Assembly Regular - November 18, 2025 - 2025-11-18 17:00:00

Sing away so all can hear, so the lost can all be found. And the midnight sun is gone away with the fall colors to show. A time to think on memories of a time I used to know.

And the midnight sun is gone away with the fog comes to show. A time to think on memories of a time I used to know.

Sat by the lake on the summer days.

The wind through the shade made for a cool place to watch your subtle ways. What What do I really care about? Am I afraid to make it known?

What if this were forgotten? All there was known.

What do I really care about? Nothing at all.

I hope it was not. The dogs are all at play. Tell me it won't change.

While putting off the work, too late to just simply wait.

To be tough in some other way. What do I really care about? What do I really care about? I'm not afraid to make it known. What if this world forgot to I hope it was not.

What do I really care about? Nothing at all.

I hope it was not. What do I really care about? Nothing Where there's no boundaries to have and nowhere to go. Don't let them take your shine, don't let them steal your mind away from you. Said if they owed you money, I won't need a penny from you.

Oh, you, you're stronger than you think. Don't let these wounds sting, I promise you.

'Cause you're 4, 5, 6, sometimes 2 ghosts. If your roof is tin and your house caves in, then nobody else at fault. Think I did something bad, I did something bad. Never question the hand they had. Say, if they owe me money, if they owe me something, let's go run and spend it.

Oh, oh, say I'm not very lucky if they They owe me something. Let's go balance things out. I'm so very lost. Oh, things hadn't going my way. I've been on both lows and the grass is greener over on they side.

Let me take it down. Looking the world after every turn, it scares me like it do. But it's all the rules I always lose. I wait Wake up and begin to choose. I don't know what to do, do, do.

Yeah, freeze the hell and know where to go. Don't let them take your shine. Don't let them steal your mind away from you. Said if they owed you money, I won't need a penny from you. Oh, you, you're stronger than you think.

Don't let These woman staying up on me soon, 'cause if 4, 5, 6 don't die too, go with me, we staying in your house, gave in, nobody else at fault. Think I did something bad, I did something bad, never question the ending. And say, if they owe me money, if they owe me something, let's go out and spend it Oh, I almost said I'm not very lucky. If they owe me something, let's go buy this baby.

Oh, let me tell you a secret. Let me tell you, oh, let me tell you a secret. Let me tell you, oh, let me tell you a secret. Ah, secret. Ah, oh, secret.

I keep it all alone. I keep it all alone. I keep it all alone.

—Fall. Think I did something bad, I did something bad. Have a whiskey in the hand, they ask. Say, if they owe me money, if they owe me something, let's go out and spend it all. Say, I'm not very lucky.

If they owe me something, let's go out and spend it all.

Take a cab and don't look back. I'll move through all the silence. Now I'm colder than the weather. Steady going under pressure. I'm finally over being lowkey under these old covers.

Now I'm back and I'm better. Steady going under pressure. Sit back and watch the paint dry. Take time and watch The dope rides in another world. I have control of my mind.

Can't seem to get it through that things I do, but on my own time. People waiting, slowly fading. The mirror is telling me I got to grip it right in front of me. Secure the seat and don't release the opportunity.

Community. Now I'm colder than the weather, steady going under pressure. I'm finally over being lowkey under these old cuppers. Now I'm back and I'm better, steady going under pressure. Sit back and watch the paint dry, take time and watch the dope rise.

It's passing hours, damn. Dancing. How the hell am I still standing? Keys are rusting. I'm not playing.

Maddies are infiltrating. Now I'm colder than the weather. Steady going under pressure. I'm finally over being lowkey under these oak covers.

Hill, Arizona. I know the sun coming down. Do you ever think back, baby, when you were home in— Do you ever think that maybe you want to drive in the rain and cry when you hit Arizona? I know the sun coming down. The sun How does one see?

How does one be anything at all? How does one love? How does one see? How does one be anything at all?

I get lost in a like-a-like day. I like it like that. Love has its cost, now I'll move back 'cause boy, I'm bad. How does one love? How does one see?

How does one be anything at all? How does one love? How does one see? How does one be anything at all? How does one love?

But it is, but it is that. How does one love? I get lost and I like it like that. Yeah, I like it like that.

Love has its cost, now I'm all back, 'cause boy, I'm back. How does one love? How does one see? How does one be anything at all? How does one love?

How does one see? How does one be anything at all?

The sun is setting.

On our love, somehow you kept me.

Guess I haven't cried enough. Let me love you down, let me I never came over. I hate when I'm sober. Let me love you down. Let me love you down.

I never came over. I hate when I'm sober.

Let me love you down. Let me love you down.

Let me love you down. Let me love you down. Let me love you down. Keith, are you on the phone?

Nothing's better than being home. With your loved ones, you won't be alone. When it's cold out, you'll be in warm in your own bed and from the storm.

Home is calling when you feel adrift. It'll always be there and never miss. Life has got you all around. You never feel you got your feet on the ground. Keith, is that you that just dialed in?

Home sweet home. It is. Thank you. Thank you. Home sweet home.

A place to find and some peace. You are worried of what's to come, but you never know until it's all said and done. You can stay home all night and day, resting your mind, keeping all bad thoughts away. Home sweet home is where I wanna be. Home sweet home, a place to find some peace.

Home sweet home is where I wanna be. Home sweet home, a place to find some peace.

Nothing's better than being home with your love. Won't you all be alone when it's cold out? You'll be in warm in your own bed and in from the storm.

We'll be getting started in just one moment.

Good evening, everybody.

I would like to go ahead and call this regular meeting of the Anchorage Assembly to order. Tonight is November 18th, 2025. This is our regular meeting. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Member Myers. Here. Member McCormick. Here. Member Martinez.

Present. Member Baldwin-Day. Present. Member Johnson. Here.

Chair Constantine. Here. Vice Chair Brawley. Here. Member Walland.

Happy to be here. Member Silvers. Here. Member Rivera? Present.

Member Gerker? Here. Member Perez-Rodilla? Here.

And Youth Representative Lavario? Here. Chair Constantine, you have a quorum. All right, thank you. Next on the agenda, we have the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mr. Myers, would you please lead us in the pledge? Yes, sure.

I pledge allegiance allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Ms. Baldwin-Day, would you please read the land acknowledgement? Yes, Chair. A land acknowledgement is a formal statement recognizing the indigenous people of a place It is a public gesture of appreciation for the past and present Indigenous stewardship of the lands that we now occupy. It is an actionable statement that marks our collective movement towards decolonization and equity. The Anchorage Assembly would like to acknowledge that we gather today on the traditional lands of the Dena'ina Athabascans.

For thousands of years, the Dena'ina have been and continue to be the stewards of this land. It is with gratefulness and respect that we recognize the contributions Innovations and Contemporary Perspectives of the Upper Cook Inlet Dena'ina.

Thank you, Miss Baldwin-Day. Next on the agenda, we have minutes of previous meetings. Tonight we don't have any minutes from previous meetings, so we'll move on to the mayor's report. Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and good evening everyone. First, I want to thank the members of the public who've given feedback on the fiscal year 2026 budget. Your input helps make a better budget. Thanks to the assembly for the collaboration with my team to put together a package of amendments that reflect district priorities, immediate needs, and still remains almost $200,000 below the tax cap. When it comes to public safety, as a South Anchorage resident who had the honor of representing District 6 on the assembly for 6 years, wildland fire danger is always top of mind for me.

And last week I was at AFD's town hall on the draft community wildfire protection plan. The comment period is open through the end of the month, and I encourage folks to weigh in on the plan. You can go to wildfire.muni.org/cwpp.

The dangers of wildland fires are very real here, and that's why in any proposed budget from me, such as the one that you'll take up tonight, You'll see that AFD's wildfire division is funded. We are very fortunate that this year the division is grant funded. So thank you, Senator Lisa Murkowski. But we're still falling short of community needs for fire and other critical services. Our community is at a crossroads.

It's clear we can't rely on state funds anymore, and we already rely a lot on property taxes. So it's up to us, those of us who live here, to take care of what we have. And provide the infrastructure and services our community wants and needs, and to build a future that we want for this place. That's why I introduced a new proposal for a 3% sales tax that I think is fair and balanced for our whole community. It will provide meaningful property tax relief, invest in public safety and infrastructure, and create economic growth through housing and child care.

It exempts food, utilities, rent, medicine and medical care, and child care. At least 36% of the tax revenues will come from non-residents. This will likely be a long community conversation, as it should be, and I look forward to diving into this more with the assembly after the budget is passed. I want to thank the, the public for helping honor our veterans last week at the 11th Airborne Memorial at Merrill Field. And to Earl Malpass, a veteran and the Merrill Field director, for hosting.

It was a chilly but enthusiastic crowd that came together. Lastly, Thanksgiving is next week, so I wish all of you a joyful and gratitude-filled holiday, and I want to thank all the members of the assembly for your service to our community. I appreciate all the hours and time that you put into doing this work. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Next on the agenda is the chair's report, and the big ticket item on the agenda tonight is our budget process. We will get through our budget tonight if I have anything to say about it. We're going to work until we're done so we don't have to meet every day in December. Um, I want to thank everybody who provided testimony.

We do still have a public hearing open on the general government budget. Your input has helped us to make better decisions and we appreciate the time folks have taken to inform us of your priorities for the budget. Also want to thank the administration and assembly members for very thoughtful conversation on the budget and potential amendments. We are of course facing some tough budget decisions, just riffing off what the mayor had just said, in the next few years, and it's going to take us all working together to figure it out. I would note that I added by AIM a document into your packets tonight that's associated to all the revenue questions.

That is a study from the city of Washington, D.C. that's been done annually since 1997 that compares the taxation level to every state's largest city and then does a comparison of the tax burden of each community. And since 1997, in almost every category, Anchorage has come in as the lowest tax jurisdiction in America. So I recommend everybody review through that study and look to see what the factual basis is for the argument that we are in a position where revenue is part of the conversation. I do look forward to a productive meeting tonight as we wrap up the budget and we can move forward with the good work of the municipality. But also note that on Friday last week, we did have an amazing reception at the museum for First Friday.

It was a reception to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the municipality. Thank Anchorage Museum. We gathered with current and former mayors, assembly members, youth representatives, and school board members, and it was really enheartening to see people of all stripes coming together, putting politics aside, and having a great evening of celebrating and actually looking into the civics of our community, which was the civics fair that was out in the main lobby of the museum. Not only is it a time for celebration, but it was also a time and opportunity to imagine what we can become for the next 50 years. As I said then, I'll say it now, and I believe it, our best days are still ahead of us.

With that, I will just move on. This is our regular meeting. I'll do my best to move us through the agenda as effectively as possible. As it's a business meeting, we're here to conduct the work of the municipality. Please refrain— excuse me, please help to create a climate of respect in the chambers by refraining from personal attacks or speaking out of turn, shouting or clapping and pacing, Except of course when clapping is in order.

Please keep signs to 8.5 by 11 or smaller if you have those signs. Also, please keep the aisles clear except when lined up to testify. And if you have materials for the assembly, please hand them to the clerk up front, but please don't approach the dais during the meeting. Please stop speaking if a point of order is called so I may rule— the chair may rule on the point of order and the record is clear. If rules aren't followed, the chair may interrupt speaker to call for compliance.

If compliance doesn't occur, the chair may pause the meeting, and if there's an actual disruption, the chair will give a warning. If the disruption persists or happens again, the person will be asked to leave. That said, this is a nice crowd in the audience tonight, so we'll do our best to get on to the business of the people. And with that then, I think the next on our agenda is Committee and Liaison Report. Reports.

And so we'll go ahead and start with Mr. Presidio— normally I start with Mr. Myers. Mr. Myers, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing to report.

Mr. McCormick. Nothing to report, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Martinez.

Thank you, Chair. Nothing to report. Ms. Baldwin-Day. Thank you, Chair. A couple of scheduling items.

The, um, Infrastructure Enterprise Utility Oversight Committee meets this Thursday at 11:30, so that's Thursday the 20th of November. The Anchorage Municipal Area Transportation Solutions Policy Committee meets that same day at 1 PM. So if you really wanted to, you could make it a doubleheader. And then related to item 10F6 on our budget— this on our agenda this evening, um, Member Brawley and I hosted an Our Muni, Our Budget public meeting, public conversation that we are going to do all over again because we got some pretty great feedback that that was a helpful event as far as really understanding how the budget process works, how the municipal budget is structured, where our revenue comes from, how funds are spent. And so we're going to do that again on December 15th, so mark your calendars.

That's a Monday, Monday evening. There will be food and childcare and a couple of hours of really interesting conversation about how we do the work of the city and where the funds come from to do that. So that's what I have. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. The next meeting of the Assembly Legislative Committee will be tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12:40 PM at City Hall. We expect to see an updated version of the administration's proposal for the legislative program, and then also this will be opportunity for members to present any amendments that they would like to see incorporated into the plan. Finally, on that, I will note that for members who have not yet submitted their 2 district priorities to, uh, Ms. Vanek-Lawson to please make sure you get that done here, uh, not later than the end of the week, I would say. That's all, Chair.

Thank you, Member Johnson. Vice Chair Raleigh. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a brief report for the Budget and Finance Committee.

First, our normal meeting, which would be on Thursday, November 20th, is canceled. Obviously, we are working through the budget process now. And then on the budget, um, we'll get— we'll get to that later, but I will just note for Member members and the public. You received a substitute version for item 13B, I believe, the capital budget. We are preparing a new version of that with more detail, so just stand by and then we will— you will receive that shortly.

Thanks.

Thank you, Miss Spradley. Mr. Voland. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Nothing to report. Thank you, Mr. Voland. Miss Silvers. Nothing to report. Thank you.

Miss Rivera. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing to report. Thank you, Mr.

Kerker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing to report. Mr.

President, thank you, Chair. A quick update: tomorrow, Wednesday, November 19th, at 10:45 will be a meeting of the Assembly Housing and Homeless Committee. We'll have an update from the Health Department reviewing shelter surge update and also an update on HUD Home ARP, the substantial amendment number 2. Also from the Mayor's Office, we'll have a shelter operations update update, as well as an update on the micro units. The HOPE outreach team will be there to, to give an update as well, and then Kenny Peterson will be there to talk about the Good Neighbor Fund update.

So hopefully you can join us tomorrow at 10:45. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Presverdia. All right, so that then— oh, and the youth member, Mr. Laveras. Thank you, Chair.

Nothing to report. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, or Madam Clerk. Madam Clerk, yeah. Okay, so next we're going to move on to the addendum to the agenda.

But before we get to the addendum to the agenda, we're going to address late on the table items, incorporate any late on the table items to the agenda. So I'll go ahead and, um, go through them. I think that everything is supplemental.

Oh, 10D5 is new.

Okay, okay, so, um, otherwise everything looks to be supplemental, so I'll go ahead and read through the supplemental items first.

So item 10G.7.B, which is assembly memorandum AM849-2825A.

10G7C, Ordinance AO 2025-135S, an ordinance of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 1.40.020 to adopt a new or affirm the current corporate seal of the Municipality of Anchorage. 10G7D, Assembly Memorandum unnumbered 2025. Also 13B3, AO 2020— well, we're going to hold off on that one. I'm going to read that one in a bit. Uh, Item 13B4, Assembly Memorandum— that one too, there's Associated.

13D2, 13 Delta 2, information memorandum unnumbered, ordinance number AO-2025-78, ordinance Anchorage Assembly approving the final negotiation and execution of the crane use agreement between the Municipality of Anchorage, Don Young Port of Alaska, and Matson Navigation Company of Alaska LLC to state the terms of the operation for the cranes located at the Don Young Port of Alaska cargo terminals and easement and license included therein. Item 13F6, information memorandum AIM, Girdwood Board of Supervisors Resolution AO 2025-19, resolution of support for AO 2025-115S to require short-term rental registration, add short-term rentals as an allowable land use in the residential zones. So that then brings us to the one new item, which is 10D5, Assembly Memorandum Unnumbered, Memorandum of the Anchorage Assembly authorizing the crane agreement between the Municipality of Anchorage, Don Young Port of Alaska, and Matson Navigation Company Alaska LLC to state the terms and additions to the purchase of cranes located at the Don Young Port of Alaska Cargo Terminals. So this item is new. This one will take 8 votes to lay on the table.

Move to lay on the table. Second. Motion to lay on the table by Ms. Parley, seconded by Mr. Johnson. Normally we'd ask the mover to justify the time sensitivity, but we'll ask the manager instead. Ms. Link-Pearson, Becky, can you help to provide for us the rationale by which we should lay on the table the Matson crane agreement.

That's 10D5. Happy to, Mr. Chair. So this is a component— this is a piece of a larger puzzle regarding the purchase, transport, and installation of cranes at the Port of Alaska through an arrangement, a contractual agreement between the Municipality of Anchorage and Matson as one of the users of the port. And so the larger piece of the puzzle has been on the agenda, publicly noticed for, um, probably more than a month now and is in the 13s.

And so then there's two pieces that are on the table tonight to be laid on the table. One is this item, the information memorandum, which carries the final revised agreement. We had been, after presenting to the assembly a few times, asked to go back to the negotiating table and try and resolve a few outstanding issues. And so those have now, we hope, been resolved to the point where both parties are satisfied satisfied and we can move forward. So tonight we have the final agreement as an assembly information memorandum to Item 13D.

There's also an item in, um, the TENS that is a— the corresponding crane agreement, the purchase agreement that goes with the package. Right, so any questions from the administration? For the administration? Hearing and seeing none, any further discussion? I'm going to ask unanimous consent.

Is there any objection to laying this item on the table? I am hearing and seeing no objection, so we will lay that item on the table. I did miss reading one supplemental item, 10F8, Information Memorandum No. 2022, Report on Tax Rates and Tax Burdens in the District of Columbia Nationwide Comparison. Okay, I think that that concludes the laid on the table procedure, so, um Madam Vice Chair, do you want to notify folks about the plan for the S version of the capital budget?

Yeah, um, yeah, what I spoke to briefly earlier. So we will be, um, uh, including all of the specific projects that were supposed to be included in that item in the S version. So, so the draft that you got, you can discard, and then we will have that shortly before we take up the budget. Thank you. All right, so we will go through one more process when when we get to that item.

Thank you. So I guess then after that I would go ahead and ask for a motion to incorporate the addendum as printed and distributed in the late on the table items. So moved. Second. Was that Mr. Myers?

Moved by Mr. Myers, second by Ms. Sprawley. Any discussion? I'd also like to ask unanimous consent. Is there any objection? Hearing and seeing no objection, the addendum and laid on the table.

Items have been incorporated. So I see a lot of young people here. Raise your hand if you're here from a class.

Awesome. So we have a tradition here. We invite you to come forward to the microphone and just briefly tell us your name, what school you're from, and what class you're here for. So come on down, everybody. March forward, please.

The microphone is off. You just press the green button to turn the mic on. Oh, it's on. You're good. Sorry.

Now hit it one more time. I was wrong. It's on. OK, please state your name, what school you're from, and what class you're here for. All right.

I'm Ethan Cadigan. I'm from Service High School, and I'm here from our United States government class.

Olivier Casarilla, Service High School, and US Gov.

My name is Angus Bartell, and I'm also from Service and also here for Gov class.

My name is Hunter Bernas. I'm here for the US Gov class, and I'm from Service High School.

My name is Ruben Vetch. I'm at Service, and I'm also here for US Gov. My name is Bryce Thompson. I'm here for the US Gov class from Service High School.

My name is Jedrick Chmielowski, and I'm here from the US Gov class from Service. My name is Jenna Shea, and I'm also here from the US Gov class from Service. I'm Anne Tachatsky. I'm also from the Service High School US Gov class.

I'm Elena Johnson. I'm also here from Service from the US Gov class. My name is Casey Ramolette from Service High School from our US Gov class. I'm Caitlin Freswick from Service High School and I'm also here for US Gov.

I'm Elizabeth Robbins from Service High School and I'm also here for the US Gov class.

I'm Zaira Sati and I'm from Service and I'm here for the US Gov class. My name is Camden Morell. I'm from Service and I'm from the US Gov class.

My name is Harrell Ross and ditto.

My name is Cameron Hickman. I'm from Service High School for US Government.

My name is Genevieve Norris and I'm here from the Service US Gov class. I'm Sophia Downey from Service High School for the US Gov class. My name is Sadie Duffy. I also go to Service and I'm also here for the US Gov class. I'm Samantha Campbell and I'm from Service's US Gov class.

I'm Sephora Margulies and I'm also from Service in the US Gov class. My name is Nevaeh Dunlap and I'm from Service and I'm here for US Gov class.

I'm Campbell Brandon. I'm from Service and I'm in the US Gov class.

I'm Ari Brandon. I'm from Service and the same US Gov class.

I'm Savannah Linnell, also from Service High School in the US Gov class.

I'm Natalie Gordon, and I'm also from the US Gov class from Service.

I'm Thomas Resed. I'm from Lumen Christi, and I'm here for US Gov class.

I'm Aaliyah Dubois. I'm from Chugiak, and I'm here for my US Gov class. I'm Zana Garrett, and I'm from Chugiak, and I'm here for my US Gov class. Chair, may I ask a question? Go ahead, Ms.

Baldwin. The folks from Service, who's your US Gov teacher?

Amanda Zogas. Amanda Zogas, okay. And our friends from Chugiak, who's your US Gov teacher? Logan. Okay, and you should ask Lumen Christi as well.

I'm assuming Lumen Christi is, um, oh, she's the same teacher that sent us a few other students. Um, who's your teacher? Miss Hazlett. Okay, amazing. Thank you.

All right, and just, uh, congratulations coming to see your local government in operation, and tonight is one of the two biggest meetings of the year, and so it's a significant night, and I would request if you have the bandwidth, stay through the dinner break. And the first items that we take up after our dinner break will be the budget, which is why it's the most important meeting of the year, or at least one of the top two. Okay, thank you for that interlude, everybody. Welcome. And next then, we have no appearance requests tonight, so we'll move on to the consent agenda.

The consent agenda, if you look at our documents, are items 10A through 10G and are typically routine or non-controversial items items such as bid awards, new business information and reports, ordinances and resolutions for introduction. These items may be approved, accepted, adopted by the assembly by a single vote on a motion to approve the consent agenda. Prior to approval, these items may be pulled by any assembly member for discussion and separate vote on any of the items. Under the assembly rules of procedure, all ordinances and some resolutions will have an opportunity for public hearing at a future date. Now we'll start by going down the dais and asking members members if they have any items to pull.

Mr. Frazzarelli. Thank you, Chair. No items tonight. Mr. Gerker. 10A4, Chair.

Thank you, that's 10A4. Mr. Rivera. Thank you, Mr. Chair, 10A3. Mr. Rivera's 10A3.

Miss Silvers.

No items, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Boland. No items, thank you. Thank you.

Vice Chair Brawley. Thanks, um, yeah, 10B3. 3, And then I have a couple directions not pulling. First, on item 10F4, if that can be attached to 10G6, just an item for introduction. And then on 10G7, I would like to request to change the public hearing date to the— not the first meeting, but the second meeting in September— or so, December the 16th.

So I'll direct that to be done, and I'll clear And that's all my items. All right, thank you. Mr. Johnson.

10 Alpha 2.

10A2. Ms. Baldwin-Day. 10 Delta 5, please, Chair. 10D5. Mr. Martinez.

No additional items. Thank you. Mr. McCormick.

Go ahead, thank you. And Mr. Myers. Thanks, Chair. No additional items. I didn't see anyone pull 10A1.

I'll go ahead and pull that one, but the intent is not to move it tonight, as our friends at the Wishbone have asked for a delay for a meeting. Okay, so I have 10A1 myself, 10A2 Mr. Johnson, 10A3 Mr. Rivera, 10A4 Ms. Gerker, 10B3 Ms. Brawley, 10D5 Ms. Baldwin-Day, with a note on 10F4 and a change of the public hearing date 10G7. Did I miss anything? Anything? Okay, so minus those pulled items, I'd like to ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Baldwin-Day, seconded by Mr. Voland. I would like to ask unanimous consent. Is there any objection to the motion to approve?

Seeing, hearing no objection, the consent agenda has been approved. So, uh, for everyone in the audience, if you look any item 10A through 10F that wasn't just pulled individually has passed the body on the unanimous vote. So that's what just happened.

Thanks. Okay, next then, we're not going to move 10A1, but we'll have 10A2, which is, uh, Mr. Boland. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to make a disclosure.

This recognition resolution in part recognizes the Wild Ice Skating Club of Alaska. I am a member of that club, and also I am on the executive board. Of the Wild Ice Skating Club of Alaska. We do not receive dues or any other form of monetary compensation. So the process we go through is to determine if an individual member has a personal or financial interest substantial enough to create a conflict that they can't participate.

But the code provides that all members shall participate. So it's a, it's an interesting process to get to the question of whether the if the interest is sufficient enough. And so I have a couple of questions. We went through this a little bit before the meeting. Is the organization, the club, organized legally?

No. So it's not legally organized, but it does have bylaws? Correct. And actions are taken? Yep.

And you are a voting member? Yes.

This one is very interesting. It's not significant in a lot of ways because it's honorary. So celebrating the Wild Ice Movement, if you will, mentions the club. I think that we do have provisions in which members can participate in nonprofit boards, but they— if they are ex officio, then they can vote on those items. But if they have a voting position, the stakes are higher.

And I think that I'm going to find at this point that the— because you are a voting member, there are bylaws that you do have a conflict and are sufficient— it's sufficient in nature that you shouldn't participate. Great. And then would it be okay, Mr. Chair, if I went down to the floor? But first, any member wish to kind of offer a challenge to that ruling?

Nope, I don't hear or see anyone, so Uh, you've properly disclosed and feel free. So this item was pulled by Mr. Johnson. Move to approve. Second.

Wait, I probably need to read it first. Actually got us out of order. 10A2, Resolution AR 2025-341, a resolution of the Anchorage Assembly recognizing the growing sport of wild ice in Anchorage, celebrating its contributions to community, culture, health, economy, and declaring November as Wild Ice Skating Month. Now, Mr. Johnson. Still move to approve.

Second. Moved by Mr. Johnson, second by Miss Brawley. Any discussion? I'd like to ask unanimous consent. Any objection to the adoption of the motion?

Seeing and hearing no objection, item is adopted unanimously. Um, who is reading? Mr. Johnson, you're reading, you have the floor. Uh, thank you. Whereas Anchorage, Alaska is home to some of the most breathtaking and accessible wild ice skating also known as backcountry ice skating, opportunities in the world, allowing residents and visitors alike to skate across frozen water bodies surrounded by spectacular natural landscapes.

And whereas iconic skating destinations such as Portage Lake, Rabbit Lake, Potter Marsh, and many other water bodies within and near the municipality have become beloved sites for outdoor recreation and adventure, have drawn participants from across Alaska and beyond and have featured— been featured in both national and international press. And whereas wild ice skating combines the joy of exploration with the benefits of outdoor exercise, fosters connection to Alaska's natural environment, and reflects the spirit of resilience, curiosity, and community that define life in a lot— Anchorage. And whereas Anchorage is home to the first ever Nordic ice skate company in North America, founded in 2021 to make skates specifically for wild ice, further cementing the city's status as a hub for innovation, craftsmanship, and leadership in the outdoor industry. And whereas the Wild Ice Skating Club of Alaska, based in Anchorage, has grown to include thousands of enthusiasts and advocates and hosts public events, educational workshops, and safety trainings to promote responsible skating practices, ice awareness, and community connection. And whereas the Wild Ice Skating Club of Alaska's Facebook community now exceeds 8,000 members, reflecting the rapid growth of this recreation and the strong interest among Alaskans and visitors alike in wild ice skating.

And whereas the Municipality of Anchorage's Parks and Recreation Department contributes significantly to the community's skating culture by hot mopping water bodies such as Westchester Lagoon creating smooth, accessible skating surfaces in urban park settings where residents of all ages can learn, practice, and fall in love with ice skating close to home. And whereas celebrating wild ice skating highlights Anchorage's unique recreational offerings, supports local businesses, encourages winter tourism, and enhances the city's reputation as a destination for world-class outdoor adventure. Now therefore Therefore, the Anchorage Assembly resolves that November shall be recognized as Wild Ice Skating Month in the Municipality of Anchorage. That the Assembly celebrates the contributions of the Wild Ice Skating Club of Alaska, Local Innovators, and the skating community at large for their efforts to grow this sport and promote safety and inclusivity. That Anchorage embraces its role as a national and global destination for wild ice skating and appreciates that residents and visitors alike explore, celebrate, and steward the frozen water bodies that make our city extraordinary.

That the assembly expresses its appreciation to the Parks and Recreation Department for their ongoing efforts to enhance public access to skating, including the hot mopping of Westchester Lagoon and other urban skating sites, which help foster a lifelong love of outdoor recreation and build community through winter activity. Passed and approved by the Anchorage Assembly this 18th day of November, 2025.

Thank you guys so much. Um, we want to thank the entire Assembly for recognizing November as Wild Ice Skating Month. This recognition both celebrates the beauty of Alaska's wild ice and celebrates our vibrant and growing wild ice skating community. Wild ice skating is a part of what makes makes living in Anchorage such an exciting place. And while the Wild Ice Skating Club of Alaska is proud to promote a culture of safety and adventure, so thank you again, and we are looking forward to another exciting season of wild ice skating.

Thank you.

So if there's no objection, I'd like to, um, ask to change the order of the day to take up 10A4 before 10A3.

Hearing no objection, so I'd like to ask unanimous consent. Okay, good. We'll do that. Next is 10A4. Resolution AR2025-347, a resolution of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly recognizing and honoring David's Jewelers for its 35 years of service to East Anchorage, commitment to community, trust, and exemplary resilience.

This item was pulled by Mr. Gerker, or yeah, Mr. Gerker. Uh, move to approve, Chair. Second. Moved by Mr. Gerker, seconded by Mr. Martinez. Someone here to receive it?

Welcome, please come forward. Mr. Gerke, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry, if I didn't, I'd like to ask unanimous consent.

Is there any objection to the adoption of that? Hearing no objection, the clerk will record the vote. Now go ahead. Okay, thank you, Chair. Whereas David's Jewelers has proudly served the residents of East Anchorage for 35 years, providing quality craftsmanship personalized service and trusted expertise to generations of Alaskans.

And whereas the business has become a cornerstone of the East Anchorage community, contributing to the vitality of the local economy and serving as a gathering place where customers are treated like family. And whereas David's Jewelers was recently recognized as one of the Best of Anchorage by KTUU, Alaska news source, multiple times, reflecting its dedication to excellence, honesty, and longstanding customer, uh, and customer loyalty. And whereas, despite enduring a recent break-in, David's Jewelers ensured that every customer's precious items were kept safe, demonstrating integrity, professionalism, and care that embodied the best of Anchorage business values. And whereas, through determination and community spirit, David's Jewelers reopened its doors the very next day, reaffirming its steadfast commitment commitment to serve East Anchorage and maintain the trust of its customers, and whereas the Anchorage Assembly wishes to recognize the owners, employees, and supporters of David's Jewelers for their service, resilience, and the positive example they set for small businesses citywide. Now therefore, the Anchorage Assembly resolves to recognize David's Jewelers for 35 years of dedicated service to East Anchorage, for being awarded the Best of Anchorage multiple times, and for its inspiring resilience in the face of adversity.

Be passed and approved by the Anchorage Assembly this 18th day of November, 2025.

Uh, thank you all so much. On behalf of our entire team, we want to express how honored we are to receive this recognition from the Anchorage Assembly. For over 35 years, David's Jewelers has had the privilege of being part of this community. We would not be here today without the support of our customers. Thank you for trusting David's Jewelers and the countless milestones in your lives, your celebrations, your stories, your memories.

We've seen so many memories being created, futures growing, and it's been a blessing. With the unfortunate break-in last week, we've been overwhelmed with the amount of kindness, encouragement, and solidarity from our community. Thank you for standing with us, for being in local business, for believing in local business, allowing us to serve the community for so many years. We'd We look forward to many more and we'll be here for you in your next exciting milestones. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Next we have item 10A.3, Resolution R2025-342, a resolution of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly recognizing November 20, 2025 as Transgender Day of Remembrance and commemorating the lives lost to anti-transgender violence. This item was pulled by Mr. Rivera. Move to approve. Second.

Moved by Mr. Rivera, second by Ms. Baldwin-Day. Any discussion? Members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick.

No.

On a vote of 9 to 3, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AR 2025-342 has passed the body. Mr. Rivera will be reading. Please come forward if you're here to, uh, commemorate this day. Come on forward, everyone. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Mr. Rivera, a resolution of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly recognizing November 20th, 2025, as Transgender Day of Remembrance and commemorating the lives lost to anti-transgender violence. Whereas in 1998, the tragic and brutal murder of Rita Hester, a Black transgender woman, and the lack of justice in her case moved trans advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith to launch the Remembering Our Dead web project, and in 1999, she established Transgender Day of Remembrance to honor the memory of Rita Hester and all transgender individuals whose lives have been lost to anti-transgender violence. And whereas Transgender Day of Remembrance raises public awareness of hate crimes, prejudice, and discrimination that transgender and gender-expansive people face in their daily lives. It is a day to honor, celebrate, and mourn the lost lives of transgender family members, friends, and loved ones.

And whereas violence against transgender people, particularly Black, Indigenous, and Latina transgender women of color, is a systemic and societal issue that we must collectively commit to acknowledging and ending. And whereas in 2024, at least 36 transgender or gender non-conforming people in the United States died by violent means, with many cases left unreported or misreported. And as in, as in previous years, Black and Latina transgender women compromised a disproportionate number of those lost to this ongoing epidemic of violence. And whereas, although federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Alaska's human rights statute currently provides limited protections. The Alaska State Commission for Human Rights has narrowed its enforcement, now only investigating employment-related complaints, and has removed broader protections from its public guidance, leaving LGBTQ+ Alaskans vulnerable people in areas such as housing, public accommodations, and government services.

And whereas many nonprofit organizations in Alaska and Anchorage, such as Identity Alaska, Choosing Our Roots, and Native Movement, are working tirelessly to restore and expand basic human rights, health services, and safety for transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive people across the state. And whereas we recognize and honor the bravery and resilience of Anchorage's transgender and gender sense of community and advocate for the equal treatment, safety, respect, and dignity that they deserve. Now therefore, the Anchorage Assembly recognizes November 20th, 2025 as Transgender Day of Remembrance. Passed and approved by the Anchorage Assembly this 18th day of November, 2025.

Welcome. Oh wait, I can go? Okay. My name is Odd Plez. I'm happy to be in community with all of my peers to accept this proclamation on their behalf, especially with Thursday being the 26th anniversary for this day where we hold our individuals, love it to our heart, that have sent it to ancestors.

And it's also awesome to be here with Oliver, who I've watched grow up from a toddler, doing the great work that our state needs.

Koiana. My name is Oliver Tyrell. Um, receiving this is an honor and recognizes both my journey and the strength of the broader trans community and gender expansive community. It's important because it reaffirms our existence, highlights our contributions, and reminds the world that transgender people and gender non-conforming people deserve safety, dignity, and visibility every day. This acknowledgement helps to create more of an inclusive future where all trans voices and all voices are heard and valued.

Koyaanisqatsiin. Have a good one.

All right, thank you everybody. Okay, so then that takes us to item 10B3.

10B3 is AR 2025-355, a resolution of the Anchorage Assembly adopting the 2026 state legislative program for the Municipality of Anchorage. You pulled this item, Miss Farley. Yeah, Mr. Chair, I need to declare a personal interest or potential conflict. Thank you.

Please let us know. Yeah, thank you. This addresses the municipality's legislative priorities. I am currently employed by a state legislator, and I have not participated in the development of this process, but also need to put that on the record. Right, so, um, the, the position you're making is that because in your day job you are working for a legislator, um, you haven't participated and you feel like there is an interest sufficient enough that you shouldn't be able to participate?

Yes. So, um, I have two minds of this one in the sense that you do have a command to vote, and will you be working for this legislature when the session convenes and they actually start to take on their, their work? No, I will be leaving in early January. That doesn't really clarify because you're doing that work now. I think I will find that there is an interest sufficient enough not to to participate.

Um, any member wish to have a different opinion? No? Okay, thank you. Is there a motion to approve? I would like to make a motion to postpone to the meeting of December 2nd.

Mr. Johnson makes a motion to postpone. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Rivera. Mr. Johnson. Yeah, just briefly, as I previewed in my legislative committee update update.

Tomorrow will be our last opportunity to consider potential amendments to legislative programs so that we could have a final version to present to the body at our next regular meeting.

All right, any further discussion on that item? If not, I'd like to ask unanimous consensus. Is there any objection to the adoption of the motion to postpone?

Hearing and seeing no objection, we'll consider that item adopted— or postponed, excuse me. Which takes us now to item 10D.5, which is Assembly Memorandum— numbered Memorandum of the Anchorage Assembly authorizing the crane agreement between the Municipality of Anchorage, Don Young Port of Alaska, and Matson Navigation Company of Alaska LLC to state the terms and conditions of the purchase of cranes located at the Don Young Port of Alaska cargo terminals.

This one is a motion to approve. Move to approve. Second. Motion to approve by Ms. Baldwin-Day, seconded by Mr. Boland. Ms. Baldwin-Day.

Yes, so, um, would like to dispatch with this, um, at this time and then move to reconsider right afterward. All right, um, does administration want to put any bow on this one? I happy to, Mr. Chair. The reason for the request for immediate reconsideration is that we have negotiated this as, uh, kind of right up to the wire, and that's why it was a late on the table item tonight.

And so we'd like to, if it does does pass the body tonight, move immediately to execution with Mattson, thus the request for the immediate reconsideration. Thank you very much. But relative to the main motion, the question— is there any element that you'd like to put into the record so that anyone wants to come back and listen, they can? Happy to, Mr. Chair.

The primary— the primary reason, primary item that we had continued to negotiate in this portion of this package was the amount of damages the municipality could possibly be required to pay to Mattson in the event of a delay in the construction schedule caused by the municipality or the contractor that the municipality is using. And we sit in the middle of something of a damages sandwich where, in the event of such a delay, we would recoup those damages from our contractor, and then we would be legally required to pay those damages to Mattson. Our goal had been to try and align those two amounts. They had been out of alignment in, in a previous version of this. Because Mattson has changed their parameters for how they intend to procure the cranes— they're purchasing them from the used market within the United States— we were able to come to an agreement that brings those numbers into alignment and addresses the concern that had been flagged by this body previously.

So that's the primary change to these agreements, this particular agreement, from the version that was presented, I think, at this 3 times in committee to the body as we've worked through negotiations. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair, one further— one further note. I believe this agreement also includes, uh, in the event that there is a sale of the cranes, the municipality has the right of first refusal.

All right, any further discussion on this item? Seeing, hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick?

Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, and the youth member votes yes, yes, the unnumbered AM authorizing the crane agreement between the Municipality of Anchorage and Matson has passed the body. Ms. Baldwin-Day? Yes, I move to reconsider. Motion to reconsider. Can I urge a— go ahead.

Motion to reconsider has been made by Ms. Baldwin-Day, seconded by Mr. Johnson. Ms. Baldwin-Day. Yes, thank you. I would urge my colleagues to vote no on the reconsideration. Right.

Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote. Member McCormick. No.

On the vote of reconsideration, the vote is 0 to 12 in the youth member votes. No, no. So the reconsideration has failed. To all you students out there, what that means is the item, uh, can't be reconsidered, meaning it can't be picked up within the next 24 hours and changed. It's concluded.

And so with that then, I believe we have concluded our consent agenda. We will be back probably around 15 or 20 after the hour, so So to all you students, don't go anywhere. The interesting part starts when we come back. So with that, we'll be back at our dinner break.

It's all the same.

It's all the same.

And a check every month. Cut the loss, cut the loss.

Just you watch, I'm better than We'll go ahead and get started in just a couple minutes.

Mr. McCormick, are you on the phone?

I am. Got it. We're just about ready to get started again.

Thank you, everybody.

Budget night is always a work in progress. Madam Vice Chair, I believe a motion to change the order of the day is in order. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I move to— well, I'll say the entire intend is to take up the budget items first.

So I'm going to read the order that we are intending when I can find it, and then I will also say we are about to get the new version of the capital budget, but we realize that members obviously need time to digest that. So, um, this order is going to include, um, that coming at the end of these other pieces so that we can clear some of these other budget items. So I will move to change the order of the day to take We have 13A, and then 11A, 11B, 11C, 11D, 11E, and then we will go back to 13B and 13C. And also I'm going to add 13D, and I can speak to that. [SPEAKING SPANISH] What you just listed is different than what's up there.

Yeah, and I can, um, speak to that. So 13B is the capital budget, so the rest of the list should be accurate, but we are moving the capital budget to after the 11s, and they are updating that. So now that should be correct. 13B, C, D— no, you're right.

OK, so there is a motion to change the order of the day, moved by Miss Spradley, seconded by Mr. Walland, was it? Second. Thank you. Take up 13A, 11A, B, C, D, E, and then 13B, 13C and D, and then probably we'll have another conversation at that time. About another update to the order of the day.

And so with that, then the public hearing on— oh, I'm sorry, I'd like to ask unanimous consent. Is there any objection to the motion to change the order of the day?

Seeing, hearing none, consider that unanimous consent. The order of the day has been changed, and we'll start with item 13A. A, which is a continued public hearing item, AO 2025-106, Ordinance of the Municipality of Anchorage Adopting and Appropriating Funds for the 2026 General Government Operating Budget for the Municipality of Anchorage. Public hearing on this item is now open again. Anyone wish to be heard on this item who hasn't been heard?

I'll read it again just for fun. 13A is AO 2025-106, an ordinance— thank you— Municipality of Anchorage adopting and appropriating funds for the 2026 general government operating budget for the Municipality of Anchorage. The public hearing is now open again. Anyone wish to be heard on this item? Anyone at all?

Seeing, hearing none. Public hearing on this item is now closed. What's the will of the body? Move to approve. Second.

Motion to approve by Miss Farley, seconded by Mr. Bohlen. Miss Farley. Yeah, thank you. I'm going to outline a little bit about the process overall, and then I will turn it to my co-chair. So first, I want to recognize that this budget process has been very collaborative, so I want to thank everybody for that.

Of course, we all still need to vote on this, and so we all have the power to do that. But I also want to recognize that this is the first time going through the budget process for one-third of the body, for 4 of our members. So thank you all for, in particular, for really digging in, working hard to understand this very complex budget and to really look for how you can accomplish your goals or how you can address those priorities. So we know this is a challenge to really take this up. It's a very complex item and try to figure it all out in the space of a few weeks.

So thank you everybody for your patience. Guidance as we move through this. We also very much appreciate the collaboration with the mayor's office, with the Office of Management and Budget, with our budget analyst Mr. Farina, and with departments really in both branches. We really strove to find a balanced approach, which my co-chair will speak to, in this omnibus amendment and really in the budget process overall. So I want to also thank— and I will point to item 10F5 that we already accepted this evening.

Thank you so much to the Budget Advisory Commission for your resolution of recommendations. I know some of them are specific to, uh, policy choices in the budget, and others are around continued, um, engagement and collaboration on, uh, looking ahead to what our budget should look like. So thank you all for engaging in that, and I'm looking forward to working with you further. Um, and then with that, I will just very briefly speak to the process that we will go through, um, for this particular item, because we know I know there's a number of amendments, and then I'll turn to again my co-chair to speak through the omnibus amendment. First, we are going to take up the omnibus amendment.

So that is Amendment 1 in your packet. As you'll see, it has a number of items that were brought forward by members that were discussed on November 7th at our work session, and many of the priorities— of course, not everything was in there, and members are invited to speak to items that were not included or, or to of course move them if you would like to as well. So we'll do that first. Then after we are done debating the omnibus and take a vote on that, however that shakes out, we will take up individual amendments from members. So if you look, the packet doesn't have numbering, but if you count to page 13 or you look to Amendment 2, that is the first of the individual amendments that, that we will also expect members to bring forward.

As I said, I'll invite, encourage members to speak to your specific amendments or priorities during the omnibus if included in the debate, or if they were not included but they are relevant, you'd like to bring them up. And then I'll also note that there is the information about those original amendments in the actual packet, so you can flip through and read back to what each of those is based on what the member who sponsored them brought it. Lastly, I will note that because we are dealing with the general government, we are subject to the tax cap. So part of the function of our budget analyst is going to be tracking as we take up in additional amendments if folks are proposing increases under the cap. And so we cannot pass amendments that exceed the cap.

So just to say, if that is— if you have an item that is larger than that, then we will need to have that discussion at that time. Lastly, I'll say alcohol tax and marijuana tax are not under the tax cap itself, but they are limited revenue sources with dedicated funds. And so similarly, you would need to be consideration— or consider it if your amendments would exceed the estimated revenue or available fund balance for those amendments. So, so there are some parameters on, uh, this debate. And with that, I will turn to my co-chair, Mr. Walland.

Thank you. Um, I, I think I will, before I launch into discussion, go ahead and move Amendment Number 1, which is the omnibus amendment. Second. Motion to amend by Mr. Walland, seconded by Ms. Bryan. Mr. Walland.

Thank you. So, uh, we had the opportunity to work collaboratively with the administration. And I'll just echo Member Brawley, Vice Chair Brawley.

These past few weeks, assembly members and municipal staff have engaged in thoughtful conversations about what services we need in 2026 and what we're willing to do to pay for them. Thanks to a close partnership with the Office of Management and Budget, we are walking into today's budget vote with nearly net neutral changes to focus resources on shared priorities for the municipality. Some of those priorities that came forward were additions such as funding an extra day for seniors who are 65 years and older to have a fare-free bus ridership day. In addition to Wednesday, we want to add a day.

My colleagues will recall that just recently we made bus ridership free for those 18 and under. And so we are just trying to find ways that we can increase transit opportunities to meet the needs of residents to get to their essential destinations.

At the same time, we heard from some of our colleagues about how do we, how do we strike the right balance when it comes to the limited revenues that we have And so what this omnibus amendment does, it actually brings us further under the cap than the mayor's original proposed budget by about $24,000. And as the mayor stated in her report, um, should this omnibus amendment pass, that would put us at about $194,000 under the cap.

So with that, definitely, as Vice Chair Brawley stated, invite members to speak to, to any of the items they feel passionately about now within the omnibus, but urge your support. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Right, I don't have anyone else in the queue. Now I do.

Mr. Gerker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to move to amend Amendment 1 Mr. Meyer, you're on.

I'd like to move to amend specifically the reduction for non-recruited positions, change that number back to $850,000 reduction. So there is a motion to amend the amount of $850,000 reduction. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Meyer.

So moved by Mr. Gerker, second by Mr. Meyer. Mr. Kerker. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. So let me just speak, I guess, real briefly and broadly to the overall concept for anybody who might not be familiar with it.

So what we did here is we targeted chronically vacant positions throughout the entire municipality. These are positions that are funded that are not being recruited for, and they're vacant. So, uh, so initially the parameters we'd given, uh, was give us a 2-year look back, positions that haven't been recruited for for at least 2 And then that came back with about 8 positions. And then upon further review, which is where we got the original $850-some-thousand number from, upon further review between the HR and the OMB departments, they came back and said, you know what, actually a couple of these don't actually fall within this category. So we are going to go ahead and pull these, which is where we see this reduction in.

About the same time that we'd gotten the, the 2-year look back, I requested data going back to a year. So hey, show me all the numbers for the positions that we haven't recruited for at least the last year. So if it's been a position that's been vacant within the city departments that hasn't been recruited for, for at least a year, well, let's see if we can't cut some of that money so it's not just, you know, money floating around the city without any appropriations or oversight from the legislative body. Speaking with OMB, and I'm sure I'm sure, Director, you'll have some comments as well. Speaking with OMB just a few moments ago upstairs, it looks like there's maybe about 15 positions that would fall within that category, but they're still doing some final calculations.

So my amendment here is to get us back up to the 850, which we know that 850 covered 8 positions. We know that there's at least 15 out there that could potentially get knocked down a little bit. So this gives us a little bit more of a reduction here. And then we can fine-tune it in first quarter revisions. Thank you, Chair.

Uh, in the queue, Mr. Presidio, then Miss Sprawley. Yeah, sorry for the clarification. I was trying to get in the queue before Mr. Gerker. My machine's not working, but I actually do have a question about the amendment. Um, we're on, uh, 1E, is that correct?

Just to make sure I'm on the right one. Yes. Okay. And then the, the actual amendment is to change it from $175,000 to— what is the, what is the new the number? $850,000.

Okay. And then I guess what my question is really, I'd like to hear from the director about the impact of this change, if she can come up. Thanks.

Now, through the chair to Member Perez-Rodilla and Member Gerger, I will say that that the back and forth on the dollar amounts and the actual identified position is true to what Member Gerker said. And the impact of increasing at this point from 175 to 850 would mean that without conforming language allowance, meaning the amount is confirmed with the clerk and OMB to be the intent of vacant, non-recruited positions positions, when we actually get down into the detail, it may be less than $850,000. And so I would say that 175 is the number that we know currently we would be able to absorb without impact or operational changes to the departments from the positions that we have seen. And in reviewing the rest of the positions, the intent is to sort of take the guidance of Mr. Gerker and some of the other assembly members saying this is how we should look at what we don't include or what's possible to be removed from the budget. And this process has been very enlightening, I think, for, for me to be able to see what are the positions that are in that, in that state, because those would be places to look.

And when we look, there are so few that that gives me confidence that our system is working through the reclassification process and getting to the positions that operationally support the departments. If we change the number from 175 to 850 tonight, I can't guarantee you that we won't be impacting service-level operations within the departments. The intent for the amendment and the, and the sort of operational adjustment going forward would be to do the analysis of those positions between now and first quarter budget revisions and have that conversation with the assembly at as part of the first quarter process to say, with the intent of looking for these kinds of changes, this is what we found, here's the detail, this is what the departments are saying, that if it would impact service level changes at all. Thank you, Chair, that answers my question. Thanks, Ms. Burley.

Yeah, I just have a follow-up question. Can you, 'cause this does say multiple departments, can you enumerate, maybe not for the full 850, Um, what, what departments does this entail? Is it all of them? Is it some of them? Um, the 8 positions that were identified as part of the initial analysis from the 24-month run included a position with an OMB, 4 positions within Parks and Rec, 1 position within the Municipal Manager, 1 position within Real Estate, and 1 position within, uh, Maintenance and Operations at the Radio Shop.

And going through the positions individually, we can recognize that one of the positions in the real estate department is the director position that has not been actively recruited, but that does not mean that that position should not be filled. The reorganization of community development and public works and the recently announced changes in staffing over there mean that as part of first quarter budget revisions, the assessment and analysis to remove the director position from real estate will be part of that organization. I think that position was credited at about $194,000 fully loaded with all benefits, so that is one of the items that we are looking at. There is also a part-time position funded in the municipal manager's— in the municipal manager's transportation inspection department that has been identified for reclassification because the recruitment ability of a part-time position that pays, I believe, $24,000 a year has not been successful in its recruitment. So that's in queue for reclassification from that department.

The OMB position that is represented in that list is part of the nature of the staffing challenges of the last few years and the fact that one of our budget analysts was actually a director for a little while there and then We have not reconfigured the department, but that is also in reclassification right now. So the Parks and Rec positions, there are 3 lifeguard positions and 1 assistant recreation manager position, and those 3 positions have challenges with full recruitment. We've talked about the lifeguard positions, I think, in other venues, and the 175 number means that we will identify either 1 position or multiple positions multiple positions to get us to that level, or we will cut the department operations from those departments in order to accommodate the value of the position. It doesn't necessarily mean that that position itself would go away if the department has defensibility for retaining it, but we have not had the opportunity to go into each of those individual positions and get the details from the departments. Thank you.

Um, then I'll just briefly say I appreciate the intent of this, and in fact, that is part of— partly why we looked to some of these amendments to make reductions. My anticipation is that the room under the cap is— if we don't fill it, it goes away forever, and it makes a forever cut to our budget. And I think there's still a lot of unknowns, is what I'm hearing. I think it's a theme that we'll continue to hear. So I would offer to members that this action could be taken now.

However, the budget is not finalized until April, And I think that there are potential unintended consequences if we, if we make reductions beyond, I guess, what is recommended or what is anticipated by the administration. Thank you. Mr. Martinez on the amendment.

Yes, Chair, thank you. Just a follow-up question in terms of the research that you described that you did with the project with Mr. Gerker. Essentially, this is this seems like this amendment is looking for a way to capture— it doesn't use this term, but what I would define as ghost positions.

But what I heard you describe essentially is that there weren't— we don't have those ghost positions. What I'm hearing essentially is that within the current budget that's operationally balanced— by law we are required to pass a balanced budget— that this is an item that looks at positions indiscriminately, essentially, at a budgetary level, not necessarily at a fiscal policy level, but at a budgetary level. Fiscal policy would be How many folks do we need to do the overall job? And then you analyze the amount of staffing it takes to do the job and then the revenue it takes to fulfill those things. This is more about, um, there are some dollars in the budget not associated with filled positions, and it seems like it's low-hanging fruit, but it doesn't seem like it's necessarily fruitful to me, um, because I don't know that you described ghost positions.

Can you describe a little bit more about about in your research. Do we have ghost positions? And if, if there were a 24 or 36-month study, is there a difference between positions that this assembly appropriated funding for that potentially previous administrations did not recruit or hire for? Is that something that we also have, uh, like a lag effect on us Can you describe a little bit more about that condition? Thank you.

Through the chair to Member Martinez, I will say that I was smiling through that process because you said what we call essentially ghost positions, and that is a challenging terminology because we actually use the definition ghost positions for an HR process that involves doubling a position with a known retirement for a short period of time for the operational handoff. And there is a memoed process that requires engagement and approval of OMB and HR and I believe the municipal manager in order to create those things that also track with known retirement dates or known resignation letters, et cetera, so that we are able to double up and do that appropriate handoff. So I may not use the term ghost position because that is something that we actually do. But the— what you're speaking to is that this is essentially a mechanism to figure out if these positions exist. Do we look into what the timeline is from the last time they were recruited and whether or not they are currently vacant?

So there are layers that we have to go through in order to have visibility into that. And can positions be funded in this year's budget that may not have previously been recruited for that are vacant? Absolutely. And that's part of this vetting process, is to determine how and when the positions were last recruited for, whether or not they're currently vacant, and whether— what the challenges associated with those positions being vacant might be. And And ideally, you would see that you don't have any of those positions in a timeframe of 2 years out that have not been recruited for.

But we do have a handful of them, and there are specific details around each one that, that explain why they are in the position they are in. And whether or not you cut that dollar amount associated with that position essentially just becomes an operational decrease for the department itself. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are cutting that vacant PCN if it is appropriate for the department to continue operating because the operations have changed. And I say that because if there is an administration that's going through a hiring freeze, then those positions are not going to be recruited for at all. And the look back of 2 years means that we have the overlap of the current administration and the previous administration to see, is there anything that has, that has lived through the transition process that is still in that category of non-recruited and funded and vacant?

And what we are able to see on the first analysis is that maybe there are 15 positions total in the 6, 12, and 24-month roll-up within the municipality. When we dive deeper into them and do the line item assessment of each position, we're able to determine that that position is of value and should stay with the municipality, it needs to be reclassified, or just put out on the street for hire. And do we want to make a cut of that position that would affect the impact, or impact the service level of the department. And we go through that process on an annual basis when we go through our budget review, but we don't dive down into the individual PCN detail of the entire municipality. So I think it's a, it's a particularly, um, uh, intense scrub compared to the continuation budget process that can sometimes leave some of those positions in place because of staff turnover at the director level, middle management, and the administration level.

Thank you. I feel this amendment, uh, the original amendment included in the omnibus, kind of moves us in the right direction toward looking at positions effectively. But I, I concern myself with the amended version being kind of, uh, without necessarily well-supported data at the level at this point. So I would not be supporting the amendment, uh, the amended version of the amendment, but I think the, uh, the goal of this is, is worthwhile. Thank you.

Ms. Baldwin-Day. Thank you, Chair. Um, I think we're— anytime we're talking about budget, it's important to contextualize what it is that we're really discussing. The difference between the, the decrease that's, that's here in our packet, $175,000, versus the amendment that we're considering, $850,000, is $675,000, which represents 0.1% of the entirety of the municipal operating budget. So if we were to imagine the entire budget as a whole dollar we're talking about 1/10 of 1 penny.

Like, that is the conversation we're having right now, is about 1/10 of 1 penny. And, and I think based on what I've heard from the director, uh, leaving that 1/10 of 1 penny intact while we continue to do some, uh, some further study of what our staffing needs actually are, and while we are reclassifying positions under a new administration 1/10 of 1 penny seems like a risk that I'm, I'm willing to leave in the budget for purposes of clarity as we get into first quarter budget amendment. So I will, I will not be supporting this amendment. Thank you. Anyone else on the amendment to the amendment?

Hearing and seeing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick.

Yes.

On a vote of 3 to 9, and the youth member votes no. No, the amendment to the amendment has failed. We're back on the main motion. Uh, excuse me, the amendment to the main motion. Any further Mr. Voland.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to point out, um, that the Assembly, the legislative branch, we do have a little bit of skin in the game as well in this omnibus. We were able to work with Legislative Services to come up with a small reduction to our budget. And I know, you know, not only did the co-sponsors bring forward some ideas around that, but Member Perez-Verdía has spoken in some of the work sessions that we've had about, you know, really being intentional with, with our budget and our needs versus wants.

So I just wanted to highlight that. Thank you. Mr. Presverdia on the amendment.

Miss Spratley on the amendment. Uh, no, we didn't actually— we voted the— yeah, we are on the— right, right, so we're back on the main No, we're on the omnibus amendment. Thank you. Okay, yeah, I'd like to move to, um, uh, wait a minute, I'll find it here. I'd like to move to, um, sorry, I lost it.

I'd like to, um I'd like to move to remove item 1H from the omnibus, and if I can get a second for discussion, I'll explain why. So there's a motion to amend the amendment by Mr. Presverdia. Who was second? Second. Okay, moved by Mr. Presverdia, second by Solis.

Mr. Presverdia. Thank you. Um, I— during the, uh, the work session, we weren't able to really debate this, so I bring it to the to the floor now for discussion. I supported this organization, I have for a long time, and it has nothing to do with this particular organization. This is simply a concern about process.

I'm always concerned when during a budget process we are— we pull out specific money for one particular organization and deliver it to that organization without a competitive process, without going through any other of our normal processes. I think that this organization is worthy, certainly, but I would prefer that there's other ways of funding organizations that feel more fair. And so I would just encourage my colleagues for this process that we pull this funds out and not directly fund one organization unilaterally through our budget process, even though they are worthy and it's a good cause. There are many organizations with many good, good causes. And so that's my, my plea to, to remove this from the omnibus.

And there's many other opportunities for this organization to receive funds from the municipality. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Brawley. Yes, this is on the amendment. Just briefly, this is mostly a process note.

I will say When the cochairs were discussing the omnibus, we did debate whether to put this in the omnibus or not, or run it separately. And then I will also just note that there was a— well, actually, I'll hold that for another time. So just, this is a process lesson, what, you know, what we include or not. So it's on the amendment to the amendment though, not on the amendment? Okay, Mr. Boland.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. So I have a different perspective than Member Perez-Verdia. I think that ultimately we are the appropriating body, and while I appreciate the effort that has been put in, you know, specifically regarding the ACE Fund and the marijuana tax revenues to have a board make recommendations to us, and I know that there are very smart people on that board who have come forward with some very thoughtful recommendations, I think that we also have a prerogative as duly elected officials to move forward on initiatives or to make direct grants to organizations who we feel strongly are doing good work in the community and to meet those community needs. In the past, we have funded grants to Best Beginnings via the alcohol tax.

However, now we have the marijuana tax revenues and the focus is early education and child care. And so Best Beginnings, they administer the, um, Dolly Parton Imagination Library program in Anchorage, and families can sign up to receive books in the mail. Um, and I've included along with this amendment in the packet, there's some information about the success of this program and how they've really been able to expand, um, the participants. Um, and so I think this fits really well within the mission of the ACE Fund. It's a one-time appropriation.

This is— I'm not indicating that this will happen year after year. But, you know, the other— I guess for me, the other rationale piece is that what I'm sort of reducing the funding for in the marijuana tax program that came before us that was proposed was for pilot projects. And I certainly appreciate that there are all kinds of creative things that can be done in the community with pilot projects to support early education and child care. But in my mind, we also have a program here that is working and that is having a measure of success, and I think it's really important in the community. So I'm trying to balance, you know, what's been proven, what has that proof of concept, versus what are some new things that we can try.

And so So there's still going to be money left in the marijuana tax overall programmed for those pilot projects, but I just think that this is a worthy recipient as well. And I guess I will just always assert that we have the, again, the prerogative to review the recommendations that come before us from any advisory board or any community council or whoever the group is, but ultimately it's up to us to make the decision that we think is best for the community and will have the most impact. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, Ms.

Silverus. Um, although I seconded this amendment to the amendment, uh, for purposes of discussion, I do not support it. Um, I just want to say reading changes lives, and I'll even go further to say that reading saves lives. Um, and so I, I really actually support this program, and I I think it's very important, and I will not be supporting this amendment to the amendment even though I seconded it for discussion. Thanks.

Ms. Baldwin-Day. Thank you, Chair. I, um, I think my concern with this particular item, or with this amendment to the amendment, is, um, a, a bit of a misunderstanding, uh, as to what the ACE Fund was intended for. And I feel rather protective in a way of that funding because the, the intent of that funding was to do really important, really critical work in uplifting the child care sector in Anchorage and not necessarily providing vehicles for children to be educated, but for the early childhood education sector. Which are two different things.

So while I absolutely support the work of Best Beginnings and agree with my colleague that reading does change lives and is a phenomenal effort, I don't know that this particular fund ought to be the source for a grant to Best Beginnings, nor do I think that circumventing the process that's in place case for the ACE Board to determine how pilot project funds are spent from the marijuana tax is appropriate. So I, I will be voting yes to amend the amendment in this way. Thank you, Miss Martinez. Thank you, Chair. A couple questions.

How—. Maybe someone in the administration can help me. And perhaps it's my colleague who is— who sponsored the amendment in the first place, Mr. Vohland, but how do we come to this conversation where this decision is left to us today to kind of seems like it should have been something that's— Best Beginnings has been around so long, been so meaningful. Why are— is this a last-minute type of agenda item, budgetary item? Why are they not funded adequately in the first place?

Where— what's the story? Because fundamentally, if Best Beginnings could be here, I then can theoretically project that several other groups that do really good work should be identified by name too, because Best Beginnings is a well-known brand and they're here at this 11th hour, essentially. Who can help me understand why they are falling through the crack, if there's a crack at all? Or is this something else that I'm missing of why they're here? Because it's challenging for me to identify one group when I want the sector to be strong.

But I also know that I can bring in various individual groups who focus on reading as well, and I think they may be more deserving because they don't— they're not as well known and they don't receive the attention that maybe a group like Best Beginnings. So help me understand how we got to this Best Beginnings here in the first place, or is this literally somebody just— Mr. Volland just doing— pulling something out the, you know, out the hat? Do you want me to respond? Letting go, um, first, just procedurally speaking, there are two truths that are in effect here. One is that any member at any time can bring forward an amendment and the assembly has the right to make grants to individual organizations, period.

That's one. The second side is the body as a collective group can decide whether or not that is within its desire today. Those are the two truths that are in effect here. Any member could bring forward any amendment, period. And so you are within your rights.

That's the underpinning principle of this whole conversation. And so I just want—. Point of order.

Mr. Martinez. Thank you, sir.

You didn't have the floor, but you made a comment, and I think the comment was valid, but I think there's more of a point of information that you just made, and I just wanted to be clear that I will let the vice chair answer this point of order. I would just argue that I was talking about process, not speaking for or against anything. Yeah, I think, um, I guess I'll rule that the comment was in order. But, um, Mr. Martinez, I understand you were seeking an answer from the sponsor of the amendment, is that right? Or essentially, yes.

And so if I may continue with my point of order then? No, the point of order has been ruled on, but if you want to continue to ask your question, go ahead. I will continue to ask a question with the hope that if other folks have a thing to say, they won't cloud it and taint my question, and they would use a point of order instead to make the distinction between the two comments. Now, having said that, I would love to see if— again, is this, Mr. Volland, something that they fell through the cracks somewhere and we're trying to make up, make amends somehow, or is there something else? Mr. Munoz.

Yeah, so my understanding— this is an amendment idea that I brought forward actually quite some time ago, and in fact we have funded this organization previously a couple times out of the alcohol tax, and they sent some emails with some information to our public comment email, so you should have that in your inbox. And they actually— that information kind of got out into the community, and they sent information and emails of support even well in advance of our work session on assembly member amendments. So I think maybe the opposite is true, that it's kind of been in our inboxes so long that maybe it got lost in the shuffle when it actually came time to have the, the work session.

You know, my understanding is in the past that if, you know, this without the support of municipal funding, it would really restrict the reach that this program has, uh, even here in Anchorage, um, to parts of the community like Eagle River, for instance. Um, and so yeah, I, I guess for me, I, I, this is something I am bringing forward, and then I, I find the, the information, the accompanying information that was provided to us compelling. Um, that, that answers the question for me. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Next in the queue, I have Mr. Voland. Okay, thank you. I, I, yeah, I guess I just want to follow up, um, and say that I, I do think that this fits in with the goals of the marijuana tax. Um, in the information that was provided, children who participated in Imagination Library had higher rates of kindergarten readiness than similar children who did not participate.

There's just, I think, some good data that has been put together that's easy to digest. Best for us. Um, and I, I guess I want to just respectfully push back a little bit that any process was circumvented regarding the ACE Fund. I don't believe that we have to wholesale accept the recommendations of that board. Some of— some members, that might be your preference, but in my mind, this is the process.

We receive the proposal, we receive their recommendations, and then we we as the elected officials, not an unelected board, get to move forward with amending that. And ultimately it's up to us collectively as a body. So anyway, I would continue to urge opposition to this amendment to the amendment, and I hope that we can support this program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. President— oh, sorry, Ms. Sprague. Thanks. Yeah, just, um, wanted to provide a little more information. I looked back in our record.

So in the alcohol tax, um, this organization— and just providing this for information, uh, Best Beginnings was funded through the alcohol tax in fiscal year 2023 at $150,000, fiscal year '24 at $250,000, and then this year, fiscal year '25, at $125,000. And because each of those times was a one-time it was removed from the budget and put back in by amendment. Thank you. Mr. President.

Yeah, just making sure that it's really clear that the reason I brought forward the amendment, certainly I'm not arguing the merits of this organization. I think very highly of them, as I said. And it for me is simply the— I completely agree with Mr. Voland and Mr. Constant that any member can bring forth any amount of money for any organization at any time, and that's within our right. I don't agree with that.

I don't agree that that's a part of the process that I think— I think there's a different way of doing it. And so that's why I brought it forward, and I'm happy to respect the vote as it lands. Thank you.

Anyone else on the amendment to the amendment?

Hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick, on the amendment to the amendment? Yes.

On a vote of 6 to 6, the amendment has failed. Now we're back on the amendment Any further discussion on the amendment? Mr. Gerker. Thank you, Chair. I move to strike item 1B from Amendment 1.

Second. There is a motion to delete item 1B by Mr. Gerker, seconded by Mr. Myers. Mr. Gerker. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am told that we're facing a fiscal cliff. I am told that we have a revenue problem. I am told that we are in a state of needing to tighten our belts. And yet I see that we're adding and expanding a program which I think would be a great program to add or expand. But given the timing when we've got the mayor introducing a 3% sales tax, a 1% sales tax over here, a 5% STR tax a 2% bed tax, when we're turning to the people of Anchorage and saying we need to tax you more, we need more of your money.

Oh, but by the way, we're going to expand another free program. It doesn't make sense, Mr. Chair. So that's why I'm moving to make this amendment to strike this funding out. I think would be a fantastic thing to do.

But given our fiscal situation, as stated by the mayor, as stated by members of this body, I just simply don't believe this is something we can afford right now. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, Mr. Walland.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm surprised by my colleague's remarks because I, I seem to remember a recent press release where he was supportive of expanding bus ridership for some populations. I think this is an essential service for folks, particularly for for our seniors who need to be able to get around, and including in the winter. And also, members may recall from Director Rudolph that there may be a slight offset, budgetary offset, with anchor rides too.

I think this is modest, it's $100,000. And again, this omnibus actually in total brings us— it increases the amount that we are under the tax cap. So we have tried, my co-chair and I, to be mindful of those conversations around balance and limitations in revenues.

I think it will be interesting as we continue to talk about revenue diversification, how can we expand these services further. But for now, I think this is a very modest increase. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Chair.

To follow up on, on Member Wallin's remarks, I had a more in-depth conversation with Director Rudolph in Public Transportation, and we, we are alongside, alongside the— this increase that we've proposed for transportation for seniors, we're also looking at a change in our contract with the, um, with a contractor who provides anchor ride services, which are heavily used by our senior population. And one of the reasons I'm supportive of this particular allocation is because I would like to understand how it changes anchor rides utilization, which is more expensive than bus transportation, if we make more free bus rides available to seniors. So I believe it's— this is well worth the investment to understand how anchor rides ridership changes if seniors have the opportunity to ride the bus for free, potentially making anchor rides a program that costs the municipality less. And on the whole, I think that's a win. So I urge my colleagues to keep this particular allocation in place.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Chair. So I wanted to just have an opportunity to, um, to just talk a little bit about the nature of budgetary versus fiscal, especially because it's been kind of brought into, uh, the way we hold account to ourselves. And so just for, for the sake of educational moment, tonight we're hearing some of the proposals, and just now we heard The city is in a so-called fiscal cliff, so let's make budgetary cuts.

And the nature of a budgetary cut is really within departments when an item is overspent, for example. Balancing the budget— people have heard that before. Balancing the budget is an interesting concept considering we legally are required to pass a balanced budget, so the budget is is balanced. Now, there's going to be differences between different administrations' prioritizations of where they utilize the resources within the balance— within the budget, but on the whole, then that's also buttressed and framed by the tax cap. So there's the balanced budget and then there's the tax cap.

So what we heard this year is now from the administration is that there's the— here's the budget, and it is this much underneath the tax cap. So essentially, every budget that makes up the municipal budget is balanced to itself to an overall balanced budget under the tax cap. I wanted to be clear about that because there may be, in fact, things within the budgeting process that do need to be cut. That we don't need to spend money on anymore or that may be obsolete in some ways. But I want to be clear to the public that that's not the challenge of the fiscal cliff.

Fundamentally, the fiscal cliff is about the structural liabilities that grow automatically every year. And so thinking of the difference between, for example, the personnel obligations that we have and how they grow over time, health costs, things that we are obligated to pay, meets, for example, things that may be in the budgetary discretion, like one of the items that the members have is meals, for example. So do you have to have have lunch at a meeting? Well, that's a budgetary question, but a fiscal conversation is essentially we have more lane miles than we could afford. We have a bigger footprint of municipal service areas than we have revenue for.

So those things are very different. The revenue conversation to fiscal conversation is different than the line-by-line annual budget per budget items. And I wanted to be clear about that because I think that I do agree that there are some budgetary areas that we need to tighten up, but I want to be clear that this is not a fiscal conversation at this point. This is budgetary. This is within a budget.

This is within a line item. And I do have— I know this because I have a couple of amendments later on in the package that hopefully we'll get that are more fiscal policy related, but to the public, there's a fiscal conversation that is real and it is different than the line items within a budget. Thank you, Chair.

I don't see anyone else in the queue on the amendment. Seeing, hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick.

Yes, Madam On a vote of 4 to 8, this amendment has failed. Did your vote accurately reflect The motion to approve the amendment to cut item 1B from the budget.

Oh no, Madam Clerk, can we please reflect that vote?

On a vote of 3 to 9, and the youth member votes no, no, the amendment to the amendment has not passed. We're now back on the main motion and the amendment. Excuse me, we're back on the amendment. On the omnibus amendment. Anyone else?

Seeing hearing none, members may proceed to vote on the omnibus amendment.

Member McCormick? Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, that amendment has Passing the youth member votes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair. I'd just like to speak briefly on an amendment that is not included in the packet and I will not be moving tonight, but was brought up and presented as part of our work session. That's an amendment that was co-sponsored by myself, members Baldwin-Day, and, uh, Member McCormick. And the intent of the amendment was to effectively operationalize the Anchorage Fire Department's Wildland Division. That division is currently staffed with, uh, 2 full-time positions and then 1 contractor, and they're all funded through a federal grant.

Um, and the spirit of our amendment was to keep it budget neutral, reflecting the fact that it's advantageous to us to have those federal dollars as a resource, but to signal our commitment to maintaining that decision. I mean, given the essential nature of their work, the threat wildland fire presents to most of our city, we think it is important as part of our continuing conversations about how do we protect our community and where should our priorities lie to look at ways to make sure that that part of the department is put on a sustainable footing. So that was the, the spirit of the amendment that we had originally presented. However, I'll say that conversations I've had recently with the administration and the OMB director have convinced me that while that is a conversation we need to have, it doesn't necessarily have to happen tonight, and I think would actually be advantageous to put it off until we take up quarter one budget revisions. I think there has been a desire, sort of in with the theme we've seen tonight, to take a bigger look sort of structurally at how is Anchorage Fire Department government's budget, um, reflect the actual nature of their operations.

And so I, I think as part of that conversation, which will be back before us here in just the next few months, I think that would be a better time for us to look at, um, how do we effectively operationalize this division. So the fact that it's not in your packet tonight does not mean that it is not a commitment, or that we are forgetting about it, or that I do not believe, um, the essential nature of that division is no longer a priority for the assembly or the administration. Um, it's simply a timing issue, and I think looking at what is the better process to get her to— get us to the outcome that I still hope to achieve. Thank you. All right, uh, next we're back on the main motion as amended.

Move Amendment Number 2. Mr. Kirker makes a motion to amend Number 2. Is there a second?

Second. Mr. Myers has seconded. Mr. Gerker. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and for expediency's sake, I'm sure my colleagues will appreciate this.

I'll speak broadly. I have a handful of amendments that all kind of fall within the same vein, so I'll speak broadly to this amendment and then the handful of amendments that are going to be following behind it, and then happy to take questions if need be from there. There. But the amendments I'm offering tonight, they target the low-value, non-essential costs that I don't think taxpayers should be footing. Things like discretionary travel, office remodels, new furniture.

I'm also going after duplicated functions between the city and the state, and then other agencies between city agency to city agency. So every cut is precise. I believe it's transparent, and it focuses on protecting frontline services, reducing our overall cost without compromising services that residents and employees should rely on. So before we ask residents for new taxes, we owe it to them to trim the waste and right-size government. This amendment before you right now is to trim back discretionary travel and, um, for most departments.

And I believe that this is anything that any any Anchorage family or business would do, which is to tighten the belt when things start getting a little bit tight. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. And Mrs.

Brawley. Yeah, thank you. I have a question for the OMB director. Um, so I see there's a number of these listed for each department. I'm not going to ask for an explanation of all of them, but I am curious.

Um, I see there's two that are, that are the smallest, the internal audit budget and the real estate budget. And I was wondering, because I imagine a trip out of state is not going to be as cheap as that, so, so if you could explain what those— to your knowledge, what those are. Through the chair, the budgetary reflection of the travel amounts within each of these departments is different in each department. What they use it for is sometimes required for their operations They need to travel in order to do their jobs, and the travel process at the municipality goes through, I believe it's 3 layers of approval initially to book the travel and the purpose for it, and then the next step requires municipal manager approval of that process, and then once the travel is complete and the receipts are returned, then the process process is— goes back through the whole loop with that information so that we have 2 or 3 sets of eyes on each travel expense as it goes. When we talk about a department like Internal Audit or Real Estate where the travel allowance is $1,000 or $1,500, when we look at their budget to actuals on an annual basis, many of these departments don't even spend the travel budget as travel.

It is a non-labor line item that is used for office supplies, etc. So part of our budgetary process is to review those actuals within the departments and determine if the amounts in each of the represented line items is appropriate for their operations. When we are looking to an across-the-board budget cut cut by category, ultimately it is just a non-labor cut to how the department is operationalizing it, unless the specific limitation is no travel is allowed. The statement of discretionary travel means that there are vacations being planned in these departments, and the review process essentially assures that that is not part of our travel allowance and our overall travel budget within the municipality is $275,000 approximately for all of general government. Um, our actuals vary depending on the year and how many paramedics we have in paramedic school or how many, um, different kinds of responses the police have had to make to lower 48 jurisdictions for, um, their work process.

We also have have legal requirements to— for cases related to the port or other departments that are in other jurisdictions where travel would be required to participate in those processes. And so the intent is noted. The tightening of the budget is heard in terms of that these are places to look. But we need to ensure that these dollar amounts are reflected of their actual travel and that it does not impact their service level or their operational requirements. And that will be part of our ongoing process to scrub this $75,000 and what it is used for.

Real quick, procedurally, we are coming to the end of the hour that we have for the debate on this item. Is there a motion? Move to extend debate for another 30 minutes. Second. So there is a motion to extend debate by 30 minutes, moved by Ms. Brawley, seconded by Ms. Solvers.

Is there any objection to that motion?

Hearing and seeing no objection, will be extended until 7:08. Ms. Brawley. Thanks. Sorry, I just— I appreciate the broad look. If you could just briefly state for example, internal audit, what that travel budget in your, um, prior research has indicated.

When we have departments like internal audit, their, um, travel budgets are likely spent and on fleet vehicles and, uh, the gas expense to travel back and forth between our municipal departments to do their job. You know, when we're looking at a line item of $1,500, that is a very small amount in terms of what we would be able to achieve with our traditional idea of travel. When it comes to fleet and gas and the overall non-labor budget within internal audit entirely, this is a significant non-labor cut to internal audit if they are not actually traveling to the $1,500 level on an annual basis. Then this is a non-labor departmental cut that they will have to absorb in their other expenditures, supplies, etc. And without doing the analysis of what that really means for their teeny tiny non-labor budget, we could be impacting what they're able to produce in a year.

Thank you. Miss Solvers.

Yeah, so I just would like to understand a little bit more the term discretionary. And so my question is, is all of this travel discretionary, as it was called, or is some of this for training purposes? It sounds like some of it is GAS. Is it necessary meetings, you know, necessary legal things? And so I just really want to understand, is this discretionary travel as it was travel was called, or is it necessary travel?

You know, like, for example, what— and I might actually ask the sponsor of this amendment— what, what does the fire department travel like? What does that include?

Well, I mean, I assume that the fire department would be traveling to— they could be going to conferences, that sort of thing. You know, they have chiefs' organizations and whatnot they might be participating in. Though I do believe what Director Brouse just said is more in line with what I was thinking with this amendment, which is this is a— they are so— we're not saying through this amendment there will be no travel. We were saying, hey, here's money you've set aside for this. We're going to take that away.

If they want to still do traveling for— if it's a worthwhile conference, if it's worthwhile endeavor and it adds value to the municipality, they're still able to take that money through their non-labor line items. Though it is interesting, I do believe, Director, if I heard you correctly, we just put, like for internal audit, we put $1,500 here, but that's not actually what it's being spent for. And so I think, you know, tighter accounting on what we're actually spending our money on so we can actually exercise our oversight as the legislative branch would be important. [Speaker] Point of information. I think you're past answering my question.

It's worth a shot. All right, so, um, I have in the queue Mr. McCormick. I wasn't actually finished. Okay, yeah, go ahead. Okay, so I, I mean, I guess we don't have any idea then if the fire department, for example, is, um, travel for a training class, um, you know, or ongoing learning.

Okay, thank you. Then Mr. Mr. McCormick.

Thank you, and please let me know if my audio becomes unintelligible, but I just wanted to agree with Member Gerker in that during this trying budget time, if we're talking about needing to introduce multiple sales taxes, that travel is a good place to start. At trimming the budget. It— online systems worked well for all of our students during COVID It worked well for many of us working through that time. It is an adequate and a proven method. So, and as Member Gerker, and it sounds like we've discussed, this doesn't put— place a travel ban.

It just eliminates the travel budget, and if it is worthwhile, the departments can still travel to them.

I would just say it's a good look to trim our budget in this way, in that travel, especially by members and leadership during this time, is just a hard look for our city. And this would be a good place for us to start and earn trust from members of our community. Thank you.

Mr. Gerker, you were in the queue. I know you're not. Okay, I just had you noted there. Ms. Baldwin-Day. Chair, would it be appropriate to ask some questions of members of the administration at this time?

You have the floor. Excellent. Um, I would love to hear straight from the fire department. What exactly does the fire department travel budget go towards?

What?

Uh, good evening, Member Baldwin-Day, through the chair. Doug Schrag, fire chief, for the record. Most of our travel supports a variety of things. We go to training conferences, has been suggested. We travel to Juneau each year for the Fire Chiefs Conference.

We send firefighters to the state fire training conference, which rotates around to different states— or correction, different cities in Alaska each year. We go on inspection trips to view new apparatus. We have recently made an exploratory trip to investigate.

We sent Dr. Pierce to San Antonio and to Seattle to investigate their post-overdose response teams, things of that nature. One follow-up question, Chief. Does some of this travel line item support individuals in the fire department who are traveling outside of Alaska to, for example, get certified as a paramedic in another city? No, not, not like that. The out-of-state travel, we go to training classes mostly for special specialties, but paramedic training is done entirely in-state.

And when you do have folks who travel out of state for specialized training, what does that look like?

It would be—. The best example is the International Association of Fire Chiefs Fire Rescue International Conference, which offers leadership, budget management, culture management, hazardous materials, all sorts of different topics of interest to the fire department. Okay, thank you, Chief. I appreciate that. You're welcome.

Thank you. Don't go too far. Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Chair. A question to— to having heard this, the question to the sponsor of this particular amendment, um, you utilize the word surgically.

Uh, is that an overstatement relative to— had you done item by item, line by line related to the needs of each department's travel needs? Have you— did you do that? What we're hearing, like, for example, we just heard a myriad of ways that there's almost required amounts of travel within one department, but you have an inventory across multiple departments. Do you— do you have an inventory of each department's required travel? No.

And Mr. Mr. Martinez, again, I'm not saying no travel. I'm saying that we're going to make a cut to the non-labor line item within the departments. If these conferences that the fire chief is saying are worthwhile, they can still go to them. They just can't be— So the answer was no? You don't have any towards that?

The answer is that this is a cut to the non-labor line items within each department, which we did go through. Line by line. So I understand what you're saying. So essentially you don't have an inventory of the particular items that you described surgically? Yeah, let's—.

Mr. Martinez, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. We're starting to fall out of the rules of order here. Mr. Martinez has the floor. Thank you. And I just wanted to confirm that I may agree with you, Mr. Gerker, but, but essentially the language of surgical was utilized.

And the reason that I think that's important to particularly hone in on is because there are created expectations around these conversations that don't seem to be meeting the mark of the language or the rhetoric. And I think that's really important. And so from my vantage point, thank you, Chief. I've heard enough. I think from hearing OMB Director, I also heard enough with respect to the granular nature of some of the information that may be required to move on some— an agenda item like this or this amendment.

Amendment. I think I've had enough information. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chair. Thanks.

I have myself in the queue. Mr. Constant. Chief, so this amendment is proposed to reduce travel specifically. It says travel on it, not just a general reduction.

And so it's asserted that this is an effort to, quote, trim the waste, which is to me a pretty heavy claim. I do appreciate my friends in Solid Waste Service who can see a way to turn waste into energy, but the reality is this budget has been trimmed and trimmed and trimmed for 50 years. So, Chief, if inspections of new $100 million equipment is waste, and inspections or travel to inspect overdose treatment programs in the Seattle area is waste, if that waste is cut out of your budget, what would you have to cut in order to just fund, by virtue of deciding you had another priority, to make sure that that waste gets taken care of, right? So really, I'll frame it slightly differently. It's been asserted that all you have to do if you want to travel still, even though you're— the proposal is to zero out your travel budget, is find it to come from somewhere else.

So do you have pools of money that you can just pull $30,000 and $40,000 out of?

Well, we are—.

We have a budget imbalance structurally. We are out of balance in the fire department's budget. We each year overspend significantly our non-labor budget for fuel, medical supplies, apparatus, parts, engines, brakes, all of the non-labor expenses. We over— we, we overspend. We're, we're not adequately resourced for those.

We have adequate money in our labor budget, and so it creates a conundrum for us. So if the question is do I have non-labor funds that we can use to pay for travel? The answer is no. That's all I need. Yes, sir.

Right. The reality is you're running a tight budget, you are under-resourced already, you have high demands, your staff are running in circles picking up more calls exponentially. The flat funding continues, and yet there's an argument made that it's waste for you to travel, even though when you're traveling, you're doing due diligence on million-dollar our equipment that we're going to take possession of and drive up the highway, and once we take possession, that is ours no matter what happens. And so it just— it defies credulity to signal to the community that there is a wasteful budget here. I'll just end there.

Ms. Baldwin-Day. Thank you, Chair. Uh, the, the suggestion that when you have a household budget, um, and things get tight around the house, that cutting discretionary travel, cutting a vacation to Hawaii for example, um, is the appropriate move, I think is, is a point well taken. However, the municipality is not a household, and the travel that is done within this municipality, I'm at least in this administration with the procedures that were laid out by the OMB director, are designed such that vacations are not a part of the equation. The travel that, as I understand it, and in the phone calls that I have made to some of these various departments to understand how they use their travel budget, is that it is being used in the service of the municipality, whether that is for employee training, whether that is for understanding best practices in other places, whether that is driving around to inspect various restaurants in our community, uh, that these are the functions of the government.

Sometimes government has to be on the move. That means that a travel budget is warranted. And unlike a household, this travel budget, which we are proposing to cut across multiple departments, constitutes one 3 hundredths of a percent of the entire municipal operating budget. 1/300, 0.03%. That is a tiny number, and I simply cannot be convinced that that teeny tiny of a cut amounts to surgical.

I think it amounts to negligible, and it also hamstrings departments like the fire department who need this kind of funding, or at least this kind of budgeted funding, to be able to do their work at an optimal level. So I cannot support— I am in favor of making sure that when we travel, we do it for good reasons, and we do it purposefully, and we do it in the service of the community. Absolutely. But to wholesale cut travel budgets because we're equating it to taking a vacation, that is not same same. So I will, I will not be in voting in favor of this particular budget amendment.

Thank you.

Mr. Walland. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question for the administration, and I should probably know the answer to this, but, um, in the private sector, a lot of times when a position is negotiated, someone is hired hired. For instance, for myself, it's very common in optometry.

If you are hired at a group practice, part of your employment package will be continuing education. You'll get money to attend conferences. Do we— is that anywhere within municipal employee contracts where that sort of travel or continuing education credits are included in their employment package?

Through the chair, Member Voland. Not specifically. There are some instances of departments paying for, for example, some minimal amount to support the continuing legal education credits required by municipal attorneys, but not in the manner that I know I experienced in the private sector of saying these sets of dues and these sets of expenses for training will be automatically covered by your employer. As discussed, we do utilize travel to be able to make sure that a number of our skilled professions are adequately trained in the apparatus that they operate and the critical functions that they perform, but we don't generally negotiate employment contracts to explicitly include any kind of travel or training. Thank you, I appreciate that.

I guess I just bring that up, um, sort of in the broader context of recruitment and retention and, and trying to have good professional folks working for the municipality And then I think I also want to pivot back to sort of the same line that Member Martinez was thinking along, um, in terms of the approach here and how these amounts were settled on. Um, so yeah, I, I guess my question for the sponsor would be why these amounts— are, are there some in here that are just reductions? Are there anywhere the— any departments where the travel budget was entirely eliminated?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Folland. Um, yes, there's some that were just reductions. Uh, I believe the— I believe the mayor's office, um, which actually is not— oh, it's not on here anymore. Um, no, these are— these are— yeah, these are for the full departments. Thanks.

Okay, um, and I guess could you just describe like what type of analysis went into settling on these specific amounts? Yeah, thanks. So what I did is I took the budget book presented to us and I went through per department and I took took, looked at their— the money that they had allocated for travel, and I zeroed it out. Now, just, just to be clear though, I understand. I have been in government for quite a few years.

I understand the ins and outs of how an executive agency functions and operates. I understand that by cutting, uh, you know, $1,500 for internal audit, that does not mean that internal audit is not going to do $1,500 worth of travel. It just means it's up to them to figure out where it's at. They presented me $1,500 of a line item, and I zero that line item out, because that's a non-labor line item. So it gets a little bit wonky here, because I know we're talking about travel, but this isn't about any specific travel budget, or any specific trip, or purpose for why they might travel.

It's about a line item that's non-labor, and is frequently used, as you heard from the OMB Director, is frequently used a slush fund for stuff around the office, office supplies, that sort of thing. So my point is, let's zero this out, and if they want something specific, they can come in and make a specific request. I just want to jump in and say the OMB Director never uttered the words slush fund. Correct. My bad.

Just for the record. Okay. No, I appreciate the answer. I think, you know, this is interesting. I think for me to be able to support this, I would need to have a little bit more more fine-grained analysis about what we're actually cutting, what the value of the travel is for each department, and why we settled on these specific amounts.

It, um, I don't know, for me it is striking me as a little bit sort of shoot from the hip on these amounts. And so maybe this is something we can take back up at first quarter, but At this time, I don't think I'm going to be supporting this amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr.

McCormick.

Thank you. Yeah, to address the question about continuing education credits, I'm accredited by the American Medical Association through my CMEs, and I'm able to complete all CMEs through online. So if a physician, surgeons, Some of our city's highest educated can complete CMEs through online means. I think that means for the vast majority of people that CMEs can be completed online. Going through the budget, I keep hearing that these are small dollar amounts, these are small dollar amounts, this doesn't add up to much.

I guess I have as much money as some of our colleagues that think this adding up to millions of dollars isn't much money. I think that's a lot of money and many people in Anchorage would see that that's a lot of money. So I kind of disagree with the notion that we keep adding up these little things and that they're piddly and not enough worthy to be cut. And to speak of benefit of travel, I think many residents in Anchorage are rightfully waiting with bated breath to see the benefit of travel because we have multiple leaders in the room, teams of staff in the room right now that going international travel on the city's dime, and they want to see the benefit of that. So I think it's right that we'd be questioning this and be proving to the city that this travel is worth it.

Thank you. All right, I don't see anyone else. Members may proceed to vote. The motion is to approve— or excuse me, to amend the amendment. I know the motion is to amend the main motion with Amendment Number 2.

Yeah, it's— yeah, motion to amend.

Member McCormick?

Yes.

A vote of 3 to 9 in the youth member votes. No. No. The amendment has failed to pass.

Move Amendment Number 4. Motion to amend by Mr. Gerker. Second. Second by Mr. Myers. Yes, thank you, Chair.

I'll be really brief. Like I said, I don't want to belabor the points. I suspect people probably already know how they're going to vote, but right now we have a couple offices within the municipality that are doing duplicative work either with a state agency or within other municipal departments. I'm referring to the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, which is in charter that we will have a commission, not that we will necessarily have staff for it. And so my proposal here is to remove the funds for the labor budget for the Equal Rights Commission because we have the state Equal Rights Commission that does the same core functions of what the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission is doing does not take away anybody's abilities to try and get a grievance redressed.

And then the Office of Equity and Inclusion or Equity and Justice, the core functions of this office were originally supposed to be data collection. And that a lot of what that data is being collected for is could be done within the Human Resources Department or in fact is already being done. At least it was when I was in a senior role in the previous administration. So this would trim about $1.2 million from the budget and not actually, I don't believe, reduce a single service to citizens. Thank you, Chair.

All right, Ms. Brolic. Thank you. So a question for the sponsor. You did mention and acknowledge that the Equal Rights Commission is in the charter. Charter.

I believe the way that that got into the charter is like everything else. It was voted in by the Anchorage people. So if the will of the people was to have that office exist and it is defunded, my question to you is, is how, how do you anticipate that those functions required in the charter would be effectuated? Thank you for the question. And the voters voted for a commission and the commission is staying intact with all of its commissioners.

Thanks. Yeah, and I know that that commission also does a fair amount of investigation work. So a question to Department of Law, is that something that your department would pick up, those kind of legal requirements or responsibilities? Through the chair to Member Raulston, thank you for the question. It's a little bit tricky because often the cases brought before the Equal Rights Commission involve the municipality as a party, so we already do have ethical partitions in our office to allow, in some situations, representation of the municipality, you know, by our office, but it would get very tricky if we were taking on all of their functions and investigating the municipality.

It would kind of overload us with conflicts, I think, just as a practical matter, so we would probably need to retain outside counsel. Council if we were going to try to take on that function.

Okay, thank you. I guess also to Assembly Council then, if it is not an executive branch function, is that something that our, our branch is prepared to pick up as a legal responsibility?

The actual investigation of Equal Rights Commission complaints? Yes. We are not.

Thank you. I'll just make two other comments. I do not support this amendment. One, I will note that an item earlier today, which I know the sponsor of this amendment, did not support recognizing Transgender Day of Remembrance. I will quote that in one of the whereas clauses, it notes that the State Commission for Human Rights has narrowed its enforcement to not include discrimination complaints against LGBTQ+ Alaskans.

And so I— so that is one area where we know that the State Commission cannot pick up that work. We do have an equal rights law in our own municipality that applies. And so I think that leaves a serious gap. And I will also say, as a member of— a former member of a commission, the Budget Advisory Commission, under a previous OMB director, our commission was denied the ability to meet because the staff were directed not to support that meeting. And so we had to go through an entire process looking at the code to figure out what is a work session, what is a special meeting, who calls those.

And because of the Open Meetings Act, Commissioners are not allowed to communicate with each other outside of the, the purview of a public meeting. And so even the simple act of noticing that meeting, setting the time, setting the place, and communicating beyond the chair itself so that people know to meet in an open meeting setting is not possible without staff support. So I think it is important to say that even if the commission exists in name, it would not exist in practice, and that is because of the other rules that are in place. Place, and I know that from lived experience. Thank you.

So, do you— can you explain to me, I'm talking to the mover of this amendment, um, when you say that the state does all this already, what is the role of the state in making sure that we as a municipality meet our legal requirements? Does the state come in to all the different cities and municipalities and do they get their hands in everything and make sure that each one meets the legal requirements by, you know, getting their hands dirty? Or are they kind of watching and telling us, you need to make sure that you are meeting the legal requirements, and if you have a problem with that, we're going to step in and stop that problem. Yeah, I'm actually going to go ahead and sidestep that, if that's all right, Mr. Chair, and make a motion to withdraw this amendment.

The previous speaker, I believe, made some really good points for consideration for us to maybe take up in quarter 1 revisions. You don't have to make a motion. I think there's no objection. I withdraw my amendment. Yeah, the mover can withdraw.

OK. Even without— with some objection, you probably could still remove it, the mover, and move her along. But, um, okay, I will clear the queue, and we have 6 minutes left for debate.

We're on the main motion as amended. I move amendment number 8.

Martinez moves Amendment Number 8, seconded by Miss Brawley. Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Chair. Tonight we've heard conversations about budgetary— budgetary discussions, and then we've also heard, in the face of this fiscal conversation, this is an amendment about fiscal responsibility, and it's a little different than— but it speaks to some of the intent, I think, that some of the— my, my colleagues have around tightening up or having higher degrees of accountability. So this amendment aims to reduce budgeted overtime in each general department by 10% in the proposed budget, to a price point of approximate reduction to the annual budget, operating budget, of $1.2 million, and then requires the, uh, working with OMB and the administration to give us the understanding of the overtime history, the primary drivers of overtime, so that we're beginning to get at the structural challenges, and then we can reduce overtime through structural policy.

And rather than just cutting the budgets and then saying, uh, you know, if you cut budgets at staff, you are higher likelihood to increase overtime, for example, this would hold us to some degree, saying that we want to keep overtime in check and we want to encourage a better, accurate understanding of the overtime history and how we can avoid overtime expenditures that are disproportionate to the work that we need done. And so I've had conversations with OMB Director, and, and I would share that this is— this speaks to a directionality of increasing the ability for us to hire folks in positions to do the job that today sometimes we are relying on overtime to get the jobs done. And so this is aligned. There's, uh, you can ask any follow-up questions to the budget director, but I encourage my colleagues to approve this amendment. It helps us move in the right direction, getting our overtime in check, and it gives us— to my budgetary concerned colleagues— a fiscal remedy toward maintaining our fiscal ship in order.

Thank you, Chair. Right, I don't see anyone in the queue. Mr. Johnson. Yeah, thank you. Uh, since we have the OMB Director here I, I appreciate the, uh, the, the spirit of this amendment, but I guess I'd like to just understand a little bit more about, uh, how we see this actually impacting the work departments are doing.

As I understand, due to collective bargaining agreements, etc., some would be affected, some would not. Now, I, I know we consistently look at some departments like AFD and APD that incur a great deal of overtime, and that is problematic, but they're also doing essential public safety work, and I'd be hesitant to necessarily, you know, um, tie their hands, right? So I, I think it'll be a two-part question, and then take it as well. One, what does this actually mean in terms of operationally if we adopt this now? And then two, looking at this and kind of thinking about what decisions do we need to make tonight and what are better taken up at Q1?

This to me at first glance seems like the sort of thing that perhaps —could invite a more fulsome conversation as we take up Q1. And so I'm curious from your perspective, is, is tonight the night, or do you think we'd be in a better position to contemplate structural changes around overtime later? Through the chair to Member Johnson, the simple answer is yes. First quarter is a better place to have this conversation with the details requested in this amendment provided. We would be able to pull the analysis together and make an assessment of where we could cut, how we could cut, what the operational service level adjustments would be to onboard those overtime decreases, and whether or not the community and the body are willing to accept those service level changes.

I think that the challenge that we have structurally with our budget process is that we have a continuation budget, which means that we have a baseline service agreement with the community that we are going to do this, and every year we take the one-time items out and we increase our budget based on the collective bargaining agreements for our work units and any contractual obligations for the agreements the municipality has made, whether that's leases or property or non-labor items that we have. The challenge there is that the collective bargaining agreements and the contractual agreements must be paid in a continuation process. We cannot touch them and decrease them, which means that our non-labor and capital budgets are the places that we can shrink. And over the history of the municipality, and you heard the chief speak to this, his labor budget works. His non-labor budget does not.

And that is because as we roll through these continuation processes, the non-labor increases that the departments absorb then continue forward every year. So APD received cell phones in 2016 or '17, perhaps, and that was the first time many of these officers had a connection that was municipally provided to the community that they could return phone calls. They don't have offices, they They have vehicles. Those cell phones were provided as an operational improvement for the department, but are not part of their budget. They have never been added to their budget because the money was not available to add that to their budget due to the nature of the requirements around all of our contractually obligated and labor costs.

The labor costs at the municipality are 60% of our budget. And police, fire, and roads make up 60% of that 60% in our total. So the way continuation budgeting works means that after 10, 15, 25 years of the same budget, the non-labor has been cut down as far as we can tighten it and operate the departments the way they are currently operating. Now is the time when we assess, are those operations what we want, what we need, and is there a different way to do them? And the intent behind many of these amendments is heard.

We, we understand that we want to see the data and information associated with the operations of these departments to be able to make these decisions, but from the body and the administration to say, these are the service level choices we have. That the department says we could operate here, here, and here. What does a 72-hour plowout look like? What does an 84-hour plowout look like? These— what does a, you know, 60-hour plowout look like?

And the cost differential between, you know, what those models look like mean the community has a choice to make. We want, you know, better snow response, we want better police response, we want better fire response, and in order to do that we we would need this much more money to do it. But the budget is built in a way that the only way we can do those deep dives into the individual departments is with a committed process that we are going to look at these things to make these changes. We have to look at these things to make these changes because of the fiscal cliff. The budget process itself works.

The finite resources we have available to us based on the structure of our government is what we are challenged with. And if that finite resource remains finite the way we currently have it aligned, we have to make adjustments within our budget and the operations of the departments. And these kinds of assessments will be done over the next few years as we make those decisions. So the clerk— So to the mover of the amendment, I would say, The intent of this is fully recognized and part of our plan to go through to make the informed decisions behind what our actual spend has been over the last 5 to 7 years with operational needs for the future in mind and realigning particularly the fire department with its police— or with its fire versus medical response and the service area levies associated with that revenue means we need to know exactly how that works to do it right if we are going to continuation budget going forward. So the clerk notifies me that we have expired the amount of time available for this debate.

Move to extend debate by 20 minutes.

There is a motion to extend debate by 20 minutes by Miss Balducci. Seconded by Miss Sprawley. Any discussion?

We have like 6 more budget items to get through tonight, and, um, I'm of mind that 20 minutes is too long. I'm going to vote against this motion to extend, but I understand members why they would want to. If there's no further discussion, members may proceed to vote.

This is the vote to extend? Correct.

Yes. On a vote of 10 to 2 in the youth member votes, yes, yes, we'll have 20 more minutes to debate. That's past 8:08.

All right, Mr. Martinez— or Mr. Johnson, you have the floor still. Yeah, thank you. Briefly, I'll just say I appreciate the answer, and I think it speaks to the necessity of us being very intentional and making informed decisions, right? Because these decisions we make here tonight can have lasting consequences that would not be easy to unwind the impacts. And so I would say, for my part, I urge caution as we contemplate these these decisions, but certainly invite the, the conversation to, to look carefully at how we spend our money.

Thank you. Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Chair. Just to follow up, question probably to your OMB director.

Um, just to be clear, the proposal here for 10% reduction in overtime except where overtime is required by collective bargaining agreement, grant requirement, or legally mandated staffing, that's essentially this does not speak— police and fire are exempt from this, essentially, essentially, as well as other core critical areas of municipal functionality. Um, so I think that that's, from my vantage point, is, is different than with a 10% reduction in other areas on the blind, not being surgical, just being Spaghetti tossing. On the blind, a 10% reduction in the non-critical service areas that are exempt here.

By the first quarter, how do they impact our services?

Through the chair to Member Martinez, if we were to make a 10% budget cut across the board, meaning from the whole $600 million budget budget as part of onboarding? No, in overtime. This is specifically an overtime budget which is approximately $12 million across the entire municipality. $1.2 Million, right? Uh, ultimately, without having the detailed actuals from each of the departments and what they spend on overtime, I wouldn't be able to tell you what impacts would be felt.

But, but essentially they wouldn't be fire safety, they wouldn't be in those areas. That would be exempt from this conversation. And they would be in other areas that are less critical on the face of it. And if I'm reading the suggestion for first quarter budget revisions, essentially, wouldn't that be the time to fix it if it wasn't— if there was too much of an overtime detriment at this point, if we approve this tonight, wouldn't it be time in the first budget quarter revisions readjust? Through the chair to Member Martinez, I, I think what you are saying is, can we accept the decrement from the municipality at large and then refine where it comes from as part of first quarter budget revisions?

Is that—. Which is essentially what is the opposite of being said. Yes. And, and so I would say yes, that is possible. Um, what the actual impacts to the department operations may be I can't answer, but if the amendment were to pass, we could move forward with the intent to find $1.2 million in overtime to fulfill the need, and then at first quarter budget revisions defend either direction that we go up or down on.

So I think it's a, it's a timing and process decision in terms of what decision the body makes. We'll still do this analysis regardless of what is decided. And I appreciate that last part, but from my vantage point as a member of the assembly, the only way we can really make sure that you do that part, from my vantage point, is moving this amendment forward. Thank you. Ms. Baldwin-Day.

Thank you, Chair. I think it's difficult for me to contemplate voting on this amendment without understanding more more clearly exactly which departments or which parts of the overtime budget of which departments are not in fact required by CBA grant requirement or legally mandated minimum staffing. Without a list of what that really looks like, I don't really feel comfortable saying 10% across the board, let's just like, let's just hack it. I do, I do appreciate the suggestion, uh, to request this overtime management plan and to understand with more granularity exactly what we're talking about if we were to consider 10% cuts in certain places to our, our overtime. I do think there's room for that in some departments, and I think we should take that seriously.

Um, to my colleague, I think another way that we could accomplish this this and get the information that I believe you're asking for would be to actually submit a separate AO requesting these things on this particular time frame so that when it comes to first quarter budget amendment or budget amendments, we could, um, we could actually have a more robust conversation with better information as opposed to taking a swipe right now and not really understanding what it is that we're doing. So I, this, I conceptually really appreciate it. In terms of timing, I don't feel super comfortable, and I don't think because of that, I'm not sure I can support this amendment at this time. However, I would co-author an AO to request an overtime management plan, for the record.

Mr. Walland. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines. I think there'd be a co-author.

Maybe better to be a resolution than an ordinance, but certainly would welcome the conversation about an overtime management plan and really what the overtime trade-offs are in the municipality, because I would venture to guess that there are instances where overtime might be saving us money.

And so if, yeah, if someone were to bring that resolution forward, I would likely be in support I think the other thing that gives me pause and why I'm not fully ready to jump on board with this is just that amount. And again, considering the tax cut— tax cap and what might be a forever cut and not really having a defined amount in the language here, final amount to be calculated by OMB and confirmed by the clerk's office, we don't really know what that is. And so So yeah, I don't have the comfort level yet to move forward on this, but I do think it's an important conversation to have. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Martinez, you've already spoken twice to the motion. Miss Brawley. Um, thank you. Um, I am actually interjecting with a brief, um, stage management interval, which is to say, um, our OMB director, uh, needs to also sign off on another item. So I wonder if members have questions for her right now, if she— if we could release her for a few minutes, um, and And just for members' information, we— the item 13B, I know we're not on that item, but it is in your email, and then we will get the final packet.

But in the meantime, you can look there. Thanks. Sorry. All right, we are now on the amendment. Any further discussion?

Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick, on amendment number 18, 8.

Yes.

On a vote of 4 to 8, and the youth member votes no. No, this amendment has failed to pass. We have a couple amendments left in the pack. Yeah, Mr. Chair, can I combine amendments 5 and 6?

I assume everybody would be pretty Gucci with that. Yeah, I'm certain that that is fine. So it would be a motion to amend incorporating both Amendments 5 and 6. Mr. Gerker. Seconded by Mr. Myers.

Mr. Gerker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just very, very briefly, these amendments are going after membership dues, comms advertising, and furniture and refurbishments in a handful of departments. That's really the main thing.

Really, I mean, look, there's nothing I think quite as irritating as a taxpayer to be driving down the road hearing an ad on the radio paid for by my tax dollars saying about how great taxes are. So I don't really think we need to be spending money, our advertising money like that. We did not touch, we did not touch the departments with core functions to communicate to the public on public safety matters. So APD, AFD, safety, um, snowplowing, that sort of thing. Uh, thank you, Mr.

Chair. Any further discussion? Ms. Silvers?

Um, I guess I just, uh, wonder about the, um, characterization of, well, does the fire department, um, have a responsibility to communicate things to the public? I would say that they do. And then does the assembly have the responsibility to communicate things to the public. I would argue that they also do. When we're passing policy and legislation, I think it's very important that we communicate that to the public.

Is that a question to be, Miss Silvers? I don't think so. I think it's just a statement. Copy that. Rhetorical, rhetorical in nature.

Okay, anyone else? I just would offer that I think the one thing the municipality doesn't do very well is communicate proudly to the public all the things that are happening that are important for them to know. We do the best we can with the resources we have. With that, members may proceed to vote on Amendment Number 5/6.

Member McCormick?

Yes.

Now, on a vote of 3 to 9, and the youth member votes no. No. So that amendment does not pass. I think there's one more amendment in the packet.

Oh, is there more than that? A couple more.

7 And 9, are they being moved? I will not move Amendment, uh, 7. Amendment 9, I believe, is Mr. Martinez. Mr. Martinez. Yeah, Chair, and, um, just Just with respect to Amendment 9, it's another look at fiscal policy and tightening new positions, FTEs, and productivity reviews.

This is going to— in discussion with the OMB director, we're going to not move this tonight. It's going to turn into a project. And thank you.

So we are now back on the main motion as amended. Miss Brawley. Yeah, thank you. I know we've already talked a lot about this. I will just say, uh, more than I think many years, uh, that I've observed or been on this body, which is not that many, um, we are going to be looking at a lot of major discussions that will continue between now and April.

We set the tax levies in April, so we have time to resolve these issues. We know that there's a lot of unknowns We have the ACFER, our fund balance. We have the AMEA contract, which is an item on our agenda being introduced only. We know the fire department needs another look. And so there's a long list of things.

And so I really encourage members to continue these conversations. Don't wait till April. And we know that there's a lot of folks working on it. And to the point about finding efficiencies and making this budget the best we can, I think there's a lot of ways we can do that, as we discussed tonight. And so I really, again, want to thank everybody everybody for your really active participation and continued work on making this a better city.

Thanks. Miss Baldwin Day. Yeah, I just want to note that for all of the back and forth here tonight, again, doing, doing a little bit of math about the proportion of cuts that we discussed versus the totality of the budget, we, we were— we discussed cuts that total 0.36 6% of the municipal budget, which means that this body agrees on like over 99.5% of the municipal operating budget, which is a good thing. And I think we need to talk about that a little bit more because, yeah, did we have a robust conversation here tonight? We did.

And also, 99% agreement is pretty stinking good. Thank you. Mr. President. Thank you. Just, I want to give my thanks to the, the, the two co-chairs of the budget and finance.

Thank you for all your work on this. It was a good, good product. Thanks. And, and thank you to the administration for bringing forth a really solid budget and all your work on it. Really appreciate it.

Mr. Constant— hold on, I'll wait. Mr. Martinez, go ahead. Thank you. And I just also wanted to thank the budget co-chairs members from the Assembly for the wonderful job, wonderful work.

Thank the administration for working with the prioritizations and the focusing that you see from this body. We may be coming at it from different vantage points, but I think there is, to the point of Member Baldwin-Day, great common ground with respect to the things we believe in, and then also with respect to the challenges that we may see, with respect to the way we approach, um, right-sizing government, the way we approach making sure we have the best services for our community. But at the end of the day, I believe that we all want the best, and it's a privilege to be here with this process. I'm looking forward to voting on this budget tonight. Thank you.

Mr. Folland. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, um, a lot of the, uh, conversation tonight is on our amendments, but I also want to thank the administration, um, for the budget that they brought forward. You know, all of the essentials that keep our city running— snow removal, things that keep us safe like traffic calming.

And in particular, I want to thank the mayor and her team for their focus on support for the Mountain View Community Center. There are a lot of great things in the budget, as was proposed by the mayor, that I think are going to drive our, our city into a bright future. So So really appreciate all the collaboration. Thank you. I'll just note in closing, as we're down to the last minute of possible debate, that the administration, you've done a hard job, especially working with 12 of us, which is never without its perils.

And to my peers who have engaged in this process, thank you. You know, Mayor, there's no no dearth of mischaracterizations out there about all the hard work that goes into this and about all the things that happen. And so I thank you for guiding the hand of the ship over there and getting this to us timely and allowing us the opportunity to take our work into consideration. I know we still have a few more of these items to get through. I think that, you know, it's been said that we debated like a fraction of a percent of the budget.

Budget, and there is motions to reduce those. And that's an interesting conversation. I think it bears saying, though, to a small department, a small cut to the whole is a huge amount of money to their operation. And that's where I think I heard resoundingly from the members, if you're going to come at it with, with a proposal to cut, do your homework first. Don't just come broad strokes because you just don't know what you're going to harm in the process.

And so So much care is due in the budget process. It's why it's our number one duty. And so with that, members may proceed to vote. Question is, motion to approve AO 2025-106 as amended.

Member McCormick.

No.

On a vote of 9 to 3, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AO 2025-106 as amended has passed the body.

Next we're up, we're gonna Next up, because, yeah, we— I think we changed the order to take up 11C next. That's 11A. 11A next.

11A is AO 2025-108, an ordinance adopting and appropriating funds for the 2026 Municipal Utilities Enterprise Activities Operating Budgets, 2026 Municipal Utilities Enterprise Activities Capital Improvement Budgets. First public hearing closed 10:21, second public hearing closed 11:04. There's no motion pending. What's the will of the body? Mr.

Chair, I need to make a disclosure. Ms. Brawley. So myself and Mr. Johnson are— and this seems obtuse, but we are ex officio members of the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, AEDC board. We know that there is some funding somewhere in the Enterprise and Utilities budget that is a small amount to that. I can stop you there.

So these ex officio positions do not actually have votes on the board. And so it's a longstanding principle of this body, you have a duty to vote except for when you have a personal or financial interest substantive enough to make it so you can't. And so in a case of an ex officio position, it does not rise to the level of a personal or financial interest, so you are cleared to participate. Thank you. So there is no motion pending.

Move to approve. Second. Motion by Miss Braly, second by Mr. Johnson. Ms. Brawley. Um, yeah, I urge support.

Um, this is our both operating and, um, capital budgets for our enterprises and utilities. Um, and I—. To my knowledge, there are no member amendments on this item. Any, um, else wish to discuss this item? Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick? Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AO 2025-108 has passed the body. Next we have item 11B. 11B is AO 2025-109, an ordinance adopting and appropriating funds for the 2026 operating and capital Budgets, the Anchorage Community Development Authority. First public hearing was closed 10:21. Second public hearing closed 11:04.

There's no motion pending. Move to approve. Second. Moved by Miss Braly, seconded by Mr. Voland. Miss Braly.

Uh, no amendments that I'm aware of. Urge your support. Any further discussion? Seeing, hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick?

Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AO 2025-109 is passed the body. I'd like to ask unanimous consent that we hold taking up item 11C until we conclude with item 13B, which has items relating to the capital improvement budget. Budget. And so if that's the case, if there's no objection, I'd like to move on to 11D. Hear no objection.

We'll take up 11D right now, which is AR 2025-297, a resolution adopting the 2026 to 2031 six-year fiscal program. Public hearing was closed— first public hearing was closed 10/21/25. Second public hearing was closed 11/4/22. 25. There's no motion pending.

Move to approve. Second. Miss Brawley moves. Miss Baldenday seconds. Miss Brawley, urge your support.

Is there any discussion further on this item? Seeing, hearing none, members may proceed to vote. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] No.

On a vote of 9 to 3 in the youth member votes, yes, yes, AO 20— AR 2025-297 has passed the body. Next we have item 11E. Item 11E is AR 2025-298, a resolution approving the 2026-2031 Municipal Utility Enterprise Activities Capital Improvement Programs. First public hearing was closed 10:21:25. Second public hearing was closed 11:04:25.

There's no motion pending. Move to approve. Second. Motion to approve by Ms. Baldwin-Day, second by Ms.

Brawley. Ms. Baldwin-Day. Utilities are great and we should support them. Any further discussion?

Seeing, hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick?

Yes. On a vote of 12 to 0, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AR 2025-298 has passed the body.

And so why don't we move to 13 D. Let's see, hold on one sec. So, um, we still have one major budget item to tackle, but the printouts aren't quite before us. And so, um, if there's no objection, we'll continue in the order that we have, which would be to pick up item 13D while we wait for 13C and, um, to take up 13B.

Hold on one sec.

Okay, if there's no objection, we'll take up Item 13C, which was in our original stack. 13C is the Executive Branch Reorganization. 13C is a public hearing item, AO 2025-110, an ordinance amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 1.35, 3.20, and 3.30 relating to the organization of the executive branch, setting forth the duties and responsibilities of executive branch agencies. The public hearing on this item was open on 10/21 and continued to tonight. The public hearing is open again.

If anyone wishes to be heard on this item, please come forward now. Anyone at all?

Seeing, hearing none, public hearing on this item is now closed. Let's poll the body. Move to approve. Second. Moved by Miss Brawley, seconded by Mr. Walland.

Miss Brawley. Yeah, thank you. Um, this is related to the operating budget, which is why we take it up after approval of that. Um, and we have, uh, it is essentially, uh, any reorganization proposed by the administration, uh, which we were briefed on earlier. Um, I do have one amendment, um, that I will move, I think, now just to get it out of the way.

Move Brawley Amendment Number 1. Second. Motion to amend by Mr. Brawley, seconded by Mr. Boland. Miss Brawley? Yeah, this is at the request of the administration.

Um, rather than taking effect immediately, this should take effect with the budget, um, which is January 1st, 2026. Any discussion on the amendment? Seeing, hearing none, uh, it's Mr. Voland, probably Voland. I'd like to ask unanimous consent. Is there any objection to the adoption of the amendment?

I am seeing and hearing no objection, so we'll consider the amendment adopted. So we now have the main motion before us as amended. Any further discussion? I think I'd like to ask the administration just briefly to talk through the reorganization, the why and what's happening. Certainly, Mr.

Chair. Presented to the body, I— the goal here is to make a change in how our community and economic development functions are supervised, to really strategically tie together those departments which are most critical to the mayor's housing and community development agenda. This comes hand in hand with some changes in municipal senior leadership that were announced yesterday. So there will be— the intent is that we will We'll have a new person moving into the Community and Economic Development position starting on that January 1 date when this is effective. So again, all part of aligning the functions of the team as strategically as possible to address the work that the mayor is driving to drive development of homes and economic development in the municipality.

So we would respectfully request approval. Thank you, um, Ms. Pearson. Ms. Baldwin-Day. Thank you, Chair. Um, I, um, I've voiced this concern to members of the administration, but I want to say it here on the record as well.

Um, I, I, I want to caution that it's really difficult to, um, it's really difficult to discuss anything related to housing without then following on and discussing transportation. And so it is my hope that this reorganization includes really significant collaboration between these two verticals, between Public Works and Community Development, because we, we must, we must be moving in the same direction when it comes to our land use, and that includes the way that we use our streets and our right-of-way. So I'm hopeful that this change develops new, new crossovers between these two departments and really helps helps to, to move all of the activity that's happening in the permit center in a really cohesive and positive direction when it comes to housing development. Thank you. All right, anyone further?

I'll just offer that I share some of the concerns Ms. Baldwin-Day talked about, just that road— roads impact where people live, and for 50 years we ignored that connection. I hope this doesn't begin a trajectory back towards letting that disconnection grow. But with that, I'm supportive of this ordinance, ask members to support it. Anyone else seeing here? None.

Members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick?

Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, AO 2025 -110. Oh, and the Youth Rep votes yes. Yes. 2025-110 As amended has passed the body. Thank you, Madam Clerk.

It's 12 to 0 on the youth member. Okay, next we have item 13D, which again we're off the budget, but we'll be back to the budget shortly. AO 2025-78, an ordinance, the Anchorage Assembly approving the final negotiation and execution of the crane use agreement between Municipality of Anchorage, Don Young Port of Alaska Madsen Navigation Company of Alaska LLC. Public hearing on this item was continued 8/26/2025, 9/23/2025, and 10/21/2025. It is back before us now.

Public hearing is open again. Anyone wish to be heard? Anyone at all? Seeing and hearing none, public hearing is now closed. What's the will of the body?

Move to approve. Second. Motion to approve by Ms. Baldwin-Day, second by Mr. Johnson. Any discussion?

Seeing, hearing none. If you want to hear the discussion we had on the resolution earlier in the agenda, you've heard the record there from the administration. So if no one else, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick.

Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0 on the youth member votes. Yes. Yes. AO 2025-78 has passed the body. Miss Baldwin-Day.

Move to reconsider. Motion to reconsider by Miss Baldwin-Day, seconded by Miss Brawley.

Want to speak to that motion, Miss Baldwin-Day? Yes, similar to the the reconsideration earlier this evening. We just want to be sure that this is ready to go so that the mayor and her administration can move forward with this agreement.

I would urge a no vote on the reconsideration. There you go, that's what I was hoping to hear. Thank you. So the mover urges a no vote. Seeing, hearing no one else, members, may I proceed to vote?

Member McCormick. No.

On a vote of 0 to 12, the reconsideration has failed. And the youth member votes no. No. Thank you. Okay, so now on our list of things to do, are we close on the budget?

Why don't we take 5? We've been at this a while. We'll come back in just a few minutes.

Sometimes the world moves too quickly, and I know it's not like the earth is turning slow. I'm already gone, but we both know I can't sleep alone, or at least I won't.

Even though I know where I'm going to go, I hope that you take me seriously. I hope that nobody stays mad Let me— oh, which way is up in your eyes? I hope I don't come down.

Let's try to figure out where we're going from here.

We go back on the record, Madam Clerk.

Thank you. So we'll come back to order.

I think we're just missing a couple folks.

Okay, so we still don't have a couple items prepared for the budget. That's 13C and 11B— no, 13B and 11C. So I'm gonna—.

Right, but so we're not ready. So I'm gonna ask that we again change change the order of the day. We have a handful of items that will be pretty straightforward. If there is no objection— if there is no objection, I would like to take up in the following order: 11F, 11G, 13E, 14A, and 14B.

And then after that, we will come back to the question of whether or not we are ready for 13B. 11C, and then we'll conclude some of the revenue questions that I believe all the members are going to be pushing forward to another day. So we'll have that discussion when we get there. I didn't hear any objection, so if that's the case, we'll go ahead and take up 11F, 11G, 13E, 14A, 14B.

Okay, so that's the order. We'll go ahead and proceed. There were no objections. So next up on the agenda is item 11F. Frank, 11F is Assembly Memorandum AM 812-2025, Solid Waste and Recycling Advisory Commission Appointment, Anita Nelson.

Action was postponed from 11/4. There's no motion pending. Move to approve. Second. Moved by Miss Brawley, seconded by Mr. Boland.

Any discussion? Seeing, hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick? Yes. On a vote of 12 to 0 on the youth member votes. Yes. Yes.

AM 812-2025 has passed the body. Point of information. Go ahead, Ms. Horace. Can you list the order that we've decided to go in a little slower again, please? Sure, just the next 5 items: 11F, 11G, 13E, 14A, and 14B.

Thank you. So next item is 11F— excuse me, 11G. 11G is AM 813-2025, Solid Waste and Recycling Advisory Commission Appointment, Larissa Wright Elson. This item was continued, postponed from the meeting of 11/4/2025. There's no motion pending.

Move to approve. Second. Moved by Miss Brawley, seconded by Miss Baldwin-Day. Any discussion on this item? Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick.

Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AM 813-2025 has passed the body. Now we'll go to item 13E.

Item 13E is AO 2025-59, an ordinance of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 3.90, Access to Public Records, and AMC Section 3.30.016, to update the public records request and response procedures. Public hearing continued from 8:12 to 9:9:10:7. Miss Silvers. I move to continue the public hearing to 12:2. Motion to postpone to the meeting, or continue the public hearing to 12:2, moved by Miss Silvers, seconded by Miss Brawley.

Um, want to speak to that, Miss Silvers?

It's still a work in process.

And I would just— okay, I see someone in the queue. Mr. Walland. Thank you. I was going to ask about timing of this.

Do we anticipate that it'll be ready to go on 12/2, or what's the timeline? Probably not, but we've been extending it every 2 weeks because it keeps the process moving a little faster. I would add a little nuance to that. We actually took it off the agenda for about 6 weeks and things just disappeared, evaporated. And we've actually both emailed and asked, hey, what's the status, and had radio silence.

And so the intent to keep it on the agenda every meeting until we start to see some action is by design, and we ask for your assistance by voting yes.

Point of information, um, I believe that because we are continuing the public hearing that the rules that we changed recently would apply here in terms of limiting, um, discussion to the sponsor, right? Um, I think it was a really a clarification of why we're asking to postpone it to only 2 weeks if we don't expect it to be done. So it's not really debate. And I think that those rules only apply to when you're using a motion to postpone and definitely as a main motion. It's a slight nuance.

But, um, anyhow, yes, your assistance is requested in keeping this on the table so people understand it's a hot topic. Anyone else? Seeing here none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick? Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, and the youth member votes yes, yes, this item will be continued to the meeting of December 2nd. The next one we have up on the stack is item 14A. 14A is AO-2025-128, an ordinance amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 21.05, 21.15 to make shelter units allowable structures for developing particular land uses to increase the time allowance for temporary uses developed with shelter units and waiving planning and zoning. Public hearing on this item is now open. Anyone wish to be heard on this item?

Anyone at all?

Seeing and hearing none, public hearing on this item is now closed. What say all the body? Move to postpone to the meeting of December 2nd. Second. Motion to postpone by Mr. Johnson, seconded by Ms. Baldwin-Day.

Mr. Johnson. Yeah, thank you. I think we're close on this one, but there are a few remaining issues we need to resolve relating to the implementation and the timing of this. And I think we just ask the body's grace for a little bit more time to hammer that out. Point of information, um, this item is, uh, sponsored by the, the mayor, essentially.

Is this the item that you— I, I am going through the packet in order, and I am completely looking at something else entirely, so disregard everything I just said. Um, okay, so I would withdraw. The floor The floor is open. Move to approve. Second.

Motion to approve by Ms. Brawley, seconded by Ms. Balinde. Ms. Brawley. Yeah, thanks. I know there was a work session on this. I know it is different than the item that we were just about to move on, so I would urge support, I believe.

Mr. Balinde, are you in the queue? Yep. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Um, yeah, I support this concept and appreciate the, um, the innovation I think that the administration is trying to bring forward. I guess I do have a question since this is sponsored by the Mayor's Office, so question for the Mayor or her team about the rationale for waiving Planning and Zoning Commission review.

Welcome, Miss Babb, Director Babb.

Through the chair to Member Voland, at the time that we were working on this, we had this in, in the queue. It was one of the things that we wanted to bring forward anyway, but then we started working on the micro unit project, and that project was moving forward rapidly, and the timing became a little bit more critical. There was some uncertainty about when that project was going to be finished and how long it was going to be in place. And so we had some uncertainty about that. And then the events in western Alaska happened right as we were to the point where we were thinking about sending this to PCC.

And we decided that this might be something that, um, could be critical in— to that event as well. So we had to go ahead and skip PCC in this one instance due to those, um, particular circumstances.

Thank you. I appreciate that answer. I, I think what I'm hearing, and you can correct me if this does not fairly characterize your answer, um, but there's sort of life, health, and safety urgency, and this needs to, to move forward soon, and that's part of the rationale? Yes, that was some of the rationale behind that, and unfortunately it doesn't look like the mayor's advisor, Thea Agnew-Bemben, is present, but she was part of that decision-making as well. Okay, um, you know, I appreciate that, and I, I think, you know, this is, um, I guess sort of one form of shelter or transitional housing.

And I guess that in future conversations around housing and shelter that we meet the moment and recognize the urgency that we have a housing crisis in Anchorage. And so balancing the very important reviews and advice with that urgency, I think— I guess I want it to extend beyond this specific ordinance and for us to be very efficient in meeting that goal of 10,000 homes in 10 years. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Right, anyone else?

I would also offer just as a edification of the decision to waive it. The outcry from the public is deafening, so we don't have a broad array of people coming to say we need more time with this. And so I think there's some affirmation of that decision just in the public hearing that just happened. So with that, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick.

Yes. On a vote of 12 to 0, and the youth member votes yes, AO 2025-128 has passed the body. Next, we'll have item 14B, AO 2025-129, an ordinance amending Anchorage Municipal Code 1045.060 to revise surcharges imposed on tickets for events held at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, permit revenues for the surcharge to fund operations, maintenance, and capital needs Alaska Center for Performing Arts. Public hearing on this item is now open. Anyone wish to be heard on this item, please come forward.

Anyone at all? Seeing and hearing none, public hearing on this item is now closed. What's the will of the body? Move to approve. Second.

Moved by Ms. Baldonday, second by Ms. Sprawley. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick. Mr. McCormick, are you there? Uh, you were cutting in and out. Is this, um, 14B?

Yeah, this is 14B, 14 Bravo, the motion to approve. Vote for us.

Yes. Say that again.

Yes. Yes. Okay, on a vote of 12 to 0 in the youth member votes, yes, yes, AO 2025-129 has passed the body. So one second.

So the next we're going to take up, I think, if there is no objection, the series of revenue measures that are on the agenda for tonight that I have heard most of the sponsors are prepared to postpone. And so rather than diving into them deeply, or if we do find ourselves diving deeply into them, it may be by necessity that we pivot back to our core mission tonight, which is the budget, as soon as it's when it's prepared in its final form. And so I think that I would like to ask the members to take up the questions of revenue measures that are going to be postponed to another night. So as a matter of kind of discourse, we have essentially through the second meeting in January to finalize questions on the ballot. It's never great to put all of these things to that time because we also have the bonds and everything else that have to get finalized at that second meeting in January.

But if we're going to have a series of revenue measures and we're going to have an opportunity to have a kind of community roundtable, it does argue to give some time rather than rush to December 2nd. And the holidays are probably not the best time, which really does argue for that first meeting meeting in January, start the new year with a bang. And so I'm going to argue for that, but each member has the right to move whatever they want to move. And so, um, we're going to go through those items. Point of information, Mr.

Chair. Mr. Rivera. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, can you remind me on item— on the item that was introduced, item 10G.5, did we change the public hearing for that item, or does it still stand at 12/2?

Wow, that's a good question. Um, is the administration determined to have a public hearing on its sales tax proposal on the 2nd of December?

Mr. Chair, I think our preference would be to open the public hearing and then continue it. I think more public hearing on this is better than much like we've done for all the other matters. And so I think that generally speaking, there's alignment around the idea of giving some time for community chewing on these various proposals. So good point, Mr. Rivera.

So that item notwithstanding, but with the express intent of the administration to open it and continue it, next up I'm going to ask that we take up in the following order: I am 11H, 11I, and 11J. And yeah, okay, so 11H, if there's no objection Is Mr. Mulholland. If I could make a suggestion, um, I'd like to time 13F and 11H to be held in the same meeting because they are tied together, sort of on the same topic. Yeah, the implementation of one could impact the other. So, um, why don't we make a motion to change the date, if you will?

Motion to postpone item 11H and kind of have that discussion in the umbrella of that, talk to the members who are sponsors of that item.

Okay, so we'll take up 11H and 13F after we take up 11I and 11J. It sounds like there was an actual objection, so we'll go ahead and do 11I, which is AO-2025-96, an ordinance of the Anchorage Assembly submitting to the qualified voters of the Municipality of Anchorage ballot proposition amending home rule charter to authorize 1% sales tax to fund Penny for Progress strategic investment program 9:00 AM. Public hearing was held. Action postponed from 9/9/2025 and 10/21/2025. Mr. Martinez.

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to ask my colleagues, similar to what you described, for a postponement tonight. Again, I'm going to ask for the postponement until 12:16. Um, and primarily, there may be another postponement to the first meeting of January, but I don't know that to be And so considering the administration's timeline, the larger conversations that are swirling around revenue that I think this is— that Penny for Progress, the strategic investment program, would— is an important part of, I encourage my colleagues to support a motion to postpone today until the meeting of 12/16.

Motion to postpone. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Baldwin-Day. Any further discussion? Seeing, hearing none, I'm going to ask members to proceed to vote.

Member McCormick.

Yes. I would also note that that includes 96S, so that's the whole suite under that Um, so on a vote of 12 to 0, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AO 2025-96 has been postponed to the meeting of 12/16. Uh, next one is item 11J, AO 2025-117, an ordinance submitting to the qualified voters of the municipality of Anchorage a ballot proposition amending the Anchorage Municipal Charter to adopt a 2% tax to fund public infrastructure and capital improvements to support housing construction, cultural recreation facilities, and provide for approval by a majority of the qualified voters voting on the question. There's also in this version Motion, Miss Brawley. Uh, yes, I would like to, uh, move to postpone this also to the item— or to the meeting of December 16th.

Second. So motion by Miss Brawley, second by Miss Baldwin-Day. Any further discussion on the motion? Is there any objection to the motion? Seeing here no objection, we'll consider that item postponed to the meeting of 12/16.

So, um, there was someone who expressed express the interest to have the question of item 13F before we come to the question of— I think it's no, 13F before we come to the question of 11H, I think it is. So if there's no objection, we'll ask that question now. AO-2025-115, an ordinance amending Anchorage Municipal Code Title 10 to add a new chapter requiring owners to register short-term rentals amending Title 12 requirements related to tax reporting for hosting platforms.

Waivering. Thank you. This item also includes an S and an S-1. This one is Ms. Baldwin-Day, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Walland. Move to postpone to 12/2.

Second.

So there's a motion to postpone to 12/2, moved by Mr. Walland, seconded Mr. Johnson. Any discussion? Mr. Rivera. Yeah, thank you. Just for clarification of the motion, this is a motion to continue the public hearing to that future date.

I'm sorry, I should have said motion to continue. Yeah, thank you. 212.2. Anything further? Thank you, Madam Clerk, for catching that.

Mr. Rivera. Okay. Um, is there any objection to that motion? I'm seeing and hearing no objection. So AO 2025-115 and all the subsidiary items will be back for us, 12-2, which now brings us back to 11F, 11H.

11H is AO 2025-97, an ordinance of the Anchorage Assembly submitting to the qualified voters of Municipality of Anchorage a ballot proposition amending Home Rule Charter to Res tax on short-term rentals. Mr. Voland. Thank you. And I think this one is a— just a motion to postpone to 12/2 because we've already had and closed the public hearing. So the motion to continue the meeting of 12/2, moved by Mr. Voland.

Is there a second? Second by Miss Brawley. Any discussion? Like to ask unanimous consent. Any objection?

Seeing here no objection, that item will be back before us on 12/2 with the concomitant been short-term rental registration.

So let me just run through my checklist quick. I'm sorry, we are all over the place tonight. It's a rare night like that. So we— so, Mr. Levarius, I'm going to ask you to just go in the audience for just a few minutes. We have a couple of marijuana alcohol licenses, but we're not done.

We have second second big budget item to go, so don't go far unless you're ready to go home. So you're right, but, um, I— yeah, I can totally relate if you do. I think most of us could. Okay, so next we'll take up the quasi-judicial administrative hearing items. Item 15A, Resolution R2025-346, resolution of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly regarding the renewal of municipal marijuana retail license M24383 for Primo Farms North LLC, DBA Primo stating the Assembly's conditional protest renewal of State of Alaska Marijuana License Number 24383.

This public hearing item— quasi-judicial public hearing on this item is now open. Anyone wish to be heard on this item? Anyone at all? Seeing and hearing none, public hearing on this item is now closed. Would swell the body to approve.

Second. Moved by Mr. Volland, seconded by Mr. Myers. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick? Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, AR 2025-346 is passed the body. Next we have item 15B, AR 2025-350, a resolution of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly approving alcohol special land use permit for beverage dispensary tourism license number 60232 for 108 East 8th DBA, 108 East East 8th in the B-2C Central Business District Periphery located at 108 East 8th Avenue. We've already— with it, thank you.

Public hearing on this item is now open. Anyone wish to be heard? Anyone at all? Seeing and hearing none, public hearing on this item is now closed. What's the will of the body?

Move to approve. Second. Moved by Ms. Brawley, seconded by Mr. Myers. Any discussion? Seeing, hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick?

Yes. On a vote of 12 to 0, AR 2025-350 has passed the body. Next we have item 15C, AR 2025-351, a resolution of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly approving alcohol special end use permit for a beverage dispensary, license number 3099, for Gogi Korean Barbecue in the B3 General Business District. Public hearing on this item is now open. Anyone wish to be heard on this item?

Anyone at all? Seeing, hearing none, the public hearing on this item is now closed. Let's roll the body. Move to approve. Second.

Moved by Mr. Myers, second Madam President, Madam Vice President, members of the board, welcome. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick. Yes.

On a vote of 12 to 0, AR 2025-351 has passed the body. So we're going to take another break.

Okay, it feels like we're gonna be able to finish this job.

Okay friends, let's come back together. I think we have enough information to tackle what we need to do. I'm gonna go ahead and take up Item 13C, I think it is. 13B.

Item 13B is AO 2025-107, an ordinance adopting the 2026 general government capital improvement budget. Public hearing on this item was continued from the meeting of 11/4/2025. 5, Also met on 10/21.

Public hearing is now open again. Anyone wish to be heard? Anyone at all? Welcome. Please state your name, what part of town you're from.

You'll have 3 minutes. It's on. Thanks. Yes, my name is Bruce Talbot, and I've been designated made by the Basher Community Council to speak on this issue tonight. Um, the Basher Community Council, uh, supports Yarrow Silver's amendment on this ordinance to include a proposed bond to be put forward to the Anchorage voters in April 2026.

If approved, this bond would include $1.5 million for the renovation and relocation of the Basher Trailhead parking area. The bond is proposed under the Chugach Act Community Access Service Area, or CASA, ordinance. By the time the Anchorage voters review the new bond proposal next April, the process for designing the lot relocation should be completed. Through the public engagement process, which is currently underway, voters will have a good idea what they're voting for. The design and public engagement process is funded by the $300,000 bond voters approved by 53% last April.

Using the funds from the bond, we, we compliment the city for promptly initiating the, the design and public engagement process. With the bond funding, contract surveyors and public engagement process has already begun, and you should have received a resolution from our community council in your email today that supports it, both from our local road service area and our community council. Basically, the current parking area is undersized and has dangerous entrance and results in people parking along the road with limited sight distance for oncoming traffic. A larger parking area that is relocated to an area with a safer entrance and egress is warranted. I think we went over this last year as well, of all the problems with it.

It. Now that the design process is well underway, there will be momentum to have the project completed in the near term while there is good public engagement. Delaying funding for completing the project for a year or more will only incur additional costs as conditions change, inflation grows, and the public becomes disengaged with the project and/or discouraged by the lack of follow-through. Look, um, in addition, I also, uh, see that there's an amendment in the agenda to fund the reconstruction of the Lost Cabin Trail. This trail would connect the Prospect Trailhead with the Basher Trailhead.

And it would make it possible for hikers, skiers, and bikers to travel between Glen Alps all the way down to Basher. So there would be a trans-Chugach trail system. Finally, there's a— so the completion of the Basher Trailhead parking area is our highest priority, but we also support, of course, the trail connection. Over the last several years, Anchorage voters have repeatedly supported park and recreation bonds that enable residents and visitors alike to experience all Anchorage has to offer. So we encourage you to vote for this amendment.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else wish to be heard? Anyone at all? Seeing and hearing none, public hearing on this item is now closed.

What's the will of the body?

Move to approve the original version. Second. Motion to approve the original version of AO 2025-107.

Moved by Ms. Spraulley. Second— oh no, moved by Mr. Voland, second by Ms. Spraulley. Mr. Voland. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Um, really appreciate all the thoughtful conversation that we had about some of these projects and how to prioritize them. I'm going to speak to the CASA projects and one of the ARSA projects, and then I'll I'll let my co-chair speak to the other— oh, do we need a motion? Or yeah, I'm gonna get there. Okay, well, I'll make that motion now too. We will move the amendment, the omnibus amendment.

Second. Motion to amend by Mr. Wallin, second by Brawley. Perfect. Okay, so yeah, I'll speak to the CASA, um, and the downtown Anchorage wayfinding, and then Anna will pick up where I left off. We've had a lot of conversation over the last few years um, about the Chugach State Park Access Service Area and how do we prioritize projects with maximum input from all stakeholders.

And that includes people living in the LERSAs, that also includes people living in ARTSA. And so I want to first start off by stating my sincere appreciation for the mayor and her team building out an advisory advisory group to have both Arts of Voices at the table as well as LURSA folks, and a lot of these people have different areas of expertise, so thank you for, for doing that.

This new advisory group, I guess I should say in its current iteration, is still kind of in its infancy, but I think really well poised to make some meaningful recommendations on what the plan for CASA should be going going forward. So in this omnibus, we did incorporate Chair Constant's amendment to sort of go back to the drawing board on what that plan is going to look like going forward with all those voices at the table and some really, I think, thoughtful research going into some of those projects. We have run in, as folks may recall, to some instances where projects came forward but didn't really have the time to be fully vetted by the administration before moving forward. So I think it's a good idea to take a little bit more time with the out years, but also be able to prioritize some of these, um, uh, projects that have been already discussed. You know, for instance, as we heard tonight here in public testimony, the Bashor Trail trailhead.

That's not new to us. We've had a lot of discussion around that, um, and so we folded in amendments from Member Silvers and Member Martinez that have to do with the Basher Trailhead parking lot and needed trail connections in that area. Um, we also have an amendment from myself on Stewart Trail wayfinding and signage, and I appreciate the administration costing that out for me. Folks, I think, are aware of some of the controversy on that, that easement. And we want to have signage that directs the public on how to safely use that trail while also being mindful of surrounding private property.

So that's kind of where we are with CASA. I still think we have some great projects that are going to move forward. And again, look forward to the recommendations from the advisory group. I'll also just highlight the Downtown Anchorage Wayfinding because I'm the sponsor on that, bringing that forward. That project is making strides, and I included some supplemental information in the packet.

Really excited about that, and the downtown community is very excited about that too. And that will— that work will continue and is already being installed. So anyway, yeah, very exciting stuff. Stuff. I think I will actually, before I turn it over to Anna, if it's okay, I'm going to move to amend this amendment with the floor amendment speaking to the intent around that advisory group that I mentioned.

So the clerk has the language via email, but I'm going to make one tweak on that. Um, we're going to add a section that will say the administration is requested to convene an advisory group with representation from ARTSA and service areas that provide roads and/or drainage services that are within the Chugach State Park Access Service Area (CASA) boundaries and shall develop a 6-year capital improvement program with a comprehensive list of projects for CASA improvements and submit to the assembly by information memorandum no later than March 31st, 2026. And to state legis— well, actually, I'll make that one second. Thank you. I'm getting ahead of myself.

I just want to hold on. Motion to amend the amendment by Mr. Mullin, second by Miss Briley. Go ahead. Yeah, just want to say for the record too, for state legislators that have weighed in on this and, and maybe want watching this closely, um, that I envision that some of the projects that were already on sort of the working list that folks have brought forward in the past, we are not permanently removing those. Just want to make sure that this advisor group has an opportunity to weigh in on those, and I envision that some of those will come back on the list that they come up with.

Thank you. Point of information, Chair. Mr. Johnson, do I have a copy of the language in this proposed amendment Somewhere, except the word shall is requested too. It's just better language.

And actually, Mr. Chair, if I might, um, this language is something that the, um, the administration is already doing. They've already convened that advisory group, and I just— I guess my encouragement to them to continue that process in a really meaningful way, in a robust way.

Okay, on the main, Mr. Johnson.

On the amendment to the amendment. Yeah, thank you, Chair. I would like to make an amendment to this, but I don't know if that's procedurally— so I will speak my concern then about where we stand in this process. And I'll say I had a conversation with the administration during the break here about how do we try and find the right balance here between sort of respecting the work that is still yet to be done by the advisory group while also trying to maintain maintain some consistency and recognize that the plan that was put forward previously for the program, while imperfect and a placeholder, was used to inform certain decisions, and that we have heard concerns from the state that in disregarding that and sort of leaving things in a protracted state of limbo creates some confusion and perhaps could jeopardize some state funding, and I, I don't want to put us into that position. Now, in talking to the administration during the break, the thought was that in fact this work could be completed and we could have a list presented by the advisory group by the end of January.

And I think that feels like a safer place to be, in that that would allow us to have a revised program that would be available at the essentially the start of the next legislature so that we could then represent to our state partners that in fact these are the projects that we intend to include and give them hopefully the confidence that they're looking for. So I'm not in a position to amend this amendment, but I think first I guess I would ask if the administration could speak to the feasibility of that approach and perhaps where they see that being advantageous. Through the chair to Member Johnson, um, certainly as we discussed in the break, we can absolutely take work under that timing. We've made a lot of progress already under the leadership of our Public Works team in pulling together, making sure that we're poised to, to launch that process. And so we understand the goal and objective of making sure that there is a list that's workable at the beginning of our, uh, the session of our state legislature.

So absolutely, we we can work with that timing. [Speaker:DR. BOLL] Yeah, I guess I'll say I appreciate the willingness to work with that timing. It would be ideally in a perfect world we have it already and not have to be engaged in this conversation. But yeah, I'll say that the perception of our commitment to these projects, you know, whether it is entirely justified or not, that perception does inform decisions that are made at the state. And I think as we navigate a fiscally challenging time, um, state level and the local level.

I think making sure that we show our willingness to serve as good partners to the legislature and receptive to their concerns, I think, is a valid issue. And so, uh, to be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with, um, doing away with the placeholder CIP that we have, but I think Perhaps if we could move up the delivery date for the working groups or the advisory groups product, you know, that might be an acceptable balance. Thank you. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] You were, and then—. Okay.

Yeah, I think on that, it would prompt more questions for me.

So the two arts folks that were recently able to join this sort of informal advisory group at the request of myself and Member Constant, who have been asking now for a couple years, we need to have some arts voices at the table when it comes to programming these projects. Um, and all the conversation that we've had around, you know, it can't— these can't just be road projects, they need to be access amenities, I don't need to rehash all that history, but the, the two members who were able to join, I believe that was just a couple months ago, maybe even weeks. And I guess my question would be, if we were wanting to shift this forward in time, you know, and this is a volunteer advisory group, we're in November now, so since, um, I guess Mr. Welber and Mr. uh, Ms. Dobson join the advisory group. How many times has that advisory group been convened by Mr. Culhace or whoever else is shepherding this process? Through the chair, to member Vohland, it's been convened once to date.

And so the goal again would be to pull— to make sure that this is a time priority for them. They are able to meet virtually, so we feel that there is— it's reasonable to be able to pull them together, um, in the next 2 months. [Speaker:ANDREW] Okay, I appreciate that perspective. I'm, I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced just because we're running into the holidays, um, and I really want this to be a meaningful process. I don't want this just to be, you know, we got two people on there but we're moving full steam ahead with what we've already planned.

I, and I think there's a lot of room for creativity here, um, and so for my part, I'm going to support, um, keeping the date as is in my amendment, but with the faith that if some time is taken and folks can be convened multiple times and having meaningful dialogue, I think the entire CASA capital plan can be greatly enhanced and can be something that Anchorage continues to strongly support. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Constant. Thanks. Okay, um, yeah, this again, I've had years of feelings on this question. Supporter of the CASA program.

The intent in my mind when I put it forward was to harmonize this conflict that has kind of been part of our experience as a city and a municipality since before 1974. And we were at an event on Friday First Friday where Jane Angvik got up and celebrated the fact that, oh, we used to have these fights. The edge of town was Northern Lights and the folks up on the hill, we never could figure it out. It's not like that anymore. I'm like, oh, we still have some of those conversations.

We haven't gotten that far. The hope of CASA is that it harmonizes those issues, but the hope cannot be achieved if the only people that have been consulted in creating lists interests are the people who stand to benefit, not just the people who will pay. And I know this got really warm last year, and I'm going to do my best to not get too warm today, but I have a lot of feelings about the fact that our Public Works team, who do great work in a lot of ways, have generated a list somehow, somewhere that was entered into a budget on the first part of October, right? Isn't that when the 120-day memo is proposed, when all of these documents start to move. So somehow the legislature acted in April on a document that didn't exist until October, and we're now being asked to hold ourselves to the fire of an irrational process because it couldn't have existed.

There was no CIP. And so, but I'm hopeful that this is the last time we come back to this this, that in fact there is meaningful work, not just fig leaf work, to bring together and harmonize the voices. Because there's like $25 million of projects that just came out of somewhere and landed on our proposed CIP without any input. $25 Million, that's like 5 years of parks bonds that serve a citywide interest. That's 5 years of park bonds that just somehow appeared in our or if we don't do this, then we're bad faith actors.

This hurts those of us who represent neighborhoods who are going to pay but really aren't going to benefit. And so I'm very hopeful that whatever the amount of time, whether it's 90 days or 65 days, or so that the folks in Juneau can have some confidence that Anchorage hasn't violated its own process that we can come to a point of harmony between the rural and the urban parts of this municipality, those who live in the highlands and those who live in the lowlands. Anyhow, Mr. Brawley. Mr. Johnson, again on the amendment.

Yeah, thank you. I, I have a question, but first I just want to kind of say that I respectfully disagree with the idea that neighborhoods pay but don't benefit. I think I think the fact that the voters approved the creation of the CASA as a bond mechanism, which was again, the entirety of Anchorage was, or all those within the CASA, which is essentially the bowl, were given the opportunity to vote and they affirmed that this is something they saw benefit in. Twice they have approved CASA bonds. So I think it is fair to say that generally the voters in Anchorage see the value here because they keep supporting these bonds.

And so I would argue against this conception that there is not benefit to that. Them. But I don't want to belabor that point here. What I would like to do is maybe ask the administration if they could provide us a little bit of a history about how we got to this point and where the list— I'll call it the placeholder list— came about and the timing of that.

Uh, it's through the chair to Member Johnson. So the act— the very, the very specific details on this we'd have to pull in our Public Works Director. My understanding is that, um, we— it was a somewhat informal process that led to this list that was informed by some of the members who were particularly, uh, engaged in the process of shaping, um, the CASA priorities and by some of the priority projects which had informed the process that led to the adoption of the service areas and things that were persistent issues, roads and parking areas, etc., that had driven interest in this funding mechanism becoming possible. And so certainly, I think we would agree that the process of refinement is important to make sure input from all parts of town, from all users of our— the Chugach Access Program are included in the process. And we would agree that there was a certain amount of informality to the development of the initial list.

But Ms. Braus is approaching and may have more things to say.

Through the chair, I will say that the nature of the CASA process from the very beginning is sort of something that the municipality is dealing with across the board. This is a new thing. This is a new bond category that is being created for contemplation throughout the entire municipality, and we have not established the formal process that these conversations are born through, at least not in the way that we can point at and say, this is how this will and should work from the beginning when we want to contemplate the premise of a new service area or a new levy of, of some magnitude. And CASA has made its way through and fought through the process because there was not an established protocol to do this. And I think that this last step in the protocol is appropriate because essentially what it is is the adoption of the body saying, yes, we agree that this program in the out years makes sense and it's what we would contemplate.

The other categories of capital projects have been worked and vetted through our continuation budget process and through the existence of these bond categories over time, and CASA being so new, it's trying to fit into our existing protocol, but it doesn't fit yet. So I think that this final step, or what could be the final step, in the protocol of how this is born from the beginning— the community identifies a need, the legislative body hears it and understands, okay, we need to make an adjustment here, the administration says this is how we would implement it if we were doing it this way, And this CASA process, at least from my visibility, is the first time in a very long time that a new service area for the entire municipality to contemplate was created. So the— what I will call, you know, stepped process of the advisory group meeting and convening and having those conversations, we did not execute the step where we bring that list back to the body to say, this is— these are the findings of the advisory group, and this is what the capital improvement program for the CASA bond will be for the next 5 years unless otherwise amended via the budget process. And I think that the blended amendments, including the January 31st timeline, could get us to that place where we bring what currently exists combined with the meeting meetings that the body, the advisory group, would be able to have between now and January forward to have that conversation. If the body adopts that at the time, that's the end of it.

If the body does not adopt the program at that time and wants to see additional amendments or additional deliberations, that's also possible. But I think that the ability for the advisory group to convene with the, with the intent of of not confusing what funding might be necessary or required before the legislature adjourns is absolutely possible and should not put the legislature in a position that they would not know what they may be appropriating additional funding for, particularly considering the 2026 projects are not being excluded. So the 2026 bond proposal would go forward and this would be contemplated for '27 and beyond.

All right, in the queue on the amendment to the amendment, Mr. Rowland.

Yeah, so, you know, I, I just, I guess I want to reiterate that there's more work to be done done here. You know, the last time we took up CASA, my recollection, and I think maybe others will recall too, is that a former member from East Anchorage brought forward an amendment for a project, and Mr. Falzy said on the record, you know, we haven't vetted that yet, we don't have a good cost analysis on that yet. So I think even the scope of some of these projects needs to be looked at in a really meaningful way. I support this in concept too. Listen, I go up Canyon Road to Rabbit Lake to go wild ice skating or hike the backside of Flat Top.

I get it. I'm an outdoor guy. I'm a user of some of these, these infrastructure facilities.

But I think we need to make sure that these projects are well vetted, that they are deliverable. Um, I— with Canyon Road, I think we're running into some, um, timing issues with, you know, the state is going to be doing some work with parking. And so I— while I recognize the, the public support that we've had, that the voters have time and time again strongly supported the CASA bond, I also think we need to have proof of concept that the projects that we program are delivered. And then I'm also, you know, I'm thinking about other advisory boards that we have, or, you know, for instance, when this body put together the Public Naming Commission, how thoughtful we were about that, making sure that, you know, we had different seats. There were members at large with an idea that they would come from different parts, different districts, different parts of Anchorage.

There was a historian, someone who has expertise in, in Indigenous knowledge or Denaina language. You know, we made it very specific, and with some of our boards that, that advise AMAPS, for instance, we really look for subject matter expertise. And so, you know, I think actually a future project really should be building out this advisory group and maybe even formalizing it a little fit. And just making sure that, yeah, we have all the voices at the table, that there's good consensus. Not everybody's idea is going to move forward, but at least there's thoughtful, meaningful collaboration.

And so again, I, I would, I would prefer that we take a little bit more time with this. You know, I think even one meeting of this advisory group before this comes before us is just insufficient. We, we haven't done enough yet. There's more work to do, and I want to support it in the long term as CASA moves board. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. We have the amendment to the amendment before us. Any further discussion?

Seeing, hearing none, uh, is there objection to the amendment to the amendment, which is to add the convening?

I see you thinking, Mr. Johnson. So, point of information, Mr. Chair. We're not voting on the change of date. We're changing on this, just adding language.

This is an amendment that requests the convening of the advisory group in a timely manner to achieve some consultation. Yeah. Okay, I'm not hearing any objection, so we're going to consider the amendment to the amendment. We're now back on the amendment as amended. Any further discussion on the amendment?

Miss Brawley? Yeah, um, and I know it's been a long night, so I'm just going to briefly cover the this other pieces in the omnibus just to orient folks. So items 2 through 4, you will see the reference on the right there. 2 Through 4 were items that were discussed in the work session on the 7th, and these are all for the arts bond as noted. Amendments 5, 6, and 10 were projects that were brought forward by the administration.

You will also see Member Baldwin-Day on the one on Tutor Center. Those are ones that were identified as drainage priorities with recommendation to include those on the 2026 ARSA bond. So we are bringing them forward. There is information in the packet. They're all existing projects.

As we all recall, there was a whole list of projects for 2026, and then those were removed between the 120J memo and the budget. So those are existing projects. On number 7, I will note traffic calming. That was one we had a lot of discussion over the years on pedestrian safety. And so that is one that is again an existing line item.

It is not ARDSA, it is area-wide, and it is for things like speed humps, the traffic calming program. So it is an increase to the existing funding. And then lastly, I'll just point briefly to the conforming amendment at the end. You have the language, um, and this— there was a similar amendment in the operating omnibus. So just to note, those are there.

And then I will also say again And these are really setting what would be the ARDSA bond and the CASA bond, obviously, for '26 for those projects. There are additional opportunities to change that list, to add to it, and then the consideration, of course, is how big does it get in total. And so that is a conversation we can bring back as we deal with the bonds in January. But just so folks understand what is in this omnibus. Thank you.

Ms. Silvers. Yeah, I'll just speak to the Bashor-CASA amendment. Initially, we had some additional planning money for this project, but we don't actually need additional planning money. The project is— it's ready to move forward. Its planning stage is near an end, and the public process is ongoing.

And so I think this is really an opportunity to honor voter intent by really actually going in and completing a high priority project that's ready to move forward with no additional planning funds. And it is going to provide better parks access to people across the Anchorage Bowl. So people from East Anchorage, Downtown, Midtown, even West Anchorage are really going to be able to enjoy enhanced access to Chugiak State Park through this, getting this completed. Thank you. Miss Baldonday.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to speak briefly to, um, an amendment that of mine that I actually withdrew, um, and wanted to have it on the record that, um, the, the Coventry Drive stormwater project that I requested to move forward to 2026, uh, as rather than '27, um, after after further discussion with PM&E, recognized that their— the design work is not yet ready for that project. And so we will keep the timing as is. I've been assured that design work will happen in '26 and then construction in '27. So I'll be grateful to see that longstanding drainage need get some resolution, but it is not before you tonight.

Further questions? Further comments?

Seeing and hearing none on the amendment as amended, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. McCormick, can I call back the roll? You wanted to speak on the main. You were in the queue. Oh yeah, we're on the amendment still, so you give me a minute.

Amendment, we can get back on the main motion. Sorry. Yep, no problem. Thank you. OK, OK, so how do you vote on the amendment?

Yes.

On a vote of 10 to 2, the amendment has passed. Sorry, Mr. McCormick.

I just want a quick point of— start with a point of information, I guess. Are all the amendments forward, or are we working through each amendment? You know, every— everything is done in one shot, including a conforming amendment and an additional amended language that says the administration is requested to work a process with the cost advisory group. So that's all adopted now into the main.

There are no additional—. Okay, uh, can I move forward, uh, an amendment to line item out Amendment 7, the traffic calming and safety improvements A motion to amend by striking line 7. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay, motion to amend by Mr. McCormick and then seconded by Mr. Myers.

Mr. McCormick.

Yeah, just in my engagement, uh, in the community councils and with the public, I've seen an overwhelming support and cries against this traffic calming and lowering the speed limits. It seems a lot of— and the lane narrowings— it seems a lot of the language is directed at drivers. And I think when looking at the data, the pedestrian deaths have spiked and increased greatly, but that spike came relatively quickly. This hasn't been a slow, steady climb. Sort of blame vehicles getting larger, braking distances on vehicles being extended.

It doesn't align with the facts of the data when graphed, in that this spike occurred coincidentally right after this. I'm sorry, point of order.

Mr. McCormick, hold on. A point of order is being raised. Ms. Barley. Yeah, thank you.

I'd like to ask the clerk, just to be clear, because Mr. McCormick, you're speaking on an amendment that we already voted on. I think I, I am not clear exactly what we are allowed to continue talking about or not, or to take further action on. Could I get clarity from the clerk, please? Madam Clerk. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Um, I don't believe this is in order. You have a line 7 was in the omnibus. You discussed the Then you went to an amendment to the amendment. The amendment to the amendment was voted on unanimous consent.

The omnibus was voted on, it was 10 to 2, and so that is closed. So we are now on the main motion as amended, and so that amendment has already been closed, if that is a good term to put. Okay, Amendment 7 is closed and Amendment 1 closed as well.

I'm sorry, Keith, what did you say? Amendment 7 is closed, I understand. Is Amendment 1 and Amendment 9 closed? It's my understanding they are all closed. It's my understanding all of the items were— all 12 items were all considered under the omnibus.

So proceed. Okay. Okay, so I think then the point of order is such that the motion is out of order because the body just adopted the motions. And I think there was a little bit of a procedural snafu because I called on you after the vote essentially was underway. Um, and so you voted in the affirmative on the previous motion?

So you are within your rights to make a motion to reconsider the previous question, which would then bring back before us the amendment as amended if 7 members agree with you. I'll move to reconsider. So there's a motion to reconsider by Mr. McCormick. Is there a second?

Chair, just a point of information, it has to be seconded by somebody who voted in favor. No, no, anybody can. Okay, then I'll second. So motion to reconsider is made by Mr. McCormick, seconded by Mr. Myers. Um, are you in the queue on the motion, or is that on the main?

Okay, so, um, would you like to speak to the motion to reconsider?

Yeah, I guess with all of the handouts and how quickly we've gotten these packets, even though I'm not present to receive the handout physically but electronically, and how much we've moved the agenda, I guess I was not fully understanding the last vote and amendment.

Mr. Myers, I guess I would just say for the point that Keith wanted to be in the queue and we voted before he was given a chance to speak, is why I would give him an opportunity. I would note that the comment, the quote was, I'll wait until this amendment is decided and we're back on the main motion. That's actually the request that I had, so it mitigates an argument meant to support the motion to reconsider, but still procedurally, members, you have— yeah, motion to reconsider is debatable. Um, Mr. Boland. Um, I will support the motion to reconsider, uh, just because I, I do appreciate how late we got this packet.

I guess I do want to make it explicit that in reconsidering the motion, the intent of the budget co-chairs was to take these all up as one omnibus amendment, not to go through them one by one. So, um, yeah, if members want to, um, amend that as an omnibus, great, or do a line item or bifurcate. Well within your wheelhouse. Um, but yeah, I, I guess out of courtesy for my colleague, happy to support the motion to reconsider.

Anyone else? Members may proceed to vote. Motion is to reconsider. Member McCormick.

Yes.

On a vote of 10 to 2, the motion to reconsider has passed. So we're now back on the main motion as amended. Mr. McCormick, you have the floor. I'm sorry, we're on the omnibus amendment as amended. Yes, thank you, Mr. McCormick.

Okay, omnibus as amended. Can I line item amend Or to remove 1 and line item 1 and 7.

So you're making a motion to delete lines 1 and 7? Correct. Okay, so the motion is to delete lines 1 and 7 by Mr. McCormick. Is there a second? Second.

Second by Mr. Myers. Mr. McCormick.

Yeah, just to quickly pick up where I left off with traffic calming. I've not seen wide public support. I think this is targeting the wrong part of the equation with the pedestrian death spikes that we've seen. I think there's improvement to be done elsewhere. Same with the downtown wayfinding.

Not saying it's a terrible idea, I'm saying now is the right— not the right time, and there's other priorities that should be taken up for that reason, I would be looking to strike these two. Thanks.

Right, on the motion, Ms. Solvers, on the amendment. Um, yeah, I guess I'd just like to hear from the administration, um, what they have planned for traffic calming, because as far as I know, a lot of times traffic calming isn't slower speeds or narrower roads. Sometimes it It's speed bumps, stop signs, you know, enforcement in certain areas. Actually, traffic calming is very popular amongst some community councils, especially in areas near where a lot of children walk to school, because sometimes traffic calming can make routes to school a little safer. In fact, I actually got involved in the public process process initially with my community council because I worked to get speed bumps put on my street where people drove very fast and a child was hit by a car in front of my house.

And so that was kind of my introduction into this whole political arena. And so I do think that traffic calming has broad support and it is a whole lot more than just narrower roads and lower speeds. And so I guess I would like to ask the administration if they can talk a little bit more about what this amendment entails.

Through the chair to Member Silver. So this traffic calming funding is essentially one of the buckets of funding that we build into the, the capital program. And so it essentially allows the traffic department to make it further down the list. The more funding they have, they make it further down list of priority projects, and it includes everything you've listed. It includes pedestrian-oriented projects, it includes speed bumps, it includes speed tables, it includes a wide variety of different things as the department implements in order to make, uh, to calm traffic on our roadways.

So it's the, um, we'd have to— we could do a deeper dive into, if we had more time, into all of the different things that are on that list. But the reality is it's just, again, it's a bucket of funding that allows allows the— and increasing it allows the department to make it further down that list of projects that they have that are designed with traffic calming as the objective.

Okay, Ms. Braly. Yeah, thanks. Just to add to what was shared, so this item has been on the bond. This is really in addition to an existing bond item. A few years ago, I believe the funding total was $500,000.

And again, as Member Silver said and as Ms. Moon Pearson said, this is one of the most popular things in every community council. I don't know how many resolutions I've seen over the years supporting traffic calming in whatever form that takes. And we know that there's a much longer list of projects than ever get funded because of the, the need is greater than the resources. And so that's historically how the this has been used.

This— it has been increased by the administration as well over the years and passed by voters every time. And so I would say, um, and we've— we've seen or we've heard several examples of how that's used. So I would say if the intent is to not increase that funding, then removing this $500,000 does not take it out of the bond or does not take it out of the list. And if the intent is to defund traffic calming, that I I would suggest looking at the entire bond when we take that up. And then I would also argue that there will not be a lot of support for that move with the public because again, this is something that almost—.

Point of order. —Community council asks for. Thanks. Point of order. Mr. McCormick, what's your point of order?

She cannot speak on behalf of the public support.

No, that's actually not a point of order. I think that if I were to reflect on the testimony provided by you, She actually said individuals in my area don't like this, and so it's along the same lines. I spoke on the experience I had. She spoke on potential of the general public. She did not speak on her experience.

It actually doesn't matter. There's no point of order there. I overruled.

Nobody's going to try to roll over another member for speaking unless they're speaking to the motive, speaking— I mean, you could actually boldface live from this dais if you wanted. In fact, our social medias tend to do that a lot. So, um, Mr. Bond.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will just say that my sense of what my constituents support is more traffic calming. I often hear from Spinard, from South Addition, from Fairview, from Mountain View, we want speed bumps, we want stop signs, we want our roads to be safer by design. We want complete streets, we want lane drops.

Um, and so, you know, we all represent our constituents, or our districts maybe vary, um, in their priorities and their needs. But, um, I, I think I'll also just highlight, in the last two budget cycles, we have increased the amount for traffic calming, and voters have supported that on the bonds. Um, a couple cycles ago, it was myself and Member Brawley O'Malley, who brought forward an increase, and then in the mayor's last budget, she increased it even more from there. So I think much in the same vein that voters have supported CASA with strong support, I think they've also demonstrated strong support with their votes on the bonds for traffic calming. Um, so I am not going to be in support of this amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Bolandé.

Thank you, Chair. Um, with respect to— I believe, um, Amendment Number 1 was also on the list to strike. Am I correct about that? Um, yeah, just wanted to note that, that, that bond is an ARDSA bond, um, which by definition means that, um, members or residents on the hillside would not be paying for downtown Anchorage wayfinding. Um, those who live in the ARTSA area, service area, would be doing that.

So, um, I'm curious as to Member McCormick's rationale for including this, uh, including line item number 1, amendment number 1, in his amendment.

Do you wish to get back in the queue, Mr. Chair McCormick?

No, thank you. Thank you. All right, I don't— oh, Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Chair. Just one note to primarily, I guess, to the administration with respect to traffic calming.

Similarly to Member Silver's, this is traffic calming and safety improvements are often very much enthusiastically received in East Anchorage and across many parts of our community, but not by everyone. One, in all fairness. But I would want to say to the administration especially, I'm more interested now in beginning to have a more holistic look at the relationship between traffic calming, safety improvements, and economic development. Because I think that traffic calming is not the same on every street. So I think there's a difference between traffic calming in residential neighborhoods where there's a school like Nunaka Valley, and that's a safety issue, versus traffic calming on corridors like— where there are pedestrian and safety issues like Muldoon, but where every mile per hour down creates more economic opportunity.

Because if you're flying through a corridor where there are small businesses, you're not likely to stop. So there's a relationship between traffic calming, safety, and in some corridors economic opportunity. And I'd like us to try to figure out that nexus a little closer because I think it matters. Thank you. Anyone else?

Motion is to amend the amendment.

That's right. Okay, the motion is to amend the amendment. No one else? Members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick. Yes.

On a vote of 3 to 9, and the youth member votes no, no, the amendment has failed. We're now back on the main— excuse me, back on the amendment as amended. Any further discussion? Members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick? No.

On a vote of 9 to 3, and the youth member votes yes, SAO 2025-107 as amended has passed the body. That brings us to our final item.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were done. Main motion is I think that was the amendment. Okay, sorry, that was the amendment. So now we're back on AO 2025-107 as amended.

Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick on AO 2025-107 as amended.

No. On a vote of 9 to 3, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AO 2025-107 as amended has passed the body.

Next we have one last item. I think it's 11C.

11C is AR 2025-296, a resolution adopting the 2026 to 2031 General Government Capital Improvement Program. First public hearing was closed 10/21, second public hearing 11-4, no motion pending. Move to approve. Second. Moved by Miss Sprawley, second by Miss Baldwin-Day.

Any discussion? Miss Sprawley. Yeah, just briefly, um, to clarify, so, uh, what was just 13B that we just finished was the CIB, the capital budget. We did make changes to out years in there, and so, um, just to point to everybody's— for your awareness, this is a resolution that will adopt essentially the CIP as what we just voted on, and it does not obviously include all of the detail that we had, but that is why we're taking this up after we do the CIB. Thank you.

Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, members may proceed to vote.

Member McCormick. No.

On a vote of 9 to 3, and the youth member votes yes, yes, AR 2025-296 has passed the body. All right, I think we got everything. If we didn't, I'm sorry, we'll come back to it if the clerk finds out we missed anything.

Next up on the agenda then, we have audience participation. If you'd like to be heard, please come forward.

Please come forward if you're going to come forward. Please, no parades. Welcome. Please state your name, what part of town you're from. You'll have 3 minutes.

Microphone is off.

There you go. I'm Bill— William Backstrom from Fairview area, and, uh, When you go out to Wasilla to Palmer, I mean, go out to Wasilla, you don't see no farms anymore. And another thing is, when I went hunting a couple years ago, Manuel Hawk Spring, they shut down the school because they didn't have enough kids. Now they're talking about shutting down Glacier View School going up to Glenallen. When I went to the FFA convention the Glacier View School almost had just as much kids going to that FFA convention than the other schools.

And I support FFA, I support 4-H and everything. Alaska Farm Bureau's chapter is coming to Anchorage, what I hear, and I'm trying to get the Grange coming into Anchorage. Thank you. Thank you. Please come forward, state your name, what part of town you're from.

You'll have 3 minutes.

Okay, uh, Jamie Lopez, East Anchorage, formerly Coalition, formerly homeless. So, unprepared remarks. You did it, you got through it. Uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's been a process. Uh, you know, the sausage making, it takes a while.

But you get to its full glory and you've sort of almost gotten there, but it's just a couple more minutes in the night. And Mr. Perez Verdia, you're a couple octaves lower—. Excuse me, yeah, octaves lower, not quite a baritone, but you know, you definitely have a cold of some sort or something's got you. So yeah, don't know what to say. Had sort of a troll thing where I was going to bring up an amendment to the capital improvement event program where it was, uh, you know, suggesting VFX and Claymation Studio.

But, you know, what can I say? Uh, in, in the, uh, in the time that I had to leave somewhere and come back, I did not have time to grab it. Uh, Ali, I don't know if you have any gold stars back there for anybody. Uh, you got through the night too. Uh, so I think I'll just leave it at that.

I get some sleep. See you tomorrow, and, uh, have a good night.

Anyone else wish to be heard, please come forward.

Please state your name, what part of town you're from. You'll have 3 minutes.

Mari Mahana, 5090 Sillery Circle in Anchorage. Um, this is my first time actually coming to an actual meeting, and it was definitely eye-opening. Um, it really disturbs me that members would say, oh, these are just little teeny cuts. These are just little teeny cuts.

What are you saying to the members of this community when you're not willing to take little teeny cuts to make a budget on the budget, but you're willing to propose a sales tax? Obviously you aren't in the same, uh, income level as I am because I have to watch my pennies, and pennies come up and make dollars. And I, I think that you guys are out of touch.

I, I don't think you understand what people go through. A 3% sales tax, let's just take that for example. The average Uh, the average monthly cost of living minus food in Anchorage is, um, $6,000 a month. That comes to $72,000 a year. 3% Of that is $2,100 a year, which is a $180 pay cut.

Well, that $180 pay cut is my light bill and my electric bill. Bill. So am I getting any value out of that $180 pay cut I am when I paid a 3% tax? And that's without food. So I just, I just think you guys are out of touch.

Um, I, I worry about random projects just being pushed through, somebody's pet project. Tonight it was reading. What is it other nights? I think that they should— I think you should deliberately talk about all the different pet projects that are forced through. It disturbs me that a project was able to go through without doing the proper channels because of life and death or expediency.

Always projects should have to go through the correct channels. So that's, that's my thoughts for tonight. Thank you for listening to me, and I really appreciate, uh, you guys' work. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else wish to be heard tonight? Welcome. Please come forward if you're going to speak. Now is your chance. All right, please state your name, what part of town you're from.

You'll have 3 minutes. Hello, my name is Sherry Streese. I come from Drifton Trude with Mr. Myers and Mr. Gawker. Thank you very much. I'm kind of concerned about— we were looking at some of the Federation of Community Council grants.

The MOA would actually be the grantor, the grantee being the federal community councils, and we're also wondering where that money is kind of going to and being funded from. My concern is the Municipality of Anchorage is part of the Global Covenant of Mayors, which is also part of the plan for C40 and also COP30, which is also in collaboration with the Bloomberg Philanthropies Group. So I'm wondering if this is all part of plan— we talk about this calming, lane drops, speed bumps, and all this— how does that factor into making the Municipality of Anchorage a smart city, also known as a 15-minute city? So just some things to kind of be concerned about. And I do applaud the lady that was up here just before me talking about how she appreciates the work that you've done and talking about all the things you're talking about.

And we're not really looking at these small cuts, which do add up over time. If you're asking families to reduce what they're spending, then how can we not ask the same of our assembly. We had lots of folks bring up, you know, bring up the cuts but also bring in taxes. Well, how is that going to help anybody, especially our communities? And that goes back to the community councils again.

So if we're going to ignore our communities and the councils, that also brings us back to those grants. And who's over— why is the municipality overseeing those grants? Grants. So it's interesting to me that we're not really discussing that, and we couldn't find any documentation. There was documentation on those grants in 2025.

They've dropped off. You can no longer access them, and we have to go way back and find those documents. Thank you very much.

All right, please come forward. Welcome. State your name, what part of town you're from. You'll have 3 minutes.

Hello, my name is Michael. I'm Michael Oaks, 1784 Eastridge Drive. I'm a clinician with the mobile crisis team in the Anchorage Fire Department. I was here when the first budget was being addressed, and I I appreciate you guys defending that budget because I now have a drop— job that I love to do. I'm here to advocate for the second mobile crisis team that is funded right now until the end of the year, and there is no funding for the firefighter position on that team going into 2026.

I believe long term it's going to be beneficial to the budget It's going to improve our quality of service and also the resilience of me and the other clinicians on the team. For the budget, the conversation of overtime and for like APD and AFD came up earlier. In terms of 911 calls, the mobile crisis team takes like— is the busiest rig in the city. I know for the fire department I'm guessing it's up there for the APD too. So for efficiency and the ability for one team to take a number of calls, like the mobile crisis team has done that.

For quality of service with the mobile, with the second team in service, our response time has reduced as well as our time on scene. So rather than feeling rushed to have to go from call call to call. We've been able to spend time with people, taking time to help people set up services, taking time to ensure that, that people have a good outcome to where they're not having to call 911 again. And for the topic of resilience, our average is 12 calls most of the time. When there was a, what do you call it, when they did a review of our team and what should be expected, it was 6 calls.

So we're doing twice the average of what's expected. Some days I've done 20 to 26 calls in a 12-hour period. That's something that I can't do forever. I love the job. I love the fire department.

I enjoy what I do. To do, but if that was the way that I had to work every day, it wouldn't be something that I'd be able to do long term. So, um, yeah, please support the second mobile crisis team. I think it'll be good all around.

There's someone has a question for you or comment, sir. Yes, I have a question. First of all, thank you for being here. Thank you for the work that you do Um, but just a practical question, who gets denied the service that you provide? Who gets denied?

Yeah, when a call comes in, is there a filtering process to see who should get the service or not? That is dispatch. So any 911 call goes through APD dispatch first, and then if it's appropriate, it'll get sent to the fire department. Thank you.

And I just want to say thank you for serving our city. I know it's tough work, and we're here for you. All right, anyone else? Welcome. Please state your name, what part of town you're from.

You'll have 3 minutes.

Hello, my name is Mark Vokov, uh, Westside. Um, sorry, this is very unprepared, and I missed speaking on, uh, the 1% sales tax, um, but I want to just give a little bit of my thoughts, and especially hearing the other ladies that spoke, uh, a couple, couple people ago, um, I, I understand, uh, that there is a fiscal problem, um, but I don't think there's— that there's been very good messaging about what the problem actually is. And I think we can look towards the whereas, um, on 2025-96 on line 11 where it says the municipality's current fiscal model is structurally imbalanced, and that's about it for explaining what the actual problem is. There's—. That's, that's so vague it's useless.

I don't know what the problem is. I've heard a couple of times from two people total that there may be a problem with, with the tax cap, and it is just fundamentally broken, and over a long period of time it may not keep up. And if that is the case, that's, that's pretty large. And in that case, I really don't believe that a sales tax is the solution to any problem. If we have a tax cap formula that is broken, why are we not addressing the tax cap formula and fixing that instead of tacking on more taxes?

And then we get comments like we just did. Um, I think there's another issue, uh, sorry, I lost my train of thought. We'll leave it there. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Anyone else wish to be heard?

I'm not seeing anyone else. We'll go ahead and move on to the next part of our agenda, which is member comments, starting with Mr. Mr. Hresrudia. Thank you, Chair. Just a few thank yous tonight. Thank you again to the administration for your work on this budget.

Uh, thank you to my colleagues for your work as well. Um, I, I thought it was a really good process. I want to thank especially the people who have come out and speak for the first time. We really love hearing from you, so thank you for coming and waiting and being, being here tonight. I really appreciated the comments.

Um, and, um, uh, that's all my comments. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Grover. Yeah, thank you for all the, uh, laughs and memories tonight.

Have a good night. Thank you, Mr. Rivera. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just good work, everyone.

Thank you, Ms. Alvarez. No comments. Thank you, Mr. Boland. Yeah, thank you for a productive evening.

We passed the budget. Good job, team. Ms. Brawley. Yeah, I'll echo those thanks, um, and I'll just say we, we have a lot of tough, um, issues to, to continue working on. So I think that's, that's the theme.

Thanks. Mr. Johnson, no additional comments. Thank you, Ms. Baldwin-Day.

My favorite part of the, of the evening was standing back with high school kids during the break and explaining to them some of the finer points of our procedure that were are really confusing for anyone who sits out in that audience, and quite honestly are confusing to those of us who sit on the dais sometimes. And watching them start to understand what we're doing here and why and actually get excited about it and ask more questions was hands down the most rewarding part of this, seeing young people involved in civic process. So shout out to Miss Hazlett, Miss Zogus, and Miss Logan. Again for sending your students our way.

Thanks, Ms. Baldwin-Day. Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of comments. First, I appreciate my colleagues and all of the work they did.

Appreciate the administration and to the folks that worked with me specifically to understand and to move some agenda items forward. I also want to specifically just give a shout out to our first responders and to the folks in our community who serve the public in a way that is difficult for us to understand, but I'll give one sense of this. As a family person, I can shut my door and I don't have to respond to the noise in the street.

I can close my door and say, "I don't know about it. I don't want to hear about it." But as the first responders, when you get the call and dispatch says, "Go," you go. And that's true for all across the city. And there is no litmus test at the dispatch level of, "Are you worthy because you have the right income level? Are you worthy because where you come from, from national origin?" The dispatch-level analysis is, is this an issue that needs to be responded to by one of our units?

And then they determine the right unit, the right response, as best as we can across the city. And so, unlike families, the public sector has an obligation that transcends the choice of whether or not we want to serve somebody we may or may not like or even know. And so I just wanted to be real clear about that. That this evening. And Chair, on that same note, it is very expensive in Anchorage.

The prices of groceries is too doggone high. The price of food is too doggone high. And I hope that as we have these conversations together around revenue, we don't overlook the quality of life conversations, because I think that there are some real important things that we all need to learn together but they don't preclude the, the fundamentals of what it takes to run the public space of a municipality. And the final note, Chair, a good note. This week I received two phone calls, and Member Yarrow was with me on one of the phone calls.

Well, it was in person, essentially. Two phone calls about concern of public safety and security in our community. And one of the phone calls asked, "Why are we not bringing in the National Guard?" The other phone call asked, "What could we do together as a community?" I want to juxtapose those two because at the end of the day, what you've heard with this fiscal conversation, you've heard me repeat it, you've heard many members of this body and the administration say, no one else is coming to save us. That's true fiscally, that's true in a variety of ways.

I salute the community that got together and said, "We are afraid enough to break the walls that separate us as neighbors." So we'll break those walls, we'll find each other as neighbors, and then from there we can start addressing solutions together. That to me is how communities work. That's how our community is successful. And in that conversation, there were no political sides. There were just purpose.

The more we find purpose, the more we roll our sleeves up together, Chair. That's what makes our city special. That's what makes this work special. It's a privilege to be with you all. Thank you, Chair.

Right, um, Mr. McCormick— I think he fell off. Not present. Mr. Myers. Well, I kept waiting for that 3-minute bell to go, but it didn't. Well said, George.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

So, um, I apologize everyone that this was a bit of a cattywampus agenda. We got through it, and again, I'm sorry if we missed anything. We'll clean it up on the back end. Thank you for everybody who worked so hard to get the budget done, and with that, we'll be Adjourned.