Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re AO 2026-98, amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 4.60 and 27.30.085 to...

Which is in pretty poor condition, leads up to the backside of Flat Top, the Sunnyside Trail. 2025 Was designed for the Basher parking lot. And then in 2026, projects like wayfinding for the Stewart Trail, construction of the Basher parking lot. So we've had a lot of robust discussion, debate on how these decisions are made. How are projects prioritized, and how does the entire service area have a voice in those decisions?

And so some of that is still not settled.

Another interesting layer to this is that we did direct inclusion of CASA as a category in the capital improvements program. That was done via resolution. And so making sure that the needs of all, you know, all of our community are met and that we prioritize the CIP in a way that is fair.

We did have a great advisory group recently in this convene— I guess convene recently and put together. We had directed them via resolution to put forward their proposal on a CIP, and they've done that. They have a draft that they have sent to us, and I thank them for their work on that. So I think that part of what they've done can also be used as a model to inform a formalized working group.

So what does Chuuketch access mean? I think it can mean a lot of things, and this is something that was debated. I was on the body when we debated putting the service area, the creation of the service area before voters, and there was a lot of discussion on it should not be just road improvements, although those are very important. That was part of the, I guess, original impetus of the creation of CASA is that a lot of those roads have heavy use. A lot of folks, you know, both residents and tourists want to be able to use the park.

But we also discussed the importance of access-supporting amenities. That could be trail improvements, that could be You know, if we have the right agreements in place with the state, that could mean public restrooms was something that was talked about. It could mean a gazebo where you have a place to wait out of the rain while the rest of your party is hiking back. Or could we have a shuttle to take folks up to the trailhead? So those amenities are part of it.

There's a broad range of types of projects that can support access. But I think we can put in place a process that better helps us decide what do we prioritize? How does that fit in with the processes that we already have, like the CIP? And how does the public weigh in before these recommendations come before the Assembly? That is something that has been lacking.

Although the, the work of the advisory group, the current working group, has been very helpful, those meetings have not been public meetings, and there hasn't been things like public hearings, for instance.

So the creation of CASA, this is the ballot language that was put before voters. And it was, as I mentioned, created to pay for local projects that enhance access. And there's a couple highlighted pieces here that I think are important. Number one, and a lot of this is kind of the framing of a lot of this presentation, there are different stakeholder groups who I think have different priorities. They're coming from a different perspective and how do we balance those things.

So projects that support access to portions of Chugach State Park that are located within the service area, right? So that's part of the incentive for, I think, one stakeholder group is supporting access. But then also there's another emphasis to ameliorate the neighborhood effects of access by park users. Projects could include road and parking improvements, park access, and park access supporting amenities.

So who supports CASA? I think this is interesting because I think especially when we think about how CASA projects, CASA bonds are messaged to voters, we should be looking at where is the support for this mechanism coming from. Interestingly, downtown Anchorage really supports the CASA bond. You can see 81% of voters in Voter Precinct 510 supported it. West Anchorage has demonstrated a high rate of support for CASA projects.

Ship Creek, Airport Heights.

And then looking at the most recent election precincts with the— let's say— oh, what did I say? High support. Oh, here's some more with high support. Girdwood, for instance. Important to know that Girdwood is not within the service area, but they vote on the bonds because of— we're pledging the full faith and credibility of the municipality.

Precincts with the lowest support, also interesting to me. One of them is the Hillside. Similarly, the Eagle River, Chugiak precincts, they are not within the service area.

They vote again. Pledging the full faith. But I think that we all are aware of that, that area of town sort of has a predisposition to voting no on bonds. They have a different kind of fiscal outlook there. Did you want to comment on that, Diane?

No, not a comment, just a question. So, but it's still—. Mr. Hanlon, sorry, go ahead. It's still 60%, I guess, that support it. So I guess, is that, or is that, or is that reversed?

Is that 60% support it? So it's a little, it's a low— yeah. Okay, so the difference between, I guess, the highest to the lowest is still within general support. Okay, yep. And then in—.

Oh yeah, I'd like to correct the record because it's the opposite. I have the wrong person. Okay, this slide shows the precincts voting no. Okay, yeah, that percentage is not in favor, voted no against the bond. Okay, yes.

So, and then in the highest support, that was for folks who voted yes. Free for clarification. Exactly, yes. And then also, just in case you missed it, that very first slide of these three is for establishing CASA, and then these second two are on the bond itself. So also, I think a little bit of a distinction there.

Thank you, Ellie. And I'll just briefly note, I know it says on the slide, but I want to point to, it's the word precinct. And so if you look at a precinct map, those numbers correspond. So, so just want to be clear too. When it says Northeast Anchorage or West Anchorage or Hillside, it doesn't mean that the larger area that we necessarily call that, it's the precinct within that.

So folks want to do dig into those maps just to be clear that we're not painting too broad of a brush. Okay, so let's just recap so we're all on the same page factually here. Let's go back to— okay, so yes, this first slide is the creation, the establishment of ACASA, who supported that most strongly. The second one here is the recent election. So this would be that recent bond proposal, as I mentioned, Stewart Trail wayfinding, Bashor parking lot, the precincts who most strongly supported that.

And as Ali has corrected me on the record, which I'm happy to be, and I highly recommend working with Ali on any presentation that you want to create, is here are folks who who voted no. So again, I just think it's interesting to look at sort of the differing incentives here and realize, you know, you have Hillside voting no, you have Northeast Anchorage voting no.

And then I think that leads into this conversation about how have How has the cost of bond, how have the projects been messaged to voters?

From my perspective as a downtown rep, the emphasis on how this gets messaged for support is capitalizing on the supporting access piece, not on the ameliorating neighborhood effects. You know, we're trying to create less traffic or less street parking in your neighborhood, for instance. Here's one of the signs that was going around, you know, better park access. And then I wanted to show this. This is from the mayor's social media.

Proposition 8 is the Chugach State Park Access Service Area Bond. Passing this bond will allow us to make improvements to how we access the Chugach. We'll be able to do things like expand the parking lot at the Baxter Drive trailhead, extend the Lost Cabin Trail, and make sure that there's adequate wayfinding along the Stewart Trail.

And so I just think that video is interesting and sort of beauty shots of the park. Certainly makes me want to go hiking. I want to see those goats. They've been hanging around. I actually just saw the goats on the Wedge.

I also saw them on Little O'Malley recently. But, you know, beauty shots of the park. Here's a parking lot where you can park. I think it does highlight that this messaging really is on This will help you, if you support this bond, be able to enjoy the park. Not a whole lot of messaging about, hey, we might be in the future restricting street parking or that kind of stuff.

So for what it's worth. Okay, this slide, I think this is also when we evaluate these trade-offs and these different goals on CASA. There have been previous efforts to reduce recreational access to trailheads by residents or property owners within the limited road service areas. The most, I think, infamous example, which has been widely reported on, is the Stewart Trail. And that was where a private property owner blocked access to a trail that was a prescriptive easement that had been long used by the community.

But we've also seen folks put up boulders in the right-of-way. We've seen— unsanctioned no parking signs that are not put up by the municipality but are put up by folks proximal to trailheads.

And in fact, folks may remember that Member Constant, former Member Constant and I brought forward an ordinance which we passed as a body to make it illegal to put things in, in the right-of-way, unsanctioned things, whether no parking signs or boulders or other impediments to being able to legally park on the, on the side of the road. And I wanted to show this email. We had a member of the community flag some of this for us, and Chris and I followed up with Right of Way, with their department, and they actually subsequently did enforce that ordinance and work with property owners to remove those impediments and get them in compliance. I also think it's interesting, you know, there's been a lot of conversation about the the Bashor parking lot. This enforcement happened within the Bashor Community Council boundaries.

So I don't, I don't ascribe this behavior to the community council, but I just, you know, this is one of the, I think, conflicts that we've seen when it comes to access to the park.

So I think with these next couple slides, I'm going to turn it over to Anna. Okay, thanks everyone. And also in the meantime monitoring the queue. I don't see anybody yet, but feel free to jump in if you'd like to. So yeah, let's cover, cover just briefly because I think some of the— well, I'll also say, so earlier this year I introduced an ordinance that we've since postponed indefinitely, but it was really the prior attempt to solve this issue.

The proposal at the time was to take a board we already had, which was for the Parks and Rec Service Area, which is not, you know, part of the reason CASA exists is because that's Park Service Area is not large enough to cover a lot of the areas that are along the Chugach, and that's a whole other story we won't get into today. But essentially my proposal had been to combine those two boards, expand the fact that they work with both service areas, and then therefore also expand the membership. And so that I'm not, We kind of talked through that. We said the problem statement is good. That's not the right solution.

So that's partly how we got here. But I think it's important to also note that, you know, the advantage of a proposal like that or creating a board like this is there are precedents in our code for having more specialized kind of review, discussion, prioritization, you know, recommendations for parts of the CIP process. So in the Parks and Rec service area, which is again not the whole uni, That board is an advisory board, so it doesn't supervise that service area, but they do specifically weigh in on the Parks and Rec CIP before that whole package goes to Planning and Zoning Commission and then goes to the Assembly. So I think it's again important to understand that not only is there a CIP process that we use every year and that it has its own process and code, but also that there are some precedents for that. So next, or actually, I'll tell myself, yeah, sorry, we got too many meetings, the gavel and the clicker.

So, um, so want to give also some clarity, kind of, these are the different structures that we have, and then we can talk a little bit more about the choices we've made. But essentially, um, there's two general types of service area boards. And then I'll note that in code, if there isn't an elected board, so what we call a board of supervisors for that service area, by default, the management operations and really decision-making to some degree is with, uh, the relevant department for that board. So for example, ARDSA, the Anchorage Road and Drainage Service Area, there is no ARDSA board. Board of supervisors or advisory board, and essentially the folks who make decisions about that are the departments of project management, engineering, M&O, the ones that manage those roads.

And then essentially, essentially the Assembly is the supervisory board in the sense that we approve contracts and we ultimately approve the CIP. So, so just to say, like, these— again, these systems already exist, but the kind of two distinctions between these board of supervisors or versus advisory, one is whether the members are elected or appointed. So you'll see on the right-hand side, Board of Supervisors, it is more of a governing body. Members are elected. There is a provision to appoint if there's a vacancy.

So we voted on those in the past, and they come through periodically because there's not always folks that come through on the election cycle. But generally speaking, the folks who represent that service area are voted on by the folks within that service area. So I don't vote on a, on a LHRSA board because I don't live in one. As an example. And so they have more functions, so they can make recommendations, but they're mostly actually dealing with the management and expenditures, working with staff.

And so they still have to follow Open Meetings Act, etc. I gave some examples there. And actually, I think I might have that incorrect. Suburba may not actually be an elected board, and I'll turn to Mr. Handlin. Can you confirm if Suburba is elected?

I might have an error there. They're not elected. It's selected from among the community council members, and so it still has to come to the assembly for approval. Okay, thank you. So I will note that there's an error there, but the LURSA boards and some other road service area boards— I know GBOS, the Girdwood Board of Supervisors— they oversee a much larger set of service areas.

They are elected. So that's Board of Supervisors. Advisory boards, as I said, we don't have as many of them specific to a service area. Parks and Rec Service Area is an example that's relevant here. Members are appointed and they're really advisory to the mayor and assembly.

So, so all of this to say, those are the two general paths to consider for a service area board. This ordinance proposes an advisory board, and we can talk a little bit more about that, but wanted to make it clear that there are those two differences, or those two different paths. The next thing is just a very brief reminder about our CIP, so our Capital Improvement Program, and then our CIB, Capital Improvement Budget. So the program is the rolling 6-year 6-year list of priorities. It includes— and it's not just specific to a service area, it includes road projects, facilities, you know, all of our capital needs.

Our enterprises and utilities have their own set of capital improvements, even if we're not using the same bonding mechanisms that we do for our service areas and things where we use property taxes. So that's the 6-year list. Any given year, or the most current year, is the CIB. So for our budget process, We will be looking at the 6-year list, looking at what's programmed out for those 6 years. But really what we are going to be focusing on is the CIB, because that's really what drives our bond proposals, what we ask the state and feds, etc.

So again, underneath all of those, local, state, and federal, sometimes some other pieces just documenting if we're getting a major grant or there's some other funding. But essentially it's mostly at this point, mostly local bonds, as we've talked about before. No, that is fine. So I just want to add a layer there too, because as folks know that the CIP is programmed years out. And one thing I think you can, you can make an argument that says that CASA exists as a mechanism to push projects ahead, projects that are proximal to the, to the state park.

If we put out a bond for those projects first, they are essentially allowed to skip the line ahead of some of the other priorities in the CIP. And that's just for us to be aware of. And again, argument can also be made that they are necessary, and some of those roads have longstanding need for serious upgrades. I mentioned Canyon Road earlier. I just drove up there on my birthday and went on a hike in the morning, and it feels like you're on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland when you're going up there.

But it is, from a fairness aspect, just something to think about. How do we stack those projects and go to those with voters in with all of the other priorities within Anchorage.

Sorry, so then continuing on, so very briefly again, um, there are precedents for, uh, these kind of advisory boards being involved in the CIP process. Um, and again, all of the CIP goes to the Planning and Zoning Commission for review, even I think parallel to when we see it introduced at the assembly. They're moving through their process in October, but that is a built-in thing that's already happening in code. Of course, Planning and Zoning Commission has a lot of things on their mind. They are not focused on all the intricacies of roads or parks or these other projects.

And so they are really looking, I think, at a broad level. And so there is value in having additional bodies or having some other steps in the process for looking at these more specific things. As we know, CASA is a very specific thing. But just to note, this is already in our code. The code reference is there for park CIP.

And again, still advisory only for those. So this, Board is not weighing in on Eagle River Parks or Redwood Parks. It's really within their service area. And so they right now would not really be equipped to weigh in on CASA because most of those projects would likely be outside the service area board. And again, it is— we don't usually mix service areas, so the Park Service area is separate from CASA.

For this one, I think I'll turn to Mr. Sure. So I'll talk about this one. So we've talked about a couple concerns already with CASA in general. One, sometimes conflicting priorities, again, ensuring access but also ameliorating neighborhood effects. We've talked about how is this message to voters, I think particularly within the Anchorage Bowl where there's a record of strong support.

We've also talked about fairness in terms of sequencing of projects with the rest of the CIP. This is a big concern too, and reciprocity, who pays for what. We, I think, had a pretty fascinating recent discussion at the our Budget and Finance Committee on, uh, on service areas. Um, you know, I think we heard one member call, um, some of these limited road service areas— they got the premium subscription grandfathered in. Another member, I think, said, uh, representation without taxation.

So I don't know if I'm gonna go as far as any of that, but I will say, um, you know, when we created CASA, it created a mechanism where ARDSA could help subsidize of the limited road service areas. So now ARCS residents can help pay for those roads they did not previously subsidize. However, some of those same road service areas do not pay for ARCS roads when the ARCS bond is approved by voters. So there's not that reciprocity in who pays even just for the infrastructure, for the roads. As we discussed at the, the Budget and Finance Committee as well, some of those service areas do not pay for city parks when the parks bond is approved.

I've been joking with some of my community councils that I'm going to start the Costco Access Service Area, where those folks when they drive down at the bowl have to help pay for those roads, but that's purely a joke. Moving on, so here's some maps that Ali and the team helped put together for us, the Clerk's Office as well, our Parks and Rec service areas. Here's where Chugach Access Service Area is, and then our Anchorage Parks and Rec Service Area, Eagle River, Girdwood. We have a service model, service area model. That is how we work.

Our city essentially was, or our municipality rather, was created during unification, so it is what it is.

Going down. So here's all the tax districts that are within CASA. Sort of small on the screen here, but you can see that there are several of them.

Did you want to go ahead? Yeah, and I'll just also note, um, this would only benefit folks in the room right now, but we do have a very large format map on the wall as well of our service areas. So that is not specific to CASA or this ordinance, but it is for illustration so folks can take a look. And I think we can probably leave that for a little while there. Mr. Hindeland, I just have a quick question.

If you go back one, is the red outline Is that the CASA area?

It's the first one. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, yeah, I can confirm that's, um, and this was actually pulled from a prior presentation, but, but yes. Okay, thank you.

Okay, so all the tax districts in CASA— this is very hard to see on the screen here, but these are the tax districts that are in CASA but not in the Parks and Rec Service area. So you can see there's a few of them 9, 5, 56, 23, 55, 42. So, um, within CASA and eligible for some of the road upgrades, but don't contribute to bowl parks.

And here are some that are not in the Anchorage Fire Service area.

Again, we talked about this at our Budget and Finance Committee, so I'm not going to belabor it. This is interesting though. These are all the tax districts that are in CASA but again do not contribute to ARDSA, so roads, drainage, infrastructure within the rest of the bowl.

And here are the tax districts that are in CASA, are in the Parks and Rec, are in Fire, and are in ARDSA. So paying for everything.

So here are some problems we're trying to solve with the creation of this formal advisory group. We actually think that we have— Anna and I, as we've been talking with community members about this and we've been receiving emails and feedback, we think that there's a lot that we agree on. One is that we want to uphold voters' intent in creating CASA. Both of those incentives that I talked about— access, but also neighborhood impacts, trailhead amenities, that scope, that wide scope of projects, as well as road projects. I think we've heard from the public that there does need to be a clear public process for how we prioritize CASA projects, that we should have an advisory board with very varied interests and perspectives, different backgrounds.

I think that we need to be thoughtful, and the public agrees from what I've heard, that on how we integrate CASA-related processes into with the rest of the, the CIP And again, recognizing and balancing the fact that road projects in CASA are about public access but also the local impacts. What we're still working through are the makeup, the composition of the board. Who should serve? What are, what are the prescribed seats or backgrounds that we're looking for? What is the role beyond the CIP and advising on the budget?

Not supervisory, as Anna mentioned, like a board of supervisors, but Should they have other functions? Who will staff this board? Should it be PM&E? Should it be Parks and Rec? Should it be both?

Should the municipal manager decide?

What is the role and involvement by the road service areas in the CASA project decisions, especially after projects have been funded by voters? And a couple other big questions. Who maintains— once we do the capital project, And we have operations and maintenance budgeted in for that. Who maintains the new— the new infrastructure? Who should do the snowplowing in the new parking lot, for instance?

So I think— you know, go ahead. Yeah, and I'll just add, I think this is important because I think, having gone through another recent kind of creating a proposed board or commission, I know it's important to be clear that really, at the end of the day, what this ordinance does— and we'll get into it in more detail— it is really putting this board in place, so it certainly, that should define who is on the board, whether it's having specific designated seats, or just saying it should have a range, or having, you know, maybe 3 of them are this, the 2 of them are that, right? There's different ways to do that, so that's kind of an area where we have a proposal, and we're talking about how to maybe make some changes there, but I think that's, it's really who serves on the board, what is its purpose, what are the scope of authority, what can it do, what can it not do, if there's things that you write in there it's not supposed to do, for example, and really thinking about, you know, what that structure looks like. So it's, so it's really, I just want to say, it's bringing up a bunch of other questions that do need to be addressed. But, but really, this ordinance, just to be clear, doesn't necessarily fix all those things or do that.

So for example, who should be maintaining the parking lots when they're built? You know, that is a question that needs to be addressed. It's not something that you would put in a— this is a new board that we're creating. And, but maybe having that board is helpful because they could help weigh in on that, right? And so, so I guess as we move through this, and as you'll hear public testimony and others, I think you'll hear questions that are unresolved.

And so just want to be clear that this ordinance can't resolve all those things, even if it can really help surface those things. And then also just to say, I think all of the success of a board has to do with its implementation. So we can do a really good job putting it in code, saying what it needs to be, and saying this to the public as well. I think a lot of the questions about who's going to serve on it, how's how's it going to work, the staffing. Again, those are things we can put in the code, but it really does matter who is put forward to serve on the board, if those folks are willing and active and really taking on that work and can work together if they are supported by staff.

So there's a lot of implementation things that, again, we are going to discuss, but really there's a limit on what this ordinance can actually do beyond really putting our intention out there and trying to, and, you know, potentially resources if there are those resources to staff that. So I just want to be really clear because I think that's something that can get lost in discussions about creating a board, and because it is really just one narrow piece of what is a much bigger topic, and there is still going to be work on CASA, I think, you know, whether this board exists or not, these questions need to be resolved, and, and we need to have a mechanism to do that. So again, just wanted to put that on the table before we get into the actual ordinance. So here's what the ordinance does. Um, first it proposes that we have an advisory board, advisory to both the mayor and the assembly, which I think that's— this is important.

It's the same way that the Planning and Zoning Commission works. They're, they're advisory to both branches. One, I think, of the issues, one of the examples of a lack of clarity maybe with the current advisory working group is who are they making their recommendations to. Is it to the Assembly? Well, they did bring forward what we requested, which was that draft CIP, as well as some goals and even a scoring criteria that they put together, which I think was done very thoughtfully.

But they've been working with the administration. So are they making those— essentially, who are they advising? Both? One or the other? Who knows?

We want to make it explicit that it's advisory to both branches, and that those recommendations are made via a public process. It also defines membership, and we'll see how we propose to break that down, at least in our original version. On the next slide, it defines the scope. The primary function is budgeting and project planning and not operational oversight, as we've discussed. Again, an advisory model requires staff support.

So in our version, we believe that that should be designated by the community manager. We do want Parks and Rec and PM&E. We feel like those are both relevant departments to report regularly to the board. And it also adds a reference to the advisory board in the existing CASA code. It does remove cooperative agreements with, with the road service areas, but it does still require consultation with the applicable road service areas on individual projects.

And I will just be forthcoming and say that that is something we've heard both of support for and opposition to around those cooperative agreements. And even we've heard support and opposition, even from road service, different road service areas that are within Casa and proximal to the park. Some of those road service areas have differing opinions on that.

So the breakdown that we have put forward for your consideration, we sort of modeled this after the Public Naming Commission, which I had some experience with. Experience in helping create, along with former member Rivera worked on that project, former member Quinn Davidson, still member Pres Verdía. We worked on that project. Some people left, so other people had to jump on, but it was where we had both a mixture of subject matter expertise and then also geographic representation. So we have put forward that we would have a member with experience and expertise in trail design, planning, and construction, a member with expertise in transportation infrastructure, civil engineering, and construction, because again, road projects, we think that's kind of important there, someone with experience in outdoor recreation in Chugach State Park or other public lands, so that person can really advise on How is the state park utilized?

If we want to create access, well, how are people accessing the park? And what are they wanting to do when they get there? And then we would have 4 at-large community members. 2 Of those would be from ARTSA and 2 of those from the road service areas within CASA. So that geographic representation, making sure that the different stakeholders groups have a seat at the table.

And then hoping to have one ex officio member, that would be the Chugach State Park Superintendent or their designee, so that we can really have those conversations with the state when we're trying to align projects. And there's language in there that no individual member may be counted toward the required qualifications for more than one seat, so I think that stands to reason. We're looking for one person for each seat.

What this ordinance does not do: it does not adopt any specific list of CIP projects or make any changes to the current projects. As Anna mentioned earlier, it does not resolve some big implementation issues of CASA. The maintenance and operational question— who plows the parking lots, how is it staffed and operationally managed between departments, the share of responsibility— and those are things that we would hope that this advisory board would be able to weigh in on. It doesn't change the fundamental— fundamentals of boards, which are set in code. They're appointed by the mayor, confirmed by the assembly.

Meetings are publicly noticed. And it does not change the actual CIP process. It also does not change existing review process for voter-approved projects.

Go ahead. Yeah, and I'll just add, um, kind of to, you know, what's in place now, because I think we want to be clear about that, if you don't mind going back to the previous slide. So on number 4 and 5, so we have a CIP process, and essentially, even if, let's say that this was passed on Tuesday the 6th, and then there was, you know, an immediate slate of folks who came forward and were put into place, that timing— and I'm not saying that should happen, but even if all of that came to pass, the timing of that is not going to impact our FY '27 budget process. Process, at least for November. So I think it's important to remember, but it is not that we don't have any process.

What we don't have right now is we don't have somebody specifically focused, a body recognized in our code focused on what CASA should be. So we have the Planning and Zoning Commission, we'll still be seeing the CIP. We are still going to see it introduced as an, I think, ordinance or resolution, I forget which one it is, on our agenda. And then it will go through our public process. So just to be very clear, There is still a public process.

It's just not focused and does not have an official opportunity for folks with that expertise to discuss it before it goes through the later steps in the process. And then similarly, it doesn't change anything about— there is a project going through Planning and Zoning Commission now for review, the one that's already been funded, the Bashir parking lot. So all of those things are already happening as well. We can talk about what, what, if any, involvement that board should have in that process. But either way, those things are still moving.

So I just want to be clear that this is attempting to make things better for the future, but we are still going to be moving along on the status quo path as best we can. So just to be clear about that. Okay, so here's our next steps. Recap: ordinance was introduced July 7th. We had the first public hearing August 4th.

It's been continued to October 6th. We have been soliciting feedback. Since it was introduced, we did an email to the current advisory working group. We have received comments from some of the individuals within that group. We've also received comments from the limited road service area reps. We attended a community council meeting, the Basher Community Council meeting, got some of their ideas there.

They also have done a resolution in response. Some of the HOA reps, as well as just individual public members emailing us.

And as Anna just mentioned, the cost of CIP is already part of the fiscal year '27 budget process.

So in response to all that public feedback that we've received, we are working on our newest version and aiming to get that on the addendum for 10.6. Some of the initial changes that we will likely be making— we have received some great whereas language on intent to help inform kind of what this advisory board should do and why it's needed. Also, the membership— one change that we know that we're going to make is more specific language about the, the at-large positions for the limited road service areas, that they need to actually be the ones that are adjacent to Chugach State Park. And we also think that it should be members who have either are serving or have served on the Board of Supervisors. That was something we've heard where, you know, those folks are going to have a little bit more expertise on some of the infrastructure needs and project planning for that stuff.

We have heard actually, interestingly, from some groups that there should be less emphasis on specific technical expertise, but still demonstrated familiarity with Chugach State Park and public access. I think Rabbit Creek Community Council had some interesting comments on that. And then, yeah, we're working on the appropriate balance on some flexibility in what the membership seats should look like, what that breakdown should look like. Public engagement. This is something I think we want to make more explicit in the ordinance, is that there should be required public hearings on draft recommendations, as well as outreach and engagement expected on the part of this board with other organizations and stakeholders.

And then, go ahead, Anna. Yeah, and just briefly on that point, That was something that we heard from folks, you know, kind of how can the public weigh in with this board? Of course, you know, most have some kind of public comment built into them, but more formally, and I'll just point folks to the ACE Fund Board, the Early Childhood Board. They have a— they're not the same, but they also are going through a budget revision or, you know, recommendation process, doing it earlier in the year than we take up the budget. And so in their code now, there is a required public that they hold on their recommendations typically in August, I think.

So they've— that board's already done that, but this is kind of what's imagined is they go through their process and then early fall, late summer, they have a public hearing before they even say we are formally adopting our own recommendations, and then it moves.

Okay, okay. And then Sorry, the clerk said something funny that wasn't caught by the microphone, thankfully. I'm just kidding. And then also other functions. Should we broaden the board role beyond just CIP review?

Again, we're not— the sponsors at this time are not interested in an operations or supervisory board model, but are there other associated duties that this board could advise on? And with that, we will conclude our presentation with a big thank you and open it up for questions. Okay, first question I have from Ms. Silvers.

Um, not really a question, uh, but kind of more of a statement. Um, so when you introduced the S version, I believe, um, Bashor Community Council, uh, had a resolution, um, with a very thoughtful resolution with quite a few some amendments, and I don't know how those are going to square up with the S version, but that I believe will be introduced alongside of it as an AIM. And so I just encourage people to look at that when you see it, because I will probably bring some of those amendments just depending on the S version. Yep, great. And I do have another thing also.

I did have some concern with making the requirements of the seats too prescriptive and not being able to fill those seats because they're too prescriptive. And so I think it would be good if there's some kind of outlet or way to fill the seats if exact match can't be found.

Thank you for that feedback. Next, Mr. Hanlon. Yeah, it was just a question for the sponsors. I'm not sure if you guys looked at, for, I guess, maintaining kind of regional diversity, looked at the assembly districts. It seems like there's 5 that more or less kind of correspond.

So either having that as maybe an additional or as a breakdown for, for those kind of at-large seats. I'm not sure if you guys have looked at that. So that was an idea that was brought forward by the community. Should you have, you know, maybe a seat for each district or 2 seats for each district on this board? I think the challenges with that are that You know, number one, balancing subject matter expertise with geographic representation, and some of the folks who fill the— I would hope that some of the folks who fill the member at large seats also have some good background and subject matter expertise.

I think one of the other challenges that we're trying to think carefully about is sometimes it's hard to fill. Boards and commissions. The administration, I know, is always trying to recruit people to fill spots, but we want to make sure that we have people who can give us great advice because it's within their wheelhouse, but also that we're not creating a board that is too large to be functional. And I would add to, I think, so it is true, 5 of the 6 districts have at least some portion that's in ARTSA, for example. Um, and then there's a few LURSAs in District 5, East Anchorage, and then most of them are in District 6.

So I think if we're already applying kind of one level of geography, I think it could be challenging, um, to square that because it would essentially mean that the person— there may not ever be a District 6 person in ARTSA, for example, right? Because if there's, if there's all these other— so I think it's certainly something to think about. I think in general too, So I guess the question that comes to mind for me then is, like, to what degree is the entire community's representation built around the 6 assembly districts that we have, given that they change every 10 years, you know, the boundaries change? I've— the same house that I used to live in is in District 1, and it used to be in District 3. I mean, so that's a practical reality.

But I think it's certainly something we can think about. I guess I'd also be interested if there's any precedent on our boards or commissions to be structured in a way of the assembly districts. I can't think of one, but we have about 40 of them, so I might be misremembering. So that's my initial kind of thoughts. Yeah, or even just, I mean, just suggested maybe, I guess, looking at even like a restriction for some of the open seats of, I mean, hey, can't have more than 3 of assembly district, just so, I mean, you can't, I guess, theoretically have it where it's like, hey, one area gets overloaded.

Other questions from members? Comments? Ms. Baldwin-Day. Yeah, I'm curious if there was a rationale for the number of members seated on the commission, the proposed commission.

The rationale was, again, sort of modeled closely after the Public Naming Commission.

Also wanting to have a commission that could be broad in scope but could also meet quorum, and the more parity, I think, at least some level of parity between ARTSA and the road service areas. Um, yep, I guess that was our rationale, but I don't think we're hard set on a specific number of seats.

Thank you. I guess I'll just briefly add too, I know we have 7 voting members and then the ex officio member, which would not be voting, so it'd be an 8-member board essentially, but it would still— I think an odd number is always useful, but ex officio doesn't count toward that vote threshold. So, Mr. Johnson. Yeah, thanks. So I understand that this isn't meant to answer the question about who ultimately is responsible for the maintenance for a project once it gets built.

It also would theoretically take out the requirement for a cooperative agreement for— I mean, I think in a lot of cases we would assume that the underlying road service area would be responsible for maintaining it, right? But we're taking out that requirement. I guess the question in my mind is, when would that get answered, right? Because we wouldn't want to bond for something, build it without having a clear understanding of who is ultimately going to be responsible for maintaining it. And it wouldn't be required per se if this is adopted.

So when does that get answered definitively?

I can take a stab at that one. So I think that we should have an idea of that before we are voting to put the bond before voters. That should be sort of understood. The cooperative agreement, I think, is problematic for a couple reasons. For one, it allows one stakeholder group to essentially unilaterally veto or reduce in scope a project by refusing to enter into an agreement if it's a project that they don't like or they think it's too big.

And I just don't think that that is representative of the entire service area. Also, I think, you know, cooperative agreements, we expect those when there are differing ownerships. For instance, we could have a cooperative agreement with the state on infrastructure. You know, for instance, if Fireweed Road rehabilitation, there are parts of Fireweed Road that are owned by the state, there are parts that are owned by the muni, so there's differing ownership there. Um, just because a road is within a limited responsibility to maintain that, again, not contributing to roads in the ARTSA, doesn't mean that they own those roads.

That is public right-of-way to the benefit— it should be to the benefit of all living within the wider service area within CASA. And so Everyone, I think, should have an equal say on, particularly, you know, municipal infrastructure. And I think if you're giving one group the power to, to say, we don't agree with this project moving forward, I think that's not fair to the voters. That infrastructure now, via CASA particularly, but even just acknowledging that this is public right-of-way, it's meant to serve not only the folks who live on these roads, but the folks who want to go to the park. And, you know, we should have the same expectations as anywhere else we're traveling through town to get to any of our other essential destinations, the grocery store, what have you.

And I'll just briefly add to— I think I want to point folks to page 4 of the ordinance, section— page 4, 2730.085. So that's amending existing language. So, and Mr. Johnson is correct that we're proposing deleting that last sentence that refers to a cooperative agreement. But prior to that, what's already in code is providing notice that it's adding to the Cost Advisory Board, but consulting with the Board of Supervisors for limited road service area, rural road service area, prior to including it on the CIP and budget and prior to proceeding with construction of the project. So I think we're— the kind of issue that we had had was with that specific term.

Cooperative agreement, I think, and we've talked with staff, we've talked with others about this. The goal is certainly that those folks are working together. I think it just needs to be a little more clear about kind of whose decision authority it is. And then on the point of maintaining the parking lot, that's something we heard, for example, when we went to Bashor Community Council. That does need to get resolved regardless of what happens with this.

And I think the example that was used was there's the roads and then there's the actual parking lot. If it's not Chugach State Park and it's not the LERSA itself, But with their— our LURSA-funded plows already going up there, is there some kind of agreement there, for example? But those are the issues that I think we're actively— well, maybe not the two of us, but the Muni is actively working through as an example of something that is unclear right now because it's not a road. So is the expectation then that it would be sort of figured out during the bonding process? That would be clarified when a project is out put on the bond in future years, it will specify who's responsible for maintenance.

And I'm not talking about whether or not, you know, that I'm somehow empowering a local board to restrict public access to the right-of-way. I'm just trying to deal with this as a practical matter, realizing a lot of these are smaller service areas with limited capacity and funding, and we do not want to build things that we cannot maintain. I mean, that's been a theme of ours as of late, so just want to make sure that we don't say we're going to build a very large parking lot and this very small lurch, and then they say, well, guess what, we can— we cannot maintain it, we will not maintain it, and we have failed to put on our forward-thinking hats. So I think my personal perspective on that, because it is a very salient question, um, there's the new capital projects. How do we operate and maintain those?

But there's also using CASA funding to rehabilitate existing infrastructure. My personal perspective is that the new capital projects should be the responsibility of the municipality. The rehabilitation, you know, if— but if we redo a road, if we, if we, um, let's say Upper Dearman, we repave it, if that is the current responsibility of that limited road service area, I think it should continue to be the responsibility of that limited road service area. Area. Now, that is not for me unilaterally to decide, but I think that is a conversation that could be facilitated via this advisory board.

Okay, thank you. Next, I have Ms. Baldwin-Dave and Ms. Silvers.

I'm curious about whether it's possible when we, when we bond for a capital project to build in the maintenance costs for a certain period of time in that same bond? Is that, is that a thing we can do?

Yeah, I think, um, Miss Silver just wanted to actually answer that. Yeah, that's actually what I was going to speak to. So, um, when we bonded for the, um, Basher, uh, trailhead, we, uh, built in $75,000 a year for maintenance. So that's built into the bond. Yeah, and I'll add, I know that is, uh, typical, not with every single thing that we've done, but especially with road projects It helps pay for, I think, partly the staffing to build those projects, and then also I think contributing to the maintenance of.

And I'll check— Ms. Silvers, did you have an additional question? No, I was just gonna speak on that. Oh, thank you. Okay, any other questions from members?

Check one more time on the phone. Don't see any. So, okay, so I think, so as we said, this is back on our agenda on October 6th. We are working on an S version, and we previewed some of the kind of major changes that we're anticipating making. Certainly would welcome amendments as well.

So we're hoping to get that on the addendum. And I think that we—.

Yeah, I believe we continued the public hearing. Yeah, we'll double-check, but we're almost certain that we continue the public hearing. We did. Yeah, we met with Basher folks after we had closed and we talked about, um, those who had already testified could testify to the differences in the S version. So yes, okay, yes, sorry, a lot going on.

Um, so yeah, there is— so there is public testimony opportunity. In the meantime, uh, encourage members of the public to take a look at this. We're certainly looking at the comments that we're getting and working through those. And, um, I believe that's all there is to say on that particular subject. So, uh, we will be adjourned from this work session today, and then our next item— our last item of the day starts at 2:10 in the same room.

Thank you, everyone.

There might be some food left if you're hungry.