Ketchikan: Tourism Ad Hoc Committee Meeting Sept 21, 2026

Paul.

You're here. Oh, here. Michelle. Here. Here.

Mary. Here.

Here. Here.

And then Mark and Fab both have excused absences, and I've not heard anything from Alex.

Okay, does anybody want to, uh, I'd like to get the meeting minutes from the last meeting approved. Anybody have Move that the meeting minutes from 8 to 10 be approved as written. Second. Second.

They are approved.

So just, I want to kind of review really quick our old work session from the last meeting where we talked about the number of members, which we came up with 9. So we're going to stick with that. And then how we split it up, it's all in the meeting notes, which is great. And then of course the ex officianos, ex officianos that are going to be there. And the terms, 3 years, and then, um, you know, every 3 years or every year, 3 people will come up for, um, their terms will end and we'll go through.

And then annually the board will reelect a chair, a vice chair, And I was looking through some of the other committees, and a lot of them, they all do it the same way. So every year you get a new chair and a vice chair because the committee is still intact in a sense.

So, and if everybody wants to look at the memorandum that was brought along, our new business.

Then the advisory board comparison. Has everybody had time to look through this? Any comments? Dan, anything from you on that?

Yeah, my only question was around the qualifications.

I don't really have a response to these questions about that. I think I also put parentheses around about committee members felt it would be more useful for a chair to remain seated for more than 1 year to carry forward board acknowledgments. I just question that. I don't have a favor one way or the other, just no. And I think the thing— thought behind it is that people will still be on the board, you'll just get a new chair.

So we don't lose any information. Okay. The board doesn't, they continue to— have the same people on the board. Some of them said that the vice chair would then become—. It can be done either way, but it'd be up to the group, right?

Yeah, so the board could decide, you know, do they want to—. Sure—. Elect every year a new chair, a vice chair. Yeah, and, uh, quite honestly, with everybody having jobs, it's probably good for one year and then move on, get your life back, quite honestly. Um, because this does— even just this part takes up a lot of time.

So, um, does it— has anybody have any comments on the membership size, the composition, which we've all done? I did have one thing. I'm looking at the list of ex officio, like the manager and the KVP manager and things like that. I was wondering if that would be a good spot to say give the cruise line agencies a spot to be in there, or we want to restrict them to a regular—. I think it's better just to have them as a regular member, not on our board, mainly because they're not— in a sense, they're not part of living here in the community, right?

They're visitors. Well, that's why I thought of them as an ex-official, because they will have a lot of information about the cruise industry. Like, they'll be the ones making schedules and stuff like that. Having them not necessarily have a vote, as say they're not really part of necessarily directly a part of the community, right?

Having them as an information source readily available would probably be—. Yeah, and they could be invited to meetings. Yeah, and we just send it out that they can be invited to the meetings on a regular basis, let them know when the meetings are. And most of them are not based here anyway, so that's the other problem. Well, no, most of Cruise Line agencies is— are locals that are working here.

I meant like one of the local office people. Oh, okay. Like, I don't know, Rick Erickson has been there forever, those kind of guys, someone that can represent. Yeah, we can do it. I mean, anybody's invited.

These are open meetings, so, and when the board's there, they will be open, so anybody can come and be there. I just think that we leave the way we have it set up for, um, with the city manager and the ports in that way. Did we come up with a minimum length of Ketchikan residency requirement? Was that ever addressed specifically? I know we discussed it, but I I don't think he ever came with an answer.

No, that was kind of just up in the air. And I don't think— my point of view, if you're a resident, you're a resident. Not saying you have to be here 2 years, 3 years, 4 years. You're a resident. You're indebted into the community.

You're a resident. I agree. Fresh eyes sometimes are great. Yeah, somebody new. So, anybody else?

Yes, sir. I don't know whether this is a proper time or not, or as far as in the agenda. I was able to attend the Chamber's candidacy presentation, and one of the things that came up was about— this was for the borough— about how they are going to address tourism.

And Kathy Boley mentioned that I'm going to look and really study the survey. And I've forgotten. And that 2020, and it stuck in my mind because at that time we were trying to survive in business through COVID and regroup. And so everybody wasn't really focused, but they had. So today it really, it really bothered me as to what am I missing something here?

So I went to the borough, and I remember that George Washington University was engaged in a huge amount of money to go through and study exactly what we are going to be doing.

And it, it just struck me, there's 90 pages. I went through the entire thing today. I spent all afternoon going through it. They had interviewed 1,343 residents. They had 2,862 TripAdvisor reviews, 9 meetings.

They're held on with an 8-member steering committee, 8 meetings held in the 26-member community advisory board, 5 focus groups, 2 day in-person. There were 15 work sessions with 50 stakeholders. 332 Individuals were interviewed. Redundancy really bothers me, and we have— I'm a real proponent of consolidation. And why can't we include the borough in this study?

And I was told— and we all know this— they take these studies, they're hundreds of thousands of dollars, they go to a shelf, and they're never used. And so I think it's really important that we include the borough and the other government— Saxman and the borough— as part of this membership so that we can stop the redundancy and the waste of money and the non-use of these studies. I mean, there's a huge amount of material that we're going to be covering. Why recreate the wheel? Why not keep the spot, you know, the spoke intact and roll around and get this thing done?

It, uh, it just really bothered me today, and I don't know if this is a proper time to, to say as far as the membership that I know the borough and the city, they have an annual meeting every year and they talk about these things. But it's— again, when I attended this first meeting, we've got to have action. Just, uh, I just had to—. I just had to bring that up. It bothers me, and I think it could be part of the leadership.

Well, I think it's great to have it as information for when the board is formed, right? Because we're here to form a board that will advise the city council. That's what we're doing is just setting up the parts of the board so that then the board can be formed. We're just doing the legwork to start it, and all that information is great for the board to have as they can get set up and go. Because remember, we do have— Saxman in a sense is included, Indigenous and cultural heritage member.

So somebody from Saxman can be on this board. Yes, I was gonna say, I think we have in this last segment of that, we have basically that any, anybody on the island can be part of the general members as well. Yeah, and I think we have 2 members at large that are year-round city, 1 year-round city resident member, so, or borough. So we have 2, and I think the, the library advisory board is, its makeup is I think it specifically has some borough members in it as well. Like, there's a specific seat, so I don't think it would be out of—.

Yeah, they have a borough assemblyman, they have 2 boroughs on there. Yeah, so it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a terrible thing to include. Well, we do have a spot for—. You have a liaison, right? We have 2 members at large that are year-round city or borough residents.

So we do have spots for the borough.

So they're included, and the city's included separately as a year-round city resident. So we do have spots for them. So we're not really leaving anybody out in that, in that 9-member board. So could I ask, we have a 1 year-round city resident member, and then we have 2 members at large that are year-round city or borough residents.

How terrible would it be to have a borough member in place of that one year-round, and we still have the two at-large, and then we have a city council member, and we have a borough member, and then two year-round members at-large? I was gonna say, it also would be if we're not defining all the other, like, all the other specific ones, like industry-specific ones, as having to be a city resident, like, any of them can be borough, city, whatever, then I think that covers that fully as well. Yeah, because we may have some people that are representing tours that are borough. You just don't know. They're just representing tours.

So I think as long as you look at these, we're going to have people that necessarily are not city members that are actually in the borough, because a lot of these people that work in these industries live in the borough. Wouldn't that be the same for city council members? That person could be city too. I mean, council member has to live in the city. So you have a council member, but for the lodge, for the attraction tours, representing food, retail, a lot of them live in the boroughs.

They don't live in the city. As Mayor Bob would say, we all live in the borough. Yeah, yeah. So I think we'll— we have the borough pretty well covered, and you're going to get a lot of people from the borough that are going to be in this because they work in the industries. I think what may be—.

Sorry, what might be apart is like, this is an advisory board for the city of Ketchikan versus like, now, like Terry says, we have overlap where we have a borough council and city. So like, there's a borough right now, borough council, making decisions that's not going to really include anything that we have to say. Well, that's up to the—. That's a—. We're advising the city council, right?

That's, that's what this board is going to do. That's the purpose behind the board. Is to advise the city council, and, and the city council then has to talk with the borough themselves. So that's where it's going to be up to them to do their thing, because right now it's, it's the board talking to the city saying, hey, this is what we're hearing, this is what we're getting back as feedback, this is what we're seeing and we're hearing. And that's where that's going to come from, right?

But what, what's also difficult is like There's decisions that the city can make that the borough can't make. But that's up to the city council then to work with the borough. No, I understand. The board, the board is just an advisory board. They're not a decision board.

They're not. They're just bringing information to the city council for the city council to act on. That's what this board's about. Yeah. They're not a decision maker.

They're just an information gathering and taking it to the board. To the city council. That's what they're there for. Yeah. So it's just an entity to help tourism, and it's going to be in the borough and in the city because you're going to get a lot of information from the borough that's going to come into this board, and they'll take it to the city.

So it's just, it's a collection agency for information for tourism. Yeah, because right now we don't have an entity like that. And that's what they're trying to put together. Yes, sir. Um, I kind of like what you're saying, but I also like what Terry's saying, and, uh, that is that we're not in opposition to the borough.

Uh, all of a sudden we have maybe 400,000 passengers coming from the borough, and that's going to reflect— because we're talking about tourism in city, and we have what, 13,000 people, maybe 8,500 in town, whatever. But it encompasses this whole community. And, um, and I think we need to be— since it's advisory rather than a decision-making group, we want as much advice as we can from all parts of the industry. And that, that's a big part of the industry. I don't like it necessarily because it affected my business, but at the same time, it is part of the whole thing.

It's It's not just the city, but the city can act on it, but they should act on with as much information as they can, right? And if you look at these—. Yeah, I know you got to have them, you got to—. No, no, but if you have tour operators who really engage basically with the cruise ships, yeah, so you're going to get a lot of feedback from that part because they deal with the cruise ships all day long. And that's where the tours have a great relationship with those, and they're basically a great conduit.

So you're going to have somebody sitting on the board that has a conduit to those cruise ships every day and day in, and they can tell you, hey, this tour operator's not doing the right thing, or this cruise did this, or these guys are speeding. And that's all going to come back because they're going to hear it, they're going to be taking it to board meetings, And then it'll get up to city council. So the cruise ships really are included because they impact a lot of the restaurants. They impact the tour operators completely because the tour operators disappear for winter. They're only here for the cruise ships.

They're gone. They're basically gone for a year. So are a lot of store owners. Yeah, everybody disappears. I know.

My first year walking around, I went down in the winter and I went—. Ghost town. What happened to the city? It's supposed to be busy. So yeah, so I think those are great points, but I think we have the makeup that will get enough funnel into this to advise the city council.

And then it's up to the board to tell the city council, you know, this is what we're hearing, we need you to engage the borough. So that's where this board can have the effect on helping that bridge that gap.

So, so let's look at some makeups of the way some of the boards are built, because that's what we wanted to talk about tonight.

Kind of the makeups and, you know, the composition of it, which we've already kind of went through. So the term length, we've talked about it. So I'm on the second page already. The officers, we're just going to have a chair and a vice chair. Um, the frequency of the meeting is a monthly meeting, is probably the best.

You don't need anything more than that, especially as you get into the season, you're so busy, everybody's going to be dragging away, and you'll see people on Zoom instead of in person because it's busy. So we do members A quorum is 5. Everybody else, if you look across, is 5 or 6 depending on the size of their group.

Voting rules requires 4. One of them, Ports and Harbors, just affirmative. The other one is 6, and we're talking about doing 4 to vote rules for action. So if you want to bring something to it, you have to have 4 votes to bring it to the board or have action on it. Attendance forfeiture is where we need to start.

What attendance slash forfeiture rule do we need to put in place? Because if you look at the other ones, missing 3 regular meetings in a 12-month period, 3 in a 12, 2 in a 12, How strict does this board need to be, or how lenient does this board need to be?

Thoughts? Dan? Sure. Looking at like the attendance, if you miss 3 meetings, 2 meetings, 4 meetings in a 12-month period, then you were removed from the board. I concur because I think you're being useless.

You never— you miss, you miss one meeting, you miss 2 meetings, You don't know where everything is, and I think that's the commitment, you know. Yeah, it's a voluntary thing, but it's still a commitment, and you're having to say, I'm willing to commit to that. Anything besides— so, 2, any other thoughts? I think keeping it consistent with the other ones at 2 or 3 would be—. These are unexcused ones, right?

Yes, language excused in Manitoba. Yes. And I think, do we need to— and Abner, you would probably know this— do we need to have language in that portion about upon motion of the board they can be removed? Or, I mean, I know you can't just do like automatically.

We can take a look at what the other ones have and mirror that. Yeah, the other ones are saying, uh, missing 2 regular meetings in a 12-month period without excuse results in automatic forfeiture. So it's automatic, the board doesn't even have to do it, right? It's automatically done. So you do 2 or 3 in a 12?

Do you want to— you want to do 2 or you want to do 3? Let's go 3. Just 3 for the Fortune Harbor one. 3. Yeah, they're 3.

3. And then the museums is a little tougher. They're at 2. They're a little stricter. Mr.

Chair? Yes, sir. Um, will we always— I don't know if we need to add it or not— will the meetings always be in a location where a phone-in or Zoom is available? That'll be up to the board. But like this, they have Zoom everywhere, so I assume the board— the, the board will have Zoom meetings.

Is that available right now? I mean, we're recording right now. Yeah, anyone—. We will have to have, uh, in there, we'll have to say that we will accept a Zoom meeting though. Please don't accept a Zoom meeting.

I mean, not Zoom, but like—. No, they don't cyber— they just stay missing. And you're not missing a meeting if you're on Zoom. Yes, I'm just saying like, yeah, you're not missing a meeting from Zoom, you are on the meeting. It's like we're missing two tonight, so we have two people missing.

One's excused, we don't know about the other. Does the language for the other board state that a Zoom meeting, that a Zoom presence is acceptable, or does it—. That doesn't need to be written? My understanding is that according to Robert's Rules of Order, it has to be stated in your bylaws that you will— can accept, um, participation through that means.

Okay, some, some type of teleconference.

As I know, some city council meetings, they just have somebody on telephone. I believe that's been added to the code as a means of participation for the council. I'm just not sure off the top of my head if it extends to the boards and committees of the council. Yeah, well, you have the actual code. Yeah, right here.

I don't see anything. If the intent is to have it, then provide that direction in there. I made a note in there. So yeah, and these do say greater than 3, so that would be on the 4th that they miss would be automatic. Dismissal, correct?

Okay. Yeah. So the next part, primary powers and duties. If you look at the library, the port, and the historic commission, it's basically— if you look at the historic commission, that's kind of what this board is being set up for. Advise the council, develop local— well, it's, it's more about advice, advising the council.

That's what this board's for— intake information from the community and advise the council.

So technically, powers is not a word that we should be using. Maybe it's primary duties. Yeah, no powers. Yeah, no, there is no power. The board doesn't really have any powers.

Persuasion, maybe. Yeah, they're there to basically recommend. Yeah. And advise the council and engage with the community to intake information so they can advise the, the board, or the board can advise the council.

Sir, to do that, I'm a citizen, I come to the meeting and I give input that then starts the conversation. It has to start with a citizen coming forward, or if we're—. Or if the board is out in the community and engages somewhere. Okay, they'll write it down and bring it. Okay.

And then when the board has their meeting, that's— that'll be part of the agenda. And if you— you have a copy of our agenda? And so at the bottom of our agenda, we have a public comment limited to 3 minutes a person. Okay. Every meeting will have that, so the public can come in or they can talk to somebody because the board will have contact people.

So you'll know who's on the board, so it's easy to contact them. But it's not, it's not on record. It's a live show. It's on record once the board is meeting. At that meeting, yes, it'll be brought in.

So if you engage, if you came to me and said, I'd really like to talk about this, I happen to put the agenda together with Lori, so we would put it on the agenda that there's a concern from a, uh, Citizen. Can I walk in unannounced and get that 3 minutes? Okay, it's always at the end of the meetings. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, sorry, can I make comment?

So this, the primary duties is You need to recommend to the council what you believe the primary duties for this group will be. Yes. And that is what then we'll draft into the potential code. So it'll match what the other commissions, committees are, right? So let's start with Dan.

Do you have any ideas of what the duties should be? And I'm going to go one by one, so be thinking about this because Lori will take the notes on it, so we'll have it for the next one. Well, in order to advise, you have to have information. So part of it is trying to find information, collect information from the people in the community and from workers. And, you know, so It doesn't mean you have to necessarily knock on doors and solicit, but you need to be open for comments from all walks of the tourism life, you know.

And, uh, and so I think that's it. You have to get the information in order to make advice. Okay. And, uh, and I think that's what we're trying to do is how do you streamline tourism a little bit, you know, and And I guess if you say, well, we really need more bathrooms in this area, something like that, I guess that'd be an advisory thing that doesn't necessarily take the ports and harbors to do it, but more because we see it from the perspective of the visitor. Okay, Michelle, anything?

I think along those, the lines of duties as well would be a great place to incorporate what Terry was talking about too, and utilize studies and information and meetings that have already taken place and be able to incorporate that into the decision-making. That way we're utilizing that money that was spent on those surveys, and that's being read and looked at by the people who need to see that information.

I mean, I agree with everything that everyone has to say. And usually I'm not one to just do that, but I don't, uh, just if we're missing anything, that's why we're on the right track. Just want to make sure we don't miss anything and catch everybody so that, yeah, as we do this, because we're putting this together and then we're going to take it to city council and say— I guess I have to take it to city council to present it and say, here's what we want to do. Yeah, so that's why we want everybody to have their their say in this as we go.

Okay, Terry, anything that we've missed, added to? Well, you say that we are going to advise the city and that's all we do is advise, but I would like to even make it a little bit stronger that the advisory board meets at least twice a year with the borough planning and zoning and, uh, at least 2 or 3 of the borough assembly members and then advise what that comes out of that meeting to the city. That's not the purpose of the board though. Okay, I'm just throwing it out there. Yeah, I understand.

And the good part is the, the makeup of the, the board— there are borough people on it. Borough residents. Residents, yes.

Officials. So, one thing I'm going to remind you, this is the— this is the Tourism Advisory Board for the City of Ketchikan. There is a Cooperative Relations Committee. Cooperative Relations Committee. And I think that as people have said, that's the— that's where you send things to die is in Cooperative Relations.

Have you never heard that? That's where you send things to die. But this could be an opportunity. Yes, that's what I see. Utilize the Cooperative Relations Board.

Okay, how do we meld that in?

How do you get member— how do you get to be a member or attend that, or that Cooperative Relations Board? It's made up of city council and borough assembly members specifically. Yes. And it's open to the public. It is a public meeting.

There you go. And how often do they meet? Quarterly. Quarterly. Okay.

3 People each. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something the board could talk about, is having one of the members of the board actually attend those meetings and bring back the information. So that's up to the board when they go there, but we'll suggest that.

And their agenda is pre-approved prior to going in, so they're all prepared. All right, anything we've missed, um, addition? Kind of looking at the, the document that Bob and Lori put together for the first meeting, um, it's kind of like their number 3 role of Tourism Advisory Board had some things that were kind of outlined that I think make a lot of sense still. Talks about advising the city council on tourism policy impacts, strategic planning direction, um, review and deliberate on tourism-related issues, programs, and initiatives.

I think that's still of value. I think we all got an email a couple weeks ago about a specific issue that happened, um, or incident that happened, I guess. Yes. I don't know if that— again, because we're not like a powers committee, it doesn't technically seem like something we can do with unless the city wants us to. But the board could bring it back up to the city and say, this is what happened, has any action been taken?

Yeah, so the board can hold the city council accountable. Yeah, bring it to their attention, maybe investigate it more thoroughly than they And we can incorporate some of that, and Laurie's got that information. We can incorporate that into this duties.

Represent. I had also put, kind of, kind of going on what, what Dan had said earlier, I think Maybe some of the language regarding, like, using information collecting, like, we should specify it's part of the duty of this committee to gather, collect, request information, studies, et cetera, on the topics before the board. And I know that's, like, really minutiae, you know, but I think it's one of those things where these kind of boards, they, when they don't have that before them, they kind of get back on their laurels and don't think, well, it doesn't say I'm supposed to, like, go and be Sherlock Holmes and investigate this stuff, but to some degree it's— it is kind of incumbent on us to reach out to find information when we're— if we're going to educate ourselves about a specific topic for us. Um, and then I did like Terry's idea of maybe sending one of our members or one of the members to the board to like the planning meetings and things like that. And then I think an annual report that's a public report that we give.

I don't know if that's a requirement of all the committees anyway, but just some kind of an annual report that doesn't necessarily get into the statistics of tourism because there's other agencies that already do that, KGB and whatnot, but something that gives kind of an overview of the actions before us that we spoke on and kind of view of what we did, especially if we're going to be the board that takes complaints essentially, or things like that are brought to us. It'd be nice to quantify where we're— where people are seeing problems and show that.

How closely will TAB work with the Best Practices, the Tourist Best Practices Management Group? Because it seems to me essentially they're going to be handling all the same issues. If we're encouraging people to take their complaints and their arguments to the TBMP so that they can reach out and they're these great liaisons with the cruise ship— or the cruise lines— and we also want the Tourist Advisory Board to do the same, are they going to work closely together? Or is anybody there going to be involved? Are we going to have Well, are they going to stand over here and do that job, and TAP's going to be over here doing—.

Well, TAP has a direct relationship with the KVB. KVB is part of this board. Okay. So there's going to be a lot of interconnected there. And so they're very connected with the TV&B.

Yes, they are. Yes, they are. There's going to be a lot of overlap, but they're also two different missions. TV&B is communication and conflict management, if you will, between community and businesses. And where the Tourism Advisory Board as an advisory body to the City Council is more about policy issues.

And occasionally those might overlap because the problem that might be seen by TBMP might end in a policy issue that the Council wants to address. But just a different aspect. And that was kind of my thinking on that as well, where someone might bring an issue to, you know, to the KBB and that program, they will reach out. And so I've done it a couple times this summer. I live over on Harris Street, so I'm constantly being bludgeoned by all these— anyway, um, I've made a couple of calls because there were some really safe some safety issues over on Park Avenue, Parrish Street exit there.

And basically they call, you know, they contact the vendor and if the vendor responds, they let me know what the response was. And they were both really good experiences, like it was great. But there's no obligation on the vendor's part to respond. Like they have no— you know, and the two vendors that I had called about were not even members of this program. But they still were kind of to stop doing what they're doing.

But had they not— and I've been—. Exactly, had they not, then the next step could come to us where we say, hey, this, this maybe is a policy issue, and the city can— we can make a recommendation to the city because the, the, the nice step didn't help. So maybe, maybe a little bit more tooth step would be Yes, Michelle, throughout this entire document, they really, really stress, uh, it's getting in terms of strategy, expanding the best practices program and using that extensively.

Yeah, I think KBB is really starting to step up with that because they're doing— I get emails involved with that. So they're really trying to push it and move it forward where it kind of went a little bit dormant, and now they're really trying to revive it and get it going. So I mean, they got their little— they got the stickers out, and you'll see a lot of that. And they're going to keep working on that because it's important that tourism drives the city a lot. I mean, the amount of money that comes in on tourism is just unbelievable.

It doesn't look like it's going to slow down anytime soon. We went to that meeting that they held, the TBMP held, and to hear the things that they were able to get accomplished in Juneau sounded like a dream come true for Ketchikan. And so that's, I think, where my mindset was going is, are we going to be able to implement those types of things here? Yeah, and that's driven by the KBB. They're driving that, so, and they will because they understand how important tourism is because that's who they are.

So, because it's Ketchikan Visitors Bureau, so they're all really all about the visitors coming in. That's why they're pushing it. So, as far as duties, powers, we'll add some more things in and you'll have them back when we do the next meeting. We'll have this really filled in. And we can kind of finalize that.

There isn't any standing committees on the board. The board just meets, and there won't be any committees to, to break out or anything. You have 9 people working together, and that's the size of it. So, and that was what I really wanted to cover today. One more question.

Yes, sir. To the city manager, Abner, looking at this, are there provisions for sunsetting or melding or joining another advisory committee? I mean, do they ever— does the council say we don't need this anymore, this advisory committee? Can they do that? What is—.

What are—. What's the protocol? How does that work? That if they decide, well, we don't need this any longer, it's kind of a waste of time to have that. The TAB, Tourism Advisory Board, will be formed through a amendment to the city code and created within the city code.

As a council, the council can always modify or remove, repeal various sections of the city code. So it would be through that, that process, through an ordinance. For several years I was on the Museum Advisory Board and so the, the Library Advisory Board, and, you know, could they be together again if they wanted to, or could the council just decide that, that The council could decide that, and oftentimes that might even come from the board itself, recognizing that there's a better opportunity for collaboration or a streamlined process, and that it might be worth combining a board. So, like, the Totem Heritage Center is part of—. Right, and it could— it can be done through a code amendment.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, I did have one other thing.

And this is just something that I think most of the code for both the borough and the city don't have, is the only method for a member to come off of the board is by expiration of their term or the auto, you know, forfeiture by missing. It wouldn't be a terrible idea to have a specific clause in there for the council to remove any member by a simple vote if they're— because they're— we serve at their behest, so That's probably a reasonable recommendation. We serve at the pleasure. Yeah, so under attendance/forfeiture rule, it could go in there. Yeah, I think that probably the best.

Yeah, basically just says at any time if, if one of us is a knucklehead, the city council can say no more. And going to be a topic tonight. I'm glad I'm at this meeting, not that one.

It's fine. Okay, so this is additional topics for consideration tonight because I wanted to get through that part so that we get that set up. And then anything else, Dan, you want to talk about tonight?

Michelle, anything? I'm a little curious about if— so I received that email from Mark with all of that information that he was requesting to be brought here. Is that going to be addressed? Are we waiting for him to get back and require that again? Is that something that this board even needs, this committee even needs to be—.

It's not. The information he was requesting really has nothing to do with what we're doing. Hallelujah, I'm glad that we agree. Yes, okay, it had nothing to do with what we're doing here. Okay, he was asking for some information that probably could be with the board, right, but not with this committee because we're just forming the board, that's all.

We're setting up the basics and that's all. We don't need anything else except for— this was good because we have what the other boards are, so we kind of get to see that, so it gives us some structure, but He was asking for a lot of information that this board doesn't— this committee doesn't need in order to form the board, right? Okay. And that's all we're here for. We're— that's what everybody's got to remember.

We are here to form a board, and that's all. We're putting the groundwork in. The board will take over and they'll do their thing from there, right? No need to overcome. No, not at all.

Adam, anything you'd like to bring up tonight? I knew tonight would be a semi-quick meeting because we wanted to get through this, but hey, still 45 minutes. Yeah, no, I'm good because I missed the last one. So just want to get caught up, figure out where I'm at. It'd be 20 questions on the next meeting.

The next, well, the next one's going to be longer, so trust me, this was to get through this part today and then we'll move on. And I'll get with Laurie in the next couple days and we will set up for the next meeting and get you an agenda earlier. I apologize, I was out on some personal things last week that I had to take care of. That's why we moved the meeting too. I could not be here, so, and I just was going to be out of touch.

So, uh, Terry, anything else you'd like to bring up tonight? No, I just encourage people to, you know, if you have to—. Where did you find—. Go get the study. I went to the borough because I couldn't print on my copier with all these color pages.

It's beautiful. There's no other— the borough planning department? Yes, the planning department's online. And, but I went up there and used their printer, and there's two other reports that go with it, and I'm gonna go get because it's great information.

Big copier so I can print one. Now I know where to go.

Hi, anything else you'd like to bring up tonight? Um, yeah, I was— and this is more just for our— for us here during these meetings. Um, first one is, is it possible to move public comments to the front, or does that require any kind of thing? I like it in the back. You prefer it to be at the end?

You can't read my mind. Well, I think even at the back, let's— whoever the public is, listen to the board, and then anything they have questions about, then they'll address them at the end. I was just thinking like the format that the—. You'll get bogged down—. Persons to be heard.

Yeah, which is fine. I just think you could choose to—. The chair chooses the order of business. But I like having it at the end because you don't want to get bogged down with public comment first, and then you don't get to do your committee business or board business. And then the other one is, would it be possible the next time we meet to put the tables more circular so that I feel like when I'm, when I'm wearing one, 5-foot nothing, I'm always like that way.

This, the, the chair, you could kind of see everybody a little easier. Probably hasn't seen anybody the whole time. I know, hardly seen.

Even there I look like I'm about to slide into my chair here. It can be done by doing it on a shift, so he's over here at a triangle. Move us around. Yeah, possibly two tables and two tables facing one another. Abner, do you want to add anything to, uh, the committee tonight?

No, thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing special going on. I'm good. Okay.

Lori, how about you? Um, no, I don't think I have anything particular.

Wait for the next meeting. Oh, hold on, we're not there yet. Oh, okay, sorry. I think that the, um, I feel like we are a bunch of bratty children misbehaving without the mayor here because this has been such an open conversation, and I like this. I, I much prefer just open conversation like this.

Maybe that didn't need said, but I—. Board should be more like that anyway. I mean, when it gets too structured You kind of get left out, or you forget what you're going to say, or, you know, people feel included when it's more conversational. So, and that's what I've always run, whether I've run hotels or board meetings like this, it's very conversational and it's a little more casual because that's when you get business done. So, yeah, look how fast we—.

Okay, so we'll open it up to the public. Do you have anything you'd like to bring to the committee? I learned few today, so here are my two observations.

Where do you get your topics? First, as me, a citizen going before the council, and I have what I think is either a complaint or a great idea, they should know that the The procedure is a show of four hands, this topic is worthy of research, and it gets passed forward to the board. And a board that has 60 days, which is only two meetings, to do the research on the topic, come to something that they can present, crunching numbers, getting the statistics right, whatever needs so that when it's handed back in 60 days to the council, they've done the homework. So now this becomes the first reading of a very well-organized follow-through from a citizen who has something on tourism coming to the board. The second one is, um, Terry um, go through that, have everybody get a copy and go through that and come up with 3 topics in there that have been on the to-do list, and we're not exaggerating, 5, 10, even 10 years, I'll go 10, that still has not been addressed, still has not been, because payroll is being spent Every time that topic comes on agenda, it does nothing.

We don't hear anything about it. It falls into a deep hole. So go through that and come up with 3 topics. Take restrooms off the list because that has been beaten to death. Laurie should know exactly where it is in the, you know, whatever, and get it into number 27 plan or season.

Restrooms should be done with. We've been dealing with that since 2019 when Mr. Amalan was the grand pooh-pooh restroom right at their federal building, a $1.2 million restroom. So the point of the story is we come with a topic. You think this now— it's been passed from the council onto you. Give yourself a timeline.

Number 3, I believe this board should be meeting once a month in the summer because you're really crunched, but come September through whatever, that's when everything gets done. This board should be meeting twice a month because Mary is coming forward with something that really needs study through the winter season with both the borough. That's the only time anything gets done. Boom, January is here. These operators are now thinking the new season, and what was ever accomplished to move it forward to see it implemented in '27?

Long term, it's a '28-'29 completion, but it's when the winter— everybody thinks that things are going to get done, but it doesn't. You've got Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. 3 Holidays in through here, people are here and not here, but the point is that's technically when things get done. So I recommend your timing is monthly, and in the winter season is 2 times a month. Thank you, Mary, for your input.

Okay. I've been in the industry since 1984. I started in '83 driving tour buses, 14 western states, Mexico, Canada. Who are you driving for? Um, in San Francisco was my primary departure, but it was Grand Canyon.

Or what company did you drive for? Um, TTC, the transportation company. I used to work for the casinos in Las Vegas, and that's where I started my career. So we did a lot of foreign travel with those buses. Absolutely.

Good memories. Well, I look forward to the board to getting some things done. It'll be very interesting once we get them all set up and they're put in place and see how they do. May I hear from everyone that some of my ideas sound as if it could work?

There's a hand. Maybe—. Are we allowed to respond? I know. Yeah, and, and we just take the public comment and we make notes of it.

Okay. Um, for what they're doing, like Terry's report, that's something that we could put in and say, here, as the board goes on, these are some documents that are out there that you can use. We can't tell the board what to do. We're setting up the structure. That's what this committee is.

We're just setting up the structure of the board. That's our primary function. And just listening to you and what you have to say, we take it down and Lori has great notes. Is there a timeline that you'd like to see a board selected and you're off and running? November.

November. That's kind of what we talked about at the very start, was trying to get it going before the holidays. We'll see.

Yeah, you can do it. We'll see what happens. But we were getting through a lot of stuff quickly. I mean, we're getting a lot of stuff set up. So the next meeting, like I said, will be a little longer because we're going to really get through a lot of the basics that we need to do so that we can move along.

But today I just want to make sure that we got through all the, the stuff the way the other boards were set up, because then we have to make an— then we— Abner, do we have to make an appointment to see— to address the council, or do we just show up? And once you have your recommendations, Lori will work with me and we'll put it on the agenda for you. Um, okay.

Agenda items have to be complete by the Wednesday the week prior to the meeting. Okay, so for next Thursday's council meeting, we will be finishing those agenda items by this Wednesday. They're all due to me, and then they get final prep and put on the agenda, which goes out on Friday. Okay, um, and you guys, the manager's office, and you guys are gonna take what we've done and turn it into a code recommendation, correct? How long does that— I mean, assuming the attorney and everybody has to go through it.

Depending on other workload, a week or two. It won't be excessively long.

Okay, this will be fun. Do you have an assistant? I have an assistant manager and exactly the same. Good, I was worried for you.

And then I just give it to Lori if I have too much to do. I'm looking for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Next meeting. Oh, that's right. So if we follow our normal procedure, which is the third Monday of the month, we're going to be landing on Alaska Day.

Cool. So, which is a state holiday, which I don't know, do the banks recognize Alaska Day? On my bank though. What date? October 19th.

No, we have an October 12th. Columbus. Columbus Indigenous Persons Day. That's— I don't, I don't think we did do Alaska Day last year. This— I'm new to this bank holiday thing.

I'm not used to it. The dates that we set up on the first meeting, we kind of roughed out from the thing we had set up. October 12th and 26th is what I have down. Oh my God, the 12th? Oh, true, the holiday.

It's ATSA. It's Columbus City. The city recognizes the 19th. Yes, it's a—. I think it's a floating holiday.

I think it's a floating holiday.

Yeah, we could do it on the 5th instead of the 12th, which would be 2 weeks from today. I won't be available, but don't let that stop you. Is that giving enough time for the new agenda? Oh yeah, that good in time. Yeah, well, believe me, Lori doesn't let me slide on this at all.

I get an email right away from her. Is that—. That's a Borough meeting night. Oh, it is? I don't know if anybody cares about that.

It's—. How about a Tuesday? Is Tuesday better than a Monday on that week? For all intents and purposes. Not for me, but maybe for everybody else.

My Tuesdays are filled. Ty, you're fired. I know. Because if we could do it within 2 weeks, then we can move along a little quicker. That's what I'm looking at, is try to— because we're coming up on Right, these holidays, I, I think I could pull the 5th off, honestly.

Okay, yeah, so let's plan on the 5th then. Okay, 6 o'clock on the 5th. 6 O'clock on the 5th. Um, more than likely you'll be here again. Okay.

Um, we don't have chambers anymore. Oh yeah, thank you. Assembly chambers are pretty, pretty booked, so Yes, I would say this works fine. This works out perfect. So, okay, he slept through the whole thing over there.

He did. Looks like he might have had a little—. Okay, so we're looking at October 5th at 6 PM. Yes. Now can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting?

Second. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everybody.