August 6, 2025 Assembly Finance Committee Meeting

I bring the August 6th, um, Assembly Finance Committee meeting to order. Miss Wendell, will you call roll? Thank you, Chair Wall. We have all assembly members present in chambers besides Mayor Weldon and Assemblymember Houskandis who are absent.

Thank you. That brings us to approval of minutes. You have the July 9th, 2025 meeting minutes. Any changes to those minutes? Seeing none, those are so approved.

That brings us to agenda topics. Um, first agenda topic is Eagle Crest updates and position conversion. Um, Miss Flick, do you want to start us off? Thank you, Chair Wall. Um, The Eagle Crest update and position conversion is a two-part presentation for you tonight.

Um, the first part relates to the memo that starts on page 9. Uh, during the budget process, uh, the assembly provided, um, a substantial personnel increase for Eagle Crest for FY26, and, uh, Chair Wall had asked, uh, staff to look into converting Eagle Crest from their own compensation and pay plan into CBJ's pay plan. And so the purpose of the first part of the presentation tonight is just give you an update on that. You can take it as information, you can also take it as a call for action, you have many choices. And then the second piece of tonight, when we were working through the budget, we heard that you wanted to hear more from Eagle Crest more regularly.

And since we're talking about Eagle Crest tonight and General Manager Simmons was going to be here anyway, we have a short update for you on other things Eagle Crest, not related necessarily to positions. So with that, I'll give you just a brief overview of the position conversion. There's a lot of details in the memo and I'm going to just focus on a couple of pieces. I have the Human Resources Management Director, Hargrave, with us as well because this has a huge component that's financial, but a lot of work that's been done has been focused on the HR side of the house. So hopefully between the two of us, we can answer any questions that you have.

Converting Eagle Crest from their current pay plan and process over to CVJ, involves several things. It involves kind of crosswalking positions from where they live in a pay scale today on an Eagle Crest pay scale to the CVJ pay scale. So kind of mapping that out. It would involve changing personnel rules. So we gave you a very high-level overview in your packet.

Not planning to really go through all of that tonight, but wanted to give you just a heads up on what we're looking at.

So there's, there's a lot of good reasons for Eagle Crest to, or for the positions at Eagle Crest to convert to a CBJ scale and compensation plan. One is just consistency and expectation of wage change application, whether that's the annual increase that you would see normally with unrepresented positions, and also like the promotional process would follow the CBJ process. Integrating Eagle Crest more in with CVJ helps tie it into the municipal organization more.

Bringing them into the CVJ pay scale also allows human resources to tackle large market issues and also have it affect Eagle Crest, whereas if they stay in their own world, it might not. For example, We know right now it's really hard to hire mechanics everywhere, government or non-government. We have mechanics that are in the regular CBJ world, and then we have mechanics that live in Eagle Crest pay scale. And so if HR does a study, they're going to look for the whole CBJ, not necessarily Eagle Crest. But if they convert in, when we look at those hard-to-fill positions, they would be included in those studies and those, those changes.

It would align all of the benefits of CBJ more closely. Eagle Crest would be more aligned with CBJ if we bring them over. And then there's just some efficiencies in administration of living in one set of personnel rules instead of a set for CBJ and a set for Eagle Crest. There are some losses that Eagle Crest would experience. So right now, the Eagle Crest board can control a bit of the pay changes.

That comes with typically a financial allocation from the assembly, so it's a multiple-step process. Right now, the Eagle Crest general manager has the ability to place employees in different steps more freely than somebody— than like for myself as a department director, if I wanted to advance staff somebody, I have to go through the manager's office. As the general manager, Mr. Simmons can make those judgments within his own world.

It is worth noting that there are some financial considerations if we make this change because along with those consistencies and expectations of pay changes, if we convert positions over, those become unrepresented positions. So you all just went through the process of the MEBA negotiation and personnel changes and agreeing to those wage increases for for MEBA and then extending it to the unrepresented positions, if we convert Eagle Crest over, they become part of that unrepresented positions pool. So for instance, they would see the 3% increase next year at the start of FY27 and a 5% increase for the beginning of FY28, as well as the lump sum payment at the start of FY27. So they would be included in that. And those regular pay increases along that lines, but also as employees reach the milestones, for instance, um, every year or every, um, year's worth of hours worked because they have a lot of part-time positions, those employees would get a step increase, um, just like a normal CDJ employee would have.

So those are some things that we would care for in the budget process but would be, um, a regular incremental financial increase to the Eagle Crest costs if they were to convert. So it's important to just keep that in mind as the body who definitely works and has spent a lot of time on Eagle Crest finances in the last year. As I said, there's a lot of things that need to happen. Big, big kudos to the Eagle Crest management team. One of the first things that had to happen was they needed to pull all of their position descriptions and update them.

And that is no small feat. They have a lot of different position types and they sat down and made that happen. And so with those updated position descriptions, HR was able to work with resources they had and in conjunction with the, um, Eagle Crest General Manager to crosswalk those positions based on the responsibilities and the complexities and the requirements of applicants to be successful in that position. From where they live in ranges on the Eagle Crest scale over to the CVJ scale. That's, that is still a work in process.

We've done some initial work. We've got some finalization to do on that. We've worked through some side-by-side comparison of personnel rule changes. That's what you have in your packet. Again, that's not finalized, but that's our first run through the changes in personnel rules.

And as Finance, we took all of that data and all of the people in positions and just looked at the first pass of allocating positions over to the CDJ ranges. Can we even afford it? And at the most expensive process, it looks like we can afford that within their FY26 annualized allocation. So that, it was important to know, can we even afford it or not? And that answer appears to be yes.

We still have some work to do. So as I said, we need to finalize the range allocation moving from the Eagle Crest ranges to the CVJ ranges. We'll need to finalize the conversion rules if we move forward. So how do we actually take the people and move them over? And that will be done mostly through a set of pretty objective rules.

If this, then this. So it's not, we like this person and we're not so fond of this person. It's really fairly— I don't want to say completely rigid, but we make objective rules and then apply them. And then once we've done that, pricing out what that conversion really looks like to make sure that it can be afforded within the rules. And then we would bringing a final personnel rule modification before the bodies.

As Eagle Crest works under an empowered board, their board has to take some action to make this happen. The memo that you have in your packet tonight, there's a very, very similar one in the Eagle Crest board packet for tomorrow night. So while Mr. Hargrave and I are here tonight presenting this to you, We will also be sitting with the Eagle Crest board tomorrow night, going through some of this with them. If we're moving forward with this, we'd really like to make August the month of motion, finalize those things, build the rules around the conversions, do the costing so that we could hopefully through probably a special meeting on the Eagle Crest board side, approve personnel rule changes and moving forward. And then bring it back to this body on the September meeting to go through, you know, here are the rules, here's what we did, and bring it— the personnel rule changes to you as a resolution on what I believe now is your September 22nd meeting as opposed to September 15th.

But at that September meeting, bring that forward to you, and if it is approved, we could implement that for the pay period that starts September 22nd. So that's kind of where we are. We wanted to give you an update, let you know financially things to consider. As I said, this can be information only. You can give direction to stop.

You can give direction for the Eagle Crest Board to take action. It's, it's really kind of up to you what you want to do at this point. And I am happy to have Director Hargrave here and General Manager Simmons here to answer questions that you may have about this.

Thank you, Ms. Flick. Questions from the committee? Go ahead, Ms. Swindle. Chair, apologies. I would just like to note for the record that Assemblymember Hughes-Gaines has joined the meeting.

Questions? Mr. Kelly.

Thank you. So just to make sure I understand the next steps correctly, so status quo and not needing to take any action would basically be continuing on with the conversion effectively?

Mr. Kelly, can you repeat that? It was pretty hard to hear you down on this end of the dais. Sorry about that. Um, I just wanted to confirm that, um, If we take no action, the status quo that we're doing right now is proceeding with the conversion.

Through the chair to Assemblymember Kelly, yes, we, we would present to the Eagle Crest board tomorrow night and continue moving forward unless they provided other direction. Thank you, Mr. Bryson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Could we approve the raises but not recommend to convert Eagle Crest employees into regular CBJ employees? So allow them the extra money but not put the constraints of being regular government employees in a private sector business.

I'm gonna have Mr. Hargrave answer that.

Through the Chair, Mr. Bryson, Yes, I think like that's the typical process that usually happens. Um, the board each year looks at what they would like to do for pay increases, um, forwards that through, gets that approved through the board, goes to the assembly, is approved as part of the budget. Um, so this is kind of looking at a system change. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I was just curious, for the personnel— for personnel rules to be changed now, or for the pay of a certain class or position to be changed now, is that just a decision by the Eagle Crest board?

Mr. Smith, through the chair, um, So right now, through the ordinance that gives me the authority to implement our classification and compensation plan, I am able to, through my staff, look at positions, look at job duties that are assigned, reallocate positions throughout the year. And we don't need any specific personnel rule changes to do that. The personnel rules are kind of what set the framework and the parameter around it, and those are approved by the assembly. And so anything that we do in that context needs to be done within the personnel rules, which has the pay plans in it. Sorry, can I follow up?

I might have forgotten some words that would have changed this direction of that question. That is for like Eagle Crest personnel rules or Eagle Crest positions. Like again, if they say we don't believe mechanics, the pay of a mechanic position is enough, we wanna raise that position. Is that just through board action, or that has to come through the assembly? Mr. Smith, through the chair, that would be, um, something that we could do through the classification process in Human Resources based on the, um, authority granted to me in the ordinance.

But then it doesn't have to come to the assembly? No. Okay, thanks.

Mr. Kelly, and then Mr. Bryson. Thank you. And just to follow up with that, so the change to the personnel rules, when it comes back to us, would that require another ordinance, or could that be done by a resolution in our consent agenda? Through the chair, the changes to the personnel rule are done by ordinance. And then if you go online and look at them, there's, you know, probably 60 pages of them.

Small section is Eagle Crest. You'll see a reference to which excuse me, resolution, uh, which resolution was passed for that personnel rule. And so we keep track of it like that, um, but it's not at the ordinance level. It's more kind of at a, um, since the assembly is passing it, more like a regulation level. Mr. Bryson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Would this put Eagle Crest in a position, um, where we could end up having to pay people even though there's no work to be done. How many employees at Eagle Crest work full-time, receive full-time pay, even if the mountain, say, doesn't open for part of that week? How much of our— with this conversion, would we be creating more full-time employees that got paid whether the mountain is open or not? Listen, remember, Bryson, the conversion does not make the positions full-time or not.

So if they have part-time positions, they would stay as part-time positions. All the conversion does is say you're on Eagle Crest pay scale 110, and now we're going to move you into the CDJ pay scale range. 9, Or however it allocates out. But it wouldn't change if it's a part-time position, the part-time function would exist. So it wouldn't create— the conversion process does not create a situation where people are now employed more or required or get paid for more hours whether they work them or not, I think was your question.

So it— that doesn't have anything to do with the conversion. Excellent, thank you.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Flick earlier said that, you know, if we were to do this, the costing out shows that we could afford it. Is that if even with all the, you know, new— newly allowed positions were full?

Thank you for the question, Assemblymember Smith. Yes, we looked at the full personnel budget allocation approved by the Assembly for the FY26 budget, including new positions. Those positions, um, if there weren't position descriptions already written, they were written for this process so that we could look at, um, what the full implementation of a conversion would look like. I'm going to jump in here, um, embarrassing, I don't know this, uh, Can you talk to me about other empowered boards, other parts of the city where we have city employees who are not on the same pay scale? Do those exist?

The only—. We do not. All the other empowered boards are on the same pay plan, the MEBA unrep pay plan. We do have other bargaining units that have separate pay plans based on their bargaining unit that are in specific departments. Ms. Hughes-Scanese.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I may be misunderstanding, so I'm hoping, Mr. Hargrave, you can, or whoever is appropriate, that you can refresh my memory, 'cause it always strikes me as weird that like we get a mix of represented and unrepresented. So if we make the switch to CBJ, then when they come over as unrepresented, is there a way that they would be coming over in MEBA, or is that just like, that's a separate thing for MEBA and those employees to figure out? Through the chair, they currently are unrepresented right now, and so it's just, that's what we call that pay schedule is MEBA unrepresented. Right.

And so there aren't any union employees at Eagle Crest right now. Okay, so is there a possibility in the future that on-rep MEBA employees within the city become represented? I'm always— I always forget there's why it's like that. Through the chair, there's, um, there's a process through our labor relations ordinance where a union can petition the personnel board to and you know, do a vote membership. And I haven't been through it, I don't know the whole process off the top of my head, but we do have that process.

Okay, I was just curious. Thank you. Uh, Chair Wall, can I, uh, correct something I said earlier? Um, Bartlett Regional Hospital is an enterprise board that not only has their own pay plan but has their own set of personnel rules, as does the school district.

Um, all right, so seeing other questions, I think my advice for where we take this— if we do nothing, that basically allows the Eagle Crest Board to explore this and come to us with a recommendation on what they would like to do. What I would advise is, if we know right now what we would like them to do, whether it's not go down this path or go down this path, we tell them. And if we don't know, then we, then we can leave it to them. So I just don't want them spending a bunch of time on this if we know where we want this to go. So because we will ultimately be the ones who have the final say.

Um, and I thought I had something else, but, um, so I'll open it up to comments or motion, whatever, whoever is feeling inspired.

Mr. Kelly, I move that we, uh, instruct the Eagle Crest board to continue exploring conversion and ask for unanimous consent. Mr. Smith and Mr. Bryson. Thanks, Madam Chair. I appreciated your comment there that if we don't tell them anything, will they be embarking on a journey that anyway, that we don't want them to go on.

I guess for me, I'm envisioning that they're looking at some things like, do we have flexibility in the way we hire and compensate people You know, I'm curious to know what has been the rate of growth of their personnel costs versus ours. I mean, I appreciate that they're asking for what they need, and— but I think they also understanding that, you know, anyway, there are limitations on what we can give.

I guess I'm just kind of like, I prefer them to kind of explore those things, being like, what do we need? What flexibility do we need? We operate an organization that is for the most part quite different than other city, you know, organizations, like seasonal, working strange hours, and, you know, with, you know, part-time staff. I mean, anyway, it's just seemingly very different than our other things, and, um, and realizing that cost controls are necessary because again, there is only so much we can give. Um, so I would oppose directing them to do this right now.

I just, but again, those would be the things I would maybe ask them. And I'm sure they're thinking about them, but maybe I just want to communicate that to them now. As they're evaluating this change, keep those things in mind and then think if, you know, is this going to be better for the things that they need, flexibility, some cost controls, and, you know, operating something that, kind of is more of a business model than a lot of our other city functions, of course realizing we give them support. So I'll object to the motion. Thanks.

And maybe this, um, makes me feel like we should go back to Mr. Kelly and make sure that we understand your motion. Um, are you saying, Mr. Kelly, that you want them to continue to have this conversation you use the word explore, or that you would like them to bring us back a conversion plan?

I would like them to bring us back a conversion plan. I wasn't sure about— I guess I didn't vocalize that because I wasn't sure about what sort of timeline we'd want that on.

I just want to— we'll be crystal clear. And so Mr. Smith's objection stands. For that clarification. Okay, um, uh, Mr. Bryson, you are next. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, I absolutely want to get the Eagle Crest employees the raises that they need. Uh, having appropriate pay for our Eagle Crest staff will cost us less money in the long run. That's going to be true for pretty much every business. Pay your people right, your costs are going to go down from having the right staff. However, making that change right now while we're going into an election where there are, uh, two, uh, budgetary, uh, impacts that could possibly have significant, uh, impact on our ability to fund existing government operations, let alone extra government operations, um, One of the complaints is that we're spending too much money now in an authorization to convert Eagle Crest into government pay plan.

And I, I really appreciated what Deputy Mayor Smith said. We have private sector jobs, and it— I also believe it is a mistake to convert them into government pay plans. Um, Eagle Crest has a funding problem right now. There's not enough money. And to commit finances to the rigidity of city pay structure, I think in the long run will harm Eagle Crest in their ability to be flexible.

If there was enough money for us to just hand Eagle Crest every nickel they asked for, it would be a different story. But we have— the community is asking us to not spend as money. There are ballot initiatives that could severely impact our ability to spend money. And so while I definitely want them to be paid appropriately, I think trying to do a conversion at this time would be, uh, not well received by the whole of the community. Thank you for the time.

Miss Hughes, Miss Atkinson, and Mr. Steininger. Thank you, Madam Chair. And also let me say thank you, because I came in late, for all the work that went into this because we're doing a little bit of this at my job and I know how much work it is to do all that stuff. So I really appreciate it. Um, so it sounds like we might be all over the place and I very much appreciate your kind of direction to guide this discussion.

Um, for myself with this timeline, I personally would say let this timeline stand in my own personal direction to the board, but I'm sure we'll get to a vote, would be to continue down this path and make this conversion to the CBJ wage plan. And I say that for a few reasons.

How it's compared— Eagle Crest personnel increases over time, how it's compared to ours, we know— I don't have a percentage for you, but I know how it's done. It's gotten articles in the paper saying 'CBJ employees don't get paid minimum wage. Let's go talk to people who are at the lift station and have them tell you that they're making $6.50,' you know, whatever it was, that it got press, which is kind of how we ended up here and why the board spent time on comparing their HR, you know, comparing their costs to the Northwest. Eagle Crest is not private sector jobs because it is, a city enterprise. If we are comfortable in a position where— and I'm not saying that we couldn't be, but if we were comfortable letting them go fully on their own, even if that means they're playing under minimum wage and we're like, we're just going to let them chart their own destiny because it's a weird, very different model than government, we could do that.

But my own feeling is the reality is when they come before this body, and when that ends up in the press and we hear from the community, we're going to end up saying, well, actually we gotta give you money because actually we've gotta see that you're paid that way. And if we're gonna do that, which my feeling is, yeah, we are gonna do that and we have done that, then it makes sense to instead just have them on a steady track where there is an HR department watching it, classing it as appropriate, making sure also it's not just about the pay, but the personnel rules that that really draws on a talented department we have where they can make sure the employees are being, you know, treated well or the forms are being filled out. And I acknowledge that's very scary and I sometimes feel like, I'm like, yeah, let's spend money. And I equally am saying, yeah, I don't feel great about, and I get that it's an added cost, but because over time we continue to say, yeah, we will give you money, then let's just get it on a stable, predictable path. Um, and then the only other thing I would push back on is the community has gotten enough signatures to get a couple of proposals on the ballot, but I don't think we can say that we've heard from the community they want us to spend less money.

If the election goes that way, then I will say, oh, we have definitely heard from the community, spend less money, and we will figure out ways to do that together, and it will be painful. But at this point, I'm not going to say that. And we have made this already scary for me during decision during the budget cycle to say, okay, you asked for what you need, we're going to give you what you need. So I kind of want to say, let's keep going on that path and get them using the department. So that's where I'm at.

Miss Atkinson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will also be supporting this motion for a lot of the same reasons Miss Huskies mentioned. I did want to add a couple things though. One is that, you know, I think there is some uncertainty in the future in Eagle Crest, and there's going to be a lot of big Eagle Crest-related decisions that will come to this body.

And no matter what decision we end up making, adequate pay for Eagle Crest employees will be necessary to move forward with on that path. So to me, this is just— we have to do it, and we've asked to do it, we've talked about doing it. And in terms of added cost. We agreed this year to give them the budget that we gave them not long ago. So, uh, if we didn't want to spend the money that we agreed to give them, we should have made that vote at that point in time.

Uh, and the last thing I'll say is Eagle Crest is unique, but, you know, we do have a lot of seasonal employees with weird hours in the city itself. So I don't know that they're so vastly different that putting them on the city's pay scale as determined with HR and finance and the Eagle Crest management, is inappropriate at all. So I am very supportive of continuing down this path on this timeline.

Mr. Steininger. Thank you. And I'm going to speak in opposition to the motion, not necessarily because I'm against the idea of converting Eagle Crest employees over to the city's pay plan, but more because I think we're doing it a day too early. Um, Eagle Crest board is meeting tomorrow to discuss this, especially with 2 new members to the board. You know, I, I really want to hear from the board and hear their take on it.

They're working through all the nuances that this would have and the impacts on their operations before I think that we as a body should make any kind of prescriptive statement. Yeah, we've made one prescriptive statement, and that is We want to make sure that they are funded, they have a budget that is capable of funding pay for positions that is adequate to fill those positions. I still think we haven't really heard from the board on exactly how to do that, and I think that being more prescriptive, which is the way I'm interpreting this motion— I don't know if that's really the way that Mr. Kelly is intending it, but I like the do-nothing option. The, you know, don't pass a motion here, just let them move forward and we'll do something when get some feedback from the board. Thanks.

Miss Hall.

I'm also going to speak in opposition to this motion. Um, I feel like this is a time to give Eagle Crest the maximum flexibility they need to, um, uh, to fill positions, to move forward, to be flexible within their own budget without, uh, you know, it's a time of great uncertainty at Eagle Crest, and I think this is premature to direct them to, to go out and, um, pursue this. So I will be opposing. Thank you. You know, my intent here was to just, you know, take a temperature check on the body about how strongly people felt it already counting votes.

No, we have enough not to say Eagle Crest, you must do this. So maybe we'll just pull back on the motion if anyone who hasn't spoken wants to say something, but let the, let the board know that we are considering this. We'd love to hear what you guys think, if that's okay. Move this along. Okay, I, I could I could withdraw it, but it was actually, I think my intent might have been misunderstood.

My intent was not prescriptive. I did specifically choose the word explore specifically just because I'm interested in seeing what they think. So I was interested in the conversion. I heard from Ms. Flick that it was within the budget And exploring doesn't commit them to any actions, and it doesn't commit us to any actions. But I guess if they're— if that's not the direction we want to give at the moment, to explore it, I will move to withdraw my motion.

I think we do want them to explore it. I think we just all want to see We want to see what they come.

I think that's what I'm hearing from the body. Some people are pretty sure of how they'll vote at the end, and some people are less sure. And hopefully that's enough direction for the Eagle Crest board to keep this conversation going. Does that feel good to everyone? Okay.

Um, that brings us to the next Eagle Crest item, which I think is an update Mr. Simmons.

Uh, thank you very much. When Angie was talking about this assembly meeting, we both just agreed it would be a good chance for me to come back and update you because you requested it, requested more updates at the last time we met. So So I'm here and this will be quick, but of course open for questions and there's a lot going on up there. So stop me any time, but I have some, I have some slides, but I wanted to start off with kind of the tone. And if you remember, there were some key points that I like brought up at the Assembly Finance Committee meeting last time in the budget process of talking to— the slides are based around those.

And if you remember the analogy I used of like the person drowning just off the coast of— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Okay. It's kind of all framed under that too, like around that. And I do want to start off with a big thank you for that, for the funding, because it has already made a difference in the person drowning.

We might not be standing on the dock yet, but there's a much brighter light at the end of the tunnel. It just feels like a very long tunnel. So it's going good. The elephant in the room, I figured I'd start with that, is Black Bear.

If you haven't heard, we do not have the time, resources to fix it this summer. Making that decision was obviously very, very difficult, but I want to share with you something that happened immediately after making that decision. When, after we directly made the decision to not put resources, whether you consider that like our limited staff, the limited time, the limited money towards Black Bear, we shifted that energy to Ptarmigan, the main artery, and we instantly found two pretty major problems that we're now addressing. One, the driveshaft was, was about 50% worn out. There's a driveshaft, it's a Caterpillar driveshaft, like a Caterpillar heavy equipment, no longer made.

So we're having it fabricated. And that's taking weeks, if not months, to build. So, and we also found out that one of the towers is leaning. So we have to make sure it's still safe to operate or fix it. So what I'm getting at is I'm pretty confident that we, if we shifted our energy and our efforts into Black Bear, the mechanics we had on site that discovered those two big problems, might not have discovered those problems at Ptarmigan.

And if we lose Ptarmigan midwinter— like, the shaft was 50% worn out, right? And the other half of that 50% is gonna wear out much faster than the first 50%. It could have went out in February, and then it would be down for weeks, maybe months. So it was a very difficult decision to make, but that decision was very quickly reinforced. And I'm only talking about two problems we have discovered in this summer's just digging through deferred maintenance.

The list is longer, but those two are big enough problems that shut Ptarmigan down. So any questions there, or I can keep going? Thank you. Mr. Smith. Thank you.

Mr. Simmons, you said shut Black Bear down for this year, but it's intended to be shut down forever. Is that right? That's a very good question, a very hard question. Black Bear is, it has, that lift in that location at that age has served its purpose. The money it would take to bring that back to life, if money was not a problem for Eagle Crest, we could divert resources there, fix it.

It would be really risky to do so. It's a very old and it's an obsolete drive train system. It's called a bunker drive. You talk to anyone in the industry of mechanics, engineers, industry professionals, I just talked to a woman the other day who specializes in old lifts and she was like, "Bunker Drive, you just gotta get outta that technology. The industry moved away from it a long time ago.

You have to move on from that technology." So it's a hard question to answer because really we shouldn't fix it. We should be talking about replacement options for Black Bear. But we cannot talk about replacement options for Black Bear without first talking about replacement options for Tarmigan. We can't replace Black Bear and let Tarmigan continue to be from the 1960s and really immediately behind Black Bear in age, worn out. The parts are very difficult to find.

You either have to manufacture them. There's one gentleman named Frank, he owns Superior Tramway. He bought Riblet, the company Riblet who made our lifts.

He's the only person you can get Riblet parts from, and if he decides to go out of business or retire or move on, like, Riblet, you cannot get parts. So the industry is— everyone's talking about Frank. Everyone's like, wow, when Frank's gone, Superior Tramway goes away, Riblet support goes away. So it doesn't make any sense to keep a Riblet limping along if the one person who can support it is nearing the end of his career and the parts he have, he's running out of parts. Like our shaft, it used to be he had shafts on shelf.

He's custom fabricating it now because he ran out of shafts. So sorry, this is taking longer already than I intended, but it's very complicated. So could we fix it? Yes, but it's not intelligent to fix it. It's bad money.

Okay. Thank you.

Keep going. Keep going. All right. So if you remember, I talked about like this— these 3, like these 4 topics really at the assembly. It's the safety, cleanliness, professional improvements.

And I talked about when you have just enough money to operate, these topics are what slipped away. We have made drastic improvements in here, and I'll talk about that a bit. Equipment maintenance projects. We have a very long list of things to do, but we have done a lot. Staffing.

We were just talking about staffing. There's good and bad news there. We'll talk about that. And then sales and community work. Those are kind of the big 4 things we talked about last time I was here, and we'll just review 'em quickly.

So simple things like we distributed emergency action plans around the ski area. You wouldn't think that makes a big deal, but it's just proper safety operations. The outdoor staircase that was attached to Porcupine, we had to tear it out and rebuild it because it wasn't to code. Sounds like it's not a big deal. It's a big deal.

Fish Creek Lodge, the back deck is getting rebuilt as we speak. That's a project that's been on the list for a very long time. The Nest, the lift, or the building at the top of the mountain is is getting old and has a bunch of leaks and it's, some of its support is out of whack. That's all getting fixed. We made some improvements on the skiing at Porcupine to make it a better experience.

And then general maintenance projects on the top, bottom, the top and bottom of the lifts. It sounds really simple, but like broken doors, broken windows, floors that were soft and or had holes in them, holes in the walls, just We've done a lot of those little projects. All the doors on the lifts now close. Yeah, we've improved the heating system. Little things like that that when they pile up just, it's this culture of unprofessionalism or unsafe or just like not a comfortable work environment.

We made a lot of improvements there. We're cleaning up our locker rooms, doing some fixes there to make those spaces more functional and welcoming. We've moved a lot of stuff off of like the old recycling piles and scrap heaps and we've gotten a lot of stuff down to recycling. There's just more space up there to operate now and we have to start moving gondola parts around. So we have to free up some space to move gondola parts around.

So that's happened.

Next is like we could talk about equipment maintenance projects for well past sunset, which we don't wanna do.

The big news is we're organizing this big collaborative project with 4 different contractor lift mechanics to all come and knock out a bunch of Project Ones, including 2 bull wheel bearings. 1 Bull wheel bearing's a big project. 2 In the summer is a big project, bigger project. The Tarmigan gearbox is in Michigan currently. So it got sent off to be serviced.

And the good, the tough news there is it was very overdue. So we, we agreed with the company of what they would do. They opened up the gearbox and found a lot more broken and worn out in it than we even thought. So that's good that we got it to them. And luckily they're honoring the first, the quote.

So they did extra work for the same amount of money. So it's not great news because that gearbox should not have gone that long. So it makes us worry about what else has gone that long. But the good news is we're gonna get this new gearbox, we'll get it installed. Called the Tarmigan, and that is obviously the heart of Tarmigan, and that's where that shaft connects.

So this is all related. Uh, lift tower assemblies, if you don't know, that's the things that hold up the wheels that the rope runs over. Those are all getting replaced on, hopefully, on Hooter and Tarmigan. The current—. The—.

Those are the original assemblies from the '60s. We're updating them to, I think, assemblies from like the '80s or something like that, just more modern and better. We have them in stock. They bought them years ago. They've been sitting in, uh, Connex.

So we're going to deploy them. A bunch of bike trail maintenance. And then every— I know this isn't— this doesn't sound huge, but every vehicle had, um, like a full service hydraulic fluid oil change. I know that doesn't— that sounds like standard stuff. It hasn't been happening at a consistent pace.

So we were burning through vehicles faster than we should have been. Questions before next slide? Staffing? I'll ask one real quick. You know, in terms of the gear— the, sorry, the lift maintenance— do you feel like this is a normal amount of maintenance for, for lifts this old, or is this a combo of being old and years of not putting in funding and attention?

All of the things. The second one. It's a ridiculous amount of work. It should not be. The service records are— the service records are so empty, it feels like we're missing service records.

But yeah, it's bad. But we're catching up. But the lift is— I keep saying this at work. The mountain we have to climb is is very big. So we'll catch up, and then it just becomes standard, standard maintenance every summer.

Mr. Smith, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess any updates on snowmaking and what's your expectation for snowmaking for the upcoming season? Yes, that's news hot off the press. Um, we just ran the Sourdough Pump Station today. Today It's running fine, everything's good.

We've moved water through the pipes. We're sending water down a pipe tomorrow to make sure that— to potentially fix some leaks there. We brought in— I forgot which electrician, sorry. Someone's looking at the Logjam Pump Station. That's the pump station that we didn't run because the electric system in there wasn't— we didn't want to put people in there.

That's getting updated, so we should have both pump stations running this year, which we didn't have last year. We made some mistakes last year with a very green team, cracked some pipes, the pipes frozen, cracked. Those are getting fixed. So, the short answer is yes, snowmaking updates for sure. We'll be in a better position this year if all plans go accordingly than we were last year.

Thank you. Keep going. Staffing, is that where I am?

Oh yeah, the biggest news on the planet is we have a full-time admin coordinator at Eagle Crest for the first time ever, I think. She's— I think she's— it's Marissa. She's worked for, I think, 6 days now and has already made a very significant difference in workload for the other people on the leadership team. So that is huge. So thank you for that.

FTE for that position.

Summer trail crew worker was another additional FTE, and that person has been getting a ton of work done on the mountain. That's kind of the same question. It's more work than should get done in one summer because it's just catch up with weed whacking and stuff like that. Our new lift mechanic, he went and got his Level 1 certification. It's, I think it's a 20, 18-day course.

It's a big deal. So that's very good for us. To have him on board, and he's working very hard. We're recruiting for several key roles at Eagle Crest, but this position description project is making it a little difficult because we're like rewriting position descriptions and stuff. But we're getting the word out there probably this next week.

And then in general, many staff that are currently working this summer have just found me to make sure that I know they have noticed like a significant difference in like the energy level around the place, the safety around the place. The safety culture is just becoming inherent. Jobs are getting completed all the way to the end and they're not just jumping from one fire to the next fire like we were last winter and not never even putting out the original fire all the way.

So that's a huge win. It's hard to quantify, but it's very important. People have noticed a significant difference. And then we conducted 16 interviews for the J-1 candidates. We're hiring them now, and that's good.

We'll get them back. They are so instrumental for the operation of the ski area. And then lastly, the next slide, unless there's questions.

Miss Hall. Yeah, I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit more about the J-1 candidates. You know, the climate has changed dramatically since last year. Are you pretty confident you're going to be able to get those 16? Yes.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, and will they be safe? You know, I don't know what's happened in other industries As far as, you know, maybe— anyway, I know across the country there's been problems and yeah, I would be concerned and I hope you're monitoring that situation for this category of employee. Yeah. So answer your question, we feel confident that they will arrive and I've talked to other people and that other ski areas that use them and they're still moving forward with their J-1 programs.

And so, short answer is yes. And then to follow up about like will they be safe and supported, it's hard to forecast that, but we are changing a bit. Like we want to create like an RA position at the UAS where they all live so they have someone on site that's like from here and can support them more and help them navigate Juneau and things like that. So we're looking at how to like we can support them even more than we have. The way the J-1 program works at Eagle Crest is already very good.

Like Erin and her crew, everybody takes very good care of them already. So we don't have to turn the dial up too high to make it better. But I feel pretty confident about it.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Mr. Simmons, you might have mentioned a reason, but I guess the new positions we, whatever, allowed you this for this fiscal year and then potential increases to pay for existing. Sorry, I guess any, I guess just an overall snapshot on recruitment, or you mentioned again a lot of administrative kind of work being done, but I guess just any other updates on, you know, just overall recruitment for staff? Yeah, so of the FT, like of the new FTs that you all approved, the, the, we filled the admin coordinator one, um, trail crew one, one of the trail crew ones, um, Quinn moved in, is moving into his, so that's another full FTE.

What am I missing there? Oh yeah, the laborers, right. So the laborers, the revenue coordinator, and the other, the second trail crew member, we still have to recruit for them, but because of this project we've been working on, it's slowing down that process, to be honest, but in a good way because we're really nailing down what that job description is, what the expectations are, what the pay is, everything like that. So now we do need to recruit for those positions. The revenue coordinator and a couple other positions should go live here pretty soon.

We've been working with HR on it, but yeah, they will make as much of a difference as the admin coordinator has already made in 2 weeks. That revenue coordinator is also going to help a lot, and those laborers too.

All right, wrap us up here. Yeah, yeah. Um, all our passes were launched, program registration was started, uh, marketing materials were updated. Um, the Eagle Crest Foundation School Group Scholarship fundraising donation campaign has started to raise money for the, um, the school, the school program. We had 4 weeks of successful summer camp, about 40 people in them.

There's another win like it is every summer. And then lots of work working on this Discover Eagle Crest 50th birthday celebration in a couple weeks on December 12th and 13th. A lot of work around that. We're trying to make that a big deal. Of course, it's 50 years.

Been working really closely with the foundation and other— a bunch of other groups too. Retail inventory was reconciled with the city and the state. Ordering continues for the 50th celebration. New ski and snowboard rentals are on site. And that's all I have, unless you have questions.

Or other questions?

All right, seeing none, thank you so much, Mr. Simmons, for being here. Super helpful. Yeah, thank you all. Um, I'm, uh, gonna give us a little break here, um, not knowing how long the next one will be, and Maybe it'll be short but roll into our fourth agenda topic. So let's take, um, 7 minutes.

So 6:33, bringing us back. Um, we're going to, um, next agenda item is the Don Sakahini Playground Appropriating Ordinance 23-501. 1B, F, that's in your packet. I'm going to do my best to provide a quick overview of how we got here, and staff can correct me if I'm wrong. So in the FY25 budget discussion, so last year's budget, um, assembly, um, decided to appropriate money for design of the Don Sakini Playground recognizing the transition that was happening there.

That was shortly after the consolidation decisions were made. Um, a playground was designed, the price— and I'm sorry, I'm skipping key details, but for purposes of here, playground was designed, price tag was a bit scary to the assembly, um, and, uh, it got sent, um, back. You know, I think there's a $1.8 million figure that had come to the assembly. We—. Committee sent it back at $500,000, and so not to go back and forth, back and forth, we convened the joint school board and, um, uh, assembly committee to talk about it.

The ordinance here before you tonight represents what that committee unanimously forwarded to the assembly. Um, when the assembly was going to vote on it during the budget process, a motion was made to include it in the bond proposal instead of funding it out of general funds. And then when the bond proposal was rejected from the ballot, it is back in front of us in its original form as coming from general funds. So that's where we're at. Staff, did I miss any key details?

Else there. All right, is there anything else you all want to say on this project before I see what questions the committee has?

All right, questions from the committee. Mr. Kelly.

This isn't a question, um, just making a disclosure. I made this before, and I just want— I, I, I just want to make sure in case anybody missed it that time. So, uh, previously I wasn't able to participate in discussions about the playground because I had a child at the Montessori school or in the Montessori program. But on the advice of the attorney, now that he's moving to a different school next year, I am fully able to participate in this discussion. Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess this is like a bigger process question. I mean, this has obviously been maybe more of a— anyway, has been a long and arduous road for everyone on this project. I guess, are there just things that we should consider in the future when we're doing projects to be like, should we like set a high-level cost or do something so that we don't raise expectations and then have to, and then essentially have, you know, gone back and forth, back and forth, and just— it's been very challenging for a lot of people.

Anyway, is there a way we can do that better going forward? Yes.

A budget is really important. I mean, you know, you can either design to the use, or you can design to a budget. Those are just two different ways of approaching design. The $75,000 number full disclosure came because I called up Parks and Recreation Director Shoff, and I was like, what's a playground cost these days? He's like, $750,000.

And I was like, whoa, it seems expensive. Well, 10%, $75,000. So that was obviously a, um, you know, based on assumption that that playground would look like some of our other playgrounds, uh, and not what Sanskriti needed. So, um, budget is always useful. You either design to a budget or you design to all the project desires.

Excuse me, Candice. Thank you, Madam Chair. Following up on that, because I very much appreciate that question.

I think one thing along this path that I learned in the Public Works Committee after we asked a lot of questions about how they came up with that number, how they got to that, that design, and ended up sending them back like, no, do it more in this range.

I think your comments just covered it, but I just— I guess to beat a dead horse, I think part of what surprised me was that I believe the way I understood it then was engineering is the has a part in it. And then if it's like an enterprise or the school district or something like that, they are the client. And then it's just, you know, it's a conversation between the client and engineering. So I guess what I'm asking is like, is it— is there a policy change needed? Or is it like you just make sure you have a budget every time and then the people within the corpus of the— or no, that's not the right word, but like the core city staff know like Regardless of what the client wants, we have this number.

This is where we stop. Does that make sense what I'm asking? Because I, I think you could still be like, okay, let's do that project by project, but I'd rather make something where we're like, we don't do— that's not CBJ policy anymore, so that'll never happen again.

I think what you're struggling with is the culture at engineering, which is not to challenge the client department on cost, right? And usually that's not a problem because the normal budget development process, which you're very familiar with, is like, hey, rough order of magnitude, we think demolition of Telephone Hill is going to be $5.5 million. This is how we got to that number. This is what that project includes. So you have an idea when you approve the funding, when you approve the design funding, you have an idea of of what you're including.

And I think that's the real challenge with this project is it wasn't the assembly saying, we know that we're going to need ADA, we know we're going to need fencing, we know we're going to need pre-K, and—. Right? Because you didn't have that information. And so I mean, I think 90% of the time that project development, that's how that works. And then of course, you know, I'm like, don't go over budget, right?

And so I think the challenge— You know, is you, you could, you could set, if you weren't going to set a budget because you were like, we have no idea what the needs are, you would need to be very clear as a body with expectations on cost. So maybe you're like, you know, project, we, you're gonna have needs that we can't anticipate, but our expectations are that cost will be the main driver in this project. And, you know, if you've set those expectations, then when we go to the client department and they're like, No, no, no, this is what the community wants. We can go back and be like, we don't think the Assembly will accept that. So we need to have some back and forth.

And this was a particularly difficult project just because there's so many stakeholders. And it's just so high visibility. But I think in lieu of a budget, setting those expectations would be really helpful. Okay, thank you. That's helpful hearing it articulated.

And I think that makes me realize that I should provide one more clarifying piece of information, which is that this ordinance is not going to appropriate funding to build a playground. It's going to do the site prep and the surfacing that's required to build a playground. And I think that's where a lot of the— where this project went off the rails is this required a lot more expensive site prep than we were anticipating when we were having the conversation.

Other— Miss Hall.

Yeah, looking at this number and the statement that it provides safety surfacing for the pre-K and K-5 play equipment, um, does that include swings for all age groups, knowing that swings take the, the largest area of surfacing?

So the playground equipment is not part of this design or the playground layout, equipment layout. So that, that is a separate process that will be led by the school district. Okay, I, I understand that that doesn't include the equipment, but when we're saying this will cover the safety surfacing for the play equipment equipment, will that be adequate amount of safety surfacing for swings for all of those different age categories? I suspect it would matter the cumulative total of equipment that the school district wants to place on that surfacing, right? So if it's just swings and that kind of, you know, I don't believe CPJ Engineering has done that type of you know, what will all of this fit?

And if they have, I don't have an answer to that question. I don't know if Christie does, or— I'm sorry, Mr. Green.

Through the chair, if you look at the packet the $660,000 project cost with the addition of the fencing at about $70,000. Um, the area in the 65% design that would be swings here to the left, that circle does not include safety surfacing. That would be the, um, K-5 area swings. And then on the far right around the handicap accessible path, um, that is the pre-K swing area, and that is not included in the safety surfacing in this current, um, part of the design.

Mr. Steininger, I'm sorry, I think this question is probably either for the district or maybe the school board, um, but thinking about this project, you know, the last time that we considered as a body, it was part of a bond ordinance that came along with several other projects that were all, you know, given to us through a prioritization process from the school district of kind of what your, you know, highest and best needs in capital improvement are for the district in order to put together a bond package to go from the voters. This item has been pulled off of that list, you know, to an extent maybe at the expense of those other projects. But I guess what I'm trying to understand is is, you know, if we have $730,000 of general fund that we're providing to the school district to address capital needs, you know, is this the highest and best need for the students within the school district, you know, or are there other needs that might be, you know, more needy or, you know, higher priority where our limited general fund dollars could be going? I, I guess I'm asking, where does this rank in total, you know, and if you look at it differently between maintenance versus new construction, that might be, be something to consider here.

But trying to understand if this is the best use of $730,000 for school district facilities.

Mr. Hauser.

Go ahead, whoever wants to take crack at that one. Okay, the school district has approximately 300 students, K-8, attending school at the Dulanqahini campus. That is the approximate number of students that are at a number of our elementary schools. All of those students have a playground.

Some huge playgrounds, in fact. These students do not have a playground.

They have a field that turns into mud. And an ice rink so that they are playing on the graveled path in front of the building during the winter.

It is a priority for their physical health, their emotional health. They need a playground.

Mr. Hauser, anything to add on that? Uh, the Chair, no, I think President Sorensen articulated that quite well.

Mr. Bryson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I'm going to get to the similar answer with a different question. I was just doing a quick math count and I counted 6 public parks in the Mendenhall Valley area: Rotary Melvin, Hidden Park, Glacier Valley Elementary, Mendenhall River Elementary, and Riverbend Elementary. Those are the— um, I wanted confirmation that those are the 6 parks in the valley.

And then I was trying to think of how many, uh, public parks are available in Lemon Creek, our lowest socio- economic, uh, area of town. And there's only one park in that area. And forgive me, I do not know the native name of it, but I know it's like one street off of Davis in that area. It's the— I'm sorry, that's the only public park in the entire Lemon Creek area, unless somebody know. Um, maybe that's my question.

Are there other public parks that, uh, children have access to in the Lemon Creek area that you guys are aware of? No.

That was the answer that I was looking for. Thank you.

I see no other questions.

Mr. Smith, do we have a motion? Thank you, Madam Chair. I would move— I got it, one second. I would move Ordinance 2025-01BF for introduction at the next regular assembly meeting and ask for unanimous consent. Thank you.

Any objections? We didn't— we have not introduced this, is that correct? I'm trying to remember the original, my original motion. Uh, your, uh, the direction at the last regular assembly meeting was to draft the ordinance and bring it to the AFC. Okay, so it has not been introduced as an ordinance.

Thank you. Sorry for not remembering. Thank you. Any objections to the motion? Seeing none, that is so moved.

That brings us to assembly goals progress update. Um, we have on the last page of the packet, um, some of our assembly goals related to budget and finance. We wanted to bring this back knowing that, um, we just have a few meetings left before, um, a new assembly and new priorities and a new budget process. So wanted to kind of check in on temperature of where people wanted to spend their time for our next one or two Finance Committee meetings before we shift gears. Um, Ms. Flick, anything you want to say on this topic?

Thank you, Chair Wohl. Um, I, I would like to, um, ensure that you pause and recognize that you've made great progress on a couple of these. Um, the item in the economic development, uh, related to, um, addressing the dockage fees, you've, you've already put that in motion. Um, and you also have spent a significant amount of time through the budget process looking at Under number 3, sustainable budget and organization, Part D is in Delta, evaluating ways to increase revenue from visitor activity. The seasonal sales tax, um, the work that you have done has been huge in that process.

So while we can't check all of them off as being done, you did tackle some, some pretty big ones, and I think taking a moment to recognize the hard work that you've done there is appropriate. As staff, we have started gathering information related to Item E, as in Echo, about the tax exemptions, tax credits, foregone revenue. So as staff, we've started to collect that. It is going to end up being a very large list of things that we provide and do, and so we're working as staff to Put those in meaningful bundles with not just, oh, code says this, but what does it mean? And, you know, just put some context around it and likely group those in, not necessarily here's property tax and here's sales tax and here's rebates, but, you know, more around maybe geared towards particular areas of citizen groups or in particular areas of related type activity.

So we're working on pulling that together. It is going to take some time to piece that together and make it meaningful because there is quite a lot of volume there.

And I also just want to recognize that on item number B as in Bravo, you also spent considerable amount of time during the budget season talking about Eagle Crest and continue to do that today. And we'll in the next meeting as well. So I think you guys have done a lot of work. If there's other areas where you want us to focus and pull things together, you know, happy to take that direction as well.

We'll start with questions and then I'll just open it up for comments to see if folks have reflections on kind of their priority. Any questions for staff? Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to confirm, Any changes to property tax exemptions would need to be enacted before— well, I guess enacted in, like, in effect before January 1st, 2026, for them to affect next— anyway, FY27 revenue, or anyway, help me with that.

Uh, Mr. Smith, the The, the property assessment values, um, that will be the base for your mill rate decisions for FY27, that snapshot of the property value is as of January 1st. So January 1st, 2026 is when we would establish, um, that's kind of the establishment date of the value of the property at that given moment. And then in May and June, you set the mill rate to be levied against what ends up being the final value. Depending on changes that you want to make in exemptions and tax relief, they may not have to be enacted before January 1st. We'll have to figure out what those changes that you want to enact are and when the appropriate time.

Oftentimes, the deadline to apply for something is not January 1st. Like, you have to turn in a request for an exemption by a certain date, typically after January 1st, in order to get certain exemptions or make things happen. Certainly as it relates to— there's other exemptions that you may want to make a decision on prior to the first of the year, or you may make it afterwards and say it will take effect for maybe January 1st, 2027. Just, it really kind of depends on the exemption and the change that you want to make.

And we'll almost need to deal with those one by one, working with the Law Department to ensure that legally we're fine to change them or when that date effective date would actually come to be.

Miss Hughes-Candies.

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thank you for bringing us this. It is nice to think about where did we get— I am just wanting to check in, uh, throughout the budget process we Focusing on the seasonal revenue, obviously we spent a lot of time on the seasonal sales tax and we know where that went. We also discussed different concepts and some of them were interesting to me, like we tax this thing this way, is that makes sense? This is just how it's always been done. I'm thinking of like airplane tours and, you know, some of those property things.

Do we feel like those are also still hanging out there in progress? Or, you know, frequently I'm like, what do I— you know, what did we do at that meeting? You're gonna help remind me. So do you feel like this is— I guess also I'd express to this body, like, I would— I thought we weren't totally done beating that bush, so I would communicate that, like, I would just want to go back. Obviously we had to drop everything else if we wanted to get a sales tax on the ballot.

So question and communication. Do you remember what you remember where we left those conversations? Who am I? Where am I? Where am I?

Much has happened since we've had those conversations. Thankfully, most of those conversations are recorded so we can go back and check in on exactly what, um, what we want to do. I think your action item letter E about exemptions and things of that nature got coined leaky revenue. And I think that along with like trying to explain how sales tax things work and where do we tax them and where might we want to plug some leaks, I believe those were things to bring back in that group. But we will go back and ensure that we don't miss any of them.

All right, we can move on to comments. But Ms. Flick, quickly, maybe can you remind me, do we have two Finance Committee meetings scheduled before elections or just one? We have, Chair, well, we have a meeting scheduled for September 3rd, which is the Wednesday after Labor Day. And we actually— the, the 1st of October is a Wednesday, so we could potentially meet that day as well. And then following that, November 5th would be the first AFC meeting after the assembly, and then we typically have one at the beginning of December in preparation for your annual retreat.

Great. Um, and in terms of item E, in terms of what you all are working on and preparing, are you— do you think you'd have something ready to bring back to the body for our next meeting, or a piece of it, or you want to do all of it and it'll take a bit? What do you think right now? Uh, thank you, Chair. Well, um, My plan is, I don't know that we can get something meaningful together for you by the September ASC meeting.

My thought, and haven't spent much time with the city manager on this plan yet, or with you as the chair, is to hopefully be ready to introduce kind of that body of options either at that October 1st meeting or to do it at the November 5th meeting. But to be able to brief you all on kind of here, here are the 100 topics that we could tackle and whether the body's ready to give direction on any of them or whether it's really just take it in, mull it over, and then come back and give direction on, okay, we want to tackle, you know, these things as, as the next. It hasn't been decided, but I don't think we can have anything together for you for the September meeting. Great, thanks. Any comments from the body on kind of looking at this list, places you'd want to spend time over the next few months?

Mr. Smith. Thanks, Madam Chair. I think I think I would focus on the leaky revenue piece and possibly again following up on, you know, are there— is there revenue from visitor activity that we need to pursue? I think those would be my top two.

The revenue from visitor activity piece and maybe just some of our, you know, ideas that have already been out there or other ones.

Miss Hall.

Yeah, I think that, um, E— I'm wondering how difficult would it be just to have a list of all the exempt— the tax exemptions, just a list so we could start kind of getting our head around it, not with any high-level data. Most, if not all, of your exemptions are in code. So we could absolutely pull a list for you. There are other things that would fall in that category that are not in code, like tackling maybe more definitively how we do tours, do sales tax on tours. We know that we have some other areas within our property tax structure that are just problematic.

They're not necessarily leaky. I think they're a little leaky. But they're problematic that if we're going to have these discussions, we'd like to incorporate those. And so those wouldn't be necessarily easily to pull out a code and say, here's your list, but we could certainly pull a lot of them for you and just provide a list. We could do that on a Friday report.

So you could have that fairly quickly if you'd like.

Thank you. I think that'd be helpful just to start thinking about it and getting our head around possibilities.

Mr. Bryson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I'm actually quite comfortable having discussions on almost any one of these topics because they all seem appropriate to the actions that we're doing. The only topic that I absolutely do not want us to spend another moment on is Eagle Crest. Let them— they're already asking to be $3 million in the hole.

They're already asking to rewrite their whole thing. Let's, let's get them to a settling point where they're doing their stuff and we're not putting anything more into flux with those guys. Let's let them do a year with Mr. Simmons at the helm, uh, maybe hopefully have a real ski year so that we could see the real challenges that we're going to need to deal with Eagle Crest. So we could talk about Eagle Crest to our blue in the face. Nothing will change until they have us— until we see what next snow year is.

So I will be more than happy to hold any discussion with you, Madam Chair, except for Eagle Crest. Thank you for that time. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Bryson. Anything else? All right, we will take that feedback back to planning our next few meetings.

Oh, sorry, Miss— oh, different topic.

Um, just like a random topic, or you want to take us into executive session? Okay, go ahead, Miss Atkinson. Thank you. I, uh, Miss, uh, Kester has a thing that we need to make a motion on before we go into executive session, so I will let her explain that. Thank you, uh, Miss Atkinson.

So, uh, At the last HRC meeting, you did appointments for the airport board. However, we do not have a full airport board. They're making some consequential decisions with hiring. There was conversation after the— around that, that a couple of the airport board members were willing to stay on until such time as a replacement could be filled, but they were like— and this was Jerry Godkin and David Epstein. 2016.

And they're willing to, because they have, because they're dedicated public servants and really value the airport board, they're willing to do that service. But they had no interest in reapplying, which is why you didn't see an application for you to consider. So this left you in a little bit of a limbo land, and their term expired on June 30th. In the past, we have kind of, when we've had those vacant positions, allowed board members to continue on. I would argue that's not not a very clean process, so we need to work internally on that.

All of that to say is I would appreciate a motion from the HRC chair, supported by the body, to reappoint Mr. Jerry Godkin and David Epstein to the airport board until which time a, uh, their seat can be filled. This would mean we would continue to solicit applications. December is probably when kind of the next round of appointments would happen.

Go ahead, Ms. Atkinson. Oh, Ms. Huescandiz has a question first. Oh, sorry. I also don't have a question. I was just going to offer—.

Random? It's totally random, you guys. I have a thought. No, I just wanted to say in advance of this meeting, I reached out to Mr. Godkin and Mr. Epstein today. And just for the body's information, yes, very dedicated.

Uh, Mr. Godkin said he'd stay on at our pleasure or until the actual end of that term, so he offered as much as that. And Mr. Epstein offered many scenarios depending on the way hiring goes. And, uh, so I just wanted you to know that I spoke with both, both gentlemen today. Thank you. And I should add that I do have confirmation in writing from both of those individuals.

I felt like that was a good, we don't want to appoint people who don't want to be appointed. So it's good to have that.

Go ahead, Ms. Atkinson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to move until December because if we can't find a replacement, we can reappoint again until June. So for now, I would move that we extend the terms David Epstein and Jerry Godkin on the airport board until December 2025, and I ask unanimous consent. Any objections?

Mr. Kelly? Thank you. I would just object for parliamentary inquiry. Uh, we are currently sitting as the Finance Committee. Are we able to make this decision?

I did consult the city attorney. I did consider a special meeting, but considering we have done practices such as just letting people keep, uh, keep their board seat until we filled it in the past. I figured a— I think that a— um, and this attorney agreed that just a motion— you guys often do motions at the end of meetings, um, to kind of do appointments. So, um, the city attorney, uh, was happy with that approach. Um, just it would take a lot more to, to make that a more formal a lot more hoops for the body to have to jump through.

Thank you, Miss Kester. Mr. Kelly, would you like to, um, I don't have an objection. Okay. All right, um, any other objections? All right, that is so moved.

Um, thank you all for bringing that forward. Brings us to our next meeting date, September 3rd. And, um, Miss— Mr. Bryson, will you take take us into executive session, and I believe we will not need to come back after this, having no other business. Go ahead. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, I move that the assembly enter into executive session, discuss the enterprise financial reporting, the immediate knowledge of which would adversely affect the finances of the municipality, and ask for unanimous consent.

Any objections from the public? Any objections from the assembly? Seeing none, as I moved.