Mat-Su Borough: Assemby Regular Meeting - Oct. 20, 2026

I'm gonna go ahead and call a meeting to order.

You want me to use my big booming voice? Yeah. Yes, everyone, the meeting's getting ready to start. If I can get everybody to quiet down. Thank you.

See where— oh, there's Ron. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order at 6:00 PM. This is a regular meeting for Tuesday, October 20th, 2026. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? I will.

Michael Bowles, are you on the phone? Yes, present. Thank you. Stephanie Nowers? Here.

Dee McKee is on her way, Madam Mayor. Maxwell Sumner? Present. Bill Gamble? Here.

Dmitri Fonov? Here. Ron Bernier? Present. Madam Mayor, you do have a quorum.

Thank you. Is there anything that the members would like to pull from the consent agenda? Yes, Madam Mayor.

Go ahead, go ahead.

Is that for me, Assemblymember Bowles? Yes, go ahead, sir. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to pull Resolution 26- excuse me, 26-110 from the agenda. Okay, so you want to completely pull it from the agenda, not just from the consent agenda, correct, Assemblymember Bowles?

Correct. Correct, that is correct.

Okay, is there any objection? Is there any objection? I don't see any. Thank you. Assemblyperson Fauna, like to pull 26-117 resolution, um, completely off the agenda.

Completely off the agenda? I missed that part, I'm sorry. That is correct. 117? Yeah, RS-117.

Is there any objection? Madam Mayor, I would object. I think we could, we could pull it off for discussion, but I think we should discuss it. It's on data centers. I think folks are really interested in that topic.

Yes, we would need to have a vote. Okay, so we'll need to vote on whether we pull that off or not. If I get the members in the room to vote to vote on pulling Resolution 26117 from the agenda.

Assemblymember Bowles?

Yes. Madam Mayor, it passed with Assemblymember Nowers opposed. Okay, thank you.

Is there any other action that any of the assembly members would have regarding the consent agenda?

Okay, don't see anything. Are there any other changes on either part— any part of the other parts of the agenda?

Assemblyperson Bowles, go ahead. Uh, yes, Madam Mayor. Um, I don't know if we are able to move reconsiderations up on the agenda, but if we are, I would like to move reconsideration for 26— excuse me.

I apologize. I'm fighting a little bit of a thing today. Resolution 26-094 to just after the first public comment period, if possible. If I can clarify, that's the motion to amend something previously adopted? Yes, that is correct.

Okay, and where did you want to move it to again, Assemblymember Bowles? I apologize, I missed it. After the first public, uh, public, uh, excuse me, audience participation. Okay, before public hearings. Got it, thank you.

Is there any objection from any of the assembly?

Okay, and then, are you objecting, sir? You just want to be recognized for additional changes? Recognized.

Am I recognized? Um, can I pull 26-141? We gotta, we gotta put on this first.

Sorry, is there any objection? I don't think we had any objections, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, okay, now new subject, right, sir?

I'd like to pull 26-141 off the consent agenda, just dealt with separately.

Could you repeat that?

20 Resolution—. Or sorry, AM 26-141 off the action Consent.

Is there objection by any of the assembly members? Pulling off completely off the agenda or just pulling it? Consent agenda. Just off the consent agenda. Okay, yes, thank you.

Yeah, no problem, no objection. So it still will be considered this evening.

Okay.

So I don't think we have any objection to that. Um, any further changes to the agenda?

Assemblyperson Bowles, did we get all of yours?

Yes, Madam Mayor, thank you. Mhm. Okay, okay.

So now the agenda. Is there any objection to the final agenda then? I don't see any. So if you'll all stand, and Assemblyperson Falloff, would you lead us in the Pledge?

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

This evening we do have some special orders of the day. Recently we had an emergency preparedness expo at the Menard Center, and during that time, um, there was some, uh, posters to be colored or painted or whatever. And so we have some winners tonight, so I'm going to come down and we're going to present the winners their presentation. Let's see, Brad around some— where's Brad at? Oh, there's Stephanie.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, um, I won't begin to say thank you to everyone who made the Emergency Preparedness Expo and poster contest a success again this year, but it was another wonderful, well-attended event. So we're here to recognize the first place winners of the poster contest, and we appreciate the mayor and assembly taking time for that.

I'm going to go ahead and just read the first certificate, and then we'll read the names of all the winners and have them come up here. So if I read your name, if you want to come up to the front, um, get the certificate, and then we'll get a few pictures of you as well. So if you want to stay up here at the front, we'll do a group photo at the end.

This certificate is proudly awarded for first place in the 2026 Emergency Preparedness Expo Poster Art Contest, October 20th, 2026. All right, so let's begin. Our first winner tonight will be Declan Hughling.

Good picture. He was trying to be everywhere.

Yes, awesome. We want you to be included in the picture. All right, our second winner of the night is Sierra Hasty.

You're welcome to all come up if you'd like and just get the certificate. You might have to go to her.

All right, thank you so much for your poster art this— and artwork this year. We appreciate it. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead and deliver it to her. Go ahead.

Our third winner this evening is Mia Andreev.

I'm not sure all the winners can make it here tonight. Uh, Julia Wollett, I don't know if you're here, Julia. They might not have been able to make it. I know the weather was causing some issues. And then a very, um, artistic family, there was also Michael Wollett as well.

So big round of applause for them. We're sorry they couldn't be here.

And then all of their artwork is also up on the Mat-Su Valley site as well, so if you want to check that out. And our final winner tonight is Joseph Sanchez.

Thank you, and let's do a quick group photo at the front too.

If there are any of the parents who want to come up and—. Yeah, if you want to be in the picture or take a picture.

Thank you.

Let the record show that Assemblyperson McKee has arrived at 6:12. So going back to the agenda, uh, minutes of preceding minutes, we have the assembly regular meeting of September 15, 2026. Are there any changes to those minutes?

Okay, hearing none, the minutes are approved as presented. The next item on our agenda is agency reports. Reports from the cities.

I see people, but I don't think there's a report.

Okay, and I do have a report from the school district. Oh.

Do you bring a cheering team or something? Go Hawks! All right.

I wish they were here to cheer me on. And feel free, boys. But no, I didn't. I think they're here for an agenda item that is coming up, which we are also very excited about. Madam Mayor, Mr. Brown, assembly, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Katie Gardner. I'm deputy superintendent for the Mat-Su Valley School District, for the record.

And I wanted to provide a couple of updates and really speak to an item that I understand is on the agenda tonight, and we heard some information on at the last meeting. First of all, in the school district, there's not a lot to report. We're coming to the end of the first quarter, and we are settling in well to another school year. Parent conferences are just around the corner at the beginning of November. We've scheduled them to align with the election so that schools are not in session at what we hope to have a record turnout.

I also want to point out that there is a regular school board meeting tomorrow. Dr. Traini will be presenting some information regarding the graduation rate from last year. So I encourage individuals to tune in and learn a little bit more about that very important metric. We have good news to report. And then I also wanted to just make sure that I addressed the school calendar.

We did listen to the school board meeting— I'm sorry, the assembly meeting last week, two weeks ago, I guess, and appreciate the item coming forward. The development of a school calendar is a compromise. There is not an option that provides every family and every individual with the perfect schedule to align with their personal lives. There are a lot of factors that go into the calendar's development, whether that is a subsistence and a farming lifestyle, whether those are academic pressures that come into play, whether it's the state testing window, collective bargaining agreements. Uh, family preferences on breaks, and a whole host of other inputs.

Uh, one of the most important inputs when the board considers the school calendar for the year, uh, is family preferences. And we do survey families in development of that calendar. I think the most recent survey that we did was in 2022, uh, and one of the questions from that survey was whether individuals preferred a post-Labor Day start where the school year ends in June, or our current August start where the school year ends in May. And we had about 75% of the respondents prefer the August start. Uh, we know that it's been a few years since 2022, so the board has asked the administration to plan for another survey to collect information, uh, about that and other factors that go into, uh, that calendar development.

So we appreciate the opportunity to, uh, visit this again. We appreciate the opportunity to continue to dialogue with the assembly about it. I'm certainly here later when it comes up. If appropriate, I'm happy to answer any questions that might come up. But again, appreciate your support.

It's been a good year so far, and if there are no questions, I probably better also end with Go Hawks! Thank you. Assemblyperson Palmer. Yeah, I was the one that reconsidered so that we could have this discussion about the start time, and my main concern was that we have a December 8th meeting of the joint bodies, and I kind of want to know how much other things go in the play before decision like that is made. And I'm still of that opinion that it would be a good appropriate time to discuss this together.

If we didn't do that, if we didn't post it, if I didn't get enough support to move it to the December 8th discussion, um, what would that resolution as it's sitting, what would it do to the school board, and what, what can change between now and December 8th if it's not moved to December 8th? Uh, through the mayor to Assemblymember Ponov, I, um, I think the assembly captured it well at the last meeting in recognition that this is a decision that is squarely within the authority of the school board. Uh, and so my understanding is that the assembly was intending to express a request for the board to consider this. Um, and so I think they have plans to do that. I think that, um, talking about it at the joint meeting, or perhaps one of our joint subcommittee meetings, would be a great idea.

Um, as an individual, we would certainly be open to that. I understand that the, the broader body has to make that decision, but Certainly we've heard that there is an interest in looking at that start, and I think, I think we're ready to engage in that conversation and provide additional detail regarding all of those compliance pieces, regulations, agreements, contracts, and other factors that would go into looking at when the calendar— not only when the calendar starts and ends, but all of the days in between for breaks or in-service and how those are determined.

Any other questions? Yes, Madam Mayor. Yes, do you have a question? Yes, Madam Mayor. Um, thank you.

I appreciate that, uh, presentation, and, and you're absolutely correct. This resolution, um, was done from District 1. Um, it was the intent to begin the discussion, and, and so you mentioned that a survey went out in 2022. I'm curious, um, if you have the data of the number of respondents, you know, as far as how many people received the survey, how many people actually responded to the survey, and what areas across the borough. And if you don't have that tonight, that's great.

But if you could get that to us, because I'd be interested in seeing that, because this is, you know, Palmer obviously has a little bit more of an agricultural community versus, you know, over in the Wasilla area. So that would, I think, be some useful information. And again, yes, this is a conversation starter, and I really appreciate y'all looking at this, the resolution, as a conversation starter.

Further comments or questions?

Okay. Oh, Assemblyperson Gamble. Did I hear you say that you, you did have the data? Uh, through the mayor, we, we do have the data. I don't have the data tonight.

Gotcha. Uh, we are going to do another survey, uh, at some point, uh, probably before the holiday, maybe even advance of the joint meeting. So we will have new data that we're also able to share with the assembly when it is completed. Thank you, Katie. Miss Gardner, can I have you leave the mic on?

Yes. All righty, I think that's it then. Thank you very much. Thank you. Go Hawks!

And we have a report from the library board, right?

Ms. Heun, the clicker's right up there. Check. Click for your slides, please.

Is it this arrow, right? Correct. When you—. The one on the right. Okay, thank you.

So if you want to state your name for the record and go ahead with your report, please. Good evening, I'm Julie Heindel, Vice Chair of the Mat-Su Borough Library Board. I'd like to thank you, Madam Mayor, assembly, and staff for allowing me to share tonight. This annual presentation given by the library board is to update the assembly and public of what the libraries and board have been doing. I also would like to share information for parents and patrons on how to go about reviewing books online.

In this first presentation, this mission of the board. The mission of the Matanuska-Susitna Library Board is to strengthen the library services within the borough by acting as an advocate to ensure adequate funding, review policies, and aid in the development of long-term plan libraries within the borough.

Got it.

The Mat-Su Borough consists of 5 libraries. That expands approximately 140 miles. Sutton, Big Lake, Willow, Talkeetna, Trapper Creek, and then also the Wasilla and Palmer libraries share their monthly staff reports with the board. Each month, the librarians provide updated reports for review. For this presentation, the librarians provide a few of their favorite programs that represent their interaction with the community.

These slides are just a fraction of what goes on at the library. The Five Library utilizes sponsorships from 501 advocacy groups for many of their activities. The presentation slides only show a small portion of what the libraries will do. We're going to start off with Sutton. And Sutton is not just a library, because this is the area I am, also it's a community resource center too.

Featured here is a small portion of what takes place at the Sutton Library. They have biweekly chess club, Friday night sponsored youth activities, youth outings every week in June and July, variety of art classes, and weekly storytime. And of course, you see the librarians having fun with Santa there. In the Big Lake Library—. Next—.

This is a 6,940-square-foot building, and it's full of activities and resources. Some of their activities include tween night trivia night, literature and lattes— that sounds like fun— preschool story time, kids' crochet class, and more. The Willow Library. The Willow Library is a modern look, and this was completed in November 2021. The library has their annual summer reading program, and this year they hosted the Mat-Su Valley K-9 Search and Rescue.

Moving on to Talkeetna. The Talkeetna Library hosts many events for patrons and community members to participate. Here you can see the children's concerts, junk journaling class, and it sounds really interesting, it looked fun, computer literacy courses, and Strong Women. And many of the libraries actually do Strong Women. Trapper Creek.

Trapper Creek is one of the smaller libraries, but stacked full of books. It's way up to the ceiling. I, I know this, but I'm small. So this summer, patrons had the opportunity to participate in the Beekeepers live presentation and building a mechanical dozer from the STEAM STEM kit program. So the STEM is an acronym that stands for science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and while STEAM adds to the art, that, to that framework.

And this is a hydraulics and science, and that hydraulic little dozer actually works. The book review process. So everything that you'll see on this slide tonight is from August 2025 to through 2026, and this graph comes off of the Mat-Su Borough website. The board has been commissioned to flag and review pre-purchased titles from the list the librarians provide to the borough each month. And you can see here, out of 6,244 books acquired in the past year, only 6 titles have not been purchased.

The next slide here is tools for parents. We wanted to show you where you can go as a parent onto the Mat-Su Borough website. So, and if you're interested finding out more about the past, the present board meetings, which I encourage everyone to go, uh, be part of and look at, if you need forms and the status of books, just type in this link: www.matsu.gov/boards/library-dashboard.

And there you'll discover a variety of dropdown boxes and tabs for you to research. The library board, you'll see here on the left of your screen, is the library board flag materials. This occurs when a board member reviews a recommended book to the bureau before the monthly title purchase. From there, the book goes to the director of the Community and Development Department for final recommendation. Library material Mm, sorry, reconsideration request.

Now, this is a request submitted by a patron or a parent that may have concerns with books that already exist in the library. And in-person, if a parent wants to know what their child is checking out by book or DVD, they need to fill out an in-person form at their local library. And that's the only way you can do that to find out what your child is taking out of the library.

Next is for tools for parents, and this is inter— internet resources. The board wanted to share with parents and the public where they can go to find book reviews. This is where you can— anybody can go find a book review. You can go on Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and this is just a few of the examples of the sites where you can check to see on book reviews. If you were to research on Storygraph, The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, and this is a young adult, it would give a breakdown of how many patrons identified what warnings they discovered while reading the book.

And you can see that on the right-hand side there. So you would research a title on the Storygraph, and then you would type in the title, then scroll down to the content warnings, and then click View All. You can see this on your paper. And this will show the reader some evaluations and warnings from book patrons. It's not all of them.

On the Storygraph, it will give you 3 levels of warnings: graphic, moderate, and minor. And if you click on the graphic tab, it will come up with all types of warnings that some readers experienced while reading this book. You can see here that 64 people considered this a book with adult-minor relationships, and you can read down more And there's a lot more. So the board would like to thank you for listening and hearing our presentation tonight. Thank you so much.

Do we have questions, comments?

Yeah, come back here, please. Yes, Assemblyperson McKee, go ahead. I just have to commend what I see here. This is 2 years ago, started really looking at this kind of stuff, and that's amazing. It doesn't tell a parent they can't let their kid read whatever they want.

It doesn't—. I understand there's some griping out there that the children should be— parents should not— I guess it takes away their freedom of expression or something like that, but that parents shouldn't be notified because that's absurd. They're children. We need to know this stuff. You guys have done a heck of a job on this, and I commend you.

Thank you so much. Anybody else? Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much, Julie.

Okay, the next item on our agenda is committee, committee reports, and it's my understanding there was no, uh, committee report on Joint Assembly and School Board. The next item is public relations. Any of the assembly want to report on any public relations activities?

Assemblyperson Fawla. Were we supposed to inform when we had the guest? Not this one, on the—. It was advertised. No, the Tuesday event of last—.

I—. Yes, if there was a quorum of you there, you should probably announce that you went. Just for the record, last Tuesday we had historic moment in Wasilla. Where sitting president for first time made an appearance at the— in Wasawa Menard. Um, I did not interact with any assembly.

I know—. I don't know how many were there, but I was there in person. There was no borough business discussed, but I don't know. I think I did say hello to Mr. Bernier. That's the only person that I've seen there.

Okay.

Anything else? No. Okay, uh, so now we are— Mr. Brown. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just two things quickly.

Um, so the first thing is, uh, for the assembly, I'm requesting that you, uh, add a special meeting, uh, for December 1st at 2:00 PM, 2 in the afternoon. So, uh, with Mr. Hayes' retirement as the Deputy Manager coming up in January, we're recruiting for a new Deputy Borough Manager. Manager. And so I want to do something a little bit different and invite some assembly input into that process as we kind of consider what that looks like moving forward. And so what I would like to do is bring 5— up to 5 candidates to you at a special meeting and allow you to interact with them through an interview process that would happen here on public record.

And it's, it's a little unconventional, but I think you might enjoy having that interaction and providing feedback to me. You won't be making the decision That, that'll be mine, but I, I'm welcoming your feedback on the process. So we'll, we'll do some screening before that in the month of November. The job posting is out currently, but I would request that you go ahead and ask the clerk to schedule that meeting if you're open to that, and then we'll bring them forward to you and, and set it up December 1st at 2 PM.

Assemblyperson Gamble. Yeah, just a request. Will you be providing us with some background information before the meeting so that we can prepare a little bit? Yeah, through the mayor to Mr. Gamble. Yes, we'll provide you some background information, probably like a copy of their resume and whatnot, and then we'll probably draft the questions and kind of figure out how to manage that interaction so that we can get it done in a timely manner.

Assemblyperson Palmer. Did— Manager Brown, did you say to ask clerk to put that on the schedule? All right. Madam Clerk, I'd like to have that be put on the schedule and participate in that.

Okay. Is there any objection? Everybody understood the date and everybody's okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, so, and then this is a second update. So, obviously yesterday, I don't think too many people probably aren't aware of it by now because it's gotten plenty of news coverage. Pretty historic for the— I was going to say the borough— for the Alaska Railroad Corporation to receive a $240 or really about a $250 million grant. So a quarter of a billion dollars.

Woo!

Yeah! And that is to complete the Point MacKenzie rail extension project, which stalled out years ago and has been in the makings for a couple of decades. But what I— so up on the screen, and I think it's in your red folders for the assembly to take away, what I wanted to show you, because about 3 or 4 years ago, you— the assembly basically said, manager, go find opportunities to bring grant funds into the borough. So we've been working on that. That doesn't usually happen overnight, but it also shouldn't take forever.

And so what I wanted to show you, and, and, um, you know, and obviously $249 million takes the number up pretty fast. But if you look beyond that, at the top right there, it talks about $386 million. There's another $137 million in grants that are coming to the borough that are improving upon primarily infrastructure and some programs in different areas across the borough. So I wanted to show you that just to give you a snapshot of what staff have been working on. You gave us clear direction, we've stayed the course, And the staff have done a remarkable job just going out looking for opportunities.

This does not even represent all of the grants, and it certainly doesn't represent the grants we weren't awarded. So this is a lot of work trying to put together this, this package, or these, you know, and figuring out what we can best qualify for. But I wanted you to see it's not just Point MacKenzie, right? It's not just transportation. It's across the board for all the services and functions that we provide.

And I really wanted to use this opportunity to, number one, say this is an opportunity to connect the dots for you so you can see we have $386 million coming into the borough, and most of it's not even done yet. And so this will happen over the next few years, maybe several, and on a couple of these potentially, depending on how long it takes to see them develop. But this is also, secondly, the product of staff working on this diligently looking for opportunities and pursuing them to bring this kind of money into the borough. This does not include our non-federal match. This is, this is money that's coming in from outside of local revenues.

In other words, outside of local tax dollars. That is a huge, significant investment. And what's interesting about this season that we're in is that it's kind of coming together. Like, you know, it's a bit like I was thinking about it, like, you know, we just came off the harvest here, like it's starting to bear fruit. And we're actually starting to see some of these outcomes, uh, kind of circle around for the work that's been done.

So I just wanted to share that with you. This is a big deal for the community. This is going to allow us to do a lot that doesn't put the burden on property taxes, and that's significant. I was sitting there, frankly, and looking at the numbers and going, I can't even believe we're at this place. I mean, that is— and even if you want to take the $249 million out for the rail We're still well over $100 million.

It's crazy, um, what we're seeing. And but again, it didn't just happen. Folks had to go out and do some real hard work, uh, to put this together. So to our directors, our managers, our staff, it's been a team effort, and everybody's been plugging in because of the direction we received a few years ago where you said go and do. So we've been going and doing, and now we're starting to see that.

So I just wanted to share that with you to kind of connect the dots on some of this work, because when you see it, you see it as individual legislation, accept and appropriates, like you're going to see tonight for the $2.5 million for the Big Lake Rec Center. You see it in pieces, but you never see it holistically. And so that graphic's available. This is public, um, pretty stinking cool, quite frankly. So that's all I got.

Uh, that was all I have for tonight, Madam Mayor. Yeah, yeah. I want to call the attention to the number of you that are here today. When you look Tonight, when you look up on that and you think, well, that doesn't really have anything to do with me, right? Look under Parks and Rec, the second item, right?

Is that an item that interests some of you? Yeah. Okay, so anyway, okay, Assemblyperson Gamble. Yeah, I just wanted to put an exclamation mark on what Mike just said. Secretary Duffy yesterday said that the state of Alaska is going to get around half a billion dollars in grants, and for the Mat-Su to get around half of the money coming to Alaska is just incredible.

So thank you, Mike, and thank your staff.

Member of the person, McKee. Yeah, does this, um, the one on Talkeetna water, $4.75 million, is that going to somehow or another filter into this thing, the, the big furor that's going on right now about that water tank and all that? Is that have anything to do with that? Yeah, so through the mayor to Miss McKee, it does. This grant will be part of what funds those water upgrades for that utility.

Great, thanks. And, and for the record, there is actually a potential CDS grant coming, uh, through Senator Murkowski's office. It's not even represented on here. I went with what I knew was for sure. So there's some additional money coming to that utility.

Very good. As well. And again, this is kind of one of those things where you look at it and you're like, it affects everyone. It's not just about the core area. Okay, are there other comments?

Yeah, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mike. We sure appreciate you and the staff. Yeah, any other comments from anybody? Okay, uh, so let's see, Mr. Attorney, report?

No report, thank you. Okay. Madam Clerk. Clerk's report with your upcoming meetings and quasi-judicial report is in your red folders. Okay, the next item on our agenda is citizens and other correspondence.

Are there any comments on the citizens and other correspondence? Okay, hearing nay, nay. And Madam Clerk, the IMs, please. IM 26199 reporting the conclusion of contract for proposal number 2534P. With Orion Construction for a final contract amount of $825,000 for the design-build and installation of the Gateway Visitor Center display and exhibits project.

IM 26205 reporting the conclusion of contract for bid number 2550B with Orion Construction for a final contract amount of $7,425,913.14 for constructing the Central Landfill Site Improvements Phase 1 project. Are there any comments on the IEMs? Okay, hearing none, then they are presented. The next item we have, uh, is audience participation. There was a sign-up sheet, but even if you didn't sign up on the sign-up sheet, I'm going to call those names first, but we will open it up to the general audience at the end.

And under audience participation, you can discuss something that's on the agenda or anything that you would like the assembly to be aware of. And so the first person I have is Sebastian White.

Mr. White, if I can get you to turn the mic on and then you can leave it on, please. Oh. Um, good evening, Assembly members, Mayor, city employees. Um, disappointed to see that the memorandum was struck from the agenda. Hopefully it can be replaced with the ordinance to tie a bond measure to data center construction.

I'm here tonight to talk about closed-loop cooling. Closed-loop cooling is a term that data center developers use to mislead the public and public officials about the actual water usage that data centers use. Closed-loop systems are— is the system that is used inside of the data centers to cool the computer chips. That water stays inside the building. It's not refreshed that often from the outside water sources.

However, that heat does need to leave the inside of the data center.

So many closed-loop facilities still reject heat through evaporative cooling towers or spray-assisted coolers. They consume water by design through evaporation, drift, and blowdown. So a facility can stay closed-loop while evaporating large volumes of water. There's an XAA data center in Memphis, Tennessee that's closed-loop. It still uses 12 million gallons of water a day.

There are zero water systems. That usually means zero water most of the year. Water claims are often annualized averages reported as water usage effectiveness, and on peak days, systems may switch to evaporative assistance. Peak demand is what strains the aquifer or municipal systems, so a useful number is actually peak day withdrawal. Dry cooling trades water for power.

Fully dry systems use more electricity. They don't use water, but that water footprint is actually transferred to the electro— thermal electrical plants that still use evaporative cooling, and they also use way more electricity.

Some questions I would have that I would request that you ask developers is, uh, What the heat rejection method is that the data centers use. Are they spray assist, evaporative, or fully dry? What is the projected peak day water withdrawal and what is the source? Is there an enforceable cap on water use in the permit or development agreement? Will metered water and power use be publicly reported?

What chemicals are in the loop and what is the discharge and spill plan? And what additional grid load is projected at peak summer heat.

Thank you.

Uh-huh. Brittany Cross.

Hello, thank you. Um, my name is Brittany Cross and I came in support of libraries tonight. I am very passionate about my library well, all the libraries in the valley because we go to all of them. But I'm not super in support of the library board. So in my passion, I wrote a poem and I'd like to share it with you now.

Thank you. Linda, Linda, I'm sorry, there's a Linda and I can't—. Okay, okay, thank you.

Thank you, Assembly and Mayor DeVries. I'm going to just read from my notes because I just came back a couple days ago and I'm getting used to the weather change and the darkness and the snow, right? I'm here tonight to speak about the potentiality of data centers in the valley. And thank you to the gentleman who spoke with more information than I could ever have gathered. So mine is kind of a basic, um, Thank you for sharing.

I've been in Alaska for 42 years, seen a lot of changes, as many of you have. And Alaska is unique in its isolated geography, and unless one travels to the lower 48 or pays attention to any news going on in the lower 48, one's knowledge might be limited on such topics as data centers and their impact on the people who live there. Are near them regarding the impact with lighting and buzzing that continues, and people have to live with their blinds closed or their windows closed because of the noise, the impact on wildlife, increased water use, increased temperature use, and so on. We are— oh wait, that's number 5. Having spent a lot of time in Utah recently, especially in May during the reconsideration period, of Mr.

Wonderful from Shark Tank's data center proposal near the Great Salt Lake. A lot of knowledge was obtained. Most importantly, the overwhelming input from the residents, local leaders, and amazingly Governor Cox there. The data center outside of the Great Salt Lake is now on hold based on its potential impact on the forementioned and the concern from people in Salt Lakes City and all of Utah. Please let us not be short-sighted, but gather potential impacts.

Let's reflect. Let's listen to the Matsue residents.

Granted, we are all consumers of what our local electric company and data centers provide, whether it's our communication device, our phone, all of our smart devices that people have in their homes that we're so attached to, the amount of, uh, reading reels and scrolling and Instagram influencers and so on. It seems that the way forward to make the best decision for the Mat-Su Valley regarding data centers here would be the passing of the statewide memorandum, given the other proposed changes such as ADA's acquisition, um, so, uh, the close to 20,000 acres. Really, the Mat-Su Valley has such potential to be a wonderful place, but we really need to consider all the impacts of all these new things being bombarded to the public. And I think a lot of people in the valley really aren't aware of these. So thank you.

And Linda, the clerk says you didn't say your name when you started. All I said was Linda. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, uh, Mary Robinson.

Mary? Oh, I think Miss Goforth was before me on the list. Uh, no, she is later.

Good evening. My name is Mary Robinson. I am a Matsuburo resident and a taxpayer. I represent myself. Everything I speak about this evening is a matter of public record and as such is protected by the First Amendment.

I want to thank Ms. Heindel of the Matsuburo Library Advisory Board, and I want to stress advisory. Advisory Board for the presentation. One correction: all under-18 library cards require the parent or guardian to be present for a signature and approval. Therefore, adults are part of the library card application from the very start. Therefore, the adults in the under-18 library card applications have access to the accounts.

So there doesn't have to be all this convoluted, you have to do this and you have to do that. No one is trying to impose overt political and ideological agenda on anyone at a public library. I wish I could say the same for the Matsuburo Library Advisory Board and some of the Matsuburo Assembly members that have aligned, accommodated, and approved of what the book challengers do. Now that's the funny thing about the First Amendment. The book challengers are allowed to challenge books.

They're allowed to come up here and say horrible things. As I like to joke, I've had worse things said about me by better people. But here are some of the things that the book challengers have said about me personally: imperfect vessel, not fit to speak the Lord's words, Jezebel, Heathen, and my particular favorite, Handmaid of Satan. Does anyone else smell brimstone? It's awful hot in here.

So, but that is their right under the First Amendment. It is my right under the First Amendment to read what I want in a public library. One of the books that has been recently flagged by the Borough Library Advisory Board is called Young World. And one of the reasons that the member flagged flagged it is because they believe, according to Alaska state statute, that it portrays an inappropriate 17-year-old in a relationship with an older adult. A Greek philosopher, Aristotle, believed that art oft— oftentimes imitates life.

Now this is an ongoing investigation, one hopes, so I'm not going to say too much about it. But right here in the Mat-Su Valley, that definitely is art imitating life. Thank you. Mhm. Uh, Jeannie?

Good evening, Assembly Mayor. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I have two things to talk about tonight. First, I'm just going to talk personally. Um, I just want to let you know I'm running for Alaska House District 26.

I believe that it's really important at this time in our state and in our country that we have people that are willing to listen to all the voices, and I want to go to Juneau to work for everyone in Mat-Su. And I feel really passionately about that. The second thing I want to talk about is the Friends of the Library groups. For some reason, I don't know, I don't get it, but that's come— they've recently come under attack. It makes no sense.

But I went online and I looked up like all these 501s that are friends of— friends of Creamer Field, friends of K-9, friends— you look it up online. There's friends of all kinds of groups. Friends groups advocate and support for a cause or an organization, and that's what Friends of the Library do. We advocate and support our local libraries. These groups do magnificent work, incredible things in the valley that support our libraries.

The Friends of Wasilla Public Library, we raised $250,000 for the building that we're currently in. We got a grant from Rasmussen, and in order to get $1,250,000, we had to raise $250,000 locally. And that was a total surprise to us. We had about a year and a half to do that or we would not get the $1,250,000. So there's some complaint that we're using the library too much, we do this, we do that.

I did the math and at $50 an hour to rent the room, yeah, the library owes the Friends of Wasilla Public Library about 20 years of, you know, 200 hours a year using the library. Plus Every single year we're still raising more money and doing more things. Raising money for summer reading. Raising money for author visits. You know, there's all kinds of things that we do.

And we do it in conjunction with the library and working with the library staff. We're not some rogue group out there just running around doing whatever we feel like. We work really closely with the library staff. In fact, when the library was built, we worked directly with the city of Wasilla, the library staff, the community, and the Friends of Wasilla Public Library worked to decide what was in the building and how the building was built. So another complaint is, "Oh, the Friends have this room in the back." Yeah, it's not a secret.

We have a room in the back that we sort the books for the book sales that we're helping the library staff to deal with, or they would have to deal with the books that are taken out of the collection or donated to the library. So we are doing things that serve the library, and I am so proud of all the advocates in library friends groups in the Mat-Su Borough. You are so fortunate, and you are saving so many dollars from those groups supporting your libraries. Thank you. Mhm.

Did you say that's for Lane maybe? Lane? Lane, I think. So is there Lane St—. Getting up.

Oh, good. All right, he's going to bail me out here. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor and Assembly. Uh, my name is Lane Stiers.

I'm the coach of the Houston hockey team, as you can You can see a lot of the boys made it out tonight, so we thank you. Uh, again, I'm here to talk about accepting, um, the funds from the Mat-Su Valley Health Foundation for the, the Big Lake Lions Rec Center. Um, and I came— I wanted to let you guys know, um, we started practice last week, um, so where things are getting underway. And this year, um, we have 30 players, um, with more probably to come, which is the biggest team we've had probably in over 20 years. So with that amount of athletes out, that means more ice.

Right now we don't have that ice, so we're stuck to 1 hour at the Menard at 2:45, requiring in-building students to come out of school early so we can get there. And hopefully, you know, when the weather gets cold enough, we can get out to the Big Lake rink and get more ice that these these athletes need that all the other schools in the valley and the state have. But unfortunately, with limited ice time and our location, we, we just can't get it. So with these funds and with refrigeration, it'll be instant. It'll be put to use, I mean, instantly.

A lot of these guys have been skating at the Big Lake rink. Some of them might have even learned to skate out there, but at least 6, 7, 8 years old old, um, they've been skating out there and they love calling it their home rink for the high school team now. Um, so with that refrigeration, we could truly make it our home, um, and we, and we could fill the building and get a lot of use out of it. So thank you, Travis.

Hello, my name is Travis Friesen. I live in the Valley. There's been a lot of talk about data centers, so I've been doing some research recently about the, you know, what's so crazy about data centers. I mean, the US, you know, makes up probably about 5% of the population of the whole world, yet it counts for like 45 or 46% of all data center infrastructure. We have a lot of data centers in the U.S., I mean 4,700 of them.

Second country is Germany with 500, and the UK 500 as well. And to my surprise, China 450, 449. I mean they have, they have far, they have like 10 times less data centers than, than what the U.S. has. Well, they don't, they don't count for the size of the data centers, but, you know, 2-point— a 2 to 5 megawatt data center, you know, probably be like 15,000 square feet, will employ about 8 to 30 people. 5 To 20 megawatts, 15 to 35 people.

That's about the size of a, of a regular Walmart. And Walmart in general employ about 300 to 400 people. They're the same size. And for 20 to 100 megawatt building, which is about the size of a, of a shopping mall, will employ about only 50 to 300 people. So as you can see, they're not very good when it comes to employee numbers.

I mean, I honestly, with the, with all I don't get why all the states, you know, need so many data centers. I mean, what's, what's the rush? And what, and how do you people make, how do people make money off these data centers? And I have a solution for the, for the Danos. If data centers are needed, you know, they should be, you know, small, small scaled.

I think they, I think because, you know, they create a lot of heat, you know, they could probably use in in greenhouses, you know, heating houses. And, and I think they should be hidden from sight, you know, to make, to make space. You know, they create— they, they require a lot of power. And since— talk about wanting to build these data centers, and many, many counties all across the country talking about reopening nuclear power plants. So if you're able— if you're doing research on these data centers, then surely I think another issue that needs to be solved is our power grid issues where we're about to face potential blackouts if we're not getting enough natural gas.

And I think with Moore's Law, technology will improve twice within 18 months. So I think that the data centers in the future would be in the sky and not on the ground. So by the time they're built, they're probably already obsolete. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

Jackie?

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Assembly. My name is Jackie Goforth. I'd like to continue on to tell you about malicious compliance and what it looks like. And I'd like to start with an analogy. Let's imagine for a moment that instead of 5 libraries, we actually have 5 car dealerships, and they actually just rent out vehicles.

Okay? And let's imagine that they have all these vehicles, but all of a sudden there's a seatbelt issue going on and the seatbelts don't fasten correctly and sometimes people are being released during accidents, including children. They're very unsafe for children. Alright, so what is the borough gonna do? Well, the public brings it to the attention of the borough, so they form a committee.

Okay, the committee gets formed with a bunch of volunteers. However, there are people in the borough who don't want this to happen. Maybe they want those unsafe seat belts because they have a cut on it or something. And so what they appear to work for the nonprofits instead of for the citizens paying their salary. So how would they show outward compliance while simultaneously setting the entire thing up to fail?

Well, first they'd create a form that addresses everything but the seat belt issue. Is it a hardtop or soft top? Is it a manual? Is it a four-wheel drive? Does it have leather seats?

Actually, they make the committee answer every single question on the planet but the seatbelt. And what it does is it makes the managers who use all of that and use their education, experience, training, reviews, and everything else, it makes them really upset because they feel like they're being overseen. Oh, and there's also gonna be a website designed that does the same or worse. It's gonna show the vehicles that are flagged. It'll show it by who manufactured it, the date it was flagged, the pending action, and, and then they're going to skew it with a pie chart and data that doesn't even make sense and make sure to list which committee member flagged it.

And the one thing it never says anything about is the seat belt. Never, never once on either the form or the website is anything said about obscenity or the problems with the books. Never once. In fact, I didn't even know I didn't know that that existed, that you could go into the library. You had to personally go in and put your child on a list so that they would send you the books they're checking out.

I knew we had that program, but it's not on the website anywhere. Why not? Why not? Well, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why.

It's so you can put out information that very few taxpayers use. Check. Put out data so the agitators can chastise the board members for harming the public by delaying their books they're getting. Check. Put out data so the agitators can go after board members for taking the library duties so you can push that they don't have the education, experience, and training, et cetera.

Check. Put out the unbelievably skewed data and charts so the agitators can speak on the expensive wasted workload. Check. Use the visual images to show the most flagged books were rescinded by the board members. That again pushes the narrative they don't have the education check.

I'm gonna wait for the buzzer.

The reason why this happens is because the form and the website were supposed to generate additional and needless cost to the borough, do nothing to solve the issue, frustrate the board members, the public, and the borough finances toward the end goal, which is self-annihilation or implosion, which is exactly what happened with the LCAC. Thank you. Um, Rod?

Uh, good evening. I'm Rod Hanson with the North Lakes Community Council, and tonight we're here in support of Assemblyman Bowles', uh, proposed amendments to Resolution 26094 on the Angstrom to Trunk Connector project. We accept that as a body, you've, you've decided that the Northern Route 1 is the preferred alignment for that major collector between Trunk and Angstrom. The amendments offered by Assemblyman Bowles take nothing away from the decision you've already made. For all the reasons we've previously talked about, As a community council, we continue to believe the southern route offers added value as a minor collector between Trunk and Engstrom, as envisioned in the long-range plan and documented in the official streets and highways plan.

Mr. Bowles' amendments do not result in a decision to move forward with the southern route project. They simply ask Public Works to sharpen the pencil and come back with a more realistic evaluation of right-of-way acquisition opportunities and costs efficiencies. We know the owner of Central Gravel Products has offered to provide road right-of-way completely on his side of the east-west property line, negating the need for right-of-way acquisition from the Havemeisters. We also know his discussions with the Kircher family have indicated they're willing to provide right-of-way. And, and then even more importantly, we know that, uh, that the owner of Central Gravel has offered significant cost efficiencies by partnering with the borough for the actual construction of the road.

We don't wish to see the assembly slam the door on the southern route without a much better view and into that added value. The amendments simply result in a bit more engineering and staff work to bring forward better information to you as the assembly. This information will undoubtedly be helpful as you weigh the options and timing for any future project, whether it's a northern route, southern route, or other transportation infrastructure. A decision to adopt the amendments would demonstrate a commitment to financial stewardship, your interest in under— actually understanding costs, and your willingness to stay engaged in the public debate about the safety of our existing transportation infrastructure. So thank you.

Thank you. So that takes care of the people that had signed up, but now it's open to anybody that would like to address the assembly for 3 minutes. So just make your way up to the mic.

I was going to wait a minute, but, um, my name is Simon Gilliland. I'm here about the Bowles amendments to the Ingstrom Road, uh, 26094. I think that consideration of these amendments would be— go a long ways towards the assembly looking at the actual safety issues of an intersection that thousands of people drive through a dozen times a week, most of them. I drive through that intersection twice a day pretty much without fail, sometimes not on the weekends.

But having a sharper pencil is exactly what the assembly needs to make an educated financial decision on what that road is going to cost, will cost. And I mean, it was basically promised to the voters, hey, if you vote for this TIP 21 package we'll build this road, and the voters said, yeah, we're on board.

And we're—. Assembly's basically shelved the project, um, in favor of one that has yet to be approved by the voters. I mean, we're talking a pretty minimal amount of time in regards to what it will take to sharpen a pencil, get a design right-of-way idea of the right-of-way required, um, to put this— to put a road through. And I mean, we're not talking 100% design, we're talking a— this is how much it's going to cost, this is how much we need to— we would need to budget, because the northern route is I don't know, 15-20% of the borough's annual budget. That ain't happening anytime soon.

The southern route could happen. The northern route is very unlikely to happen. As staff said, we have no funding for this road right now. The likelihood of funding potentially being able to, uh, be found for a southern route to complete a TIP project that the voters basically said, yeah, please build this road, is many times higher than the cost that the borough would have to front for the northern route. And really, when you look at the vehicles, it's per vehicle, the southern route is cheaper.

It's on the streets and highways plan. It really needs a serious look with a sharp pencil of What would it take to build this road that the voters are on board with? Thank you. Oh, to Mr. Bowles, I hope your illness passes quickly for you. I wish you could be here tonight for your amendments.

Thank you.

Anyone else that would like to address the assembly?

All righty, so we're going to go to those online. The first person online, go ahead, please.

Hello, I'm Sammy Pulkowski. Thank you for the opportunity to make comments about the Talkeetna water system upgrades.

I'm a lifelong Alaskan. I've lived in the Mat-Su Valley for 45 years. My husband Vince and I lived in Talkeetna for 12 years, and we now live in Wasilla. Although we are no longer full-time residents of Talkeetna, we are property owners there and frequent visitors with many ties to the community. In fact, we own a parcel of land that is adjacent to the DNR parcels on Front Street.

That have been selected as a site for water system infrastructure. These parcels are in an area that is commonly referred to as the Bear Trail Woods. Like a lot of Talkeetna residents and visitors, I've been tromping around the Bear Trail Woods for many years. It's a lovely area that allows all of us the freedom to walk peacefully through the woods between the Talkeetna River and downtown. I want to be clear that I'm not opposed to adding infrastructure that will ensure a reliable water system in Talkeetna.

I am, however, strongly opposed to this specific location, and unfortunately, 3 minutes is not enough time to list all the reasons why. I'm speaking tonight to urge the Mat-Su Borough to give the property owners and residents of Talkeetna who are most directly affected by this project an opportunity to express our concerns and have our input meaningfully considered before a final decision is made. I therefore ask that the Bureau schedule a public input meeting before additional decisions are made about this project. Thank you.

Next person online, please.

Yes, hello, my name is Patty Fisher. I—.

Hello, go ahead, Patty. Uh-huh. Okay, yeah, I am a resident of Meadow Lakes.

I've been a resident of Alaska for 40 years. And I'm wanting to speak tonight about the moratorium on data centers. I hung up when I heard that Resolution 117 had been pulled. Then I thought, no, I need to speak up. So I called back.

Halting the discussion on the moratorium was wrong. The public has a right to this discussion. Public opinion on large data centers is somewhere— public, excuse me, public opposition to large data centers is somewhere between 60 and 70%, depending on different polls. So I can only assume that you really don't want to hear that assembly. You really do not want to hear from the public on large data centers.

That is wrong. There are so many issues concerning the development of these data centers. And these issues need to be discussed. Water, power, noise, land use, the priority of who gets to use the utility power, of which there is a finite amount. This item needs to be discussed.

It needs to be returned to the agenda. And soon. Thank you. The next person online, please.

Hello, my name is— I'm with the Alaska Outdoor Council. I'm not sure if Resolution 26117 got pulled as the lady said before. I didn't catch that. I just wanted to say that I would like to see if there is a moratorium and that resolution has passed. I would also like to see a scoping committee where we could get information and the facts of gang centers and how it would affect our community and our trails.

Um, that's all I have. Thank you. Uh, you're— you broke up a little bit. Madam Clerk, did you get the name? Can you— would you please repeat your name because you were breaking up and our clerk didn't get your name?

Please.

Yes, my name is Michele Stevens and I'm with the Alaska Outdoor Council.

Okay, all right, thanks Michele.

Okay, next person online please.

Hello, can you hear me? Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Yes. Okay, thank you.

Um, my name is Sandra Loomis and I am running actually for Alaska State House District 30. I'm here to speak on the AI data center moratorium, and I highly encourage the borough assembly to, um, to bring that back if it was taken away. And I, I missed that as well. I think it's a huge issue, uh, facing our state, not just our borough, but our entire state. And there are a whole lot of issues with the AI data centers that, um, we don't have regulations around.

And once they are permitted or allowed, it will it will be too late to have the kind of discussions that we should be having right now.

So I highly recommend that the borough assembly bring that moratorium back up and pass it, and I think longer than 6 months, and that it should include prohibitions on nondisclosure agreements so that the community— so there's transparency with what's occurring with them. Required prior approval, protection of water, ratepayer protections, continued public reporting requirements about energy consumption, power utilization, temperature set points, protection, requiring bonding. There's a big bubble in the AI right now, and there's potential for a lot of big places just being left. And I think that companies should be required to bond for abandoned projects and returning the land to its original conditions. Otherwise, taxpayers will be on the, on the handle for all that.

And I am hoping to see, and I think this would have to be at state level, ensuring data privacy and consequences for the harm that deepfakes can cause in elections and for children. Also requiring humans in the loop for decisions that get made AI for any things that affect the lives of humans, and also requiring local community approvals and community benefit agreements. Also, regulations around mass surveillance and how that affects our community. I also wanted to speak against book bans. I am not sure if I have time, but I will try.

This nation— and this is a quote by JFK. If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas from more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries are open to all except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors, for the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well.

Is our liberty. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have anybody else online? Okay, go ahead, the next person online, please.

Are they gone, Kayla?

Do they, you think they heard your, did they hear their hand has been raised?

If you heard your hand has been raised, you might want to unmute your phone because we cannot hear you.

They might I really wanted to talk. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay.

All right. Go ahead. Who's next on the line, please?

Yes. Hello. This is the ASL interpreter online. One moment. Hi, my name is Megan, and I was born and raised here in the Valley.

I have been reading a lot of information about the data centers and all of the different Pros and cons, uh, and many of the cons especially on resources that we have available here, and I know that the board is considering that, um, without water and electricity and with the damage to the lumber and the trees that are around here, um, I don't think that these are a good idea. You know, I know a lot of these come down because people are trying to build houses and do home improvements, but You know, we really just cannot afford as a community to have something like data centers impinging on our resources. And that's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you.

Do we have anybody else? No. Okay, so one last chance for anybody here that would like to testify before we close audience participation. Oh, already. Next person online, please.

Hi, my name is Greg Scent. Thank you for considering Resolution Number 26094 regarding the proposed Engstrom Trunk Connector. Approximately 1.5 miles of Northern Route 1 cuts through property owned by my wife Patricia's family. Although we do not agree with the selection of Northern Route 1 as the preferred connector road route, we agree that the southern route should be evaluated and constructed now prior to Northern Route 1. We anticipate that after construction of the southern route and the other area road improvements currently in the implementation phases, northern Route 1 will provide marginal, if any, additional benefits.

Therefore, northern Route 1 may never be constructed. The following is a summary of the concepts. Number 1, the southern route performs better than the northern route in reducing delays on Engstrom at Bogard based on the quantitative traffic analysis report. 2, The southern route provides much better value based on value engineering principles than northern Route 1 due to lower capital cost and better level of service. 3, The southern route can be completed much sooner.

4, The southern route provides significant improvements in truck access and safety at the gravel pit on Bogard. It'll provide improved traffic safety on Bogard. And 5th, since all projected residential development except one development is located north of Tex Al, and since Tex Al will provide connector access to Wasilla Fishhook and Palmer Fishhook, the Northern Route 1 will benefit only one planned residential development located on Northern Route 1. Taxpayers would pay $12 million more for Northern Route 1 that will benefit only one development area and provide a low— a lower level of service than the Southern Route. The Southern Route is a feasible and technically preferable alternative to Northern Route 1.

The taking of our property for Northern Route 1 construction is not justified. Construction of Southern Route now provides.

Opportunity to reconsider the benefits of the northern route later after completion of other road improvements is common sense. Thank you for your consideration.

Is that the last person online? Okay, so one last chance. Anybody here?

Okay, I'm going to close the audience participation then, and then we had a change to the agenda. Yeah, we're back to the motion to amend something previously adopted, which is at top of page 9 of your agenda. Resolution 26094, resolution selecting the Northern Route 1 as the preferred route identified in the July 2026 route selection report for the Ingstrom Road to Trunk Road corridor project. Okay, Assemblyperson Bowles, do you have an amendment? Yes, Madam Mayor, um, I move to amend, uh, Excuse me.

I move to amend something previously adopted, Resolution—. Pardon me—. Resolution 26-094. There should be— I provided a copy of the resolution. I'm guessing that all the Assembly members have had that and may hopefully have had the time to review it.

Again, I can't speak to the amendment this amendment any more eloquently than already has been discussed. All this amendment does is ask that we please put the southern route back into, back into play here, as was voted on, as what the community wants. And this really is an effort to increase public safety and, and go ahead and move on this while the northern route is also being worked. So I hope that the assembly members will consider this. I think this is a fair and decent compromise.

I think this is telling the community that, okay, yep, we are listening to you and we are going to move forward with your request.

Okay, do you have— do you need to have you read that? I mean, I mean, it's more entailed. He does not. So do I need to read it into the record?

Hold on, go ahead, Palmer. It's been— it's online, it's in the back of the room. The assembly received it previously, it's in the red folders. What he's moving to amend is the bold and highlighted, or bold and underlined items. He doesn't necessarily have to read it unless you want him to, Miss— Madam Mayor.

Okay, if it was brand new and nobody'd seen it, I'd say yes. Okay, all right. But everybody— and you said there were copies back there? Yes, there's copies in the back of the room and it's online. Okay, so discussion on the amendment.

Assemblyperson Sumner. I'd like to phone a friend or get some help from Tom Adams in the back corner. Okay, Public Works Director, uh My question, if you—. Okay, is there any objection from the assembly regarding Tom? No, come staff.

Thank you, sir. I see you're waiting in the wing ready. Um, my question for you, Tom, is, um, how much money do you think this, uh, amendment would cost, and is that timeline feasible?

So through the mayor, Mr. Sumner, um, it's our estimate at this point that this effort would probably be in the order of $75,000 to $100,000. It would not include any significant fieldwork, effectively use existing LiDAR data. But, you know, we do need to do some prudent design work. So we would prepare a plan profile for this particular alignment. And then, of course, it would invest some time.

We got to really kind of figure out what crossing the floodplain would look like, you know, what kind of structure that would look like, whether it be a culvert or a bridge. There's a big part of that cost right there. And then, of course, the time taken to engage some of the stakeholders that have been offered up in here. There's several properties that are involved. It's not just one property owner.

As far as the time goes, you know, we'll make our best effort to meet that timeframe. You know, it's about 6 months worth of time. So, you know, knowing that we're not doing a significant amount of fieldwork, just desktop study, I think we could accommodate that. Go ahead, sir. So on some of these projects, sometimes you guys have, uh, different stages of, uh, cost estimates.

So what stage is the current cost estimate at, and what stage would this bring us to with this amendment? Does that make sense? Well, we compared and contrasted multiple alternatives at this point and given them similar levels of effort. You know, they're probably 10% estimates at this point. And, you know, if we were to advance some form of design, you know, you're probably not going to— I wouldn't call it any more than about a 20-25% without doing field work, you know, doing a, you know, a very crude elementary design.

Because I think the intent is not to diminish the available, you know, the amount of dollars that we do have left for this particular project and water it down by, you know, continuing to study an effort that we we think has already been appropriately studied. And then what percentage cost estimate is the northern route at? But they're about basically the same. They're both at about—. You know, I will acknowledge that, uh, as part of some engagement with the property owner up in that area when we did some advanced right-of-way acquisition to, uh, um, to not be in a position where that subdivision was developed and had homes that would ultimately perhaps conflict with the potential to choose this corridor, the north route corridor.

That we, uh, we did do some plan profile work for that, that southern boundary of that parcel. So we, we've got that work, just a little bit more work done on that northern route than perhaps that was done on any of the other routes. We didn't prepare plan profiles for all the other routes.

Okay, Assemblyperson Gamble. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Tom, um, I know your staff is pretty stretched right now. I, I do believe the more information you have, the better decisions you can make, but I mean, your staff is pretty stretched right now. Would you have to pull staff off of other projects to do this, and, um, would other projects be delayed by turning their attention to this project?

So, Mr. Gamble, uh, we wouldn't do this work in-house. Um, well, let me step back. The, the desktop study would still be done by our consultant that's been assisting us throughout the rest of this project. But the direct interactions to engage with property owners with respect to acquiring— inquiring about acquiring the rights-of-way would be done by our internal staff. And you're right, we have other very large projects that are in right-of-way phase right now that it would likely peel some time away from those and could potentially postpone advancing work on them.

And I'm talking about like you know, the Lucille Street extension, Texal extension, Fern, you know, those are 3 very significant projects right now that are in the right-of-way phase that if our right— we only have 2 right-of-way acquisition specialists, and so if they redirected that, we would have to perhaps pause efforts on those other 3 projects. Okay, further discussion on the amendment?

Madam Mayor, I do have a question for Tom. Yes, go ahead, sir. So just out of curiosity, if it, if this does move, hopefully it does, what kind of a delay would that cause? Would it be a matter of like a few days while right-of-way acquisition employees, they, they go and survey another area, or are you talking months? What's, what's realistically how much of a delay, if a delay is, is to occur?

Awesome, Mr. Bowles. Um, I wouldn't say months, it's not days, it's, it's somewhere in between that time period. You know, there's going to be— you're absolutely correct, where, you know, we're going to, um, we're going to direct our focus on, you know, let's say this particular project and engage with, you know, landowners, uh, for some period of time, and then we'll disengage, and then, you know, during that time frame, be able to go back on other projects. But, you know, with only two, uh, current right-of-way specialists, um, disengaging even for some period of time, you know, loses momentum and, and can disrupt the, the flow of progress being made on other projects. But, you know, some of that happens naturally with the projects we have already, just because of the, the nature of the beast, you know, engaging with, with property owners.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Assemblyperson Sumner. Yeah, I'm, I'm opposed to this, and I think that basically it's proposing analysis paralysis where we continue spending money on studying, you know, ad nauseam the, uh, another route, and we've already prioritized the northern route. Okay, Assemblyperson Palmer. So, what's done with this amendment if it was to pass? Does that kind of like splits your attention between like pursue, like really studying one kind of trying to go both directions, or would you focus it then more on the southern round, even though legislation that passed is for the northern rounds?

I'm just a little bit conflicted how you handle it once— if this amendment was proposed, because I feel like it kind of creates maybe a little bit of confusion. Well, Mr. Palmer, I think Mr. Sumner kind of said it right now, you know, how much do you continue to annualize or analyze any particular corridor? I mean, I think our staff has done a pretty good job of documenting you know, multiple corridors and the benefits of each. And, you know, to answer your question directly, if we continue to analyze this corridor, you know, in a greater detail than it's already documented in the existing reports, yeah, it will take time. You know, ultimately, I think what we're trying to arrive at a conclusion of which corridor do we focus our efforts on.

I mean, we obviously have our preference, you know, that's documented in, in the PER in our recommendation. You know, it's north route, but sooner or later we got to figure out, are we going to advance our, you know, advance efforts and focus on one corridor, use the, the remaining monies that were dedicated for this project to conduct preliminary engineering? The more you continue to, you know, look at more than one alternative, yes, the more watered-down our finances become for the particular projects, and the longer it's going to take for us actually to make progress on advancing any of them. Okay, thank you. Assemblyperson Gamble, just hit on what I was going to talk about.

So where would $100,000 come from to pay for this study? So if you recall, this is part of the TIP 21, so, uh, it was a part of voter-approved proposition in the '21 time period. Um, that particular package was funded with $30 million of a state— actually, $38.5 million of state funds, and the other $30 million came out of the borough general fund. So just for clarification, if we did another analysis, that the money is already there to do that, or would you have to pull it from other projects? Yeah, this particular project— I mean, this is part of the discussion— there was only $2.5 million that was, uh, associated with this project.

And so that's what we're, you know, that's what's been encumbered to conduct this project. We spent about $665,000 to date So we have about $1.3 million to do something with this project. You know, it's, it's the, it's something that we're trying to figure out. Do we continue to study? You know, and evaluate multiple alternatives, or do we pick an alternative and start putting that $1.3 million to work and focused on a corridor?

Further discussion, the summer person, uh, Palmer, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, There's tough decisions that we have to make, but we are the policymakers. You know, I mean, it's a cop-out to say let's just kick the can down the road and we'll just keep studying both and not have to make a tough decision. It'll be someone else's problem later, the other assembly members in the next assembly. But I mean, I think we made a decision on this already.

Let's stick to our guns and, you know, advance something. Assembly person hours. So I think that statement was made in the resolution or something that this has been identified as a potential minor collector corridor regardless of if the northern route goes through. So if you did spend an additional $7,500,000 on that, you would get information that potentially would be useful in the future. Do you feel like if, um, you know, even if you still build Even if you still go forward with the northern route, there's that idea that the southern route is needed as a minor collector.

So the $75,000 to $100,000 that you would spend doing this kind of reconnaissance work could be useful regardless of which way we go. So, Ms. Nowers, I would say that, you know, continuing to study any of the alternatives in more detail provides just that, more detail. I guess at this point, you know, we've done an appropriate amount of study and analysis of all these alternatives that we feel allows us to make a decision.

You know, if we want to continue to spend dollars in refining information, absolutely, that's what this Mr. Bowles' resolution effectively does, is continue to spend money on evaluating this alternative. I'm asking a slightly different question.

The question I'm asking is the information you might gather through the $75,000 to $100,000 that might come in use when you get to the point that you need a minor collector. This has been identified as a minor collector. I'm not— I'm trying not to— don't take this trying to avoid answering your question because I guess it would depend, you know, how long do we get there? I think we've all acknowledged in some form that doing both of these corridors right now is probably not realistic. You know, we, regardless of whether this is an $8 million job, a $15 million job, or $20 million job, the money to construct is not there for either corridor, you know.

And, and so if we went and spent this money now, is it valuable in 5 years? Perhaps. Is it valuable in 10 years? Probably less likely. Um, definitely probably not valuable in 20 years because you're going to reevaluate everything that's going on.

So, um, you know, I've said this, you know, to the manager, you know, at this point, you know, we're looking for a decision so that we can start focusing on a corridor and start tackling the other greater issues about how to strategize about building any of the corridors. But I need this assembly to tell me which corridor we're going to focus on. Yeah, thank you. But Madam Mayor, I just have one quick follow-up. Just a minute, please.

Um, you know, my, my issue with the northern route was that we're not getting ahead of creating other Engstroms in the valley, and that we could be looking at things on this assembly that allow us to avoid situations like Engstrom, where we have so much traffic created by subdivisions, and then we're trying to create a route out of them. And I didn't like the idea that we would move forward with a very expensive project that would cause condemning somebody's land and not, on the other hand, look at some things that we could be doing to prevent those situations. And I'm not talking about zoning in the valley. I was talking about things that would offer carrots to developers. And so I, you know, the struggle I have with the northern or southern route is it just is the timeline that we seem to be on with the northern route.

It could be a really long time before we get something done there. And so I'm still kind of struggling with the southern route being something that seems like it's going to happen a lot quicker. And is it worth continuing to have a little bit of a backstop in case we get to a point on the northern route where we're like, this assembly would like the option of getting something done sooner instead of continuing to just follow one. So that's, that's a little bit of just whether this is a backstop that's worth spending the $75,000 to $100,000 on. Assemblyperson Bowles, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And yeah, it sounds like just some of the comments that maybe there's a misunderstanding. So this, this is not an attempt to remove the northern route. The northern route's— that's there, it's in place, and then that's moving forward. What this is, is to study again the southern route in more depth and see exactly, identify it as a minor collector versus a major collector, because there are still some current concerns with public safety in that area.

And so just taking this completely off of the off the books after the, after the people voted for this, after this project's been funded, after it's already been discussed and gotten to this point is kind of seems like a huge wasted effort, a huge waste of money, and basically a slap to the face of everybody that voted on this to move it forward. And so what we're simply asking here is to keep this project moving, and hopefully it can get done and be at least a minor collector. And we're not asking to stop the Northern Route. What we're asking is just let's continue this this project. Let's look at this and let's potentially, you know, create a corridor that will lessen car accidents and make it more safe in that area.

So, Mr. Bowles, I want to clear something up because there's a lot of misconception about what the Burroughs project will do. There's been a lot of suggestions about safety, and I would agree that the intersection of Bogart and Engstrom currently has a safety problem, but that project is being addressed through a separate project that's being accomplished by DOT as a highway safety improvement program directly attributed to the crashes that have been identified over the years. So that project, and I know all of us will chuckle a little bit about when it's actually going to get done, but it's getting closer by the month. And, you know, the suggestion by DOT is that it will be advertised for construction next spring. That project by itself will address the safety issue.

Our project, whether it be regardless of the corridor we're talking about, is not to relieve or provide a safety benefit. Ours is to address many of the items we talked about, about connectivity, the resiliency, you know, redundancy in our transportation network, and get a little bit of capacity out of it as well. I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the north route or the south route is not the— is not the project that is looking to cure the safety issue that currently exists at the Bogart-Angstrom intersection. Okay, Assemblyperson McKee, did you get your light on? Yeah, I do.

I really was listening really hard to everything that you were saying there. Two things. I think there's got to be an easier way. I mean, because I was commenting before going down Bogart and the folks come out and sometimes I don't think they even look. Maybe something as cheap as a stoplight there would kind of ease things.

I don't—. I think I also hate the word quick fix, and that just applies to the southern route. Yeah, quick fix. So we've already done that in this area, and it has exploded, and that quick fix didn't fix anything because you are still in gridlock. I also think they hire you guys for a reason.

I bet you don't I bet you don't come cheap. So I'm just thinking you must know what you're talking about. And I— at some point, you just kind of—. Oh, that—. I should have done that all along.

At some point, you've just got to say, you guys have probably turned over every rock and every stone and dug up every little hole in your investigation of these two routes. So I know there's a lot of emotion runs with this stuff. But at some point— and that's what's difficult about being up here— is at some point you have to say, I wouldn't like it either if I were in your shoes. But you know what, looking across the broad map of things, I still am for the northern route. I wasn't before, but after everything that I've heard, quick fixes, generally Band-Aid fixes kind of things, they don't work very well.

So I'm— I can't support this. And I think because we want you to do this absolutely right, put your focus on, on the northern route and just go for it. Other things may come up that actually might make something— some of this, as you're moving forward on the northern route, you might get something workable on the southern route that will prevent that safety thing. But you're right, it's not a safety issue at this point. It's the, it's the overall big picture.

Emily Person Sumner, I call the question. Okay.

Oh, okay.

Already, is there objection to calling the question?

No, you—. I would like to meet you.

So you object? Okay, if I can get the members in the room to vote on calling for the question.

Assemblymember Bowles?

Yes. Madam Mayor, it passed with Assemblymember Nowers opposed. Okay, if I can get the members in the room to go ahead and vote on the amendment.

Assemblymember Bowles. Yes, Madam Mayor. It has failed with Assemblymember Nowers and Bowles in support.

Okay, so now we're back, and I know we normally take a break, but I see all of the people that are interested in the first public hearing. And so I would like us to go ahead and consider that public hearing. So then, because I know they probably are all going to get up earlier in the morning than any of the rest of us, so Madam Clerk, would you—. Ordinance 26107, an ordinance accepting and appropriating $2 million Excuse me, $2.5 million from the Mat-Su Valley Health Foundation for installation of a refrigerated arena dasher board and plexiglass system at the Big Lake Lions Recreation Center, with accompanying Resolution 2697, a resolution approving the scope of work and budget for installation of a refrigerated ice sheet, dasher board, and plexiglass system at the Big Lake Lions Recreation Center. Okay, so I'm going to open the public hearing.

We do not have a sign-up sheet. Okay. So the public hearing is open. Anybody that would like to testify on this ordinance and this resolution can do so at this time. The input to the assembly at this time is restricted to this ordinance and resolution.

Anybody want to say anything?

Do we have anybody online? And we do not. Okay, state your name. And hi, I'm Heather Fortune, and I think that, uh, what you can see is tremendous support. Each of these kids here in, uh, their uniform probably represents at least 5 others, or at least 5 other families of people that will get use out of this arena.

Thanks so much. Mhm. Okay, anybody else?

Okay. All righty, so I'm going to close the public hearing. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I have down that it should be Deputy Mayor, but I'm going to represent Assemblyperson Gamble. We have another person.

Oh, well, I was going to make a comment because I'm a Big Lake resident and I've lived there about 55 years. So just to even hear about the rise of sportsmanship you know, in the valley and, and, you know, with Houston Middle School and high school, I think it's wonderful. We really need to provide the highest standard of sports and teamwork and just school spirit for the Big Lake area. So rah-rah, I'm glad you guys are on the team, and I hope you do well this year and that you'll have many opportunities to train. And thank goodness we have the Mat-Su Valley or the Menard Center, but we need more for Big Lake.

Karen, I need you to state your name for the record, please. Karen Crandall. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I don't want to miss anybody.

Okay, already Assemblyperson Gamble, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move to adopt Ordinance 26-107 and Resolution 26- 097 and would love to speak to it. Go ahead, sir. This is the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people to make this happen, and Jillian, thank you and your staff for putting this grant together.

This is amazing. Uh, ice is so desperately needed in the northern part of the valley, and this is really going to make, um, the Big Lake Lions Rec Center a year-round facility for our young athletes to get out there and spend time you know, doing healthy activities, time with their parents, interacting and just building relationships. And this is a desperately needed product— project, and I hope all my assembly members will join me in approving this ordinance and resolution. Thank you. Further discussion from the assembly?

Oh yeah, go Hawks!

Deputy Mayor. I just wanted to thank staff and Mat-Su Valley Health Foundation for sure. Thank you very much. And hopefully with the training and stuff like that, we got some future Olympians here. Stephanie Nowers.

Just wanted to thank the team and the coaches for coming out. I know we've been super interesting, um, but hopefully you haven't been too bored sitting there. And, um, it's great to see you guys come down here and hope, uh, you're going to have a lot of fun on that ice and not have to drive all the way down to the Menard Center.

Madam Clerk, I think we're— let's see, is there any objection to the ordinance and resolution? I don't see any objections, so the legislation passes.

And so the assembly will take a break until 8:05.

You're just trying not to make it end at 8:30 like it was my— was my guess.

That's what I was thinking. You see him running for the door? No. Got a wild procedural question. Okay.

At the same meeting. Mhm.

I'm going to go ahead and call the assembly back to order.

Okay.

Calling all the assembly members back.

The other ones—. I think we have, we have a majority, huh? Okay, Madam Clerk, go ahead and introduce the next ordinance, please, for public hearing. Ordinance 26-111, an ordinance accepting and appropriating 2022 January Mat-Su Valley Windstorm Disaster Relief Funds in the amount of $81,000 $370.89 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The accompanying Resolution 26-104, a resolution approving the scope of work and budget for management costs as a result of the 2022 January Mat-Su windstorm disaster.

If you're on the phone and would like to speak to this, press star 3. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing for Ordinance 26-111 and Resolution 26-104. 4. We do not have a sign-up sheet. If you would like to address the assembly, your testimony is restricted to this ordinance and this resolution.

Do we have anybody online? We do not. Okay, so close the public hearing. And, uh, let's see, Deputy Mayor. I move to adopt Ordinance 26-111 and Resolution 26-104.

Okay, discussion by the assembly? Any objection from the assembly? Okay, hearing none, the legislation passes. The next item is our second audience participation. We do not have a sign-up sheet, um, and anybody is welcome to address the assembly for 3 minutes.

And it can be on any subject.

Good evening, my name is Colleen Vague, and I just want to share some thoughts and observations that I have had of this assembly, specifically regarding the route of Northern Southern routes. 5 Years ago, your constituents, the people who voted you into office, voted to fund the southern route. You have completely dismissed their vote, completely nullified what they had to say. Aren't you glad they don't get to do that when you're voting time and just say, oh, we don't like what you did, so we're going to say that we don't want you anymore? I also want to note that when asked about delays seeking eminent domain with meeting 3 or 4 times ago, I don't know, it was very cavalierly responded to when that question came up.

Will there be a delay in that? And the response was, no, there won't be a delay in that process. We have good lawyers. We do this all the time. Aren't you glad it wasn't your property that you were taking away from them?

I bet everybody in here would be pretty upset if somebody was trying to take away the property that your family had owned for 115 years.

This country is only 250 years, and yet you're going to take away this woman's property with no qualms about that at all. We're perfectly fine with that. We've got good lawyers.

When I was asked about the result, if the assembly voted for that or didn't vote for that northern route that night, again the same meeting about 3 meetings ago, the response from staff was, if you don't vote for this tonight, I will divorce you. Now I hate to tell you this, but I'm 67 years old. I was in the workforce for about 50 years. I don't think I ever told my boss it's my way or the highway and maintained employment. You work for us and your staff works for you.

The Planning Commission unanimously voted for the southern route. You've completely ignored that. I don't know why you have one if you're not going to pay attention to what they say. The Fishhook Community Council and the North Lakes Community Council both have sent in resolutions and voted. The North Lakes Community Council, I know there were over 40 people there, and Fishlake said that there was over 50.

So 100 people voted for the southern approach. For the southern route, and you've completely decided to ignore them. So much for listening to the people and the constituents. The highest traffic accident— based on your report, the highest traffic accident on Bogard Road is the Trunk Road— Bogard Road roundabout. And the idea that staff has now to reduce the traffic congestion and safety, for safety, is going to be another roundabout quarter of a mile away.

How is that going to work when the current highest traffic rate, highest traffic accident rate, is currently in a roundabout? And yet the roundabout is the chosen access to make safety for that.

Bogard Road is a problem and it needs to be fixed sooner rather than later. And I realize that neither of these are going to take place for about 15 to 17 to 20 years. But I still think I want to know who you are listening to, because it's not the people.

Anyone else like to address the assembly?

Do we have anybody in line, sir? We do not. Okay, I'm going to close the audience participation. And Madam Clerk, agenda. Resolution 26107, a resolution amending the budget within project number 336-16.

-6600 For Midway Road Service Area for the Double B Circle Improvements Project and approving the scope of work and budget for the Gershman Loop Mill and Pave Project. Resolution 26108, a resolution amending the budget within project number 348-6600 for Gold Trail Road Service Area for the Paradise Lane and Duke Dale Circle Improvement Project and approving the scope of work and budget for the Mulchatna Drive Mill and Pave, Gale Drive Mill and Pave, and Seldon Road Pavement Preservation projects. Resolution 26109, a resolution amending the budget within project number 3456600 for Bogard Road service area for the Willow Wildway, Kodiak Drive, and Helen Lane improvement project, and approving the scope of work and budget for the Earl Drive and Eek Street mill and pave project. Resolution 26111, a resolution approving the amended budgets for Necklison Lake at Homebuilt Circle and Birch Creek at Mastodon Fish Passage project. Contract AM26136, awarded bid number 2750C to Rosenbauer General Fire Apparatus in the contract amount of $1,139,590 for the purchase, purchase of rescue squad apparatuses.

AM26137, approval of additional utility relocation costs of $220,624.38 to EnStar Natural Gas for the Crimson View and Heavenly Meadows street improvement project in the South Colony Road Service Area. AM26-139, establishing the opioid remediation grant program and approving the process for allocating opioid settlement funds. AM26-140, authorizing the ex— an extension of contract with AMC Engineers through June 30th, 2028, for engineering support, construction administration, and related services for Station 71 and 81. Apparatus fill tank project.

Deputy Mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda as read into the record by the clerk.

Okay, discussion? Assemblyperson Faroff. I missed an opportunity. Did, uh, AM137 got pulled or no?

I'd like to have a discussion on that if possible. So Is there a way to divide that question now or no? You would have to move to divide the question. Right now I move to divide AM 26-137 from the rest of them. Okay, is there objection to dividing the question and sort of, I guess, pulling for further separately, right, for one AM 26-137?

Is there objection to I don't see any objection. Madam Clerk. Okay, Madam Mayor, we're on the first segment to approve the rest of the consent agenda that was read into the record. Okay, Deputy Mayor, please. He doesn't need to move it, he already did.

Oh, did he? Okay, you're right. I was asking for— there was objection and there was. All right, thank you for helping me. So any other objection?

Okay, hearing none, then, um, they are— those have been approved. And now, Madam Clerk, we are on AM 26-137, and the motion's already on the floor to adopt it, Madam Mayor. Okay, discussion? Go ahead, sir. If I remember correctly, this was the one that was here late at night.

We discussed it with the Instar, and then I think we felt. I kind of wanted to see if manager has any update. Was there any more communication between us? Were we able to use any of the leverage of saying how over the estimate it was, or do we just, um, keep bringing it back till it kind of passes? I just want to know, um, I don't know if that was not appropriate timing, but I apologize.

It rung to my attention. I didn't get a chance to ask you about it earlier. Go ahead, sir. So through the mayor to the assembly, or to Mr. Fonov and the assembly, um, yes, we did have follow-up meetings with NSTAR after they came and presented. Uh, if you'll— if when you look at the AM, you'll see we tried to very much detail some of the changes that have been made to prevent another occurrence like what happened this past summer.

And so that's why we put it in the AM and, and rewrote it, uh, after those meetings. I think what, what I would say is I think we've done what we reasonably can do to put controls in place, uh, that ensure we have better estimates and that we have better, uh, controls on the project as it's being constructed so that we know in advance, uh, if we're going to have overruns and those get borough input before they just get completed and, and an invoice shows up. And again, we wrote that down in the AM for that purpose, so it's on the record, uh, and we did meet with Instar their senior management team, their project team, their engineering staff. And I think we have a pretty good arrangement or agreement between borough staff and their staff, and I think they're finalizing some changes to the utilities agreements to make sure that that's included in future agreements as well. So, so from my understanding, although it doesn't change the amount of this bill and we'll have to— it will hopefully put them on a better— taking it more seriously, informing us if there is unreasonable overages.

And hopefully, you know, at least it brought that discussion, knowing that we're paying attention. So hopefully it doesn't happen again. Is that what I'm understanding? Yeah, so through the mayor to Mr. Faulkner, yes, I think that's correct. I mean, the good thing about this is it went very public and we got to have a very tough conversation with Instar about what that looks So I think it will change things moving forward.

But to be clear, and I said this on the record before, the work that, that's done here was done. Like, we're not refuting that that happened. The issue was, you know, you're kind of finding out at the end, and it has a tendency to potentially blow up a project because there's only so much money to support a project. And so I think we have the controls in place that will support that, but we've never argued that the work was actually done. For this project.

Like, we, we know that to be true, but I can't authorize payment because it's over the threshold. You have to. Okay, thank you. I just hope that that discussion did create and put them on a little bit on notice that they should be better at estimating because that percentage was significantly outside of what normally you could make during an estimation. Yeah, I think that's been accomplished.

Assembly person hours. Yeah, thank you. I was, I was one of the people that, uh, raised the issue with this, and, um, it does sound like we've made an impression on them that they are going to, um, work more with us to keep those costs under control, is my impression. But I also would say, like, I'm not going to be on the assembly next year. I would urge the other assembly members maybe check at the end of next season and see how things are going, just, you know, make sure that the intention is there and that it's carried through with.

So, um, this was a very extremely expensive overrun, and they're always expensive, and there's, uh, there's options that we could pursue if this, if this doesn't work. So is there any objection to approving AM26-137?

Seeing no objection, then it has been approved. Madam Clerk, AM 26-141, authorization to enter into a contract— into a contract, excuse me— 27039C with MCG Explorer Design to complete the Academy Charter High School design in the amount of $573,155, pulled by Assemblymember Sumner. Okay, and we do not— so would you move, sir, please? I move AM 26-141. And, uh, Madam Mayor, I pulled this because in the past I have disclosed anytime there's something pursuant to Academy Charter School, both my children attend that school.

I think these funds are already encumbered, uh, it's part of— consult the attorney about this. I'm part of a large class of people that, you know, who have children that attend charter schools, in this charter school in particular, and I wouldn't benefit monetarily. So I do not believe there's a conflict. Okay, so I don't—. Yeah, I'm asking for your ruling.

Yeah, I don't have any objections.

Okay, all righty. Uh, discussion on 26-141. Any objection?

Okay, hearing no objection, then that has been approved also. Madam Clerk, introduction for public hearing on November 17th. Resolution 26-91, Resolution 26-92, Ordinance 26-112 with accompanying Resolution 26-112.

Ordinance 26-113 with accompanying Resolution 26-114. Ordinance 26-114. Ordinance 26-115 with accompanying Resolution 26-115. Ordinance 26-116 and Resolution 26-116. Deputy Mayor, I move to introduce the legislation as read into the record by the clerk and set the public hearings for November 17th, 2026.

Okay, discussion by the assembly?

Is there any objection by the assembly? Hearing none, then the legislation has been introduced. Vacancy report, Deputy Mayor. I move to confirm the mayor's appointments as follows: Local Emergency Planning Committee, Tyler Jeffries. West Lakes FSA number 140, Dan Wilson, removal of Cindy Mickelson.

Okay, discussion?

Any objection? Hearing no objection, the vacancy report has been approved. So we took care of the other new business. There are no referrals, right? So now we're down to the reconsideration, right?

Yep. Resolution 26105, a resolution requesting the Matanuska Susitna Borough School Board change the date of the first day of school for all schools throughout the borough to the day after Labor Day. Okay, Assemblyperson Palmer, you have a motion to reconsider? Yes, I move to reconsider Resolution 26105. Okay, I object.

I didn't even get a chance to speak, but you can rule on his objection or we can vote on it. Any further discussion by anybody? Assemblyperson Palmer?

Uh, yeah, I—. No, I, uh, Can I speak now? Okay. And the reason is, earlier I've asked the question to Ms. Gardner, and I thank you for staying here. I think might be— I would ask if we could have her come back because I feel like it's a little bit of like a staff where we could— I want to discuss how, if it will be beneficial to move this discussion into our joint meeting.

I think it was— it's on the 8th, and that's my main reason, because from understanding, sometimes it's good— something sounds good on resolution, but there's a lot more to it involved. And when she brought up some of those points, I think it would be good to have that mutual discussion with the school board. So I would, um, would ask the assembly to— a couple weeks are not going to change anything. Instead, I would ask to— that we put it on agenda as one of the discussion points and then at that time, if we like the answer from the school board, then we could take our position and say, well, that's our position, school board may move forward. But we might learn something from them that might not make sense for us, and why would we take a position that then we didn't get full information?

It's just like getting a good idea, thinking it's wonderful, but then when you— without information, additional information, it's kind of foolish to make such a big change. And I'm not in or against it. There's probably merit and there's probably some desire to, uh, changing the dates. But I would like to have the discussion alongside with school board.

Madam Mayor? Yes, Assemblyperson Bowles, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, yep, um, so this resolution was, um, I worked with my school board representative And so this is— and also multiple people from the community have concerns as far as, you know, bus cancellations and things like that. So this was a multilayered resolution.

This was months of discussions on various topics. And that's what this is. This is a discussion starter. And basically, this isn't us making a decision. This is us asking this, the school board, to please go ahead and start this discussion.

This isn't, this isn't us asking to have a joint meeting so that we can direct the school board. This is us just ask, simply asking the school board, please consider this resolution. If you don't like it, okay, but this is your lane. This is not our lane. But what, but I've had people come to me in this lane, and the most appropriate way to go about this in my mind, and the school board members I worked with, was to go ahead and pass all this information by resolution off to the school board so that they can bring this resolution up in one of their meetings and then decide whether or not they want to move on this or piecemeal it or change it or whatever the school board does, because that's the most appropriate thing.

I don't think it's appropriate that there's a joint meeting on this because it's really not our lane. I think this is our lane right here. We've identified a concern from, you know, residents in District 1, and, um, and so I'm simply asking that this goes to the school board and then they carry this discussion and then we back out.

Okay, Assemblyperson Sumner.

Uh, so this passed, right? And then this reconsideration. Okay, so I support the reconsideration. Uh, I feel like I'm going crazy because we, we have a lot to deal with on our plates and this is this is not something that's in our lane. Like, we do not determine when school starts or stops.

It also is pointless because we meet with the school board, and any one of us could just turn on the mic and say, hey, have you guys thought about changing the school start dates? So we spent a lot of time on this pointless resolution that is outside of our scope of job duties, and I think we needed to stop. So I don't care if the, the reconsideration passes or fails. I think we spent too much time on it. I will vote for the reconsideration, but then I will vote against the ordinance again.

Okay, Assemblyperson Nowers, did you— did you—. No, that's already been said. Okay, Assemblyperson Palmer. Yes, so it's nice to say, oh, it just opens a discussion, and we just heard that from the sponsor, but that does not align with the resolution says. Let me read this thing.

Let there be a reserve that MSB hereby request the Mat-Su School Board to change the start date for all the schools in the borough to the following day of Labor Day beginning at— therefore, further resolve that MSB Superintendent authorized to take all necessary action, execute all required documents, and oversee the completion of the changing start date of the school throughout the borough in time for 2020. This is not a discussion starter, whether— that's not what the terminology here says. So, um, we're pretty much telling them, demanding them what to do, and knowing that we control funds, I could see that could be as intimidation. And I don't think that's our position on the school board. We want to have this discussion, we want to have this conversation, but we should not demand here the superintendent and demand the school board to change this up.

This is not asking for a discussion. Discussion. For that, unless we change this completely to have a start discussion, I could support that. But this is a demand, and I think that is not the way we want to work with our fellow counterparts on the school board, because I believe we have a good relationship with them, and I don't want to make that worse. Assemblyperson Gamble.

Uh, I'm just going to repeat what Max said. Thank you. Okay, further discussion? Oh, Assemblyperson I want to amend my thoughts, and I'm going to be voting against it for Dmitri's reasons too now.

Okay, so I think we have some objection. Madam Clerk, if I can get the members in the room—. Sorry, what are we voting? Just so first we need to reconsider, correct? But you open it for discussion, then we could vote it down or approve it, correct?

Correct. If I can get the members in the room to vote on whether to reconsider the resolution Assemblymember Bowles?

No. Madam Mayor, it is passed with Assemblymember Bowles and Nowers opposed.

Now I can want to discuss it. Okay, now that we're actually on the thing, I'm going to again repeat that the therefore clause, um, that it is a demand and it is not the discussion opener It is written with— that could be misinterpreted because we do kind of connect the finances. I do think it's not unreasonable for us to ask Lonnie or whoever creates the agenda for the joint school board meeting with December 8th, and that's something we can dedicate some time to discuss and learn from staff what would be— if it's even worth for us taking that position.

Okay, Madam Mayor, thank you. Madam Mayor, yeah, I think just having this discussion at our last two meetings has alerted the school board that this is something that they want to be discussing, and I think, um, Deputy Superintendent Gardner earlier told us that they are talking about it and it'll be on the December 8th agenda. So I just don't see this resolution as being something worthwhile to Okay, Assemblyperson Bolts, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, yep, and so I appreciate, uh, Assemblymember Fawnoff's strong language, uh, against this resolution. I understand that he's had some discussions with some people outside of meetings on this, and he's been guided to speak against it, and I get that. Um, again, I'll ask that we please just pass this, pass this on to the, uh, the school board for the school board's discussion. They can vote it down.

This isn't a demand letter. This isn't intimidation. This is a piece of paper with words on it. And so I'll just end with that. That's just an ask that we pass this on to the school board, and then they can decide to vote it down if they'd like.

Okay, Assemblyperson McKee, you have your light on.

I'm sorry, did you—. I guess I want some clarification from Mr. Fonov. I'm not sure what he's— what is your end goal in this one? Vote no? My goal is this is a demand letter.

If you look at the verbiage, I don't think it aligns with the value how we want to treat our fellow counterparts that we need to work with. This is a demand. This is not a conversation starter. So reread it. I sort of read it.

Maybe Lonnie can reread it. I don't think that's the approach I want to take considering that we're only a couple weeks away from the— I much rather ask it to be put on the agenda so we have the mutual discussion, and at that time we could take the position. We could perhaps— we could postpone it for the following meeting for 15th, but I'm not ready to put this kind of language in front of our school board that we have good relationship with. Okay, thanks. Did Assemblyperson Palmer make an amendment to change the wording, or no?

Okay, all righty. So I just wanted to be sure. So we don't have an amendment on to change? Okay, Assemblyperson Sumner, I call the question. Okay, is there objection to calling the question?

Okay, hearing no objection, then do we have an objection?

We don't have an objection to calling the question, but do we have a con— uh, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. If I can get the members in the room to vote on the main motion, a yes would pass the resolution, a no would fail it. Yeah, and as it's written now Assemblymember Bowles? Yes.

Madam Mayor, it is failed with Assemblymember Bowles in support. Okay, ready? So we're now to parting comments. Mr. Attorney, parting comments? Okay.

Assemblyperson McKee, parting comments? Oh, Assemblyperson Sumner, parting comments? I'm just glad this one was short and sweet. I don't think I have, uh, been out of an assembly meeting before 9:00 in as long as I can remember. Well, that's only because we started at 4:00.

No, I'm just kidding. Deputy Mayor, parting comments? Thank you everyone for coming out. Dear Lord, please bless our Valley. Please bless our state and country.

Please bless our first responders. Keep them safe.

Help our citizens, Lord. Help us. Give us wisdom to lead. Thank you for all your blessings, Lord. Thank you for everything that you do.

In Jesus' name, amen. Stephanie Nowers, parting comments.

Yeah, the data centers. Um, you know, I think there's a lot of people in the valley who are interested in this issue and want to know that we've taken a real look at it. And, um, you know, nationwide there's a lot of concern about it. Some of it is hyperbole, I'm sure, but some of it is real concerns. And we've seen states across the country do things.

Just recently, Texas Governor Abbott was putting in some regulations in place to look at— actually called a halt to them because of concerns about water particularly, but, and impacts on the electrical grid. So I think maybe the word moratorium is too much for where this assembly is at. So I want to— I just want to offer something a little less than that to give the public an idea that we are looking at this issue and we take it seriously. So see, the manager has his pen out, so it is coming your way. Um, rather than a moratorium, I would just direct the manager to take a look at this issue, to have staff take a look at the issue, particularly impacts to electrical grid and water, uh, look around at what other communities are doing and come back to us with, uh, suggestions of whether there's anything that we, this body, should consider.

And I, I think that staff is already going down some of this research, and this would just, you know, if that's the case, this just lets the public know that we are looking at this and we will be coming back with it. So I hope I can get support for that. There is a lot of concern, and I think the community needs to know that we are taking it seriously and we're gonna, we're gonna take a real look at it and you know, come back with things that if they're needed, they're needed, things that make sense, and, and a report also on what already maybe is out there that they should know about.

Mr. Brown, did you want to come in? If I could, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Um, just for the record, if, if I may, we were going to have this conversation last week without any legislation at the Joint Assembly Planning Commission meeting. Was on the agenda, published, got canceled because of some big event, I guess, that happened last week.

Um, and so whenever the assembly chooses to reschedule that joint meeting, that'll be on the agenda again. And the idea was just to bring staff forward and have a conversation about data centers. Doesn't have any policy decisions associated with it, but just a discussion so we can talk about some of the things that we're thinking about from a public policy perspective. So that was already supposed to happen, uh, and it will happen again assuming we get that meeting rescheduled. I whenever that occurs.

So we will be prepared to have that conversation. I got a question. Mhm, Deputy Mayor, do you know how many data centers we have in the borough? Anybody? Depends on your definition of a data center, right?

I mean, I think it's fair to say we don't have any hyperscalers. Folks seem to be focused on the large ones, but I mean, folks have server farms and different things, so it kind of depends on what you, you think of. But I think when I hear people talk about data centers, they're talking about large-scale, not micro data centers, but large-scale like hyperscalers. And I think the answer to that's pretty clearly none. And we're not in— and I'll just say it because we're not in discussions with anyone about, you know, siting a data center or anything.

I know the ADA transfer of land in the Houston area created quite a buzz, to say the least. And I'm not— I don't think they're in conversations with anyone, right? Like, it was just some scope they included in an application for a land transfer. So I don't think it— there— it— this idea that it's even imminent. So now is a good time to talk about it where there's no rush, there's no crisis.

Our staff are looking into it. We've had some folks visit, physically visit the Lower 48 and visit a day, and they were going to talk about all that. We just weren't able to have the meeting last week, so we'll get to We have two, one in Palmer and one in Talkeetna. I think it, again, it depends on your definition. Yeah.

I think what folks are talking about when they talk about, you know, closed loop systems and all of these types of things, they're thinking about something much larger.

Yeah. Yeah. Assemblyperson Sumner, did you have a comment? Oh, I was just going to add that Mr. Fonov and I were talking about sponsoring legislation for a business-friendly CUP for data centers. So I think if Mr. Farnell is still interested in that, that's something we're going to pursue independently.

Stephanie Nowers. Oh, I'm just wondering, you know, uh, in timing-wise, so when would the— I think a little sooner rather than later. If it's all queued up and ready to go, I don't know when the next when that would get scheduled. They said we just got to schedule the meeting. So we could schedule that in December or January, or—.

Well, yeah, the discussion, uh, the reason we were able to cancel that meeting is because of the code said, uh, if I and the chairman of the planning commission would decide. So I talked to Rick Allen who is the chairman, and we talked. And at that time, because in December we have a meeting with, I think, the school board, and then, uh, as you heard tonight, you know, additional hours during the first week in December, we, we had at that time talked to the clerk about looking at January, and that would also get the new members on the Planning Commission, because I think there's at least one person on the Planning Commission is termed out, as well as we'd have the two new members on the assembly. So that was that discussion at that time. But, you know, so could we reschedule that now, like, uh, for towards the end of January, and you'll have your new members, and then the public will kind of have a date they know this will come up on the agenda.

I can't, um, Mr. Attorney, on the code it says that we had— that Rick and I had the ability to cancel the meeting, but did it say any part in the code regarding if if we had any authority in setting the meeting or just canceling for the Planning Commission meeting. Okay, okay. So can we wrap back around? Okay. And then, Mr. Brown, do you have any parting comments?

Madam Mayor, we're still on the direction to the manager. We haven't—. Oh, I like that. Okay. All right.

So, okay, Assemblyperson Palmer, thank you. I think I much rather take the approach of possibly having a meeting with the Planning Commission, whether it's January, December, whenever it is. I think it'd be good because new assembly people will be at that time, at least 2. And then, um, I think maybe potentially a couple, maybe new people on Planning Commission. I do know that our staff is actively working.

I've been in communication with Alex, with Jason, and they've, uh, doing a lot of homework. So I don't want to rush into this. We don't have an application in front of us that we are trying to make a decision on. I think we are going to continue, Max. I welcome anybody else who is want to put that effort in it so that we do have CPU type of thing.

But so, but right now, to demand of a manager to take a position that is not very clear, I think that's, uh, there is absolutely no rush for it. So for that reason, I cannot support, um, that direction to manager. So the question is that Assemblyperson Nowers brought up, uh, regarding directing the, um, manager. Did you have an answer? You do, sir.

Thank you. Answer, it says that the, uh, the meeting may be changed to a different day or may be canceled by the mayor or chairman of the Planning Commission. So if you want to set it to another day, you most certainly can. It also says the Assembly and Planning Commission may otherwise meet as they see fit. So there's a lot of flexibility to the code.

I think a broad reading of the code would support you being able to talk to the chair of the Planning Commission and the clerk and coordinating a— okay, makeup meeting. All right, thank you. So the question before you is the direction that Assemblyperson Nowers wanted to direct the borough manager. Do you want to speak to it? Um, first of all, I'm not directing the manager to do something in particular.

I'm just asking that the issue get looked at. Um, I wanted the moratorium so that we don't end up in a situation where somebody's applied and then we don't have rules in place. But we didn't— this body didn't even want to discuss that idea. So which is why I kind of ended up with this. But, um, I'm— I will withdraw my motion to direct the manager because it sounds like we're going to set a meeting for January, and it sounds like the intent is to have the information before us that looks at this in a recent— what do we have in place, what other entities seen happen.

Um, the things I've heard about are electrical grid impact, water, and then surrounding properties and impacts on the taxes of the community, because it can be beneficial and it can be negative. And what we've seen nationally is, as it spread, we've seen communities play catch-up, and they've had negative impacts. Madam Mayor, so I'm willing to withdraw that. Sounds like we're going to schedule a meeting for January. Maybe there needs to be some discussion with the Planning Commission, but if that's the intent, I think that will be a good way to move forward.

Okay, so is there any objection to Assemblyperson Nowers withdrawing her request? No. Okay, and then I think Assemblyperson Bowles, were you trying to say— did I hear anything? Yeah, well, I wanted to comment. I wanted to comment that it's been withdrawn, but I think the appropriate approach isn't to outlaw a type of, um, point of order.

I think these comments are out of, out of turn. Pardon? I think that these comments are out of turn since she withdrew her motion. I called the point of order.

I couldn't understand what he said. I'm sorry, Assemblyperson Bowles, I could not understand what you were saying? I was just speaking to the data center moratorium, and then, uh, Assemblymember Sumner called a point of order. Am I able to continue speaking, or do I need to stop? Okay, go ahead, Madam Clerk.

There's no motion on the floor. We are under assembly comment. Okay, okay, okay. I'll speak under my own comment then. Okay, so you have any further comments, sir?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just quickly, um, so it was, it was under introductions tonight, but just want to call your attention to state and federal legislative priorities were introduced tonight to give you a couple of weeks that— well, actually, you got more than a couple weeks, um, because our next meeting is November 17th. So you got time if you have questions, you want to see some things different, something you want to put in there that's not in there, whatever, um, we're happy to work on that for you. So this gives you time to consider it so that when we bring that forward November 17th, it's not, it's not new to you. And then lastly, I just wanted to add on— thank you, Mr. Bern— or Mr. Bernier, for mentioning this— but appreciation to the Mat-Su Valley Foundation.

Um, my understanding is— I don't know how they do all their finances and stuff— but my understanding is from the grant side, when they awarded us the $2.5 million for the Big Lake Rec Center, it was a very significant portion of what they were allocating the year. So it was not a small ask from them, and— but they see what we're trying to do there, and so I really appreciate their leadership team, their board. This, this was a good— this was good work for us finding things that we have in common, and so I really appreciate their willingness to step out on that. That's all, Madam Mayor. So we introduced— can I ask you just one question?

So we introduced tonight the what you had presented for the agenda for the 17th, but included in that was something we can remove, right? Oh yeah, possibly. We had to draft it, but we might be able to take the Port MacKenzie rail extension out of our state legislative priorities. So yeah, okay. Madam Clerk, do you have a parting comment?

Okay. Yeah. Assemblyperson Bowles, parting comments? Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

So, yep. So I'll start with the data center. I think the appropriate approach to data centers, and like any industry, is not to outlaw a specific industry, but to actually look at what individual concerns that come up. For example, the, you know, the automated license plate reader issue, right? So, Um, there's specific issues with data centers that I think a lot of us have concerns with.

Then just saying that we're going to completely outlaw a certain type of industry from the get-go, I think that that's the wrong approach. We want economic development here, here in the borough, and so we don't want to hinder growth. We just want to make sure that individual things are addressed. So that would be my suggestion. Um, as far as the School board resolution.

I appreciate this discussion, and yep, absolutely, it started the discussion. And, uh, so it was, it was said that we were, uh, so this was a joint effort with my school board member, and that's the appropriate way to do things, right? We as assembly members work with our individual school board member, and that's how this, this worked. And, um, and so I just, uh, members of the community in District 1 that, uh, approached me on some of these issues. I'm sorry that this didn't work out.

Hopefully the discussion will continue with the school board and maybe we'll see some resolution as far as these issues coming up. And know that the agricultural community here in Palmer, you are supported, you're heard, and you are appreciated. Lastly, I just want to thank District 1 for putting me in the seat. It really is a privilege to serve you in this position. I answer to you.

I don't answer to any other organizations or self-interests, and I will continue that work until my term is up on this seat. So thank you very much. It's a privilege, and we'll see you next time.

Okay, let's see. I ask you, Assemblyperson Gamble, you have important comments. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I also wanted to thank the Mat-Su Valley Health Foundation. I was going to wait until my comments to do it because they just made a $2.5 million investment into our children, our young athletes, and their families.

And this is just going to go a long way to helping our kids, you know, north and west of the core area where there's already two ice rinks. And I'm just so appreciative of them realizing the investment that they're making in our kids by investing into this refrigeration unit. So thank you, Mat-Su Valley Health Foundation.

And I guess I just wanted to tell Stephanie that I agree with what you're saying, and I, I really want to stay ahead of this data center thing. I think I've heard from just about every district, multiple constituents from every district, that they want us to be on top of this issue and be out in front of it. And so, Mr. Manager, I appreciate, um, you know, that you're already ahead of this. Again, I mean, that's just how great a manager you are.

Just wanted to say that for you. Thank you. And also, uh, before the meeting started tonight, I was having a discussion with staff about what happened yesterday at the Gateway Visitor Center, and he said to me, he goes, man, couldn't you just feel the excitement in the room there? Couldn't you tell that something was happening that was larger than life. And I just looked at him, I said, yeah, we're making history right now.

You know, the Susitna North Dam never got completed, the bridge across the inlet never completed, and for a long time PMRE wasn't getting completed. And now we are just moving forward and this is just going to steamroll. And I'm just so excited for what's going on in the borough right now. So thank you, Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Assembly. Thank you, staff. We're making history right now. Assembly, follow-up, parting comments. Thank you so much.

With all the good news that's coming and we're having a lot of momentum, last thing I would want to see for us as Assembly to make a huge statement that we're closed for business without even seeing what the proposal is. It's like your son or daughter brings a future fiancé to meet you and you say no before even meeting them. That's kind of— it sets a very bad precedent. So for that reason, I could not support even one month of any kind of moratorium against any business. That's— that's— I think that sets a wrong message for— that's why I was against it, because it sets a really bad precedent.

As far as the public speaking, they have been speaking since we started having conversation with Terra Energy. And people are always welcome to voice their opinions off that podium. And we almost hear things related to data centers almost in every meeting. So nobody stopped anybody from speaking, and we'll continue hearing those, and they will be allowed to speak, as you know, long as we have these meetings. So for that reason, we did not stop any discussions with anyone.

We, however, we stopped a, um, we made a statement not to to put a little closed sign in front of us. So, um, and as far as the school start date, I was not pressured by anyone. Nobody told me to do certain things, and I am personally even actually open to that idea because I think internationally the start of a school in beginning of the September is a very normal thing. And I love— I, I think I might be the first one that will be supporting that, but I did find the language in the resolution was very demanding and that, uh, and it didn't, um, not the kind of relationship I wanted to have with the school board. However, we will bring that in a discussion when we have a meeting with them, and hopefully, uh, we'll see if, um, if there's a path forward, and then at that time we can decide on that.

Okay, Assemblyperson McKee, go ahead. Something that I've been noticing— I don't think mission creep is the right word for it— but we as an assembly over the years that I've been in it and we do our business, we look through all this, the public is there, some people— when we shut down discussion, they leave because it's over. And when our comments come along, then we rehash things and we continue to debate things which are done before the public, which is like 10 people, and I don't think that's right. I think that we need to concentrate on getting our things said when the public is available to hear them here. I think closing comments are not a time to debate everything that we've just done.

And that—. I just don't think that's right because it excludes any more public comments. Just me. Senator Palmer. I actually agree with that.

I think we've had a bunch of things come up at the last minute, but I also think when you get shut down to even have that discussion at the very beginning of the meeting before we even take public testimony, you don't have an opportunity to do that. And that's why I brought up my thing in comments. No, I know you weren't, but.