Assembly Work Session of April 24, 2025

It's 6:30, so I'm going to go ahead and call to order the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly work session of Thursday, April 24th, 2025 at 6:30 PM, and we are in the assembly chambers. First item on the agenda is citizens' comments. The local number is 907 486-3231, and the toll-free number is 855-492-9202. Anybody wishing to speak, either call in or come forward to the podium, sign in, state your name for the record. And, um, so this time citizens comments, please.

I always find it such a pregnant pause when the person signs in here. My name is Mike Litzow. I'm a member of the school board, but I'm not speaking for the school board tonight. I'm really speaking to you as the parent of a kid in our school district. Um, I'd like to encourage you all to fund the school district at the 96% of allowed maximum that the school board requested.

Um, because of the increase in assessed value for our borough, the state will reduce, uh, the local district funding, state funding, by $1 million for FY26. So by asking the assembly to continue funding at 96% of the maximum The school board is effectively asking this— the local government to make up $660,000 out of that million-dollar hit that we're going to take at the state level. I think that's a conservative and restrained request given the, the pretty dire financial situation that the district finds itself in.

I understand, and I very much appreciate the the desire and the need to keep our community a low-tax community. But I think there's another important competing consideration as a parent of a local kid and as a, as really someone who believes in the future of Alaska and believes in Alaska as a place where people should be able to raise their families, um, you know, to succeed. And that is, I'd really love to see our community remain committed to public education and remain committed to the idea that this is a town where, where families can be confident that their kids are getting a decent education. I think particularly as we see the state walk away from their responsibilities there, and it appears to be happening again this year, that that commitment at the local level becomes all that more important. So I'd just like to ask you all to consider that as you make your decisions.

Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Anybody else wishing to come forward under citizens' comments? Are there any calls?

Okay, seeing none, we'll move on.

First is presentation from Discover Kodiak, Brock Simmons, Executive Director.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the assembly. Thanks for inviting me to come before you tonight. I know it's been a little bit since I came before you guys to kind of let you guys know what Discover Kodiak's up to these days. I'm going to be going over our accomplishments for our third quarter of fiscal year '25, and those dates are January 1st of 2025 to March 31st, 2025. Again, I also brought copies of the brand new 2025 visitor's guide for you guys to peruse that.

We were pretty proud of ourselves to get that done in December of this year and actually have it in our hands by like the last week of January. This year, 20,000 copies were ordered. We actually increased our order by 4,000 copies this year based on the need to satisfy the needs out of Washington State. Last year was the first year that the visitor's guide was distributed in the Seattle area and also the Range Ridge Prairie System. And when it came time to make that contract again with that distributor, they asked for more copies because they flew off the shelves.

So pretty proud to say that we're getting a little bit more attention around Washington State, and visitors that go to Washington are seeing getting some information about Kodiak as well. Chocolate Lovers' Fling, which is also one of our— it's one of two fundraising events that we do, the other one being the Adjust Your Altitude Hiking Challenge. We held that this year on February 15th at the Kodiak Marketplace. We sold out of tickets in approximately a week. We had 150 people in attendance to our event.

This year we kind of changed things up. Used to be traditionally an art auction, but this year we kind of just did anything Kodiak related. So I had everything from flightseeing tours to charter fishing, even an outboard motor was donated to support our cause of local tourism. And it was a fun event. We did have, in the beginning, we had a little bit of an issue finding chocolatiers.

I think that chocolate is one of those items is raised in its value, like a lot of things here in the current economic environment. So there wasn't as many people willing to help us with desserts and whatnot for the event, so we reached out to the Kodiak High School this year, and the culinary arts program was generous enough to help us out with that. We actually received about, I think, somewhere between 18 and 20 desserts provided by the culinary arts program. Diane Hubert organized that. It was pretty cool to see all the faces of excitement bringing those desserts to share with the public at this event.

And it was a successful event. We raised $18,000 that night and met the goals that we had and actually went past the goal we had for that fundraising event. But it was—. I felt obligated to give thanks for the Culinary Arts Program for their assistance with our event, so we made a $2,000 donation donation to the high school performing arts program. And it was really fun and it was a good feeling to be giving back to somebody that helped us out in that situation, for sure.

For the first time, I think, in at least my time as executive director and maybe even going back 6 years prior to that, we traveled out of the state of Alaska to a tourism conference. We went to the Alaska— er, I'm sorry, we went to The Travel and Adventure Show in Denver, Colorado. It's a tourism convention. There was probably well over 300 different booths from tourism providers from all over the world there. But this was the first time that Kodiak attended.

We attended with one of our members as well, the Kodiak Brown Bear Center. So got kind of a little double exposure on Kodiak there. There was over 11,000 people in attendance to that show. We flew through 300 visitor guides, as much as we could basically carry in our baggage and bring down to that event. And just interacted with a lot of people about tourism in Kodiak, and everybody was pretty curious to come up to our banner.

You know, the banner for Discover Kodiak has pictures of bears, oil plains, mountains, fishing, the Aleutic culture, and it was definitely very attractive. To a lot of people down there. So it was fun to see their excitement and possibly planning their trip to Kodiak in the future.

And then also we showed our destination video, the old one that was produced about 8 years ago. We are in the works right now with a local videographer to, uh, to create a new destination video that's slated to be done sometime in October of 2025. We're working with Chris Schwagenbach. I'm sure you've seen some of his footage, but it's going to— I'm pretty excited to see what he's going to be able to turn out for us for the new 2025 destination video for Kodiak tourism purposes. And then the last thing that I wanted to share with you guys tonight is one of our deliverables to the City of Kodiak's contract, and that's the wayfinding signage project.

We were approached earlier this year when we negotiated that contract about doing something like this, so We're actually working currently with Portless Design out of Anchorage, and they say it's going to be anywhere between a 12 and 14 month process. So right now we're slated to probably install those signages around the downtown Kodiak area in the summer of 2026. I just want to thank you guys again for your support in Discover Kodiak. I think that tourism is an industry that needs, you know, we're a little bit of a near stream right now with everything that's going on, but it is a very good resource. It's a renewable resource that can hopefully bring more dollars and cents to the electron mass industry.

So thanks again for your continued support. Thank you. Brock, if you'll stay there a minute. Sure. On there.

Larry? Thank you for your presentation. I appreciate it. Just a couple of questions, and I don't know if you're the right person to ask this, but I'll start. It's probably safe to say that your organization is designed or the purpose is to enhance tourism in Kodiak.

Yes, we're identified as the only destination marketing organization in Kodiak. So it's safe to say that that's been your emphasis, but I read in the paper that we're going to have thousands of visitors possibly this summer and then the tour boats are coming in more than they ever have. Is that correct? It was correct up until about a week and a half ago when I— right out of the gate, 4 cruise ships canceled. So now we're back down to about the same number we were last year.

Last year we had 25 visiting cruise ships and we're scheduled for 26 now. The reason I asked that, it seems like now that we have visitors coming to Kodiak that aren't always hunters and camo, um, it's— I'm wondering if the emphasis will sort of switch to how can locals become entrepreneurs, you know, make money, economic development with these visitors coming in, and what we could do to make our community more interesting so when they leave here they want to spread the word. Those are, I think, important. And also, thirdly, what can we do to mitigate the impact of all these visitors in Kodiak, which is is good and bad. So I guess it's what is your organization going to do now that we have people coming?

How do we keep them coming? How do we take advantage of that, or, you know, our local entrepreneurs? And what can we do to keep them coming? Yeah, well, I think that I've seen an increase in membership already, especially this year. We had 30 cruise ships scheduled initially.

And I was approached by several members of the community wanting to become entrepreneurs, wanting to start new operations that would serve visitors to Kodiak. So it is growing every day. I think in the last 2 months we received 3 more new members to Discover Kodiak that want to jump on that bandwagon. As far as sustainability, I think that the number that we service right now, like 25 ships, you know, being some of those ships are in the low 2,000s as far as passenger on their manifests. That is a kind of like our magic number, 2,000.

Once we get above like 2,500, I've noticed it gets a little bit too much. Fortunately for us, we're considering a reposition port, so the cruise ships that we receive, like starting next week in fact, those cruise ships are coming over from Asia, from from Japan, Australia, and they're coming to Alaska to begin their cruise ship season in like the Inside Passage from Washington State up to places like Seward. So we get a real influx of cruise ships coming in from different areas of the globe in the spring, and then we get that exodus of those same cruise ships in the fall. So May and September are busiest cruise ship months that you'll see on that schedule, and that's because of our geographical location that we repositioned the port. I don't know as far as what industries want to increase those amounts, and I think that being that we're a blue-collar fishing town, most of our waterfront properties are owned by processing plants and things tied to the commercial commercial fishing industry.

So I think that at least for the next 5 years, we're probably going to stay about where we're at. I think that the only thing that might change those things is if, you know, fishing— the fishing industry goes down more and people are just scratching to take over tourism and make as much money as they can to sustain themselves. Any other comments? Jared. Hey, Brock.

Thanks for coming in. We've all seen the scary headlines, right? The 70% or whatever of international travelers are changing their plans or abandoning their plans to visit the United States this summer for reasons. Do you get a sense— I know we get a lot of international visitors through the cruise ships, but taking those out, Do we get international tourists other ways? Do you see— you guys— or the rest of, you know, coastal Alaska bracing for a reduction in international tourists?

You know, I think that as far as the number of international tourists that come to Kodiak, we're probably a little bit guarded in that sense.

I've just heard this week, in fact, that Southeast Alaska is changed some regulations in their fishing and whatnot that's really going to impact their tourism industries. The fishing— the Board of Fish has something on their slate right now to make it so that a non-resident fisherman that comes here to sport fish in the Southeast region would only be able to catch 1 king salmon per year. And if you can think about all those fishing lodges in Southeast that depend on people coming for those fish every day to spend a week your 5-day trip, that's really going to impact that area if that goes to the sport fish. I think that our international travelers that come to Kodiak have—. Are kind of almost return clientele in a lot of ways.

They've had either experiences with close friends or they've just fallen in love with Kodiak enough to come back several times. So my members that have clientele from other places that are not off- ships are saying that they're, they're continuing to get their return clientele. Great. Thank you, Brock. A question I got is, I think the, the last time that you were here was in August of '24.

January 16th. January 16th. So you would have given the, the first quarter report then? I gave first and second quarter report. Yes.

Okay, um, didn't show it, didn't show the written report, so we'll look back at that. But it would like you to basically make it every quarter if you could, please. Okay, per the, per the contract. Yes, sir. Okay, thank you.

Next item we have is assembly review of the manager's and clerk's performance evaluation forms. Jared, I'll turn that over to you. All right. Thank you. Well, here we go.

I took your feedback from our review of the forms at our last work session. There were requests to broaden out the scale to 5 instead of on a scale of 3, so I did that. The criteria, I don't think—. I—. We didn't really want to change anything, so I don't think I changed anything there.

And then we wanted opportunities for— to summarize our recommendations and then give the Manager and the Clerk an opportunity to evaluate themselves. And what I did, that's on page 3 and 4, or— packet 4 and 5.

This is probably the biggest change or addition. I put in a little preamble there with some instructions. There was one I added in at the Manager's request that staff is encouraged to supply additional documentation that might support their self-evaluation. I put in a waived in there because that's documentation that you build up over the course of a year, and if it wasn't expected for this year, we really shouldn't expect something like that this year. So I included that language.

The criteria in the self-evaluation are the exact same criteria from our evaluation, just shorter, different verbs, just to keep it a little more concise. And then 3 more additional reflection questions about the— at the end, accomplishment, challenges, and goals. And then how they would expect or would like the Bureau to support them in their goals. And the same revisions for the Bureau Clerk Evaluation. So I think I got everybody's information in there, but now I guess it's— On the floor, we have— we will be reviewing the manager on the 15th.

So if we are good with these documents, then we can forward them out to everybody, gives everybody a good couple weeks, and then we can— then we will compile them on the 8th, I believe, and then evaluate on the 15th.

Thank you, Jarrod. One comment I would have on the self-evaluation, the period needs to change from '25 to '26, not '24. Oh, yeah, copy and paste, my friends. So on both of them, I noticed that on there. Any further questions, Jarrod?

Seeing none, we'll move on.

Next item is further review of ordinance number FY2025-16, amending Title 4, Service Areas, Chapter 4.15, Service Area Boards, aimed at improving accountability regarding the frequency of calling service district meetings. This one I will refer to NOVA staff report. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the assembly. You have previously discussed this agenda item and there was direction actually to go ahead and introduce it. However, I sent it over to the attorney and he had a few comments.

We printed his comments on pink paper and you should have those before you. We have also emailed Um, the— oh, you know what, they're in here. But they were also emailed to you.

Um, and I will summarize what he said in the attorney's opinion, uh, and it's also in your agenda summary. So he wanted to— if you have the ordinance pulled up, in pretty much what he's saying is that in line 38 of the draft ordinance that's before you, it removes the word regular meeting— regular, the word regular. So What he's saying is that let's say, for example, next week a service area wants to hold 2 special meetings because we are eliminating the word regular and they hold 2 special meetings next week and a member of a service area board is on vacation, technically he's going to miss those 2 meetings and he's out. That person will be out. So the assembly may consider putting back the word regular so that if they're quarterly meetings, it would take 6 months for someone to get kicked out of the— kicked off the board technically.

And then he had some reformatting change that maybe he said the assembly may want to consider combining 37, and also B subsection, or section subsection B, which is lines of 37 to 41 of the ordinance. And that should be an easy fix. One other thing that he pointed out in his review is that, is the assembly considering automatic removal, or do you want the assembly to make that decision? Position and have a review before you remove someone. I felt like I couldn't answer that question, those— that type of question, unless I bring it back before the assembly.

I'd like to— we'd like to know your wishes. So, um, pretty much those are the changes that were noted in the, in the attorney's opinion. He mentioned something about references to the service area boards in Title 2 of the code, which we may need to clean up later. I think if we are doing cleanup in Title 2, we may just remove those, but we may— it may not be necessary to do it at this time. Let's just do that later on.

So those are the few questions that he noted, or we need directions on a few those questions. Discussion?

Scott?

I'm not sure how many of the service district members are appointed versus elected. I'm very concerned about tossing elected members on off. Appointed seems okay to me, but if you miss 2 meetings in a row and you're appointed and you don't show up, then fine, we can deal with that. But if they're elected, they have the concern of the local personnel that's in that region, and I'm worried a bit about the language of canceling their position after missing just 2 meetings.

Poe and then Ryan. Thank you. This is certainly complicated, and I do appreciate testimony that was given. It's unfortunate we, due to meeting structure, we can't interact. I know one person who testified was waiting for us to ask questions, and I would really have liked to have had that engagement.

Unfortunately, we cannot. But my concern still remains that despite the language in these different areas or how we're going to— what criteria we're going to look at, really ultimately my goal for any of this is to increase the amount of meetings that are held. And we're not having these meetings because either A, they're not being scheduled, or B, they're not reaching a quorum. So this is what I would like to see the end result come out of this ordinance is we need to have public meetings. And so how do we get there?

When we hear testimony from service area members that they're not here or their service area is small, that's two different issues but both resulting in the same outcome where meetings are not being held for the public. And whether you're appointed or elected, I don't view that any differently than us here on the assembly or the mayor. We're elected. We are elected to show up and be present for the public to express concerns publicly. Now, I appreciate that some matters are taken up privately through phone calls.

That's why, you know, I, I receive phone calls and emails fairly frequently, or people run into me out in public when I'm out running errands. But that doesn't excuse me from sitting right here. We have restrictions in place that we have to meet or attendance requirements that we have to meet. This isn't any different. So while I appreciate that, my, my, still my overall goal would be to increase the frequency of meetings and whether or not that's because folks are out of town or, or they're in a small service area, we need to figure out how we can better reach a quorum for these meetings to happen.

So I'm open to discuss what that looks like, but just simply saying that we're too small or— I'm more sensitive to the smaller service areas than Service Area 1, but saying we're just not here or we're elected, you shouldn't kick us off, that holds no weight for me. We're all elected here and we all have attendance requirements. We're all public-facing. So I don't know where I'm at with this at the moment. But I'm open to suggestions on how do we increase the frequency of meetings and quorums.

Ryan. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. On the same vein of that discussion, I was wondering how the determination of a quorum fit into this discussion.

I think that needs to be solved before we actually— try and solve the frequency of the board meetings because it sounds like, based on public testimony that we've had, in some cases in one service district area specifically, they have two members show up. And so I think we need to address that quorum issue first before we actually address the frequency of calling service area board meetings. So I would like to try and guide that discussion based off of this if we can. I mean, I don't really know what the legality of that is, but—. Well, I'll bring up that help worked on recruiting for Menasha Bay and Menasha Bay Road Service District.

And we have 2 applicants, and they're going to have a meeting on the Tuesday the 29th of April, make a recommendation, and then look into a point on May 1st, our meeting on May 1st, and they will then have a full board of 5 on there.

So does that Answer your question on them anyway. I can speak to that one. So, okay. Well, that's where they're at. They'll have 5 members.

Larry.

Looking through the recommendations of the attorney, I wouldn't have any problem reinserting regular as just part of this document that we're looking at. I also believe it would be good sense to combine I think, uh, 37 and B into something more cogent. I agree with the attorney. I think this is a very important issue.

Not all meetings are canceled because of lack of a quorum. Sometimes they don't exist because nobody called them. And I think this is really important because The service area boards are the sounding board for people to come who have concerns, and we've had a number of people come and say, our concerns are not being met because there's no one to talk to, or the boards don't meet. So I think we have to solve this, or we're disconnecting the very people that support these boards. And the more that that happens, the less people become aware that they even exist.

And if they're not functioning, if they're not active, if they're not doing things in the eyes of people, then why should anybody want to be a member of it? It's sort of like sometimes schools have a hard time getting people to come to PTAs because, generally speaking, the decisions are already made and you call the parents to come and validate the decision. And pretty soon they don't come anymore. If you engage them, make them a part of it, then they grow. And I think if service area boards are not meeting regularly and communicating with their constituents, then people give up.

And why should they serve? And then when the election comes about, there's nobody there. So I do believe that we have to add some accountability. I'm—. I think that we need to keep working toward what that means.

This also includes concerns about the quorum. But the quorum isn't the only problem. It's just getting them scheduled, getting them called, and then making sure that whatever decisions are made, the service district is aware of it. For instance, if the Service Area Board agrees to dig out a ditch or take care of, uh, water on one property, the rest of the service district board members should know that because they may have a similar issue that they need to talk about. So it's a broad issue, and I think it's important, and I think we do need to find some way to hold them accountable.

As far as concerns related to they're elected, they are elected, but they also agree when they run to represent, you know, the folk that vote for them. And I think it's a serious thing. So if we can make them accountable, the meetings are taking place, they're documented, they're communicated. I think we'll have a lot more interest both in serving on these boards and a lot more respect from the constituents who feel like they're not always doing their job. On the other hand, I will say that we have a lot of service area board members and boards that are doing an excellent job and have done an excellent job through the years.

And many of the things that they do on behalf of citizens are never known or represented. I think I want to remember those hardworking people that are serving their constituents that way too. Thank you. Steve, and then Ryan. Um, I'd like to know if the attorney has been asked, or if somewhere it's totally clearly written out, the districts are created to take care of their particular area and needs.

And yes, that area is part of the borough, but they also levy their own taxes. They're kind of self-governing in a way. And where does it say exactly how much we can force them to do things and how much control we have over them? And has the lawyer been asked that? Thank you.

Ryan, and then Jared. So I was just putting down our three seasons, so snow, rain, and sun. So if we asked our service districts to meet, uh, the first week of October, the first week of February, and the first week of June, that encompasses each of our three seasons. Those also would coincide with staff functions that would be able to produce contracts for ditching, brushing, drainage, you know, our IDIQ-based contracts. So I'd actually like to just start quantifying this so we can move this initiative forward.

The meeting of October 1 would cover the periods of October, November, December, January. The meeting of February 1 would cover the periods of February, March, April, May. And the June 1st meeting would cover June, July, August, and September. Then also recognize that there would be emergency meeting allocations for force majeure type situations. And then I would also just kind of reiterate that it's my understanding that service district chairs are a co-signer of invoices and daily reports, so there would still be a service district chair requirement more frequent than those 3 meeting periods.

So, again, to capstone that conversation, October 1st— I'm sorry, first week of October, first week of February, first week of June. Thanks. Jarrod. Okay. So, I like what Dr. Ledoux said.

About encouraging engagement more, if that is indeed an issue in the service area. What's not jiving with me is then why the stick? Stick might encourage someone to show up, but a carrot, right, might encourage them to engage a little more. I've been on the fence on this one throughout our conversations for the same reasons that Bo and Scott have expressed. I keep going back and forth.

I think I want to take a little turn on this one, not blow it up, but maybe come on off the— go onto the off-ramp a little bit and look at the highway. How many more extended metaphors can I put into this thing? So—. Keep trying. So yeah.

So what if we went less punitive? And instead went more supportive, and that we as a body create a couple of policies that do have that oversight, but in an encouraging and supportive way. For instance, I don't mind, right, setting a, setting a calendar. I would prefer if the service area or the board The boards create their own calendar and then submit it to us to make sure that it aligns with code and other expectations that we might set forth in this ordinance. Some might need to meet 3 or more times, some may only once or twice, perhaps.

But I think that would encourage them to participate a little bit more. I think that we should think about putting in, at least from the Clerk's Office, some kind of early warning or trigger alert that if we— that the clerk notices that, you know, a board has not met or has canceled a meeting for whatever reason, there's follow-up from the clerk in terms of what happened and then how can we support you, how can the clerks or how can IT support you to make sure you get a quorum for your next meeting. There's, I think, a little bit more of a support that we can articulate a little more clearly.

I would also throw out there, too, that perhaps the DPO could serve as the Board liaison. So we have someone on the Assembly, perhaps, maybe the DPO— DPO, maybe somebody else, whose job is not to go to all the meetings, but to, I don't know, once or twice a year check in on the board and see what they need. Do they need help with recruiting or meeting quorums? They could function in a way as an ombudsman, facilitating complaints between the boards and the Assembly. Again, to encourage, right, conversation, dialogue.

Rapport with our various bodies, perhaps. And this is like the teacher in me is, I mean, we could always develop an award that rewards high-functioning boards or commissions. You're like Commission of the Year, you know. You know, it's something nice that, you know, that we can recognize boards for the work that they do. So I think those are some ways for us to maybe, again, look at this just a little bit differently.

Maybe we still have the punitive elements in there just in case, but the humanist in me believes that some intentional supportive practices on our side might actually accomplish what we're trying to set out. Larry, and then Scott. I just want to say I really appreciate the words of Jared. I think it makes a lot of sense what you're saying. It seems to fit together.

I think good people are doing good things. And, you know, I'm always troubled by the exercise of power because it invokes the calculus of unintended consequences. And I think that engaging people— and I still believe very strongly that people need to understand what the service area boards do, how they do it. And finally, I just have a question for Assemblymember Sherrod. Please tell me when the sunny season is here.

I used to think there's just mossy and moldy, but you introduced a new one. Thank you. Scott. Um, uh, remembering some of the concerns in the past that we've heard. One of the things that comes up is apparently a lack of communication between the individuals in the service district and the administration of that service district.

So that there was one where people were complaining that the service district wasn't doing XYZ, and the service district said, that's not our Bailiwick, it's the borough's bailiwick because we're dealing with driveways there and not with the roads themselves. So I think we need to have some way of improving the communication on that. And, uh, the other issue that comes to mind is when you have a fairly small service district and it's a challenge to get people to be on the board of that, and you end up with not having a quorum and this and that and the other, maybe it's too small. Maybe it should be rolled into some other larger service district, and you would have the number of people that you need in order to make these quorums achieved, rather than to focus as Mr. Griffin says on punishment, we can focus on rewarding them for being there. Thank you.

Nova. Mr. Mayor, if I may, if you would allow me to add to Assemblymember Griffin's comments about, about, about his comments. One thing that the assembly does on a yearly basis is that you are required by ordinance to adopt your— or put together your— establish your calendar for the year. Maybe that's something that you could add to the ordinance for the service areas, that after the election they may need to adopt a resolution establishing their, their schedule for the whole year. I think that would be helpful for the public as well.

Then when they call the clerk's office, sometimes we don't know when they're going to hold meetings. But at least if they have a resolution that they have adopted and submitted to the assembly, then we can say based on their resolution that they submitted to the assembly, this is when their next meeting would be, something like that. And then nothing prevents them from holding special work sessions or special meetings in between those meetings. So just to add to the comments. Let's see, Dave, then Bo.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I know you need to get your tick mark down on where we land on this. Um, I, I won't support, um, anything that, that brings in an automatic termination or removal or a board disbandment. Um, I appreciate both sides. I just, I do feel that Yeah, I don't, I don't support it, so I'll just leave it at that.

Um, I, I think, I, I think this legislation falls short because we failed to start with the right question, which is, you know, what problem are we trying to solve? Um, is this a problem that is a function of a group not meeting? Is this a function of a group not meeting due to lack of quorum, due to lack of interest? Like I don't think that question was asked enough before this was proposed. And I think that it's— you know, the downside of town hall politics are that as an elected official, you assume public comment is public sentiment.

And that leads us to make decisions that might not end up being popular sometimes because the people who show up might not be the majority, may not reflect the views of the majority. So if we don't, if we have a service area with a healthy fund balance and decent services being provided and they're not meeting regularly, and there's not people complaining, is that a dysfunctional service area? I don't know. Um, and I guess if we don't have a long list of candidates fighting a hotly contested service area— service district election every year, um, I, I'm just not going to support something to disencourage people to go out for that. So I just, I don't know.

I don't know if this is an overreaction or not the right solution to the problem, but as is, I think, you know, asking for a published calendar is reasonable, but language to automatically kick someone off a board, especially if elected, or to disband an entire board, I don't think is necessary. My reading of borough code gives the manager authority to direct work if he or she feels that it is necessary for whatever reason that the service area is unable or unwilling to direct. So I think we have already got a check and balance there. We just need to expect it to be exercised if necessary and trust the judgment of those in those positions. So thank you.

Oh, and then Steve. Thank you. I do like that the idea was was visited again of the smaller service areas considering combining. If there's so few annually that are willing to volunteer and then have enough capacity to have a quorum to hold meetings, then that's something that should be considered. And I mentioned last time this came up that if folks are reluctant to do that because of the fund balances that are— that currently exist for those respective service areas, perhaps considering combining just the meeting itself so you at least have enough people to have opportunity for the public to engage with those service areas.

Again, I'm not looking for punitive action here. I'm looking for a way for the public to have an opportunity to engage in a way that's transparent. You know, I don't care if how people are categorizing folks who come up here with their concerns. That's their avenue, is to come up, stand there at the podium, and let us know what they're concerned about. And we have to listen, and we have to address it.

I don't care how folks feel about that. That's how government works. Now, people say that that's all being handled behind the scenes. That's fantastic until folks come up to us and say that isn't working, or they're not engaging with people. That's a problem for me.

So If the solution isn't within this ordinance, somehow we have to increase our accountability for service areas and provide opportunity for the public to weigh in how they see fit, and in a way that's transparent and has feedback to where some folks come into us that say, we haven't heard back in months. This is how many times I've emailed. This is how many times I phone call— have had a phone call. Or left a voicemail, and there hasn't been any meetings. To me, that means zero public accountability for that service area.

If you can't call them, you can't email them, there's no meetings being scheduled, we as the assembly have to reconcile that. And that's where we're at right now. Do we do it through this ordinance? Do we do it through combining service areas, setting schedules? The goal for me all remains the same, is we have to increase Transparency and accountability for service areas, and I do truly appreciate the work that they're doing, but that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement.

This is where I'm still at with this. I do agree that the automatic termination for a member or a board is something we should soften, but I'm not really budging on the— level of accountability either, because we are public-facing and this is what we signed up to do. Steve.

I like the idea of planned meetings. I think every service district should probably have 4 a year. I think if we write this, it should be that after an election they have 30 days to publish when their meetings are going to be. I would also like them— I don't know whether mail a little card out or what to every member of their district saying these are the planned meetings for the following year. And that way everybody's given fair notice.

Whether doing such a thing would put an undue burden on the district, I can't say. But besides just a webpage, something should be done to make sure every resident knows when the meetings are going to be. Thank you.

Nova, do you— I'm not seeing direction.

It looks like— I think what we need to address tonight is what would you like to do with this resolution? Sponsors of this— of this ordinance assignment is that we have a time requirement that, that is in the code. What would you like to— the sponsors to this ordinance, I guess this is the question for you, uh, would you like this to move ahead and be placed on the agenda and you need to give me directions on how you would like it changed, or would you like it to just move as is, um, or would you like to just retract the ordinance and maybe give direction or fill out another agenda item request form requesting other— a different type of ordinance? Let's see, we got Larry and then Ryan. Well, I really appreciate the comments tonight, and I think some of them are very persuasive, but I I thought I heard that Assemblymember Griffin was willing to take a shot at this when you were talking earlier.

Maybe I was wrong. I thought maybe you were going to take a look at that and putting it into different words, but if that's not the case, I—. I closed it. That's okay. I would have to say I agree with Beau.

There has to be some degree of accountability, but I also believe though that we We certainly received enough information from our constituents who wrote letters and testified before us over their concerns, and this was designed to resolve that. But I don't— I'm troubled again, I guess, with automatic removal. I'm wondering if we have to have, dare I say, more borough involvement in scheduling these meetings and coordinating. Them, because that might facilitate regular meetings and also publishing some of the information. So in the manager's report, for instance, we could find out what's going on when it occurs, when meetings are occurred.

And I agree with the assembly member who said that we need to really schedule these meetings and publish them. I think we should make it positive, but there needs to be some level of accountability. I don't know what it is. I don't think it should be automatic, But I would hate to see us throw it away because we have a real concern and a real need, and I think we have a responsibility to listen to our constituents to say that there are some problems out there that we need to resolve. Ryan.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So as it's presented in front of us with the further review of ordinance FY 2025-16, we have two issues that are clearly stated here as the problem statement, if you will. So I'd like for us to, I guess, singularly focus this so that we can give the clerk clear direction. I would be remiss to say that I'd hate to get to this point just to have it essentially die. So issue number 1, the use of, of regular in the Kodiak Island Borough Code.

The assembly may keep the word regular. So I guess, could we focus the discussion off of the word regular and just see if we want to keep it and get rid of it, and then once that's done, go to issue number 2 so that the clerk has clear direction on how to proceed with this initiative that's in front of us.

Scott, did you want to chime in at this time? Well, I don't want to deal with Ryan's stuff, but I think we have to also recognize that these service districts are wildly different in their responsibilities and their size. The Tidegate one doesn't need 4 meetings a year. Neither does the lighting one. Um, Service District 1, yes, obviously, but they're different.

I would really be concerned about passing an ordinance ordinance that stated that everybody had to meet 4 times a year when it included things like the Tidegate one, which I, I just don't believe has to meet anywhere near that frequently. As to whether the regular— the term regular meeting in the ordinance as proposed, I'm in favor of leaving regular in there. Thank you.

Paul. Thank you. That— I appreciate that last comment. That makes a lot of sense to me as well. I don't know if we could tease out in the language that specific to service areas that service safe transportation.

So service areas that address road conditions for the public would be— is still— would be my focus. I'm glad someone pointed that out. I'm far less concerned about the type gate meeting quarterly as well, or streetlights. I don't think we even have people on the streetlight service areas. In my opinion, those should be combined with the nearest road service area.

I don't know how much maintenance and time goes into that. I might be a little naïve there, but anyhow, back to Mr. Sherrod's recommendation, that sounds great to me. I agree with reinserting or maintaining the language for consecutively held regular meetings. I will just voice my opinion for Part B, as I understand it.

Seats will be terminated and vacated if the board fails to hold a meeting for 2 consecutive quarters. I don't believe that should be automatic, but also I don't know what is the backup mechanism for making that decision. Does that go to us, and then is it— is that an objective measure on the assembly to determine, or is that completely subjective and just kind of defeats the purpose of what we're looking to do anyway? So we might just be spinning our wheels and adding another step that is pointless, is my concern there. But automatically vacating, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, people get sick, people get injured, people have to leave the state for treatment at times.

So this is a tough one, but again, I don't know how we get there to where we have increased public availability to interact with their service area boards absent this ordinance. So I'm still firm with it going forward with some modification of maintaining the word regular meetings and then— removing automatically vacated, but I don't know what that secondary mechanism would be to have any sort of objectivity. [Speaker:CHAIRMAN BRYANT] Steve. [Speaker:STEVE VILLACHICA] I'd have trouble voting on anything that didn't clarify what the backup is. I mean, if it's not automatic, which I'm against, but you don't state what the alternative is, That just leaves it too wide open in my mind, and therefore I couldn't support it.

We need to have a distinct, clear path so everybody, including the service district members, the assembly staff, knows what we're talking about. But I don't think it's appropriate even to vote on, and I wouldn't support it. Thank you. Ryan. So I'd recommend that we just put in majority of existing board is the control measure.

So in order to remove somebody, it would require a majority of the existing board or majority of the board in as remains. I still think that this needs to be held at a localized level before it goes to assembly level and let issues try to work themselves out at that degree first. So if we could— and again, I'm not necessarily saying this is ironclad, but the majority of existing membership or something to that nature at the existing service district would have the authority or ability to remove once these conditions were met. And I'm also against the automatic removal. I think that it needs to, again, be voted on locally.

Thanks.

Nova, do you have some information to play with?

I think— I think that's doable if you have a full board. How— I just— I just don't know how that's going to be accomplished if you have a bare minimum to make quorum and you have to remove one of the members that makes the quorum happen. [Speaker:MR. HERRERA] Wouldn't it be unanimous? If you have 3 people, you have to kick one out. Remaining 2 would be unanimous.

[Speaker:MS. THOMPSON] That's not the way— voting works. You need to have the 4 if it's a 7-member board.

I think that's the type of dilemma that we're going to encounter with the wording like that.

I just think that we need to think through whatever we're putting in the ordinance because this is something that the staff will be like— staff in engineering would be making sure that they're following the code and stuff like that. And if you don't have very experienced staff members, there's a potential of this getting really messed up. Ryan, continue, and then Steve. Thanks. So this again takes me back to my first comment where I think we need to solve what a quorum is by members present.

As what was suggested by our last service district presentation, because you don't always get the 7 people. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] Right. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER DIXON] And so if you've got those that are out or excused, I still think that we need to have some mechanism in place that defines what a quorum is by members present. Present, you know, could even be be further defined as, you know, local but not in attendance, you know, counts, but if they're out of town, you know, we have some guiding principles that already govern participation, and now we've got remote participation as well, or electronic participation as well. So, I just see this as being less of an issue if we define what quorum actually means.

Nova and then Steve. So in other boards, I know that this has been recommended in the past, they would determine quorum out of the seats that are filled. So let's say if you have a 7-member board and there's only 4 seats that are filled, then they would determine their quorum based on those number of seats that are filled. Regarding the, the electronic participation ordinance that you adopted, that doesn't apply to the boards and committees and the service areas. That's only for the assembly.

I just want to put it out there. Each board and committee and each service area need to adopt their own rules per code, so that's something that they can entertain. Each board could take a look at that if they want to adopt that. Procedure, but that doesn't apply to the boards and committees and service areas. I just want to note that.

Steve. Thank you. As I understand it, originally worded that if you missed 2, then you were automatically removed, which I'm against. I would also like to see something that would allow them to be excused just like we are. So if someone's out getting a heart operation or something, they could be excused and it wouldn't count towards that.

But I don't know how others feel about inserting something similar or not. Thank you.

Nobody got a little bit to work with? No. Bo? All right. I'll—.

I think— I think, you know, there are proposals coming from assembly members, but I'm not sure if there's support, like, for members that are supporting that proposal. So I think there's a lot of discussion on the floor, but I don't really have a marching order on how to change the ordinance. So I think we can refine that, and if you can give me a more, you know, maybe direction, then I can change the order. Maybe one of the options is creating some options for them. Maybe asking, let's say, if there's a support to Assemblymember Sharrett's proposal, and if there's like nodding of heads, then I can incorporate that.

But right now I think it's a free-flow discussion of the assembly. I have direction on the regular reinserting that back, but on the other things I don't. [SPEAKING SPANISH] If—. However we can get to the options would be great, and that would also, if I understand things correctly, buy some time for folks on the service areas to hopefully, if they are not watching now, be able to watch at a later time to see what we are discussing and be able to weigh in. It is really challenging when we can't have interaction through our meetings.

I know someone was dying to interact with us last time and it was really frustrating we couldn't. But this is how meetings are structured. So if we were to help you with identifying options you can explore for us, how much time would that give us for folks in the service areas to consider what we are proposing or discussing? Perhaps come in and provide public comment and guide our direction when we are able to get some options in front of us again. I really want to interact with the Service Areas more after this discussion, but we need to do it in a public-facing manner for— to be transparent.

And we can do that in a future work session. That is where that would be, not the regular beanie. Steve?

I think I would like to propose not rewriting it, even though we've agreed on the regular thing, and at the next work session invite all the service districts to come in and talk to us. Or maybe we need a special one that we can interact with them and probably come up with a resolution everybody can live with. That's my opinion of what we need to do. I don't know how other feels, but I'd like other people to weigh in opinions. Larry, I don't have a problem and I support removing the automatic.

I think we need to find a solution and I don't want to put it off to a future work session unless it's very soon. I don't want it to disappear. And because I think it's an important issue, and I concur that we would be wise to listen to people who have served on these boards for a number of years in different capacities to find their opinion. But I don't want it to disappear. I think we're reasonably close with agreeing that there needs to be a change, and I don't want to have to do another yellow slip 4 months from now to bring it before the agenda.

I think it's important that we do this as soon as possible.

Jarrod. We usually, and this is the right time of year to do it, as we discuss service area and other boards' budgets, many of them come in anyway to talk about and answer questions regarding their budget. I don't see why we can't just fold some of these—. Fold it in. Fold it in at that time.

Just let them know, you know, that we might be asking board chairs or board representatives about these issues. I just leave it as boards. We want as many members as possible.

I like that idea. Bo? That's essentially what I was going to follow up with. I don't think we should postpone much longer, but I do feel that we need to buy some time for NOVA to tangle all of our twisted thoughts into something actionable for options anyhow. And I do wish to have time for opportunity for the Board members, Service Area Board members to think about what we are discussing and have another opportunity to weigh in.

I think it would be a very good idea. I like the idea that Mr. Griffin brought up.

Okay. Beat it to death for tonight. So, um, just to wrap up, it seems like the direction is to reinsert the word regular meeting in the ordinance. It seems like there's a consensus also from the assembly that you do not agree with automatic vacation of seats, so we need to eliminate wording pertaining to that. But you're looking for a different way of making sure that there's accountability.

So that's the one that we're wrestling with. Maybe we could get direct— we could get comments pertaining to that when, when you are discussing the service area budgets. So I think I'm going to revise the ordinance that's before you and hold off until the service areas are going to be presenting their budget to the assembly or discussing their budget and maybe place this as an item for discussion again at the work session so they can comment on it. Okay, Scott. Well, I think we also have to craft language that allows, like, Chiniac to have a service district out there.

They voted against against it several times, but the costs are increasing and they're going to have to pick up their share at some point in the future. And we don't have that— a plan for doing that at this point, but I think that's something that's going to have to be integrated into what we do with this resolution or ordinance. Okay, moving on. Um, We have notification of the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center seawater pump installation by Industrial Pump Supply. Staff report, SEMA.

Thank you, Mayor Arndt. In accordance with Section 3.30.020, limitation of manager's authority, staff is providing a notification of additional costs from IPA for the installation of new assemblies at the KFRC pump house. The KFRC seawater system has experienced significant degradation—. Sorry—. Over time, particularly affecting the pumps.

This has led to ongoing challenges in maintaining reliable pump operation, which in turn has caused disruptions to the building's operations and impacted tenants. On March 20th, the assembly approved the purchase of 5 new seawater pump assemblies totaling $208,908.45. That approval did not include installation. Staff has since coordinated with Industrial Pump Alaska to complete the installation of the new assemblies totaling $19,500. IPA's involvement ensures the installations were done correctly and are covered under warranty.

Installation date is to be determined and staff will continue to monitor progress to ensure minimal disruption to operations. Cody Allen, our project manager, is here to answer any questions and update you further. Discussion? Any questions? Ryan?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I've got a few questions. Was this procurement open solicitation or was this sole source based on the procurement of IPA pumps? This procurement was sole source based on the procurement of IPA pumps to maintain manufacturer's warranty.

Can I—. Continue. So the IPA pumps— so Industrial Pumps of Alaska, they don't make these pumps, they're just a redistributor of them. So is there any other option or installer that's certified by the manufacturers of the pump that could have procured on this? And the reason I'm asking is because I don't see a sole source justification, and so I'm curious.

So there are other installers installers that would be qualified. Even our facility staff in the past has installed them. Based on previous cost associated with repair, this was the lowest alternative identified. However, we can resolicit. It was just the opportunity of they came to visit free of cost, they conducted an inspection, they identified some other issues that we had, and they were willing to phase the installation.

So what you see for $19,500 is a 2-mobe. It's a mobe and demobe twice to take down Pumps 3 and 4, which are currently out of service, replace them with new, and then remobilize for Pumps 1 and 2 so there's no disruption to the KFRC facility. Continue. The reason I'm asking this is because one of the limiting factors that is buried within this specification is that the bearing life is listed at 8,760 hours, which is exactly 365 days. And I feel like, as a limiting factor of this, I feel like we're going to be revisiting this.

And so I'm looking specifically at what precedence we're setting, especially under a sole source justification. That's why this is really important from a procurement standpoint. So pardon while I ask those questions. The last question I have is nowhere in the proposal does it list the disposal of the pumps or if there is core charges. And to the same vein of that, in one of the emails it says that the $19,500 is an estimate and biased high based on crane services.

So I was wondering if you could just address those two things. [Speaker:MR. BATTLES] Yes, that is correct. Technically wasn't a project. However, as things slowly become projects in the emergency repair realm, we're relying on the contractor to be essentially the general contractor and manage the electrician and the crane operator as subcontractors. That's, again, why I don't know that we'd find a cheaper alternative, but I'm willing to look for one.

The bearing life of the— well, first for the cost. We only have estimates from the crane operations for the cost, and those are time and materials based. So this would be like a not to exceed, I would imagine, is how this would be executed. The electrical sub is pretty much cut and dry on that work there. The bearing life and the longevity, with— when we reached out to all the other parties involved, that are— they're all experiencing similar issues.

That is if, um, like worst case scenario, 100% full operation 24/7. The way that these pumps are sequenced and should be operated, we have since learned, is like a lead-lag scenario where one's operational, you take it down, you do your maintenance, and then like two would be operational in the meantime, and vice versa for three and four. So essentially what we've identified is like some operational changes that need to be made to ensure longevity. The disposal question that you asked, um, per our general conditions for KIB projects, we have first right of refusal for all materials. Two of the pumps that are currently in service, one is operational 100%, the other is operational with minimal vibrations due to a bearing issue down shaft identified by IPA.

We're going to keep all that and try to get it rebuilt and remanufactured, so we'll have one brand new pump that matches what's being installed. And we have currently one older pump assembly with 4 replacements.

Continue, Ryan, then Scott. Sorry, your answer prompted another question. So because this is a lead-lag scenario with multiple pumps, is this gonna be run by a SCADA-based system, or is this operator decision, and who is that operator? So that would be our facilities maintenance staff for KFRC. There is no SCADA system at this time, and it is an overly simplified control system, quite literally on/off with a soft start.

Perfect, thanks. Scott. In the past descriptions of this, there were control systems that had to be dealt with as well. Are they new coming with the pumps? The control systems are not new.

They identified that they can reuse the existing, one of which has been rebuilt with a soft start, but they identified soft starts which should be installed on the other two controllers. Sometimes when you're rotating pumps through that have seawater, you'll have a freshwater flush to wash the saltwater out so that they don't continue continue to corrode while they're down. Can we do that with these? These are not that type of pump. These are a vertical lift pump.

The pump head actually sits in saltwater at all times. Okay, thank you. Oh, thank you. Uh, I don't have nearly as much brain power as those who spoke before me on this one. The one thing I did notice though in the quote, um, in the comments section, if, if work is extended beyond the quoted days, the will be $1,200 extra per day.

Um, that I'm a little— there's a little bit of discomfort with that language. Is there any scenarios we can identify for folks? I'm actually, I guess, just kind of reaching out to those who are familiar with these systems or pumps and installation or repairing them. That $1,200 a day, I worry about creep on this one. Do we have any collective concerns for that language?

No. No. Steve.

Give me just a second to look again to confirm what I'm thinking. I'm trying to see whether they send 1 or 2 people, and I thought it was 2.

Cody, do you remember? For the—. Is the question for the installation? The install. It's one technician, one electrician, one crane operator, but essentially—.

Okay, the technician they're sending, that's from the pump company, correct? Correct. And it's one person? Correct. Yes.

And so our facilities maintenance staff is there to assist and learn. That is the other goal of this, is to train them how to properly install these, because there were some other things that were identified in the past that may or may not have been done correctly. And so it's essentially OJT. And then the other thing that I'd like to point out is that the existing system right now, like 3 and 4, they do not have any electric motors or anything attached to them right now. They're completely inoperational.

And so it's basically a boom just picks it up, and through— there's a hatch in the roof. And then they are already ready for installation of the new. The order has already been placed for the new pumps, which as of the 22nd, we were notified that they were working through the process to have them expedited as best as they can. Ryan, you had a question. I didn't have a question.

I wanted to make a statement in response to Mr. Whiteside's question on whether or not the 1,200 extra per day was— of any concern. In my experience, this is fairly standard language to protect client or customer-provided add-ons. So because of this is specific to this, I wouldn't have any fear of that. And in addition to that, I have 1,000% confidence in Cody and his team to maintain scope and accountability or controlling of this project. So I have no concern on that from a contractual standpoint.

It just doesn't bother me at all. Steve. I'm going to kind of reiterate what Ryan said, and that's why I had asked how many people. I think this is within reason from contracting because You are talking about a hotel, per diem for food, and hourly wage. And that— this is a Davis-Bacon type job, though it may be small enough.

I don't know whether they separate things, parts and labor, but still, this type of job that is well within the standard range would probably be what the company I work for would charge. Any further discussion? Discussion or questions? Seeing none, thank you, Cody. Okay, then next is discussion on the future state of Signal Hill.

Staff report, Seema. Thank you, Mayor Arndt. Cody is here to discuss the recent site visit with the City of Kodiak Building Official Ted Hanson and Sheriff share some of their findings.

Good evening, AO, Mayor, and KAB Assembly members. I wanted to take a moment this evening to share updated information regarding the Signal Hill Project, also known as the Mental Health Building Abatement and Demolition Project. As of today, the crew has completed 40% of the interior demolition and is currently working on containerizing all the PCB waste. We filled our first container this afternoon. Noon, and Jenna and I had the pleasure of inspecting it.

It is filled to the brim. We anticipate transitioning to asbestos abatement activities next week. However, on April 16th, with the interior framework fully exposed, I requested that the City of Kodiak Building Official Ted Hansen accompany me on a walkthrough of both buildings to conduct a brief visual inspection of concerns that I had for structural integrity. Together, we examined all the areas of concern, and Mr. Hanson provided a verbal assessment of the existing structure, noting that the building cannot be repurposed for anything other than residential use. He also expressed concerns regarding several interior modifications that have impacted the structural components of the facility.

Mr. Hanson recommended that ENF staff update the KIB assembly as the project progresses and emphasized that any potential remodel will require an evaluation by a structural engineer to identify and address any issues. Additionally, he noted that all future modifications must comply with current international building code standards. At this point in time, I had asked Mr. Hansen if he could provide a written summary for the Assembly. Instead, he suggested that it would be more appropriate for him to appear before you at a future meeting and suggested that if a subject matter expert's opinion needed to be on the record, he expressed his willingness to to exist whenever it became necessary or plausible. I am presenting this information to the Assembly for two key reasons.

First, to provide an update on the current status of the project and the condition of the facility. And second, to ask whether the Assembly would like to invite the Building Official to a future meeting to help clarify the limitations of the existing structure and offer his professional recommendations. The additional concerns that have been discussed from the contractor's point of view on the most recent walkthrough this afternoon included mold growth on structural framework of the exterior walls with no mold abatement in the scope of work. There is also potential for mold to expand into other parts of the interior walls in the left building because mold was prevalent throughout. I present this information to you and thank you for your time and consideration.

Scott, and then Ryan. Is there a way to treat the mold? With gas or something like that to try to get rid of it. Light it.

Agent Orange would work for me. I am not the person to speak to mold abatement. Can we find out about that? Thank you. Ryan.

Yes.

So I'm— I'm less interested, not for any reason other than I like written documentation, I'm less interested in an actual appearance of the city official than I am in receiving an actual written report. I would love a written report because that, to me, in the project management world, starts our business case, right? And so as we look to future use and conditional uses for this facility, that is a critical document. And I would hate to have to go back and watch a video of a presentation to get specifics when, uh, that written documentation would help me, um, prepare other ideas or discussion topics for the potential use. Uh, and to Dr. Smiley's question, there are multiple ways to treat mold depending on the species.

Species or genome of the mold. What we're probably dealing with in this particular instance is a mold called Aspergillus, which is prominent in Kodiak. That can be treated by ozone, that can be treated by chemical application, or it can be treated by encapsulation methodologies as well. Thank you.

Jared. I'd like to see if the building official is— is willing to, I would like to see both a written report and then I am sure I will have questions.

So if he is willing to come and present the report or respond to questions or clarifications or comments from the Board, I would actually like both. Larry.

Is there a possibility that you might have the time sometime to walk an assembly member through the buildings?

We, we are currently in a kind of dangerous situation. Wouldn't be ideal to bring anyone in at this moment. They're tentatively scheduled to wrap up with that effort towards the end of next week and transition into the asbestos abatement, which is the next hazardous evolution. But at the conclusion of that, and once we get clearance testing, I would have no problem taking anyone through. Thank you.

Any further discussion? Thank you, Cody. Um, we're going to take a 5-minute break before we progress into budget review. Thank you.

Disaster Center and tribal offices. So there should be multiple places where they can hang out and hang out. I know they have planned Friday night family movie nights there. I don't know how it's gone. I know that it was hot in the schedule, so this is a good thing.

This is possible about what movies and things. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I've seen some down below, and then in this building there are several title pictures. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Really interesting. The two houses right perfectly. The church was taken off that foundation.

Yeah, that's a code red. And the church is not a candidate. One click, it was covered. Nothing. Just— that's like the hottest thing.

Yes, I'd love to see that early paintings. I remember when, because Mayor and I were there and I gave the tour, but it was She goes through the building. Yeah, you took us through there briefly. First year growth, non-polluting, no respiratory hazards. It's a nice building.

When it smiles at you, that's when it's bad. Came out real nice.

The artwork wasn't up when you were there yet, was it? No, it was still, it was still just steel.

Nice artwork, several of which were done by local natives. Oh, cool. Yeah, I need to head— I'll head over there. You know, I think I'm going to try and hit, uh, Uzinkee and Fort Alliance first before I head back to Polk County. She's fine.

Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, take a few tours of the building now that it's finished. School board meeting on Monday.

I got warning. Make sure you're right. I am now. I chose you to do that to you. I had no idea when we planned to get on the lesson in CPR today.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll reconvene the work session. Um, next item is FY 2026 budget review for a general fund department, a special revenue fund, and several enterprise funds. Staff report. Okay, go for it, Seema. Thank you, Mayor.

The FY 26 budgets, um, being presented for review tonight are the general fund for ENF, the special revenue fund for building and grounds, and the enterprise funds for hospital, KFRC, and the research court apartments. Jenna and Dora are here tonight to go through the budget.

Go for it, Jenna. Okay, we can start with 135 Engineering Facilities. I think last time with some of the other department heads you went directly through like line item by line item, if that's how we want to do it, or if you have questions. Okay, go through it line by line, please. Do I just wait for questions, or should I say the line by line?

Go and they'll stop you if they have questions. So start with salaries. And do I just say the salary, or just salaries? Any questions? No.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Okay, and my dyslexia like hits right now, so excuse me. Um, so salaries, we have $391,500. This has been updated from last year's budget for seasonal help. We also updated some staff's projected time in ENF. We are having our project staff now charges for next year to the ENF facility that fund until the actual project is approved by the assembly, and then it gets distributed to different projects from there.

Yeah, thank you. Continue. Um, next slide item would be our temporary help, $33,000. We increased it with hope for additional help this year. Um, we've had some applicants in the winter.

Um, we only needed 2 at the time, but we're hoping for the summer to do some additional work around the borough.

Overtime is at $2,000.

Cell phone stipend is at $1,596.

Thank you. Unemployment taxes is $428. FICA taxes are $32,767. We have group insurance at $136— $136.04. I'm terrible at this.

Retirement, $111,485. Workman's compensation, $5,905.

And do I say the personal service totals, or— nope. Okay, go for it, Scott. Um, you've increased the group insurance by roughly $50,000. Why is that?

Well, that's a good answer.

So our group insurance isn't a percentage-based, it's a per-policy amount, and so it depends on how many people are allocated to a particular fund on what that policy cost is. And then we also have an increase in our insurance premiums for this next coming coming year. Well, actually, it started this next month, but it'll be effective all of next year as well.

Thank you. Continue, Jenna. So office supplies is $1,800, operating supplies $1,000. Oh, okay. Just yell if you have questions.

Printing and binding is $3,500. Dues, books, and periodicals is $500. Furniture and fixtures, $2,500. Machinery and equipment less than $5,000, $1,000. Food, businesses, lunch, meeting rooms is $500.

Advertising and hearings is $2,000. Continuing education, we have $5,000. Recruit and relocation, $1,000. Travel and per diem, $2,500. Rent, $89,555.

Telephone and communications, $1,200. Maintenance and repairs, zero.

Ryan.

And then, Bo also had his hand. I'm going to get started on this. So, it has been no secret that I'm pretty big on professional development. I think the professional development in the ENF or Department 135 is dramatically underfunded. So what I would like to see is maintaining a balanced budget somehow.

However, your dues and periodicals going up and your continuing education with professional credentials also going up.

I think that as we are striving to make changes within the borough organization-wide. I think that professional credentials is one of those stands that I'm going to stand on until I exit the assembly. So I'm going to ask that we increase the continuing education and the dues and periodicals. I know that the dues and periodicals is dramatically underfunded for the source material that will help you do your job. In my organization, we spend about $90,000 a year on dues and periodicals and memberships.

And so to see such a low amount with such a large swath of responsibilities, I think you are setting yourself up for having a difficult time staying with the changing times. My rationale for this, so there are 3 different standard sets that govern within the engineer facilities and specifically within your operating world. So there's a specification standard, a consensus standard, and a performance standard. The consensus standards alone, those would be things like NFPA or National Electrical Code. Those are where the lion's share of dues and periodical fees come into place.

However, the performance standard and the specification standard, those are mainly subscription-based services. So if you were to go and try and look up ISO standards, those would be a per ISO standard fee. So as we try to move forward, forward in professional development and education, I would like to see those numbers increased. That is my rationale. Thank you.

Steve, Bo, and then Dave.

I see that retirement went up from Fairmount. Is that because several people retired? What is—. More people on the payroll. More people on the payroll.

Percentage.

Okay. Okay, Bo. Also, the state retirement contribution actuaries decide some of that, and so that rate also increased. So not only are we having a few more FTEs allocated to that department, the rate increased as as well.

Bo? Thank you. I am going to piggyback on Mr. Sherrod's recommendation. I agree that there should be an increase in continuing education for this department and dues, books, and periodicals. The more we invest in our staff, the better service they are going to provide the public.

I know exactly where we can get a substantial amount of money to balance this line, Mr. Sherrod. I believe we should deduct this amount, whatever they feel is appropriate, from assembly and mayoral travel.

And I mean it. Guess what? Let's see, Dave.

Continue. So under 220, buildings and grounds, um, Fund 00, fund revenues, the American Rescue Plan is $0. PERS on behalf of payment is $6,237.

Interest earnings is $27,500. Change in fair market value is zero.

And KIB is $550,000— $515,298. City of Kodiak, $211,812. KIB School District $168,758. Burial Building Annex, $7,176. Land Sale Fund, $0.

And then miscellaneous is $0. Other is $120.

Use of fund balance, $1,103,967.

Facility funds is zero. I know we will get into how we get to that use of funds later. So questions? Oh, Jarrod, sorry. Oh, it's all fine.

This has come up, I think, tangentially.

Maybe many years ago, and I think— I don't think we've talked about it much since, is— so the KIBSD line for rent, we know that they have an increased ask this year. What is our feeling about not charging them rent? We increased it 2 years ago, right, but by the amount of the rent. Right. Um, so the rent is included?

Well, we, we charge the rent as part of in-kind services, right? But we gave them an additional $200 and, um, whatever that— what is the school? 211? No, 168. 168, 758.

We increased their The appropriation from the borough for the amount of the rent canceled it out, and that's gone forward every year. So what would happen— would anything happen then if we just zeroed it out and then took that from in-kind? I guess I don't know— understand exactly how this works, Dora's saying. Something. Dora.

Like, so I mean, I mean, here's the, here's the thing about this is that, right, we're going to try, I think, our best to try to meet the school district's ask. And is there a way to take away this rent that we charge them in order to help fulfill their ask, I guess, is what I'm getting at.

—Do in-kind. In-kind is for property insurance, automobile insurance, the— oh, there it goes. So the repair and maintenance contracts that we have to take care of their facilities go through the in-kind, and that's determined by the Department of Education on what can do what we can do with in-kind. So the rent doesn't have anything to do with that. That's why I was shaking my head.

So what we did was we increased the appropriation to the school district to cover the rent 2 years ago, and we've done that each following year since that time. I don't remember that as our purpose at all, at any point. For increasing the school district's ask. We can go back and— but still, I mean, I don't think it really matters because I still don't think that gets to the question that I'm asking. And I would maybe defer to some of our people with school district experience.

Maybe we can't do it, but I have a feeling that we just don't charge them rent and then we can give and then we can budget for them an extra $168,000 in their ask, or to help fulfill their ask. Dora?

I know in discussions with the EF director, um, he counts on that money to do projects for the school district, and you'll see that later in, um, the school repair money for the departments. So the major school repair department, Giniak, items like that.

Jared, are you okay? So, but, but that's just— I mean, that's just past practice. I mean, that's not in code or anywhere that that rent money— it's not— it's unrestricted, right? Well, it's in the special revenue fund, so it's restricted to the purpose of the fund, and the purpose of the fund is to care for buildings. So it is— okay, so it is— so this rent money is restricted to the purpose of the fund?

It's going to, yes, which is building and grounds. Okay, thank you. Okay. Larry.

The rent they're charging the school district is a carryover. When school district moved their central office, they paid rent for this building, and when they move over there, the rent— however, I'm just wondering, they've expanded their student use of that building, and the money was for administrative use, and I know they've taken over at least 2 more classrooms, I think, in the last year for early learning. So do you know if they have adjusted the rent to account for the increased use of classroom space? Yes, we've decreased the rent according to the increase in their instructional space. All right, thank you.

Any further questions, Dora, at this time? Okay, continue.

232 Borough buildings personal services salaries at $97,037. Temporary help $10,000. Overtime $1,500. Cell phone stipends $1,600. Unemployment taxes $110.

FICA taxes $8,426. Group insurance $37,654.

Retirement, $27,916. Workers' compensation, $4,725.

Personal services under contracted services, we have $50,000. Next. What might that be?

So our contractor services, we do MainX for, um, maintenance program that we use right now for work orders. That's also for Premier Mechanic, Local Electric, or contractors if we need work done in the building. Thank you. Continue.

Legal services, $5,000. Support goods and services, office supplies, $300. Question for you. You— oh, under the manager's On the legal, you've got $5,000, but on the Level 2, it's been taken out. It's down to zero.

I don't have notes for that. I'm taking it Amy took it out of there. That's what I'm assuming. Yes. That was one of the ones we were saving money on.

Yeah, one of the adjustments that we sat and went through. So we— I guess we went through that. —Reduced that to zero. Because our actual amount for last year was zero. Yeah, and this year we just moved it to zero.

Yeah, thank you.

Support goods and services, office supplies $300, operating supplies $5,000, printing and binding zero, furnitures and fixtures, fixtures zero, machinery equipment less than $5,000, $2,500.

Insurance and bonding, zero. Property insurance, $7,800. General liability insurance coverage, zero. Repeat that under the property insurance. $70,800.

$70,800 For property insurance. General liability insurance coverage, zero. Insurance coverage discount, zero. Continuing education $5,000. Recruitment and relocation, zero.

Travel and per diem, zero. Tele— telephone and communications, zero. Electricity, $75,000. Fuel and heating, $25,000. Fuel for vehicles, $5,000.

Water and sewer, $15,000. Snow removal and sanding, $15,000. Refuse— okay, refuse collection disposal, $9,000. Janitorial services, $70,000.

Anybody have any questions on this page?

Continue, Joe.

Page 4, Department 232 for Borough Buildings, um, support goods and services, maintenance and repairs. We have $25,000. Auto maintenance and repairs, $12,500.

Licenses and permits, zero. Safety supplies, $2,000. Recycling services, $3,200. Clothing allowance, $700. David.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I have not sat through a borough budget presentation, at least like this. So I'm struggling, I guess, with when's the right time to ask questions or whatnot. If you got a question on a line item, go ahead. OK.

So I mean, that's why I asked on that. Yeah, well, I guess my question would be though, like, is there a point that we're going to be told, okay, this budget represents this idea that we're going to add an FTE or remove an FTE, or we're going to, you know, we're planning on this project is in here, or like, I mean, just because to me I'm not gaining value from, you know, if like the salary number, for example, Um, first number we look at, $391,500 for salaries. 2025'S amended budget was $195,000, so we're essentially going up $197,000. So that's about 2 FTEs. Now, are we adding FTEs to this department?

Am I going to be told that, or am I supposed to infer it? Like, I just don't know what's going on, and so I'm— I don't know. If you look at what this year's is, you'll notice it's above the budget. It's like $250-some thousand. Right.

I'm not on that page, so I'm just quoting at that. And we're 3/4 of the way through the year, a little bit more, so it's going to be higher than that. I think the full FTEs, I think Cody was one of those and Patricia was. I'm not sure how they've got it all lined out, but— Unfortunately, Amy's not here. She'd be able to answer that for you.

When we go up in salaries, I can make comment, um, because I know for the next ones we're hoping to get like a maintenance supervisor. Okay, so I guess that's what I would want to know when we go over our budget anytime, is that if we're adding an FTE, adding or removing FTEs, if we're, um, because if it's steps and columns, that's one thing, but if we're adding FTEs, that's a whole nother, a whole different conversation. Conversation to have. And I think the same with any capital investments. Like, we need to— if the only time the borough assembly gets to weigh in on whether or not we are going to make capital purchases during this, I want to have it called out specifically.

Right. And those are coming up, so I figured we would be talking about them here too. So, Jenna? Can I switch pages? Where was my last tab?

You went through the clothing allowance. Clothing allowance. Okay. So we have equipment, auto liability insurance, zero. Capital outlay, machinery and equipment greater than $5,000, we have $10,000.

Automotive, we have $50,000. Remodel renovation, zero. On that automotive, what's the reason for the $50,000 when we— Bought vehicles. We bought vehicles, but we still have for, um, those two red and green trucks that are used quite frequently with temp laborers, and they're kind of getting older, and we just had one towed out from the flats. So the additional vehicle for like usually during summer months or winter months for maintenance staff.

Okay, thank you. New pickup.

And operating transfers out, it's capital projects, we have $100,000.

Any idea what that's for? I do. I just have to go between my two pages.

Um, I'll give Jenna a second. The, the reason we sat with Jenna and Amy and tried to reconfigure this is I'd like to get some consistency on how we treat capital projects within our budgets. Special revenue funds are a little different. They have revenues that come in specific to that fund, and it's not generally taxpayer money. Those are the taxpayer money are handled through the education fund and the general fund.

So trying to, um, rather than put $50,000 in maintenance and repairs for the abatement costs, we went through the budget and shifted that $50,000 down to the capital projects area. So that $100,000 for capital projects is $50,000 for abatement and $50,000 for windows. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're automatically approving those items when you approve the budget. It just means— it just lets you know that we're looking at doing some capital projects to the building. You'll see the contracts when they come before you.

And this doesn't also mean that it's only going to cost $50,000 or for either project. So, and so if it's more, we could only anticipate spending $50,000 of it this year and maybe continuing the project into next year, funding it next year as well. So windows was $50,000, and what was the other $50,000? Abatement, asbestos. But if those projects are less than the manager spending authority, would we still know what those were?

I believe all contracts go to you. Even my $25,000 time clock contract went to you.

[Speaker:DR. BOLL] If I recall that conversation, it was because it was part of a broader—. [Speaker:MS. KELLY] It was part of ARPA, yeah. [Speaker:DR. BOLL] But so my question is not rhetorical. We have enabled a manager to spend $50,000, and I am aware that there are contracts that have not come to us that are less than $50,000. So how would we know that these projects that you are moving funds in.

Yeah, this, this just doesn't sit right with me. Capital projects getting funded like this doesn't sit right with me. So sometimes they sit in like maintenance and repairs, and I think that's what Dora explained earlier, is like they were there before and we were going through them with the intent like these are actually capital projects and not just maintenance and repairs. It would be a larger scale, so we thought it'd be more appropriate to move to capital projects. And that just made sense at the time, but that was like the thinking behind it.

Good question, all right. I guess we'll come back to it later. Continue, Jen. So renewal and replacement projects, $0.

Next department is 233, Mental Health Center. Personal services salaries, zero. Temporary help, zero. Overtime, zero. Unemployment taxes, zero.

FICA taxes, I'm glad with that. They're the easy ones. I can say those without really, um, so this whole page we're gonna have zeros. Um, we go down to capital projects. I mean, that's right, yeah, capital projects, um, design services, $200,000.

Let's go back to contracted services to $25,000. What is that contracted services under the mental health center?

Originally, I believe it was for part of it doing the capital project without like surveying or other design work, but then it made more sense to put it down capital projects. [Speaker:KARUBAS] You see why I'm confused on capital project spending and where it's in different columns and codes, and it's, it's almost like you need a cipher for this. So I'm— I'd like to see some consistency with where we put capital monies and spend from. So thanks.

So do you have an idea what the $200,000 in design services—. And that's for the mental health center, so the Signal Hill building. So if we want to do renovation or tear down or additional work over there for next year. So it's not necessarily design services, it's capital. Oh, wait.

Money. So we decided on what we're doing. Well, it's however we would like to move forward with the buildings over there.

Okay, and we have 234, um, school buildings, KIB, contracted services. $24,500. And idea on what that's for? That is the last year's insurance cost for the building. Now the school doesn't have it, we'll be picking up that insurance cost.

On Northstar? Yes, sorry. Okay, it didn't— it just said buildings and ground, it didn't say what.

February, or when we did this, there wasn't any indication of what you were going to do with the building, so I really don't have a very good place to put it. Okay, thank you. Any other questions by anyone? Continue, Jenna. So 234, school buildings, KIB.

This one is for 225, Carlick Closed school personal services are all zero, legal services are zero. We get to support goods and services. There is $5,000 in travel and per diem in case staff has to go out to Carlick site to do continual work with the soil.

Um, and then we go down to contracted services, which has $150,000 Are you saying that's for potential CARLRC even though we haven't heard anything from DEC? Yeah, but reading back, they did—. We had an estimate of if we are to put drill wells out there, they estimate that would cost around $80,000, one of the contractors. So it's just funding in case they— DEC does move forward with making us do more monitoring. Okay.

Thank you.

Oh, Dave, I'm sorry, this is not completely related, but so is the, is the contamination caused by the something at the Carlock School? A fuel— fuel tank. Oh, so it's the old fuel tank at the school. Okay, so there's some remediation, um, 10 years ago, but there was no delineation of where the plume was, so there— DEC might require us to do some more monitoring levels to see. Thank you.

235, School buildings, major repairs, contracted services is $250,000.

Any idea what?

Um, so elevator rebuild for the middle school, design services, and third-party inspections.

Any other questions? I'm good there. Professional services, $50,000.

That's been eliminated. Oh, sorry, you're right, I'm looking at the wrong ones. $0 Professional services, zero to the line item above, went from $200,000 to $250,000. Correct. Um, next is the support goods and services.

They are all zero until we get to maintenance and repairs, which is $50,000.

And that's to cover if it goes over the $250,000.

Next is 237, Cheneyak School. Temporary help for personal services is all zero. Professional services is zero. Along with support goods and services. Then we have capital projects, non-borough buildings, $100,000, and that is for utility system and repairs evaluation design at that location.

It's for what now? Chiniac. Is that for the painting? Um, and there's also painting going to be out there as well for the summer, but also Conversations are going on about the water out at Cheneyak School, and if further work needs to be done or we hit the 25 student and teacher person limit out there, a whole different kind of regulation begins. So it— yes, then we move and we probably will need more disinfection possibly.

Monday when I looked at the projections for Cheneyak on a attendance for next year, it didn't look like we had any problem staying under that with the adults in the building too. Sorry, I don't have that with me, but I was surprised. I thought it was more students. It was in the teens, low teens. So, might have been 13, could have been 15.

So that takes you through the buildings and grounds on Chiniak School.

Next we have 238, maintenance building.

They're all zeros until we get to contracted services, which is $5,000. Then we go into support and goods where we have fuel and heating is $25,000, water and sewer is $2,000, maintenance repairs is $10,000. Next is capital projects, which is zero, and we have construction services Construction services at $450,000. This is the building out here. Yeah, this needs to go away.

There's no way that I would agree with spending $450,000. Dave tried this before and it failed on there.

I can see No reason to spend $450,000 on that block building. Basically, we can put a boiler— if you're looking at heat, we can put a regular Burnham boiler inside the building. It does not have to go. We don't have to waste the money on the abatement of the existing. You just leave it in place for the time being on there.

But $450,000 for that building, no way I'd be in favor of that. Bo? So I'm just— I'm not following this one. I don't have the context. Could you just help slow walk me through what needs to be done?

So it needs a roof replacement. There's some leaking going on over in that building. Also, we have the boilers over there and then associated maintenance. There's buses over there on site. Okay.

And how would you rank the time sensitivity of those?

I feel like it's, it's been like that way for a little bit, but as it continues, we're seeing the moisture over at the mental health with the mold in there. So if we wait for things to happen, we could have to like do bigger projects in the end. Okay, thank you. I guess we would request a breakdown of what's anticipated there, because when we went through this before on the boiler for this building, there was an additive alternate for $300,000 or $400,000 for dealing with the boiler system over there. Not interested in doing that.

We can take a look at doing repairs on a roof. I have no problem with that while you look at replacement of it.

Ryan. So this brings up an interesting, I guess, process question.

We have these concepts that staff says, hey, we've got this facility, we want to spend $450,000. We learn about this— at least I'm learning about this here in this setting.

I haven't been on the assembly long enough to know the legacy background of all of the things that you guys have and haven't tried. So had we not have asked the question, would this just be consent of project from lack of questioning? I guess I'm concerned on how we're spending almost half a million dollars. It would end up coming as a contract back to to us on there. But we would— first we would end up— first we would end up coming with a design contract for the scope of the services and then go from there.

Dave? But Mr. Mayor, if I could ask Dora, because my understanding of why we would set this up as a capital project is because it makes it money— multi-year money that can then sit and not have to be looked at again by the Assembly. So that's where— that's why I'm asking, you know, that's why I was asking my kind of alerted questions the first time around, is if that question weren't asked right now and this were to be approved through, through the reading, right? Am I correct in saying that that would create a capital project fund with $450,000 in it when the budget was approved? No, these are not capital project funds.

These are special revenue funds, and they're budgeted annually. So if you— if we don't use this money, if we don't move this money with a budget ordinance like you're gonna see later into a capital project, it just stays in the fund. So, so honestly, if you want to— if you're uncomfortable with these, take them out. It doesn't make any difference because I'll just— if, if the project comes to fruition, then we just come to you with the contract and then move the Budget adjustment. As an adjustment quarterly.

I think it's a good heads up of what projects are intended, of what we're seeing about like what needs to be done. Yeah, Bo and then Ryan. Thank you. I don't want to marginalize your recommendations either, um, so I don't have that history of, of this building, so it would be helpful for me if the, the big hitters, if you could just at a future meeting just let us know what they are and, and why you feel that they should be addressed and what the consequences of not addressing them. I would really like to know that.

I do respect your opinion and your recommendation. I just don't have the information to, I guess, guide this line item. Ryan. Yeah, I guess this just goes back to process. So I think what would really help me, because I don't have the background information nor the bandwidth to keep this stuff in my brain strain.

What would really help me is, is a list of our facilities, a list of discrepancies in our facilities, a list of the top 3 things that need to be done at these facilities, what the time sensitivity is, and what the anticipated rough order of magnitude is. That would really help me rationalize where money is being allocated in here. I could look at a facility and say, okay, well, we need this at Northstar. We need this at the project office. We need this over here.

And it would give us an opportunity to say, okay, we know what's coming in the next 3 months or 6 months. I won't remember this $450,000 at about 9:30 tonight. And so I won't have that recall, unfortunately. I'm sorry. I've got some other things in my head.

So if we could get— list of facilities that we own and the discrepancies or recommendations that you guys are looking for for that fiscal year so that we can look at a cohesive statement between the need and the budget request, that would really help me rationalize this. Yeah, and Projects is definitely working on projects list right now, which is very helpful for getting the ROMs and seeing what's needed and then prioritizing different projects. So that totally aligns with what you are saying, but doing with all the facilities.

Anyone else have any?

Larry? Well, I guess I just want to— is I think what Ryan was saying is it would be nice to look at all of the needs, especially school district needs. Right now it is very difficult. To set priorities. It used to be, as we know, the state used to pay for all school repairs.

They haven't done that for years. And so when we have a finite amount of money, how do we prioritize? And I think that's an assembly— something the assembly would be very interested in since we have some very expensive school projects coming up. The other question is, when we budget for these things, are we assuming that the facilities office has the time to carry them through? Or are they overloaded?

Do they— I mean, are we just putting placeholders in here, or has facilities sat down and looked at these projects and said, we can do these? And that's what Projects is working on right now, that project list, to see, like, having a plan forward and, like, projecting, like, winter, summer construction months, design months, and things like that, so we actually have something to follow and not just doing design work and it not going somewhere, definitely having that prioritization. And— I [SPEAKING SPANISH] can't get it right now, but yeah, no, we probably— we can get that generated. I don't mean today, by the way. Yeah, during the month of May.

And we do have a project list. Yeah, but we have one too, like, it has like designs and like what's anticipated. Anticipated for the next couple of years and kind of being more proactive instead of reactive when things pop up.

Okay. Continue.

Next we have the 241 Projects Office.

We have— Nothing under personnel services. We go to support goods and services. Electricity is $1,200. Fuel and heating is $3,000. Water and sewer is $4,000.

Maintenance and repair is $10,000. What's the possibility of getting the vacancy rate when there's not anyone in the project's office on the sewer and water?

I can ask the question. I know currently— I think we already have it. And I— 4,000, I don't think so. There's two, I think there's two hookups over there, as I recall. But I can, I mean, we can definitely check.

But I know at one time we, we talked about that along with the mental health building too, at the same time, because they were both vacant. Yeah, okay, just raising the question there because it didn't It doesn't look like a vacancy rate. Continue, Jen. Do you want to know about the maintenance and repairs for— Right. $10,000.

Then admin is under capital projects, zero.

Next is the E&Y Annex Building. What is that, the Red Cross Building? Correct.

Professional services, zero. And support goods and services, we have electricity, $1,200; fuel and heating, $3,000; water and sewer, $2,000; maintenance and repairs, $5,000. What's the, what's the status of that facility since it's been unoccupied? Is that— what condition is that facility? The Red Cross is currently renting that facility.

And we are in conversations right now if the possibility of moving them over to the Projects Office because there are two halves. And then we would then no longer use that building. And it was my understanding that there is an underground storage tank that also needs to be removed from that. Is that anywhere in this fund line or has that been scrubbed?

I don't recall seeing that. I'm not seeing it in this one. So if we can— your mark, because I know that that's a UST that you guys said was important to remove. We tried piggybacking it on this contract over here. We had a discussion about the funding amount of that.

So if we could at least revisit that to see if that project can stay on our forefront. UST is bad. AST is good.

Ryan good, Scott bad.

That Scott, not this Scott.

Next is 000, fund revenues. Interest earnings are all zero. Rents and royalties We have Providence lease at $1,384,272.

Miscellaneous classified other— oops, sorry, that's a zero. And operating transfers in— there's zero. One thing I would throw out here, and then, Ryan, I'll get to you, is there were some discussions about renegotiating the lease amount to help cover more of the major maintenance on there. Right now I understand it hasn't been done, so we're extending it at what the current lease amount is. But is there anything you'd be able to add at this time, Dora, or not?

Okay. Ryan. [Speaker:RYAN] That was mine, is that the discussion that we had in regards with Carl's presentation and the incoming new representative indicated no interest in the, in the purchase of the building, but indicated renegotiation. And I'd love to get that quantified into this statement, because much like Assemblymember LaDew just mentioned, we have some extremely large expenditures coming down the pipe on this one, to the tune of what we just heard, $20 million $1 million, which is 1/5 of what we heard earlier. So the range is $20 million on the low side and $100 million on the high side.

So I would love to see some actual quantification in here with renegotiations. And I know we can probably get something put together relatively quick on that. [Speaker:CHAIRMAN BRYANT] Okay, Jenna, continue.

Next, page 14, 740, hospital enterprise funds under personal services, allocated salaries, $40,319. And that is a portion of the borough manager's salary, if I remember correctly. And engineering and facility, and I think finance. Dora? Yes, that That $40,000 is the administrative fee that the lease allows us to take.

The lease allows you to take for those 3 positions. So that amount goes to the general fund to offset work that staff does on behalf of the hospital fund. Okay, and so that's tied to the current lease lease, a new lease negotiations would change all subsequent numbers then here down the list. Am I— is that a safe assumption? Are all of these expenditures tied directly to the lease?

Uh, no, I think the only one that's actually tied to the lease is that $40,319. Okay, perfect. Thanks. Continue, Jen. Professional services is zero, legal Services, zero.

We get down into support goods and services. We have R&R repairs and maintenance at $283,861. I'm assuming there's a project there for that. Is that for the sanit— the U— let's see, disinfectant?

That repair and maintenance fee is the plug number. For the disinfectant project that you were just talking about. So I have to present a balanced budget. So I have the revenue and I have certain expenses that are fixed in here, like the depreciation, like the allocated salaries, and the difference goes to the repair and maintenance. That's why it's got the $861.

Balance is the budget, correct? Revenue less expenditure. Yes. So I just want to make sure I—.

So it's a placeholder. I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. So we don't actually know what that $283,000 is going to do. We just plug this number in to balance a budget, but we actually know we have far more than $283,000 that we have to actually spend on repairs and maintenance, right? This is an enterprise fund.

Enterprise fund on paper needs to balance. Got it. No, I really appreciate that clarity, um, but I'm just— I'm going to restate this. I'm going to restate it. So we know we have more than $283,000 in expenses because we just received a 30-minute presentation on the money that we're about to spend, but we don't actually list that money in here.

Why? Why? That, that money is in fund balance. If you look at your audit that you got, you'll find it in there under the enterprise. Any further discussion?

Continue, Jenna. Under depreciation, depreciation of buildings, we have $758,103 depreciation.

Question about that. That's about half of the lease agreement, is it? And this is mandated, the depreciation? Well, this is an enterprise fund, so enterprise funds have depreciation. Is it an actual cash expense?

No, but it's listed because it's an enterprise, it's a business-type operation. So what, so what happens is It goes into fund balance and then we pull out of fund balance for maintenance projects. Yes. Okay, thank you. So that is available in addition to the $283,861?

Correct. And whatever was in fund balance as of June 30th of last year, aside from the money in fund balance that goes to Mayor Trout. Oh, that's not on the this enterprise fund. Ryan, so if we have the $758,000 in depreciation that we pull from for repairs and maintenance, why do we not zero out the depreciation and put all $1.1 million in repair and maintenance? Because under GASB rules, we're not allowed to do that.

I, I, we have to charge the fund for depreciation. It has to be presented as a business with depreciation. Well, I'm pretty familiar with business, and I guess I'm just lacking the understanding why we are doing it this way. That this to me is cloudy. And so what's that?

A lot. Yeah.

Well, if we keep saying we're going to treat it as a business, but we're not going to actually run this like a business, and we're going to hide behind the term "the law," I'm going to call bullshit on that. Well, as somebody who manages 3 enterprise funds, 4 in Irving—. Hang on a minute. You're talking out of your ass. Point of order here.

Come on. Hang on a minute, gentlemen. To all of you, Dora, anything else you want to add at this point? —Point on there. Thank you.

Basically, with the government accounting on there, we treat it like a business with what is allowed within the government accounting standards. I understand what you're saying, Ryan, but that's not how it works on here. Jenna, continue. Dave, did you have any— okay. Continue.

Um, depreciating site improvement is $298,217. Depreciation of machinery and equipment, $3,772. We go down to operating transfers out. Capital projects, the hospital is zero. Next page.

Um, we are on, um, 555-KFRC, Department 000, um, fund revenues under federal— whoops, that one's federal grants, zero. We have state shared revenues, PERS on behalf of payment is $5,425.

Next is interest and earnings, loan interest $18,395. We go down to rent and royalties. We have NOAA lease through GSA, $665,028. Natural Resources Conservation through GSA, $28,334. Fish and Game lease, $66,958.

KFRC reception revenue $3,500. Kodiak Regional Aquaculture Association— Aquaculture Association is $18,924.

Questions? Miscellaneous classified are zero. Other financing revenues, use of fund balance is $1,327,589.

And we have a project list for that because it went up from the $638,000 to $1.3 million. I was guessing we have different projects going over at KVRC. We have a disinfection system. You should see the detail on the expense side.

Okay.

Operating transfers in towards Development, $20,000. And that's what we're taking out of the tourism fund for manning the touch tank.

Next is 758, Research Facilities. We have salaries at $82,207, temporary help. I guess I would Stop there a minute. Uh-oh. Oh, sorry.

We do have the maintenance supervisor's salary would also come out of the KFRC. So his salary is going to be divided to oversee different maintenance work being done at all the facilities. Okay, so that's moving over elsewhere. I'm just seeing 2025 amended budget $194,000, actual spent so far to date this year is $70,000. And we're only budgeting $83,000.

I know that $83,000 for next year when, um, uh, 2024 was $83,000. 2025, We had budgeted, um, for more, um, a maintenance supervisor, or not a building engineer, which I think is what's over there now, but a maintenance supervisor, which would be divided amongst some of the other funds And that was a 2025, and we did that again in this year, but we allocated that differently, so it was less allocated to this fund this year than in 2025. Isn't it a problem showing it over in this, uh, the research KFRC building when we're trying to, um, with the GSA contract, they only want to pay for What was there? I'm having trouble understanding why we even had that extra position even though we got it over here, not—. If it's directly maintenance, they'll cover it, but if it's an interpretive specialist, they didn't want to cover that salary.

Okay, well, you're saying that, uh, Jenna was saying it was a maintenance supervisor which was for the whole borough, not Just the KFRC building. See, that other, um, like buildings and grounds, I believe that salary was also included. Like, so much of that person's salary is allocated to different departments because they're going to be overseeing like all our maintenance program that we mentioned earlier. That goes through all of our facilities. And this, once again, the three, the three position engineering facilities, the manager, and finance.

Our charges against the KFRC building somewhere?

No, we don't— finance doesn't charge to them. I, I don't think so. Yeah, not that I'm aware. I, I don't think EF does either unless they're working on a specific project. Okay, thank you.

Continue. Temporary help, $10,000. Oh, sorry, $5,000. Wrong line item.

Um, that's— we have more, again, summer help this year to go over there and work at the facility and help our current staff. Overtime, $2,500. Allocated salaries, $24,000. Cell phone stipend, $6,000. $1,600.

Unemployment taxes, $97. FICA taxes, $7,444. Group insurance, $30,629. Retirement, $24,281. Workers' compensation, $4,174.

Employees' benefits, OPEB and pension expense— oops, sorry, zero. Then we have supports, good and services, office supplies $150. We have operating supplies $3,500, furnitures and fixtures $3,000, insurance and bonding $0, um, continuing education $3,500, telephone and communications $2,000, fuel and vehicle $2,500. Maintenance agreements, $25,000. Auto maintenance and repairs, $6,000.

License and permits, $10,000. Safety supplies, $3,000.

Clothing allowance, $700.

Next we have capital projects. Design services, $20,000. Construction services, $5,000. And I'm assuming we have a list for the $500,000. Yep, those include like some pump projects and also the disinfection system that's going to go over at KFRC.

Now—. Is that the ozone system? We're moving the ozone system, correct, over there. And then since we now have a discharge permit through Alaska State, we have to upgrade the disinfection system. Okay.

We are at the 758 again on page 17 for research facility, um, capital outlay, machinery equipment greater than $5,000 is $25,000. Next we have depreciation, depreciation of, depreciation of the buildings, $594,680.

Depreciation of site improvements, $93,782. Depreciation of machinery and equipment, $31,409.

Next we have cleaning, janitorial, etc. Contracted services, $60,000. Aquarium cleaning, $2,000.

Heating, um, we have fuel at $100,000. System maintenance and repairs at $25,000. Next is electrical. Um, electrical and light and power is $2,000. Replacement parts is $15,000.

Power and seawater system is $15,000. System maintenance and repairs also $15,000. Next is plumbing. Water is $50,000. Supplies is $3,000.

System maintenance and repairs is $35,000. Seawater pump repairs is $30,000. Air conditioning units, utilities, and ventilate, $1,000. Systems maintenance repair is $10,000. Elevators, we have system maintenance and repairs at $10,000.

Page 18, under 758 Research Facilities, under miscellaneous, Um, we have chemicals at $20,000. Then we have telephone and communications at $7,000. Snow removal and disposal, $20,000. Refuse collection, $9,000. Maintenance and repairs, $10,000.

And then we go down to building repairs, building maintenance and repairs, $10,000.

Next, we move to 556, Research Court Apartments, Department 000, fund revenues.

We have nothing under state shared revenues or interest earnings. We go down to rent and royalties. For the apartment rent, it's $88,200.

$130,000. Miscellaneous classified for other, zero.

That's it. Oh wait, no, sorry, um, other financing sources, use of fund balance, $34,067. We got a question for you, Larry. Are these the apartments next to the— what do we charge rent for those? I don't Do you have the rent?

Uh, $1,200 for a single and $1,850 for the two apartment or the two-bedroom.

Yes.

We also have a single apartment that we use for contractors that come on island to offset some of those costs when they come and stay and do work for us. So are there any permanent people that live there? It's all transition? Mostly with the hospital, like, transient come in and do work for them and they stay are at the apartment complex.

Any other questions? Jared. Just to clarify, the use of the fund balances is— that is the fund balance of the research court apartments, not our general fund balance? No.

That is correct. Long as it's encapsulated in this one fund.

Page 20, under, under Research Court Apartments, um, Department 759B Apartments, we have salary at $17,570, and unemployment taxes $18, FICA taxes $1,344, Group insurance, $7,025.

Retirement, $4,978. Workers' comp— compensation, $754.

Then we go down to support goods and services. Operating supplies, $500.

And telephone and communications, $1,500.

Next is depreciation. Depreciation site improvement, $34,067. Next is cleaning, janitor, etc., contracted services, $5,000. Heating fuel is $15,000. System maintenance repair is $5,000.

Electrical— electrical, light, and power is $6,000. Replacement parts is $1,000. Power and sewer system, zero. System maintenance and repairs, $25,000. Next is plumbing, water, $10,000.

Steve, I got to look at that.

Now this is for the research core departments. Correct, correct. And then, but I see— where did I see?

Oh, never mind, it was zeroed out. Sorry, I was off a line. Continue, Jenna. Last page for the 759 Apartments, we have system maintenance and repairs, $2,500. Air conditioning is zero.

Miscellaneous, we have machinery equipment $2,500. Maintenance and repairs $5,041.

Building repairs, we have building maintenance and repairs, which is also zero.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Now, what I'm hearing is that the Borough Assembly would like a list of the different projects on the different buildings, hopefully next month. Dave? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I think I'd also, you know, at some point before we go to first reading, like to see a breakdown of how many FTEs are in the currently approved, how many are currently employed, and how many are in next year's budget and where they will go exactly. So we gave that to you in the first— in the manager's budget.

There is a page in there that lists out each person's home department. I can definitely resend that though.

Thank you. That is humiliating. Thank you.

Those packets are huge. Unless you Unless you're looking for something specific, it's easy to overlook. I'll just resend it. Anyone? Bo?

Thank you. Thank you, Jenna. That's a lot. I'm just trying to think of how this could look in future iterations and in a way that would simplify it for you all presenting these figures to us and then also on our end understanding what you're presenting to to us. So I'm— I appreciate the discussion, um, and, and yeah, I think that that project list would give us a good idea of what we're going to have to give up.

So I think needs and wants are going to be a big part of our budget this year. We have a massive fiscal note coming our way, and we have a finite amount of revenue to dip into to cover expenditures for FY26. So this is Just a general reminder for folks who are going to be deciding what the budget looks like is start thinking about massive line item cuts you would be considering from these other departments should a full request be funded in the future.

Jenna, thank you very much. With that, I'm going to go ahead and we'll go into packet review. It's the next item on here.

First thing is awards and presentations. We have, uh, proclamation declaring the month of May 2025 Building Safety Month, proclamation and recognition of the National Salvation Army Week, proclamation declaring May 4th through 10th, 2025 as 6th Annual Professional Municipal Clerks Week. And then we move into public hearings. We have State of Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office, AMCO, new winery manufacturer sampling endorsement application for Friends by the Ocean LLC, doing business as Friends by the Ocean. Staff report, Nova.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Perfect timing, my computer locked up, so I'm just gonna— I'm gonna wing it now. Um, so we have received this, uh, application from Amco, and we did our due diligence and we investigated per code. The dispute about this application is that They, the applicants were asked to fill out the form and put down the premise of the winery. What's the address that's on the— so there's an address that's on the application, right?

But then when staff started their investigation and the certificate of occupancy or is it the zoning compliance? Is the, the winery is at a different address. It's located at a different address. So we have received comments from Community Development, Building Department, and the Assessing Department. And after that, I have contacted AMCO copied them in the email, and then also the applicants, and asked clarification on which address should we be using to investigate.

Ultimately, the answer that was given to me was use the, the address that was on the application. So we have received the comments from the departments, and we have given you 3 different motions as options But today I would like to pass to you, pass on this information to you, which was very interesting. Thank you. I'm almost done. Thank you.

This right here, this document right here, they were given a conditional— well, I'm calling it conditional permit. Technically, they have given them a permit already, subject to revocation if we file a protest within 60 days. And the address that's on the application is the correct address. So it looks like they have corrected it already with the correct address. So, um, my— there, there are 3 recommendations for motions, but I think the issue has been resolved.

And talking to Sima and also to Chris, they don't— they retract their objection to the application or their protest. I wasn't able to talk to Ted because he's out of the office until Monday, but it's the same reason why he's objecting. So I just wanted to share that information with you. This was given to me by the the applicants. Any questions?

Oh, so just—. I, I read this one, um, uh, but skipped ahead for next week. Um, so this is the, the address that they filed is the one circled here, and this is the, the correct one on file now, so they're good? Yes, they're good. Great.

Yep.

Any other questions or discussion? Seeing none, we'll move on. Resolution number FY2025-24, a resolution of the Assembly of the Kodiak Island Borough accepting the recommendation of the Borough Lands Committee to dispose of certain borough lands declared surplus to the public need and authorizing staff to prepare the parcel for sale at a future land auction. Staff report, Seema. Thank you, Mayor.

The Borough Land Committee on January 6, 2025, approved a motion recommending that the assembly declare surplus to public need the 4 lots identified on the draft preliminary plat dated February 22, 2019, and attached this agenda item as an exhibit to Resolution FY 2025-24. I believe that there are is a paper copy for a revised draft that you should also be looking at that is on the dais. The recommendation from the Borough Lands Committee included a recommendation to rezone the 4 lots from the Public Use Land District to Two-Family Residential District. The committee recommended that the parcels be sold through an outcry Action. Um, both the chair of the Lance Committee and the Community Development Director Chris French are here, and I don't— do you want to go first, Mayor?

Sure, on there. Um, Jared, I haven't— I started perusing this tonight, um, and, um, the— and it's talking about the conditions of the sale. Usually what we've done is get the process going on the— what do I want to say— on declaring it surplus, rezoning it, and then subdividing it on there. Get that process going and then talk about how we're going to do land sale and then potentially have public testimony on it too, not to include it in this part at this time. So are you amenable to that, or otherwise I think we need to have— this is a whole different thing rather than declaring it surplus and rezoning.

Jarrod? Sure. Thank you. Well, I think I see what you're saying, but this— the resolution as it's written now does conclude that process, and that will go to a future land auction, and that it will be for R2, for R2 lot. So I don't know.

I just like just binged one afternoon and was just going to tear into this one. No classes that day? Actually, no. And so what you see, really what you see here is, I mean, these are amendments in good faith, more to spur a conversation about what we do going forward, because I think we want to establish that also. The spirit of the thing, and please, these amendments, This has not been vetted by anybody, not by the clerks, not by the lawyer, not by Amy.

You know, these were just thoughts that I put in there to hopefully guide our direction a different way than what perhaps Community Development and Parks and— or not Parks, sorry, Planning and Zoning and the Lands Committee had initially intended.

The premise behind it is that I believe that we should give local families who are ready to buy a house, who have been pre-approved— I have talked to one this week, I know of another one, they are just waiting for that land, they've been pre-approved for construction, they are ready to go as soon as something opens up. This is not fair to them, because this is highest bid at an auction. They would be very clearly outbid by land speculators, by developers. They can't necessarily compete with them for this open— for this land that we're going to— disposed, this land that belongs to the public right now. So I tried to put— revise the language in here to get to, I think, that spirit of promoting local homeownership, promoting generational wealth, equity, financial equity, long-term residents, people who really want to put down roots.

And give them a shot first before moving it on to an outcry auction or whatever it is. So that's what all the red language in here is really getting at and laying out kind of that two phases for a potential sale, one that gives homeowners a shot first, local residents a shot first, and then open up to multifamily residential developers. We need both in this community. We need more housing. So, yes, we do need zones, R-2 zones.

But there are also people here ready, ready to build a house and continue to lay the roots there. So I just want to level the playing field, I think, a little bit between our— homegrown, uh, people here and, um, and others. So I don't— I don't— I'm not really interested in like nitpicking over the language and the words and stuff in here, um, because as you noted, there's, there's still things to do before that. But, um, I am not— I, I will say this, I probably will not support a resolution that, um, that doesn't include some kind of process to allow potential homeowners here to have access to that land. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER DIXON] Well, that's— but are you willing to— are you wanting to amend this resolution or substitute this?

Because there's a lot of discussion that needs to go in here and need to have public hearings. [Speaker:MR. BATTLES] Agreed. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER DIXON] And then you're slowing it down. Agreed. So to keep it moving, we have plenty of time to do this in work sessions, future work sessions on there.

It takes a while to get through the process on things with land developing. I mean, yes, I absolutely see your point. I would be willing to move this forward taking out all language related to outcry auction all references to an outcry auction and looking at lines 18 through 20 again that rezone it from a PL to an R-2 before we have had time to really think about what this would do to local homeowners. But the spirit of this— Absent of the outcry auction, yes. Okay, at this time, but remember the reason the outcry auction is in code, it is the interest of the borough to get fair market value.

It doesn't have to be. There is room in the code to do something different. I understand what the code says right now on that. We can do things different, yes. But I don't want to clutter things up on the process too much.

Too much right now because I think you need to have a talk with— we need to have a couple public hearings because you are changing—. Oh, no, yeah, I am not arguing against that at all. Scott and then Ryan. I think we should send Jarrod's version to the attorney. I think it is pretty good, but I think there is some concerns about some of the phrasing in there.

That attorneys love. So— [SPEAKING SPANISH] [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] Ryan. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER RHODES] I agree with Jared that there needs to be a clause for citizens versus businesses. And just to maintain consistency across initiatives that we are trying in other areas, I would just create a bidder's preference for private citizen, which keeps us congruent with like RFP processes and and things of that nature, or just having a bidder's preference. That way we're not— it's a slippery slope when you start favoring one side versus the other.

But if you create a bidder's preference, it's unilaterally applied. So that would be my recommendation. Bowen, then Steve. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Beat me to the punch. That was going to be my suggestion, is you can rank bidder preference based on these categories that you've outlined. I think it's a fantastic idea. I too would like to see this language get reviewed by our attorney to provide suggestions on how we could structure that for bidders' preference, but I think it's a great idea. I don't think I would support this going to a public outcry auction where both a business could bid against an individual in addition to it being intended for their primary residence.

We don't want developers, which I agree they are necessary for growth in our local housing and business development needs, but in this case, when folks are— have been dying for us to release land, if we don't give them a shot at it and they can't compete with the capital that these large entities can bring to the table and blow them out of the water, I think it's a fantastic idea. I also will not support any land going to an outcry auction without some sort of bidder preference for the little folks. Steve, and then Larry, then Dave.

I guess what I'd like to see proposed, get a feeling from other assembly members, is change the wording so that it is to be sold at a later date by a determined method. But at this point in time, we're requesting it to move forward through planning and zoning development and all that process, so things keep moving forward, and then we have time to develop the bidding process while they are doing that work, so we don't slow it down. And as far as the R-2, I would still be in favor of leaving that because I know who— people who can't really afford a house but can when they have additional income coming in. So I would leave that in because it doesn't make it so just developers want to buy it. Um, if I were to build a house now, I'd want a house with a small apartment on it.

About retiring, I'd probably be in the apartment and renting the house. But, um, that's my opinion. But yes, I'd like to see this move forward, eliminating the auction, just saying the— if they will be put to public auction, because they have to be at the public auction, and at a determined method. And for us to come up with a method while the other processes are moving forward Larry. Oh, Sima.

I just wanted to say that in the R-2, a permitted use is a single-family home. Right. So you can put that in there. Larry.

Well, I agree with Steve. I think we need to move forward to make declarations of what we'll support and not support when we don't have anything in front of us is probably a good thing to say, but It seems like all we do is delay land sales and it's been years and there's always a reason to stop. I think we need to move forward and I certainly would like stipulations that Jared has articulated. I hate to see it— I want to see houses and kids running around on it and I think we need to do that. I also think, by the way, that we need to figure out a way to find some incentive to the 400 and some landowners that have empty lots and aren't doing anything on them.

And we haven't done— we haven't done anything to even talk about it here. We're talking about 4 lots, okay, when there are hundreds out there, and we have done nothing to stimulate that or to lever them off. But I do agree we need to protect people that want houses. I don't agree sending this to the attorney. I think we need to send to the attorney what can we to accomplish the goal.

To have him go over a specific ordinance will cost us several thousand dollars probably for this kind of thing where the real question is what can we do. And I like the outcry— not the outcry, the— what, uh, yes, I like that. But I think those are the questions we need to ask the attorney instead of— what you've written is beautiful, don't misunderstand me, but, but all it does is refer to what you wrote and doesn't really address the real needs that we have to— what are— can we do legally to manage this kind of thing? And so I support going to the attorney with those questions. I support something to do the best we can to ensure it goes into private hands.

And I hope that sometimes the assembly will sit down and really look at what we can do through tax incentives or other areas to develop all this property that it's just sitting there being held by people waiting to build upon. Thank you. Dave, and then Bo. Thank you. I think Dr. Ledoux said almost everything I wanted to about those vacant lots, and because of them, I wanted to just throw a marker on this as we— as this process moves forward.

I'd like the Assembly to consider a reversionary clause where something not built within X amount of time gives the assembly the right to purchase it back at purchase price to disincentivize that type of speculation of buying and squatting on lots around the community. Bo, then Steve, then Larry. Thank you. I agree. I'm in alignment with how this discussion has progressed.

I am curious about just process in general. There's been a lot of different parts of the road system where folks have mentioned potential lot disposals or land disposals. I'm more curious about how this looks. I mean, when we look at the language of what happens should we approve this, how much staff time is going to— everything that comes after that. And the reason I mention that is it's going to take staff time, it's going to take cost, and it's going to bog things down.

But when I think about the potential land disposals in the future, folks want land here in town, folks want land in Minashka, folks want land in the Flats, folks want land in Chiniak. I don't think it's in anyone's best interest for these to be presented one at a time and we lock down the process to think about one disposal at a time. It might be naive of me to suggest this, but I think these different areas should be presented together. We receive public testimony on what we prioritize for land disposals. That way it's not beholden to a handful of people on the Lands Committee, which I value their guidance and judgment, but can they package these up for us in a way that they present multiple options for for the community to weigh in on, on what we should focus on first.

I don't think we need to take years to think about what we want to dispose of and let other things just linger in limbo when the public probably has something to say about what they'd prefer. So I don't like how slow the process is, and I don't like that we're presented with one option at a time. It's a naïve statement to make, I acknowledge that, but What would it take for the Lands Committee to identify multiple areas that we could dispose of? We discuss all of them, have the public weigh in, and let the public determine where we prioritize land disposal first. I'm worried about special interests.

I'm worried about behind-the-scenes discussions that the public isn't aware of. We need to make this more transparent. We need to give the public options because they're the ones who need the land. Not us. Steve, then Larry.

Well, I can address some of that in the fact that I would like to see more coming up faster, but several of the areas need things like roads built, things like that, and that's going to be a long discussion, I believe, with the assembly. So therefore, to keep things moving and get property on the market I'm on the Lands Committee. The idea was let's get somewhere we don't need to do infrastructure improvement on the market and move it because we can.

These discussions about expenditure of building roads, getting cost design, that's going to take time. And therefore, let's find ones on the road, whether it be here, Bell's Flats, or whatever. And move them as fast as we can while we— I'm not saying not to do the other, but while we do the other, um, it literally— when you start talking about designing roads and building them and who's going to pay for it, that might slow it down to another year before these lots— now granted, 4 lots is a drop in a bucket, but it's moving forward. It's more that's happened in recent time. Um, so yes, I would like a resolution that directs them to move it through planning and zoning, get it approved, get public hearings.

We'll have to get public hearings once the exact terminology of the auction is figured out. The other thing, um, which has to do with some hilarious comments and all When dealing with lawyers, I was always told by multiple teachers in business school, don't ask them if this is legal. This is what we want to do. How can we do it and maintain within laws and codes?

You usually end up with a much better result quicker. Larry. Thank you.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] We have an expert in the room in land development, and I suspect, you know, we could get some good information if we gave him a chance to talk about what communities across the nation are doing to manage land that they sell for productive development. And we're all laypeople. To a certain extent, he's not. And I'd like to hear from him, if not right now, unless— I don't want to put you on the spot, but this is what you do and this is your expertise. We're already at 9:30.

So that's another discussion all by itself, Larry. I'm not asking him to do it. I'm just saying that I think his input in this discussion would be worthwhile and we should take a look at it in the future. Thank you. Thank you.

Nova, do you have enough to move forward? I think this is like the same. I have 4 words of explanation. Okay, thank you.

Next item is resolution number FY 2025-25. A resolution of the assembly of the Kodiak Island Borough increasing the compensation of the Service Area Number 1 board chairperson.

Nova, would you like to let them know what the board did? Because we've heard from some of the board before on this. Let's see if anybody has questions. So, um, on March— thank you, Mr. Mayor— on March 31, 2025, the Service Area Number 1 Board held a public hearing as part of its fiscal year 2026 budget process. During the hearing, the board proposed increasing the chairperson stipend from $400 to $800 per month.

As a result of the discussions, the board determined the need to adjust the annual stipend from $4,800 to $9,600. On April— so on April 28th, the board will form— will— is expected to formally adopt Resolution Number FY 2025-01 recommending the stipend increase to $9,600. Board members per borough code shall be compensated as provided by resolution of the assembly. For your reference, a copy of the Service Area Number 1 board meeting minutes approved on April 11, 2025 is included in your packet. So, um, we'll wait for the resolution that's coming from the service area on April 28th.

They're having a meeting on April 28th, and that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Nova. I'm available for any questions you might have, but discussion is open. Jarrod.

Well, first, if, you know, I— Ryan had mentioned— oh, gosh, 2 hours ago maybe at this point— local— I think local decision-making is important. So I think if the Board adopts this resolution, They know their budget. They were elected and appointed to do just that. So I— for me, I don't see any reason to oppose it on those grounds. I do have a question for the Clerk, though.

What are the conflict of interest rules as it regards the Mayor and the Service Area Board Chair? So I think because the mayor will be chairing the meeting, he's gonna have to pass the gavel to the deputy presiding officer, and he's gonna have to declare a conflict of interest. And then the deputy presiding officer would have to rule on it. And depending on what— how you rule, your rule— your ruling could be appealed by the assembly. And then depending on outcome of that, the mayor could be excused from the meeting, although he's not— if you have 7 assembly members, he could not be— he would not be voting.

But if you have someone who— you have a 6-member board next meeting, then there's a potential. Usually the code would say, you know, if he's conflicted, he won't be able to vote. Vote. Right. But if he's not, then he could break the tie.

So— Okay. Is that good? Thank you. I— that clarifies it for me. Ryan?

Well, let's see. I've already been slapped once for asking the strong questions, so I think— see if I can go 2 for 2. I have an issue with this because I just want to go chronologically with this is that if somebody doesn't run for public office, the mayor can appoint them. Now we have a dual position where the mayor also is the service district chair who has appointed people and then gets raised. So I'm just gonna put out there that there's an ethical dilemma that exists with this.

And in order for me to move forward with this, I'd like to know what the what the appointment of service district versus the public running of service district seat holders is. So in other words, how many people did the mayor appoint versus how many ran publicly out of a position of how many? Okay. What I can tell you is the mayor does not appoint service district members, Chair. Ryan, you don't understand.

It comes before the assembly. It's an appointment by the assembly, not the mayor. Nova, would you please let them know? That is correct. So the code, um, the service area appointments, uh, and Board of Equalization, quasi-judicial boards, are appointed by the assembly, not the mayor.

Just a quick follow-on question, and just out of curiosity, how many has the assembly ever rejected that have been brought forward? Because we're always in a position where we're like, oh, somebody's willing to serve, let's appoint them. So I just think that there's a greater conversation, and this is nothing personal towards you, this is just this ethical dilemma that exists because of where we're at right now, I guess. So Thank you for the clarification, Nova. Further discussion?

Bo?

The optics are unique, I would say. I would call them— they're unique.

So I would agree this is not a typical scenario. Whether or not someone directly appoints or makes a recommendation, you know, in this case I view it— It does, to me, diminish a little bit the unanimous consent from the board to approve this, but I do think about specific examples that were given, and I do agree with some but not all of them. Inflationary pressures for fuel prices and vehicle maintenance, absolutely. Whether or not that person is spending every single day driving that amount of of miles on every single road for the service district? I highly doubt that.

Um, but I'm— so I'm not against it. I do place value in, in the input from the board, and it was unanimous with specific information. The optics aren't great, um, in some areas, but I don't think I would support the full amount. And the reason I say that is no other service district chairs are receiving any stipend. I would be supportive of an increase and the difference plus— well, I know it's different funding mechanisms and fund balances.

I would support an incremental increase. Doubling, I can't support that, but I would also encourage other service areas to recommend a stipend for their chairs to perform these duties for the public. So generally speaking, I am supportive of an increase. Doubling it, I'm not. But that is based on the information that was provided by the service area members as to just why they justified the request.

So that's where I'm at. I do think it should go up for the reasons stated. Doubling doesn't make sense to me. I don't feel this is a— this is meant to act as a full employment position to have a wage that equals that, or is comparable to that. I don't think you can really equate any of our elected offices to being, um, how do I put it, compensated in a way that matches public other, other areas for, for public service.

So I don't, I don't put a lot of weight in that. Anyways, I'm rambling now. Pardon me, it's getting late. I do support an increase. I don't support doubling it, but I do support other service areas also recommending a stipend for their chairs.

Thank you. Further discussion? Um, we'll let it go with that. Uh, Nova, question for you on the, um, Minashka Bay Service District, the 2 board members that we'll be putting on the agenda, where will that be? Is that a— other items?

Okay, thank you. So next is ordinances for introduction. We have Ordinance FY 2025-2B, amending Ordinance Number FY 2025-2, Fiscal Year 2025 Budget, by amending budgets and appropriations to account for various revenues that are over budget, providing for additional expenditures, and moving funds between projects. Staff report. Dora— oh, excuse me, Sima, then to Dora.

This ordinance presents the net changes for additional requests which occur during the current fiscal year for items or circumstances not known or expected during the initial creation of the FY 2025 budget or project estimates. Finance Director Dora Cross is here to explain the transfers that are being proposed.

Good evening. Um, this is the third quarterly budget funding ordinance. There'll be one more at the end of the year. It'll come before you the end of June, 1st of July for the end of this year.

The first one on here is, um, a, a requested transfer, $450,000 from the general fund to the mental health building and abatement remediation project. And this $450,000 is comparable to the insurance that the ARPA funds paid for, um, So the ARPA funds paid the general fund for insurance, which we would have paid regardless, in order to make sure that we had money enough obligated to meet that December 2024 deadline. So this is just pulling that money back out of the general fund and applying it to the mental health building and abatement project. The next one is a transfer, $300,000 from buildings and grounds for the middle school elevator modernization project. The next one is a $27,000 transfer from buildings and grounds to the East Elementary emergency ceiling wall repair project.

So the initial transfer didn't cover all the costs. The project is complete, and this will finalize out the project. There's a request to return $25,000 $10,000 from the capital project fund to the Women's Bay Fire Department fund. They didn't go forward with their kitchen remodel, so it's just returning that money to the base fund. There was a request to transfer $34,000 from capital projects for the emergency shelter rebuild project, which is complete, to the, um, Chiniak School painting project.

There's a return of $59,000 from the capital project fund for the Saloni Creek replacement— culvert replacement to the land sale fund. That project is complete as it's going to get for now, and so the fund just needs its money back to the base. There's a return of $2,899 from the rule renewal and replacement fund. The Kodiak High School repair project back to the fund to be out— reallocated to another project. The request is for a transfer of $140,000 within the renewal and replacement fund to the East Elementary School roof replacement project, a transfer of $1.125 million within the renewal and replacement fund to the North Star School Pool and Skylight Repair Project, a transfer of $62,000 within the Renewal and Replacement Fund from the Main Elementary Roof Project, which is a complete, to the Community Pool Evaluation and Repair Project, and a transfer of $1.395 million from the Capital Project Fund, Landfill Stage 3 Closure Project, back to the Base Solid Waste and Disposal and Collection Fund.

A transfer of $350,000 from the Solid Waste Disposal and Collection Fund to the Landfill Scale Shack Platform Project. And a transfer of $500,000 of R&R money from the Hospital Fund to the Capital Project Fund for the Providence, um, Center elevator modernization project.

Thank you, Dora.

One of the things, I guess, that I'd like to see a breakdown is, is on the North Star roof and skylight repair.

Part of the reason being that roof is still under warranty, and I'm curious how much we're looking at replacing, how much is what it would take to change the scope and eliminate the skylight replacement that was originally the project. There is no reason to do that, and you can cut the building heat loss by probably 10 to 15% on that, and that thing has leaked since the day it was built. So Jen is not bolting up to the podium. We'll probably get back to you on that. Sounds good.

Further discussion or questions on the list? That's the main one that I saw. One of the things that we're looking for too is money for the pool. We're— that's a major project that we're going to have coming up and we haven't found anything on it yet. So, okay.

Seeing no other questions on that, um, we'll go to the other items. Yes, Mr. Mayor, um, so the Manasheka Bay Service Area Board received two applications, uh, from Mr. Chris Kouramadis and Mr. Jeff Brewbaker. And we have submitted those applications over to the service area board so they can review them and make recommendations to the assembly. They are scheduled to have a meeting on Tuesday night, and we hope to get a recommendation by then. If the assembly would like to add this to the agenda, we can definitely add the appointment next Thursday, because by then we could have received— you would have received the recommendation from the board.

So if there's no objection, I would like to request—. That would be my recommendation. Any problems with that? I'm seeing thumbs up. Mr.

Mayor, may I address the question earlier about the existing service area number 1 board members, whether they are in elected or appointed? Oh, they're all elected. They're all elected. There are no appointed members on service district board. I think the last time we did one was in 2015.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, then next item is manager's comments.

Mayor, I I think you should give me a pass in the— just because of the time. You can read your own. Is that all right? Sounds good to me. Next item is Clerk's Comments.

I am going to skip my comments this time also. Thank you. Next item is Assembly Member Comments, and I will start with Bo. Thank you. We're all pretty tired, a little anxious to get out of here.

I just want to thank everyone for the discussions and just remind folks to— although we're passionate, it's because we care— to maintain order on the dais. But I do appreciate folks educating me along the way here. I appreciate staff sitting through and going line by line through a lot of budget items. And then just reminding folks that we have very difficult decisions coming up. Start thinking about where you want to make cuts if you are going to accommodate a very large fiscal ask.

That is important to know ahead of time or think about. Thank you. Jarrod. Thank you. What a great discussion tonight.

Thank you, Seema, Jen, and Dora and NOVA for your patience and your information. This is my 4th budget go-through, and I mean, I learned a whole bunch of new things every time. Wow, my voice is starting to go even. Starting to sound like Scott. I want to say I think we coalesced around some common values here today, which was which is really good to see.

I want to make my next comments very careful. I think— well, no, I just have to be blunt. I think what we came across today and what we've come across the past couple of months, and it seemed to really kind of hit a little fever pitch today, is that personalities aside, having a mayor also serve as a Service Area Board Chair, I think we can see it impedes our ability as a body to act objectively.

And I know right now there's nothing that can be done about it, but I think that's something that's on all of our— or many of our minds, I think, is That's why we were addressing the Service Area Board ordinance and attendance thing. And now the same thing with the stipend. And it's not who's in those seats, it's just those two seats, you know, require a lot of work. And I appreciate that work. It does make this body's work just a little bit more difficult.

Though, than I think it needs to be or that it should be. So I just want to throw that— I just want to throw that little elephant out there onto the table for all of us. Not to diminish at all the work that the current mayor and current board chair does because it's— I've seen it. It's a lot of work that these two offices require.

But I'm hopeful. And then shameless self-promotion, this weekend Shakespeare's final play, it's called Starry Night. It's a beautiful, beautiful short little play. It's my 50th play since— in Kodiak. Congratulations.

Since like 2011, so this is actually gonna be my last play for while Jared needs a nap. So I appreciate your support for the— for these kids this week. They're the best in the state, objectively, and it's a— it'll be a good, a good date, good date weekend. Right, thank you. Thank you.

Dave. Thank you. So yeah, that got a little spicy, but that's good. It means people care. I will say though that I think A possible contributor was I hope we can find a better way to discuss our budgets going forward than looking at the full printout line by line.

I just, I don't see that as a, a good way to make decisions. You know, staff looking at individual line items on their budget is where staff should be focusing their time and effort. And I think as an assembly, the, the higher level number for the budget roll-up is more assembly purview, is my opinion. But, um, you know, what's the ask? What's the year-to-date difference?

What's the, you know, what's changing and why? I think is, is a way to go through these that perhaps could help make more informed decisions going forward. Thank you. Steve.

I want to thank everyone for the amount of time they put in. I know staff and Janet spent a lot of time going over that.

The budget is always a hard time of year, and I'm glad we're trying to get land moving. And hopefully we can keep it moving at a reasonable pace. Thank you. Larry. Okay.

Scott.

I agree that the line-by-line dissertation on the budget is about as friendly as pulling teeth, and we do get an opportunity to do it on our own. At home because they always send out a full version of it electronically, except for some that don't have electronics, I guess. But for those of us that do and pay attention that way, that's one way of getting to the issues. I agree with Mr. Johnson about having it formulated in a different manner and add more We're supposed to be a policy board. We're supposed to do things at policy level, and having things kind of bundled together in a nice convenient manner makes that case easier to deal with.

So I would be happy with that if I didn't have to go through line after line after line of zeros. So that would be one thing. I also agree that it's taken time. I'm on the Lands Committee. It's taken time to move these things forward.

It's a cumbersome procedure and there are rules about it that were written in order to prevent big mistakes and all kinds of funniness. And so we have to adhere to that. I think that the Issues that Mr. Griffin brought up about wanting to help people that were ready to build right now, I think that's a great idea. I do worry that I don't think it's our responsibility to tell property owners what to do with their property, but this is our property at this point and we're going to sell it to you, then we can put conditions on that. Sale.

And that's all I got. Ryan.

So I've had time for— I'll just call it a retrospective. And as I look at the makeup of our assembly, I realize that there are really only 2 people who have not served in a large organization. We'll just call it small business. We'll call it small industry. And I don't possess the same level of knowledge that you guys do when it comes to government budgets.

So when I ask a question and I'm confused on it, and I can't be— I can't be explained in a way that I can understand. I can only imagine what the rest of us common folk feel when we look at the complexities of these budgets because they are not ran like a business. I would say that they are ran opposite of a business, and I hope that that is not I'm not talking out my butt too much. So appreciate the head nod, though, because I do run a very successful business and it doesn't run anything like this. So here's what I would like to suggest is that I guess if we could look at things through my lens, not as somebody who possesses a great deal of knowledge in governmental budgets, and processes that maybe we just take a little extra step to explain it to common folk like me.

That's all I've got. Thank you. Um, next item is mayor's comments, and I have no further comments tonight because it is 10:04 and we are adjourned. Thank you.