January 27, 2025 Assembly Committee of the Whole Worksession

We will bring the Assembly Committee of the Whole to order for January 27th, 2025.

Mr. Kelly, will you do the land acknowledgement, please? Sure. We would like to acknowledge that the City and Borough of Juneau is on Tlingit land and wish to honor the indigenous people of this land. For more than 10,000 years, Alaska Native people have been and continue to be integral to the well-being of our community. We are grateful to be in this place, a part of this community, and honor the culture, traditions, and resilience of the Tlingit people.

Gunasheesh. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Madam Clerk, will you call roll? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ms. Hughes-Kindes.

Here.

Ms. Atkinson. Here. Mr. Kelly? Here. Ms. Hall?

You're—. Let's give you a new microphone. Um, Mr. Steininger? Here. Um, we—.

Uh, Mayor Weldon? Here. We have absent tonight Mr. Bryson, Ms. Wall, and Deputy Mayor Smith. Quorum is present. Uh, thank you.

Yes, Mr. Smith had plane issues and Mr. Bryson wasn't feeling well tonight, so that's why we're the few but mighty few. So just a friendly reminder to the assembly that we need 5 to move things along.

With that, any changes to the agenda?

Seeing none, we'll consider the agenda approved. Any changes to the minutes for January 29th, 2024? Seeing none, we'll consider those minutes approved. Um, so our agenda topics— ECOCREST, Madam Manager. Thank you, Mayor Weldon.

I'd like to invite Mr. Kirk Duncan up, uh, and while he is making his way up here, I'll just do a brief introduction Mr. Duncan was most recently hired by the manager's office to answer a question for the assembly to kind of review the timeline and the pro forma and the business plan for the gondola project. Before that, he was hired by the Eagle Crest board to advise while they had their interim manager, Miss Lupo, who's here in the audience. And before that, he's had extensive experience with CVGA, including public works director and Eagle Crest general manager. So So that's how we ended up with Mr. Duncan doing this analysis. It kind of has that inside knowledge.

You know, he quickly, when he started diving into the gondola project and the question of like, when will the gondola be revenue positive to help maintain winter operations at Eagle Crest, he realized he needed to do a deeper dive in just what Eagle Crest needs for winter operations. And so you will see a much more robust analysis of kind of all things Eagle Crest than you probably anticipated when you appropriated those funds during the budget process. So I just thought I'd provide a little bit of context for you on that. After Mr. Duncan's presented, we do have the Eagle Crest board chair, Mike Setree, who would like to be available for you for some comments and some questions. And, you know, our— I think just working collectively, our goal for this meeting would be to land on a date for a joint meeting with the Eagle Crest Board and for the body to be able to provide the board just some guidance on how you're thinking about approaching the issue of Eagle Crest and keeping them stable until the gondola comes on board.

Because that will help them in their committee work as they bring that back to you at a joint meeting. And I'll just throw out March 6th is the regular Eagle Crest Board meeting. And so that's a possible date for you to ponder as we go through the the topic here. So with that, Mr. Duncan.

Thank you, Madam Manager. Um, slideshow up on the power— PowerPoint up on the screen.

And while that's coming up, as, um, the manager stated My job is to take a look at where we are now and where we will be in 2043, uh, and just the implications for finances around all of that. I've made many assumptions, and it's up to the Board to determine whether they're going to modify those, accept them, not accept them, whatever. I'm also hoping that I've been more negative on the expenses than may be, may end up happening. So with that, I'd like to make 2 comments before I get into the presentation. One is that I was concerned about the future of Eagle Crest because there are many things going on that need to be corrected.

And that's never fun to say. And then I realized that exactly 20 years ago in fiscal year '05, there had been a management change. There had been years of negative financial results. There were no lift mechanics. There were all kinds of things going on, very similar to where we are today.

And it's important to note that the staff and the board That staff and that board worked with other people in the community and got power, electrical power taken up to the mountain, a road to the top of the mountain, which is used by hundreds of people in the summertime. Two lifts were constructed and the Porcupine Lodge was built. And so that gives me a really good feeling of optimism that there's good potential for, turning things around. One of the questions is, how do we, how can we quit doing this, you know, needing to turn things around? But I'll talk more about that under governance.

I also, I made some comments, and I think that they weren't particularly flattering to the Board. And I just, again, I'll talk more about this under governance, but I have a lot of respect for Mr. Saetre and a lot of respect for the board. They're the hardworking volunteers, and, and they're, they're very dedicated and, and very intelligent people. Uh, that being said, why do we keep finding ourselves in this situation? So while I criticize the board, I do not criticize the board members, and I know that that may be a little bit strange, but We'll talk more about that.

Okay, uh, next, uh, next slide that says operational result and fund balance 1997-2024.

Next slide, please.

Thank you. So I coined a phrase called operational result, and that is total revenue plus general fund support minus expenses. And one of the goals of the ski area is to always have that positive. And you can see from here, there was a healthy fund balance, $400,000 in the late '90s. And then in the early 2000s, after a bad snow year, the, uh, the Eagle Crest board decided to do a series of refunds and credits, and it ran up a negative fund balance of $800,000.

The reason I bring this up is that Eagle Crest has had, uh, positive operational results since 2007 through 2017 and paid off that $800,000 negative fund balance. And one of the things we'll talk about tonight is, do we increase our negative fund balance to take care of some of the problems at Eagle Crest? I'm simply pointing this out because there's precedent that fund balance, negative fund balances have been paid back. And then in the last 5 of 7 years, there's been poor operational results. And currently the negative fund balance is around -$160 million.

These numbers all come from the CAFR, the, the city's financial report. So, um, I will go to the next slide. And 2025, uh, so this, this fiscal year, I think it's important to point out that, um, a lot of things have to happen before the beginning of FY26, which is, as you know, July 1st. And so services, commodities, materials need to be procured, and I do not believe that there's adequate money in the budget to do that. So as a placeholder, I'm simply saying that there's probably $750,000 that's going to be supplemental.

The Board can debate that, they can come back with a lesser amount, a greater amount, but I'm just making the assembly aware that there may be the need for that amount of money. That could bring the negative fund balance to $900,000. There's also the issue, uh, that this is a relatively poor snow year, and I don't have any estimates in here for the revenue shortfall, although talking with staff yesterday, uh, the finances look fairly positive. So, uh, more work on that. But the point, the takeaway here is a potential $900,000 negative fund balance if they in fact need that $750,000.

Next slide. Just very briefly, there's been comments from the assembly that Eagle Crest should raise prices. And I just want to point out that price, the, as prices have gone up, sales, number of season passes have gone down. And one of the things that's going to be needed at some point in time is to find out what the users think of what pricing should be. And one of the recommendations could be to do a survey of users.

And I was talking with Mr. Holtz at JEDC, and they may be able to assist in doing something like that. So anyway, just a comment about that. Hmm? No.

Go back, uh, go back 2 slides. Last word. Um, okay, so, uh, 20— okay, I'm sorry, 2026, FY 26. So just to recap, potentially $750,000 in FY25. FY26, next fiscal year, I looked at the existing pay plan and tried to determine what if we developed a pay plan, what the potential cost would be.

In the next 2 slides, we'll talk about that. So potentially $800,000 in pay plan adjustments. And an additional $875,000 in materials, commodities, and services. And that again is a placeholder. I think there's tremendous amount of flexibility in what the Eagle Crest Board could do.

As an example, with the Black Bear Chair, they could totally rebuild it. They could do nothing with it and not— and mothball it for a year. So there's lots of different options. But again, I'm just sort of setting the assembly up to think that there may be a request in that neighborhood. Potential funding sources, increase user fees, talked a little bit about that already.

Decrease, something happened in 2012, Eagle Crest had 6.5 year-round full-time employees. There are now 12 year-round full-time employees. I think some of that was anticipation of the gondola coming online. At earliest, it'll be 2 years. And so I think the Board just needs to take a look at that, and that's in the report.

We can also take a look at capital improvement funds, potentially increasing the negative fund balance, grant funding opportunities. At one point in time, we had a $700,000 grant from Rasmussen to build the Black Bear Chair and other funding sources. In FY26, the funding balance could go to negative $3 million if the pay plan and the additional maintenance budget of $875 put in place. I apologize, I did have the slides out of— my slides out of order. So we've already talked about the— potential need to do some kind of— next slide.

So now we're on— let me just go back. On the other slide, we already talked about potentially doing a survey of the user groups to see how much they've been willing to pay. The—. On— so now we're on the current pay plan. What I have put together here is a $17 an hour minimum wage with 7.5% between ranges and 2.5% between steps.

And what you can see by the green line is the percentage on the, the lower scale of the staff, which is where I perceive the biggest problem to be, is looking at somewhere between a 25 and 35% raise, while the higher end is looking more like 20%. So the board could come back and say, now let's do a $16 minimum wage, let's do 6% between steps, and, or ranges, and 2.5, 2, 2 between, 2% between steps. So, um, that is just another thing that this, putting this plan in place would cost approximately $800,000. The FY27 budget Thank you. It is assumed after 2 years that we'll be back somewhere close to a preventative maintenance budget.

So we're back to not needing the $750,000 in FY25 and the $875,000 in FY26. I'm assuming a 5% increase in revenue, 5% increase in expenses. 3% Increase in general fund support. What's, what's interesting in '27 is there's a bunch of startup costs, assuming the gondola comes online in '28, that we're going to have to train 2 mechanics for the gondola, and, and it's going to be difficult to train them in Juneau. They're—.

We're going to have to hire them, and they're probably going to go to work at other ski areas that have similar lifts so that they can get up and running. Let's assume that's $300,000. That would normally come out of the construction budget, but we don't know what the construction budget is. We also have to look at repairing the Brown Shop so that there's someplace that they can do gondola maintenance. Um, that again, can that come out of, uh, construction budget of the gondola, or does that have to come out of operations?

That is unknown. And so I am just looking at basically the increased, uh, level of personnel costs and the increase in the, the 5% increase in expenses. So the fund balance could go to negative $4 million in 2027.

Now we're on to the gondola. One of the, uh One of the issues here that I pointed out in the report is that we don't know what the market demand is for the gondola. I was part of the team that worked on building the Mount Roberts tram, and the McDowell Group was hired to actually sit on the dock and talk to people getting off cruise ships and say, if we put a tram up there, would you ride it and how much would you pay? And that step was missed here. So what I'm assuming is I've been talking with Goldbelt and they're saying that we can net— Eagle Crest can net $85 from the cruise, from the passengers.

Well, and then there's a $35 bus ride to get to Eagle Crest from Goldbelt. And then the cruise lines take 30%. You reverse engineer those numbers and it comes up to $171.50.

That's a, that's a large number. So what I did is I, I took that $85 and then I created a scenario of $65 net to Eagle Crest and $45 net to Eagle Crest. I kept the ridership the same at 55,000. Visits going up to 125,000. Gold Belt feels that we can do 150,000.

So I've made a few tweaks to the revenue, but I can't overstress how I'm— I don't have a good handle on revenue because we didn't do that revenue, that market analysis. So there are 4 different spreadsheets, one on the pay plan, one at 85, one at 65, one at 45. Uh, each one has 7 different tabs on it, so it's pretty complicated. So I just really want to keep this high level right now. Um, you can see, uh, on the graph here, this is the moderate scenario.

So at $65, the maximum negative fund balance would be $4.8 million. So in order from today until the lift— until the gondola comes online, negative fund balance could be $4.8 million if you agree to the revenue. Over the— then from there until 2043, the gondola would bring in $50 million, and that is— that means that it covers the negative— it covers the winter operations and still nets $50 million. So, um, that is just, uh, I can spend a lot of time on this slide, but that gives you a scope of, again, $4.8, potential negative $50 million, and covering the, the winter operations. And I'm assuming, as the report states, that general fund support would stop in 2029, I believe.

So I'll be happy to answer any questions. I've got 2 more slides. Um, quickly on governance, uh, as I, as I stated, I'm not making any recommendations here. I'm simply pointing out that, um, you have 7 really well-meaning educated, dedicated board members who are volunteers. And they're trying to assist and oversee a very complicated operation.

And it just needs to be pointed out that, that something needs to happen, 'cause we keep seeing this problem. And there are different ways of doing this. I'm not suggesting getting rid of the empowered board. But how can we give the empowered board more resources? Are there things we can do in the city?

The empowered board, one of the most effective things that ski areas do is they check the oil, and they do oil samples on gearboxes and motors and hydrostatic drives. Do we expect somebody, some board member to oversee that to make sure that happens. So again, I don't want to go into the weeds here. I just want to point out that 7 very dedicated, full-time, working full-time may or may not have all the resources that they need. So is there something we can do about that?

The other thing that happens, is it's very important in the ski business that we have timely financial reports. Timely financial reports means every 2 weeks. You can't find out in February that you lost Christmas. And, and CBJ Finance, very good people, very hardworking people, can't produce that report. Treasury, Eagle Crest can, can make 10 different deposits in a day.

And all those have to be posted, and Treasury just can't keep up. And so what we created was a second set of books. You take the number from the, the revenue from the point-of-sale system and payroll from the payroll office. It's posted every 2 weeks. And so that's something that the board can insist on and can be very effective with, but it's just one of those things that Eagle Crest is a different part of the city.

And so having that biweekly report is important. And also trying to figure out how to get really good feedback from the employees. Right now, the board is getting really good feedback from the employees, and I congratulate both the employees and the board for communicating really well. But what happens when that goes sideways? What kind of protections can we put in to try to short circuit those problems?

So in summary, the recommendations are to develop a strong plan, getting the mountain back on a preventative maintenance program, determining funding needs for '20s through 2027. I've, I've put out a bunch of assumptions, and I'm happy to work with the board, uh, on that, explore alternative funding sources, what else is out there, um, verify the, the assumptions I'm making on the revenue and expenses, and, uh, tackle some governance protocols to make sure that, uh, we catch trouble early on. So with that I just wanted to quickly, I don't want to take a lot of your time, so a brief summary. I'm happy to answer any questions. Who has questions for Mr. Duncan?

Ms. Huscandies. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Duncan, this is a great report. And I was, I think when we originally talked about having an external or a report like this written, this did range into the other sort of more thorough look at Eagle Crest, which was appreciated at this point in time. Some of the unknowns around the gondola are still very much within this report, um, both scheduling-wise and cost-wise, you know, the associated operating increases that go along with that.

But also just, we talk— you talk in some places about things that might be able to come out of that gondola funding source, but I don't really see in here how that gondola funding source is doing. So could you talk a little bit about that, why so much of that is unknown? And I think you did at moments, but could you kind of re-summarize why that is still a question mark for me? Certainly. The scope of this report talks about operating the gondola.

It does not talk about constructing the gondola. I'm the— I will tell you that right now, from what I've seen, there's $5.6 million of $12 million that's been spent. Is that remaining funds— are those remaining funds adequate to, one, build the gondola, and two, are there any other funds available for these auxiliary expenses?

That is outside the scope of my report. I'd be happy to give you the answers, I just don't have them. Really helpful, thank you. Welcome. Any other questions?

I'll— I have one, and, um, I may have gotten confused there for a second. So on FY25, you're, um, saying that they may need an additional $750,000, and in FY26 they potentially need another $875,000. Is that what you're saying? $875,000 For materials and services, potentially $800,000 for Personnel Services. So those two together, $1.6 million.

Okay, anybody else? Miss Huskies and Madam Mayor, we're going to speak with Mr. Satri next, is that correct? Correct, Mr. Satri next. Yes. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Duncan, we appreciate the report. And thank you for your time.

Mr. Saytry, would you please start by introducing yourself? And I see several board members, if you want to say who they are too, if you remember their names. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, good evening everyone. My name is Mike Saytry.

I am the current chair of the Eagle Crest Board, and I think I'm on my, yeah, third term on the board itself. So we have board members Norton Gregory and Hannah Shively in the audience. I don't see any others live and in person. We also have Craig Simmons, our general manager here, and Aaron Lupero, who is the head of, well, every department it seems, but was our acting or our interim general manager over the course of the summer and did a fantastic job in getting us to the point where we got Craig on board and we've been moving forward with our operations. And we also have several members of the skiing public here tonight, some of them former board members.

Interested parties who have been at a lot of our board meetings over the past year in particular, but certainly through the gondola discussions and everything else. If I may, I'd like to make just a few quick comments from the board's perspective without diving too terribly into the details, and then whatever questions you want to send my way, if that works. That sounds good, the floor is yours. Yep. The Board has been reviewing the report provided by Mr. Duncan.

It took us a little bit to work through it and make sure that we had the right comments we wanted to provide to the assembly, and you should have in your packet the approved letter from the Board that we authorized at a meeting a few weeks ago. While there were certainly initially concerns, many concerns about the report, both from board members and the public. I think tonight we really wanted to highlight places where we are aligned. And before I even get into that, thank Kirk for his analysis, independent analysis that is forcing some of these conversations that the Eelcrest board has worked hard both in its current iteration and many, many years prior to bring to the front of the community. And also, you know, thank the assembly for the long-term funding of Eagle Crest.

Not many municipalities run a ski area, and Juneau does, and they have committed over the years to making it happen and have committed to our vision of summer operations to make the overall operations much less of a burden on the city's finances. So when we look at the report, there's 3 main things that we're, alignment on. One, there's no question, and we've had this discussion over many years, that our pay plan is not competitive in the ski industry. I mean, thankfully the assembly, um, over the years that I've been on the board has committed to pay— many pay increases over time. I think we're well over 20% pay increase, and we're still not competitive.

We're not alone in that. I think you're seeing that in, in, in many departments within the city and the private private sector are seeing the same thing. It's very hard to remain competitive in Juneau in various industries and in government. So we did a pay study and Board Member Hannah Scheible was involved in that. That went to the assembly last year.

We had that joint assembly and EOCRES board meeting where we discussed that. We said, you know, this is the basis for our discussions. We want to come back to the assembly with recommendation recommendations for raising the pay scale, but we can't do that unilaterally. We're only one request to the city for spending authority, and you know, the board could, you know, in our next meeting raise all wages by 100%, but we don't have the spending authority to do that. We rely on you.

So we're going to need some guidance from you on what you're willing, you know, the appetite from the assembly, what you're willing to fund versus, you know, what we want to do to make sure that we can retain the quality employees that we have right now and recruit even more to come join them. And this is a conversation that's been going on for many years, and we look forward to continuing that. In terms of funding deferred and planned maintenance of our facilities, Eagle Crest is getting ready to celebrate its 50th year. We have a lot of old facilities. We've known about this.

You know, many, many board members, prior management have worked to address that, and we're continuing to work to address that. But once again, we know we depend on you for CIP funds to be able to work through those issues. I mean, it's one of the reasons that we went to you and said, if we can get summer operations, if we have a gondola, if we can rely on our summer tourism traffic, then we can start spinning off the revenue to reinvest in these maintenance needs. Now we know that those reinvestment revenues are still a few years away from us and we're working with staff right now to develop a detailed list that, you know, Mr. Duncan had provided some estimates of what he thinks. We're putting together that detailed list of what we're going to need over the next few fiscal years to address those maintenance issues.

But once again, we're going to need guidance from you on what funding mechanisms or what the assembly is willing to bear. And that's a point of discussion potentially for our joint meeting. And then finally, I think it's just great that the report justifies everything that we've done to purchase the gondola, get into a partnership with Goldbelt to install it, and make this happen. Because in the end, even coming at it from a different angle on some of the other pro forma financials that have been done in the past and that have been provided to you, we're reaching the same result. We can get cash flow positive at Eagle Crest and have positive fund balance if we can get this gondola up and running and leverage our summer visitors to make sure that we can have year-round operations, uh, for— and available to our— and accessible to our community.

And so it, it was, um, very interesting to me that the, the slope of the line on, on on the fund balance as it goes to positive is exactly the same as the slope of the line that I presented to you just over a year ago in when we had our January joint assembly and Eagle Crest board meeting. So with almost— well, I shouldn't say completely different set of assumptions, but some of the base assumptions were very different how that goes. But in the end, we get to cash flow positive, and it just underscores the importance of making sure that project moves forward as quickly as possible. Um, so with that, I want to— I think that'll conclude the main points of the letter from the board. Um, I do want to echo what Mr. Duncan said.

We have a great set of board members with qualifications, uh, from a variety of industries, including the ski industry. These folks are committed to the future of Eagle Crest. Uh, we have a very dedicated and passionate user group at Eagle Crest that also comes to our board meetings, uh, gives us calls, sends us emails, and makes sure that we're doing the best we can to give us another 50 years, uh, up in the area. So that— I look forward to any questions you might have. Well, thank you for the report.

I know you said you had questions, Ms. Hughes-Candace, but does anybody else have questions also? Okay, Ms. Hughes-Candace, and then we have Mr. Steininger and then Ms. Hall. Uh, thank you, Madam Mayor, and thanks for being here, Mr. Satrian, for your, uh, service to the board. Um, question for you on the financial report section of the report.

Um, the recommendation in this report is that it stresses the importance of meeting and reviewing biweekly. How often do you get together now as a board and really dig into the financial reporting? So great, great question, and I appreciate that.

Typically, we have monthly reports, but as Mr. Duncan says, these are effectively a separate set of books that the general manager has had to put together. And so they're, when you take them at the end of the year, they're very close to what we ultimately report in the consolidated financials, but they're not exactly the same, but they give that monthly guidance.

It's on me that in the last few months we have not had those financials provided to the board as we worked with to get the new general manager on staff and many other members of the management team and looking to get things ready for the winter. As I let some of those things slide in terms of the financial reporting, we had hoped to have that back on track at our January board meeting didn't quite hit that. There was a few issues in the financial reporting system we found, an error we couldn't quite rectify. Just before this meeting, I got the draft of the financial report that will be presented at our next board meeting and that will become the standard for what we have going forward. And, you know, glad to see that, you know, we knew informally we were very healthy and the reporting shows that.

And what we've also started is that our Finance Committee is going to Before, it just met when we needed to create a budget or review something quick. Starting in February, we're going to have a standing Finance Committee meeting. And so that's going to, in fact, give us two shots as a board each month to review financials. And then the management team is going to continue to refine those internal flash reports that are needed to run their business. Thank you for that.

Okay, I'm going to jump on just because I have a follow-up to that one. So the board is okay with that recommendation to have biweekly financial? Absolutely. Okay. Because that was—.

Yeah, I mean, that's just good, good business. And once again, um, I've had several concerns from the public on our lack of reporting the past few months. 100% On me. Had a lot of great conversations with the management team, um, getting assistance from the finance department. We have that back on track.

Thank you for that. Mr. Steininger. Um, so reading through the report, it seems to kind of recommend a roadmap where Eagle Crest would intentionally run fairly significant deficits over the next several years, running up a negative fund balance to $4 million. Mr. Duncan used an example of the previous negative fund balance that was about $800,000, kind of caused by sort of external events, sort of, you know, board decision to reimburse pass holders for a bad snow year. But in this situation, situation, it seems more of an intentional choice to, you know, operate at a deficit over several years.

And I understand it's predicated on, you know, the hope of future revenues. But can you kind of speak to the board's perspective on that kind of recommendation of almost, you know, kind of blindly walking into a significant shortfall over time, you know, on kind of unproven future revenues? And if there are other things the board might look at to avoid getting to that negative $4 million level and, you know, making other changes operationally that might reduce the deficit. Well, thank— thanks for the question. And, and something that we had— and I know this is your, your first term on the assembly, uh, something we had discussed, um, you know, between the board and the assembly, uh, last year in, in detail in January, and it was certainly a concept that had been out there before.

But in a sense, this is like any business. This is our startup expenses before revenue can be booked. And when we presented a year ago, we were looking at close to a $3 million negative fund balance. Mr. Duncan's numbers, you know, get below that. Sorry, I don't have the right ticks on my chart, but you know, close to $4 million.

And then as those summer revenues come in, then you start making, making those dollars up. But we, the— we can install the gondola, you know, as a project, but when those chairs start spinning, we don't just magically have people arrive that day. So we have to bring people on board, um, some of those groups, you know, a year or two prior before those revenues rain to get everything prepared to operate efficiently when we hit, you know, summer operations. And the numbers we talked about last year, you know, in a 3-year timeframe or 4-year timeframe, we were ramping from 34 full-time employees to 70 to 75 full-time employees, you know, when that first year of revenue hit. And that's the primary driver of that negative fund balance is bringing those employees Now, will we look to minimize that the best we can?

Yes. We know that, you know, we aren't in that higher employee scenario yet that we thought we might be in right now just because of permitting delays and project delays in, you know, in the gondola. But ultimately, there really is no way around some sort of negative fund balance when you're ramping up to those those summer operations because you simply don't have that summer revenue. And to some extent, if you want to think about it this way, our winter revenue is fixed. We only get so many operating days.

We're only going to sell so many passes, so many lessons, given, you know, the relative remoteness of our community and the number of people we have here. So it is that big jump, that leap of faith to get us going forward.

Next, Ms. Hall. Hi, Mr. Saytri. Knowing that the gondola is a little ways out, are there currently summer activities happening at Eagle Crest, and are there opportunities to expand other types of summer activities? So yes, no, good, great question. And, and that's, that's something that that we get asked a lot, we are doing a lot of summer activities up there.

Juno residents are used to driving up, hiking up the road that was built in the early 2000s, enjoying the area, and that wonderful alpine area that Eagle Crest exists in is just an amazing place for summer tourism. And so we do have agreements in place where folks are doing Segway tours on the Nordic loop. They're coming off the smaller Viking cruise ships and doing some walking tours and getting a charcuterie board and a few other things. You know, we do have the zipline tours that occur up there through another operator. You know, have the pass to stop for a while and get going again.

So there is a significant amount of summer activity that is already happening up there. And you know, that is an important important part of our current, current revenue structure, and obviously we need to, to increase that going forward.

Who else has questions? Miss Huskandies.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Mr. Satchew, could you comment on, uh, just talk a little bit about the board's thinking? There was a budgeted increase for season pass and daily lift ticket revenue that didn't occur. And then we saw some graphs with the increase in Lyft prices and decrease in, in purchasing, and obviously that's affected by our weather as well. I think that's probably on all of our minds as we continue to not get snow.

But could you talk about the board's thinking in that and how you had budgeted an increase? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] So thank you. First and foremost, you know, all the years that I've been on the board, the different people that we've had on there, we have really tried hard to make sure that Eagle Crest is accessible to everybody in Juneau. And even when comparing our season pass prices to peers, you know, we are at the lower end. And I think that really encourages, you know, a good portion of the community to come up and be at Eagle Crest.

There was a budgeted increase in revenues this year, and really that wasn't predicated on increasing season pass charges, but really just on an increase in visitation and day pass and everything else. We actually did have very strong season pass numbers this this year. And really, that's reflective of the fact that we had, you know, average to good winter last year. And in the end, you know, the strongest correlation when I look at the seasons and the season pass numbers, you know, for sales is not related to price, it's related to what the winter was last year. So we had strong season pass sales this year, we likely won't next year.

This is a very similar winter to 2018 when we didn't— the Upper Mountain didn't open up till mid-February. And you can see the drop in season pass sales next year. The other thing that kind of gets— messes up that curve is, like the rest of the ski industry, we saw a huge explosion in user, uh, or purchases of season passes, lift tickets, and, and user visits during COVID because we, we were an outdoor activity, we were the only game in town, and people started flocking to the mountains. And so there's a little bit of a natural decline after COVID as well that you're seeing that I don't believe correlates with the increase in season pass price.

Go ahead. Just to follow up on that. So the board would not be thinking of increasing prices as a viable way to— would you say that's not on the board's mind in terms of revenue source?

So we have to strike a balance, you know. And I think in the past, the Assembly in our budgets 2 years ago said you need to raise your prices, and we did. This year we held them pat. But it is a balance, you know. In the end, it's, you know, for the residents of Juneau, this is a city facility that we want to make as accessible to as many residents as possible, you know, especially at the younger age groups.

And it's been really fun to watch Even with the limited runs that we have open on the Porcupine Left, that place is jammed with young kids on the weekend. And we have— we also have our school groups during the week. So we're really trying to make that, you know, skier accessible to our youth as much as possible.

One more. Just kidding. You can have as many as you want. And no one else is asking. Same question.

Slightly different for you than, uh, Mr. Duncan. The—. As we've talked about this, there's concern about the health of Eagle Crest in general, and we want to make sure it's viable and remains healthy to get to where you could get to that positive netting, uh, income. That's one thing to get you there. Separately We still have this question mark in a box with getting the gondola built.

We have the gondola. I just heard $5.6 million of the $12 million have been spent. I don't have offhand the date that's on our, uh, Goldbelt agreement when chairs are supposed to be spinning, but, uh, I believe I just heard not sooner than 2 years. So could you talk about that question mark for me and why it's still a question mark for us. And there's good reasons for that, but from your perspective, uh, why that is.

Yeah, um, great, great question. And, uh, just so folks know, we do have an Eagle Crest planning, uh, meeting scheduled on Thursday that Mr. Gregory will be chairing, and we're going to get a full, full gondola update at that meeting. Uh, but there's— there was a variety of things that that have led to where we're at. It did take some time to get that contract in place with Goldbelt, and that's just part of the city process. And then there was some last-minute changes, had to go back through that process again.

But in the effect, that really had the effect of losing almost an entire season right there. Just when you look at, and like anything in Alaska, once you lose that summer season in front of you, you can never get it back. We've been working on permitting for the past year. We just got our Corps of Engineers permit and then the DEC 401 cert on that. Been going through the engineering and everything else that is needed to properly construct the gondola and make sure that we have, you know, all the needed towers and accessories in place.

We knew from the get-go that the gondola as is, as purchased, still needed more materials to put in place at Eagle Crest. Almost nothing is is plug and play when it comes to lifts. So that had to be customized as well. So we're very, very close to getting our draft contract and RFP language completed for the contract manager and the general contractor. And hopefully we'll get a full update from CBG— CBGA Engineering on that on Thursday.

And that'll be the next, the next big piece. But that also is is going to be reliant on having that cost estimate, that final construction cost estimate, which I, to my knowledge, we don't have in hand yet. And then that will drive, you know, the ultimate, you know, RFP and contract.

We have, you know, I'm just looking and apologize because I didn't print it out and I'm just looking at it on my phone. You know, we have approximately, you know, we have spent about $5.8 million of the $12.7 million budget so far with $6.9 million remaining. And the reality is that, you know, things get more and more expensive each year that we don't construct or purchase as we go. And the costs that may have been estimated back in 2022 when we originally, you know, purchased the gondola, you know, for construction, you know, have gone up significantly, whether it, you know, you know, inflation, cost of materials, personnel, just across the board. And you all see that in every single city project that comes before you.

I think the City Assembly minutes are full of moving, you know, project money from bin to bin to ensure that we can, you know, deal with these cost overruns. So, you know, we're going to be in that same place. And now I'm just trying to remember off the top of my head, but I believe that the drop-dead date for Um, gondola was 2028. I was trying to filibuster a bit while I got that right number out of my head, so I apologize if I don't have it. But, um, but that— and so the intent has always been that we're going to beat that, um, but that window continues to narrow.

Okay, thank you for that. Okay, I'm going to jump in here while you think of more questions to ask. Um, are you being able to keep up with the lack of snow with snowmaking? So, yes and no. The— when you look at some of the ski areas down south, they can open and operate on manmade snow.

Their systems are set up to do that. They have cold temps. And you can go to many, many places down south and ski on what me and my family call the icy ribbon of death. And, but that's, that's not Eagle Crest. We're in a maritime climate, we get short windows typically where we can make snow based on the equipment and the systems that we have.

And so we've always had this approach of fill in the beginner area first, because really that's, you know, it's the easiest and smallest area to fill in. It allows us to get our lessons going, it allows us to do our school groups, and then once that once that, that's filled in, then you start building up all the flat muskigee areas that are around the base of the lifts because that is also kind of right at that snow line these days. You know, it's wet, damp, it, you know, holds heat, and you want to have that man-made snow to cover that. And then once that is complete, then you can start working up, up the hill. And so, you know, this year, you know, we were able to, you know, get snow made at the base area We've made snow around the bases of the lifts, and, you know, now we are this close, probably, with the snow that we received overnight to at least, uh, you know, being able to open a portion of the upper mountain.

And so that man-made snow is doing exactly what it needs to do— give us that insurance so that when we get those— that natural snow that we have to have to open, we're able to open. Do we want to expand our snowmaking, make sure that we can do it higher up the hill in the future, absolutely. But this year has done exactly what it's needed to do. We've been able to keep operations going. And I tell you, if you've been up there on a weekend or been up there when the classes are there for lessons, it is super busy.

It's really fun to watch. And we're all longy-loo looking up the hill for that next step, which I think is, it's this close. Okay, and then the other question that I'm sure most of the public want to hear, when is Black Bear going to be fixed? So the maintenance team is working on various options for that at the moment. We had at least one of those hit our inbox this week, late last week.

But they're going back and making sure that we've got a couple different options in front of us. There's probably gonna be a high-cost option, mid-cost option, low-cost option, we're gonna figure out what needs to be. There is a chance that we may have to come back to the assembly just given the way the fiscal years go, that if we don't have remaining CIP funds for FY25, um, or the ability to move some funds around, um, we may have to come to you for some supplemental authority to get some parts and pieces ordered in the last few months of fiscal year '25 so that we can get it together in '26. And then so come— so it'll be fiscal year '26 but calendar year '25, so next season, the —black bears up and running. Okay, Miss Youscamy.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. It doesn't seem fair you sitting there while your board members are just watching you do all the work. I do want to note that you're doing great. Um, Mr. Duncan's report, and, uh, in talking to us just now, he identified a lot of supplemental funds, whether that's negative fund balance additional general fund support that he sees as being needed to fill those needs. And we haven't received, you know, a request in the same region from the board.

So why not ask for that money? Besides the obvious, that people don't wanna come to us and ask for money. And what, from your position where you sit on the board, how do those numbers sound? Does that seem like the right neighborhood or does that seem crazy?

These are all great questions this evening. This is fun.

Mr. Duncan put some time into determining where to pull the levers on the pay plan And, you know, I think it's as good an estimate as any. In a perfect world, we would come to you today and say, this is what we're proposing for our budget, please tell us how you're going to fund it. What we, during this budgeting process though, we do need to at least have some high-level guidance from you on what would be acceptable in that, area. You know, in the past we've roughly done 6% raises on our pay plan on each fiscal year and have been trying to catch that up. You know, of course inflation started outpacing us, and you know, so whether it's the, you know, if it's the full pay plan or, you know, half of that scale, you know, the management team is working with finance right now on getting that base budget put together so then we can say this is the investment on top of that that we would need to, that we would like you to fund for the pay plan.

So that's coming. The maintenance side, and I hope Mr. Duggan doesn't take offense to it, I think that's just a bit more of a wild estimate of where it's at. And so when, and I'm just, now I should have had this pulled up.

In sitting down, uh, with, uh, with Mr. Simmons, uh, just today actually, um, starting to roll up our, our various, you know, kind of all-in maintenance needs, you know, over the next 5 years. And looking at, you know, and, and a lot of this is— it would be front-loaded, and we're going to have to spread it out and figure out what the art of the possible is, but it's a little bit less than what Mr. Duncan has thrown out there. I don't want to commit to a number right now because I haven't vetted everything that's on here, but there is, you know, we've been seeing roughly $350,000 in CIP funds on an annual basis, or between $250,000 and $350,000, and you know, really, you know, quite frankly, we should be probably on the order of half a million on our, on our CIP requests, uh, when it comes to our lifts, our lift infrastructure, and our facilities infrastructure.

Great, thank you for that.

Any more, Ms. Hughes-Canes? Could just keep asking questions, but I think those are the, the main ones. If you want to do a bonus round, uh, my final one would just be be, do you have any comment on the— obviously we know when you're actually getting to, again, gondola spinning, we need more people in order to do that. He talks about the trend in increase in personnel costs and positions. So if you have any comments on that, feel free to share.

Otherwise, no, I think it's been a good discussion with you all, and we look forward to working with you to address the the needs we have in the pay plan and the CIP funds and remembering that those are kind of, you know, there's gonna be some immediate needs there that are gonna be a separate bucket from, you know, what that gondola project plan is gonna look like. So we're gonna have to kind of push those in parallel across that view. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Okay, I see no further questions. So you're not out of the hot seat yet. So tentatively, the joint meeting would be March 6th.

So check your calendars for that. Um, we'll let the city manager, uh, get that together. So, um, just some thoughts for the board to ponder, and I'll start. These are just my personal thoughts, and then if anybody else wants to add anything, they're welcome to. Um, paying of your employees is still a problem, so it'd be nice to have a few different levels to look at.

It was a suggestion last year that you guys consider going through our HR and classifying your positions and using our same levels. So we get raises at certain levels and everything else. I think the suggestion will be stronger this year to do that.

And then I don't know where everybody stands on money. So right now, just for the assembly, having a negative balance is basically us giving you a loan. So whether we want to— I'm looking at the assembly now— whether we want to continue the loan or look at some grants. I personally— this again, just me personally— we cannot set these board— these assembly members thing in. I wouldn't mind doing something for Black Bear to get that up and running as fast as you can, just because I know season passes are tied to Black Bear.

A lot of people got season passes after Black Bear opened up, and I think you have more ability to make snow on that one. So those are just a couple comments on— for me. So you might consider asking for some things. The worst thing we can do is say no.

Which we will, I'm sure, on several items. But with that, we'll just go down. You don't have to speak. Ms. Hughes-Scanlon, is anything that you can say to help the board prepare for the joint meeting?

Because unfortunately you guys will be doing all the work and we'll just be asking questions. Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. I think Similar place. I— this was a great start to a conversation March 6th. I look forward to, uh, talking more with the whole board on some of these things.

Um, I'm inclined the same way— a loan, not a grant. You know, I think it's far off, but we continue to see things saying if you can get a gondola built, that it will bring in these funds eventually. So I think it makes sense to do a loan knowing that eventually, um, we'll be able to return that money. Um, in terms of a dollar amount, I don't have that right now, except I will say I understand and appreciate what Mr. Duncan was saying about appreciating the board members individually but still seeing issues with the governance. When I say, why not ask for that money when you all have a need that is going to be more expensive if it's put off?

And I want to hear that you have a need, and I don't want you to be afraid to— certainly other groups aren't afraid to come and tell us that they need money. Um, so I think that's super important with our enterprises, and that's a common theme that we we see that the longer they wait, that becomes a governance problem. So I will just share that with the board. That's my two cents. Um, and then it's hard for me to believe with this amount of money that that's enough to get the gondola built.

So the more we can narrow down on that, just knowing inflation costs, the sooner we can know that amount as well. And same, loan, not a grant. Anybody else want to comment? Is that— uh, thank you, Madam Mayor. I am similarly inclined to Miss Huskies and the mayor, so I won't, I won't expound on that.

But in terms of, uh, assembly guidance on numbers and what we're looking for, I think I have a hard time wrapping my head around what exactly those different options look like. I think bringing us a starting point on certain things and the board's priorities, you know, better us, I think, what Eagle Crest really needs and what the priorities ought to be. I'm not saying we're not going to say no to things like the mayor said, but, uh, just having something in front of us with numbers that we can actually wrap our head around and feel confident in would make things a lot easier for me when we have our joint meeting to make those decisions.

Anybody else? Mr. Kelly, then Miss Hall. Uh, thank you, and I do feel similarly inclined to the 3 previous speakers when it comes to what I, what I'm thinking. I'm thinking more, more in line with, with the loan. I, I've been looking at Mr. Duncan's report.

I've been thinking a lot about the long-term health of Eagle Crest and so, and like the important role that it plays as a facility that all of our community can enjoy. And so kind of in the interest of that long-term health and in the interest of getting some sort of return on our investment, I think what I'm also interested in seeing along with that proposal, with it, with that request for a loan, is, um, something of a plan, um, that could, that can carry us the rest of the way there, um, with, with as few surprises as possible. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Miss Hall? Yeah, just one comment.

I heard a couple of times that a proposed user survey about prices And I would, you know, if you're going to do a survey, I would go ahead and expand it to include other questions for the community that might help steer the ship. Thank you.

You don't have to say anything, but you're welcome to. Mr. Steininger. Yeah, if everybody's going to talk, I might as well. I'll just echo kind of what's been said.

I think a loan makes sense, especially given kind of nature of the question I asked you about the negative fund balance is effectively that's us giving Eagle Crest a loan anyway, so we might as well formalize it and, you know, have a little more voice in how that money is being spent if we initiate that loan process as an assembly.

Thank you. And Ms. Hughes-Canizales, you had something to add? Just really quickly, I will also say that the mention of fundraising in here And the number of skiers who are in this room and who turn out every time, I do think that is worth the board looking at more as a supplemental source because it is a passionate user group. And, you know, our schools fundraise, lots of people in the community fundraise.

So if that can be expanded, fundraising for Eagle Crest, I'd be interested in seeing that. I know you already do somewhat, but Right. And the report talks a little bit about decrease in personnel, but we'll bow to the board on that, whether the personnel numbers are right or wrong. But the one thing, just, you were struggling to get some numbers for the gondola, and, um, this probably shows my little bit lack of knowledge. I know the Eagle Crest manager is busy this time of year, um, because we're doing season, but do we have a project manager for the gondola?

Are we looking at doing a project manager? Am I missing something there?

So it's to you, Miss Kester. Yeah, thank you. Uh, I'd like to introduce Mr. Alan Stafford in the back row, who is the, uh, CBJ engineering project manager for the gondola. Just a little note about his resume: he's also the project manager who installed Black Bear. In addition to that, the Eagle Crest board has hired Carl Fulato, who is who is a subject matter expert in this to be an owner's representative and really shepherd the GCCM process, you know, provide that level of expertise.

So that is another resource that this project has. Perfect. And see, I just didn't know that. So are we done with Mr. St. Tree? Run, run as fast as you can.

Thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much. And thank you for the rest of the Eagle Crest folks, including the previous board members. So appreciate it. Reach out anytime if there's questions that pop up, and we'll look forward to the joint meeting.

Thank you, Ms. Kester. Do you have anything else on this topic? All right, we've been asked by the clerks to take a little bit longer break, and I think we have an announcement on the bathrooms.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So for anyone using the facilities, We do only have one available downstairs here, but there are two upstairs. Directly up the stairs, you turn to your right, and then there's the handicapped bathroom right next to the elevator to the left. All right, we'll come back at 7:25.

Our next item will be Title 49 rewrite legislation. Madam Manager, thank you, Mayor Weldon. Um, I am going to quickly turn this over to our special project planning manager, Rob Dumichelle, but I just want to outline a little bit of, uh, what we were looking for from the body today. You got a lot of information in this packet. Um, Mr. Dumichelle will go over it in our presentation, but, but the— our end goal today is really to get an ordinance for you to refer an ordinance for introduction at the next regular assembly meeting, and then give the Planning Commission a 60-day, uh, review time to review that.

So that'll be the ask after you've had a chance to learn about all the important work that Mr. Dumouchel has been doing with the Title 49 Advisory Committee. Just as a quick recap, if you recall, last budget cycle you appropriated funds for a special project to really kind of carve Title 49 49 out as a special, a special project under the manager's office. And we're lucky enough to have Mr. Dumichelle to do that work, who, in addition to having lots of planning experience, also has city management experience from the community of Homer, near and dear to my heart. So, um, handing it over to Mr. Dumichelle.

Great. Thank you very much. Good evening. Like the manager said, my name is Rob Dumichelle, special project planning manager out of the manager's office. And tonight we're going to talk about zoning.

So super exciting for a Monday evening. So thank you for that. And for reading the 55 pages I dropped in your packet. So we're going to talk about a few things here. So Title 49 basics to get started.

So if you've never heard it before, you're not sure what it is, we'll get you up to speed, talk about the project itself, and then the, the elements of the amendment, and then talk about those next steps that were alluded to a moment ago. Mr. Dumichelle, do you want questions as you go, or do you want to save them at the end?

Either way. Okay, so I will just go, and if, if the need strikes you, please ask questions. Uh, so Title 49 is the land use portion of CBJ's code of ordinances. So this is going to cover zoning, parking requirements, subdivisions, permits, all that kind of stuff. So if you have private property, you want to use private property for uses and buildings, this is where you got to look to see what you're allowed to do.

The current iteration of Title 49 was adopted in 1987. That's almost 40 years ago at this point. And I really like to make the point that it's been amended almost 200 times since then. So I've got a graph here that shows the number of ordinances that we've gone through. And the reason I spent like an hour going through 40 years' worth of ordinance titles to make this chart is to make the point that when we change code, you can change it again.

So sometimes bodies get kind of froze up and think it has to be like absolutely perfect the first time and endure for like 100 years. You have the ability to change it through ordinance again if something doesn't work quite the way you want it. A better view of how often we've worked on it in the past 40 years, this is broken down into the elements. It's not a super precise metric, but it gives you an idea. So in 1987, there's that big spike because we rewrote the whole thing.

And then throughout the years, there's been these spikes of updates and changes. 2015 Was the last time we had a really big one, and we're due. It's time to go again. So the reason or the purpose for Title 49, I've got the whole code sections up there, but really the big deal here is to enact the comprehensive plan. So the comprehensive plan is a policy document.

It says where we want to go as a community. Title 49 helps you implement that through land use.

The title itself is pretty complex and sprawling. It has 17 different chapters. There's almost 400 different sections in it. It covers quite a bit of ground. And I guess like spoiler alert, in the future I'd like to cut this down to like more like 6 or 7.

So, but it's grown over time. It's a lot to work with. And so reasons why we're talking about rewriting Title 49, it's been identified as a barrier to development. So people who actually take that risk with their property to build something, they're not super satisfied with the tools they have available. And then really the title has aged to a point that a large-scale overhaul is a really appropriate thing to do.

You notice, you know, we have a comprehensive plan update going on right now. Most communities, they'll do like a 10-year update and a 20-year, like, full rewrite. Zoning codes, in my experience, tend to last a good 40 years or so, and then, you know, kind of start it over. So you're like right on pace with what I've seen in other communities. The project itself, I alluded earlier, this was an idea that was had back in 2023.

That money for the project went in the budget for FY25. I was hired in August. Uh, the Assembly appointed an ad hoc Title 49 rewrite advisory committee in September. We started meeting in October. Uh, there's a contract attorney associated with this.

They joined us in October. Uh, we had another meeting in November where they supported the wave of amendments that I'm bringing you today. Uh, and now we're here. Talking about it, and hopefully in a week or so we're introducing it.

The way the project is set up is a little different. So I'm not part of CDD. A lot of times people assume I'm part of CDD because this is planning adjacent. I'm actually part of the manager's office. As I mentioned earlier, I'm working with a contract attorney, and then we have that separate advisory committee.

So just wanted to give like an overview so you see how the pieces fit together. But I will say it's very collaborative. I spent a lot of time with CDD, the planning staff, really getting to understand the issues they're having, especially on the short-term side with people who are proposing projects and how that's going for them. The committee itself has 7 members. They are all listed here and in your packet.

And the big idea for them is to provide strategic advice and help advance a rewrite of Title 49. For folks that are interested, we just set our next meeting. It's going to be February 13th in this room at The general vision for the project is to just be streamlined and easy to understand. Zoning codes don't have to be difficult. You can write them in normal English in a way that people can understand them.

And so we're looking at a really just a modernization process to better meet the current needs and set CBG up for success in the future. Uh, we've got a lot of great stuff that's already in there. I, by no means is Title 49 like a bad code or anything, but it, it needs a refresh, you know, and so we're going to work on that. The goals for the project at this time is to reduce uncertainty for applicants. Uncertainty really hurts projects.

Remove unnecessary barriers to development and reduce the time required to— reduce the time to acquire permits. As far as some of the tactics we can use to do that, We can remove regulations that don't provide a lot of value or create unnecessary burdens on applicants and staff. You see a lot of that in the amendments I've proposed. Create objective standards and code that can be applied by staff as much as reasonably possible so you don't have to go to a discretionary body for action. And then delegate authority to the CDD director when reasonable to save time in decision-making.

The first time we came to you with a memo about the the project and the vision and whatnot. There was two phases to it. Right now we're in phase one. That's, you know, anytime you have a plan and you start actually working, you know, things tend to change a little bit. So we've got a phase 1.5 now.

We're just with the timing of me arriving and the comp plan and other things, it makes a lot of sense to focus this year in particular on a, like, a large technical rewrite of the code. So really getting that whole thing shaped up And then that Phase 2 has transitioned into more of like a comp plan alignment sort of items. So those policy changes that you might make in adopting that comp plan, we can fold that into a modern and well-structured code, right? But in the meantime, we got to develop stuff right now. It'd be nice to have a nice code right now.

So we'll get that done and get that moving.

And I get this question from time to time as far as like in this Phase 1, like, how do you choose like what, what's going now, like what are we saving for later. So some of it's driven by those items that I've got on the side there in those boxes. You know, is it, you know, wayward code or a process improvement or something we've already decided we should have done and hasn't been done yet? But I'm also looking at, is it supported by the 2013 comprehensive plan? Does it streamline a process?

Does it remove barriers? And does it move forward an assembly goal? And so the assembly goal that I had most in mind in this wave of amendments was housing. Uh, it seems that that's a big deal. And so I've leaned into that quite a bit.

Um, we are going about the public process in a slightly different way than you're used to. Typically code amendments start in the Planning Commission, do their business there, come to the assembly and, you know, work that way. In Title 49, you're allowed to start them at the assembly instead and then send them to the Planning Commission. So that's That's what we're doing. So myself working with the Title 49 Advisory Committee, I'm getting that guidance.

We're developing the drafts, submitting it to the assembly to consider for introduction. If they initiate that, it goes to the Planning Commission. They'll have a public hearing and they'll have whatever meetings they need to have. And all this is public, right? So, you know, the Advisory Committee has public meetings, you have public meetings, the Planning Commission as well.

Meetings. Um, but once the Planning Commission has gone through that, that 60-day review window, it'll come back to the Assembly for consideration. Uh, if you choose to adopt it, uh, sometime later it will be implemented by CDD. So on this side here, I have a rough idea of how this could possibly go. Uh, so if everything runs super smoothly and, you know, you, you like what we're doing and the Planning Commission is good with it and you decide to adopt we, we could have these changes in by this summer.

So now the, the meat and potatoes. So the thing that I wrote all those pages of memos for you about are the, the elements involved here. So we have accessory dwelling units, caretaker units, uh, the determination of use, so major versus minor developments, uh, equivalent use determinations, uh, transition zone upgrades, adjustments to approved permits, and rules of construction. Uh, the accessory dwelling units. I think this is one of the more exciting parts in here for a lot of folks.

Uh, the idea is to loosen up the existing regulations to allow an easier pathway of building something that's popular. Uh, it's a gentle density kind of increase on neighborhoods. It's a low-impact deal. Uh, I'm really enthusiastic about it. Uh, the amendment itself.

Uh, so one, I mean, we do a little bit of modernizing right now. We call them accessory apartments in code. The parlance of our times is, you know, accessory dwelling unit, but we'd exempt it from density calculations, remove the minimum lot size and width requirements. So right now, if you're building an ADU, typically it's on a lot that already exists. And so we trigger a lot of use permits to build ADUs on existing parcels, and they all pass.

We have like one instance where a parking waiver was problematic, but the actual ADUs always pass. In the past. So I think this is a really important thing to just remove from our lives. Uh, the maximum attached ADU size, I'm recommending 1,000 square feet. If it's attached, uh, that size would be— that could result in a relatively large ADU, but I also think that's the way that people want to use their property.

Uh, I'm suggesting a 10-foot rear setback for ADUs unless the zone district allows for something different. Uh, and all the things I'm proposing, that's the only, like, distance or, like, measurement I'm suggesting changing. And I think it's important because you have a lot of people the way they built their houses originally didn't think about having an ADU in the backyard. And so this gives them more potential to actually do it. Um, Mr.

Dumichelle, I have a question on that one. Um, so does that allow, um, ADUs like downtown that have a very fixed lot size, or how does that work with small lots, houses all around? Correct. So that's, that's actually a great question. What I'm doing here is leaning on the existing rules to do the work.

So if you have a parcel and you've already built it out to its, like, maximum buildable extent, uh, you couldn't build more on it for, for an ADU, but you could carve off an ADU from it. Uh, say you do have the space available, uh, you could build to that space you have. So, uh, so smaller lots, it might be more of an attached situation where you're expanding the footprint a little bit. Um, but it all goes back to the, uh, the rules that we already have in the zoning code for height setbacks, et cetera. And so I think that's really kind of the beauty of the whole thing is the, uh, the maximum amount of built The structure on the property doesn't change, but it's the format in which a property owner can choose to build is different.

Uh, thanks, Madam Mayor. Just one question. Love all of this. The removal of the parking requirements within 1 mile of transit. There was one downtown that didn't get approved because of a parking requirement.

So this would take care of that. Have you looked at how much of the borough that is? Because I almost think of places that are outside the zone of transit and parking is not going to be an issue for them anyway, because they live way the heck out there. I do have a map. Unfortunately, it didn't make it into the packet, but it is a considerable area.

And, and for what it's worth, like, these people do exist that walk a mile to transit. I do it every morning to go to work. So it's, it's not uncommon. And when you look at the, the research on parking, super exciting if anyone wants to read parking research with me, but typically when people need parking, they build it, whether you require it or not, they're going to build what they need. And so, especially like the, what you're talking about, people who have a lot of land and a lot of space, they're probably going to build that parking anyways, but particularly for downtown areas where they have walking access to a a lot of things, and they have transit pretty much all of downtown.

I don't think any ADU would ever need to add a parking spot. Okay, so this was like a compromise because I would get rid of it everywhere. But, you know, I would not be mad about that either. But I sort of used the comprehensive plan. There is mention of, you know, thinking about like a transit-oriented development or some sort of overlay.

And so this is kind of a, a first step into that world. Great. Thank you. Yeah, uh, let's see, moving on from here, uh, basically, you know, principally permitting these, making it very hard to have a way to trigger a use permit. And then within bungalows, I've had this request before, you know, the ability to, uh, within the footprint of what's already allowed as a bungalow, uh, carve off an attached ADU.

So, um, if you go to much denser communities, you'll see a lot of times structures like that. They'll have like a garage conversion or something of that nature. Moving on from here, a heavily related item, caretaker units. So the concept here was to create some actual rules for it, because right now it's just a footnote in the table of permissible uses. So it's, uh, from my observation, it, it causes some challenges and interpretation for staff to figure out like what's okay and what's not okay with these.

So this creates an actual structure Uh, I will note, and I wrote this in my memos, the advisory committee suggested seeking another way to do this. This wasn't their favorite version, uh, but the 2013 comp plan is pretty specific that this is the only residential use that feels okay about. Uh, so in the future, if you want to go a different direction, we need to change the comp plan, in my opinion, to do that. Uh, so this amendment would create a definition, so it would actually exist. Uh, it would again, like ADUs, exempt them from density calculations.

It would allow up to 2,000 square feet. Uh, and so when I get questions on that, why is that bigger than an ADU? Uh, think about a situation in which someone owns a factory in an industrial area and they want to live on site. You know, it makes sense that, you know, perhaps that you would go with a larger use for that. Uh, that's obviously very debatable, uh, but that's the number I've moved forward with in the proposal.

Yes, sir. I'd like to dive a little bit more into that. My concern is, you know, we've been very protective of our industrial land because we don't have much of it, and we keep eking away at this stuff that we have. And a 2,000-square-foot residence is a house, basically. That's a big space.

And, um, so I would have concerns on that, just so you know. Um, it just seems like, you know, a caretaker unit doesn't have to be a house. So I don't know if your committee shared any of those, or even the assembly shares any of that, but when I could see you have several lots with caretaker units, and all of a sudden you have several houses. Fair enough, yes. And then it becomes non-industrial.

All right, um, and then the rest is really, you know, code just upkeep items to account for the changes that would be made if this were implemented. Uh, next up here, the determination of use. Uh, some of this is just cleaning up, modernizing language. Uh, but the big thing is there's a trigger for use permits in here that I think is really getting in the way of housing. And I highlighted it on the slide because this is like the most aggressive item that I am proposing.

And that would be to remove specific number limits from dwelling units and multifamily and commercial mixed use districts, and instead rely on the existing density and development standards. So you already have density standards. You already have, um, you know, rules as far as like how tall it can be or how much lot coverage there can be. Uh, but if you're in one of these districts, 8 or 12 multifamily units triggers a use permit. That's a really low number considering the interest in housing in the community.

And also just the time that needs to be invested by the Planning Commission and staff and the public to do those reviews. So, uh, I suggest letting the— let the rules do the work that already exist and really reduce that number of use permits. And I went back through the last 4 years or so of use permits, and as far as like housing, I could only find one that was outright rejected and From my understanding, like, they, they already knew they were proposing a thing that didn't fit code, you know, but otherwise, if a project makes sense and it fits normal code, it passes. So, if you want to do something aggressive for housing, this is an aggressive thing to do for housing. Use not listed.

This is a big time saver for businesses and for staff. So this would create a streamlined mechanism that allows a director-level equivalent use determination. And so basically what the idea here is, sometimes a use, you know, it exists all of a sudden and a business wants to do it, or a business has a new idea for how to do something that's really similar to something in the table of permissible uses, but it doesn't exist in the table of permissible uses. So most communities have a way to consider whether that can be considered equivalent and just allowed. And the way I propose to set this up, if it's Equivalent enough, you know, the director can make that determination, but if it's not, if it's too different, then that's, that's a text amendment, right?

You need to add that use to the table through public hearings and that whole thing. So right now we have a version, uh, every single equivalent use determination has to go to the Planning Commission. This would take some of that pressure off and let the things that are common sense and like really obviously equivalent move forward with a little less bureaucracy.

Uh, this next item, I get kind of excited about this one as well. Uh, CBJ had the foresight to create these transition zones where you determined years ago that if a certain trigger is met, usually water and sewer, then it's eligible to be upzoned to a higher density. So you have parcels that are like D-1 to D-5 or something like that. Uh, and in the 2013 comp plan, it said, hey, you should make a way to do that automatically. And so that's never happened.

And so this would create that mechanism, allow the CDD director to initiate and ministerially upzone those transition parcels. But I like to make the point for folks that if it's a change in density that isn't already pre-approved, that's just a rezone. That's a normal thing that goes through the full process. You just had 7 of them come to the assembly recently. So everyone's pretty fresh on that.

That's a huge amount of work and public engagement, whatnot, that goes into those. The thing with transition zones is the assembly at some point in time has already decided that it should be that density at some point in time. So we're really just streamlining that quite a bit to make that easier for, for staff, for the public, for property owners. Another item that I think is important for streamlining is this adjustment to approved permits. So right now in Title 49, some of the permits have a way to amend them, but there's not like a globally applicable version.

So this would get rid of those sort of more ad hoc versions in there and create one that fits everybody and has the same rules. And it makes it easier to figure out if it's a, you know, is this a minor amendment or a major amendment? So a minor amendment would be, say, you've got a a building that needs to move over a foot from what was recommended, it's moving further away from all the neighbors. That's probably an insignificant amendment that would allow the CDD to approve that. If something were more major in nature, say it's changing significantly, or it's moving closer to another property or something of that nature, an amendment of that level would need to go back to the Planning Commission or whatever body made that original decision.

Go through the same public hearing, uh, public processes as before. So this is, again, a lot of these are really focusing on, like, um, like interpretation and discretion. And for a lot of members of the public and just normal people who don't do planning, they might not be exciting. But from, like, a planning perspective, this is super exciting. Uh, this, this really makes the, the whole development process, uh, just a lot more reasonable for people.

Uh, and then my last item, rules of construction. Uh, rules of construction is actually about language and sentences, not building things. Uh, and so this is like, what does the word "and" mean? Like, those things become really important all of a sudden, uh, when you're dealing with the zoning code. Uh, and so the more clear we can make that for, for staff and the public, uh, the quicker we can get to permits, the easier it is to make good decisions, uh, because it's really clear what's what's supposed to happen.

And so some of this is going to be done through cross-reference back to Title I. You've already done some of this in the code. But then, you know, if things are in a list, or how do we measure time or fractions? The big one for me is, like, if you have a conflict between provisions, which one wins? You know, and so writing that in the code is a big deal, and that makes it a lot easier for these interpretations to be made.

Um, so, so that was all the elements. Thanks for riding with me through that. So in terms of next steps, let's pause for a second. Any questions on anything that we have? You guys are quiet crowd.

Um, I have another question. Um, everything defers to the, uh, director. Is the director going to have enough time to do all these, or does that Does a director— they could designate someone else? What if the director wants to go on vacation? Yes, so in the rules of construction, it would say that duties are designatable.

So say you have a director out on vacation or whatnot, that ability can be designated. And really, like, when you're dealing with a counter planner or something like that, you know, they're working under the authority of their boss or And so, you know, I use the director, that's what code says is the director, but again, that power is delegated to other people to implement. Okay, I was just checking because someone said once that someone went on vacation for 2 weeks and no permits could be done because this one person had to touch them all. It wasn't the director, but maybe director of law order or somebody else, and it was just like, really? So, okay, thanks.

Yes, ma'am. All right. Uh, yes. Oh, wait, Ms. Hall. Yeah, thank you.

Um, the accessory dwelling units, is that only one per lot, or is there allowable for more than one? Uh, so it is possible to get up to a maximum of two. So say you had a large enough parcel with enough buildable area, and you already had two primary dwellings on it. Each one could have an ADU associated with it, but then you're maxed out. But one could not have two, one dwelling could not have two.

That's an interesting question. I, I'd have to think about that. Um, but in theory, like, one, each one would need to be associated with a primary structure. And so it might depend on how it's laid out if they're attached or detached or whatnot. But I like how you're thinking.

Okay, continue. Thank you. All right, so the amendments, uh, they're, they're agendized for February 3rd for consideration of a text amendment. Uh, the staff recommendation is to give the Planning Commission a 60-day shot clock. Uh, in the past, uh, sometimes these processes have strung out quite a bit as they've gone through that review.

We're trying to be more expedient with our time. And then if all goes according to plan, we would expect to be back here in April talking about potential adoption. And then looking at the, the bigger picture, so myself and the contract attorney, we're going to keep working on that technical rewrite with strategic advice from the Advisory Committee. And again, like I mentioned earlier, February 13th, that's our next meeting here in this room at noon. Uh, when the comprehensive plan update is working on its public engagement, we're going to do our best to draft in with that.

We don't want to burn out the public on the same topics by doing it over and over again. Uh, so we're going to be real judicious with their time. And then when that comprehensive plan is complete, we're going to get into those Phase 2 amendments. Uh, this is just the preview of what should hopefully be in your packet, and that is all I've prepared. Uh, I'll mention that there's a link on there.

So if you have constituents that have strong feelings about Title 49, please direct them to that web form. They can send those, those go straight to me, and I put them in the packets for the advisory committee so the public can see them as well. I'm happy to answer any questions. And if you want to drill down a little deeper, I'm happy to make appointments and chat with any of the assembly members or the mayor at any time you want to chat. What questions do we have?

Quiet group tonight. I'm gonna start calling on people. Mr. Sinegar. Grr, Sinegar. Thank you.

On the caretaker units, reading the definition, it seemed sufficiently vague as to effectively just be an apartment. Are there kind of any harder controls on who's actually living in those units Or is it effectively an application, just an apartment that the owner of that facility could rent out and say that the person's providing, you know, oversight at night? Uh, so, I mean, you point out a challenge there. Uh, you know, it's, it's hard for us to tell if someone's using a property the way that, you know, they told us they were going to use it when they got the approval. Uh, and it's the same with any other use.

Uh, you know, generally you would have some sort of complaint-based item where someone would complain and say, hey, that's, meeting the code, we have a code enforcement officer who would be able to look into going into that. But the way that code and definition is written, it uses like a caretaker and their family. Family is defined in code as their household. And so that's the intent. But I do understand it's challenging to enforce because of the residential nature of the unit.

All right, and I don't mind giving the Planning Commission 60 days on this one because I'm sure it's due to your great memos and packet that I can understand them. So I don't think it's that difficult, but we may not be able to do that always, just saying out loud. So Ms. Youskandis, do you have a motion for us? Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Duchamelle. This is really like, sometimes we ask for something and then so much other stuff happens that you almost forget we started.

So it's very exciting to actually be doing something with Title 49, and I appreciate it. With that, I would move that we introduce the ordinance with the proposed amendments to Title 49 at the February 3rd meeting and refer them to the Planning Commission to be completed within 60 days. And I ask for unanimous consent. Any objection? Seeing none, that motion passes.

Anything else to add? No, Mayor. Thank you for your time tonight. And on the advice of the clerk, we'll take another 10 minutes. Legit— Madam City Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to introduce Chief Derek Boss, who, um, has been with us for a while, uh, and very, very busy running the Juno Police Department, and is here before you today to give the JPD annual report. Welcome. Thank you much. Uh, actually, Saturday will be one year exactly So, no, good for you.

I don't know how that's possible, but I'm very excited. It's been a good year. So, um, do you have the annual report in front of you or just pulling it up? Okay, great. Uh, I'm going to skip the chief's message because that's the least important part of this whole thing, uh, and go straight to our organizational structure.

Um, just a couple quick comments on that. That is based on where we were at December December 31st, 2024, not where we're at today. So we've already had some movement at the beginning of this year, but that's not reflected in the annual report. Um, one thing I would like to highlight, uh, on the chart where it says vacancies, that's operational vacancies. So when we have the next column where it shows the people in training, um, those are positions that are filled but they're not out on their own yet, whether that's dispatch or office or whatnot.

So our vacancies are operational vacancies. So for officer, you can see it says 21. That's a, that's a significant number, uh, to be down, and I'll circle back to that in a minute and explain why that's such a big, uh, detriment to us. But we are actively recruiting. Recruitment is good.

Um, I looked at the numbers earlier today. In 2024, we had 100 139 applicants, um, for police officers, just to be an entry-level officer, which is a huge number over where we've been in previous years. Uh, previous years we've been low 20s, maybe 30 here and there, but 139 is a great applicant pool. Uh, we're not hiring all 139 obviously, but that's a much better pool than we've had in years past. Uh, moving on to our calls for service.

And you can go to the next page.

This cool graph I'd like to spend some time on. First, I'd like to highlight out of 36,000 calls for service, that's how many calls for service that our dispatch center touched. That doesn't include some of the online reports that they may or may not have interaction with. That's 36,000 36,000, 36,000 calls for service split up between 10 dispatchers. So roughly 3,600 calls per dispatcher, which is a lot.

That's a lot of talking on the phone. That's a lot of responding to, you know, some of the online reports go through dispatch as well. So they're busy. On the far left of this where you see officer-initiated calls for service, So 1,400, that's a great number. That's roughly a third of our calls for service, which is wonderful.

That number signifies where we really connect with the community. Another way to put that would be community engagement. That does include traffic stops. That does include some of our DUI enforcement, things along those lines. But that is really representative of any time an officer is out of the car interacting with the public.

For that to be a third of our calls for service is amazing. Most departments, their goal is 10%. So that speaks volumes, in my opinion, of the caliber of our officers and our relationship with the community. Late in 2024, we rolled out a new designation on our calls for service. It's really cool.

It's Code 25. We call it COPS, community-oriented policing, where it's just the officers out of the car talking to people, playing basketball with kids in the park or whatever that may be. But that gives us a, a better way to track what we're actually doing, positive interactions in the community. So that number is already reflected a little bit there. And then moving over to JPD where it says 23,800, 4 calls for service.

Um, breaking that down, our patrol staff in 2024, we had 17 officers and sergeants working patrol, uh, just patrol. That works out to about 1,400 calls for service per officer. The national standard and our goal is 500 to 600 calls for service per officer per year. So we are, we are more than double the national standard. So when we look at those 21 operational vacancies, if we bring our numbers up, even take those 11 that are in training, we cut that number down significantly.

Um, if we are fully staffed based on our, our calls for service in 2024, we would be looking at roughly 630 to 640 calls of service per officer per year, which is a much more, uh, viable number for our staff that falls in line with national standards. But that, that also speaks to burnout over time and just how busy we are. So I just wanna highlight that. Underneath JPD cases, I'd like to highlight we have 107 open or pending cases, which is roughly 2.8% of our total cases in that, that range. That's also a wonderful number for us.

Many departments are happy if they're under 40%. So 2.8 is— that's bragging rights for me in a lot of places. Moving on to crime data, I would like to highlight before we get into this, we have switched from UCR to NIBRS, which is just different reporting systems for crime data. NIBRS actually is probably better in that it captures more detailed information of our crime reports. But the collecting of it is more tedious and more difficult.

Um, to that end, we do not have the second half of 2024 NIBRS data yet. Uh, that is, we, we turned that into the state by February 21st, uh, so I don't have any of those stats available. We'll do a supplement to this once we get all that to the state and then it reports back, but that'll probably be mid-March before we can do a whole 2024 year, uh, crime stat comparison to 2023. Because of that, we just compared, uh, equivalents, so January 2023 to January 2024. Um, I do want to highlight in that time frame, uh, and I've already been asked by a couple people about this, yes, we did have a homicide in April, uh, involving an infant.

However, that wasn't charged until August or September, so that is not reflected in the first half of 2024 stats because it hadn't been charged yet. Uh, same thing is true with the officer-involved shootings. Those took place in the second half of 2024, so the July one was ruled a justifiable homicide. That will show up when we get our full-year stats. And then the December officer-involved shooting is still under investigation, so we don't have a, a final outcome on that yet.

Moving on to the year in review, just a few highlights. I'm not gonna go through all of this, but if you look at the awards that we had throughout the year, we have a tremendous staff. We have a tremendous caliber of people here, and they do truly heroic things every day. The only other thing I would like to highlight on our year in review, our first sentence there talks about the JPD Wellness Expo. We are, to my knowledge, the only law enforcement agency in the country that does something like this where we showcase all of the different things to our staff as to what they can do to stay healthy and well, capturing everything from nutritional things, physical health, mental health, rolling out a chaplain program here, hopefully in the next month or two.

So capturing all angles, physical, mental, spiritual health so that we have better, healthier officers. I can tell you anecdotally, I hear almost weekly from members of the community that their interactions with their officers are different than they were 2, 3, 4 years ago because the officers, same officer, but they're in a healthier, better place as a person. And so that is a benefit to the community. So our wellness program is absolutely second to none, and it's one of our truest strengths. Um, and then if you have any questions, I will happy to answer those.

Otherwise, I'll kind of tell you what's coming in 2025. Yes, sir. Go ahead, Mr. Kelly. Uh, thank you.

Um, I am impressed to see the amount of recruits that we have coming into our service. Um, are we also anticipating additional turnover, retirements, or people transferring, um, and where do you think the numbers would, would be, um, in that case? So we have at least one retirement coming up this year. Uh, 2024 we had several. Uh, 2025 I don't expect nearly as many.

I have one that we know about.

Good. All right. So 2025, I just wanna highlight, we've spent a huge chunk of 2024 working through a new mission, vision, and value statement for the department. When I came, that was something that was very, very old. It didn't mean much to our staff.

And so we've been spending a lot of time on that. We expect to roll that out in the next couple of weeks. I'm very excited for that because that's something that has meaning for our staff, has buy-in. We've worked on that on all levels. We're also building a strategic plan because we previously haven't had one.

So trying to build out better direction of where we want to go as a department. How do we capture our budget in a way that makes more sense with training, with equipment and whatnot? So we're building those out this year. And then the last thing I would like to highlight, and I've talked to Robert about this, we will probably be soliciting more help. But we are trying to roll out a new program here in Alaska.

It's called ABLE, which stands for Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement. It's a program put on through Georgetown University through their law department. It is free, but it takes everything to a higher level of accountability. So our officers will go through a pretty in-depth training class, and then it gives them, it empowers them really to hold each other accountable to higher standards. Higher legal standards, and higher professional standards.

I've been part of the ABLE program in the past. I think very highly of it. And so we are trying to roll that out this year. It's about a 12-month implementation process. So my goal is to try to truncate that and get it done in 2025, but we'll see.

But I'm, I'm very excited to, to be bringing that to our department.

Question, Miss Yuskalis. Uh, thanks, Madam Mayor, and thank you for that, Chief. That's great, and that's particularly exciting, that piece at the end there. Uh, appreciate the report. Um, just a general question.

We've looked at the numbers, and, uh, the vacancies is something that is on our mind continuously, and we talk about, you know, periodically What would you say after having been here a year and spent that time with the department, the morale is like? It seems like there's some positive things you're initiating, but what's your— take your pulse of the department right now. I would say morale, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd put us at an 8.5 to 9. I think morale is very high right now. I think we have a very strong positive cultures.

Great, thank you. Any other questions? You have anything more to add? I do not, thank you. Well, thank you for being very patient waiting for your turn.

We're excited about the wellness program and we look forward to— I think you called it ABLE program— to see that. And, um, as always, thank you and your staff for all their service to the community. Thank you.

Okay, um, next we have Ms. Wright to talk about her ordinance. Thank you. Um, so you have in front of you Ordinance 2025-07. This is a 2-year project. Um, we have been working with JPD, Parks and Rec, Docks and Harbors, and the manager's office on impound code.

Um, if you— in my memo, if you look, so impound is tucked into about, uh, 5 separate places. It's super difficult to track, it's really complicated. There's tons of cross-referencing that happens that can be— make it very difficult for officers to know what to do, when to do it. Um, same with our Parks and Rec and Docks and Harbors facility members. So what we've done is we've moved it into one code section.

Everything has moved into one place, and then we've tried to make it as normal English as possible, normal sentences. Lots of, uh, forthwiths and therefores are out. And then we've cross-referenced it with state statute to make sure that we are are in line with them. The main goal was to give the most amount of discretion possible to officers and people responding to wrecked or junk vehicles or abandoned vehicles. Officers might encounter a wrecked vehicle or a junked vehicle.

We've all seen them, right, on the side of the road, and they're sitting there. But we also have vehicles that officers officers encounter when they are making an arrest for a DUI, for example. And so we wanted to make sure everyone understood what to do with those vehicles in different situations. Once we have them in our possession, how long do we keep them? Where do we put them?

For example, when we move vehicles into our impound lot, sometimes these vehicles are full of trash and food, and they may not have windows. So we have a fairly large black bear population that comes into the cars, and when those cars are in our impound lot, we are then liable for what happens. So the whole goal of these, um, changes are to allow vehicles to be left in place, um, when they can. We move the more serious cars into the impound lot And then also we get cars out of our impound lot as quick as possible. Either we get them back to people, you know, let's say there's a DUI arrest and the officers make the decision that car needs to come off of the main road, it needs to sit in the impound lot.

That's fine, but we want to get it back to the person as soon as possible. The cars that are wrecked or junked or abandoned or you know, they've been impounded and we need to do something with them, we also need to move those as quickly as possible. So you've probably seen auctions, uh, JPD auctions. Jackson Harbors also does auctions, and so does Parks and Rec. They have to make a decision right now.

Um, the minimum bid is $300, and what we're seeing is that's way too low. First of all, it doesn't cover any of the costs that we are incurring Second of all, what it does is it creates a revolving door of vehicles. So you'll see people purchase vehicles, use them for a couple days, and then re-abandon them, and then we have to start over once again. So the code provisions do things like upping the minimum bid, allowing us to look at the Kelley Blue Book values of a vehicle. We have a lot of vehicles that have hazardous materials in them— blood, um, other types of bodily fluids, needles.

We don't want our officers or anyone else having to deal with those, so we've moved those into the get rid of category very quickly instead of auctioning them and then someone being responsible for a vehicle that is dangerous. So those are the basic things that we've done. I'm happy to answer questions, um, about anything in particular. Who has questions? Okay, I have some.

Oh, Mr. and Ms. Hall, thank you. How about if a person is living in their vehicle and it gets impounded, then what happens? And communication with that person may not, you know, maybe they don't have a working phone or, yeah, or the ability to pay to get it out. Sure, so There's a couple of different ways that we impound potentially, right? So you have the impound in place where a pink sticker is put on the vehicle and we're officially impounding.

That's a notice to someone that you need to get this vehicle out of wherever it is. If you do that, if you move it, you move it out of the way, let's say you're living in it, we've put an impound sticker on it and you take care of it, you're good. So there's that first step. If you don't, and we move it into an impound lot, for example, you are going to have to communicate with JPD and the impound lot to get it out. There are— there is an ability to have some waiver of fees and fines associated there, but there is a base level that you may have to pay.

I also would say that After, um, after the Supreme Court kind of changed the direction that we've been going as a city for homelessness and living in vehicles, because there hasn't been any direction change from the assembly, officers and, um, Parks and Rec and a lot of the enforcement type organizations have not changed the direction that they're going on, on those vehicles.

Who else has questions? Does this— this question was asked, so I wanted to ask it for the public. Does this apply to not just public places, but parking lots, like privately owned parking lots? Right. So there, there are still impound options for private locations as well.

The timeframes are a little bit different, and we have to have some type of communication from the property owners. But yes, so Safeway, for example, um, and some other private locations, or if you have, um, if you have somebody who's parked on, you know, your property illegally, there are ways to move those. The time frames can be a little bit different.

Mr. Steiner, to kind of add on to Miss Hall's question on the, the pink tag notice and reading here, and I think I'm understanding correctly, but probably not actually. So it says the timeframe for responding to an abandoned vehicle is 51 days at minimum by state statute, and that's 30 days abandoned, 20 days notice, and then disposed. So the 30 days, the time period for the pink tag scene on the car— so you notice a car car, put the tag on, it sits for 30 days. So I, I'm singing kind of specific to like the area I live in.

A lot of people leave their cars sitting on the street while they're on vacation, and so that 30 days is the kind of shortest amount of time that, you know, it could get taken away while somebody's just out of town, not seeing the pink tag or something of that situation. That's right. So you've got a 30-day 30-day pink stickers going on it. And then, and then, if it's going to go to the impound lot, that's where it would go to the impound lot. I will tell you that because the assembly allowed for the impound in place, often you've got 30 days and then we start our 20-day notice period.

So it could be sitting, it could be sitting in a neighborhood for 50 days, um, because again, we're trying to keep things out of the impound lot, and only, you know, the most important vehicles go there.

Yes, that's right, 50 days or less, or have a friend move your vehicle. Any further questions? Um, since we only have 6 tonight, I'm not going to try and make any changes, but, um, I would be interested at raising the Kelly Blue Book value price from $1,000 to something higher, but we'll wait till we have a few more friends to do that. But I'm just giving you notice that, uh, because you can still get it for less, but I'm trying to keep junker, junker vehicles from just continuing the same cycle of that. So I had to talk to Ms. Wright earlier about that today, but I'll wait to make that change when we have more people.

What, Miss Yuskanyes? Uh, I have a motion if you're ready, Madam Mayor. Any further questions or discussion? Are you all done, Miss Wright? Yeah.

Okay, go ahead, Miss Yuskanyes. I would move that we refer— or we move, um, Ordinance 2025-07, version Cal, to the full assembly the next regular regularly scheduled meeting for in-drawing and ask unanimous consent. Any objection? Seeing none, so moved.

5 Minutes. 5 Minutes.

Uh, next we have the Capitol Civic Center. Um, we have our pages in our package and we also had a supplemental memo from Director Kester— sorry, Manager Kester. It was all you Public Works people in the office today, um, uh, so we were doing that. So, Madam Manager, we'll go to you first. Thank you, Mayor Weldon.

I would like to just briefly go over, uh, my memo that tries to kind of outline, uh, what I am looking— what direction I'm looking for from the body today And then I'd like to invite Bob Banghart from the partnership up to go through the documents that he provided timely enough to be included in your packet. So if you recall, we last heard from Capitol Civic Center at the August 5th Committee of the Whole, which if now that I'm saying that date, I'm like, oh yeah, a lot has gone on since the August 5th Committee of the Whole. So maybe, Maybe that's why we didn't do all of the homework that we were directed to. But just to summarize, the homework that we were— staff was directed to do at that meeting was a detailed parking analysis. In summary, the reason for the detailed parking analysis was because the partnership brought back a vision for the Capitol Civic Center that had a performing arts center and then kind of a commons area that would connect it to Centennial Hall.

Since then, they've kind of re-envisioned— I would, I would say not re-envisioned, but really gone back to the work product that came out of the 2022 effort. And that was a joint facility that very much designed as a joint facility, and they really just attacked it from the perspective of singling out all the, all the performing arts components and not the Centennial Hall component. So if you recall in 2022 when that effort was, was stalled, it was the whole like kit and caboodle for Centennial Hall improvements and performing arts improvements. And it really just kind of, um, the price tag, despite lots of effort to try to whittle down that price tag, it was upwards of $75 million. And so kind of the project went on pause, back to the drawing board.

Board, and now you have the results of that drawing board. All that to say, the commons area took away about 42 parking spaces. Without that commons area, those parking spaces are no longer taken away. We still really need to prioritize once the design has been landed on what this is going to look like. We, CBJ staff and CDD, need to prioritize a detailed parking analysis.

The other element that you asked us to do homework on was, of course, designing the the Joint Commons. That no longer is before you. Legal research and public-private partnerships, including model contracts. I do think that I have struggled to kind of find the right mechanism, partially due to time, but also kind of how to protect our interests as the owner of the property, our interest in long-term maintenance. Then of course the partnerships bringing substantial resources to the table, and they have interests in both the quality of the performing arts components and certain elements of the building, you know, that recognize major donors.

We've talked about developing an MOA that would clearly establish roles and responsibilities and have certain checkpoints, and I think that that model would be assembly decides to proceed with design as recommended in this memo, that model I think could be a really good model to test drive with just the design component. Another thing that we've talked about, the partnership is, you know, bringing on Mr. Banghart, who's their lead project manager, as an employee. So we're still like within all of them, the, the kind of greater system that is CBJ engineering, but have him as his expertise. So still exploring some of those models. We'll be looking for a little bit of your guidance today on how to, uh, how to further that concept as it relates to design.

And then, um, the other question that the assembly asked was preliminary design and cost estimating for improvements to Centennial Hall that would make sense to do concurrent with the Capitol Civic Center Performing Arts components And so the back of your memo, you will see a chart that, you know, I think used to be $25 million. That was like, I don't know, 4 whole years ago. So staff has just escalated that. Really difficult to get accurate cost estimates. First, because we're dealing with very, very much feasibility-level numbers.

And that's what you'll see from Capitol Civic Center advocates in their ask today too. Yes, these numbers are big. But part of the problem of the numbers being big is it's contingency on top of contingency on top of contingency because of the very low level of refinement for those numbers. So you'll see in this chart, this list of projects are projects that we haven't been able to accomplish yet that were part of the kind of 2019 Centennial Hall effort of like, we want more meeting rooms, we need to do the facade, we need to expand the pinch point, all of these things that the community decided they needed from Centennial Hall. And I'll just note that kind of the 3 larger projects that could be done with, uh, with the, uh, Capitol Civic Center expansion, um, are, um, you know, you would need to give me— give us direction if it came to that.

However, the first 2 projects we are proceeding with because they just have to be done. So like, we have budget for, uh, the first— that first project, HVAC in meeting rooms, and we will just be working on those projects as time and budget allows. So those aren't things that we will be waiting for. Regardless, we'll just start working on them. The lower 3 are more like kind of policy level, right?

They're not just like making sure our systems work. They're actually providing more of a service. Another just piece to highlight, and I think one thing that drove the project back to the original footprint is the square footage and kind of what it would cost to operate the new facility. It's 44,000 square feet, and we just used what we spend on operating and maintaining Centennial Hall. That's, you know, is that a perfect number?

Probably not, because, you know, a newer building has less costs. Hopefully we would be designing that, you know, to a very high standard from energy efficiency perspective, But there is an operational cost to expanded square footage. We estimated at about $740,000 annually. And of course, we contract with Jack to manage Centennial Hall a little less than $400,000 a year. So we don't know like programmatically how those— not only those operating and maintenance costs could be offset by revenue, but there's going to be a lot of program elements that will both have a cost and revenue.

So, um, that's kind of the update on our homework, and I just want to take a moment to explain what I would like to get out of the body at— here we are almost 9 o'clock on a Monday, uh, on a Monday night. The partnership would like to get to 65% design of the project because they'll— and they'll give you their reasons for that. Part of that is it allows you to bring on GCCM contractor, it allows you to know a lot better what your actual costs are. And so I give you 3 different scenarios of how CBJ could be engaged in that. And it would be very helpful for me as your manager to know kind of how to prioritize, you know, making Capital Civic Center work and problem solving the governance issues that the, the, um, you know, the contract and the MOA issues, problem solving, you know, how to move that project forward.

And I really think that the best way to demonstrate support for a project is through dollars. And so we do have funds appropriated for Capitol Civic Center design. We appropriated about $2 million, I don't know, 2021 or something, for that project, and we've only spent $200,000 of that. So, you know, leaning into this project, I feel like would be the Assembly appropriating funding to bring that project to 65% design. The partnership's certainly willing to participate in that from a financial perspective.

But I really feel like, you know, if we're in, we need to like use our resources. So I have 3 different scenarios and one would be to award award the partnership a grant, much like we do a lot of our community partners. This would— and, you know, we would need to develop an MOA that still says we need to be involved in certain milestones. We would want to develop an MOA that requires a lifecycle analysis be done to really get a handle on some of those long-term maintenance costs. But in essence, we would be granting them those funds so they could use their architect and their process to, to bring the project to 65% design.

Pros of this is like, we're minimally involved. You were involved, you know, obviously as an owner of the property and as a stakeholder, but we're not really like organizing all the things. And so that would be kind of the one level of one way to advance the project. The other way to advance the project would be direct to direct staff to bring that project to 65% design. We would probably, uh, we would absolutely need to re-RFP the architect firm for that project.

Last time we did the project, we, um, we bid it and Northwind and JYW had a joint proposal, so we worked with both of those. JYW, uh, is the architect on record for Centennial Hall. Northwind has been working with a partnership, So that would just delay our ability to kind of move forward on design. And then, you know, we have some limit— just limited capacity in engineering. We would go out and probably have to hire someone to do that work.

We got a lot of work. I mean, it's a matter of like finding the employees, but it's not a matter of like creating new FTEs because of course the project itself would pay for that FTE. And then the third option is if the Assembly decides not to proceed with funding design, I imagine the partnership will, will still want to, you know, move forward with that, the project. And they've got a lot of donations and a lot of fundraising that they've done to be able to do that. And if that's the decision of the assembly, it would be useful— it would still be useful to get feedback on the level of involvement.

So I talked more than I thought I was going to, but I really want to emphasize, like, I'm trying to get some direction from this body on how to move forward with Capitol Civic Center today. And if we don't get there, I'll just be bringing it back to you sooner and maybe even at a later hour. So maybe we want to invite— sorry, that was a threat. What did that sound like? A threat?

No, I'm just gently reminding you there are 6 us tonight. So, um, thank you, Mayor Weldon. So I guess I could pause for questions, but it might be more useful for me to, uh, invite Mr. Banghart up to go through the slides in your packet. All right, thank you for that. Mr. Banghart, please come up and introduce yourself and your fellow guests.

Madam Mayor, would it be an okay time to just ask a clarifying question? One question. All right, you know, I'll hold it until we go through this. Madam Mayor, um, if I might, for those of you who have the paper packets, you don't have the slideshow in your paper packets. It is in the supplemental materials.

So for anyone watching online, it's in the supplemental materials. And okay, so Mr. Benninghart, many of us don't have the packet, the slide show, so. Thank you. It is late. Bob Banghart, I serve as the Executive Director of the Partnership.

And joining me tonight is Bruce Pitello and Bud Carpanetti, two of our senior members of the board. Appreciate the introduction from the manager. We have been very busy since we met with you all in August of last year. And I think we took the concerns that we heard from the assembly at that point in regard to our conceptual design, went back to the table and made some serious renovations. If I could, I'd like to take people through a historical overview of what we've done with the design of the building into some of the elevations of the new one, and then we can take some questions and I can get specific about our budget issues.

But just to get you familiar with with what we're trying to do. So if we could look at that PowerPoint. Did you want me to do that or do you want to do it? You need to stop sharing this screen in order for me to share the PowerPoint. I can stop sharing.

Okay, thanks.

So if you just go to slideshow, I think it might work.

Oh, it's— if you can't, okay. So this is just an introduction. This is just looking from the southern waterside to the new facility. You can go to the next slide. So this iteration is the standalone building that we came up with in 2019, just prior to the COVID You can see the white area with a little bit of green is in between.

This is the— what was at that time called the New Jack and Centennial Hall. The space in between was just green space. All the attributes in that building on the left are currently in the new building that we've got designed. Can you go to the next slide, please?

This was what we came up with after we hit the wall in '22 with the price of a conjoined facility that we had devised, um, the $75+ million one. And all we did was we took our documents, salvaged them, slid everything over, and then decided that what we would do is design a commons area that linked the Centennial Hall with the new Jack design.

There was problematic on a number of areas, and it was pointed out by you guys at that August meeting that it was too big, predominantly too large in terms of operational costs. So we went back to the foot— the drawing board. And go to the next slide, please. And came up with this plan. And it does, I think, 3 or 4 things that really meet the challenges that you guys put on the table for us.

One was we lost no parking. Off on the left-hand side of the screen, that's the parking area. That's the equivalent of what is already established in between the two buildings, except it's improved with bus parking turnarounds and passenger debarking and loading with a much more convenient and safe area. It takes all of the attributes that we came up with in our very first design and incorporates them in predominantly the left quadrant of the building. It takes and keeps in place Centennial Hall, the administration area, the restrooms, the bulk of the lobby space, the existing north restrooms.

It does modify those meeting spaces in there, adds a little bit of more staffing area. And then the far left lower section we call the community room. Add the 3 small rooms that are there to that, and you have the equivalent of the working space of Centennial Hall. So essentially, the areas we've increased are the small black box area, which is to the north of the community room adjacent to the parking lot and the theater. Those are the two areas we've increased the building and some of the lobby space compared to what we currently have in the holdings of the two individual facilities.

But with that, we gain a number of efficiencies, both in staff operations and marketing opinions, options that we have with that. And we're, we've done three pro formas on this project as we've gone through a period of time. We're doing an upgrade upgrade that reflects this design. And in the 3 pro formas we developed working with McDowell first and McKinley secondarily after they sold out to— McDowell sold to McKinley, within 3 years the project was in the black in terms of operational costs because of accelerated opportunities for use and rental. So you can go to the next slide.

This is the second floor, which is essentially roof plates, and then the area in the center is the mezzanine for the theater. The golden color area is the elevator that would service the second floor. That area to the right of that elevator, the white flat sections, that would be prepared for an eventual second floor to Centennial Hall if it ever came to be. Pass, and you would have your access points there. So the next few slides, we pass through these.

These are just some elevations of the facility, pretty much looking from the subport area. That's at Egan Drive in the middle. This would be from the western side from the K2 building. This would be the main entrance to the facility. Um, here you'd be looking again from the parking lot by K2 into the building.

That dark section in the center is the black box. We've got some features that has the outside spaces incorporated into the inside space with moving walls. You see the bus parking. Go to the next slide, please. This would be the portico that's currently the eastern entrance that has that long covered way.

We would truncate that, but that is the entrance to the building from the east or the town side.

The courtyard that exists in between, that's kind of captured by the space of the lobby and the existing Centennial Hall and the new construction, this would have a physical barrier that would be able to be locked off so that that didn't become a hazard area or a nuisance, a detractive nuisance at times. Interior of the building, What you see on the left is the stairway up to the mezzanine area into the main lobby space, and then on the right is the passageway into the community hall, which is the same space as the armory currently.

And that's the shot of the community hall, and you see the movable walls that let you out into the courtyard. We do have days that that would be functional.

Yeah, I, I, I— supposed to be getting warmer. That lobby space in there, and there's the gallery, the theater control spaces, and then access to staff back of house, the other set of restrooms, etc.

And then this would be the interior of the Rake Floor Theater. This has not changed. This is one of the reasons that We like where we're going with the architects, is we've got a fairly decent amount of the material that we've developed already when we went through to 65% with the other facility. We can still reuse, especially the theater component, which is the highest per— cost per square foot of the facility development. I think that wraps it up on that.

Then a couple of things to show, to talk about in terms of the project. We did a historic overview. We went through all of the buildings that have been proposed for this site that have met this need in regard to community center. And we calibrated a cost per square foot, and then we prorated that to today. This iteration that we've got on the table right now, bear in mind, we have prorated the cost of construction to 2026.

That's our estimated numbers that we're working with on a 10% development of a conceptual, which means we've got a very wide strand of thought. And this is why we're pushing to get to the 65%, is we need to narrow that down because currently we're carrying a $5 million contingency plan in this particular design. That's way excessive. But we have to do that because we have too many unknowns. So we wanna push this forward to 65% so we can get within the range of possibility, which where can we save the money?

We need to save both in development, execution of the building, and operations to where it becomes viable in the long term. We don't know that until we take it to that point. City Manager mentioned the CMGC process. We've been looking at ways that we could do this without engaging contractor. We would be engaging the opportunity to use a constructability firm.

It's an engineering firm that goes through and looks at the design, looks at all of the plans we've got, and makes a determination. Is this constructible? If so, what kind of efficiencies can we get in there? They do the job of the CMGC to give us that third leg of the stool for getting accurate estimates. That's what we would want to bring on board.

We get to 65%, we reevaluate, and then we get some pricing. And then if we decide to move forward, we start negotiating guaranteed maximum price with a contractor through the end of construction documents. So we know what we're getting. There is no surprise there. And it's important that people recognize is We're very dedicated to this process of getting it accurately defined so that we don't have any surprises, because we've got a number of supporters, institutional as well as individuals, that keep poking sticks at us to say, what are the answers?

And I think we're doing a good job because this last year we were able to see success with 3 individual philanthropic organizations where our donations from them individually climbed from $250,000 to $650,000 to $1.5 million. And it's kind of an escalating game. All 3 of those institutions now look at— we, when we go after money from other institutions, they look at who's on the bus with us. And it makes a difference to see that those other philanthropic organizations have enough belief in what we're trying to do to get involved with supporting us. So I think the budget sheets were in your stock.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions y'all got about this project. And if you wanna watch a movie, we got a really cool fly-through. No sound though.

Who has questions? Ms. Hughes-Caniz. Well, you had a question, so I'm assuming you still have a question. Thanks, Madam Mayor. That was her, uh, Miss Guster.

But I'll ask, uh, thanks for being here, Mr. Banghart, and thanks for your continued work on this. Um, one question that you answered last time you were here and I have forgotten the answer to, and it's in relation to this, uh, reworked tighter package here at various iterations, various times. One point in there you were working with Travel Juno and the chamber and everyone was back together on a project. Then they— those two left, and the partnership really was the one who's been driving this. At what point did they— those two leave?

How many iterations ago is that? Well, they didn't really leave in a sense. I mean, we all kind of were shocked by the price of that project. Uh, we still had letters of support from them when we went after some CDS money with the feds. We're still in conversations with them.

I was just in front of the Chamber's Government Affairs Group giving an update, and we'll be doing that again with this new plan.

What we're looking at, we're through conceptually. We know what we can get on the footprint that we have. What we need to do now in the process of going forward with the schematic design is we would sit down with user groups ratify the plan. Travel Gina would be there, Chamber would be there. We would reintegrate those conversations in this process.

We haven't done so aggressively at this point because we still need to move this forward as a group with you all. I can ask a question unless nobody else wants to. I have one throwaway one. Okay. Um, How certain are you at the $60 million?

On the cost? Yeah. I think it can be lower. I think $60 is a top end, and I feel pretty good about it, especially—. And I know if you've got the 65% study, you'll be much closer.

I just, I'm wondering at that because that is the lowest number we have seen so far. This is the smallest project. Okay, you guys will cringe, and I apologize, but If we took the commons out and did that in a later phase, how much would that take away from it? The common space, the conjoining space? No, that you call it a commons room.

The community room. Community room, I apologize.

I don't know off the hand how much, you know, if we're looking at what we're proposing right now is running around $1,300 a square foot in aggregate. And you could just do a complete deduction on that. But the problem is if we went forward with construction, demobilized, didn't have that space in there, we'd be going net backwards in terms of what we were offering the community for usable space. And I think it would cut into revenues in a way that wouldn't make it a very good idea. Right.

And it's hard to tell on your design, and I apologize, I should have met with you guys sooner.

You said something about a second floor in Centennial Hall. With the rooms that we— that you would have totally, the whole Civic Center would have, could we get away with not building a second floor in Centennial Hall? Yeah, if you look at the black box, you look at the subdividable community hall, you look at the other adjacencies that we've built into the building, um, We have the equivalent of what we have, but it's just spread out more, uh, in the footprint, so they're not clustered around like when you walk into Centennial Hall. Now you've got 4 meeting rooms. Those would— 2 would be there, and then 2 would be at the other end of the building, and there would be a third one associated with the community hall.

Okay, uh, Ms. Hall and then Ms. Youskany, do you have another question? Thank you for that presentation. My question is, you know, there's been talk of having— attracting large conferences to Juneau with this facility, and I'm not exactly seeing the meeting rooms to support that, or is that— am I missing something here? The black— and I'm sorry for the lack of detail in the floor plans, but what we call the black box, which is adjacent to the theater, is one large room that's completely adaptable and full of technology as we envision it. It could be used as a meeting room.

There's a meeting room off of the community hall. The community hall is subdividable into two other rooms, so it could also be meeting rooms. So, you know, we took two that existed of the four and just changed the configuration. So it's all there, plus you have the 300-seat theater that could be employed as well. So just follow up, would that accommodate breakout sessions for a large conference?

I believe it could be made to work that way, yes. I mean, ideally the second floor would be added on. And when the work in Centennial Hall was completed last year, there was technical upgrades to the structural aspect of the building. That made it so that second floor can go on. And we're not doing anything in this design to thwart that effort as a second, um, opportunity.

So they could be put on there. Picture. There you go. Okay, now I know that. Yeah, you see the checkered areas?

That's all available second floor. Predominantly, it would be just that one rectangle adjacent to the elevator shaft that would be the meeting room. So we've got a comp for that that has a full complement of restrooms and secondary meeting rooms up there, but, uh, it, uh, comes with a $12 million price tag.

So, um, Adam, can you go back to the last Next slide.

So basically, if you look at that, Mr. Banghart, anything shaded dark gray is potential meeting space, correct? And Centennial Hall, we know, can be curtained off into different rooms, and you're saying the community room could do that also? Yes, and you see there's a small gray square adjacent to the community room that would also be It's a set-aside meeting space.

All right, any further questions?

All right, so you heard the manager. She wants direction. So I guess we'll just go down the way. Ms. Yusani, you want to start? You want me to start?

Either way, I'm happy to. Okay, go ahead. Um, I'll say, uh, so of these options, I have felt like this project has suffered from, you know, if you give us a super high price tag, then I think the assembly is going to say we're not interested.

Without detailed design, no one I don't feel confident that we actually know what the price tag is. So I sort of feel like we're chasing our tails if we don't get to a design number. And then maybe that's when you rip off the Band-Aid if it's just too much, or you feel a little bit more confident that you know what you're talking about, and it helps with the fundraising as well. So I would like to see us get to design. We appropriated that $2 million.

I think we might as well. I voted against that at the time, but I think we might as well just use it and let's get to design. Um, you said you're confident it'll be less than $2 million. I'm hoping it'll be less than $1.8 million unless the partnership makes up that difference. Of these options, 1, 2, and 3, I think as long as we get the answers that CBJ needs in the MOA, option 1 probably makes the most sense given staff capacity to do a grant and develop an MOA.

And then I'll just make the comment that we've talked about this one a lot, and it is one of those issues that I'm sympathetic that probably from staff's perspective, it's more of a 5-4 issue or a 6-3. It's not really clear where we're going to land depending on who's here. And I think it makes sense to spend this money at this point, but I don't think we should interpret each singular action in a void or a vacuum as being buy-in, lean-in, this is your direction, make this happen, because that would lose sight of the fact that we have a really passionate, dedicated partner partnership that's working on this and is going to keep coming back to us to try to get it done. So I think let's do this. I feel good about Option 1, but we'll have— we'll have much more of an idea at 65%.

And I do— I am— I sound pretty callous, but I do support this project. I just feel like where it falls on the numerous list of things we're dealing with, it's not blanking red lights like some of our other things are.

You ready, Miss Adkisson, or— Yes, I am. Okay, let's hear it. I can go at any time. I can fill in why people think— I'm Miss Adkisson. Uh, thank you, Madam Mayor.

I am, I think, in a similar, similar place as Miss Hughes-Scandies. Uh, I, without knowing what— having a better idea of design and a better idea of price tag with that, I think we are just going to keep going in this cycle. And then we have this money appropriated, but we're not spending it. And every time, uh, see, uh, need comes up, we all go, well, we could take that money. And this is just—.

We need to either spend it or not. So I am in support of getting to that 65% design. In terms of options 1 or 2, I do agree that I like option 1 because of staff capacity, but I am concerned concerned that once, you know, if this project does get finished, it's the city's building, it's the city's to manage and make work. So I don't know how we— I almost wish we had an in-between 1 and 2 where we could care for what the city would need when this project is finished as well. But I don't know if that's possible.

And so in that case, I'm leaning more towards Option 1, but I do want to think about the after and how how we're planning on managing it when the project is done as well. Thank you, Miss Atkinson. Mr. Steininger, um, I'd say I too am leaning towards one, just thinking about, as you know, Miss Atkinson said, we've appropriated this money. If it's just sitting there doing nothing, it's not serving the purpose for which it was appropriated for. So it doesn't make sense to sit on this money longer and not have a project get to a point where we can make a more reasonable, you know, decision on whether or not to put it forward, and that the, the group can go and try to raise funds for construction.

Um, but I do want to reiterate again what Miss Atkinson said. If there is a way to have the city more involved in the design process that isn't having the city take over entirely to ensure that we get a design that is something the city, you know, is happy to take over ownership of once it's built. Because that is— it does feel a little bit odd letting an independent organization do all the design work for something that ultimately we're, you know, responsible for in the long run. Um, and maybe a clarifying question to Ms. Kester. In the memo, you say You're seeking our guidance to spend $1 million, but that the cost of design could be up to $1.8 or less than $2.

Is it expected that some of the other private funds have been fundraised will fill in the gap, or am I just misunderstanding the million and the $1.8 million?

Yeah, so I can't— I don't have the exact cost of what 65% design would be. Mr. Bengert might have that, but we did some math on how we manage projects. It was about 1.7. I know that the partnership has expressed an ability to also contribute to design. So I think, you know, I used a hypothetical of like, we spend $1 million of remaining design funds towards this project, a substantial amount, not the entire amount, but the majority, to make sure that, you know, were leaning in.

So that was a number that I threw out there as a suggestion. Could I speak to that question? Because I didn't forward that information to the manager this morning. I sent it to Jean.

We were in discussion about it. That question came up at our meeting last week. We went through and itemized the in-draft form our A&E costs and subdivided that and came up with what it would cost to get us to 65, how that would break out between the partnership covering the bulk of those funds and the city augmenting it with the monies that's been set aside. Um, I'm not going to quote the figures because I'm not remembering them exactly. They were upwards in the neighborhood of 5 mill aggregate for A&E, which included the specialty contractors needed.

But that breakdown of 1+ from CBJ married to what we have on hand to cover the rest takes care of it all the way through 65%. So we'd get our answers.

Thank you. Ms. Hall. Yes, I'm also leaning towards 1 just because it would be a more seamless process, not switching horses in the middle of the stream, so to speak. And, um, but I, I am still a little concerned about, you know, having it be able to accommodate a large conference without having to add a second floor. It may be a little too late for that consideration, but thank you.

Mr. Kelly, we want to weigh in. Really? You don't have to. I'll go with that. Yeah, I don't think I have anything to add.

I'm leaning towards number 1. Thank you for that. So, I'll just weigh in. So, I appreciate everybody's work on this. With that being said, I've supported it from the beginning, and I know I'm the longest supporter on the assembly for sure.

But I'm happy to see it's a smaller project. I'm happy to see the price tag has gone down. I'm hoping that you can get it a little bit lower just to— for it to stand a chance. I think Travel Jinho and the Chamber are going to be essential to get it back on board. I don't see that they're going to not get back on board.

But when it was— when it lost traction, I wouldn't say they quit supporting, they just backed off and sent me other priorities to be supporting.

The one thing I'm not wild about is handing it over to the city as soon as it's built. I'm not wild about that one still, but, um, that's how we got the field house. So I would say one, with the idea that we do have a robust MOA. In the past, some of your architects have gotten pretty free and liberal and tried to make it more of a Taj Mahal. It sounds like you're bringing people back down to reality and, you know, making it a bare minimum, which is what I think we need at this point.

I wouldn't mind seeing a cost difference with— I understand the community room, I understand its importance, but to bring that out, just trying to get that cost down. So with the changes in administration at the federal level, I don't know how people's appetite are going to be to be funding arts and culture right now. So, um, but I appreciate all the work you guys have done, and I think you're getting much closer to something that you can get more of us behind. So appreciate that. So anything further from the assembly?

Do you have what you need, Ms. Kestler? Thank you, Mary— Mayor Walden. I'm just going to summarize my next steps so that we end on the same page at this hour. The body is comfortable spending funds on getting this project to 65% design.

They're comfortable doing that in a grant to the partnership. They want to make sure that as many checks and balances can be built into that MOA as possible. To do that, I will be bringing that MOA back to the body. So you have that opportunity. And I just would add, you know, we've been— we've had a very friendly relationship.

But any any direction you can give me to give me teeth, that's like, no, it can't be more expensive than X, Y, or Z, or no, we can't do that, certainly helps in, uh, in my negotiations. So I'll just, uh, I'll just ask for that direction as we continue moving in the process. But I think I've got really good feedback, and there will be another opportunity for the assembly to touch, uh, this concept. That sounds good. Do you have anything further, Mr.

Benghart? If you guys want to watch a really nice fancy fly-through that's pretty exciting. We'll watch it, but we'll see if Mr. Butteler or Mr. Karpenewy have anything to add. You have to come up if you have anything to add. Okay.

Hopefully this video that is really cool is very short. It is. It's 5 minutes. Is that too long? We can deal with 5 minutes.

Do I gotta sign back in? Uh, sure.

We took the liberty of making it a sunny day.

Oh, yeah. Is it? Oh, it's glitchy. Yeah, not enough bandwidth.

It's really smooth. We're going to put a soundtrack to it with a voiceover. My quartet's going to write the music for the thing.

You can see that big flat area on the roof, that's where the second second floor, if it ever came to pass, would be the flat areas or the existing building. Yeah, we're hoping there's no second floor needed, just so you know, cut costs. Just throwing it out there.

One last question that I can think of: have you reached out to NCL or Hoonachodem to see if they're interested in helping at all? We've been in conversations. Or else taking some of the spaces in their building. We had a presentation on Hoonitotem on the Aakw landing, and they seemed like they pretty much sold their space to everybody that needs it. So that's the black box.

That's one of those areas, the glass wall that goes in, but that would be definitely a meeting room. All the curtains would drop, so that would be totally isolated. Walking in the west entrance adjacent to K2. The floors would look better, but they are polished concrete just like at Fred's now, but they look a lot nicer than the ones at Fred's.

And some of these attributes like the fireplace, we've already had the owners pay for that, so—. Okay, I was going to ding you on that. Nothing fancy. Nothing fancy, right? Again, we envision it with a full complement of electronic supports for any kind of convention stuff, blackout curtains on this so it can be seated.

This is one of the things that the Travel Juno wanted was a place to set up the food service so that they could have the conference in the other room, so that space would be that way.

Someone's already paid for that stage.

Access to the theater.

The gallery space exists at the Jack now. It's double the size of that. Now we're looking back towards the existing building into Centennial Hall proper. That alcove is where the administrative office is. Those are the restrooms by the gift shop.

We've got concessions, but we think we're going to have, um, cart parking because it's too hard to get a concession there. Then this is the outside courtyard. Those— that's open-ended fence is closable, so you can have that all secured out.

So we're within the confines of the height restrictions and tucks right in there. We're showing it clad the same as Centennial Hall, which is re-clad, which right now it's in the budget is the coat of paint to match instead of new siding. This is the existing entry.

Recognize that as being Centennial Hall. So right about here would be where you'd have that glass wall that goes to the outside.

So this is scale, so you can see it really absorbs a lot of people quite comfortably.

I had a conversation with some folks from Celebration. This would have worked for them very, very well.

And I think of the big moneymakers for this community in terms of events that we use Centennial Hall for, and be like Celebration, the Folk Festival. This works.

Can't do boat shows in there anymore though.

And we didn't show the cutter, the icebreaker, yes, just an aside.

So as darkness falls on the small humble hamlet of Juneau, we'll bring this to a close.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for watching.

All righty, what else do we have, Madam Manager?

Uh, the next meeting is February 24th at 6 PM.

Anything further? For those of you who don't know, Ms. Huskanies and Ms. Kestrel are going to be on a plane tomorrow to Vancouver to go to a cruise ship concert— conference. So we're all tired. With that, we're adjourned.