April 20, 2026 Joint CBJ Assembly/Juneau School District Facilities Committee Meeting

Call to order this meeting of the Joint Assembly Juno School District's Facility Committee. Um, Mr. Brooks, can I have the land acknowledgement? Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to acknowledge that the City and Borough of Juno is on Tlingit land and wish to honor the indigenous people of this land.

For more than 10,000 years, Alaska Native people have been and continue to be integral to the well-being of our community. We are grateful to be in this place, a part of this community, and to honor the culture, traditions, and resilience of the Tlingit people. Gunalchéesh.

Thank you. Miss Evans, will you note the roll?

Thank you, Chair. All members are present with Yvette Seiden on Zoom, you have quorum. Thank you.

Do we have any changes to the agenda from staff? Ms. Germain? Seeing none. Any changes to the agenda from the committee? Seeing none, the agenda is approved as written.

Oh, I see a hand up. Ms. Sidden. Sorry, thank you, Mr. Sanger. I just wondered if we could at the end discuss the gas snow, snow removal and traffic situation, and it may only be to the level of adding it to the our next agenda, but just to get it on the record and open the conversation. Absolutely.

Any objections?

Seeing none, so added. Any other changes to the agenda?

All right, the agenda as amended is approved. Does anyone have any changes to the minutes from our March 31st, 2026 meeting?

To the chair, I'd like to note that I made some minor edits to the minutes just as far as the members went in their titles. Thank you, Miss Evans. Um, so seeing no other changes, the minutes as amended are approved. That brings us to our first agenda topic today, a continuation of last meeting's discussion on the Juneau School District facilities bond proposals. I believe that's to you, Mr. Maine.

It is, thank you. So since our last meeting, which was on March 31st, um, we have had a meeting of the Facilities Committee of the school board and then also a full school board meeting. And the items in my memo are the product of those meetings and discussions. Um, specifically on the topic of the bond, you'll see there is a document that's the $10 million bond as approved. Um, changes to this, specifically the columns that included the 2025 escalation and then the 2026 escalation.

We took feedback from you, Mr. Chairman, and removed those columns so that it wouldn't be confusing and just have the, the last column, which is showing the total price. And specifically, conversation at the board level and what was approved related to the JDHS boiler that had been a point of conversation at the last meeting of this joint facilities meeting and what the school board has approved and is recommending is that the boiler Phase 3 would be included in the bond. That is something that is not already funded. So currently through the deferred maintenance account, the Phase 2 construction, which will be happening this summer, is funded through deferred maintenance, and the planning or design phase for Phase 3 is also funded through um, deferred maintenance, but the construction for Phase 3 is what is not funded. Um, and the price that is there, um, is the estimate that came from the project manager through the engineering department.

And then, um, so that is the $10 million, and then there also is the $15 million. And the $15 million is basically the $10 million with the addition of the HVAC controls at the 4 sites that are not included in in that Renew America Schools grant, and so that is listed there. And then at the bottom it has options, and those are not specifically included, but I've kept them in the document just so that you can see the options that were discussed, um, or that were included for discussion. And those options are like interior and exterior light controls, flooring, and the security entrance at MRCS, the chef lab renovation for JDHS, and the Zonta Kahini gym floor and bleachers. Those are items that are on our CIP that were not previously on the bond.

Um, and then the last document was also requested of us to draft the CIP without the projects that are on the bond, and you will see that those are included. And then additional projects that were listed, we don't have specific estimates for because certainly based on the discussion and what is approved, we would then need to work with our partners at engineering to get those estimates. But those projects come from our overall planning list: covered playground repair and cleaning at all elementary schools, the greenhouse at JDHS, playground fencing and safety surfacing district-wide, and then paving parking lot areas that are not currently paved at two schools, KHE and Oak Bay.

And then the document of our previously submitted CIP as it was submitted in December is also included.

Thank you, Mr. Maine. Um, any questions from the committee? Uh, Mr. Kelly. Thank you. I'm, I'm seeing a few different variations, and I'm, I'm wondering which are before us.

So I could see a $15.7 million option and a $15.4 million option. Are both meant to be under consideration today, or is, is one or the other the one that's meant to be presented?

Through the chair, thank you for that. I printed the tabs of the document and also linked the document, and the 15.4 is as it was presented at last joint meeting, and the change there is the, the cost of the boiler phase 3. So the 15.7 really is the most updated. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you.

And one thing I forgot to add, sorry, um, at the request of the committee, we also added a column that said confirmed funding, yes or no, just because we recognize it is confusing to say yes, we've asked DEED and we've submitted this in our DEED CIP, but no, the funding is not secure. And these are all items that do not yet have secure funding. Thank you. Any other questions from the committee? Mr. Kelly.

Thank you. I wasn't going to ask this because you also spoke to me offline before the start of the meeting, but I think just to get it on the record, because we did ask at the last meeting and you said you'd follow up. So just to make sure, my question would be, I think we had discussed that it sounded like there were some projects that had already been completed or started. That you're asking for bond funding for.

And I think we were wondering how that would be reimbursed or how that would work. Um, would you mind just updating us on, on that?

Thank you. Through the chair, yes, the projects that are included in the bond list are not currently funded and are not currently completed. I think in our previous discussion, um, Syke Gastineau might have been an example because part of that roof has already been repaired and did receive deed funding, but the part, the partial repair, was not previously repaired. And on our deed CIP, we have been asking for funding for roofs that are complete. Both the Zonta Kahini roof and the Kaktuguluheen roof have been completed.

We're requesting money for that reimbursement through deed. We not received that money. If we were to receive that money, um, that would go back to the CIP with the city. That is for roofs, is my understanding, and I believe that Director, um, Denise Koch confirmed that. Thank you.

Any other questions from the committee, or do you have an update, Mr. Rumsey, or No, I just wanted to confirm that that was the case, and I also wanted to make note that Director Koch is on today virtually if any questions come up that do require her attention. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Weldon.

Thank you for the memo, and thank you for the, um, all the paperwork, although it's a little confusing sometimes. So if we could refer to page numbers, that would be helpful. Um, anyway, I'm What remind me about the HVAC controls? Were these any energy savings or anything, or why are we concerned about HVAC controls?

Yes, through the chair, there was also a question last, last meeting about getting a copy of the energy audit, and I have requested that, but it's not complete yet. I had mentioned that through the Renew America Schools grant, and that process includes an energy audit which was conducted in February, and the anecdotal conversation was yes, an energy saving would be achieved, and also the ability to control and to control our HVAC from a distance. Currently, what is happening is the computer is really old and running an operating system that is old to work, and our IT department has patched, Band-Aid, I'm not sure the technical term, to allow our maintenance staff to get in to the system and just recognizing where we have an inability to control. We also have multiple systems at different schools, recognizing that the projects based on the bidding process will have a different operating system. And so it achieves efficiencies in both our staff time and our ability to maintain the energy efficiency of the building and the HVAC system.

Does that answer your question, Madam Mayor?

Thank you. Any other questions from the committee?

All right, looking for maybe a motion. Mr. Kelly. Thank you. I move that we forward the, um, bond of $15.7 million to the Finance Committee.

Is there any objection?

Mayor Weldon. I would make an amendment to the motion. Mayor Weldon. Um, I would move the— make it so it's $16 million, and that might take care of some of our, uh, flood problem, erosion problems.

Um, so an amendment to Round up to $16 million. What's that difference going towards? Flood control, flood mitigation, erosion, or whatever. Okay. All right.

Any objection to the mayor's amendment?

Seeing none, the amendment passes, and we're back to the original motion. Any objection?

Seeing none, so moved. Excellent. Thank you.

So that brings us to Item 2, Menhull River Community School Bank Armoring. I believe it's this— you, Mr. Rumsey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Yes, this topic was added because there has understandably been a desire for additional information regarding how flood mitigation projects were being handled and funded associated with work taking place on or near the Mendenhall River Community School. So I did put the attached memo together, uh, and I wanted to make sure that it didn't create any additional confusion.

The memo itself is organized chronologically in order based on when we were receiving information, so I'll just provide a quick summary of that. Um, after, uh, in advance of the 2025 GLOF, we actually talked with the school district because there had been an identification of some possible erosion or signs that additional erosion could take place near the bank alongside the entrance to Mendenhall River Community School. This would have been in the April time frame of 2025. Several of our engineering and public works team members went out to investigate the issue with JSD staff and realized that if left untouched, that section of the riverbank was likely at risk for additional erosion and loss. And we realized that there wasn't a great deal of time to try to make permanent or longer-lasting improvements to the riverbank ahead of a 2020 2025 gluff.

So we, we met with the school district, talked about our options, and realized that by cutting down some of the trees and leaving stumps in place, it could prevent additional erosion from a 2025 gluff. It was a term contract. We got a tree cutter out there, removed about 400 feet lengthwise along the river of those trees and tree structures that were most likely susceptible to getting pulled into the river and carrying some of that riverbank with it. In addition, we realized that that likely was not going to be a long-term solution, and we talked with the school district about what would be required to provide more permanent and lasting mitigation efforts along the riverbank. At that time, we didn't have a clearly identified funding source for how we would go about performing any activity at that school.

And realized we would need to hire a consultant to perform design and permitting efforts for whatever that solution would be, very likely some sort of a riverbank armoring project similar to what we've done elsewhere along the Mendenhall River. Consultant RESPEC was hired to start that work shortly after, or actually immediately before, the 2025 GLOF, but that work was likely going to take a significant amount of time before we would have construction-ready documents. Fast forward to October 30th in this room, where CBJ signed a cooperative agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers for the Army Corps of Engineers to fund the construction of Phase 2 mitigation— flood mitigation activities. That work did include the actual construction portions of riverbank armoring, including Mendenhall River Community School, the area that we had identified that was at risk. So the long story short is that at the city's expense, at the school district's expense in this case, the city did hire contractors to perform tree cutting activities to prevent negative effects after, uh, in advance of the 2025 glof, and the design and permitting contract to prepare us for a construction contract in advance of a 2026 GLOF.

Um, those are the costs that are outlined in here that the city and/or the school district are responsible for, where we've drawn that money from. But I do want to make it clear that the construction work to perform those repairs, those more permanent and lasting riverbank repairs are at the expense of the Army Corps of Engineers and will be covered as a part of the Phase 2 agreement that the city has with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Um, looks like we have one from Ms. Sitton first, and then we'll get to Mr. Brooks. Ms. Sitton, please. Thank you, Chair Sanger.

I guess, yeah, my question was going back to the 2 contracts, one for the tree removal and the second for the design. It sounds to me in the way you describe that, that the city undertook those without sort of approaching the school board for funding. So I— are you asking us in retrospect to fund those out of some source, or what? Mr. Ramsey, thank you for the question, and through the chair, At the time that the— these activities were identified as needs, there was no clear available funding source to carry out either of those activities other than the JSD deferred maintenance account. We did consult with JSD prior to carrying out any of those activities, but I recognize your question and concern as it relates to the board's role in that process, and I'm open to, to talking more about how those decisions were made and, and those discussions took place.

But there wasn't a specific intent to circumvent any normal processes. We were trying to identify sources of funding that were available and that we thought were appropriate for the nature of work that would that would, uh, was planning on taking place. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, is it a follow-up, Missin, or a separate question?

Yeah, it is. So I— thank you. I just am trying to understand, when you say you approach the school district, did you approach administration, or did this come through our Facilities Committee that addresses the maintenance list, like that $1 million funding for maintenance? And I— our chair is online, is there. Maybe he has the answer as well.

Mr. Whitney. Yeah, through the chair, thank you. And, and Director Germain, and unfortunately Miss Herbert isn't here, but they might be able to fill in the details. But yes, that did come before the committee, and I believe it went before regular board meetings, and it did come out of deferred maintenance, which I remember distinctly being concerned because we have lots of buildings that things break during the year, and, and we used up that deferred maintenance. So, but yeah, it did come before the committee and the school board, and the administration brought it forward.

Thank you, Mr. Whitney. Um, anything to add, Mr. Maine or Mr. Rumsey? No. All right, thank you. Mr. Brooks, if I could just maybe, um, to the administration then, get those meeting dates.

I don't recall that process.

All right, thank you. Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This would be a question for Mr. Rumsey. When you're explaining the, the, the process with planning the armament of the bank, you know, having the Army Corps on the side of the funding, but they're not involved at all on the side of planning or engineering, they're Are they just asking you guys like, hey, we got the money, just let us know whatever you want to do, and then you guys are engineering and doing the planning yourselves?

Thank you for the question, and through the chair, although we received the commitment from the Army Corps of Engineers to carry out Phase 2 work, the Army Corps also, as a part of that agreement, required that the city perform certain types of activities to support their work. For example, that would be the community outreach, that would be ensuring access for contractors in advance of construction taking place, and most importantly, I think, to this conversation is the permitting piece. Uh, the city was required to go out and, uh, request and obtain permits prior to that activity taking place, and so we kept the RESPEC contract open because there were certain aspects of that project that we knew may be challenging to, to try to address. And RESPEC has submitted all required permit applications for that, and we took the 100% design drawings and submitted those to the Army Corps of Engineers prior to any work taking place. So our intent and the Army Corps' intent in this case is to make use of the designs that were captured from RESPEC towards the actual construction activity that the Army Corps will, will undertake.

Does that address the question? Follow-up? Thank you. Yeah, yeah, for the most part. So, the were, were doing all the engineering work then?

Thank you for the question, and through the chair, if you are looking to broaden that out to the entirety of the Army Corps' Phase 2 work, not all of the engineering work. They are depending on consultation with us prior to moving forward with any of their specific activities, but they do have professional licensed engineers that were involved in creating the scopes of work for their contract with Sea Alaska. Um, but where we otherwise needed to provide very specific engineering drawings, uh, or elevations or typical sections or calculations to support a permitting activity, we did uphold our end of the bargain and provided that information to them before they would do construction activities. So they are doing engineering as well, but almost for, for different elements of the project, if that makes sense.

Mayor Weldon. Thank you. Um, so can you run over the numbers with me again? How much for MRCS? How much work has actually been done at what cost, and how much work needs to be done still at what cost?

That either us or the school district has to pay. I'm not concerned about the Army Corps of Engineers. Thank you, Mayor. And through the chair, on paragraph number 2, I've identified the value of the RESPEC design contract, um, to date. We do intend on trying to close that out as soon as possible, but I need to check with staff to ensure that there aren't any outstanding invoices choices that have yet to be paid.

But for all intents and purposes, that's the value of the contract right now. If anything, we wouldn't have paid everything up to, to that amount to this point, um, and we definitely wouldn't have paid more than that. I meant to grab this number before I came to this meeting today, but as I recall— and I'm looking at Miss Germain as well— I think the value of the tree cutting contract was approximately $40,000. Um, and I can go back and get that information. Those are the only costs that would have come directly from deferred maintenance.

Everything else for the riverbank armoring activity itself would come from the Army Corps via the Phase 2 work, and we had anticipated that the value of that, uh, work, how much it would cost for CBJ to carry that work, was approximately $500,000.

Okay, so I guess my question is, because I just added an amendment for $0.3 million, but that will cover the cost right now.

That—. Can you confirm that?

Thank you for the question, Mayor, and through the chair. So are you saying would essentially cover the cost that we've already incurred, the $136,000 plus the tree cutting expense? It will— should— sounds to me like it would cover the cost right now, and you're saying there is an additional cost that's not covered by the Army Corps of Engineers. That's where I'm getting confused. Okay, we do not anticipate additional costs to go against the deferred maintenance.

The remainder of the costs moving forward are costs that would be covered by the Army Corps of Engineers. Sorry, sorry for that.

Any other questions?

See none. Thank you, Mr. Rumsey.

That brings us to the third item on our agenda, Juneau School District Facilities Master Plan update. Um, and it looks like—. Is that to you, Mr. Nect?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, so in the memo submitted for this meeting, um, I linked the previous facility master plan draft summary of findings, and I just want to point out that that previous facility master plan was split into two phases, and the first phase was the summary of findings. And so my understanding is that the Phase 2 was not executed and that the draft summary of findings was the only deliverable from that contract, from that effort. What I've done is taken the previous proposal from that effort and populated a similar list of key personnel and consultants and developed a rough order of magnitude estimate to execute the same Phase 1 with the tasks that are outlined in the memo here, um, Tasks 1 through 5.

Uh, that estimate is under $90,000.

Are there any questions on what is contained in the memo or any other part of The facility master plan. We've got Mayor Weldon and then Mr. Brooks.

Um, so I guess my question is this, and I apologize for my lack of knowledge on this. I'm not really sure what we're getting from the master plan, especially in the view of the city's viewpoint. Um, and if we're just looking at use of space, I don't understand why the first study doesn't provide a lot of that information with the square footage of the buildings and those kind of things.

Um, I, I was not present for this, so I can only speak to the document as I understand it from scanning through it. Um, it is a large document, um, that it was split into 2 phases, um, where Phase 2 would have been a more proper facility master plan and would contain more of the information that you've just you've just kind of summarized, um, with facility footprints, square footages, allocations of that, um, that would have come in Phase 2. And so this preliminary work formed the basis of what would have been the deliverable in Phase 2. Absent any further guidance or direction from the school district, the Board of Education, or the Assembly, My best guess is what I've outlined in the memo as the necessary task to get to that Phase 2 deliverable.

Mr. Brooks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I don't know if you'd be able to answer every aspect of the question or not, but it says in 2017 the, the award for a contract was done. Um, does anyone know how much the award amount was? And then the second part is that it says that a draft summary was provided March 31st, 2026. So why 9 years later for a draft of only one part of the two phases?

Thank you. I'll clarify, um, that sentence, the deliverable from Phase 1 of that contract in 2017 was provided last meeting. I was just pointing out that we've already submitted that large document. It was printed, it's 200-some-odd pages, and that I just linked it here. Um, that total period of performance for the Phase 1 deliverables, that draft summary findings, was completed in about a year, and the value of the contract for Phase 1 and Phase 2 I'll say the value of the contract for Phase 1 was about $100,000.

The proposal contained an estimate for Phase 2 tasks, but that was never executed. So the value of the contract was about $100,000 roughly for Phase 1. Follow-up. So the, the, um, the master plan was finished in 2018, then the master plan was not finished, or the, the part that was Phase 1, yes, was completed. Yep.

Mr. Kelly, thank you. Uh, I think this might follow up a little bit with the mayor's question. Um, this is, uh, directed, I think, uh, more towards school staff or towards school board members, but what use did the school district derive out of this master plan after it was completed?

Mr. Hauser, through the chair. Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

I can't speak from 2017 through really what I'd say is 2024-25 when we were looking at the usage of this first phase document by the district, by the board, by administration prior to my tenure in the Juneau School District. During consolidation, we did utilize some aspects of this. Obviously the numbers were inaccurate, but looking at the square footage, looking at some of the room assignments, looking at some of the way they designated, um, Dean enrollment capacities versus PTR capacity that's referenced in this document, that did provide some assistance as we were looking at potential consolidation moving forward through some of that work and the potential of what that could look like in the future with an updated document. Potentially looking at future decisions of the board and administration around possible any additional school consolidation in the event of additional enrollment loss.

Today, one from the school board want to chime in on that. Mr. Whitney. Yeah, and going back to the chair, going back to Mayor Weldon's question, I think it was about the utility of doing this again. Um, and it's— and I hate to speak for others, but there are other members of the board who aren't on this committee who were very interested in bringing this forward. And I think my understanding of that was we know enrollment's going down, and if we did have to go through another round of consolidations, they wanted updated information and Um, which, if we did, I agree that would be a useful tool.

With that said, I'm in no hurry to go through another round of consolidations at this point in time. I think we need to heal some more. But if we did, my— what I would like is to include in this is, um, better population projections. And more better detail of where all the, all the students are and where they expect to be in relation to, I mean, just geographically within the school. And there are better GIS tools.

You can make things more efficient. I do think something that has frustrated me for decades is we never take into account traffic patterns, and that's one of the big costs that we pay for is peak rush hour. And schools, I've heard, are up to 30% of that. So I'd like us, if we did do this, I'd like us to take a more holistic view and see if we might save a little money here or do something, then it costs $20 million more beyond extra traffic infrastructure. I think those would be the kind of things we need to pay attention to as well, do it more holistically and long-term.

Heating systems, especially heat pumps, what the cost-effectiveness would be of replacing those systems. So we did do upgrades, I mean, like 10, 20, 25 years out. And then for the— if we did do a life cycle cost analysis, to have multiple time frames like 10, 20, 30, 40 years out. And one thing I don't think the original one did very well was And this is just from conversations I had with the city engineers at that time, was to include the cost of lead and asbestos in buildings. It's—.

I was told over and over and over again that just off the top, just add the extra 40% for schools and the cost when you have to upgrade those ones. So, and with that said, I'm in no hurry to get this out the door, but other members are. So And there, I think there is utility. Miss Cheney-Haywood, do you have an answer to Mr. Kelly's question? Well, I, as a follow-up, um, to Mr. Whitney, and, and possibly yes.

So I think part of the concern is that we are going to have to do another consolidation in, I'll say, probably the near future. Um, I would expect to see it if I run again and get reelected probably within my term. Um, but we know that we have a deficit of about $4 million projected in 2028, and what that looks like, I don't really know. Hoping for more funding from the state, but won't be holding my breath on that. And so I think some of the concern is if we are going to have to consolidate again, having the best, you know, information in order to do that and make the best decisions we can, and to get ahead of it and to not have to do it in a 3-month time period would be great.

Ms. Sinnen.

Thank you, Mr. Sanger. Yeah, I think as I've thought about this project more, you know, my initial thought was sort of a holistic revamp of the 2017 study, but I guess I see that sort of bifurcating into questions the Assembly might be interested in from a facilities or energy or heating standpoint, and a school district side in terms of like best educational layout and boundaries for different neighborhood elementary schools. And as I've thought about this more, you know, the city— I think the Assembly side will have to decide their interest level in it at this time in a sort of facilities, energy maintenance side. From my perspective, I'm interested because I agree with President Choney Haywood, we are likely looking at another consolidation in the next few years, and I would like to be thoughtful in how we approach that with the best information and data. So to me it is, you know, I don't know that I need the square footage remeasured.

We— I need sort of like an educational consultant to help us think about where How do we best utilize the space that we have for the best educational outcomes in terms of placement, like where programs are possibly, and how we utilize the buildings that we have, and which, which building do we close in a consolidation? And if we do close a building that impacts boundaries, then that demographic study on where, where kids are and where to draw the boundaries for the new schools. So I see all of those in our lane and not in a sort of joint assembly school board lane. So in, in my opinion, we can sort of separate this project if we want to. We can continue to work on it together if the assembly is interested from the, from the facility standpoint.

But if now isn't the time for you, I think from my perspective on the board, there are questions we want to move quickly on to be ahead of a consolidation.

Any other questions or comments on this item? Mayor Weldon, since you asked for comments, I'll do a comment. Um, thank you. I see now why you guys are interested in this, but again, I'm not sure that this is something that the city is too interested in, even if we attached some energy-saving things, the chances are we aren't going to afford to be able to do any of those energy-saving things. So, um, I would say you guys can go for it, but you'll probably have to fund it, or at least a big chunk of it.

All right, anybody else want to chime in? I don't think we need a motion on this. Um, Mr. Kelly. Thank you. So just a question.

So I noticed that in the packet here we have an estimated cost for Phase 1 at $190,000, and have we— do we have any estimates for what Phase 2 would cost us?

I don't. Uh, what it looks like in the original proposal is, um, a placeholder for Phase 2 anticipated fees and that they would have updated that after Phase 1 when they had more information from that, from that, from those tasks.

Mr. Rumsey. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think just to expound upon what Mr. Knecht said there and to piggyback off of Ms. Sidden, It, it very much could be scope dependent as well, and if we're going to incorporate certain aspects that require specialty consultation, um, it would have a direct driving impact on the cost of those activities. So we would be glad to continue to work with the school district to help provide that information, but for right now, without additional information, it would be hard to provide a meaningful estimate.

Submit. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And this is just kind of going back to, uh, what I was requesting on the last meeting as far as the energy audit. Was that for all facilities, or is that just for one?

Through the chair, specifically, the energy audit was for the 5 schools that are included in the Renew America Schools grant.

Follow-up. Thank you. And how, how much of that energy audit do you think will satisfy the, the inquiry for information on facilities that would be the goal of doing this kind of you know, full facility assessment.

Thank you for the question, through the chair.

The energy audit will provide that information on the 5 schools tied to how really looking at the Renewing America's Schools and seeing some efficiencies from the funding for that through the grants. As far as I think meeting the— interest maybe is a better term to use for the refresh of the facilities plan. I think it would depend on the scoping and the interest from the assembly and the board and kind of what is being used for. From an energy, energy perspective, I could see it being beneficial and looking at another bit of information that goes towards both our CIP list, departmental CIP list, and seeing where we might be able to identify Um, as it was added in the bonds, the 4 schools that are not, um, part of the Renewing America Schools for the HVAC upgrades, which would tie to energy efficiencies. Um, but I think the energy audit, um, potentially could be used in looking at which building might not be the most efficient and would have more long-term savings if we transition away from that building.

But I think some of that could also be tied into— and it's like, again, the scoping— what did the deferred maintenance costs look like, which wouldn't necessarily tie into the energy audit but might be a factor that kind of plays with the energy audit and making final determinations on the decisions around maintaining a school, keeping it in the district, or potentially turning it back over to the assembly or some other use for that facility. And so I see it as depending on the scope and the interest of that scope from the members involved for that facility. Facility plan, but also it's one aspect that will help what I think the facilities— what I'm hearing the intent of the facilities plan is to help guide some of those discussions in the future. And depending on, um, you know, the overall scoping of it, deciding what those are, energy being one aspect of it potentially.

Mr. Kelly, thank you. I think I do see a little bit of an interest in the, uh, at least from this assembly member, in, in assisting in some way with this, uh, met with this master plan. To hear that the school district is, is thinking of further consolidation because of cuts in the immediate future, I think could be a concern for all of us, especially as we're talking about possibly homeporting well, we're talking about homeporting at least one icebreaker here in Juneau. With that, we'll bring, bring families, and then with consolidation, that would bring more crowded schools for those families who would be our future constituents. So I think it's in our interest to have good data for the, the school district to be basing these decisions on because The next few years are likely going to be complicated in that regard.

Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and this is just more of a comment. I, I would like to, you know, side with the mayor and the sentiment that, you know, I'm— it, it could be beneficial and have good information, but I'm not crazy about spending money on more studies at the current moment. But, um, you know, something that specifically stood out to me as reading in either one of the previous week's packets or previous meetings was the, uh, you know, energy efficiency per square foot.

Uh, JDHS has a higher energy rating per square foot than Thunder Mountain. So it's really interesting to think about how such an old facility with so many problems is still outperforming on a per square footage than one of our newest and nicest school facilities. So those are the types of things that I think will lend a benefit and value to the decisions that we're going to make— need to make in the future. But if we can figure out as much of that information as possible for the least amount of money possible.

Thank you. Um, any other comments from the committee, or— oh, Mr. Whitney, I just have one on that last one. Is this came up in our last time I was on the board on the Facilities Committee, and there's a tendency in new buildings to actually make better ventilation so you have more air turnover and it's healthier. So that's not always the case on the older buildings. So there, but But they do say energy on that.

Thank you, Mr. Whitney. All right, seeing no other comments, we'll move on to our 4th agenda item, the gas no snow removal. And I know, yeah, staff weren't necessarily prepared to talk about this this afternoon. I know we've had a number of emails going through on the topic, so I'm not sure if this is best for Mr. Main or Mr. Rumsey to kind of take a crack. Um, or I see, uh, Director Koch is, is turning her camera on, so she might want to lead us off.

As a point of order, Mr. Chair, I believe this item, since it wasn't noticed, I think we're able to talk about maybe scheduling a discussion, and I don't think we're able to— we're certainly not able to take any action. I don't know what else we would need to do. Action? Can we have conversation without action?

I mean, Conversation without action, right? So nobody do anything, but Director Koch, please feel free to have conversation. Thank you, Chair Steininger. I believe your volume is really low. I don't know if that's on our end or—.

I will try to project. Perfect. Okay, if it sounds like I'm yelling at you, that is not my intent. I'm just trying to keep my volume so that— keep it audible. I believe that there were 3 separate issues that were recently brought up by, by the school district.

They have to do with snow removal on Douglas Highway, a request to DOT for a flasher also on Douglas Highway, which has gone to DOT and Nathan Purvis has been looking into that and I think has responded to the school district. And then the third item that is more within CBJ's purview was a request for a one-way access on I Street between Douglas and Third, but only during limited hours, so during drop-off and pickup. An unusual request, so I had just done— that request came last week, so I've done a little bit of research internally on what sort of process we've done in the past when we've had requests for one-ways. The last one, the last CBJ street that I'm aware of that we changed from a two-way to a one-way street, and this was a permanent change was on Capitol Ave. Now, this was part of a much larger project with a redesign, but it did include a traffic study and, I think more importantly, some opportunity for public comment as well as an opportunity for feedback from JPD and the fire department. I have reached out to JPD and the fire department JPD has responded that they have internally at least that they have some concerns with a part-time one-way, that their preference would be that the street would be one-way or two-way all the time.

That would also be EPW's preference. I think that would be being one-way only part of the time might provide a false sense of security, and I think will probably confuse a lot of motorists. I have not yet heard back from the fire department, and so we're just— I'm gathering that, some of that internal feedback, and have also reached out to the manager's office just to fully understand what processes is typically used when there's a request to make a street one-way and it's not part of a larger project that has traffic studies and, um, and public comment associated with it. But I would imagine that we would need some forum for the public to be able to provide input.

Thank you, Director Koch. Um, anybody else at the table want to chime in? Miss Germain?

Thank you, and thank you, Director Koch, for that recap. One additional item that we had requested was the And this went to DOT, um, the school zone flashing that currently is 20 miles an hour. We were requesting if that could be 15 miles an hour, and we were told that no, it can't, based on the rules that they have in place federally and that the state accepts through DOT.

Thank you.

Miss Sitten. Thank you, Mr. Steiner. I am the site Gastono liaison, so I have been listening to these conversations at their site council for several months, so I, I probably will not do an adequate job representing their concerns, but I'll try to add just a few pieces. Um, the other, you know, the way I understand the conversation, there's sort of like some smaller scale things they— that we could brainstorm and, and make modifications to that would make some small improvements in the traffic situation for pickup and drop-off to make that safer for the students versus like a larger, I think, like redesign of the area that would have a much larger price tag, of course. So the other things that they have talked about, um, are the utilizing what is now the bus drop-off pull-through, like if that could be for cars and the buses could drop off somewhere else.

That's been talked a lot about, and some of That conversation, I think, impacts CBJ because there's also an adjacent fire lane on I Street that if that— I don't know, again, when Ms. Kokocka, when you talk to the fire department, if there's a way to move that, if the fire lane could be somewhere else and then buses could drop off on I Street, if that's a another option. And then the other thing that they talked about was whether along Douglas Highway there, there was some confusion whether or not that's a no parking zone already, like if it's a yellow curb, or whether cars or buses could utilize dropping off along the highway, although nobody loved that idea, of course, dropping off on the highway, but they were just trying to brainstorm other solutions. So I think those are the other pieces Um, yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Um, any other comments or questions from committee members?

No? All right. Oh, Mayor Weldon. So I'm assuming this is going to come back to the committee. So it's been a while since I've gone to Gaston School.

I was— it's my alma mater. If someone could bring a map so we could understand. I know where I Street is, but I don't remember where the bus drop-off is. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Well, I would actually find that very helpful as well.

All right, seeing nothing else, um, we— our next meeting day is to be determined. No, staff are still working on, um, a memo in response to the other item passed to this committee, a discussion on capital projects between both Juneau School District and the assembly. So we're kind of waiting until that gets finalized, figure out another meeting date. So expect to see another survey in your inbox with asking for your availability at some point in the future. Um, anything else for the committee?

Seeing nothing, we are adjourned.