ARTAC 2.5.2026 Meeting

Okay, good. I think it's 12:01, so I think we should go ahead and call this meeting to order. The February 5th, 2026 meeting of the Alaska Recreational Trails Advisory Committee will come to order, and this meeting is being conducted via Zoom. Hazel, can you perform a roll call, please? Yes.

Good afternoon, everyone. Let's start with Sorry. Lisa Agnew. Good morning, I'm here. Thank you.

Jeffrey Collins. Present. Thank you. Craig Compo. Yes, I'm here.

Thank you. Lee Hart.

Lee Hart.

Okay. Ali Sargent. Present. Okay, thank you. Terry Valentine.

Present. Thank you. And Jennifer Uehaus. I'm here. Okay, thank you.

Perfect. With 6 members present and 1 absent, the meeting may proceed with agenda. And then now I'll turn it over to Rebecca Garrett. Thanks, Hazel. I wanted to pause here just for 1 minute and make sure that we introduce the staff that are on the line.

So myself, Rebecca Garrett, Frontier Roads and Sustainability Program Manager. Hazel, would you like to go next, please?

Yes, Hazel Cristobal. I am the Special Project Assistant.

And I'll jump in. Shannon McCarthy, Communication Director for DOT, and I'll pass it off to Andy Mills. Andy Mills, Special Assistant to the Commissioner, primarily working with legislators and policy items. Thank you.

And Natalia, could you please introduce yourself?

Hello, my name is Natalia Femina and I'm representative from Department of Natural Resources, DPR. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Natalia. All right, the purpose of today's meeting is to review and take action on governing documents, introduce scoring criteria for the Recreational Trails Program, and address other business as requested. The committee may take action on any agenda item. So our first item is to approve the agenda. I'll motion to approve.

Jennifer, you have second? Thanks, Jennifer. And that was Jeffrey who made the motion to approve. Yes. Thank you.

Okay.

Next is approval of prior meeting minutes, and I think that I might have made an error and they were not included in your packets. So I believe that this agenda item will need to leave on the table and have it on the next round. Then we'll have 3 meeting minutes to review for the next time. So I apologize for that error.

Next up, we have general public comments.

All right, so we have Andy Morrison. I'm going to go ahead and unmute Andy, and you can go ahead and speak.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we sure can. Thank you. Great, thanks. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the board again and the chair and the members of the staff.

My name is Andy Morrison and I own a guide and outfitting and contracting business specializing in remote trail maintenance. And I've been emailing y'all a little bit as well because I have a problem with the way that you guys are working on the charter bylaws today and excluding, you know, for-profit businesses and also the issues with the entities, you know, tribal and government entities. One of the first things is that, you know, trail work is high-risk work. Debris removal, like falling trees, building snow bridges, requires like safety standards. You know, as a private contractor, I carry workers' comp insurance and liability insurance.

And the current model that they're using for the Snowmobile Trails Program is 1099ing the individuals who are doing the work for these snowmobile clubs. And it creates a significant liability gap for the state and the workers themselves.

We also, I brushed on it last meeting, that under, you know, these federal permits, you know, 36 CFR 261.10, site-specific permits are required to do motorized work on national forest and a lot of federal lands. You know, I hold a permit to do snowmobile trail grooming work on a national forest, and clubs generally do not. You know, volunteer organizations and nonprofits generally do not. And this policy of just nonprofits risks funding unpermitted work and excludes, like, legally authorized operators like myself. The one other thing is the rural inequality.

You know, this club-based grant where, you know, it's all going towards railboat, belt, snowmobile clubs is kind of leaving out western Alaska and other places in Alaska that are surrounded by federal land. You know, I have a friend in Houslia and they're still struggling with Typhoon Hoang damage. They don't have snowmobile clubs and they're effectively excluded from this funding. And for some reason in this program, it's just sort of the 13 clubs. There's no tribal entities or government, you know, local governments that have applied for that, or they've been sort of pushed out of the program.

So I'm requesting that, you know, we need to be entity neutral, right? Like you can't just say who can be involved in this program or not. And that ensures that the most qualified, best insured, and legal permitted entities can do the work, whether they're nonprofit or Alaska small business like myself. And I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anyone else that would like to speak? All you have to do is raise your hand and I will be able to unmute you and call on you. I have a question for our last public testifier. Thank you.

While I would like to respect the process and couch the rest of my, my questions related to that, and thank you, Andy, for your testimony that that informs what we are developing as our criteria. I'll ask other questions of staff as it relates to constraints from the federal funding, but I have a question for you directly. Are you aware that not all nonprofits have to be C3, but that many of our smaller municipalities in incorporated villages and cities are in fact nonprofits? I'm not, I'm not specifically familiar with those nonprofits, but I would go back to you and say, why aren't any of them in this program? Why didn't any of them apply?

Okay, so we're not in debate, and that was just one question for you, and we appreciate your testimony. Um, the reason that a lot of things are not in here, I will at least respond to that before we close take his public testimony out and go back to other public testimony and then the debate of committee. But we're in the formation process, so if you had one of those DOT, you are here type of roadmaps to public comment, we are receiving public comments so we can develop that criteria, and we thank you for your input.

Really quick before we move forward to the next interested general public comment, I would like to clarify that I believe Andy was mostly speaking towards the Snow Trails Program and possibly not the Ice Roads and RTP Multi-Use Trails Program. Okay, with that, are we ready for the next public comment?

Okay, I'm going to unmute Chugiak Backcountry Freeriders.

Yeah, good morning. I just wanted to give the comment that this is an ongoing development program that you guys are working hard to update continuously. And I remember when it was over in the state park's hands, it was kind of a little bit disorganized and we didn't have as much funding. And now that everything's moved over to DOT, I think it's been a great improvement to what it is and keep up the good work. Thank you to all your staff and those that helped.

All right, thank you for your public comment. Is there anyone else that has not yet spoken that would like to unmute and share your thoughts at this time?

All right, seeing no other interested public commenters, I'll turn it back to you, Rebecca. Thanks, Shannon. Let's see, um, next on our agenda, we are on agenda item number 6. We have review of the redlined version of the bylaws. Um, I had prepared just minor, uh, redlines that I sent to everyone for the bylaws, but I'm here now to hear if there are additional comments or, uh, areas where we should update the bylaws.

Specifically, I was removing the draft from the bylaws, and then in Section 7, I believe I had some updates. But I, I see a couple of hands raised, so Jennifer, would you please offer your comments? Thank you. I have 3 points. First of all, um, good job on getting a good solid draft.

I've gone through lots of bylaws creation, and sometimes it's a lot messier than this, so thank you for giving us such a well-thought start to this. My first comment is on Section 4.0, Actions Between Meetings. First of all, thank you for addressing how that will work. I have another board that had emails going back and forth today on how to address that. I think that in 4.3, that, you know, if others concur, I'd be happy to scratch the, the restating that we're advisory only.

I mean, it's throughout the document, so I didn't find it necessary. I found it redundant in that category. In 7.1, elections of officers, I'm not— we can do it however we want to. My personal thoughts are that that line that says that the president is subject to concurrence, I thought that that could flag for the public some sort of, not impropriety, but I just, you know, I don't know that that's entirely necessary because we do serve at will. Where down in 7.3, removal of officer, I just thought it would be helpful if we simply note that we're at will.

I mean, any of us who were appointed at the will of the Commissioner could be dismissed at the will of the Commissioner. And so I'd like to scratch that piece that says that our officers are subject to concurrence by the Commissioner, because if they don't want us on here and they don't want us to maybe serve as an officer, I don't know that they should have appointed us. That's my thoughts. Thanks.

Thank you, Jennifer. And if you could submit those in a quick email, that would help me make edits for the next time around when we'll, we'll have another look at these bylaws. Does anyone else have comments on the bylaws?

I want to give comment on— I think it's Section 2.3, Public Participation, and just a little bit more specificity in that section of when in the meeting public comment sections are occurring and time limits and just going ahead and providing that. I think it's great for the public, you know, to know that public comment is right at the beginning. If you're 5 minutes late because your kid was late getting out of school, then you're going to miss your opportunity to comment there. And having the more, you know, specifics on when that's going to happen. In this, I'd also recommend just, you know, for good public processes that we hold a public comment section at the very beginning of the meeting and then another at the, the very end and taking a little bit of time to do that.

I attend a lot of public meetings and have this frustration of there's something really important, but you have to wait a whole nother month until you can bring up something that you found in, in the meeting that you'd like to make comment on. So that's my recommendation for 2.3. So defining when public comment will happen and including two opportunities for it per meeting, as well as giving directions for how written comment can be appropriately submitted would be awesome. And then, uh, maybe it's 2.5, eventually updating the section on meeting records with specific directions of where materials can be found, uh, for the meeting. Um, also a gripe about other public meetings of like, where are the minutes and the materials?

And, and, um, it can prevent a lot of back and forth and frustration the public can be able to directly link them to those. And I think that's my two. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Ali. And please follow up with a short email so that I can— I tried taking some notes, and obviously we record this meeting, but it would be very fast if you just shot that in an email.

And I think that's great. And you are correct, we should have two parts for public comment. So thank you for that. Does anyone else have comments on the bylaws?

Okay, and I do think we need to circle back, Hazel. We did have another board member join us, so can we— and maybe Andy, you can help me out— do we need to run roll call again or just notify that another board member has joined us? Yeah, typically in a legislative context, they'll acknowledge the time the person arrived for the record. And that, that acknowledges their participation. Okay, thank you.

So Lee Hart has arrived at the meeting.

Perfect. Hi, Lee. Okay, all right, any other comments on the bylaws?

Since there are additional comments on the bylaws and they need to be updated further, we will not be taking action on them, but I'll prepare the edits for our next meeting, and potentially we would be able to take action on them at that point. Okay, I would like to move on to item number 7, review the redlined version of the charter.

I believe that I actually didn't come up with any comments on the charter other than to remove draft. So I'm looking to the committee members to see if there are any other comments on the charter.

This is Jen Yuhas. I've reviewed the charter and had no changes to suggest, and it seems redundant to say that, but it's like I want to note that, like, I actually read it.

I'm sorry, I was muted. Thank you, Jennifer.

And Rebecca, I might just acknowledge for the record and for this team, DOT, the last few years when we have a substantive project team on a larger project, at least we do have a team charter. And so this, this is— you may not have seen it in some other board or group context, but just wanted you to know procedurally at the department, we believe a charter just sort of establishing framework of an agreement beyond the operating rules, which is the bylaws. So sort of more the vision, mission, values sort of statement type thing that follows helps a team to understand what we're trying to accomplish and give input on that at the beginning. So just so you understand why there's a charter for this and why we're offering this for input early on. It's been very helpful on our larger projects where we've implemented them.

Um, I would also have comment on, um, the category is, uh, general quality and accuracy. For it to be such a large scoring category and some of the others to be broken up into more subsections, I would recommend maybe some subsections for this. Category, and I'll send them in an email as well. Maybe splitting up into like narrative clarity, budget accuracy, schedule feasibility, completeness, and breaking that up because I think a score there out of such a large portion of ranking can be confusing of, you know, what—. Oh, hold on, Allie.

I think you've moved on to item number 8, which is reviewing the scoring criteria. We were still Just wrapping up the comments on the charter, and it's sounding like there aren't a whole lot of comments on the charter other than I have the one of removing draft. So if there aren't any additional comments on the charter, Jennifer noted that she read it and it looked good. We could potentially take action on the charter today. I would like to— the charter, we didn't like move it for discussion because we're being like good and not too formal, but I'd like to move adoption of the charter by the advisory committee as written.

If there's a second— I second that. I second that motion. Okay, thank you. So Jennifer moved to have the charter adopted and Lee Hart seconded the motion. So we will, once the draft is— draft language that I had redlined is removed.

That will become our final charter. So that's great. We took action on, on that item today. Thank you very much for that. We'll move on to item number 8, which I'm glad that we're running a little bit early because there is going to be a lot of discussion likely about the scoring criteria for multi-use trails.

And then I went ahead and put in the ice roads and snow trails, which I believe need some work as well, and we can put them— I would like to eventually get them into a format that is more similar to the multi-use trails, because hopefully we will be using the program submittable to review these applications online, and then we would have documented review processes from the committee. So, Allie, you were talking about, and I appreciate that you're going to put it in writing after the the message, um, since you're the chair. Yes, go ahead, Jennifer. I would like to move this item for debate by the committee with the intent that we are initiating discussion on criteria with no expectations of adopting specifics today. And if there's a second, we can offer all our changes.

I can second. Yeah, I remember hearing about the—. Thank you, Ali. And Lee, you were not muted. Did you have some comments?

Oh, I'm sorry. I meant to unmute, but no, I have a lot of comments on this. I'm just— but I agree that it should be— we probably won't make it to a motion today. Okay, Lee, why don't you go ahead with some of your comments? I'm going to kind of pick up where Ali left off and just say that having been an RTP applicant and having sat through some of the former board's deliberations on the grant scoring, it is— I have strong feelings about revising that first category because the 28-point scoring for that first category, which primarily is a recap, the first whole parts of it are recaps of other places where scoring occurs.

And effectively what it had turned into was scoring on spelling and grammar, which I'm sorry, but that's not important important to me. The quality of the project is, and whether it's relevant to the community, the community support, and meets all of the requirements stipulated in the federal guidelines is way more important to me than spelling and grammar. We can go back if we feel like the proposal is good enough for, you know, meets all the other criteria. I would argue staff could go back and ask the applicant to fix the spelling and grammar, but like, the 28 points is oversized emphasis on, like, school mark kind of stuff. And so that's my first point.

And one other significant point is that the former scoring chart only references, is this project, you know, providing new recreation assets, and that is only one of the eligible uses of this grant fund, this grant resource, and I believe that you shouldn't be scored on that. I think it should be like the top of the scoring sheet should say which of the 7 general priority areas that are covered by RTP. Does this grant fall under— and it could be one or more of those categories, but I think scoring on it doesn't make sense to me because there's so many other uses. Scoring only on that is not fair to— it doesn't incorporate all the allowable uses for RTP funds. Those are my two major comments.

I have plenty more small ones. Thank you, Leigh, and I look forward to a follow-up email just so I can capture some of those and maybe prepare a draft of changes that might be needed. Yeah, I went through and I marked up that document and I don't know if it came through or not in what you sent. I would have been guessed, and my highlights were in yellow, but I also saved a version of it for myself, which I can look for and find and send to you as well. Okay, I would appreciate that.

Do any other folks have some comments?

Rebecca, this is Terry, if I might. Today we're just doing discussion on this, correct? That's correct. We're debating the scoring criteria, and then I think for the next meeting I could prepare some based on everybody's comments and what they send me. I can prepare a marked-up version or a potential new version that would help move us along as we're looking at this scoring criteria, because it's not— we're not going to come to an agreement in a 1-hour meeting.

Correct. And so we're not taking action on anything. So my question is, why are we doing motions when we're not taking action and we're just in discussion? We don't need motions until we take action. We took a motion to debate it.

And do we need that? Is it required? So, so the— we have the— and Terry's right, we, we have a motion to discuss, but we don't have to make a motion for each thing we want to change. We're in discussion, so we did need to take a motion to lay it on the table and discuss it, and that's what we're doing now. We don't have to make a motion for each thing we want to change.

All right, thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate it.

Terry, did you have any items that you wanted that stood out to you to change? No, not really. I mean, I kind of agree with the first one because, and the reason being is with the one Lee was talking about is you can have groups that have people that can really write and some of them might be grant writers. And then you'll have groups out there that really don't know how to write correctly. I mean, or put it into words that really stand out.

I've been on the other end of the bidding process before and on the scoring, and it is difficult. Some groups don't have the money to hire somebody that could really write. So I kind of agree with Lee on that. Maybe we could take a good look at that and make it so it's not really killing them on the scoring points so bad. There's just people out there that know how to write, and there's people that don't.

Okay, thank you. Lisa, I see your hand is up, and Lee, I wanted to let you know that you're not muted, so we are getting a little bit of background noise from you.

Hi, yeah, I just wanted to echo what Lee and Terry are saying with like 28 points. Just being dedicated to the application itself. I feel that's high when other categories are just 5 and 10, and I think we should be putting more value on what the intent is and not how they're drafting their application.

Okay, thanks, Lisa. And Ali, I feel like you got cut off, so if you could maybe talk a little bit more about some changes you would like to see. Yeah, that was— that's my biggest change, like everyone else, is that first category and using subcategories. And so for, um, you know, like narrative clarity is maybe somewhere that folks do lose points because of like writing style and things, but it's not this comprising of a significant portion of that 28, it's like 5 or something like that. Um, so yeah, breaking that first one into subcategories.

And then the other part I have comment on, um, being a person who has never applied in the RTP, so a bit of ignorance, like, in the process, and maybe others can speak to it, is ways to factor in consideration for, like, a portfolio balance of, like, right now, is all the funding staying very much in Southcentral Alaska and funding, you know, certain nonprofits? So, can there be either changes in how the program is being marketed or talked about, or some sort of criteria that's developed to say, does this project provide balance to the portfolio of other projects? Like, this would create trails in an area that there are not trails and would serve a smaller community but would be a major improvement there. So I don't think it's quite captured in our criteria now, but maybe it's something more in the process and administration of getting it out than it is the criteria, but something that I was thinking about. I do believe that statewide disbursement is considered, but maybe Natalia, if you're comfortable, you could talk a little bit about how the, how the program has been reaching across the state.

Uh, yes, sure. Um, thank you for bringing this point, Ellie. That particular criteria was considered, uh, in each discussion, uh, because we, uh, consider it not only scoring for the project but also distribution funding by the region.

In specific locations. So yes, it was considered.

Great. Thank you. I think that's my most significant comment, and I'll put things in an email, but that's good to hear. I am happy to hear that that's being considered.

Great. I don't see any hands up right now. I'd like to find out what people think Oh, sorry, Jennifer, go ahead. That's OK. I had 3 items that I wanted to discuss under the scoring.

One is under the public benefit. You know, we've given consideration to new things or creating missing links. As someone who's a bit of an access junkie, I'd like us to consider adding, does the project facilitate or further historic access? Because over time we've lost a lot of historic trails or historic access points. So I think that should be considered in our criteria.

And then two other pieces for criteria. One is easy. I would love for us to have some sort of a rating system for previous awardees so that if someone has done a really bad job, that, you know, just the same way that we do for procurement with vendors, that we can either give somebody really high marks because they've been a good partner, or we could say, well, this, this entity has defaulted several times And then the third one, I would love any input from Leah and others on how to phrase this because I don't want to overburden those who can do a good job with trail maintenance or something simple and aren't good writers, but I would like to see at the end of it some sort of a section for like a final report, final reporting on like, you know, did they get back to us and say that they did utilize all the funds? Did they Were they only able to complete most of it because something fell through? I've had to do that with a lot of grants that I've received at nonprofits from ConocoPhillips even, and just say, you know, we had— there was something due back to say that we followed through.

And it doesn't have to be elaborate, and I don't want to overburden those who are good at grooming and not good at writing on some of our things, but some of our projects are larger, and I would like an ability to identify very good partners and those who default. And so that's all I have.

Okay, I think that's great, but I think we also need to be careful because sometimes entities are, have been cleaned up a little bit or have different folks at their leadership so that they can do a better job. I do agree with that and would love like some section that like, you know, if we, if we know we have this history, can we go back and say, hey, we know that this is how it's worked before, what's different? And then it's very easy to say this is what's different. I don't know. Okay.

Lisa Agnew, I believe I saw your hand up, and then Jeff, Jeffrey Collins, and then Lee Hart. So Lisa Agnew. Yeah, just hearing some of the sentiments that have been echoed even from like our public testimony. Maybe if the goal— and I'm not sure if we can revise this application on an annual basis— but if our goal this year is to try to somehow target like rural communities, if we could add like a geographic question in the scoring where it's like, I don't know, like serves rural or remote areas, or maybe scoring projects that are higher outside of the rail belt. It's just an idea.

I don't know how popular it is, but I'm just trying to entertain the idea of if we're trying to— because I've, I've heard it now twice in regards to some current concern that maybe we're targeting, and I don't want DOT to be seen as, okay, well, we're getting all these applications from the rail belt. How do we get some of these so that it's a statewide benefit instead of just a certain area in South Central? Okay, I think that that is considered in the Recreational Trails Program, and generally they do receive applications from across the state, and that possibly some of the concerns that were brought up earlier could be addressed by our different programs that are available to communities statewide.

Okay, Jeff.

Uh, just wanted to thank everyone out there for advocating for rural and Western Alaska. As a resident of Western Alaska, I appreciate that. But I do have some also some suggestions on the first criteria. It is heavily weighted at 28 points, and I think Allie had mentioned breaking that down into sections. That would also provide equity in, like, the way that people write if they are able to focus on a no, no, very objective criteria for what they need to write.

You're looking more at the, are they fulfilling the technical pieces within the qualifiers rather than looking at the style or the, that 28-point chunk where they may not be as articulate and getting scored on that. So if you're able to break that down into smaller pieces, I think Ali has some suggestions on how to break that down, that would help with making each one of those qualifiers easily identifiable and being able to help through a writing process as well. That's my suggestion on that.

Thank you, Jeff, and I appreciate that. I— and once again, I'm going to ask everybody to send me an email with their comments after the fact so that I can try to create something for debate and review the next, for our next meeting. Lee, you also have your hand up.

Yeah, thanks again. Again, I have super strong feelings about this for the work I do across the state and everything, and so I've been immersed in these issues, but I want to say that there's just questions that are kind of unfair, and there's also wording in the scoring criteria that is really subjective terminology and, and just doesn't clarify for an applicant, let alone the scorers, what exactly is meant by maybe the term excellence or something like that or whatever. So I think a lot of my comments addressed subjective terminology that didn't— wasn't well defined. I also feel like in regards to the geographic equity or or whatever. I think another problem area is where the scoring asks for the size of the population served, and that, that hints that it's weighted toward projects that serve bigger populations.

And I feel like that is also unequitable, and that sometimes small projects in small communities have a outsized impact. And so I think what really needs to be awarded is, is like, what is the depth of their partnerships to make these projects happen? Do they have the required letter from a governmental entity? Also, another unfair thing that I personally experienced in one of my grants was the request that there be 3 bids for materials that cost over $1,000, which these days is like everything. And in some communities, they don't have access to other bidders.

They might only have one source. And to mark them down, mark their score down because they didn't provide 3 bids, again, for rural areas, just completely isn't fair to me. So again, all these comments I have, in another document, but I just wanted to put them out there as conversation points with the committee today.

Thank you, Leigh. That's a lot to think about. I appreciate your input. Jennifer Uhas, I see your name is— I'm sorry, your hand is up. I don't want to babble on too much in a meeting or dominate, but I really want to put it on the record that I agree with what Leigh just said, especially with you know, the population density issue, that as someone who cares about our historic access, some of these things that we've lost that had been historic access points, historic trails, um, things like that, they're in very remote areas that, you know, even if they only have a usership that's, that's lower because only so many of us are willing to travel out there because we really want to see it, it's still part of our historic access for our state.

I just wanted that on the record. Thank you, Jennifer. I have—. I'm sorry, I have something. Yeah, I missed my button.

Yeah, I wanted to agree with Jennifer on that, and that there's been a lot of 2477s that have disappeared magically by, by the Fed and so forth. And so what I was suggesting is, and that should have some importance If there's an area that's— that the trail could be enhanced that has some historical value and especially allows better access, I think that's important in scoring. My second question or point was I was a bit confused. Of the 28 points that's available in the first section, are we talking about just redefining those points within that section, or do we take 10 of those points theoretically and move them into other areas down below that we feel are underrepresented? I think the point system could be moved around, not only clarifying the scoring system and making sure that it's more understandable to both the applicants and the folks scoring the applications, but potentially we could put more weight on different areas.

Okay, thank you.

Rebecca, I didn't see other hand-ups, but I thought I wanted to add some context for the committee. A couple of different things. One, the mention for everyone, the STIP that DOT has, the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan, there is a lens on that that is geographic, making sure there's parity, that it's not just population centers that are looking for that. In fact, there are sometimes I get urban legislators trying to talk about population, and we remind them that the cost of infrastructure and development in in certain areas is higher and that you can't just go on a strictly dollar-to-population basis. So that, that's acknowledged through a lot of the work that department already does and the planning it does.

I wanted to mention on, on scoring, there's a couple other grant programs that can inform options for how to handle certain weighting or criteria. The Municipal Harbor Facility Grant Program is a 50/50 for harbor grants. And there's an interesting mechanic there where if it's the first time that a facility that was divested from the state to the local is receiving money from that grant, they're a Tier 1. And if it's— if you've sought money before, it's a Tier 2. So there's, there's some interesting weighting that can occur, and I could see that applicable maybe to a 2477 or something where you're trying to, again, maybe constantly taking certain elements and putting a priority on them to sort of kick them off and then they're competing on that level playing field.

So there's— this is going to be a great dialogue for us to have. Where are these priorities desired and what mechanics might accomplish that best? So this is a great dialogue today.

Most recently, a grant from—. Thanks, Andy. Lee, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just— I'm sorry, I should have unmuted before, but I just wanted to say I'm really passionate about this particular topic, and I won an RTP grant. I'm not like a bitter RTP person that didn't get a grant or something like that.

I just want the committee to know that, that I really care about equity across the state and really feel strongly about how important winter trails are to the transportation infrastructure in Alaska and And I think I'm so encouraged by you, Rebecca, and Hazel, and other staff— sorry, just blanked on your name that just talked— but, and the passion you're bringing to, you know, helping improve this program. And so I just want to thank you and just say I'm not a bitter person. I'm just really passionate about also joining in and helping making it better.

Thanks, Leigh. Lisa Agnew?

There's something else that I just noticed actually while I'm just looking at it. So under community support, number 3, it says example of public notice posting is provided, must include current dates. I don't, really feel that this should be really scoring, but it may be more of like an eligibility checklist. Like, I would feel that they're ineligible if they didn't do the public notice requirements. So, like, I don't understand why there's a 1 through 3 scoring.

It's either a yay or nay kind of deal. I think— I'm trying to think— another one that I saw in here was like landowner Where is that at?

So under project description, it says identify landowners of all underlying property. I'm not sure what the purpose of that would be for this, other than like, we need to make sure that we have the landowner's permission if it's not public use land. So, like, if it's a trail that crosses over multiple uses of land, whether it's public, federal, private, um, I'm not sure what the purpose of the RTB board would know— need to know about that other than if they have permission to cross that land, other— if it's other than state land. So that's kind of a weird section. So I'm just saying maybe there should be like an eligibility yay or nay kind of thing, um, more so especially for that public notice.

I think if they haven't posted public notice, then they should be disqualified right from the bat.

And I believe that if they don't have their public notice in, they can't apply. So that is a, that is a requirement for even completing the application.

But if there's concern about the project, Maybe that is something to consider.

Okay, does anyone have any other comments or discussion for this time? Or do you want to see a new draft and start up the debate again?

So I would like to table our discussion to the next meeting, at which time we can see another draft, and you're able as the chair to say okay, as long as nobody objects.

Okay, that sounds good. Rebecca, can we, can we ask board members— this is just one of those— if you do put forward an area for change, if at all possible, please give us your recommendation on what to change it to. I assume many of you will, but it's— I find it we often get don't do X, but we don't always get the please do Y. So thank you, everybody. Thank you for that, Andy.

So we are now on item number 9, set the date for the next meeting.

Rebecca, could I chime in real quick here? Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Go ahead, Terry. I'd like to know how— if you could put a date on the latest you'll accept our comments via email on these topics, because you guys are going to need time to prepare.

Yes, I need to have the materials ready about a week beforehand. So that kind of spills into when the next meeting should be. If we want. I really could use some time. So if, if we said maybe 3 weeks out, then I would need your comments within 2 weeks.

Thank you.

I just want to ask the board if they think that— oh, I'm sorry, Lee has her hand up.

Um, yeah, if it's okay to go, um, I see your comment, Jennifer, about, um Running afoul of Open Meetings Act, and I, I have that question as well. And also, just for, to save the sanity of staff, I'm wondering if it is possible to have just a Google document where people can do the markup on it so you're not trying to merge all these comments and on top of each other and stuff, and maybe that makes it easier. I'm not sure, but I worry about overburdening staff with trying to merge, you know, every committee member's comments into one document and not miss stuff or have— trying to figure out what's duplicative or not.

What I think might work is a summary of everyone's comments and then a new document to review. So that was— that would would probably be my path forward.

Yeah, I would just recommend, as someone with some experience on OMA, the Open Meetings Act, a common document where people are editing is not advisable, even though I think for our purposes it would be great for everyone to be in there because it would simplify. But it's better from a taking action standpoint and clarity for the public who's making what suggestion, the dialogue that goes with it, the acceptance or rejection of it. I think it's a clear record, so it's a good suggestion, but in this format, just as Rebecca said, clear. So with the chair's permission, I have a question for our board. Is there anyone who doesn't think that they could get their comments into Rebecca in the next 3 days?

Um, so I really appreciate that staff has been working with this transition so that we've had short meetings, taking little bites so that we can make forward progress. And, um, I would love if we could have another meeting sooner than 3 weeks, uh, so that we could make some more progress like this. And if, if everyone who has edits thinks that they could get them to you in the next 3 days, and that would help us pick a sooner timeline for our next meeting.

Okay, are there any comments on that?

All right, I will send out a Doodle poll for about 2 weeks from now and hope that everybody's able to get their comments in in the next 3 days.

So with that, I think that we are going to move to adjourn.

Rebecca, if I could just jump in. We have— we do have Andy Morrison with his hand raised, and if we're going to institute a second comment period, now would be a good time to grab his comment. Okay, that's great.

Wait one second. Andy, I have unmuted you. You're welcome to give us your 3-minute comment. Okay, thanks. I appreciate it.

I was also just kind of excluded from the chat, so still kind of surprised that there's just only a couple of us from the public in these meetings, but they are a little hard to find. You know, the one thing that I'd like to remind the board is that there is a potential permit procurement violation here. You know, the program pays for service trailhead maintenance. Under Alaska law, the state cannot restrict service contracts to nonprofits only and avoid competitive bidding. By adopting this, you're inviting a formal procurement protest.

Also, There's a discrimination issue here. This nonprofit requirement has a disparate impact on Western Alaska. No tribal or local governments were awarded funds for this snow trail cycle, only railboat clubs. And this is a violation of the civil rights laws regarding equitable access to federal transportation funds. There's also the permit issue.

You know, I hold that federal permits in the Chugach And, you know, nonprofit clubs don't— do not. If you adopt this charter, the funds that funds unpermitted entities while blocking the permit holder, you're creating a federal noncompliance issue for the DOT. So I still urge the board to amend the eligibility section to be entity neutral before you vote. And or next meeting, and glad to talk to any of you about it on the phone as well. And I appreciate it.

Thank you.

And just a quick reminder, if anyone else would like to make a comment at this time, go ahead and raise your hand. And also, um, there's a Q&A feature that is open to anyone who attends. Um, it is at the bottom, typically on the right-hand side, so you're always welcome to use that as well. This is Jen Uhas. Um, so in following the public testimony that we just heard, I have a couple of questions, uh, to staff.

And that would be, while no contracts were awarded to the entities that were mentioned by our testimony, were any requests for awards received? Because it's my understanding after listening to 3 different presentations that none were received. And so can you confirm that on the record?

If we're referring to the Snow Trails Program, which I believe we are, I did not receive any applications for western Alaska. There's typically— the Snow Trails Program does have requirements of grooming, so the trails out there aren't typically groomed. We do have the Winter Trail Marking Program available. It's always open and folks can apply to that to get trail markers. Yes, so thank you.

I just wanted it on the record that to reiterate that you had not received any requests, therefore they were not awarded. And then I will just restate for the record that, um, in light of the public testimony that we heard, it's important to clarify that many tribal entities and local governments are in fact nonprofits.

And then my last My last question for staff is, what again are the federal constraints on the funds? There's been a lot of discussion about nonprofits. However, it's my understanding from our very first meeting that there are federal constraints on those funds. Um, these are— we're looking to use the RTP funds for snow trails, so they would have the same eligibility of the RTP, which is a funding source. But for our program manual for the Snow Trails program, which is a grant program, it's not a program that's put out for bid.

We are limiting the applicants to nonprofits, tribes, and local governments.

Aha moment. Oops.

Rebecca, there is no—. No other members of the public are raising their hands to comment, so I think we can wrap that second public comment period up. Okay, thanks Shannon. So at this time I'd like to move to adjourn the meeting.

Second from Lee. Actually, Lee would be making the motion and I'll second because since you're chairing you don't get to make motions. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Okay, thank you. I'll make that motion.

Thank you Lee and thank you Jennifer. All right. I will get a Doodle poll out to everybody as soon as possible. Thank you. Thanks.

Bye-bye. Thank you. All right. Thank you.