Kodiak Borough: Assembly Work Session of September 10, 2026

Hey. All right. I will call the Thursday, September 10th, 2026, Codic Island Borough Assembly work session to order. We'll begin with citizens' comments tonight. For those who wish to call in, the local number is 907-486-3231, toll-free 1-855-492-9202.

Please turn off your radio or any listening device to prevent feedback. And for those in the room who wish to speak under citizens' comments, please come to the podium and sign in, turn on the microphone, make sure the green light is on before speaking, and speak directly into the mic. And please state your name for the record, address all remarks to the assembly as a body and not to any member thereof.

Go for it.

Hello, Mayor and assembly members. My name is Dan Rohr. I am here to speak in regards to your agenda item that I'll refer to as your Open Meetings Violation Act discussion. I am really, really, really, really concerned. So I have not ever seen an elected body flagrantly disregard the Open Meetings Act.

I called— I called point of order in your meeting, and I was hopeful that kind of cooler heads would prevail behind the scenes. You guys would come to the realization that state statute is very clear on Open Meetings Act. You may not— you absolutely may not, no exceptions— pull your assembly. You can pull them for one thing only and one thing only. And that is, do you guys have availability for a meeting?

Like, it's purely procedural. Is Thursday night a good night for a special meeting? Those types of things. What you may not do is poll them in regards to substantive topics that you just— I mean, and I get it's so much more efficient, right? But this is democracy, and it's not about efficiency.

It's about protecting my rights as a citizen. So I came and spoke very passionately trying to convince you that the whole discussion should be just put to bed, that the— that where you understood currently is the correct way to handle remote access to meetings. So what you did was you avoided having to look me in the eyes. You were able to vote privately in the privacy of your own home, send that to the clerk, and the clerk put together an administrative review of it. And in that administrative review, I'll just read you a couple things out of it.

Ironically, with this one, it actually came out the way I wanted it to come out. And the truth of the matter is, I think after your meeting, I probably could have had a pretty good track record of guessing how you'd have each voted. Which leads all the more to the reason why you shouldn't have done a poll. So in the discussion on August 13th, 2026, this topic was placed on the agenda and a survey was distributed by the clerks. The assembly reached consensus on the issues of quorum, whether exemptions allowable, remote circumstances, video requirements, notice deadlines, and executive session bans.

Only one single issue remains to be discussed. The annual cap on remote meetings, everything remains to be discussed because what you discussed privately, illegally, behind closed doors is an absolute violation of the Open Meetings Act. If you go on the state's website and go to commonly asked questions, the third one down, I think it might be the fourth one down, is, is it legal to poll your members? And the answer is no, and explains why it's not legally allowed in the state of Alaska. So What's the remedy?

The remedy is to tonight to discuss it in the public's view. I know that's going to take time and it's a beautiful evening, um, but the bottom line is you violated the Open Meetings Act. Um, I guess I will end my statement by saying I'm not concerned about it per se with the topic that you discussed, but I am concerned that it's an easy out for you in the future and for future assemblies. And I'll just close with this. I'm not going to file a complaint with the state of Alaska for this one, but I will for future ones because at this point you've been notified, you know that you've been told that what you did was illegal.

And I'm not an attorney, so I would encourage you to ask your attorney, but he is going to agree with me. So thank you. She. Thank you, Dan. She.

Sorry, I didn't realize we switched. Thank you, Dan. Anyone else? Do we have any calls? No calls.

Okay, seeing none, we'll move into manager comments.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Assembly members. On Tuesday, I was able to attend the candidate forum for Assembly, and I thought— I think that was very enlightening. If you get a chance to go back and listen to that, you can learn a lot. Also, last night we had all 4 gubernatorial candidates here for the fisheries debate, and There was a social beforehand, and Assemblymember Gardner was able to go to that, and then the debate afterwards.

I think he went to swab in the middle, so he gets like a gold star for participation last night. But I wanted— I'm bringing it up because there's a U.S. House of Representatives debate and a U.S. Senate debate that's happening on Saturday, and I included the flyer from the Chamber of Commerce in there that lists the times. And that's a great way to get face time with those people. I was able to speak to all 4 of those candidates either at the social or after the debate last night. As directed from our meeting last week, our staff worked on our bear management plan with DEC and the Department of Fish and Game for finding a solution to keep bears out of the landfill and accessing solid waste.

We spent 3 hours with Fish and Game yesterday, and I have never been more hopeful walking out of a meeting than I was that one. We gained a lot of ground with Fish and Game and were able to express and be heard, and it felt really good. It did not translate to our meeting in the afternoon with DEC, but for the local people here who are dealing with the bears and understand our topography and geography and the actual kind of bear we have, I think we're all on board. So we're going to join forces and make a presentation that will go back to DEC. So that's our plan moving forward.

We had 2 employees leave the borough employment in the last week, Travis West, our GIS analyst, and Patricia Valerio, our projects assistant. Travis is on his way to Minnesota and Patricia is just down the road, but we wish them well. Two new employees started work this week. Emma Christianson is an appraiser technician in the assessing department and Tandy Ford Roberts as a maintenance mechanic in the engineering facilities department. We're also recruiting for a treatment plant operator one.

We had two interviews and two more applications are in the review stage, so that's a really good sign for us having four applications for a single job. Exciting. In finance, the auditors are on site next week. Finance staff will be working with auditors throughout the week to provide requested documentation, answer questions, and assist and review the borough's financial records and procedures. Uh, for anyone that's on the HFAB, I think at this point it's just Mr. Smiley.

Uh, the auditors are also going to be working on some of the questions that they asked about what was happening in 2017 around the start of that hospital lease, so we'll get answers for that as well. Our property assessment and taxation implementation project is almost complete as far as major components go. We'll be moving into their transitional support team. In IT, the department continues with our new Proxmox service cluster. They're about 50% done migrating boroughs over to it.

Fred will send out a message and say, hey, this is going to happen. No one knows anything is happening, and I guess that's a good sign. Uh, the Kodiak Island Borough cybersecurity infrastructure project is continuing to progress. We have our second firewall in for the landfill— our second firewall for the landfill is ready for installation. And we've continued building out secure remote access for employees that are working outside of the office.

In assessing, um, they are doing reviews inside of the city of Kodiak. Our no PFD numbers are down to 16 seniors and 1 disabled veteran. Our undetermines are down to 20 senior citizens and 1 disabled veteran. Our good cause hearing is scheduled for October 15th. We have 3 senior citizen late-filed denials.

Late filers have until September 21st to provide good cause to the assessor if they want to be heard at that good cause hearing. For exemption updates, the follow timely filed exemptions, the Kodiak Maritime Museum, which was sent to legal for review on August 19th, and no other changes in that. For exemption appeals, we had some movement for the 2023 refund case. The attorneys timely filed a joint status report. The 2024 appeal case The Lutak Heritage Foundation filed a motion for attorneys' fees, all of them, and we filed an opposition to that motion.

That was a split decision, and we returned the portion of taxes and interest back last week to stop the interest. And we filed a motion saying that we didn't believe that we should be paying all of their taxes. I do believe, or it seems as best guess, that they're going to take that decision to the Alaska Supreme Court, and so I don't think we're done with that one quite yet. So my apologies to Scottburn Erickson, who gets to retire after this case is done. Not quite yet.

Uh, for their 2025 reconsideration, that's on hold until we get an answer for 2024. And for their 2026 application, that decision letter is with, uh, Scottburn Erickson for review. And we still have, um, no answer for our CANNA case at the Supreme Court. That was heard in December of 2024, although a new list of decisions comes out every Friday. So maybe tomorrow is the day.

In Community Development, there is a work session held on the 9th. The commission reviewed Chapter 2 land, which is the land use chapter for Plan 2045, which is our comprehensive plan. In the packet review for the September 16th regular meeting, there are the CIP list, the second rezone at Cliff Point, two variances, land disposal for Beaver Lake properties, an election of a new chairperson for the commission. In addition, staff noted that under new business for the regular meeting is the election of the new chairman. The commission will also make a recommendation to the mayor for a second commissioner to sit on the Borough Lands Committee.

There is a review open now and a website listed there for the annual review of the multi-jurisdictional multi-hazard mitigation plan. If anyone's interested in that, it'll be a link that's in the manager's report. In engineering facilities, we met with Alaska Waste today to discuss their proposal and clarify expectations. We don't have a lot of room to actually negotiate on prices because they are our only bidder, but there were some things in there that needed clarification, and we went through that today. That contract is expected to be reviewed at the October 8th work session ahead of the vote at October 15th meeting.

We were actually scheduling it for the cycle before that, but Alaska Waste is traveling to Houston, Texas, and they want to be here when the assembly discusses it. And so we're going to wait— push that back 2 weeks, and there's not a big time deadline since they're already here. We were really concerned about getting this contract out early just because if it was a new contractor, to allow them to get stuff to the island. But Alaska Waste is bringing some new stuff, but not a lot. For fuel spill assistance, At the landfill soil remediation, we're still uncovering and tilling that soil, sampling at the end of November.

We're expecting a report from MWFF by the end of the week on the long-term care center, and we haven't had any trips out to Carluck yet for that spill out there. For small projects, the Port Lion School painting project is just waiting on the metal installation for trim. The contractor got metal, it was the wrong metal, but now the new metal is here, it's the correct So today in our, uh, meeting with the school district, we discussed, um, a joint trip out there, already going out next week. So we're gonna try to get on that plane so we can do the final checkoff for that project. We've received the final invoice for the UST removal.

We're awaiting closeout documents. The roof warranty building permit has been submitted and we're awaiting a schedule of work. And it looks like we're gonna schedule both the borough building and the KFRC building automation system projects together. The landfill bear fence, as I mentioned earlier, we met with the Department of Fish and Game and ADC yesterday. Defenders of Wildlife grant-funded materials have partially arrived.

We've gotten a pallet from them, but we are still waiting for the remainder. And then we'll need DEC approval for where we want to place that. For designs, North Star roof is in its final stages. Our pool small-scale repair is moving to 65% as expected by the 17th. East Elementary roof is paused at my request.

The ATS replacement was approved today at the ARB at 65%. The Providence RO and steam generation is paused and awaiting feedback from Providence internal review. Our contract roster is complete. We had a Solid Waste Advisory Board meeting last night, our Architectural Review Board today, and in addition to our 65% automatic transfer switch design approval, They approved the 100% design for the chiller project, which is amazing because in the next meeting we will be asking you to approve funding for that. And we have a Health Facility Advisory Board meeting scheduled for September, September 15th.

And that is all I have tonight, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Any questions for the manager regarding the report?

All right. Oh, sorry, Mr. Mayor, can I add one more thing? Sorry, sure. Tomorrow is September 11th and it's the 25th anniversary. Bayside is serving breakfast starting at 8 AM.

They said they will cook food until people are no longer hungry in memory of the day. And people were telling stories online about, you know, Chief was on the East Coast when that happened. And so if you are looking for a way to remember the day, Bayside is a great location for people to go. Thanks. Very cool.

Thank you.

All right. Let's take a look at the work session agenda. Up first is a discussion of the survey results regarding electronic participation. Mr. Woods is not here today, maybe expecting a baby tonight.

So, Sonova, do you mind taking this one? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the assembly. On July 9th, an agenda item request form was submitted by 3 assembly members to amend the Kodiak Island Borough Code. On August 13th, 2026, this topic was placed on the agenda, and I distributed a survey that evening in your packet for individuals to complete the survey and return them to the clerk.

I don't— I didn't want to ignore Dan's comments that evening, so after the meeting, the ones that were submitted to me were kept in individual envelopes pending legal review because I contacted our attorney that evening just to make sure that the process in fact doesn't violate Open Meetings Act. I wanted to protect the comments and just in case if it is in fact a violation, I would just return them and just say return them to me during a public meeting. So I wanted to protect the assembly regarding a possible violation. So I was able to get an attorney's opinion, and the note is that as long as it was used as a tool for you to have a robust discussion at the next meeting, and that there's no secret deliberation that is happening from the assembly, members were to complete the forms and individually organize their thoughts and prepare for an efficient meeting. So that was the goal.

There was no active deliberation from the assembly members, there was no debate, and I actually advised everyone and sent an email of that, um, and I advised you that the discussion should take place at a public meeting. And then full deliberation of All the survey questions will occur in an open and on the record during the public meeting, a public meeting just like tonight. So there's also full transparency where you completed the forms and they were not withheld from the public. They are fully attached to the agenda packet. I hope I got the names correct on the forms.

Some of them were returned without names on them and I tried to decipher the handwriting based on your submitted forms in the past. So I hope I got them correctly. If not, please let me know. I'd be happy to correct. Um, so I think it is my mistake to put in the agenda summary the word consensus because there's no really deliberation of the assembly outside of a public meeting.

It was just a lack of a term that I can use to maybe relay what the result of the survey is. And the way I look at it is that you do the same process when you score nonprofit applications. You will score the applications and you will return them, and then there were times in the past that we would create a spreadsheet based on the scores. So, but tonight, do you have— you have the result before you I titled the agenda item discussion of survey results regarding electronic participation. You are not limited to just discussing that one disputed item.

If you want to open a whole discussion of all the items that were on that survey, you are free to do that. You know, you're not limited on that one single issue, although that's the way I worded it. But you can pretty much do whatever you want from this point on. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

Any questions for Nova before we start looking at each of these?

Okay. So I'd like—. Yes, as Nova suggested, like to go ahead and run down all of them and then Nova also gave us a couple of suggestions for next steps which I agree with.

Also. So on the, on the first one, considering quorum integrity, it looks like when you look at the sheets, this one was unanimously rejected.

But are there— is there any additional deliberation from the Assembly on this one? Okay. Severe weather contingencies, it also It was a 6-to-1 margin on this one, but it seems like a lot of the responses were opposed to fully virtual emergency meetings. But any comments on this one, Mr. Gardner?

I feel like, uh, I don't know, in an extreme situation, um, you know, the only one in recent memory would have been COVID, when pretty much anything you logged into, at least the city, I don't remember logging in any borough ones, but it was entirely virtual. And, you know, you weren't allowed to be in the same building. But in the event of a natural disaster or a landslide down by the crane, like somebody can't make it in from the Flats, you know, I would like to see, uh, that person be able to attend virtually, specifically because that would be a high priority item to discuss and get after right away.

Any other comments?

Mr. Ames. Um, you know, something like he said happens and one or two people can't make it, then virtually would be okay, but I still think assembly should not be able to— the meeting should just be postponed. And that would go along with the one above it of needing a quorum in presence to have a meeting.

Thank you.

Mr. Whiteside. So, yeah, I suppose, you know, we could— there's so many scenarios that could apply to this one.

I don't know. I mean, I could easily go either way. I was the one person who said that that could be okay for those kind of circumstances, but while also wishing to maintain a physical quorum. So I suppose if we were unable to do that because the emergency was so extreme, we probably wouldn't be meeting anyways. So I just take my vote on this one with a grain of salt, or my input, excuse me, not vote, my input with a grain of salt.

Yeah, you know, I could easily go either way. Depending on what it is. But I do appreciate that if someone had a geographical limitation, that was mentioned, if someone lives out in the Flats or Menasha and the road caves in or sinkhole or something like that happens, and, you know, I think that's totally acceptable. But might also just fall under our other remote guidelines to begin with. Right, and other emergency things that we have.

Okay. All right.

Let's see. Allowable remote circumstances, expanding electronic participation for any general reason, but still strictly tied to narrow exceptions.

Any general reason. Any further discussion on this one? Would you like to articulate? Okay. All right.

The video feed, yeah, I found this one pretty kind of interesting too. The visual— having a visual presence via video. Remaining mandatory. Audio-only connections will not count as official attendance. So I'll open this one up for discussion.

Mr. Gardner. One of the reasons I voted no on this, to audio only, is I am severely hearing impaired. When one of you are on the video call, I am literally reading your lips sometimes to get context. And so whenever possibly available, with the only limitation being, again, the most extreme of emergencies where you're not able to get a video call through. Mr. Whiteside.

Yeah, on this one, I strongly prefer that anyone attending remotely needs to be on screen. Folks need to see our face, you know, look us in the eyes best we can. But we do live in remote areas, travel to remote areas. So if I'm thinking about Dutch Harbor— Dutch Harbor is what came to mind for me— if I'm in Dutch Harbor, I've attempted it once successfully, which was shocking that I was able to use my cell phone as a hotspot to get through the meeting, and I was actually able to see everyone, which is a miracle for if anyone has ever been to Dutch Harbor. So I was just thinking of those kind of examples where the bandwidth just simply wouldn't support it.

But in that case, I would also be comfortable if I lost video and, you know, that being an absence for me as well. So again, this one I could easily go with the majority on that.

Ms. Roberts. For me, whenever I've been in Zoom calls and someone has their camera off, it just automatically tells me they might not be paying attention or fiddling with something else. And so that's why I voted no on this, just to make sure, just accountability for the public to see and for us to see.

And I'll just point out too that, you know, if there is, uh, even though it seems like consensus is going certain ways on some of these issues, if you still feel strongly, I mean, propose some ordinance language. And let's, you know, talk about— get into some language and we can deliberate some more on it.

The minimum advance notification window, do we want to keep the advance notification window at 24 hours? Any thoughts on this? Mr. Gardner. Can you clarify, was this the minimum advance for video participation?

Yes. Yeah, I think there was a mistake. I'm reasonably certain I voted for that— or not voted, but I had said that I would like that at 12 hours specifically because I'm with tech stuff and I know it can be difficult for clerks and everybody to get that set up in just 2 hours.

Okay, Nova, did you make that note on there?

Mr. Ames. I would hope with shorter notice they might be able to try. My question for— or my reason for saying that is several times when I was in Old Harbor, I was able to attend the meeting by Zoom, and I gave late notice, but the plane didn't cancel till late notice. I had a seat, the weather looked good there. And by the time I realized, or Island Air informed me that we're not postponing anymore, we're canceling, it would have been past that window.

And luckily, you know, they said we'll try, and they did. So I do have a little trouble with this one.

Um, yeah, I can, I can definitely see your point, uh, Mr. Ames. I think like that, um, um You know, I think that 24 hours, like, we have to have, right, some kind of legal line there. So obviously, if it's less than 24 hours, we will all work hard to make sure that that participation, but we just don't want, right, an assembly member or, you know, or someone to say that we denied them access to a meeting, you know, after a certain point. But, you know, that 12 hours is still, Still debatable, you know. Mr. Mayor, if I could just state what the code currently says regarding this, that 24 hours— within 24 hours, you need to call the mayor and ask for permission to attend.

That's how our code is written right now. So if you informed me 3 days in advance, you don't need to go through the mayor. But if, let's say, on the day of the meeting, oh, you know, I can't get out of Old Harbor because of the weather, then you need to advise the mayor, and the mayor can give you an okay within that 24-hour period. So it could be at 5 o'clock and you call the mayor and say, can I attend? And then he'll say, yeah, Nova, go ahead and make that arrangement.

And you'll be able to participate. Okay. Yeah.

Let's see. The next one is, let's see, the late notification cutoff.

Late notification cutoff. So as Nova just mentioned, there is, yeah, the 5:00 PM mayoral approval cutoff for late notifications. To give staff adequate time to set up.

There might be some discussion on this one.

No? Okay. Mr. Whiteside. I just, you know, defer to the clerks and they need some sort of time, I imagine, to help facilitate getting someone set up. So I would just lean on what the minimum, absolute minimum would be to not put too much pressure on the clerks to make that happen.

Ms. Roberts? Yeah, I agree with that. A 5 PM cutoff time only gives them an hour and a half to try to set that up, and I think that's an adequate amount of time.

Anyone else?

Okay, um, the, uh, the per-meeting remote caps, um, so maintaining the cap at a maximum of 3 remote members to ensure that we have a 4-person quorum live in the chambers. I don't think there is a whole lot of discussion on this, but anything to add? Okay. It seems like there's unanimous consensus on that. And then finally, executive sessions.

Remote access during executive sessions, allowing electronic participation during some of these confidential Executive sessions due to security risks.

Mr. Whiteside. Yeah, I mean, this one for me mostly is leaning towards my desire, initial desire, to open up capacity for folks in the Villages to run for Assembly. So it's hard to meaningfully weigh in an executive session if you have to to fly in just for that. Now, I understand that that's likely not legal for us to allow just these types of participations for villagers, but anyhow, thinking about it more, you know, VPNs are very easy to come by these days. So I guess I would need to have a better understanding of what the risks would be, you know, acknowledging that if you are not in a If you're in a public space, that's not okay.

But if you're in a private room, let's say you're traveling for work and you're in a hotel room by yourself and have a secure VPN, I see that as a very low-risk scenario unless someone's wiretapping your hotel room. But I do appreciate the nature of executive sessions and the reason behind them. So all that said, I guess full circle, my initial intent for that input was regarding the Village participation remotely, but since that's a non-issue, I'm fine with going with the majority there. Mr. Gardner. I have to agree with Mr. Whiteside.

I just don't see a— I just don't see a very high security risk for something along these lines, but maybe there is the occasional chance for that, but I'm going to stand with Mr. Whiteside Okay. Any comment on that one or any of the other areas that we have already looked through?

Mr. Whiteside did bring up the— that there might be a legal question on multi-tiered or a multi-tiered residency rule. Ms. Roberts requested a legal review.

Where does— in the notes here, so is— are we waiting for a second person to sign on to that? Yes, our current rule says that if we need a legal review, that we need at least two assembly members, or a mayor and an assembly member during a public meeting request that. I'm—. I can't remember if there were two that agreed to that during the discussion, so I just wanted to be sure before I spend any more money on an attorney that I do have those. And, um, it— because it could get really pricey once I start going to the attorney for questions.

So I just wanted to make sure that I do have the marching orders from the assembly to get that opinion. Did I see your hand up, Mr. Gardner? Yeah, I was going to go along with Ms. Roberts until you used the phrase really pricey. And I was wondering if there is a way— I know that's hard— but that we could define that. I can't remember what the attorney is per hour.

Can we put a cap at it at 1 hour? Is that possible?

I don't think so. Amy's probably dealt with the lawyer a little bit more than us. But every—. I mean, virtually every question costs about 2 grand. Yeah, I think every subject.

I think the latest bill that we got for the marijuana ordinance was well over $3,000, right, Nova, just for legal opinions on writing that ordinance. And, um, we've spent a lot of money on the bear fence issue with the attorneys as well. So we did add more to the budget this year because there's always a learning curve with new attorneys as they get used to us. And as they become familiar with our codes, it takes less time. But this first year, we always put some more money in the budget to make sure that there's some wiggle room.

I think we've spent that. So, uh, that being said, I was going to sign off, but I will decline. I'd rather save the money. Ms. Roberts? I would also like to take back my request.

Um, I think we kind of had a consensus anyways that it would probably be illegal for us to only allow village residents to do unlimited, you know, change it just for a village resident. And so I think this just kind of takes that off the table on its own. Okay. So I formally retract that request.

Our pocketbook thanks you.

Let's see. And then, so, Nova has suggested, it looks like, a couple of next steps for us. So one, that looks like there was some majority consensus, but maybe not on— Developing some— developing an ordinance to address the annual remote meeting caps.

So do we want to come back to that one or just kind of leave it open to someone who wants to draft that language and then bring it back and we can talk about it some more? And so that one is there at the bottom of page 2, kind of the options there. So let's, let's revisit that one. Keep the— we've talked about keeping the limit at 4 meetings Increasing the limit to allowing remote participation from 6 to 8 meetings or even from 9 to 12 meetings. And then, of course, the zoning-based eligibility, we're kind of taking— it sounds like we're taking that one off the table.

Mr. Gardner? Just would like to iterate that I am vehemently against 9 to 12 meetings, but I could go to 4 to 8. 6 To 8 doesn't seem like a big deal if you've got a great reason.

Ms. Roberts. Could really go either way, either keeping it at 4 or increasing to 6 to 8, but I did like the caveat that Scott put in there for 3 meetings in a row max.

Okay, sounds, um, so, uh, it sounds like there's something there. So, um, it's kind of in your hands now, right, to develop that, develop that ordinance and include some of that language that you want, and then we can bring it back and debate on it even more. But is that something you'd be willing to help an assembly member draft? I can help, um, however I need an agenda item request form filled out, please, so I, I can start working on it. Okay, so yeah, if you want to change that, grab one of the yellow forms, get somebody else, and then, um, yeah, we can start looking at an ordinance regarding that.

And then the second next step was the legal review, and so we've decided not to pursue that. So it seems like the thing hanging out is that remote meeting cap. So I'll leave that in your hands. Is there anything else regarding these items that you'd like to— anything I missed?

Okay. All right. Moving on.

Next is a discussion of lobbying priorities for our September Washington, D.C. Trip here in a couple of weeks. It says originator is Amy Williams, but Amy may not be going with us. She's not. Okay.

Amy will not be going. So what I like to do is kind of just talk to the Assembly, and, uh, and Bo and I will kind of take your notes, because, um, when we go on lobbying trips, we want to make sure that we are representing the borough as best as we can, and what you think should be our priorities when we discuss, so that we can come back to you with information that you expect or are hoping for, and not to go, not to go rogue.

Yeah, yeah, because I'm going to— if we're going rogue, I'd spend all day at the Smithsonian. So, but that's not appropriate this time. So we have Amy, you sent in— I should have pulled up that email. Do you remember off the top of your head the departments we already have meetings with? Let me see if I can—.

Oh, wait, I've got it. So we have meeting requests into Coast Guard, DOD, DOT for duty—. The MARAD program is the grant that they're trying to get for St. Herman's Harbor for funding. And we want to be there with the city to help give them support. That's something that both the city and the borough need.

And the Army Corps of Engineers. And then I would like to add—. I haven't emailed Seb yet, but I want to add Department of Energy on there for sure.

So our federal list was signed in January of 2026, and the landscape here in Kodiak has changed quite a bit since then. And so I think that Department of Energy is really important. The other thing, and I'm sorry to the Deputy Presiding Officer, Mayor, I forgot when I emailed you today, but I think another option we have is to— Alaska Aerospace has their own lobbyists that work in D.C. I think if you can make contact with them and we could introduce Seb to them, they've been successful in getting places with the Defense Community Infrastructure Program that we haven't. So if we could latch onto them, learn from them.

I don't know what the right word is, but I would be interested in finding out if we can get into that program with them or if there's— if they know something that we don't. And I also think that even though that's on the south end of the road system, it's definitely going to start affecting other things, especially energy. So that might be a— if there's time in the schedule, that'd be a good thing to try to contact. Thanks for that reminder. Yeah, I'll— I can give John Obers, the CEO of Alaska Aerospace, a call.

He had offered, yes, to hook us up with their lobbyist So I think that's something we try to make happen. Mr. Smiley, we generally support a number of things with the city. Are we going to get the city to support us with the rocket launch people or the Coast Guard or something like that, getting them to chime in with us as we chime in with them? Yes, I think, you know, we're big supporters of the harbor because that affects everyone. And but the the additional assets for the Coast Guard and stuff, that affects everyone who lives in the city too.

So I think it's a— because we're traveling together as Team Kodiak, I think that it's a— just insinuated that we're— everyone will be supporting everything as they travel around to different things together. I think this is really unique. We used to do this years ago, so it's neat to see this come back. Yeah, yeah, we— the, the agenda that we're—. The meeting agenda we're setting up is with with everybody.

So, so yeah, the city will be with us there at Department of Energy and with the Coast Guard. So that's the plan. Mr. Gardner, uh, most important things to me on my list, uh, as you already said, the harbor. It affects everybody. We've got to see what we can do.

But then a lot of the other things like, um, uh, wastewater treatment plant, a lot of the sewage work that needs to be done in Aleutian Homes and throughout the CIP list, I feel like some of that could be combined into the community defense infrastructure program and leaning on those guys super hard and the Coast Guard and reiterating over and over how they need to invest in the infrastructure of Kodiak as they plan to bring in all of these new support families and just constant reiteration and hammering that home. So I, I totally agree, Assemblymember Gardner. I think that Mayor Griffin and I had the opportunity to meet Brittany Smart, who works for UAF, who is really involved in the DSIP program. We were giving her until like a few weeks after the defense forum because that was a much bigger lift than I had imagined, and she wanted a break. And so she said that she would help us.

The—. You don't just ask for money, you have to create a project and then you have to get a command sponsor, and then you have to get that project with the command sponsor in. Alaska Aerospace used Governor Denley as their command sponsor. And so I think we should try that and ask the governor to help us. And we should also— she said that there would be people involved with the Golden Dome project that she would easily be able to get to sponsor projects for us.

And because we do— we don't have to wait. The Coast Guard isn't included. Right? So it's a defense community, and the Coast Guard's not defense, but because we do have Navy SEALs and they are doing an information center out on Spruce Cape and have installed the new water system and stuff, you know, that, that's going to put— that's going to make it so our city water system has to work even harder. And so I think that's our best in is with the city water infrastructure because that's a clear need.

The Navy is clearly there. They are clearly doing things. I think that's going to be a great first step in until we can convince them to let Coast Guard communities— or there might be a chance with Golden Dome and the Space Force's hiring of Rocket Lab that we would be considered a defense community just because of the projects out at Pacific Spaceport. And that's why I think it's so important to talk to those lobbyists. Yeah.

And then with our, I think, joining the Defense Community Association and then Today they just dedicated a USO chapter. It's the first USO chapter at a Coast Guard base. And those are only for defense and military bases, but now they're looking at Coast Guard. So yeah, it's definitely building. Yes, follow-up, yeah.

I guess the point I'm trying to hammer home is that the added draw on infrastructure across the board, I feel like needs to be continually hammered at the Coast Guard We love our Coast Guard, and they're bringing a lot of new people up here. And inevitably, some of those families, even though they're building homes, a lot of those aren't going to be done for a long time. So are we going to have more— not that we really can fit more people down into the Aleutian home area, but are we going to be putting more stress on those systems, our schools, our roads, etc.? I could go on all day and just constantly reiterating that they need to invest in not only their base but the community that you're going to be relying on as well.

Mr. Whiteside. Thank you. I touched on this really briefly, and I agree with Mr. Gardner. That is my— that is going to be my drive for this trip. But I also view this as an opportunity, not— you know, of course, we are going to advocate for inclusion into the DCIP, but I think this is also a fantastic opportunity for our federal delegation and folks in D.C. who are managing appropriations in the near term to say, hey, our federal delegation through Senator Sullivan has advocated for our inclusion in DCIP.

That has failed repeatedly, but these problems are not going away. They are only compounding. What can you do for us in the near term? So I think it is a great opportunity to get— request resources now because they can acknowledge, like, yeah, you aren't being included into the DCIP. You have these needs now that are growing rapidly and compounding.

With each new development happening here, what can you— what can they do for us right now this year? And so that's the lens I'm looking through, is pointing these strains out on our systems, advocating for inclusion, but that, that could be years down the road. We need assistance now. So of course this will take consultation with our, you know, with the city delegation and our lobbyists if to see if that's an appropriate, uh, strategy. But, um, that's— that would be my preferred approach.

Let me see if there's any— anybody else before I take Mr. Gardner again. All right, it's yours. The other biggest thing on my list is, uh, not to let all these village product— uh, projects go to the wayside. I'm not sure if there's a, um, Native American office that can be approached or something, but I mean, I love interior. Department of the Interior.

We don't have a ton of money right now, and there's some definite serious needs in the village with their— specifically with their water, fire, etc. You guys know what they are. So just not letting those go to the wayside as well.

Anyone else?

Awesome. All right. Infrastructure. It's going to be infrastructure week.

One of them.

Okay. All right. Seeing no other— thanks for that. Thanks for the feedback. I think that is definitely going to help us.

And hopefully we will bring back good positive news when we return. Okay. Up next, a discussion of Assembly Committee assignment workloads. Thank you, Nova. So, you know, finishing my first year as mayor, just looking at a couple of things, and one of them is how to, I think for myself, do a better job of balancing the workload among assembly members.

We are going to be welcoming some new, many new assembly members in here in just a few weeks, it seems like.

And so I wanted to kind of just take a few minutes and let you know what I'm thinking. There's really nothing here for you to approve because this is kind of the process that I'm going to be going through. And so I want to be kind of transparent about my thought process. And then I think this will also help kind of guide you as you decide what committee assignments that you would like to have. So I made just a really, really brief PowerPoint up there just so that you can see my thought process.

So typically, right, you just get a list, you know, of all the committees that are on there, and then the mayor does their best guess, their best effort, right, to kind of balance it out, you know, as best as they can. But sometimes, especially new assembly members don't know what they're signing up for, you know, in the first place. And I'm seeing some nods over here to my left And so, um, so what I wanted to do is think of our board and committee assignments in terms of workload. And so I'm kind of bringing this from the university kind of way of thinking about committee assignments when we think about workloads. Um, and, um, that's to think of workloads in 3 categories that I have right here: full, moderate, and light.

And so each assembly assignment, each committee assignment will be slotted into, you know, one of these. I should have my slide deck up here too because I don't even know what's next. There we go. Can you go to the next one? There we go.

So I already kind of talked about that, so we can go to the next one, Nova. Thank you. So the idea is assigning your workload according to the demand. Hand that that particular committee or board or commission is probably going to have on your energy and time and everything. And this is reflective of the workload.

It is not— I just want to make sure and make it clear, it's not a reflection of the importance. Just because the committee has a light, a relatively light workload, doesn't mean that it's not important. That just means you meet once a year, and you make important decisions, and then you're done for the year. For the quarter, you know, or for whatever. So I just want to make that clear.

So a workload assignment that I might say is full or is a full one, that is an assignment, a committee that meets more frequently, probably once a month. There's a packet that you have to prep and be prepared to discuss, and your participation in that is pretty much required. Like, this is some heavy deliberation that will probably go on, more or less, right? A moderate, kind of there in the middle, is that they are recurring, but they may not—. So regular participation, but you probably don't need to spend as much time or preparation to be in that meeting.

Actually, let me go back. So, like, for the full assignments there, I'm thinking Lands Committee, HFAB, SWAB, the school district budget one that meets, you know, quite a bit for, you know, 6 months, 5, 6 months out of the year. SWAMC, I think, is one. The Providence Service Area Board. And I went ahead and put the Kodiak College Council because sometimes they meet at 7 AM, and that's bananas.

But there's, I think there's a lot kind of going on there. In the moderate category, so those I would put like the Architectural Review Board. Sometimes they meet, sometimes it's meet once a year, you know, sometimes they meet several times a year depending on what the project is. So I kind of put it there in the middle. Some of the fisheries work groups, the Cook Island Surkak would probably be in there.

There's a proposed Southwest Alaska Transportation Policy and Planning Committee that we're going to talk about next that I would probably put in there. And then on the light side, so these are assignments, committees that meet less frequently, you know, there's limited participation or there's just really, you know, generally a small ongoing demand for our assembly representative. So those are things like the Joint Building Code Review, the Kodiak Fisheries Development Association, some of the other school district committees like the Facilities Review and the Strategic Planning, the Fisheries Advisory Committee that might meet, you know, just a few times a year and it's more about listening to people than, you know, than preparing. So again, the light designation doesn't mean that the subject matter is less important, right? It's expected workload for Assembly representatives.

Let's go to the next slide. So what I'd like to do is just kind of take a couple minutes, and so my idea is that when it comes to workload, when it comes to you recommending or asking for which committees you'd like to serve on, that you would choose one or two of the full ones, you know, one or two, or two of the moderate ones, and then two of the light ones. And so you don't accidentally like sign up to do like three or four of the big heavy ones. And then I feel bad about assigning something that you really, you know, you didn't want, but kind of not forcing you, but nudging you into thinking about maybe choosing just one or two of the full ones. A couple of the ones in the middle, and then a couple of the light ones that may meet, may not meet at all, you know, over the year.

So these are the ones that I kind of put in as, you know, something representing like monthly meetings, meaningful preparation. There's maybe some homework that you have to do between meetings, or there's a significant policy or institutional role. So those were the committees that I was kind of thinking and putting in that category.

I feel pretty good about all of them except for I was going to get Ms. Roberts' take on the Kodiak College Council one. And then I believe, Mr. Gardner, you're on the Providence Service Area Board, or was that Dave? I am on the Health Community Advisory Council. Okay. Yeah, that's it.

That's it.

What do you think? Do you think this is an appropriate category for those? Um, yeah, the Kodiak College Advisory Council has been my busiest one, requiring the most prep for it. I held the chair position for a little bit there, so that might have had something to do with it. And that's on you if you're the chair.

Included, uh, meeting with the director and coming up with an agenda and running the meetings. And so that one was definitely more of a lift. And the college has also been going through the transitionary period of getting a new director as well, so that might have had something to do with it too. But you definitely— I agree it should be in the full workload category.

Any other thoughts on, on these?

Jeremiah? I just say Swamp C has been perfect for me. It's a heavy workload in the wintertime, and everybody Everybody is from a coastal community and fishes, and so during the summer it transfers to light for 3 months, and we'll be back at it next month. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I served on for a few years.

I miss it too. Okay, let's look at the next one, kind of the moderate to the medium category. You might have several meetings per year. Maybe these are the quarterly ones, somewhat regular, but the participation is kind of limited.

And there's sometimes not as much prep. And so I put ARB, the Joint Fisheries Work Group, CERCAC, this new transportation one that's coming up from SWAMC. I thought I had a couple more in there, but we can kind of start with that one. Mr. Smiley. If you have SIRCAC in there, you should have the Prince William Sound one as well.

Oh, that's a good idea.

Thoughts on that one? It's as busy as you want it to be. So I'm on the executive committee now, and I feel like that's an honor because that's a hard break to— a hard group to break into. So I did it to myself. But you could be on there and not work a lot.

If you just wanted to, but if you are going to really jump in and learn, it definitely can be time-consuming.

Which you do. You want to be in it. Mr. Smiley. Well, I was on CERCAC for a number of years, and they don't meet every month, but every 2 or 3 months, and it's interesting and you learn a lot. But it's not— it's moderate, not full.

Okay. Great. And then on the low—. I'm sorry, not low, that's not the right—. Light workload, these meetings are a little bit more infrequent.

Maybe it's a smaller role within a larger body, lower demand, you know, kind of across the year. So, the Joint Building Committee. Code Review, I don't think they—. It's been quite a while since they've met. The Local Emergency Prep Council is new, but even then, I think they meet, like, twice a year.

And that council has, like, how many people, Mr. Smiley? There's, like, 30 people on that council. Yeah. And even at that, they can't get quorum. And even with that, they can't get a quorum.

The Fisheries Development Association, once or twice a year. I wasn't sure about Parks and Rec. And that has kind of ebbed and flowed. So I might move that to moderate perhaps. Then again, some of the school ones, the school facilities and school strategic plan, those are kind of ad hoc, they kind of come up whenever.

And in fact, we should probably be—. We should have an assembly member probably more involved in the facilities review discussions. But I think that's low. Amy, how often do you have like regular meetings with school district facilities on your side? Uh, we meet biweekly, so once every 2 weeks with— for school facilities, but we've never had an assembly member come to— is there an assembly member assigned to that?

We do. Sorry, um, sorry for whoever that is. Uh, we—. I don't hear them complaining. We meet every other Thursday at 1:30.

Committee. So we just met with them today. Sometimes the superintendent comes and sometimes they don't. Sometimes I'm there and sometimes I'm not. You know, it's kind of— it depends on if there's anything major that's going on, but it's very informal.

I—. So we do have an assembly member assigned to that, so maybe I should move that then to the moderate.

I would question the need for having an assembly member assigned to that. Or that too. That's something that I think maybe we can talk about. Mr. Smiley. Well, their new facilities guy at the school district is a ray of sunshine compared to what it was before, so things have really improved.

Well, you just might get to sit up there on the dais with him, Mr. Smiley, so then we'll have lots of facilities talk on a weekly basis. So yeah, so I, I really— those meetings are usually short, very informal. We're not there's no real business being conducted. It's just we do it every 2 weeks because that partnership is so important. We want to keep those communication lines open, and then if there's anything important, obviously it has to come to you anyways.

So I—. You're—. Anyone's more than welcome to come, but I, I don't think it's worth your time to come in for that. Okay, okay. That's something we can, I think, talk about with the new— when the new members come in.

Um, the strategic plan also with the school district I mean, you know, I haven't heard of anything coming up, even though they just announced, it seems like, kind of a new strategic plan this past Tuesday, but maybe not.

And so that's how it kind of goes. So can you go to the next slide, Nova, please? So what I will do is I'm going to work with Nova on creating a new form. Term. And these committees, based on like your suggestions and feedback here, I will write— put them in the respective categories just to help you plan, help new members plan.

I think it'll help the decision process for me a little bit better. And then the mayor— then I'll, yeah, balance it as, as best as I can. And that's what I'm going for, you know. Everybody's going to get at least one full you know, and then everyone's going to have, you know, a couple of moderate ones and a couple of light ones. And then I think that will balance out a little bit better than maybe what I have it right now.

But also I think with new members coming in. Any other thoughts or feedback? Ms. Roberts. Would it be possible to add a sentence or two descriptor of each committee? Absolutely.

Yeah. Because there are some acronyms up there. I don't know if I know what they are. I think it would be great to have a little description. We love our alphabet soup.

Yes, I think we can do that on the form pretty easily. Mr. Gardner? I just second what Mrs. Roberts said. There is at least one committee I got put on that I thought it was something 1000% different, and at my first meeting I was blown away. So yeah, that's totally fair, totally fair.

I appreciate the feedback.

Sometimes the mayor just likes to throw people to the wolves and see how well you do. I'm just kidding. Okay, all right, well, thanks for that, and I'll work with, with the clerks on revising a form and make sure that you, you see that form obviously before. And, um, and, um, you know, there are a couple other things too. I think, like Amy suggested, taking off the school district The facilities one I want to talk about.

I also want to talk about maybe taking HFAB down to 2 Assembly members, 1 Assembly member and an alternate, or instead of—. I think there's 3 for it now. So just to kind of help to balance things out, but that discussion will come, I believe, later. All right. So speaking of committee assignments, Juanita— From SWAMC, we've been talking for the past couple of months about a new, I guess, arm in a way of SWAMC, the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference, about forming a regional planning organization.

I was on the board when we started talking about this, so it's been about 2 years in the making. So I'm glad that but we have finally got it designated and recognized so that SWAMC now works in a more formal partnership with DOT and the Federal Highway Administration. And so this RPO, Regional Planning Organization, it's a chance for those of us in the Southwest Region— and it may not feel like we're Southwest when it comes to municipal conferences, we are in the we're in the Southwest—. To provide some policy guidance, transportation priorities, be kind of a conduit for conversations with the state of Alaska and transportation issues, shipping issues, logistic issues, supply chain issues that we're facing from here down the chain and up into Western Alaska a little bit. So they've had to form a newly structured regional planning organization board.

To do that, and they would like the borough—. Since we rely on, obviously, these transportation systems— they were giving us an active voting seat on that board.

And you can see the information there. The terms are going to stagger between 1 to 3 years and meet quarterly. And one of the seats must be filled by an elected official or key municipal staff member within the Suamsee boundary. So Kodiak, we're like one column in that. And so we get to fill it.

Yay, we get to fill it. I'm sorry, that's supposed to be exciting. No, it's going to be— I think this is going to be a really effective group. We've been pushing for this for a while, and the Southeast RPOs seem seems to be working really well.

So, um, so before we get too far into this, um, Mr. Gardner is on SWAMC. Did you—. Wanted to give you an opportunity to add, or—. Yes, so the whole idea, I mean, at first it's a little misleading because you talk about Department of Transportation and Federal Highway public facilities, but there's other arms to this, be it the Marine Highway System be it just marine shipping, rural aviation. It's transportation as a whole, not just your road.

I'm tempted to volunteer myself, but I don't know how busy this is gonna be, and I'm a little bit scared to do so. Working with Swamp C is fantastic. All the people that have signed up on this board are fantastic, and it is a chance to do some meaningful work. I'll take it if nobody wants it, but this could be quite an interesting one. And anytime you work with these groups in particular related to Swamp Sea, it's, it's nice to see bigger things actually get done at more of a state level than just a local level.

So I could probably answer any further questions, but I would I would need a moment to reference things a little bit, but I am going to start pulling it up. Thank you, Mr. Garner. I did, because we are going to get several new members on here, I went ahead and volunteered myself for the first meeting, and then once we go through the committee assignment process, then you guys can look again at your workload and see if something like that will work for you. The first meeting is, I think it is October 18th. So, it's pretty soon.

It's before we make new committee assignments. So, I'm—. Without adding to Jeremiah's workload, I'm totally fine with attending at least that one and then setting up the next member for success. Any other questions on this?

Okay. All right. These regional partnerships are really just more important than ever right now. And so I'm glad we're moving forward with this one. Okay, and then the last thing that I have before we get into packet review is I've been invited to join the Mayors' Alliance to End Childhood Hunger.

This is kind of a loose, informal group of mayors from around the country. That was kind of formed in response to the slashing of SNAP benefits and other federal programs that have been related to food insecurity, to school lunches, you know, to all of those things. And I found out about it because the mayor of Wasilla has signed on and the mayor of Juneau has signed on. And I thought with our partnerships here with Salvation Army and Brother Francis, with CANA, with the, with the food co-op here that has some programming like that, I think this is just an easy, no-cost thing to do to sign on and might open up some doors, or just, just opens up, I think, just a bigger voice for our community to get more grant funding things like that. I think these kinds of partnerships are things that I'd like to look at because I think overall they relieve pressure on the borough's general fund and like in our nonprofit funding.

Because if we can do these kinds of things and help open up money and resources in other ways that are no cost to us, then even, even if it just kind of relieves that pressure just a little bit on us, and also helps our local programs, then I think that's something that we should do. It's just a—. It's a signature on the whole thing. But hopefully you got a chance to look at the website. It's a nonpartisan group of mayors from big city mayors, small city mayors, rural mayors all along the way.

So I'm looking for your authorization Next week we'll take it up at the agenda, but I won't sign it, obviously, if it's— if I'm not authorized to by the Assembly up here. Questions? Mr. Gardner. Sounds like a nice easy win. I just wanted to say I was just at an event right before this Assembly meeting, which is why I was racing in at the last minute, and there was a surprising number of people at that event for me.

That were very upset about SNAP and WIC and other food programs that I really was unaware of the problem. So anything we can do is an easy one to at least try to get involved here. Thank you. Anyone else?

Okay. Well, thank you very much. We'll look at—. I'll ask for a formal vote point next week on that. Mr. Mayor, would you like me to place this on the regular meeting agenda?

Yes, please. Yeah, that's okay. I'm seeing some nods. Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry, I wasn't here for the SWAMC one.

Is there anything that I need to be doing? Oh, uh, no, we'll just, um, uh, we're gonna add it to the committee list for when we do committee assignments in November, but I will attend the first meeting in October.

Thank you. Next is packet review. Packet review does not look very dense. Do we need a 5-minute break or do you want to power through? Break?

All right. Let's take a 5-minute break.

Please make sure all your microphones are off.

Hey, okay, good.

It's been, uh, you know, not the busiest. We go to the thrift store, you know, a couple times a month down there, but, uh, but you know what, it's been good.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, I know there's like 2 different types of things.

I'm Jared, by the way. Great, great. Oh, okay.

Where you from? Oh, okay. All right, we won't hold that against you. Oh, sweet. Oh, this is sweet.

Yeah, this is awesome.

Okay, okay, okay.

Okay. Our work session is back in session. We are heading into packet review for next week's regular meeting. First thing up under awards and presentations is a proclamation in recognition of National Assessors Day. And I am hoping Seema will be there and her crew.

All right. Fingers crossed. Next is a public hearing on something we have talked about for a while, Ordinance Number FY 2027-08, Declaring and Filling Vacancies of the Code of the Island Borough Code of Ordinances regarding the procedures and timelines for declaring and filling Assembly vacancies. Nova. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly.

The goal of the ordinance that is before you right now is to make filling open assembly seats simpler, clearer, and more organized. And the key improvements are clear timelines, easier application process, better vetting, and seamless transitions. And I explained at the last last meeting what those were in detail, and I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Nova. Yeah, a lot of the changes are there between lines 64 and 81, and then a few at the end in Section F. Any questions or discussion about this item?

Okay. We will have a public hearing on that. Next week.

Next, we will have one contract to look at for Codic Island Borough facilities snow removal, ice control, and sweeping with MK Enterprises.

Madam Manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our existing facilities snow removal contract expired in June. I asked staff to prepare an updated contract solicitation to secure snow removal services For all borough-owned facilities, the contract is structured to provide winter maintenance services as needed or as, as directed basis throughout the contract term. This approach allows the borough to obtain timely snow removal, sanding, de-icing, and related services as conditions warrant, ensuring safe access and continued operations at borough facilities.

We issued an invitation to bid on July 17th, advertised for 3 weeks, and the bids were due by August 18th. We had a mandatory pre-bid meeting on August 5th with 2 contractors in attendance. At the bid opening, staff received 1 big package. Following the review of the bid package, staff determined MK Enterprises LLC the lowest responsible bidder and recommends award to them. Um, the school district is going to try to do their own snow removal this year, and so this contract changed quite a bit.

And so once they announced that, our second, um, bidder was less interested in, in the contract, and that makes sense. But the interesting part of the contract is, is that the school district wants to do their own snow removal. They've never done it before, and so they want the backup that if they need help, they can call and get help. And so it was kind of a weird contract to go through, but the contractor, um, we were able to explain that to the people who are interested And so we'll move forward doing exactly that. And so we were happy to have a bidder.

And if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. If there's anything I don't know, Cody will be here next week if you need him. We'll start down the line. Mr. Vizcocho. Hey, Mr. Mayor.

Why, why do the school want to do their own? It's cheaper. Do they have the manpower for it sometimes. That's my concern. They're down a couple of people right now, but they have invested in a sander and they have put some serious money into their plows.

They have an impressive fleet, and they do have an understanding that school starts at 8. That doesn't mean that they stop plowing the buildings at 6, right? They understand that they I'm just asking. Yeah, I think they, I think they have a pretty good understanding. Um, you know, the person in charge of it might be one of my future bosses, so if he's listening, I think they're going to do great.

Um, no, I'm, I'm concerned, and I think so are they. You know, there's years where we don't have very much snow, and I think they'll be able to do it and everything will be fine. But if we have a heavy snowfall year, I'm more concerned. And that's the way we wanted to make sure that there's a backup plan and that our contractor understood that— and it's not going to be, oh, it's 5:30, we can't do this, please come fix it. I mean, we're going to have to have communication based on weather forecasts.

And I think it's just something they're actually going to have to try before they understand what they're capable of. You know, if they have employees who are sick or on vacation, you know, that's going to be— it's going to be hard for them. And then their facility staff is subject to budget just like everyone else's is, and so if they would get a cut and not be able to have the amount of people, um, or have an emergency somewhere else in any of the buildings. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that's up in the air, so I'm glad that there's a backup plan around that. Mr. Smiley, um, in the chart it has Woman's Bay Fire Department snow removal/sanding through RSA, $75,000.

Who's RSA? Through the Road Service Area. Yeah, so instead of having a contractor go all the way out, we have made it so that Brecken, who is a service contractor out there, would take care of— because they'll be driving right by Bayside, so they can just take care of that parking lot while they're there. Thank you for the clarification. Mr. Ames.

Has the borough and the school district had a little discussion about these parking lots right around here? 'Cause it seems both school people and borough people use some of the same parking. We have their— I mean, it's all technically borough facility, right? And so we have designated what they're gonna try to do. And today in our facilities meeting, they asked us, hey, do you want us to come help you out?

And my answer was, let's just do your parking lots first. I mean, I just— I don't feel as comfortable as they do that they're gonna be able to get theirs done, and I hope that they prove me wrong. Mr. Ames. But, um, yeah, we're going to keep our contractor for our facilities, um, and then we will— we'll just see how the winter unfolds. Thank you.

I have Mr. Gardner and then Ms. Roberts. Um, a question and then a statement. Um, just to clarify on these numbers at fiscal impact, um, the repairs and maintenance, what's that in regard to?

Um, if they were to take out a curb or we had a pothole or who, who knows. And then the actual snow removal sanding, that's for the whole season? Yes. Okay. Um, I just want to sort of go on the record, this is something that I say, uh, privately all the time.

These contracts, and snow is one of them, between the city and the borough and the school district it always frustrates the ever-living snot out of me. Um, like Mr. Ames started to bring up, if they've got so much money invested in plow trucks, some of which that money must be coming from the school district budget that comes from the borough, I don't understand why all three government entities can't consistently be trying to scratch each other's backs with these same contracts and how they can't do a decent job of plowing their parking lot and then pop over and grab the borough building. And likewise, when the borough is out by East and they notice that it hasn't been plowed yet, though they can pop in there and help out. I want to— I really want to work towards a future where all three entities find a way to work together on these things and we don't have multiple contracts across the board. I find it ridiculous.

There's got to be a better way. Do you want an answer to that or are you making a statement? I'm making a statement.

Ms. Roberts. The descriptions on these is specific, like the one I'm looking at is Women's Bay Fire Department. That is only for the fire department's parking lot.

I haven't looked at the maps. Is in the audience. Did you hear her? She said there's maps. Attached.

Uh, $75,000 is significantly higher than all of the other ones, and that parking lot is not that big. I need to look at that map, but that seems—.

I don't know if there's anything we can do about that, but I just want to note as a, um, I, I think that I don't see a separate line item for the rest of Women's Bay, so I'm assuming that that is the Women's Bay service area. There is not a That is all one. For Service Area 1, there is also a Fire Protection Area 1 in Women's Bay that is all one board and one entity. So I am assuming that is the preference. Just making sure it is not $75,000 for a parking lot.

Yes. That would be an expensive parking lot. Thank you for asking.

Anyone else? Okay. All right. Thank you, everyone. We have one ordinance for introduction next.

Next week. Um, Ordinance Number FY 2027-09, um, we got rules of the assembly miscellaneous to clarify procedures, limits, and safeguards regarding meeting recesses. Um, Madam Clerk. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the assembly. The purpose of this ordinance is to modernize, clarify, and balance the rules governing meeting recesses within the Kodiak Allenborough Code.

The current language in the code contains operational ambiguities, specifically regarding when a recess can be called, and there is a lack of clear voting mechanics for assembly-initiated breaks. So this ordinance replaces the existing code to bring it into full compliance with Robert's Rules of Order. As you know, you have adopted the Robert's Rules of Order in the code as your guide in running meetings. So I think it's good that we get those in alignment. So this ordinance will allow the presiding officer to declare a brief administrative recess up to 20 minutes for routine adjustments, but only when no active motion is on the floor and no member is speaking.

The chair cannot unilaterally declare a recess while a motion is actively being considered. Under the new rules, a recess during active business requires a formal motion by an assembly member, a second, and a majority vote. The text guarantees that once a recess concludes, the pending motion and any active debate list will resume in the exact state they were in before the pause. If a member believes a recess is called outside of these rules, they can raise a point of order and appeal the decision to the full assembly with standard debate limits. Adopting this ordinance protects meeting efficiency, ensures compliance with adopted parliamentary, parliamentary law, and safeguards the democratic rights of individual assembly members during floor debates.

I'd be happy to answer to answer any questions that you may have. Thanks for putting this together, Nova. This, like, I think we came across this maybe a couple of times over the past few years, and so I think it's good to clarify some of these things. Any questions or discussion?

Okay. All right. Thank you, everyone. Moving on. And then the last thing we'll be looking at next week is the appointment of the October 6th, 2026, regular municipal election officials.

Madam Clerk, thank you. The list is before you, and I would like to extend my gratitude to all those who volunteered, uh, who will give their time for training. We are going to do the training next week, and they will be serving on Election Day. It's going to be a long day for them. Most of them starts at about 6:30 until about 10, 11 at night.

And I also would like to thank my staff who works really hard during election season, and I do appreciate our partnership with the City of Kodiak City Clerk's Office. They—. We do help each other out. So thank you. I— and I hope that you approve my list.

Any questions or discussion? I will approve the list next week. All right, great. Okay, moving on. So that's it for packet review.

So we're back at the work session agenda with—. Uh, Mr. Mayor, if I could interject, we're adding an item under other items, which is the approval of the mayor to sign on to the Alliance to End Childhood Hunger. Yes, thank you. Okay, boy, I talked a lot tonight. Yeah, I feel like— so, um, I'm going to give my elections update.

And, uh, so the write-in candidacy filing period remains open for individuals wishing to submit their write-in candidacy filings. That deadline to submit is 3 PM on Tuesday, September 22nd. So the election pamphlets were mailed out today from Anchorage, so those should be in Kodiak sometime next week. And the printed copies are currently available at the clerk's office. There's some that we put out here in the hallway, and then the pamphlet is also accessible online, and it has been posted on the borough's Facebook page, and it's also on our website.

Website, both in English and the Filipino language. So the by-mail ballots will be sent to the registered voters in Chiniac and outlying communities next week. Residents who do not receive their ballots in the mail may vote early or contact the clerk's office to request a replacement ballot. So the absentee by-mail ballots were also mailed out yesterday. Election training for city workers will be next week.

Our early voting will take place here in the chambers from 10 AM to 4 PM starting Monday, September 21, and closing on Monday, October 5th. Candidates Forum— Irene assisted with that last— this past Tuesday. We did our logic and accuracy test for our voting machines today, and we will resume tomorrow for the city precincts, and we will be doing that with the City Clerk's Office staff. This process includes testing memory cards against pre-marked test ballots. At the conclusion of each test, we will verify that the tabulator's printed results match the expected outcomes of the pre-marked ballots.

Additionally, we are ensuring the reject codes function properly for overvotes and blank votes and that the machines correctly separate ballots with write-in candidates. I'm going to limit my comments to election, and then the rest of the stuff here is available for you to read. I also included a parliamentary news titled When First Amendment Rights and Public Meetings Clash. So I'd be happy to answer any questions. Questions that you may have.

Any questions for Nova tonight?

All right, seeing none, we will, uh, thank you so much, Nova. Uh, we'll move on to assembly members' comments, and we'll start all the way down at the end with Ms. Roberts. Uh, no comment. All right, Mr. Whiteside.

Thank you. Uh, I wasn't able to attend in person, but I did watch the— or stream the candidate forum, and I'm really excited about what next year's assembly is going to look like. I think we have a really great group of people that are running for office. If anything, I'm— I guess would put more energy into getting folks out to vote for these great candidates. I'd really like to see an increased voter turnout.

So if you know people who don't vote, please begin having that discussion with them and why it's important to vote and what it can mean. So get out there and vote, please. Thank you, Mr. Ames. No comment. Mr. Smiley.

No comment. Mr. Vizcocho. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to congratulate the Kodak High School football team for winning last Friday's game, and it was very an excitement for everyone. First time that I've seen that bleachers filled up.

This week they will be off island, and hope you guys can support them by watching them play against Nokiski. We got volleyball and tennis in town. So I encourage everyone in town to please support the high school teams. Your presence matters there. And also for all the people, Filipino community and the Korean community, to please go out and vote this coming election.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gardner. Uh, there is a lot of important people in town. There's a lot of great chances to get some face time with people that might be able to help the borough, the city, and our local community.

If you want to do your best to get out there and voice your concerns or, you know, the things you think are going well, and that's not just for assembly members or city council, but for the general public as well. When you talk to these people and you get their ear, they do hear you, and it does help make things happen. So hope everyone's enjoying the sunshine. Great. Thank you.

And all right, mayor's comments. Yes. Kodiak is a hotspot this week. We are under the national lens for a few things, but also, yes, take advantage of meeting these candidates this week, please.

I have a few things. Oh, the football game. That was more than a win, my friend. That was a slaughter. It was really fun.

It was fun to watch, and then it's like, oh my gosh, we're so tired of winning. I was, but it was a great fun time and learned a lot about 9-man football, some of the different rules too. I was invited and attended the USO grand opening on the Coast Guard base today. It was a great ceremony. I met Captain Hood and Senator Stevens and Representative Stutes were there and a few other Coast Guard dignitaries.

And I think it's such a a great addition to Kodiak, to the Coast Guard base, and hope it goes really well for them. As I mentioned, the New York Times—. Thank you, yes.

Amy had mentioned them. I'm meeting with them tomorrow with their Pacific Northwest editor who's got a lot of questions about like I said, we are under the lens right now, so there is a lot of questions about all the cool and cool things going on and some of the challenges that we are going on to. So they will be interviewing me tomorrow around lunchtime. If you didn't listen to the school district work session on Tuesday and were maybe involved with the candidate forum here instead, I strongly advise that you listen to it and read that packet. If things go the way they're planning, we might have another school facility to deal with, and we probably need to have those conversations sooner rather than later.

And that's something maybe for the new assembly that they're going to be— that they're going to be looking at. But we're going to go through it again. So maybe, you know, maybe. I'm also meeting with UAA next week.

As part of all this investment that's going on in Kodiak, UAA is very, very, very much interested in investing more money and more programs here in Kodiak too. And so Amy was a part of the initial conversation that we had a few weeks ago, and then yeah, they're going to be in town next week, and so we're going to be meeting with them again to to go, to go do that. Yeah, let's see, what else?

Oh, going back to the school district, another facility that we need to be keeping an eye on is the auditorium. Right now there's not an auditorium director. There's nobody basically in charge of that facility right now. And so when things go— when things aren't paid attention to and buildings aren't paid attention to, it's going to come back to the borough in some way because it's a borough-owned building. And so I'd like you to also kind of keep an eye on that and those conversations too as they come up.

You received a legal opinion today in your pink folder. We are going to be— I'm going to schedule an executive session next week after the regular meeting to discuss and talk about our next steps, if any next steps on that. So again, please mind the confidentiality of the information that's in there. And we'll get that scheduled. We'll add it to the regular meeting, Mr. Mayor.

All right. We will add that too.

Okay. With that, the work session is closed and we will take about a 3-minute break to transition to the special meeting.

5 Minutes. Okay.

Okay. All right. 5 Minutes for the setup for the special meeting. Thank you, everybody.