Cordova: October 7, 2026, Council Regular Meeting

And they incurred a great deal of expense, and because we don't— we didn't have the proper tools, and now we do. We have proper language. So very much in favor of the, the amendment here.

Other comments? I guess I would just thank staff for the time that they put into reworking this whole ordinance, because I think it probably did take a bunch of work, and I appreciate of that effort.

Okay, all those in favor of Ordinance 1242, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. She carries. Great.

Don't have any unfinished business. We go to new miscellaneous business. So we have the option to— exactly, hold this up and see if this is what it is. Yeah, so we're being asked whether to— we have the option to protest or waive protest for renewal of liquor license number 2587, Beverage Dispensary for Copper River Northwestern Ltd., Incorporated, doing business as the Moose the Moose. And yes, we need a motion about how we want to do that, and there's some suggested language on page 103.

No one was asking. Uh, I, I move that, um, council, uh, action is to waive our right to protest this very— That's a perfect—. It's been moved, yeah, to waive the right to protest the renewal of liquor license 2587. Sure. Yeah.

Top River Northwest Limited Incorporated, doing business as the Moose Caboose Seasonal Beverage Is there a second? It's been moved, uh, Zastrow and seconded Kinsman. Do you want to speak to the motion?

Council Member Kinsman?

Uh, I'm just— I have read through this I know the ownership of rental car piece facility, but this still— this license is still under Becky Farbig, and I don't know how that works. I don't know if she's actually just— I've been out there and, uh, I just want to make sure that as we're looking at this, that it is being used for us to generate revenue. And I don't see the way this is being used as generating any revenue. And so I, I actually have some issues with that. I think there might be— go ahead.

Uh, I was going to ask Sam if, if there's any precedence for this situation where there's a liquor license, the business that the liquor license was attached to was sold. Has this happened before? Just be aware of—. I think technically the business that the liquor license was attached to has not. Okay, that's the car portion was the only thing that was sold.

The location was sold but not the business. But I think Susan— yeah, I don't think the, the state lease— that's a state lease land— is still in, uh, Becky's name or one of these corporations' names. So I'm not sure what they do with what our arrangement is with the car rental. Perhaps they lease space in that building from her. She still owns the building also.

I think, um, you know, it's not being utilized to its potential. It's open the minimum amount of days that it needs to be open to be able to continue to keep this license, and it's operated that way for a few years now. So a decade. Yeah, I have, I have an issue continuing to allow this to go forward, but I, you know It just seems like it's a waste of the liquor license. But I guess going back to my question, is, is there a precedent for this, this situation where license hasn't?

And only with this business in 2022, we tried to pursue with the state that we believe she was open the correct number of hours or whatever. I think she came here and presented to us with, and also presented to the state, receipts. She collects and remits sales tax to the city. So I think she, I spoke to two ladies from AMCO recently on this one because I had more questions. We received the notice in August.

I was ready to put it in a packet. But when I send it out to the different staff members, I got lots of comments back, just like the ones you guys are saying right now. And I agree with them also. But until somebody sits there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for at least a few months that she says she's open, I mean, how do we know that she's open or not? I do believe she sells enough alcohol to collect our sales tax.

Well, she says she does, so what else can we go on? Um, the state, um, you know, didn't have a great method for us to do anything specific about it. Um, and it all comes down to that we have too many liquor licenses for the city of Cordova based on population because they were grandfathered in from when the that the rule was different. Um, and if the— if we were to protest this one and it was dissolved, it would not be in Puerto Vallarta. So it's an asset for the owner.

It's hard to do that. Would like to encourage her to sell it to somebody who does want to open it more. Maybe— is there enough business in town for another liquor license? I don't know. So you, I guess if we, I still don't know what you would protest on, saying that you don't think she's open the correct number of hours, and then she would prove to us the same way she proved to the state, because we would have to present her with an opportunity to come make her case in front of us if we were to protest.

Um, I'm in favor of that. I mean, there's nothing wrong with her coming in, a business owner, showing us that they're open enough days that it's on them to prove that.

But I think just, just by submitting receipts and things to them, and we might be at the tail end of our ability to protest at this point. Yeah, but we can also protest at each year So not just on the 2-year renewals. And every 2 years when she fills it out for the state, which they are very behind because here we are in— well, they sent it August and she's already this many months into '26. She only had to show that she was open and prove she was open in '24 and '25. So now '26 and '27, she'll show for the '28 renewal.

That's my very best. So when the Coho shut down, that liquor license disappeared. Is that, is that correct?

When someone— did they buy it? Well, because I'm, I'm just curious, like, thinking about, like, so there's been several situations over the past years where businesses have won liquor licenses. They're generally worth money, so people are selling them, but you you know, if, if something happened and we did protest, they took it away, and then we're potentially losing an opportunity for somebody. I think we need to weigh that in our conversation. That's what we weigh every 2 years on, unfortunately.

And so I guess I, I'm just curious, like, are, are, are there multiple ones that aren't being used, or that's— I mean, we haven't seen any paper. Yeah, yeah. So the co-op must have disappeared then, or did it get bought out? Bought by the other two. I can't remember.

I think that's what— I don't want to go on the record or something, but that sounds— no, the entities bought it out. That's what I thought. I dimly remember something about—. So essentially went away. Yes, in, in a roundabout way, that one went away because there was one for the Anchor also.

That's Winston Chin's. Yeah, that was his.

Yeah, so it seems like it's pretty straightforward. You have to come to realize every 2 years that she's— if she's doing the minimum, she keeps it. The opportunity is to sell it so it continues to be operating in the city, but if she loses it, it's putting that debt on. So I mean, there's really not much as a council we can do beyond that, right? I mean, unless us— I mean, unless us and council want it to go away.

I don't I don't think that's what we're talking about. Value in our community to keep—. Our protest would hold up at Amco if she's been able to prove the few things that they need her to prove. It's only 240 hours a year. Think her dates, she says, are September— I can't remember— a certain number of months.

Mr. Roper. So just standing back, picture, uh, it's not revenue today, but it is future revenue. Yeah, it's an asset. And if we remove it, then that was the— basically the consensus is it will never generate revenue. So I, I would suggest that we continue to allow it to operate as Yes.

Okay, any further discussion?

All those in favor of the motion on the table, which is waive protest— waive the right to protest— yes, um, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Great. And back to work.

So pending agenda, CIP list, calendar, page 109.

Anything, um, you added or changed since— well, the calendar. I'm sorry about the election dates, but I don't really know who looks at my calendar versus other calendars anyway. But I will change it and then the early voting starts at 10. There was a time when we had that early flight that it was very helpful for people to be able to vote at 8 if they were flying out that day, thank God, which doesn't exist anymore. So at 10 o'clock is sufficient.

Yeah.

Okay. And then what we were talking about, maybe a special meeting still. On Monday the 26th, it's, it's— I mean, we are going to have the second meeting in October, but there's, um, you— yes, so on the schedule on 10, we're gonna We, we are doing what we wanted to do on the 22nd or 23rd, which is both the union contract, and it's on the agenda, or we're going to take a vote on the agenda now. So that, um, special meeting is off. Oh, we don't need it, right, on the 22nd or 23rd.

Okay. But on the 28th, we will have a work session, which is the start of the big picture and follow-up And your, your budget work session schedule was in here. So I'll add those all to the calendar and the pending agenda, I guess, to 6 o'clock. Okay, right. So, yeah.

6 O'clock. Really into it at 7, we can put it to the bottom of the meeting. I just know we could do all the work sessions. I'm sorry, 6 o'clock on what day? 28Th.

28Th. The schedule's on, right? Okay, okay. But well, even on the 21st, we are still having our regular meeting, and we'll do a 6 PM work session. Yes.

And we can recess the work session and continue it after the meeting if time allows, kind of thing, if we don't get to a good spot. Everything's fine. Yeah, pretty much any regular meeting, the work session, you want to— that we'll handle it that way.

Okay, anything else for pending agenda?

We know that we are recruiting for to fill some positions on our commission list, so that's something we can all be urging our friends and neighbors to take a look at. I meant to send an email to department heads that the 2nd October meeting, usually third quarter reports, so a lot of them are there. Hi, Doug. Thank you for—. You've been telling Okay, okay, well then we can move on to audience participation.

Anyone in the audience want to comment on any city business?

Hi, uh, my name is Jeremy Rackett, Parkside at 317 First Street. I'm the owner of the Cordova Copper Star, which is currently in litigation with multiple parties against the city of Cordova for negligence in maintaining and operating the travel. In August of 2023, the city dropped their vote for Copper Star, which has resulted in years of disputes and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and lost income due to misrepresentation by city staff, negligence of city staff, destruction of evidence by city staff utter incompetence of city staff and the city insurance efforts to drive out claim costs. I'm here today as the initial discovery and interviews have been completed and the city still won't agree to mediate. To my knowledge, city council and staff have not done anything to assist in resolving this matter, so I thought that the council and the community should get an update.

About a month ago, the judge dismissed the frivolous city counterclaims where the city tried to place blame for the incident on my business and crew. The fact the city's lawyer intentionally made those frivolous claims to waste our time and money shows how disconnected this council and staff are from taking accountability of the incident. During discovery, we learned that the harbormaster is responsible but takes zero accountability for staff not properly maintaining the lift. This complete disregard in properly handling the incident insurance claims, ensuring proper maintenance of the travel lift, and safe operations of the travel lift was clearly evident in his testimony. Yes, this lines with how the city has not taken any accountability, but it's frustrating as a community member that the city doesn't care about maintaining our resources and the harbormaster and city manager aren't held accountable for their lack of maintaining our infrastructure.

It was also made clear during the testimonies that the city staff not only heard the winch failure during the first lift attempt, but the travel lift alarms triggered as well. Due to no formal training or reading of the operations manual, staff didn't know how to handle the situation correctly. They just continued on with attempt number 2, which led to the catastrophic failure of the travel lift. The lack of proper training definitely played a part in the incident. The testimony also confirmed that the city not only deleted the Northville video evidence, they destroyed all the physical evidence as well, including the straps, winches, and all other machinery placed on the travel lift.

This is called spoliation in the legal world and typically implies the spoilers, i.e., the city, must prove they weren't negligent, which the records certainly do not support. Well, I haven't started shaming the city on social media or news outlets yet. We'd be glad to share all the testimony and discovery data with anyone interested. It's pretty clear who's at fault and why. As the city hasn't officially taken responsibility yet, You're setting a dangerous precedent for the entire fishing fleet and eroding the economic foundations our community's built on.

So we request yet again that council provide direction to city management and insurance to move towards mediation. There's no 3-minute time right here for anyone. We've always been open to a fair—. You have observed a 3-minute time limit. It's not on the agenda.

It's his standard practice. Okay, well, I'll keep going. We have always been open to a fair settlement, but the city refuses to accept accountability for staff negligence and incompetence in maintaining an operative travel route. Please direct city staff to take responsibility for their actions and correct the wrongs. From my perspective, your lack of action on this matter implies our community truly is dying.

We are no longer a fishing town, and the vision for one of the most beautiful places on Earth doesn't really exist. I used to love Cordova. I still try, but the city's complete lack of accountability and negligence and the financial hardships this incident has created are making my family very bitter. We shouldn't have to pay for the city's faults. It's in your power to end this.

Please help us.

Were there— is there other audience comments?

Okay, we can go on to council comments. Um, maybe I'll start that side.

Yeah, obviously, with the Um, I'm going to be my first round going through budget cycle, so the work session is informative and answer that month, but any good, hoping the end result, uh, works out for everybody. That's all I got for now. Thank you.

Um, yeah, a lot of information in this meeting. I appreciate all the work done by staff, appreciate the comments, um, from the public and from the staff members that come in and give us regular reports. Um, the superintendent's presentation was extremely helpful, as I am— even though I worked in that business, still do not understand school board budgets. So, uh, that was extremely helpful and I appreciate that.

Member Mickelson, I would echo the comments of my fellow City Council members, and I, I would also add I'm really happy to hear some language about the, uh, animal control portion of our community. There's, uh, been multiple incidents and I'm glad they're being addressed. Also, with the burn pile camera, you know, this was something that happened 20 years ago. There's a bumper sticker that said, I got burned at the burn pile by someone that was, that was bitter about being caught for their bad behavior. And I, I do think that it improved city behavior.

So I really hope that these cameras encourage people to only burn the correct items there. So anyway, thank you for all the reports, staff, and glad to have pool open. I'm not the other screen this time. It's great. Yeah, um, I also, uh, echo my fellow council members' comments.

Um, thank you, staff, and also the superintendent. Fantastic, uh, presentation on, uh, her anticipation for budget, and which is a huge, uh, responsibility for us and how much we're able to provide to the school for additional funding. Uh, I really appreciate Dejang and his, uh, participation at RACA. He's been really solid following a lot of the issues and consistently coming to us give us the forms. I really appreciate his, his work that he's done.

And also, I'm really happy to see the two things that took care of tonight that we've been discussing, the burn pile as well as vicious animal and other additions to that particular municipal code. The burn pile is a funny one, man. We all love our burn pile, but I think the plans that are hopefully going to be in place to do some work on that to make it a cleaner, more efficient site will be great. And I'm also, also understand the needs of the downwind landowners. This, the person I saw at Science Center and other people live around Hippie Cove, you know, they're having to suck in all that nasty stuff as well.

So it's just a good thing to do for our neighbors and for ourselves to make sure that we all have clean air to breathe.

Well, thank you to all the staff.

All the information. Great conversation across the, uh, table. Uh, so I got— yeah, thank you. Great conversation is around ordinance 1242.

Thank you to Mr. Criswell and the conversations we've had around that. That's— thank you. And I— if you know, you know. So, and with that, uh, and, um, just being able to move as quickly as we did on this. So yeah, I think the city staff manager on that— doesn't— it, it is This is great.

It's good to see it here. It's good to see it as quickly as we did. So I know it doesn't just magically happen. So there was a team behind it. Thank you all for your energy and efforts to put into this.

So I think every now and then I talk about how great it is to live in Cordova. I had the opportunity the last few weeks to go tour around Europe and visit some dear, dear friends and just a wonderful time, great time. But really reiterated to me, just our way of life here is so incomprehensible to them.

I think, what is it now, the emoji, the mind is blown emoji? That was everyone we talked to. And these are dear friends who know and some of them have visited here and get going, because cannot comprehend our way of life here, and in a positive way, and very envious. And, and, uh, so I just, just wanted to reiterate that for everyone who lives here, live in a very, very special place. With that comes some responsibility, some stewardship.

And, uh, for the public, as we start going into our budget cycle, really getting into our budget cycle, employ you to be involved. This— we have some tough decisions ahead of us in the way of what services potentially won't be available to us in the future. So, um, but that— still live in an amazing place, and we have really, really good water. So I'll leave it there. A lot of it.

A lot of it. It's the water. Thank you, Council Member Adams. Um, well, as always, thank you, staff. And, um, I'm just glad that we could, um, efficiently and effectively address the animal control program problem.

I mean, it was a couple of phone calls to end conversations with us, and we acted on it quickly, and it's like, yes, something got done. So I'm, I'm really happy to see it work when it works. And with respect to the pool, I'm so excited to see the students using the pool now. And my own granddaughter, who's terrified of putting her face in the water, last week, her first time in the pool, she told me she put her face in the water. She said, "She was—" She said, "It's huge." And, you know, it— the— Alternative is that we have children who don't know how to swim, and that's very frightening here in a place with water everywhere.

Just another shout out with the school. I mean, I understand the school budget a little bit better, not that well. I always have to have it explained to me every so often, but just a shout out to the school and our cross-country team. And our volleyball teams and our volleyball teams went and played a 4A school. Our little girls, some big girls too, and took second in a tournament with 4A schools, which is amazing.

And then additionally, we had our very own Sierra Westing take first place in cross country at the state level. So, Pretty exciting, our little remote corner of the world. And I'm happy that there's something going to happen in the burn pile because in the past couple of weeks I've had to redo part of the roof of my house and bringing the old wood over there. I saw things that are not supposed to be at the burn pile off to the side, and I'm glad that that might be addressed. And I think it's a past and future.

So, and again, I appreciate everybody who sits at this table. Thank you.

Yeah, I think I would just like to close with, um, recounting we have, um, several community members met this afternoon with, um, candidate for U.S. Senate, Mary Peltola, met up at the Pioneer outside of City Hall. Um, but she said, wow, this is the largest leadership forum of any community I've been to ever. This is amazing. And we had a really great cross-section, and I just thought, you know, Cordova again and again steps up And comes together and, and people contribute every day in big ways and small ways. So between the work that city staff is doing to keep things running, to keep our code current and effective.