05/20/2026 City Council Regular Meeting

Seeing none, would the clerk please read the consent agenda items into the record? Approval of the regular meeting minutes of May 6th, 2026. New business action approval, bills to be ratified. Action approval, special use permit to Jeremy Mastroianni, doing business as River Rock Outdoor LLC, for commercial operations at the Kenai Municipal Airport floatplane basin, brought to you by the administration. Action approval, special use permit to Crowley Fuels LLC for aircraft fueling services on the apron, brought to you by the administration.

Introduction of Ordinance Number 3521-2026, increasing estimated revenues and appropriations in the general fund police department and accepting a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation passed through the State of Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities for traffic enforcement overtime expenditures. Brought to you by the administration. Introduction of Ordinance Number 3522-2026, accepting An Alaska Division of Forestry Volunteer Fire Assistance Grant in the amount of $8,602.97 and appropriating funds for the purchase of wildland and firefighting equipment for the City of Kenai Fire Department. Brought to you by the administration. Introduction of Ordinance Number 3523-2026, Adopting the Annual Budget, Salary Schedule, and Employee Classification Plan for the Fiscal Year Commencing July 1st, 2026 and Ending June 30th, 2027 and committing $4,584,359 of general fund fund balance for future capital improvement projects.

Brought to you by the administration. Ordinance number 3524-2026, amending Kenai Municipal Code Section 23-25-065, Shift Differential Pay, to update shift hours and to clarify eligibility, and Section 23-55-030, Qualification Pay, to ensure appropriate compensation and benefits to city employees comparable to other places of public employment, which allowed this— allows the city to recruit and retain qualified employees. Brought to you by the administration. Ordinance number 3525-2026, enacting Kenai Municipal Code Section 1420.246, tent camping on private property, amending Kenai Municipal Code Section 1420.320, definitions, to provide definitions regarding tents and campgrounds. Amending Kenai Municipal Code Section 13-10-060, Sanitary Facilities for Camping on Private Property, and Amending Kenai Municipal Code 14-22, Land Use, brought to you by the administration.

Introduction of Ordinance 3526-2026, Amending the Official Zoning Map by Rezoning Parcel 4106318 with a Physical Address of 6575 Kenai Spur Highway from split zone rural residential and general commercial to zoning district of general commercial. Brought to you by the administration. Ordinance number 3527-2026, determining that approximately 7,682 square foot portion of city-owned property described as that portion of government lot 10 lying southwest of Bridge Access Road and lying north and northwest and northeast of USS 4563 amended is not needed for public purpose and authorizing the sale and exchange of the property to Rabuff LLC, brought to you by the administration. All of those ordinances are scheduled for public hearing on June 3rd, 2026. And action approval purchase order and purchase order amendments requiring council approval in accordance with KMC 715-020, and that is your consent agenda.

Thank you, Madam Clerk, for reading what would be equated to a novel. That was a lot. Are there any public comments on any of the consent agenda items just read by the clerk? Quite a list. Nobody online.

Madam's consent was requested. Are there any objections? Seeing none, the agenda and consent agenda are approved.

Next, we have scheduled administrative reports. Reports. We have Brian Gaze, but with it for the city streetwide assessment evaluation. Brian, you're online, right? I hope.

Yes, Brian Gaze. Can you guys hear me OK? Great, thanks so much. Awesome, I will get my screen up here. Appreciate a little patience while we get this queued up.

And Okay, great. Can folks see the title slide? I can see it. Excellent. Thank you so much.

So thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. My name is Brian Gaze. I'm the CEO of Avari Consulting. We are a small business here in San Diego, California, actually, and been in the business of conducting streetlight assessments for about 17 years. Got our start actually supporting large DOT projects in Washington State, Oregon State, other locations in the Pacific Northwest, and I've been working on this project with our partners at Dowell Engineering, who my co-presenter here today sits in the Spokane office, but Dowell has a large office in Anchorage.

I did a lot of the design guidelines work, which we'll talk about. The purpose of today's meeting is largely just to summarize our work over the past several months, worked very closely with Lee and his team in Public Works, and this is really a summary of the final report. Or I guess I should say draft report that we've delivered to staff. And I look forward to walking you through some of the highlights that we found through our work. Okay, so in essence, I'm not going to get too much into the details here, but really the goal was largely to just sort of see what's out there in the first step, right?

Like, get a sense of what exactly, what specifically is on the ground in the city in terms of not just sort of a conditions assessment, but also reconciling data between utilities, cities, I mean, different stakeholders and owners of different lighting assets. That inventory piece was conducted by our team in the field, so I'll have some highlights of some of the findings that we found there. The next step there is, you know, once we have that information on what's in the field, we really do some sort of a performance evaluation. Where might gaps be in the lighting network? Are those lighting gaps appropriate given the adjacent land land use, prioritizing some of the needs of the lighting network based on consultation with city stakeholders and Lee and his team, and then some of the other things that we've heard throughout the process, looking at different photometric analysis, cost analysis, that sort of thing.

And lastly, really some high-level planning cost estimates around implementation. So where were those gaps? Where were those deficiencies? Aging infrastructure, etc. And then what are some ways to fund that and really set the planning framework for subsequent grant application processes and potential, you know, local funds.

So there's a quick overview. Citywide, there were a little over 600 lights in total. About 90% were already LED. Most folks probably know that if you've spent any time in the city, you have to be aware that most of the lights are LED. But really, they're kind of nearing the end of their useful life, and I would say that that is pretty consistent with, with fixtures across the country.

You know, LED was a big initiative maybe about, you know, 15, 20 years ago, depending on when they were constructed. And now, you know, most cities are grappling with a similar, well, what do we do next? A lot has happened in the intervening years. There's a lot of great work that can be done with lighting controls, dimming, that sort of thing, to really dial in the lighting network I'll talk briefly about that, and 3 owners, obviously: the city, Homer Electric, and DOT and PF. Quick highlights of the overall network.

You can see, you know, the city owns the majority of the lights on the ground, about 266 out of 610. But when you have multiple owners, you have inconsistent standards, inconsistent fixture types, and inconsistent maintenance practices depending on the respective owners. As I mentioned, The infrastructure is starting to show its age, so you're seeing some flickering, some color drifting, just some other electrical issues as the infrastructure ages. This is very common, and part of our job was to document these locations, the specific issue, flag those for the respective owners and, and the respective maintenance practices.

As I mentioned, you know, we did find a small percentage that had that visible deficiency. You know, this typically would cover things like day burners, basically lights that that are on during the day, or missing infrastructure, broken or missing components. Sometimes you see copper wire theft and things like that, so we've documented all of these largely as an infrastructure assessment that informs some of the, you know, maintenance practices for the city.

As I mentioned, you know, really the first piece here was to do that, you know, that first field inventory piece, so we have very detailed sub-meter GPS information now on every light in the system. And this is a deliverable that will be part of the project, is really working with the Public Works Department to onboard the data into asset management platforms and various planning workflows that the team, the team has there internally. Really, the photometric modeling, which I'll share in a minute, and then some other work is done around, you know, gap analysis, cost estimates, and then looking at some of the adjacent land uses and some of those populations that may benefit from better lighting. So these are things like schools, pedestrian crossings, that sort of thing.

As I mentioned, it's a fragmented network, not terribly uncommon. We do have a number of direct bury wiring issues, so, you know, almost all of the maintenance issues trace to shorts on legacy direct bury cable. So, some of the work that Adam and his team will talk about are sort of how to overcome that, how to sort of integrate best practices into designing a more resilient network. There are a few HPS fixtures still out there. So HPS stands for high-pressure sodium.

Those are generally a lower color temperature. They're kind of that amber light that most folks are familiar with. Few of those out there.

Still to this day, we do see areas because of the way that lighting is designed that are occasionally underlit and overlit. A lot of times these are designed based on typical roadway applications and some standards that are based on spacing. The practical reality of that is you do end up with areas that might be a little bit overlit for the land use or the particular context, and some areas also, conversely, that are, that are overlit, and we'll talk about that a little bit. And the last one there on the lower right, billing discrepancies. This is a very common issue where the city may be getting a bill for a light that no longer exists.

And so a lot of what we'll do in the coming days here is provide that data. In fact, I believe staff asked for this. Earlier this week, so we've provided the XY locations of those locations to work the XY information for those locations to reconcile those billing discrepancies and potentially save some money there. These are just some quick visuals of ownership with regards— you can kind of see some very obvious patterns here in terms of who owns the lights. Blue in this instance are city-owned, the other colors are, you know, Alaska DOT, HEA, and then there are a few lights that are on private property.

Fixture type, same thing, cobra heads. These are the very common roadway lighting. You do see some decorative lights in and around downtown. Those are generally pedestrian scale, a little tighter spacing, a little bit more intended to sort of guide the pedestrian path of travel route within the roadway.

And lamp type, you can again see primarily LEDs here in blue with some scattered HPS, a few that we were unable to determine, I think 7, and then 1 mercury vapor, 1 random mercury vapor somewhere out there. Are in the city. Looks like the lower right. And then overhead and underground. So this is just that same data, that XY data, different attributes that we've collected.

This is kind of a way to sort of visualize the network, just a quick kind of map. There's a lot more detail on this in the actual report. This is for purposes of kind of a quick visual. So another thing that we did, and this is something that we've been really excited to be, you know, really, we were excited to use in the city. This is basically a photometric model of the lighting network.

So this is essentially taking the information from the inventory and modeling it, not just just sort of throwing a circle around the light, but actually working with the different manufacturers to get a distribution file of the light as it leaves the luminaire. This is a great resource for the city to understand areas that may be over-lit and under-lit. So this is a screenshot of a web application that the city has access to, and we will be working with city staff to onboard this data onto your internal system so you can actually see lighting gaps overlay different, you know, attributes that you may maintain with regards to collision histories, property boundaries, sensitive habitat, really any sort of layer that exists. We can overlay our lighting network performance analysis against that to help evaluate places where there may be locations where there are gaps, and maybe that gap is appropriate in a residential neighborhood. A lighting gap is, you know, not necessarily as critical as maybe a commercial corridor or things like that.

So this is just a screenshot of that. Happy to talk about this a little bit more.

Again, these are just some summary statistics that we found. Most of the crashes do occur at— during daylight, but we do have a number of nighttime or twilight crashes, which is about, I would say, consistent with what we're seeing across the country. I think the most important factor of these main top-line numbers is that the school bus stops have a pretty significant, a pretty significant number of the bus stops in town, school bus stops, really don't have the recommended illumination levels. And normally in the lower 48, this is probably not as much of a concern as you would have in your location where you do have students accessing some of these bus stops, you know, in the winter where you do have some pretty low light levels. So that was one of the key findings that we found, and I'll talk a little bit more about that.

Here in coming slides.

Wanted to just very quickly mention that the city does spend about $65,000 annually on contractor maintenance addressing some of these issues as they come up. So part of this work is largely to sort of right-size that amount and then make, you know, develop a plan to make sure that that funding is adequate to address those issues as they come up. Some other summary information that we got from from the city with regards to costs. The city uses about 104 kilowatt-hours a year, and about 13% of that were driven by those older legacy HPS systems. So those high-pressure sodiums are really pulling a lot more energy than the LEDs, obviously, which is no different than, you know, what you may have in your house, right?

You know, we do have quite a bit less energy consumed by LED fixtures, so. Other than that, I would say the other kind of summary on this particular slide is that really down there at the bottom, you can see that the cost per month of city-owned lights works out to about just under $30, $27.80. Um, Homer Electric's a little higher, right? That's $32 and change. So there are some significant savings to be realized with those city-owned lights relative to other owners.

Um, Moving on, this is kind of a quick— again, the goal of this project was, was more of an assessment rather than a detailed cost estimate, but these were some of the priorities identified through our, through our process and conversations with staff, along with some rough, rough planning-level cost estimates. You can see, as I mentioned, that improvements in and around the school bus stops was a key component, probably the top two actually. Really, that third priority there is sort of an operations priority around just standardizing the system, standardizing some of the SKUs that the city and the material that the city procures as a way to reduce maintenance costs and otherwise develop a more uniform system. I'm not going to go into too many more of these, but as you can see, a lot of standardization, some modernization elements in and around downtown, some other sort of spot treatments on Bridge Access Road, pedestrian path lighting. And then a few other sort of character elements around older, you know, mission-style acorn fixtures, and then again the direct berry wiring placements.

So again, it's kind of just the first pass, I guess, at sort of prioritizing these based on staff input. Obviously, this is a very dynamic list, and then, you know, this is largely driven by staff priorities. If there are other priorities, we can certainly work with, with staff and council to, you know, discuss each of these.

One of the other things that was a part of the project was dark skies. There's a lot more information that has sort of come to light within recent years on the, you know, the benefits not only to humans but to animals as well around specific dark sky recommendations. So these are things around lowering color temperature, certain design characteristics designed to reduce glare, minimize sky glow, and really dial in the design to, you know, really make sure that the design has as minimal an impact as possible outside of where it's supposed to light, right? The real targeted approach to lighting.

And then we talked briefly about tiered implementation. Obviously, we have our sort of first tier, which are really just operational, sort of low-cost, high-impact, quick changes that can be made. As you get into near-term Tier 2 projects, you're talking about some of those school bus stops and really kind of developing a plan to implement a little more than just sort of onesies-twosies in the Tier 1. And then Tier 3 are, you know, sort of more comprehensive modernization corridor standards, modernization corridor standards, downtown standards, etc. And then some of those Direct bury wiring replacements and some of those pieces there.

So it's kind of breaking the priorities into 3 different buckets in terms of, you know, funding need, funding availability, and timing. And, you know, as far as grants go and other opportunities, I would say that, you know, HSIP, which is Highway Safety Improvement Program, one of the nice things about lighting is that it has recently been identified as a proven safety countermeasure in a way that allows it to qualify for a lot of highway safety grants. So these are things like signal upgrades and other things really to, you know, that I think traditionally have focused on traffic signals and some other improvements, but lighting now qualifies for that. Safe Streets for All in the middle there, that is an ongoing federal grant program where lighting is generally a component of a larger safety project. So if there are pedestrian safety projects or, you know, safe routes to school type projects, that sort of thing, lighting is a very important piece of that.

There's a current call for projects that I believe is due next week, so we may have missed the boat on that one, but it is an annual program, and while it changes a little bit year to year, I would say that it generally enjoys widespread support at the federal level, and so I anticipate that this will be an ongoing program for next year around this time. So some of those larger projects might qualify, and, you know, based on the criteria. And then utility partnerships. So again, there's— I think that's a little bit more unique to the local context. Obviously, the first two are federal grants, and then we have our sort of Homer Electric opportunity for funding there as well.

I'm actually going to turn this piece over to one of our partners on this project, was, as I mentioned, Dow Engineering. Adam Miles was the project engineer on this, and he's going to talk briefly about some of the work that they did. We can get into this detail potentially during questions, but he did some good work. So Adam, if you want to talk about this and just let me know when you want me to advance the slides. Yeah, sure.

Thanks, Brian. So on the design guidelines, a lot of this fell out of the, the initial work done by Avari. So we had several land use categories that came out of the initial analysis and evaluation. And our goal with the design guideline was to find fixtures and designs that met the, the moment for these types of categories that were identified. So, for low density residential or medium density residential, we're looking at non-continuous fixtures.

So beacon lighting predominantly, Type 4 and Type 5. Are really good at addressing intersection locations. We're targeting much lower lumens. When we're talking about LED fixtures, we're normally talking about lumen count instead of wattage, because wattage is a form of power, not really a measure of light. So these are really low output lights that are meant to really just kind of indicate where you are in reference to other intersections.

They're not really meant to provide quote-unquote roadway lighting. We're targeting 3,000 Kelvin throughout the entire city other than the sensitive river corridor wildlife areas where we come down to a more amber 2,200 to 2,700 Kelvin. So we're targeting kind of a soft white, warm white, depending on the literature, you hear it phrased either way. With a more kind of a yellowish orangish amber in the sensitive corridors that strips out some of the blue light pump that we get with LED lights because there are several species that are sensitive to that blue light. We also have house side shields and shielding identified in various locations.

We can go to the next slide, Brian.

So a lot of LED fixture codes. I don't want to get too caught up on the codes, but basically we have 3 families of fixtures that we've identified that meet the, the moment across all of those land uses. The GE Evolve family of fixtures is also a similar family that Alaska DOT has adopted in their standards. So parts-wise, this puts the City of Kenai at least in alignment with other partner jurisdictions, talking about making it feel like one cohesive system, even though you have 3 different owners. We've got the Cooper Archeon.

This replaced the Cooper Verdeon, which got discontinued in December of this last year. So this is the, the next version that Cooper has put out that's consistent with the prior versions they've had. Again, this is similar to one on the TOT's options of product lists. And then we've got the Leotech Green Cobra. This has a long history in Alaska, and Leotech provides a great service to their customers.

So we thought that would be a good competitive ad with the GE Evolve and the Cooper.

Next slide. There we go. So then we provided some additional lighting details that, that staff can use on design projects. The decorative post top detail on the left, the city has two basic 2 post tops, kind of a lantern post top, and then there's a more acorn, traditional acorn post top. Right now those sit on slightly different bases, so it makes part interchangeability a little more difficult.

And so we actually standardized, we found a pole base that the bolt circle works for both lantern types. So now you have one 14-inch bolt circle for both lantern types. So if one pole gets hit and you don't happen to have another lantern in the, in the shop, but you do have an Acorn, you can at least get a lamp out there and you don't have to wait for a new 9-inch bolt circle lantern-style fixture. So adding a little bit of redundancy and interchangeability to to the City of Kenai's design details. Then we have the standard cobra head fixture, again, 14-inch bolt circle.

And then we have the foundation detail. Great.

All right, so as far as where we go from here, as I mentioned, you know, the first piece that I think that we'll be doing very, very quickly is taking that data from our assessment and integrating it into the city's asset management systems, mapping systems, etc., so that all of that information that we've been using over this project is now basically, you know, on the city system. We'll be working closely with the team to make sure they understand sort of what the data is, how to use it. Really, there's a series of procedural steps to embed these standards that that Adam just shared into the maintenance workflow. I think one of the key pieces here, and I believe Lee has already started to work on this, is some coordination with the schools to, you know, really dial in some of those light levels for students accessing the bus stops, and then start talking about capital projects in Tier 2 and really standardizing the network. It's really a good opportunity to, you know, to do this given the fact that that the infrastructure is starting to age, and so it's really an opportune time.

I think, you know, all things considered, you really wouldn't want to do this much later, and I don't think it's really worth it to do it much sooner in the life of a fixture, just because, you know, standards are— this is evolving pretty quickly, and I think this is, you know, this particular project came along at the right time. So, that really concludes kind of a summary of the report. Available for questions, Adam and I are available for questions. Council, do you have any questions?

Doesn't look like we have any questions here, but— which is a good indicator.

Hey! But I don't either, other than I do appreciate the work. And it's one of those very visible things in town, especially in the wintertime. We don't get many calls this time of year, right? I believe, especially as we're getting toward June, you know, first, 21st.

But come fall, when the— especially when school starts setting in, and then we— and then things start freezing, and then we can't do that much about them. But yes, I am curious about the direct bury. So we have a lot of direct bury. So the solution to that would be obviously then to replace it with a conduit and wire that we can pull through. Um, yeah, is that your recommendation in there?

Yeah, that, that got put into the written, uh, document that we're, we're doing a— instead of direct bury cabling, we're doing a conduit with cable system. Um, and that's also showing it in the foundations of bringing that conduit in, um, so that you have access in the handhold fixture for splices and things like that. Getting rid of direct buried cable as much as possible.

Definitely will make placing that cable much easier later.

Any, any questions at all, Council? Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Have a nice evening. Take care. Bye-bye.

Okay, Council, next we have scheduled public comments. We have none. That brings us to unscheduled public comments. Are there any members from the public who would like to speak on any item not appearing on the agenda? Anyone here?

Anyone online? Okay, seeing nobody, that brings us to public hearings. The first public hearing before us tonight is Ordinance Number 3518-2026, amending Kenai Municipal Code Title 6, Elections Chapters 6.05, 6.15, and 6.40 relating to election dates, candidate filing, compensation of election officials, and canvassing of elections, brought to us by the clerk. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin.

I move we enact Ordinance Number 3518-2026. I'll second. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Ordinance 3518-2026? Seeing no one, bring it back to council. Council discussion?

Vice Mayor Raskin. I just want to thank the clerk for all of her hard work and, um, and in getting this all changed around after our borough election. Thank you. Councilmember Daniel. Again, I'll echo those comments, but I do have a question.

If the clerk wouldn't mind, give us a quick overview of all the changes because there's a lot. Thank you. Through the mayor, the, the majority of the changes just moved our election date aligned with the, the charter, but the other changes, we are adding a portion that allows us to pay a flat rate stipend to, uh, our election workers, optional, an hourly or a stipend. The stipend worked, it saved the city a lot of time in onboarding because our HR and our finance department would have to onboard all of them as employees if we we didn't have that option. And the candidate filing period will now be August 16th through August 31st, which allows— aligns us with the borough.

And also, we allowed a 1-week withdrawal period in this. And the bigger changes were in the canvas. Right now, we canvas in 1 day, and that's doable, but it's a tight day. And I'm expecting a much larger amount of envelopes to be canvassed now. So this allows us to start canvassing the Thursday following election.

However, none of those ballots will be opened and tallied until the Tuesday following the election. That way it allows any by mails to come in prior to that, but it allows us to vet the voters and make sure that they're eligible voters, they didn't vote twice, and all of that. And we can have everything ready to pretty much run it on the Tuesday following in advance.

Follow-up question. Thank you for that. One other piece, the canvas work initiated recount when warranted. What would trip that or make that happen? If there was a discrepancy at a polling location that couldn't be identified that was enough to change the outcome of the election.

So let's say we had a very tight race and like a minimal difference between voters and there was an accountability reporting issue at the ballot, at the polling location, they would initiate the recount to make sure that everything was handled properly. And right now, the recount— we'd have to go to council and get direction to do a recount. And when we did the previous amendments to code, we changed it. When there's a tie, they can just roll right into a recount without going to council. And this would just match what we had done previously on other instances.

Any further discussion?

Madam Clerk, I'd like to thank you also for all the work that you've done. I mean, it's all the way through a lot, a lot of steps, a lot of details. It's, uh, major clerking, as it were. So thank you very much for that. So if there aren't any further, uh, any comments, please call the roll.

Councilmember Daniel? Yes. Councilmember Grimme? Yes. Vice Mayor Askin?

Yes. Council Member Petty? Yes. Council Member Kucena? Yes.

Council Member Sonnart? Yes. Mayor Naxstedt? Yes. Student Representative Bowling?

Yes. You have 7 yes votes. Ordinance number 3518-2026 is enacted. Thank you. Now we are on Ordinance 3519-2026, accepting and appropriating grant funds from the Alaska High Density Traffic Trafficking Area for Drug Investigation Overtime Expenditures, brought to us by Administration.

A pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move we enact Ordinance Number 3519-2026. I'll second. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Ordinance 3519-2026?

Seeing no one, bring it back to council. Council, council comments, questions?

Seeing none, uh, clerk, please call the roll. Council Member Grimy? Yes. Vice Mayor Askin? Yes.

Council Member Petty? Yes. Council Member Cassana? Yes. Council Member Sonnert?

Yes. Mayor Naxted? Yes. Council Member Daniel? Yes.

Student Representative Bowling? Yes. You have 7 yes votes. Ordinance 3519-2026 is enacted. Thank you.

Now we have Item E3, Ordinance Number 3520-2026, amending Kenai Municipal Code Chapters 14.10, Subdivision Regulations, and amending Kenai Municipal Code Sections 18.10.030, Street Improvements, to improve— remove Road Design Standards from code and replace with Street Design Standards Manual, brought to us by Administration. Pleasure of Council. Please, Mayor Ascombe. I move we enact Ordinance Number 3520-2026. I'll second.

Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Ordinance 3519-2026? Seeing no one, bring it back to council. I know we have a few amendments in there.

Please, Mayor Ascombe. I move to amend the 7th whereas clause by deleting the word 'at' and inserting the word 'enact.' The whereas clause after amendment would read, 'Whereas the Planning and Zoning Commission during their May 13th, 2026 meeting recommended the City Council enact this ordinance,' and I believe that's the rest of it. And ask for unanimous consent. I'd second that. Okay, moved and seconded.

Is there any objections to unanimous consent on this? Seeing none, we now have Ordinance 352026 as amended. Again, yes. Yeah, Vice Mayor Askin. I move that we amend Ordinance 35-20-2026, Section 4, Subsection D, by deleting the existing paragraph 5 in its entirety and replacing it with the following: 5.

In subdivisions where septic tanks or other individual sewage disposal devices are to be installed, the size of all lots included in such subdivision must be a minimum of 40,000 feet— square feet. If engineered plans are developed at the time of subdivision and depict where all wells and septic systems are to be placed and are sufficient to meet Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation requirements, smaller lots may be approved. I request unanimous consent. I second that. Unanimous consent was requested.

Any further discussion on the amendment?

Any objections to unanimous consent? Councilmember Grimmy. I, I just have a clarifying question on that amendment. That's very specific language changing from, if I'm understanding correctly, meet Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation requirements. Is there a reason?

I guess I'd like to know what the reason is to make it more specific beyond Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation requirements, because that seems intentionally obtuse to allow for evolving standards to still be met without without our requirements needing to be changed each time. City Manager Eubank. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll let Kevin respond, or Lee perhaps.

Thanks, Lee. Um, through the City Manager, uh, Council Member Grimy, uh, this would put us in line, um, with, uh, borough right now. Our with the borough recommendations for the separation of keeping the well and the septic from each other, not only on that specific lot but neighboring lots, depending on how they're going to be organized. So this allows and is consistent with what generally is happening currently.

The requirements of DEC, as we put in here, if during subdivision instead of just one owner at a time puts it in. But if, if it is designed at the beginning and we can ensure that wells and septic aren't going to be in conflict, that's where the smaller sizes could be allowed. But 40,000 square feet gives that one owner a little bit more peace of mind that they can put the well and septic where they need to for whatever development is going on on that lot.

Follow-up question. That description you gave is in line with what is currently Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation requirements, yes? Yes. Okay, so if a month from now they change it to 45,000, we have to change— we have to change our ordinance, we change our rules to meet that, to remain compliant with that, correct? City Manager, you think?

Uh, yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, Councilmember Green, I don't believe that's correct because currently DEC does not prescribe a minimum lot size. What DEC prescribes is a minimum separation between your well and your septic. So, the 40,000 square foot lot size is not being dictated by DEC regulations. I think that's consistent with borough, um, um, And it's typical for on-site water, combination of on-site water and sewer.

However, it is possible to have smaller lot sizes if proper planning is done, which is what's being described here, where the subdivision lays out where all wells and septics will go, assuring proper separation according to DEC standards. But no, DEC does not prescribe specific lot sizes. I do not believe that would require amendment if they, if they change those separation distances. And thank you. Perhaps I picked a bad example.

My point really is, why are we changing it to be so specific? If whatever we're doing needs to be compliant with DEC, why are we changing ours to be so specific beyond just meet Alaska DEC requirements, because that will require us to continue to change if we need to, or whatever, if something changes on their end and we have to remain compliant. If our rule is then no longer in compliance with the DEC requirement, if we leave it Alaska DEC requirements, it's specifically vague and wouldn't require constant amendment or revisitation by the city and the council.

City Manager Eubank. Yep, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And, Kevin, this is where I'll draw on you a little bit because this is going back to borough standards and language for 40,000-square-foot lots, correct? We were using them as a benchmark best practice at this time. That's where the 40,000 came in.

Um, but again, as the city manager said, DC doesn't specify the lot size. It's just been pretty much a good rule of thumb throughout the borough for some time that that size of a parcel is appropriate for that separation.

But I will defer.

I also just want to point out, as far as getting into building permits and building on lots, as Public Works or Building Official Department, we don't look at water and sewer when we're doing building permits. So we're actually not reviewing anybody's septic systems when those are being installed. Um, that's purely on the homeowner and their responsibility, or the contractor's responsibility to report all that to DEC for their regulation. So we, we do lean on that, and I think that might be part of what we're doing here is saying that. All these property owners are responsible for building within DEC regulations currently as it's being constructed or being subdivided at that time.

That might be muddying it, but—.

Any, any further comments on this? I, I do support this amendment. The state regulations on separations for private water systems to septics hasn't changed in over 60 years. I don't expect it to change. It's not regulated by EPA either, it's just something the DEC does.

And like was stated, it's the borough standard for the 40,000 square foot. And that works on a subdivision, on a lot that's 40,000 square feet, people can have the wells in the front or the back. Or the septic. And there's enough ample space there for them to kind of mismatch and still have room, you know, to develop the adjacent lot. If a developer shows that they can go to 20,000 square foot lots, and they can, it would require the wells to go in specific places and the septics to go in specific locations.

And it's kind of a design thing that would be required as the as the subdivision develops. If we don't have that in there, then a couple of nearby lots would, if they developed them improperly, could cause a lot to not be developable without a waiver from the state. But since the city's reviewing it, it's going to be on record with the borough. Any installer should have a copy of the plat, naturally, and it will show the required locations for those facilities. So, um, this, this amendment allows for that.

Any, any further questions? Non-specific consent was requested. Are there any objections? Seeing none, that brings us back to Ordinance 3520-2026 as amended. Vice Mayor Askin.

Um, I move we amend, um, Ordinance Number 3520-2026 Section 5 by deleting existing paragraph E in its entirety and replacing with the following: E, in subdivisions of 10 or more lots, or where 10 or more minimum size lots could be created, an approved water supply must be provided for each lot within the subdivision area. All public water mains must be extended and constructed, and constructed in accordance with regulations and requirements of and under the supervision of the Public Works Director's Office or their equivalent under contract by the city, if such water mains are available for connection by the said subdividers and are located within 1,500 feet of the subdividers' nearest lot line. And request unanimous consent. I'll second that. Moved and seconded.

Council comments or discussion?

I do have one for the city manager. Um, would be, uh, the 1,500 feet. Um, uh, we have a developer that's creating 10 lots, and there is water and sewer, say, within 1,500 feet. It's across the highway. It's on another part of the subdivision where they'd have to come a long ways.

Are there the, the Will they have an opportunity to, in special cases, go to Planning and Zoning and request for an exception to that, or would that come to council? What would be the process?

That could be an attorney question.

Thank you, Mayor Naxted. I will defer to Kevin on one question, but What this does now is it brings the water connection requirements in line with the same existing sewer connection requirements that are already in code. I don't know, Kevin, if this would be something that a variance could be— actually, I don't think a variance would apply. So right now there isn't a mechanism for an appeal.

When, when we discussed this previously with the city council and made some revisions to code, that was with regard to individual water hookups, not with regard to new subdivisions. And I think really the only opportunity for the city to get main extensions without the city paying for it themselves or doing an LID is when a subdivisor proposes a new development to make them extend the water main to that development as well as the sewer main. Thank you for that clarification.

Any further council discussion on the amendment? And as consent was requested, are there any objections? Amendment passes. So now we have Ordinance 3520-2026 as amended. Any further discussion?

Seeing none— wait, wait, sorry. Okay, just a quick—. We needed a bunch right there, so let's just do a quick— our goal here, I just want to make sure I understand this pipe for the— for Mr. Frye and Mr. Butner, is our goal here is we're trying to make a handbook essentially for our for contractors and developers to be able to develop in the city easier. Is that accurate? Is there— I mean, just the change that we're trying to make, that's really what our goal is, correct?

City Manager Eubank, that'd be through you. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor, Councilmember Daniel. Yeah, I think, you know, as council is well aware and working with the administration, we've been working hard to try to promote development here in the city, residential development, commercial development. Some of the ways that we've targeted to promote that development is to create more predictability in, in the work that needs to be done. The design standards that, that Lee went and had put together, worked on there.

If you look at what is currently in code, There's virtually nothing. And this is more of a manual to handle— hand to designers particularly that lets them know what they have to design to, what we expect depending on the type of road, location of the road. Again, the goal here was just to create more predictability for them and create a standard that can be used. It also gives us a little bit more flexibility from the administrative standpoint with it, you know, those specific things not being in code. I think as Councilmember Girmay pointed out on previous, um, as part of this ordinance, you know, these things do change over time, especially design standards.

And to lock them in code, you know, for us takes a minimum 60 days sometimes to make changes with with, you know, an ordinance and 30-day waiting period. So I think, you know, that's what our goal here— one of our goals here at the city, and that's why I think this is moving in that direction.

Thank you.

Any further discussion? I'd like to say that this actually meshes two things together. One is the new road standards which I appreciate from Mr. Fry, our Public Works Director, and his staff, and also all the work on the subdivision standards. And that's where it all kind of all pulls together. And I do appreciate all the work and consideration, and it cleared up, cleaned up an awful lot of code that was kind of a little bit difficult to get through.

And the standards have been a long time coming, and I really do appreciate them. So, um, I will absolutely be supporting this amendment— this, this ordinance as amended. So thank you all for your work. Any further comments? Please call the roll.

Vice Mayor Askin? Yes. Council Member Petty? Council Member— Council Member Kassena? Yes.

Council Member Sonner? Yes. Mayor Naxted? Yes. Council Member Daniel?

Yes. Council Member Grimy? Yes. Student Representative Bowling. Yes.

You have 7 yes votes. Ordinance number 3520-2026 as amended is enacted. Thank you very much. That brings us to item E4, Resolution 2026-35, authorizing a contract award for 2026 wastewater treatment plant dumpster services, brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council.

Vice Mayor Askam. I move we adopt Resolution number 2026-35 and request unanimous consent. I'll second that. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Resolution 2026-35? Seeing no one, bring it back to council.

Council discussion?

Um, unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objections? Um, seeing none, uh, unanimous consent was requested. That, that that the ordinance— a Resolution 2026-35 is adopted. So now we're on Item E5, Resolution 2026-36, approving a lease utilization— utilizing a— approving a lease utilizing non-standard lease form on airport reserve lands between City of Kenai and Federal Aviation Administration.

For the automated flight service station and satellite communications network facilities on Lot 7A-1, FBO Subdivision Number 5, brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move we adopt Resolution 2026-36 and request unanimous consent. I'll second.

Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Resolution 2026-36?

Seeing no one, bring it back to council. Council discussion?

City Manager Eubank, was there anything you might want to talk about on this one? It's a little unusual to have a lease retroactive for so long.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. I'd actually defer to this to City Attorney. Mr. Bloom was— has been working this for a number of years here, and, uh, he definitely deserves all the credit. I know this is about the third time, I think third or fourth time this has been before council. So yes, thank you, uh, Mayor Nackstead.

So we began negotiating this lease in 2021. This is probably the longest negotiation I've ever had and probably the most frustrating. Hopefully I never have one, uh, like this again. It went through COVID and the FAA shut down. And, um, through that time period, their rules kept changing.

We had to do a seismic study of the building. They kept adding things to things that we had to do. But most importantly, they've agreed to— we determined a new lease rate back when we first started negotiations, and they've agreed to pay us back the difference. So the city should be getting a big check from the old lease rate to the new lease rate here as soon as this is executed. But really, I don't think there's any material changes to— from this lease to the old lease that would really have any impact on the city or its relationship.

This is for the flight service station in Kenai, and I'm— I'll be very happy to finally get this file off of my desk. Go ahead. Yeah, thank you, Mr. The only other thing I'd point out, Council, is that, um, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Bloom, but, uh, this lease also goes 10 years into the future, which means we won't— so really what we started out trying to do, a 10-year lease, has now turned into effectively a 15-year lease.

Um, and so, um, I appreciate the fact that we were able to extend it out 10 years beyond this point as well.

So any further discussion? Nana's consent was requested. Are there any objections? Seeing none, Resolution 2026-36 is adopted.

So that gets us down to commission reports. Council on Aging, Vice Mayor Askin. Thank you, Mayor Nexted. Um, Council on Aging met the 14th, um, in a work session and reviewed their goals for the year and steps they're going to take to accomplish them. Uh, their next meeting is June 11th.

Thank you. Airport Commission, Council Member Sonnart. Thank you, Mayor Nexted. The Airport Commission met last Thursday and the HDL engineering group gave gave an overview of the project that's coming, and basically that our runway was being shut down on the 15th. That was on schedule, and the project is moving forward as scheduled.

They didn't see any— they didn't see any delays at the time, so it is moving forward. They also discussed and recommended a special permit to Crowley Fuels and to River Rock Outdoors.

And that was about it. Okay, thank you. Parks and Rec Commission, Council Member Cassata. Thank you. Parks and Rec, they unanimously approved the Parks and Rec Master Plan and the cancellation of their August meeting, which is, which is fairly standard for them.

And they scheduled their Parks and Rec tour that they do twice a year at 5 PM on June 4th. Beyond that, they have Plant Day scheduled for May 30th at 10 AM to 2, Kite Day on June 6th at 11 to 3, and that's over at the fields behind or near the Senior Center. Trying to think of what they're called. And then just another note that if anyone missed the cleanup opportunity here recently. You can actually pick up cleanup kits, the bags and instructions, Monday through Saturday, 6:30 to 9:30 at the rec center.

So, um, other than that, their next scheduled meeting is June 4th at 6 PM.

Planning and Zoning Commission, Vice Mayor Askin. Thank you, uh, Mayor Nexted. The, um, Planning and Zoning Commission met on the They had one item which was granting an application for a variance to build into a 20-foot setback on Candlelight Way, and that was approved. And their next meeting is next Wednesday.

And we have Beautification Commission. Councilmember Petty. Thank you, Mayor Nexted. Beautiful, uh, beautification, uh Commission met on May 12th here at the chamber. They discussed the opportunity for the garden tour that's going to be happening August 11th at 5:30.

They also discussed the planting day and encouraged volunteers to join them on May 30th from 10 to 12. And then also they discussed the lovely opportunity for the community to meet together on June 6th for the wonderful Kite Day from 11:00 to 3:00 over at Millennium Park. And I did notice yesterday when we had blue skies that there were some brilliantly wonderful kites flying in the sky over there at Millennium Park, which was glorious to see. Um, our next scheduled meeting will be coming up in September on the 8th. Thank you.

That ends my report. Thank you very much. That brings us to the report of the mayor. We have a couple of items. Last week was Police Memorial Week, and the city manager and I met over at the, the police station with a group of officers over there at lunchtime, and also in attendance was Kathy Watson And Kathy is the widow of Officer John Watson, who lost his life in exercising his duties with the city police here on Christmas Day, actually, 2003.

And I do believe that it's kind of more of a tradition that, you know, she attend these. And often it's less personal up in Anchorage, a bigger event, and I think she wanted to do something a little smaller. And intimate, I suppose. So, so we all met and, and had some, some good discussion and whatnot, and we thanked her for, for everything too. So that was May 14th.

On May 18th, the city manager and I met with Glenfarm and a number of investors, contractors, you know, developers from frankly all over the world over at the visitor center. They came down in several aircraft because they couldn't come down with a 737 and land on our airport. And— but they arrived at the visitor center in two very large coaches. The room was full. There was probably 80 people in there, maybe more, something like that.

Glen Farn had a basic message at the very beginning. And then allowed some of us to speak. The city's message was basically that threefold was, you know, that we're optimistic for the project to come forward and happen here. A little bit about the history of Kenai and oil and gas, you know, starting in 1957 when oil was discovered near here and our relationship with that industry. And then a little bit of discussion about the city assets we have here that the project would— could possibly utilize.

And that includes the airport, airport lands, city lands, water and sewer, and those kind of things. Peter Machicki also gave a presentation of the history of part of the plants out there in Nakiski. And the mayor from Soldotna was over and gave a Gave a hello. So anyway, that is moving forward, hopefully. That was also the day the legislature couldn't make a decision by midnight or whatever the time was, so they'll be going in a session on that some more.

So that was a big deal, seeing all of those people all here in one place. I wanted to thank Tyler Best Parks and Rec for the master plan. He's not here any longer. That's too bad. But anyway, I think it's— well, it's on recording, but I thought he was still out there.

But at any rate, the parks master plan is quite a— it's a significant document like we discussed earlier. So I look forward to exercising that. So that moves us down to administrative reports. Um, City Manager Eubank. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

A few things to report. I'll start with staffing. Um, council, I'm pleased to welcome Ryan Coleman as Kenai's next police chief. That will be effective August 3rd. Uh, currently Sergeant Coleman has served with Kenai Police Department for nearly 10 years, uh, following a decade of law enforcement experience in Washington State.

He's a graduate of the FBI National Academy and currently supervises the department's Criminal Investigation Unit. Uh, we definitely will miss Chief Ross, but I'm confident the department will remain capable— in capable hands and continue its tradition of professional and respected service to our community. So welcome, Ray. Congratulations. Uh, city is actively recruiting for a number of positions, including the airport manager, a police officer, a firefighter, a utility operator.

Allegedly this is because of a theft by the police department. It's being investigated right now. Lee asked me to make sure I said that on the record. We're also looking for a Parks and Rec laborer and some seasonal positions. As the mayor reported, I also attended the Glen Farm meeting there on Monday and Appreciated the mayor's comments at the beginning welcoming folks to Kenai, and I think he summed it up pretty well.

I want to give council an update on Fox Air. We have been working to confirm Fox Air, and we did. We were able to confirm that Fox Air is in— is operating in good standing with Statewide Aviation, who runs the Bethel Airport. Confirmed that with the U.S. Postal Service that Fox Air is providing bypass mail services for the post office and is in good standing.

And Mary and her team down at the airport looked into their flight safety record with the FAA, and we found no reports of violent safety violations or accidents. Right now we're waiting for a signed copy of the AOA from Fox Air, and to do verification of their insurance and make sure they're in compliance with our requirements, and then we'll be signing that AOA. And I do believe they have already began advertising service and I think doing bookings. So that's where we are on Fox Air.

We did staff Cottonwood Area Transit with the Kenaitze Indian Tribe worked out. They are preparing to expand their public bus service operations. They identified several potential bus stop locations within the city. Staff took a look at those, those proposed routes and stops, and we're going to be meeting with tribal staff to discuss those locations. We have no objections to any that they listed.

We'd just like to talk with them about We now have a streetlight report. We can talk to them about the lighting in the area and, and other things that we think they should consider when selecting. So looking forward to that meeting and looking forward to that expanded service here in our community. I did want to let council know, um, officially pursuant to KMC 1320.030, a portion of Mission Avenue between Eric Hanson Scout Park and Kenai Bible Church has been temporarily closed due to sloughing. That has created unsafe conditions.

The closure was made under the city manager's authority for environmentally sensitive areas and includes signage and restricted access with continued access maintained for adjacent property owners. The closure is effective on May 12th of this month and is being reported to council as required by code. Um, I'd also like to let council know, um, Capehead Kena Peninsula Economic Development District has a housing assessment report that they've published. I think it might be a good read for council members. It has a lot of case studies and other information in it, and that's available on Capehead's website.

Kevin, um, little update on bridge access pavement preservation and bike path project. Um, Lee and I met with DOT staff and DNR staff today again to discuss their traffic and safety plan for the project. Currently, that project, they're looking to bid later this summer, early fall, and they're expecting construction in 2027. Wildwood Drive— Lee and I again had a conversation with the project manager on— project engineer, I'm not sure his exact title with DOT— working on that project. The actual conversation was about a detour I think they're looking to do at Strawberry Road, but we were able to get in a discussion about Wildwood.

They are— right now they have an approved change order from the contractor for the job. They are waiting on some paperwork to execute that. Looks like DOT, they're thinking the contractor may jump on this project in July when they're shut down on the spur highway because of dip netting and those types of things, they may divert resources over there and hopefully get that project completed this July. So no guarantees, but that's the timeline and process they were operating under. So I think that's great news.

Mary and the staff there at the airport are working hard to get the airport concession, restaurant concession RFP out this week so we can try to get a new tenant in there. Um, uh, in the presentation this evening on, um, street lighting, you heard one of the grant opportunities referenced in there was the US DOT Safe Streets for All. Um, and, uh, he absolutely was correct that the— there's a grant deadline of next week. Um, what he was incorrect on is, um, we aren't missing this opportunity. I'd really like to thank Kevin and Lee.

Um, they worked hard. Um, Kevin did a lot of the heavy lifting, and he has— I reviewed his grant application this morning. I thought it was outstanding. Uh, it's requesting about $1.9 million, um, to go with our repaving of Lawton Drive and Tinker Lane to, um, redo the bike paths in that area, make them go from 3-foot wide to 5-foot wide, ADA accessible improve street lighting in that area. This really is all, you know, I hate to beat a drum here, but we participated with Kenai Peninsula Borough and the Safe Streets for All planning process that they went through that highlighted this area as an area for improvement.

And, you know, those studies are what gives us these tools to go and apply for these grants. And then you couple that with the lighting study that we just performed ourselves. I really think it's an outstanding application. I look forward and hopefully it gets funded. But thank you, Kevin Lee, for the work on that.

Some upcoming events. The only one I don't think was mentioned. The city and the American Legion Post 20 will be honoring our fallen service members with pride this Memorial Day, Monday, May 25th. May 25th, beginning at 11:00 AM at the Kenai Cemetery, and then continuing at 1:00 PM over at Lee Hanson Memorial Park. So if you have a chance, so inclined, recommend you get out there for that.

Summer reading program is now open. Kickoff party is scheduled for Friday, May 29th, 3:00 to 5:00, with crafts and activities for all at the library. And the third time, the Parks and Rec will be hosting Planting Day on Saturday, May 30th, 10:00 AM to noon. Um, it will be followed by a community cookout for volunteers that's being hosted by our fire department. So if you want a great hot dog and you want to help the community out, go plant a few plants and then go enjoy our public safety folks for a well-deserved lunch.

So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for City Manager Eubank? Ms. Petty. Yes, uh, City Manager, um, I, I'm very thankful that we had the Parks and Recs Master Plan, and I look forward to having the opportunity to implement that. And I know that it was mentioned, um, during that presentation that there had previously been a trails plan, and I was wondering if, uh, we could get a copy of that.

And if what we would need to visit about to see if we could get a master plan for our trails in the city. And, um, and then also for any of those volunteers that you mentioned for planning, they need to bring their own personal gloves. So thank you for hearing me.

Any further comments, questions? Councilmember Daniel. Thank you, Mayor Naxted. Uh, more of a comment and I want to thank you for the city manager and our planning director. I know for a fact, I've been asked about this before, about the roadway in front of KMS and improving that for our students.

So it's very, very, very—. I'm very excited to see that we're exploring that grant opportunity, and hopefully we can improve that, that roadway with new lighting in the future. So that's really, really a good thing. Thank you for taking the time to doing that, everybody. Really I appreciate that.

Oops, sorry, I thought I had it on because it's ongoing legislation here, but we had a laydown tonight that we put into our budget packet. There's a memo in there and I thought perhaps We can't really discuss them, but the city manager can. And what— because it had to do with pools and funding and whatnot. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to explain the memo now, if you like.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Um, so yeah, it is there. There was a proposed amendment, um, that will be coming next week or the next meeting. Um, I just wanted it in here to inform council that that was coming, that we have—. I have had continued work with the swim club on the, on the matter.

Um, you can look at their email, and if you have questions of me or things you'd like to see prior to the June meeting where we adopt the budget, I'd happy to get additional information for you on that. So is that okay? Yeah, thank you for that. I wanted to bring special attention to it, so you did that. Uh, City Attorney Bloom.

Thank you, Mayor Naxted, members of council. I don't have anything to report, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions for Mr. Bloom? Seeing none, City Clerk Sainer. Thank you, Mayor Noxstad.

Just uptick in our mobile food vendor licensing, and we're sending out reminders to our taxicabs in the— operate in the city that their licenses expire on June 30th and it's time to renew. And I'm available for questions. Any questions for the clerk?

That brings us to additional public comments. Are there any members of the public who would like to address the council at this time on anything at all? Anybody online? Okay, that gets us to council comments. Student Rep Bowling, welcome.

I'm surprised you're here the day before the last day of school, but that— I think that that's great. Good evening, everybody. I haven't got much to say here. I'd just like to congratulate the class of 2026 as they're currently walking at graduation. Okay, thank you.

And, uh, yeah, uh, thanks, Vice Mayor Askin. Thank you, Mayor Egstad. Um, congratulations, Mr. Coleman. You have some big shoes to fill. We'll miss Mr. Ross, but I'm sure it's— you're a worthy replacement.

Um, thank you for the master plan. It was very informational, and, um, I appreciate all the work you've done on it. Thanks. Council Member Gremmie.

I also want to congratulate the KCHS 2026 graduates. Super exciting time in their life, and I can't wait to see what, what many of them do next. I hope that— I hope they will choose to stay and live and work in our community. I wanted to remind folks that you can still sign up for the summer reading program. I signed up and It's bingo, so I'm rather competitive, so let's bingo, see if we can— if I can beat you.

And Memorial Day is Monday, and I want to make a point of saying that I'm grateful for all of our service members who paid the ultimate sacrifice to afford us with the freedom to self-govern through councils such as this. And as City Manager said, I would encourage you to attend one of the Memorial Day services that are held in Kenai on Monday at the Kenai Cemetery or Lee Hanson Memorial Park. I attend the Kenai Cemetery one with my family pretty much every year, and I would love to see more community members there showing their gratitude for something that we are very lucky to have and that we benefit from every single day that we live in this country. Well said. Councilmember Kucena.

Well, I'm certainly not going to say any of that better than her, uh, so all I will add is that I look forward to, uh, Ryan's acceptance speech on his new position. So, Councilmember Petty.

Thank you, Mayor Nexted. I concur with all the things that our, my fellow council members have said. I would like to say that I will be attending remotely on June 3rd, and I pray that everyone will be safe on this Memorial Day and remember the ones who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Thank you. Thank you.

Councilmember Daniel.

Thank you, Mayor Naxted. And I, I can't top any of those comments. Everybody just have a great, safe Memorial Day weekend. I will say this about summer reading. My daughter is 9.

She's very excited about summer reading. She asked me multiple times, Dad, I want to go to the library. Can you take me to the library today? It's like, I got council. Don't go to council, take me to the library.

So she's very excited about that summer reading program, if that gives you any indication. So yes, please sign up if you can. And Chief Ross, we'll miss you. I'll still— I'll try not to bother you in the neighborhood and ask you all those fun things when I see you walking. You take it with grace, and I appreciate that.

Looking forward to you taking the helm, right? It'll be a good time. So I really appreciate that. And Council Member Soenart. Thank you, Mayor Next.

First, I'd like to congratulate Mr. Coleman. For your new position. And thank you, Chief Ross, for all that you've done for our city and your time and your service to us. Thank you very much. And I just want to say I very much appreciate all the work that was done on the Parks and Rec Master Plan.

I think it's, uh, it's going to be a very useful and practical document, and I'm excited to see what comes forward from it. And just a happy Memorial Day weekend, everybody. Okay, we have no executive session. We do have a pending item, Ordinance 3510-2026, which will be coming back to us on June 3rd. And that brings us to adjournment.

With no further business, this body is adjourned.