Cordova: October 7, 2026, Council Regular Meeting

We're here at the very river. We have cell service now. The more landscape, right?

Well, the weather reflects it. So even though the shock is greater, that means we get the rest of the fun. That means silver. Are you ready, Susan?

Okay, and we're live. Yeah, so we'll go ahead and call the regular City Council meeting of October 7th to order. And will you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

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

Uh, roll call, please. Mayor Smith, here. Deborah Adams, here. Lee Collins, here. Aaron Hansen, here.

Casey Hinsman, here. Mike Mickelson, here. Wendy Rich, here. Dave Zestra, here. That is entire council.

Yay! Thanks everyone, good job. Okay, so we have an agenda before us. Are there any amendments? Yes, Mayor.

Yes, I would like to, uh, amend the regular agenda adding agenda item number 3, a resolution 10-26-27, approval of the collective bargaining agreement by and between the City of Cordova and IBEW Local Unit 1547. So that's going under ordinances and resolutions? So that would go under— actually, after our executive session, should be 14A. 14A, I don't know if that's appropriate. That sounds good.

Great. Um, is there a second? I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. Um, any discussion on the amendment?

Council Member Zaster? Uh, no, no discussion. I'm sure we'll get into it. All right, any other changes to the agenda?

So all those in favor of approving the agenda as amended, please signify by saying aye.

Disclosures of conflicts of interest and ex parte communications. Any conflicts or communications to declare?

Great. Communications by and petitions from visitors. We have a guest speaker. Welcome to Kim Panish, school superintendent.

What is that? Ah, you do need the screen? I guess I'll be looking at it. You got the packet showing my stuff.

Oh, so when I'm switching sides, you can flip the page. Oh yeah, I'm sending. Yeah, yeah, we can follow along. So thank you, um, Hitman Superintendent and, uh, thanks for letting me join tonight and, uh, coming early and listening to your budget process really helps me kind of get my mind wrapped around ours a little bit as well. So real reason that, um, I'm holding goal to achieve tonight.

The buzzword transparency, that I don't want how we build our budget to be anything that's mysterious. It is confusing, so help to understand that a little bit. And then as I was preparing, I came up with a second reason, um, that I'm here tonight is to help understand the reality of that one-time funding that we got, because it was a little surprising to me as well. So with that, if you are looking at the slides, or I'll just talk through most of it anyways, The second slide, it says the current budget position up on top.

So, I thought I'd start with that, just so you know the numbers of the funding that you approved in May. So in May, this approved budget, we had $8.52 million in total expenditures that were approved and $8.3 million in total revenue. So we built this year's budget on a deficit. We knew that we were going to be drawing down our fund balance this year, or we're at least estimating to. Now of that revenue, the state's contribution was 5 point— I'll just round it— for $5.4 million, and the city's contribution that's due is about $2.4 million.

And then what we did find out here in August is that we had additional revenue from the state of $440,000 in one-time funding.

So now I'm going to back up and how we model our budget on the next slide, and the title on that is Budget Decisions Happen Before State Funding is Final.

So just like you guys, we start building a budget pretty early. So for us, we start building it in January, and that whole building process, like you, goes over about 4 months, and we have it all built in April. Then you go to step 3 in May. That's when we bring the budget to you guys to approve it. The interesting thing for us is, as we're building the budget, we're already committing to allocations for the upcoming school year, even though we don't know for sure what kind of revenues we're going to have.

And we have to do that because that's when we give teachers and classified contracts for the next year. And that's also when we start hiring new teachers if we have vacancies. So we're giving them a contract at that time and saying, yep, come with us. In June then, we finally hear from the state what they're going to fund us. This year was even stranger than that.

We didn't even know in June what they were going to provide for our funding. We didn't know that until August 30th. So we're already actually spending money before we knew what we were going to get for this year. So it makes it a little challenging, a little scary when you're thinking that you're committing all this money and you're not really sure if it's going to be there.

July then, usually July 1st, as soon as we know what the state's funding, we start thinking about revisions because we never get it exactly what we think we're going to have. So there's a tiny challenge when we're building our budget. But bigger challenge, and when I'm listening to you guys, you actually have a very similar challenge, and this is on the next slide, is that we build our budget on 3 projections, complete estimates. One of the big things that we have to estimate to build a budget is student enrollment. They're the key.

Every student in our district is worth about $23,000 in funding from the state. So for our quantity, that's a pretty big one. So when you guys are talking like, sister, why you guys are having to build your budget on how many fish you're going to catch? It's a complete shot in the dark sometimes, right? So that's the first estimate.

The next thing we have to build it on is state funding. Is the state going to increase the BDSA? Is it going to stay the same? Are they going to give us one-time funding? So like us, especially in the last 5, then we'll say 10 years, we really didn't know what the state was going to do.

Same with you guys, you have no idea what the fish price is going to be. So that's, there's a lot of fear that goes into building these budgets when you have such big factors. That are unknown. And then the third thing we have to consider about, and the city would just a little bit as well, um, when we're building the budget, we're thinking next year, what's our staffing needs? It's like this year, for example, the 5th and 6th grade classes were going to be a lot larger.

We're going to need, instead of 3 teachers, we're going to need 4 teachers. That's all estimating what the students are coming in. Um, in the middle school, 6th graders had a large class, went up to the, to the big building. We needed another teacher there. So we're building the budget thinking about what we're thinking is going to happen in the numbers in each grade, as well as do we want new programs?

Really wanted to bring AP classes back, but that did require extra funding because the teacher would teach a class they haven't been teaching. So are we willing to invest the money in that? So again, we're making those guesses on what we think we're going to have for student enrollment. And then the other ones that you guys are always estimating as well is what's insurance going to cost, what's energy going to cost. All those estimates are also in there.

So on to the next slide then. This is when I kind of had a little eye opener myself, and the title of it is Enrollment Changes the Foundation Formula Result. So this year, again, enrollment is the first thing that we look at and estimate. We built this year's budget on 372 students. As of right now, we have 358 students.

This month is called our October count, and this month is what the state will use for our enrollment. And I do know that we're going to be down probably 3 more students this month.

So what does that mean? Remember, the second thing we don't know about is how much the state's going to provide. So we built the budget on the BSA staying the same at $6,660, and we were correct on that one. That was pretty much a safe estimate to make this year. Um, and then the state contribution, when we take— we built it with 372 students with the BSA there, going through the foundation formula, we budgeted the State provided us with $5,356,000.

With our enrollment at 358, we're going to get $5,034,000.

So, and the very bottom captures this: 14 fewer students decrease estimated revenue from the state of $322,000 this year. And that's what my big awareness was, because I did not know that 372 number myself, even worried that we weren't going to get what we budgeted for. So when I heard we were getting $440,000, I was like everyone else, like, okay, what can we do? What should we do with this money? Now when I look at that $440,000 that we got, it's really $100,000 that we can be asking, what we— what can we do with this, right?

So that sort of changed even my decision-making thought process because I was more concerned with our 10% fund balance limit than I was with How do we save again? So, and that comes to the next slide, then one-time funding cannot safely support recurring costs.

No matter the amount that's there, when we get one-time funding, especially when we get it in August, there's such a timing mismatch. We've already started the year. We have our programs in place. We have our staffing in place. Let's say we had $440,000 to actually spend.

We weren't going to hire another teacher with that money this year. You're not going to find a position that would change all the scheduling. It, it would be more work than what we would get out of it. And we wouldn't find a teacher this time of year anyway, let alone usually in April right now. So there's that big challenge that goes in there.

Then you have recurring commitments, um, positions and programs continue into future years. So with one-time funding, you don't want to hire a teacher with one-time funding, even if you could find them, or even save it for one-time funding for the next year. If you could save it, because we— if we don't get that money back the next year, we have a teacher for one year that we can fund that we know we have money for. Not a good thing to do. The third thing, I don't think we're gonna have to worry about it, is when you get a large one-time funding like that and you can't really spend it because the year's all started, we also can't necessarily save it.

So in our fund balance, we can never be more than 10% above our total budget. And when we built it this year, we're at about 9% is what we're projecting the fund balance. So if we would have gotten that $400,000, that would have put us above it. And now we have to worry about what do we do with this money so we don't lose it and have to give it back to the state. Don't think it's a concern this year, but it would be part of that thought process.

So I thought I'd keep that in there. So that takes me to the next slide then, the decision-making framework that we use for late one-time funding. But I think this still plays a part, just so mainly maybe that you understand we do have a decision-making process that we go through. We don't just say, hey, we got money, let's throw it out there. Pretty logical.

Like you guys, you never really know if you have extra until you're at least a quarter into that budget year, right? You have to wait to see what that rate of spending is, how close you got. So right now I wouldn't spend it no matter how much we have. Um, we're looking right now in the next month or two to really see, did we come close to that percent that should be spent right now that we budgeted for? For.

So that's what you guys are doing too, right? Looking at the projected revenues and what you have year to date. Once we determine if we're sufficient in the way we currently budgeted, then we can look at unbudgeted items for this current year. So for example, where are we seeing huge expenses that we didn't anticipate this year? Travel.

That's a no-brainer. So if we think that our budget is safe and we can spend more, that's probably one of the first places that we look. And I'm saying that without board approval or without committee, you know, so I'm just saying that seems to be one of the considerations anyway.

Um, if there aren't any, um, needs specifically that went unfunded this year, the next thing we look at is future budget considerations. And again, when we're doing that, it's what's something we're going to need just one time that we can use with the one-time funding, not trying to build programs with that. If there's— that would be like equipment, would be something that would pop in my mind. Maybe we need 10 more computers, that's the last time we're going to need them, we go ahead and purchase that. Or another way to do it is if we're over that 10% is in June, what is something that we want to buy in July next— that's our next fiscal year, right, that we could buy in June.

To spend down our fiscal year '26 budget and not worry about that 10%. So that's another option. And then the third one is, like, because we have committed funds, we could move that money out of the operating budget into committed funds that we know are projects that we're going to need money for in the future years to come. So that's really the decision-making process that we go through. Listen to you guys, I think you're doing the same thought process.

Um, the other handout that I had was just a more detailed of that thought process, kind of a flowchart to help me and the admin team and the board make those decisions.

So with that, uh, are there any questions? I might just be being dense, but, um, I think it's page 6. So if you're starting— microphone, Chris— if you're starting with a deficit of $220,000 and you lose another $322,000, then that's more than the $440,000. But is there But was there other money somewhere? No, the deficit— so our fund balance, or let's say we could have— because our budget is about $8 million, we could have 10% of that, so we could have $800,000 in our fund balance.

We built this budget— let's just say it would have been at that $800,000. We built this budget to bring it down to $600,000. Those are just round numbers I'm trying to use. So we didn't ever go into the red, actually, but we brought down our fund balance by spending, spending more. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, thank you for this report out and all these numbers. Really appreciate it. I, I got a question I think I already know the answer to, but as you're showing the fewer students and the cost difference on page 9, clearly is that's definitely a huge number. My question is, is there any cost savings by having 14 fewer students? I imagine there isn't really much.

Because you still have all the infrastructure you need for all the other students. If we knew we had 14 students and they were going to be, say, for example, in one class, 25 is kind of the tipping point that brought that class down to 20, we'd go with one teacher. But if it's at 25, we'd want two teachers. But we'd have to know that first in the spring to make that choice. Right.

So that's where the cost savings only comes if you then decrease the teacher or classified, they're professional in there. Thank you.

This is great. I really appreciate the handout and laying out the sequence. I mean, it's something that I have to wrap my head around every time we go through it because of the— because our budget year is offset from yours. So yeah, this helps. Council Member Adams.

Yeah, do you have any sense of the temperature in Juneau for the base student allocation, uh, down the line here? Yeah, I think we're all afraid to say it, but I think there is some optimism. The legislators have built enough awareness for the need for educational funding. With the new governor, hopefully it's a couple that are pro-education. DSA should be increased, and even if they're not pro-education I think they'd have a tough time.

I think the legislators, the majority is going to be saying, get that ESA out there. And hopefully this legislation can also just be a fight every single year to have them index that ESA. Hopeful. And then, partially optimistic, obviously, I think it's taking that.

Other questions? I've got a quick one. Um, I know when you did your budget, fuel prices were considerably lower, and I don't have any idea of what sort of fuel needs the school buildings go through, but I imagine it's considerable. Yeah, yeah, those are checks that are funded. Look at— yeah, um, the state did provide one-time funding in energy relief.

I believe it's right around $90,000. So even though our costs are extremely high, again, in the next few months as it gets colder, we'll know if that $90,000 is going to cover it. But it's not as bleak as you guys might be, which we got some support. Not as bleak as individual families trying to figure out how to heat their houses winter as well. I have a question.

Yes. So there used to be the used oil, um, burn over at the high school. Is, is the infrastructure still in place to do that? Yeah, because I think it recently had some work done on it. Yeah, is that up and running?

It is running. Is that something that's utilized for cost saving? And it is. Okay, it is being run. Yeah, yeah, the shop, the city shop uses used oil in the school.

Okay, and the harbor is the delivery. Okay.

Thank you so much. Yes, this is—. Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Audience comments regarding agenda items? Anybody? 3 Minutes per speaker.

Hello, uh, you all know me by now. My name is Jeremiah Beckett. I reside at 317 First Street. I wanted to comment on agenda item J7, the city manager's report. Uh, I'm the owner of the Quarter of a Copper Star, which is one of the past due accounts referenced in the report.

We're aware of the outstanding hardware invoices and will resolve promptly once the city takes accountability for the travel lift incident. And related damages caused by staff negligence. We would have paid timely, but since the city broke our boat, we have not been able to generate any income over the past 3 years. This has been very hard on us financially. Even with the boat just sitting in the harbor, it costs over $40,000 annually for the mortgage and insurance.

We request the city not take any action on the Florida Recreational Star outstanding account until the legal claims are resolved. Thank you.

Other audience comments?

Okay, chairpersons and representatives of boards and commissions. RCAC.

Evening, David Chan, represent the City of Cordova, the board of directors of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council. Um, had our fall meeting on September 17th and 18th of the year. Um, we've got a— somewhere I have a overview of the highlights from, from that meeting. Uh, wouldn't quite Very smooth. Almost didn't have it there because it was end of the season, was really hard to find people who were willing to do a whole nother catering of anything.

People were pretty burned out, but, but it went, it went, it went very smooth. Any questions on that? Um, I did hand out our most recent newsletter. Uh, says summer. It was delayed at the printer, and then I had some travel before I could get it up around town, so sort of stretching into a summer-fall newsletter.

Um, the, so the stuff that's on our plate right now, meetings later this week, is, uh, still that right-of-way renewal. Alaska Department of Natural Resources did come out with their proposed decision on renewing that, although the nice thing is that they're being a little more open to the public about They have 2 public hearings coming up. One is virtual on October 13th. The other one is in person in Valdez on the 15th. And another nice added little thing on that is, Alieska themselves are hosting an open house a few hours, a couple hours before DNR in person on Valdez.

So that the DNR part of it and giving Alaska a little time to kind of catch up with some of this is showing a little bit of transparency. And then the deadline for written comments is October 30th. I haven't had the Alaska Department of Natural Resources decision.

So there's still, it's still hard to say where environmental assessment's going to come and if there's public hearings on that.

And another wild card in there is that just the other day, maybe just yesterday or the day before, Trump administration is looking at major Bureau of Land Management restructuring. Bureau of Land Management is the main federal agency that heads up the federal renewal, and they're talking about some pretty drastic reduction to changes in Bureau of Land Management, which has already taken a lot of hits of lost engineers, lost employment, lost stuff and stuff. Still pretty concerning. And for those who are not as familiar, online or something, but it's just PWSRCAC.org.

Lots more information about what this is about. And I must say, I'm very— always really proud to represent the city at these board meetings. So this is the fall one, so when we rotate around— last year it was here in Cordova, uh, this year it was Whittier, and next year it'll be a real challenge, it'll be in Saldivia. Then they work back a little easier at Seward maybe after that. Went real well.

There's any questions, I'll try We're proud to have you representing us. Thank you. I would say thank you. Yeah, thank you. I don't know, Dave, I think your competition with Mako's eyebrows there, you need to step it up a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, look at the— look at, uh, that— the pictures online of the board of directors. He's got quite the Eyebrows.

Great.

Let's see, anybody else? Okay, so we can move on to the consent calendar.

See, is there— I will take the roll on the consent calendar. Wendy Rainey? Yes. Mike Nicholson? Yes.

Aaron Hanson? Yes. Casey Kimson? Yes. Lee Collins?

Yes. Deborah Adams? Yes. James AFA? Yes.

Second— We don't have any minutes. Well, we just approved minutes. We don't have any bids, proposals, or contracts. Reports of officers— I did not do a written report. Um, I don't have an update from the Alaska Marine Highway System.

I have emailed Director Torga. I have not heard back. I did hear, I don't know how many of you heard about the episode 2 Sundays ago where they, people got on the vessel in Whittier and about 4 hours later looked up and said, oh my God, we're on our way to Valdez. Nobody, they didn't tell anybody that they weren't going straight to Cordova. Kim Hanish drove from Valdez to Whittier.

Yes. Got on the ferry and there they are headed to Valdez. Dr. Valdez, then Dr. Cordova. No announcement is what I understand. And I asked him about that and I had not heard anything back.

So, but I thought, oh my God, I would be so steamed.

Um, so yeah, no updates yet. I will ping him again. Um, I, I had a great The conference that I went to in Sitka for the Community Land Trust was really great. It was like drinking from a fire hose for 3 days, but it was very, really informative. I did share some of what I learned last night with the Housing Supply Accelerator Committee.

And I think it's a model that could definitely work in Cordova. One thing that I learned in my head, I had always pictured setting up a land trust on a chunk of contiguous land, and you would put some homes on it, and you'd have a ground lease for the underlying property that was held by the land trust. But one thing I learned is that you can do— you can do homes like that all over town. You can do scattered site. A land trust could acquire a home and renovate it, or acquire an existing home that doesn't need renovations and have it be part of its holdings.

So a lot of different ways to provide housing in that, in that structure. And there's lots of entities that have long, like 30 years worth of experience doing this, and there are lenders who lend, like there's one in Sitka that does, an Alaska lender that does land trust lending. It's a little bit of a specialized niche, but there are definitely banks who do that. So it's not like we have to worry about Wells Fargo and FNB not knowing how to do it. There aren't other places.

And I also talked to, uh, there was Kate Huber from Valdez as the community development director. There was a woman from Homer who's really interested and a couple from Kenai. And, um, we talked about could we get some kind of umbrella group going so for all of our communities so that we don't all have to stand up a land trust on our own initially. And get some economies of scale, get some support out of doing that. So, and there is a model.

I think Montana has a group, a statewide group called Trust Montana that acts as an umbrella for community land trusts. So we're going to look at a couple of different things. We agreed to meet up again in December during the Alaska Municipal League conference. Yeah. Okay.

Today there was the U.S. Commission on Rural Prosperity came to town. So I don't know if some of you also saw that. But it's a bipartisan commission that's chaired by former Senator Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota and the former governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu. And it's sponsored by the Brookings Institute and the American Enterprise Institute. So one left-leaning and one right-leaning group.

And like I said, their goal is to be bipartisan. And they're going to produce a report about a year from now and make some recommendations about things that could be done differently at the federal level to support rural communities. And so on this, they've gone all over the country, like Kentucky and Mississippi. I don't remember the other states they mentioned, but for Alaska, they've been to Nome, Bethel, Kipnuk, Willinguk, I believe, and Cordova. So they did see some really rural places.

We have— the STIP is out for comment right now, and I want to say the deadline is the 30th. I can't remember for sure, but I will take a look at it, uh, and if the council concurs and submit comments for this, for Cordova, um, based on consulting with the city manager and what might already be in there for us, and I do need to email all of you about the clerk and manager evaluations. Sorry, I haven't done that yet.

Yeah, that's what I had. And I know that I need to do a letter. I know we've heard about the E-rate program, and I think I agreed to do a letter on that to whoever I need to write to, so I will do that.

Are there questions?

Is that Snag Lake that they're talking about in there, is that the lake that's kind of on the left before you get to Muskingum Meander? Is that what they're talking about? Or which— yeah, I know the project pretty well. I was involved in it before I left the Forest Service. But what, what do they call Snag Lake?

So, uh, if you were to take what's 18 Mile Lake Road which is the road on the north side of the highway from those two recreation sites, 18-1 and 1-I Pond. There's a road that takes off that passes by two ponds. Holbrook is the first one with the Foresters Colson on the right, and Snag is the second one. And then right after that second one, that road continues on to EF Corporation land. Yeah, so the one— but it's those ones there.

Yeah, the James folks there. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay, uh, all right, then we can move on to the city manager's report. Move over, Kelly.

So does anybody have any questions about Kelly's report and the burn pile? And the camera's up and running. I saw that we A couple questions. Come on down, got to hand off the baby.

A lot of—. Hey, that's a great report. Thank you. Um, I just had a couple questions, a couple of areas of questions, but my first question, uh, is on enforcement. If this is something that the city's continued to do at this experiment and has decided the cameras will be posted out there and monitored.

I'm just curious about offenders and how that would be dealt with. Is there— are the cameras, would they be used to identify license plates, face recognition, that type of thing? And then how would you go about finding offenders and then potentially finding her? Yeah, so as it says in the memo, this is not part of the FLOCK system, so it's not using any sort of AI to identify license plates or facial recognition. Commission or anything like that.

This is just your standard camera that just records, like a fancy trail cam.

Uh, Cordova, uh, fortunately is its own floss system because we know everything. Uh, and, uh, based on my conversations with police and fire, um, as long as we act within a timely manner after the, uh, video footage is captured, uh, they are able to enforce as long as they are able to visually recognize either vehicle or the person outside of the vehicle, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously I would agree with you, we all kind of know each other in the community. I'm just thinking about worst case scenario, somebody fighting and saying, 'No, that's not me, prove it's me,' and getting through those types of potential situations.

That's why we're doing this trial period. We're going to test it in different, uh, different positions, different heights, different angles to ensure that we can get the necessary footage to make positive confirmations in the unfortunate incident where someone chooses to not follow the regulations. But we all know that we are going to be a great community that's going to do the right thing. Right, we all are on fire. It's my eternal flame.

The eternal flame. I'll use that to get back to shore.

Have you thought about the possibility of like a floating otter painting? We have not employed biological, uh, monitor. My other question had to do with, uh, the Office of Environmental Conservation. Yes. And how they— how we need to respond to them.

So obviously somebody reported to them that there has been an issue, um, and there are different steps they could take from your report and what I've read online. So fining and even not allowing us to continue to use grant money. Yeah, and, and the ultimate situation where violations continue in an egregious manner, we do run the risk of Alaska DEC saying you are no longer allowed to operate the burn pile. Is there a process where there's a first offense, second, and then, and then fine, like a small fine, it gets larger and larger? I mean, just out of curiosity, how—.

I've asked for clarification on that, and like many different state organizations, um, they do not have a clear escalation process. Uh, it is basically, we will take the— we'll take the reports as they come, we'll determine how egregious they are, and then we will at that time determine what is the appropriate action to take against the city. Got it.

That's my— I just have one question. This camera, I'm curious, I'm It's real dark in the winter. Is it effective in the dark? Yeah, it has infrared capabilities. We use—.

This is the same camera system that we use actually throughout the city currently. We have the cameras here at the city center, we have them at the harbor, we have them at the Baylor— sorry, the Whiteshed transfer station. And so we are currently using this system of cameras. We're just testing out one of the newer models, uh, to see how it works in that appropriate location.

Okay, one more follow-up question. So obviously this is all about, um, uh, air fogging with, uh, the last department of Environmental Conservation. Um, as far as just the burning of wood out there, paper and wood, and the, the type of smoke that creates, um, the downwind property owners? Is there— how does that work with them? I mean, I imagine they might be the ones who complain initially to the DEC, but the regulations basically say that you just can't have smoldering or burning of things that generate toxic or black smoke.

I guess it doesn't say toxic, but, you know, black smoke. So it has to be, you know, clean woody debris. We allow lumber and things like that as long as it's not painted, pressure treated, stuff like that. And so yeah, as long as we're not allowing for smoldering conditions or the release of black smoke, then we are staying within compliance. Smoldering conditions?

How can you describe what that means, smoldering? It's not burning hot and an actual flame, you know, it's just—. Like it does most of the time in Orem, but—. And we are actually working with Council Member Collins, and they are working on a grant that is bringing a wood chipper into town. And so we're looking at doing additional modifications to the burn pile in the future where we might actually look at creating some dividers and some signage.

You know, if you bring green debris, you leave it over here, that'll get chipped up and be able to be used in the community for different reasons. Or as it dries, if it dries, we'll move it over into the flame. Yeah, there, it's going to be a learning curve and there's going to be issues and we're going to just do the best that we can. Yeah, I think it's fantastic in what, uh, Councilmember Collins is working on this. Really, we needed an update for that file for a long time.

I think say the camera is going to be a great start though. I think just the idea there will be some sort of enforcement, it'll make people think better about their decisions.

Okay, we'll just let Samantha go now. Thank you.

Hi everyone. Uh, let's see, cool update. Um, we're— we fixed the day-to-day turning off of the boiler, which was a controller that wasn't clicking correctly and wouldn't turn the blower on. So that's why we had to close the pool a couple weeks ago for a day, is because it went off over the weekend and the temperature got down to 74 degrees. Right now we let— we'll say it's 77.

Even if they're really passionate about cold plunging, it's just not safe. So we had to reevaluate. Now we're You know, I— we then started going in every day, twice a day, checking the boiler. So the part came in finally, Michael replaced it. The bigger part, which is a burner that we're going to replace, we have ordered.

It's about $24,000 to get it replaced and installed. It does have a 10-week lead time on it. So that part there helps it to— it only can go in one mode. It has 3 different modes, so it can't go in auto, so it can't dial back at all. So we keep it— we just can't put it on auto, so we have it on high fire.

So probably not very energy efficient. The dimmer switch. Yes. So I know Sam talked a little bit about the operations of the pool right now are probably— actually, I'm 100% sure— are going to stay at what they are, or even lessen a little bit. Right now, if someone is sick or can't come into work, then we don't, we can't open the pool.

So it's nice to have a little bit of extra leeway if we could have some flexibility with that. So right now is if we do end up moving Rat Swim to a different day, that means the day that it was on, it's not going to happen. So if we move Rat Swim to Wednesday, it doesn't happen on Friday. So I know we're open on a couple of days later at night, but Rat Swim takes an extra person to be there. So if anyone's been to it, it's controlled chaos.

I love it, but it, it's helpful to have 3 people there. So, um, yeah, so the school's coming in. It's been amazing. Um, it's great to see all the kids in there. So, uh, yeah, our, our operations right now are based on staffing levels and funding.

So, um, the master plan, uh, so Sam and I have been meeting with Borges every other week, I think, or maybe a lot, um, and developing the master plan for the recreation for Parche and the pool together. So that's coming together. They will be coming to Cordova. Um, we find out tomorrow what date in October that they're coming to present it. So it'll be maybe at the end of October, but not 100% sure yet.

So things that we've gone over with it are, you know, so many things, uh, the concepts They're being refined, community needs, operational needs, long-term sustainability. You're going to hear me say that a lot when we get this presented is what does this look like in 10 to 15 years from now? What are replacement schedules? What is the staffing level? Something that we can take care of for a long time.

So that's really what, what we're going to talk a lot about. And the master plan is going to be completed hopefully in November. So that, and then we'll just pivot and, um, start planning for funding for it. So that's a big part of it. So I'm very excited.

Thank you for making this happen. Really, um, it's been great to, uh, see it come together. I'm excited to present it, probably not in an opportune time in the middle of budget season, but here we are. Um, and yes. Yeah, Councilor Adams.

Um, you mentioned the pool schedule's based on staffing. Is that because of the numbers of staff or because of budgeting for staff? Both. Yeah, so like right now our temp staff— so last year, uh, full-time lifeguard, part-time lifeguard were cut, so there's that staff. So we're basically just using temp staff funding for those staff members that, um we didn't fill those positions before.

So there—. It is both, both of those things, so staff and budget. There's one full-time lifeguard. And so for anyone that is down there that is, um, full-time, I have to give them notice of their schedule changing and all those things that they need. So, but right now we have a very intense staff too that's helping out both um, Abigail, and you'll see him up again here too.

So yeah, we're just trying to, to make it happen. And, um, we did end up putting a talk time into the schedule too, but there's a 25-person limit to blend into it, so we didn't have to add. And, and I mean, that was well attended too. So would you hit that limit? Yes, it's been pretty amazing to see all the kiddos.

It's great. Yeah, you know, it's been, it's been wonderful. And we had aerobics today for the first time. What aerobics kids been teaching, we had 8 people attend that. Very—.

Any questions? Question is from Samantha.

Thank you so much. It's how far we've come. I do want— I know I try not to be all doom and gloom either with this. I do want to say that the chemicals that we're using for the pool, I— we haven't been ordering them, you know, for a little while, months. But they have gone up significantly.

You're going to see that in the budget this year, that the shipping for them is— and we try to price it out everywhere. We're too small to get, you know, some deliveries, and we don't get enough— we don't have enough storage room to get big deliveries. So Yeah, it was pretty eye-opening on our shippings.

Everybody go buy a pool pass. Everybody buy a pool pass. Is there a way for these chemicals, if there's another pool in the state that borders them, or a big pool in Anchorage that borders these same things, and we could co-opt them somehow? We— there's not a lot of pools that use what we use. We are kind of like an older system, but very efficient system.

Love our system. So, probably not. They have a different filter system, most of them. I think the system that we have here, there's only one other one like it left in the state, and that's in Anchorage. So we can't backwash our fishers, I feel like.

But I do, I hooked on with the water department a little bit because they get salt. So having that helps a lot too. So if they're doing a soft water, then sort of trying to, but yeah, figure out. But there are chemicals, muriatic acid's not fun to deal with. And so it costs a lot to get it here.

Thank you. Thank you.

Right. Um, I think I really don't anything to add to my report. I don't know if anybody has any questions or—. I don't know about anybody else, there was an audit report in my box and I'm wondering if we're going to get the presentation. We will.

Okay. I'm sure I'll get back to see when Dr. Sherry will figure it all out for me.

I guess I will say that, yeah, we are, we are MOU'd with the state. I know. And the Copper River watershed project. So that allows DNR to move forward. So hopefully that permitting can get rolling and be in place.

They're stockpiling and shipping all the sweetener out raw. And they're hoping to start seeing stuff by early in the winter. But yeah. And Kevin's going to kind of be our guy on that. We just go to the construction meetings and just get some in-depth knowledge of it.

And the one thing DOT did do that was pretty cool. They were, they were willing to offer training to our staff from their bridge guys, you know, just so they could—. Hydrology is a whole different world. Into learning all that stuff. So, oh, you good?

Let's get that rolling.

I did just want to ask you, I know I'm sorry for not bringing it up sooner, um, in the week, but I mentioned in our earlier meeting when I was asking about the Lake Avenue and the potholes, is there— is it a matter of just calling DOT and saying, are you— do you guys have any plans to do anything about this? Or we can— I'll talk with Kevin, you can talk with Andrew, and we'll talk with Mishka. Okay, well, we'll figure something out. Yeah, it's pretty bad. I mean, I drove through the other day.

It was—. Yeah, it was drainage issues. That whole area is—. Yeah, exactly. And there's a lot of water there, right?

And so the fillables—. Yeah. And they wear out again, right? Yeah. But yeah, but I've been talking to Kevin and, um, thank you.

Yeah, because it's all about the drainage. Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

Okay, priority listed, you know, with after the election.

Yes. So any other questions for the manager?

Oops, you can go on to the city clerk.

Uh, I see that the CIF— if it's in, it's in our packet, of course. Of the first one. Oh, so it closes on the 29th. Okay, comment period. And then the one thing I meant to put in the packet, and I think down in front of you, was about boards and commissions.

We start advertising that. Um, so I handed you guys a copy so you carry it around with you for, say, 7 weeks to participate in the process. Um, and then we're going with those appointments in December, a flashback of what happened just over the— um, otherwise that's about all I have for reporting.

And any questions for the clerk?

Can you tell me when early voting starts? Um, on the holiday, which is Monday the 19th, so the building will be open, even though City Hall Library Museum will be closed. Um, C1 and crew were setting up that morning, and then they start— fortunately, I put it on the calendar incorrectly because I went to the state website, which I didn't get correctly. Um, and I should have gone to the source, which was C1. They were up at 10 to 4, as they had done with the primary early voting.

They seem to have captured enough people 10 to 4, so, yeah. Used to be that she would come at 8, right? So 10 to 4, Monday through Friday, starting the 19th, all the way up until November 2nd, which is the Monday before Election Day. And then on Election Day, they are here 7 AM to 8 PM. So you said on the holidays, I think the holiday is the 12th, isn't it?

The school takes the 12th off for Indigenous persons. But the city takes the 19th for Alaska. Alaska. Oh, okay.

Did I put it on? There is— it wasn't in my pre-printed thing. They don't recognize Alaska, but he said— oh, I had—. Great. Any other questions for the clerk?

And if anybody listening is interested in other early voting, absentee voting, um, the state website is great, but you can call me or come in my office. And then, you know, getting some questions here and now from people who are leaving.

I wonder.

All right, so we have some correspondence. As the clerk said, there's a notice about the STIP, the draft STIP. So Anybody wants to look that up online or participate in the session next week or submit comments, that's open. And then we have the comment period for the Corps of Engineers work to pull the road crossings out of the street and realign the road to go to Snag Lake.

Okay, so then ordinances and resolutions. We have Ordinance 1242.

And I welcome a motion.

Okay, so I move to approve Ordinance 1242, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Fort Worth, Alaska, repealing and reenacting Cordova Municipal Code Chapter 8.04 Animals, and amending CMC 1.28.085, Minor Offenses Fine Schedules, to modernize animal control impoundment, bite and attack response, potentially dangerous and vicious dog procedures, quarantine, humane disposition, and enforcement and penalties. I'll second. Thank you. It's been moved. Seconded by Randy.

Thank you. Um, Council Member Zestra. So that's a very descriptive, uh, uh, you know, lead into what this is all about. And, um, it, it's, um, this is something that has been brought to our attention that is way overdue to be updated. Um, seems to be far enough out of, out of date that, uh, we are potentially as a city, uh, opening ourselves up to possible liabilities if, if certain scenarios were to play out a certain way.

Uh, so, um, it's an opportunity to clean up our municipal code and also all keep our, our, our, um, community safe as well. And there have been incidences in the past that the existing code does not cover well, and this should correct that. Um, I will also add that, um, what I would like to see for the second read— the first read, I But the second reading, I'd like to see the actual code in the packet showing the red line, so showing what has been removed and what has been added, so we can see specifically how that has changed. Right now we don't have that in the packet right now. Great.

I was thinking of the whole section wholesale. Oh, we can do that. I'll ask— we spoke to Holly today. She can get a red line. It's not going to be— exact because it's quite a comprehensive change, but she'll get someone to make it look like where you could see the changes.

Yeah, I, I think also for us, so that's clear what has changed, but also for the public as well, so there, there's no, no confusion with the public what has truly changed. When we're talking about people's pets or animals, folks get emotional and they should. I mean, they're part of a family, so we want to make it clear that this is to keep the community safe and Um, this is just something that, uh, it's just good for all pet owners. Yeah. Council Member Bendy.

Uh, I just think it was time to update things and allow our public safety folks to be able to act to keep us safe, and this does that.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Council Member Adams. Just that I had a on call with respect to what the impetus was for this. And, um, it's pretty upsetting, uh, what happened to the vet and what also happened to the owner.

Um, 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.

Are there 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 that effort.

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

Carries. Great. Don't have any unfinished business. We go to new and miscellaneous business.

So we have the option— should exactly pull this up and see what this is. What it found. 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 Caboose. And yes, we need a motion.

About how we want to do that. And there's some suggested language on page 103.

Um, I move that, uh, council, uh, action is to waive our right to protest this very That's not perfect. 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 dispensary license. Is there a second?

It's been moved, uh, Zastro and seconded. Kinsman, do you want to speak to the motion?

Councilmember Kingsley. 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 Tarpig. And I don't know how that works. I don't know if she's actually— and 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. I was going to ask Sam 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 As this happened before, just be aware of—. I think technically the business that the liquor license was attached to has not been sold.

Okay. The car portion was the only thing that was sold. The location was sold but not the business. I think Susan—. Yeah, I don't think the, the state lease— that's a state lease— land is still in 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. Okay.

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 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 a liquor license. But I guess going back to my question, is, is there a precedence 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.

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 sent 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 sales tax, or she says she does. So what else can we go on?

The state, 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're grandfathered in from when the rule was different. Um, and if the— if we were to protest this one and it was dissolved, it would not be in Cordova. It longer. 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. 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, yeah.

Uh, 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— what, 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 memory mess.

So when the COHO shutdown, Natalie Perlis disappeared. Is that, is that correct? When did someone— did they buy? Well, because I'm, I'm just curious, like, thinking about, like, so there's been several situations over the past few years where businesses have lost liquor licenses. They're generally worth money, so people are selling them.

But, 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'm just curious, like, are there multiple ones that aren't being used, or that's— I mean, we haven't seen any papers.

Yeah. Yeah. So the cohort must have disappeared. Or did it get bought out? Bought out by the other 2.

I can't remember. I think that's— I don't want to go on the record, but that sounds familiar. Entities bought it. That's what I thought. I dimly remember something about—.

So essentially went away. Yes, in a roundabout way, that one went away because there was one for the anchor also. That's Winston Chin's. Yeah, yeah, that's— so it seems like it's pretty straightforward. You 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, that's it, it's gone. So I mean, there's really not much as a council we can do beyond that.

I mean, unless us—. I mean, unless us and council want it to go away. I don't think— I'm feeling that at all. 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. I think her dates, she says, are September— September, um, I can't remember. A certain number of months. May through October. It's right.

May through October.

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 a gas Okay, any further discussion?

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

Agenda, CIP list, calendar. Which one of that?

Anything, um, you added or changed? Well, the calendar— I'm sorry about the election dates, but I barely 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 it 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 thought 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 It's fine. Yeah, pretty much any regular meeting, the work session, you can—.

That we'll handle it that way.

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. Uh, I meant to send an email to the department heads that the 2nd October meeting, usually third quarter reports, so a lot of them are there. Hi, Doug.

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 Radraken, reside 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 up 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. While 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 around here for anyone. We've always been open to a fair—. You have observed a 3-minute time it. That's not on the agenda there.

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 operating travel lounge. 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 has died.

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, 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 trial. 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.

A lot of—. Obviously, anything good with, uh, um, I'm going to be my first round of going through budget cycle, so the work session informative about the month, but hope they good. Hoping that the end result is, uh, works out for everybody. That's all I got for 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 that there's some language about the, uh, animal control portion of our community. There's been multiple incidents, and I'd rather 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. 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.

I really appreciate Dejan and his participation at RACA. He's been really solid following a lot of the issues and consistently coming to us to keep us informed. So I really appreciate his, his work that he's done. And also, I, I, I'm really happy to see the two things we took care of tonight that, 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 a place to do some work on that to make it a cleaner, more efficient site will be great.

And I also understand the needs of the downwind landowners. The person I saw outside said 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, uh, we all have clean air to breathe.

Great. Thank you to all the staff, uh, all the information, great conversation across the, uh, day one.

Uh, yeah, thank you. Great conversations around ordinance 1242.

Thank you to Mr. Criswell and the conversations we've had around that. That's—. Thank you. I— if you know, you know. So 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— and it doesn't— it, it is— this is great. It's good to see it, Eric. Good to see it as quickly as we did. Um, 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, um, I think every now and then I, uh, 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 in the get-go. Cannot comprehend our way of life here, and in a positive way, and very envious. And, and 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, implore you to be involved because 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 quickly, and I guess something got done. So I'm, I'm really happy to see it work when it works. And, um, with respect to the pool, I'm so excited to see, um, the students using the pool now, and, um, my own granddaughter who's terrified putting her face in the in the water last week, her first time in the pool. She told me she put her face in the water and said, she was— she said, it's huge.

And, you know, 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 and some big girls too.

And took second in a tournament with 4A schools, which is super.

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 on 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 in the 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, recapping. We have, um, Several community members met this afternoon with candidate for U.S. Senate, Maddy Peltola, met up at the Pioneer outside of City Hall. 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 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, um, current and effective. And as Council Member Zastrow said, to keep people safe. And the work that the city manager is doing on the union negotiations and other staff, um, I think it's pretty amazing how everybody pitches in in all the ways they can, and I appreciate that. Thank you.

Okay, I guess we're not—. Motion Yes. Is there a motion?

I have none there.

Yes, that we move into executive session.

You can just read the recommendation from City Manager. This up here, regarding collective bargaining agreement negotiations, a subject which is a matter of immediate knowledge, of which would clearly have an adverse effect on the finances of the—. It's been moved to go into executive session to talk about collective bargaining agreement negotiations. Is there a second? Second.

Moved and seconded. Um, why don't we take a 5-minute break? All in favor—. Oh, I'm sorry, all in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand. Any opposing sound?

Okay, we'll take a 5-minute break and then go into executive session.