr. Thank you, Madam Chair. The answer is money, and it's not terribly expensive. It's not nothing. You say that more clearly.

I couldn't understand you. Sorry. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. The answer is more money.

Yeah. And do we know how—. Let me—. I don't know off the top of my head, but it's, it's probably measured in the thousands of dollars a year, not tens of thousands.

So if I'm getting the sense of this body, except for Ms. Hale, They're going back to only in-person. We're done with that, right? We're not doing that. Okay, just wanted to make sure we're clear. Go ahead, Madam Mayor.

If the chair would allow, I'd like to make 3 different motions. Okay, so you take away your last one. So I would—. Right, you took away your last one, Madam Mayor. Did you make a motion already?

Could you withdraw it? I didn't take a motion, I made a suggestion. Oh, okay, sorry. Okay, but I'll start with that one then. I would move that we direct staff to come up with a combination of number 2 and number 3 on the meetings forward and ask for consent.

Ms. Hale. And I object, and maybe the Madam Mayor will speak to this. I am worried about the Zoom account that I think only really requires a valid email address because email addresses can be created so easily. I mean, if you have— I mean, you— it's just easy, and there's lots, lots and lots of platforms that make it easy. So it doesn't give us— and, and actually, that might be what's happening right now with people who are watching this stream on Facebook Live, and they pop out to Zoom and they create an account, and then they're on Trace feasible.

I don't know, but that's my big worry about that.

I have a question about that. I don't think anything is foolproof, and yes, people could do that, and if it remains a problem, then we get rid of it. But that's it. I think that's a good place for us to start. And the registering ahead of time, you can have a burner phone, so that could be a problem too.

But I think any— I don't want to put a hurdle to public testimony. And again, I want everybody to be crystal clear. We're not looking for people that disagree with us, who have contrary opinions. Those make us work harder, and we always tweak, usually, legislation because of that kind of testimony. We're looking at the sexual harassment and the pornography.

I want to make that crystal clear. So that's why I was looking at both of them. And if Zoom continues to be a problem, then we will remove it.

So my question about the telephone again, because we've talked a little bit about telephone, is, is simply allowing only telephonic testimony one step more secure than allowing Zoom, or not? I, I just want to be sure what the answer to that is. So instead of allowing anyone to register, just they must call this number, whatever the number is, and then we see their number. Is that any better? Madam Chair, I'll take a stab at that.

And after looking into this, I would rate the options in terms of security as, you know, Zoom registration, so the option number 1 that we did not talk about at all as the least secure. Zoom authentication, so requiring someone have a valid working email address as the second, you know, grading up a little bit in terms of security. The option that you're describing that Ms. Waller initially thought of, which was, you know, telephone only, no registration, as the next most secure, and then option number 3 as the next most secure within person testimony being the most. So if I understand, you're, um, you're describing 2A, you know, 2.5. Sure, right.

So there's 2, 2.5, and 3. And 2.5 sounds sort of simpler than some of these. Am I, um, misunderstanding that you can only call in and that's it? Would that be— that's 2.5, is that correct? Madam Chair, yes, I would say that that would be more secure, like as you described it, that would be more secure than Option 2.

Okay.

Miss Dream. Thank you. I have a question maybe for the mayor. We go with— used now, but if we go with 2 and 3, and I don't know what your next motions are going to be, but if we were to approve the rules as it's presented here, Zoom participation would still require registering ahead of time. Is that what you are trying to accomplish?

Madam Mayor, uh, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Miss Stream. No, that's not why. And that's why I asked the attorney if we could do 2 and 3 in that statement. So you're registering with the clerk, but it says you can also register online. So that would be my— okay, that's why I was saying so.

No. All right, Miss Jabbar has a comment. Madam Chair, thank you. Um, so when I was investigating combining 2 and 3, um, my statement about it being technically possible to combine 2 and 3 3 does, does imply a pre-registration component of 2, so it's using that pre-registration component of 3 to make 2 and 3 possible together. If, if the mayor's desire is not to do that for 2, I would need to go back and look and make sure that's possible to do both of those things simultaneously.

Okay, I'm too now quite confused. I'm not sure we're going to accomplish this because of all this confusion. But we'll give it a go. But go ahead, Madam Mayor, you had a comment. Um, I didn't quite realize that, and I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Far said.

So yes, you would have to pre-register apparently for both of them, and then you, if you want to be on Zoom, you'd have to also get a Zoom account, and then if you want to be on the phone, you'd have to give more information.

Are you ready to do this or do we— Ms. Treme? Yeah, I think it's very late. That doesn't help, but I think we should probably focus on the general policy of registration, no registration, in person, not in person, and let staff figure out the technical details because I don't think I can follow all of the permutations and how convoluted it is. Yes, Ms. Cream, thank you very much.

It's what I think exactly, uh, since it's, uh, 10 to 10. Uh, so staff recommended something, um, which we are now modifying. Um, so if we could do high-level policy So we agreeing it's not only in person, we're going to take some remote testimony. Purpose is to, as Mr. Bryson said, keep, you know, get non— not allow anonymous testimony. Um, everybody agrees with that.

So what else do we agree on? Um, can, can with those two things Can staff come back with a coherent something else that's, you know, 2.5, 2.3, something? Mr. Barr. Madam Chair, with the understanding that you as a body do not want to see anonymous testimony as much as possible, I will say the only way to truly avoid anonymous testimony is to be in person, right? With the understanding that that is your desire and that you want to allow for remote testimony, we can come back with a proposal for that.

All right, that's great. Madam Mayor, thank you. I was just trying to give staff direction, but if they can take correct direction from that, that is fine. And I don't personally like to see it back again. They get the direction, they understand it, they'll do the best they can with technology.

Fair enough, but then there's the ordinance, so which we haven't even talked about. Okay, Mr. Smith. Who else?

Madam Mayor, I can withdraw my motion if that makes it simpler for the body, but I was just trying to give staff direction. Right. Okay, I will draw my motion. Can I do my second motion now? Sure.

Okay, I'm sorry, Mr. Smith had something. I kind of wanted to just speak to another principle, and I guess one thing I would hope is that that people can testify with just a phone number, that they don't have to have— they don't have to have access to the internet, they don't have to have a Zoom account. I guess I would like that to be an option as well. So I think I would like that to be something available as well. Okay, so remote— we want remote testimony and we don't want people testifying anonymously, and, and that they can provide testimony with just using a phone and that it doesn't—.

They can just call in. They don't— doesn't need— they don't need Zoom. So that's okay. That's—. Mr. Barr has the two principles.

And go ahead, Mr. Barr. Uh, thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I'll just note, and we've already touched on this a little bit, um, is that there will be a staff cost, an increased staff cost there, but that's totally doable. So we haven't all agreed on the call-in part. We have agreed on remote testimony and not anonymous anonymous.

And so they're going to come back with options, and one of them might be test telephone, and it's going to cost X dollars.

You don't want options. Yep. Okay, Miss Youskany's— Miss Hale. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just say that in regards to staff having clear direction or not, I feel— I know it is late, but I feel like I have the options in front of me.

I wouldn't want to make staff do more work, and, and if other people need to clarify that more, I don't want to stop you from doing so. But based on the principles that we do— we all agree on this, do we all agree on that? I think I see that in these options. And so I just wouldn't want Mr. Bartsch to have to come back. I would want him to implement.

Yes, we just got all balled up into 2.5 and 3. What does 2 and a half, 2 plus 3 mean? And I just don't think we're going to sort it out now. That's, that's all. Ms. Hale, I kind of agree with Ms. Scandies.

I think it, it is clear because 3 is phone registration ahead of time and 2 is Zoom registration ahead of time. And I think staff has that direction and I think they can bring an ordinance back And that doesn't even have to be in the ordinance, actually. So, so I think we're good in my mind. Ms. Wall. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think the issue we're skirting around is whether we need pre-registration or not. Yes.

And you think we do, but so I don't think everyone does, right? Mr. Bryson. Okay, so, all right, we've, we've overcomplicated it. We've way overcomplicated it. If you show up, you don't need to preregister because we've eliminated anonymity.

If you cannot show up to the meeting, you simply have to preregister because you're not going to be there in person. Two things: show up, we know who you are, you don't have to sign up. You can't show up, so you have to sign up. It's one or the other. That eliminates anonymity and it satisfies every condition that everybody's been asking for here.

They want people to be able to testify because we've made it easier for people to testify. So we just limit it down to two things. If you're here, there you go. If you can't be here, then you just have to register in some way, shape, or form, and that eliminates anonymity, anonymity, but it also gives you every single option for however a person wants, whether they have a phone or a computer, they can still testify. Those are the two things that we're trying to accomplish, I believe.

Thank you for the time. Uh, Madam Mayor. Okay, second motion. I move Resolution 2976, version Cal 1, to the full assembly and ask for unanimous consent.

It's the resolution in your packet.

Mr. Smith. Sorry, I want to look at that, at those 292, 296 lines again. It's 390—. 392, 396. Thanks.

This is what requires prior to the meeting, notify the clerk prior to the meeting.

Mr. Smith.

I guess I don't actually know that, I don't know that I support that. And I don't actually know that. And so I mean, I appreciate Mr. Bryson trying to make it that clear. I don't actually think it is though, because I don't necessarily think the pre-registering means someone's not anonymous because they can have a fake email address. They can preregister and they're completely anonymous and they're just going to— all that they did is had to, you know, anyway, not that hopefully people have better things to do, but we know that's not the truth.

And I guess I'm not— I guess I don't necessarily like— I don't like that there has to be a preregistration. And anyway, I don't know if we've— I don't know if we've cleared this up with the principals yet. So now this is a discussion on the motion, which is to move this as written. If someone has an objection to it, um, you— and you just objected, Mr. Smith. If you have a motion to change something, go ahead.

Ms. Stream.

Well, if Mr. Smith is going to make a motion, this might be an objection to that, but I very much want pre-registration. I think I think there's two aspects to the harassment that we've been on the receiving end of. There's anonymity, and there's the in-the-moment opportunity— somebody's going to decide to be a jerk. I think this eliminates that second aspect of the harassment. I don't think it's a burden to public participation.

We're the only community that does not require this. So I, I think that this is a very, very low bar. To ask people to step over to give us some greater sense of safety.

So I— anybody else? I would say that it's the prior to the meeting part that I object to. If you can prove who you are during the meeting, then I think we should allow the testimony. I think we, we're going a little bit too far in prohibiting public testimony by, by requiring prior to the meeting. People listen to the meeting and they hear Joe say something and they think, I, I know some facts and, and I can refute what Joe just said.

And I would like to allow that. We have had 2, 3 incidents that I know of, of harassing behavior out of, you know, 2 years of doing this. And I just don't want to go overboard. I completely, completely agree people should not be allowed to be anonymous, and anything technologically that we can do that— you have to register, you have to give us your phone number, you have to give us your name. I just would like it not to have to be the day before.

Ms. Hale. Uh, thank you, uh, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, I think that, uh, first I think that the, the memo talks about, uh, 3 hours to 30 minutes before, so it's actually not the day before. Um, and if we're going to have people registering to speak during the meeting we're gonna have an extra staff person the whole time because there's just no way our staff could keep up with people registering to meet, uh, speak, uh, during the meeting. And that means we're going to have an extra staff person the whole time whether there is somebody registering to speak or not.

And 2 years ago, if you were listening to Kay Too and you heard something on the radio, you got in your car and you drove down to City Hall and you testified. And so that worked. And I think that—. Yeah, so there's no motion on the table other than the mayor's. So that's it.

There's no— um, Ms. Yuskaitis. Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. I, I think Ms. Hale just hit the gist of what I was going to say, but at any time somebody can still come down and testify in person. And I very much appreciate that we all wish to make public testimony as easy as possible, but also we should keep in the back of our minds at any time the public can send us a letter. That is also available.

And I think when balancing the burden on staff as to making— running with the improvements that the pandemic brought in terms of making the meetings more accessible to people, we shouldn't go too far overboard. So I don't think this is going too far. And they can always come in person. Okay. Oh, Miss— Mr. Smith.

I guess I would— since we're doing this resolution, I guess I would make an amendment, and that's on line 393. I would— my motion would be to remove the words 'prior to the meeting.' So it currently states participa— Members of the public that want to provide oral public comment via remote participation must— there's an extra 'to' in there— must notify the municipal clerk prior to the meeting. And I would strike the 'prior to the meeting.' So that's an amendment to the motion? Yes. Okay, so you heard the amendment.

Strike on line 393 the words 'prior to the meeting.' Mr.— Madam Mayor. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll object. I just disagree. If you're going to get rid of anonymity, you're going to have to register before.

I disagree having someone just sitting there waiting to see if somebody wants to do that. Again, if you want to talk, all you have to do is come here in person at any time during our meeting. It's not that big of a stumbling block. Um, Mr. Smith, and then Mr. Bryson after that. I guess my response to that would be, and it's— I don't know if we figured out in our principles is a phone number, if someone just has a phone number, are we considering that anonymous or not?

Because if we are, well, then we have a lot more to discuss. And if we aren't, then that to me removes the anonymity. And I mean, we've talked about access. I think we do need to think about not everyone can just just hop up and hop in the car and drive down to City Hall. We've talked about that.

Not everyone has that ability. Mr. Bryson. Mr. Bryson. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. I'm going to object to this as well.

Well, I appreciate that Mr. Smith is looking out for the citizens to make sure that everybody can testify. I again think that we are taking a few scenarios and we're exploding it into this could be like every assembly meeting as we look at our audience participation right now. So, so I get what everybody's trying to do. We're trying to protect assembly members, we're trying to protect city staff from this. I would side with a phone number is anonymous.

They—. There's— you can go buy a phone right now for $50 and have a brand new phone number if somebody's— but that's not what's happening here. I think Ms. Treme has nailed it. We had a couple of crime of opportunities and somebody was like prepped something to show to a committee. We need to have some common sense, reasonable rules.

Show up or sign up. Up to the time start of the meeting. I think trying to keep an extra staff person on during the meeting in case somebody hears a line that they might have a rebuttal to. We also know the majority of the people that have testified here, we've watched who comes down and testify. They're not— well, sometimes we get individuals that's their only time that they've ever testified, but a lot of times we get people that are familiar with City Hall.

They've been down to City Hall plenty of times. They're going to be either comfortable coming down here, or once they register one time and see how easy it is, now they're registered. They can testify at will. We are not putting— and again, somebody said this is a very low, uh, bar to set, because if you want to do anything else, you have to provide more information than that. You can't go be anonymous everywhere else.

And since we're taking testimony on city business We have to adhere to a very high standard. So holding our citizens accountable for what they're saying by either show up or sign up, I think that's a very responsible approach to this and asking our citizens to be responsible and not just saying just because you weren't able to do this that we're just going to throw all the rules in the air so that one person can make a phone call one time. That's not what we're doing here. I think we're setting some reasonable boundaries. And then this assembly and this management has been very reasonable.

If a person came to us and said, I'm having trouble getting to the assembly to testify, we would accommodate them. Shoot, one of us can stop by and pick them up and drag them down here with us. But I don't think that we should wreck what we've done here because we want to make it where one person, if they feel like calling at one moment, they they can do that. I think we set up responsible, reasonable rules, and the, the community will appreciate that. Okay, so this is— remember, we're talking about the amendment, and the amendment is to, to delete the words prior to the meeting.

Are you ready for the vote on that? Oh, Ms. Wall. Thank you, Madam Chair. I, um, I, I will be voting against this, but only because I want to see what the public and the systemic racism review committee and other stakeholders have to say about the ordinance as written before we take our final vote. Thank you.

Okay, so, Madam—. Anybody? Madam Clerk, on the amendment.

Mr. Barr. Madam Chair, I just, I just want to note that the rules that you're considering here apply to all boards.

All boards, commissions.

Um, Madam Clerk, so on the amendment, uh, line 393, to strike the words prior to the meeting. Mr. Smith? Yes. Miss Treen? No.

Miss Wall? No.

Mr. Bryson? No. Miss Hale? No. Miss Hughes-Candies?

No. Mayor Weldon?

No. And Miss Gladyshevsky? Yes. Motion fails, 2 yeas, 6 nays. Okay, now we're back to the main motion.

Is there any objection to the main What's the main motion? Main motion is to move this to the assembly. Move this ordinance, or whatever it is, resolution. Okay, any objection to that? Okey dokey.

Mr. Palmer raised his hand. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. You know, Miss Walls' comment triggered a little procedural snafu for us. So we do have a systemic racism meeting tomorrow. This item is not on the committee, so if the body wants this to go to SRC, it would have to go sometime in March, March 1st-ish, whenever that meeting is after the 28th.

So it would not be available for adoption on the 28th. I do believe we wanted to go to the SRC, so sorry, I forgot that resolutions in order. Ordinances for different—. Okay, so you don't care if it goes to the SRC? Would like it to go to the SRC?

Everybody? Anybody? Everybody wants that to happen? So no, I would object to that. Okay, everyone talk about this a little bit because we're trying to get this done and so we don't have attacks anymore.

And while you say there was only 3 attacks, 2 of them were to one of our individual members in a public place, sexually harassment charges, and I don't know that we need to wait. SSR— SRRC can look at it after the fact and always come back to us, but the sooner we get this in the motion, the less we have to be attacked. Everybody good with that? Okay, there you go. Great.

Um, we're done. Yes. Oh, you got another one, Madam Mayor. Third, third motion. Apologize if this is the attorney's call.

I move that we direct the attorney to draft a criminal ordinance for disruptive behavior, which would include sexual harassment and pornography. All right, any objection to that? Mr.— Ms. Wall, Mr. Smith— I mean, Mr.— oh God, Ms. Hale and Mr. Smith, I looked right at you.

I would object to that.

I worry about the perceived heavy-handedness of that, and I believe the person would have to be warned. So The behavior would have to happen, and we talked about this in the HRC. The behavior would have to happen and the person would have to be warned. And so I think we're taking good actions here tonight by forwarding this resolution on for adoption. And I, I just worry.

I think that We've had a lot of discussion tonight about how strong those actual actions should be. And, and now we're talking about an actual criminal ordinance, so that's my concern. Okay, Mr. Smith. Thank you, stream. I guess I'm just curious to know.

I mean, you— at what point does that language become criminal and when is it— I mean, I don't know. Yeah, anyway, so the First Amendment, or I mean, I don't know, like, what are those? What is that threshold? The motion is to just draft an ordinance. We will have the opportunity to talk about that ordinance and debate that ordinance and listen to all that.

Do you want to have the— the question before us is, do you want to have the attorney start that? Not would we adopt this, or what exactly would it look like? Are you— is that okay, Mr. Smith? Do you still want an answer right now? I mean, I guess I don't want him to waste his time if it's— I mean, he'll— I guess you'd draft something that would be constitutional, I guess.

Mr. Palmer.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor and Mr. Smith. I do have a start on a draft in anticipation of this meeting, and I can be ready for the next CAO if that's the will of the body.

Mr. Palmer, you can go ahead. Criminalize speech. I mean, in terms of examples of what we have seen so far, and that you could—. Mr. Palmer, that speech. Uh, thank you, Mr. Smith.

This gets to one of the really challenging questions of law, and that's, uh, to put it very bluntly, the First Amendment, as you all well know, provides super powerful protections for people testifying to their elected officials. That said, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has had the unfortunate opportunity to provide legal guidance on this for the last 50 years because of activities mostly out of California. And I have looked through theirs, their case decisions. There is a small, narrow window of things that can be criminalized, and I can come back to you with a draft ordinance for your consideration.

I will note, and this is the big pause, that some of the statements that have made to this body, to other committees, to students in the school district, for example, although they are incredibly offensive, I do not think they can be criminalized. Some of them can be, but many of them cannot.

Um, we have Ms. Treme and then Mr. Bryson. I think you answered my question that this would go to a CAL, because I am interested in talking about this, but I don't know yet how we feel. So it's going back to a CAL or something like that? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Bryson.

Um, thank you, uh, Madam Deputy Mayor. Uh, Mr. Palmer, while I greatly appreciate the First Amendment component of it. Isn't— could we look at the, the criminality of disrupting a public meeting? If somebody came running into this room right now and just started yelling, not, not offensively, but came in and disrupted our meeting, would that not be a criminal act? I'm more— I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to say this incorrectly.

I'm concerned this is the sanctity of our meetings is what was violated, as well as our colleagues. But it's the sanctity of the meeting that— I don't care what they say, they're disrupting a public meeting. That's where I would see the criminality. And it doesn't matter what they say, they're disrupting our meeting. That's where we should look at— we're going to penalize somebody.

That's tough because sometimes people want to object, disrupt the meeting to make a point.

Difficulty that Mr. Palmer is talking about. Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. And Mr. Bryson, uh, you were spot on. And it's kind of— the mayor led off with the Ninth Circuit has bluntly said that for people and behaviors that actually disrupt, disturb, or interfere with the efficient flow of a city council or assembly meeting, that is not protected speech.

But the pause that I have to provide you is, what is an actual disruption? Typically, if it's litigated, it actually goes to a jury because it cannot be decided by a judge. And so that's a huge distinction, that if it's a criminal ordinance, it's probably going to a jury regardless. And even the language that's in the draft resolution in front of you tonight has that language, the disruption, disturbing, and interfering, that if somebody gets cut off and they feel their First Amendment rights are violated, that would likely go to a civil jury.

More we talk about this, the less I want an ordinance, but Anybody else comment? Ready for the motion? Question. The motion is to direct staff to prepare an ordinance. There's objection.

Is there not objection? Somebody objected. Yep. Okay, roll call vote, please. Thank you.

So for the motion for to direct the attorney to draft an ordinance with criminal penalties, Miss Mayor Weldon. Yes. Uh, Miss Wall. Miss Treme. Yes.

Mr. Smith. No. Miss Hughes-Scandies. Yes. Miss Hale.

No. Mr. Bryson. Yes. And Miss Gladyshevsky. Yes.

Motion carries. 6 Yeas, 2 nays. OK, anything else come before the Committee of the Whole? Mr. Palmer.

This is unrelated to this last topic. I owe the body in the Lands Committee 2 corrections I had. And yeah, Lands Committee tonight, there was a vote made for an amendment offered by Mr. Bryson and It was decided that 2 votes was enough to pass. That's incorrect. It takes 3 votes because there's 4 assembly members on that body to pass that map amendment that was offered by Mr. Bryson.

So given that, that, that error, I will work with Mr. Bryson and have a draft map for that available for public hearing as an amendment for him. And if it's up to the body, if you want to consider that. And then the second piece is to tonight when I was discussing the Oso landslide out of Washington. The county was actually dismissed from the lawsuit. However, the state was the one who was ultimately held liable on the tune of $50 million.

Um, there were 44 people that died in that lawsuit, and that stemmed from an earlier case. That was a landslide that stemmed from an earlier case in the '70s for an avalanche, uh, in which the court described that when you assume a duty to or when you know of, uh, highly hazardous things that somebody relies on, then you can be held liable even if you don't own the property. So the point of law still stands, but I just want to correct the parties. So thank you. Well, I have to ask you, why was the state held liable if it was this— anyway, I'll ask you later.

Um, happy Valentine's Day, everybody. We're adjourned.