Kenai: 10/21/26 City Council Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the October 21st, 2026 City Council meeting to order. If you're able, please rise and join me for 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.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Hold on one moment.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Grimme? Yes. Vice Mayor Askin? Here.

Council Member Petty?

She shows online. Council Member Souda? Here. Council Member Sounart? Here.

Mayor Knackstedt? Here. Council Member Daniel? Here. Student Representative Bowling?

Here. You have a quorum. Thank you. Um, Clerk, I wanted to register my presence. This is Council Member Petty.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Petty. Council, before we get to the agenda, consent agenda approval, I'd like to bring to your attention the laydown materials. We have action item H4, action approval item, purchase orders and purchase order amendments requiring council approval in accordance with KMC 715020, brought to us by administration.

Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move that we approve the agenda and consent agenda with laydown materials and ask for unanimous consent. I'll second that. Are there any additional revisions to the agenda and the consent agenda from council?

Clerk, would you please read the, uh, consent agenda items into the record, please? Approval of the regular meeting minutes of October 7th, 2026, brought to you by the city clerk. New business action approval, bills to be ratified. 2, Action approval, non-objection to the acceptance and appropriation of a US Department of Transportation pass through the state of Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Alaska Highway Safety Office grant in the amount of $8,110.82 in accordance with KMC 725030 and action approval special use permit to LifeMed Alaska LLC for ambulance warm storage. Brought to you by the administration.

And that is your consent agenda. Thank you. Are there any public comments on any of the consent agenda items just read by the clerk? Seeing no one, unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objections?

Hearing no objections, the agenda and consent agenda are approved. We have no administrative reports. That brings us to scheduled public comments. We have Randy Daly with River Cities Living. Randy, welcome.

Mr. Daley. Are we good? All right. So good evening. I'm Thomas R. Daley.

My friends call me Randy. I'm the owner of Mars LLC, which is the parent corporation— parent LLC. And today we're going to be telling you about one of our products, one of our platforms, which is the River Cities Living magazine. Now if you look in your packet, you should have a copy of the November issue. And what we're going to do is we're going to tell you a little bit about what we're doing so that hopefully either as an organization or as individuals, you'll help us tell a great story about the Central Kenai Peninsula and Kenai in particular.

Now what we do with River Cities Living is this is primarily a tool for small business to be top of mind in the local marketplace. Focused specifically on Kenai, Soldotna, and Sterling. And we build a beautiful magazine. So it has full color on the front. We've cut— we do a cut down from a master sheet so you have full bleed color.

You have staples in the spine just like you're supposed to have. Smooth pages, professional photography, and professional writing so that we can make the best case about what it means to live in the Kenai Peninsula. So it's a beautiful magazine, but if nobody ever opens it, so what? So what we do is we put a family, or in this case an individual, from the Kenai Peninsula, central Kenai Peninsula, on the COVID every month. And so if you go and you look at this, you go, "Hey, is that Eric Watkins?

Oh man, I know that guy," and you open the magazine. Or, "I think I saw that guy at Echo Lake Meets. Do I know him?" and you open it. Or, Hold it. There's a guy with a knife on the COVID and he lives near my kids.

Let me find out about this guy. So that's how we get people to open the magazine. And so the focus of the magazine is to tell great stories about everyday heroes here on the Kenai Peninsula. And so the way we do that is obviously once you open this, we have— everything works. You have beautiful ads laid out by professional designers and you get introduced to the people who actually build the magazine.

So if you open the COVID and look at the, the right page, it's one thing getting it open, but then once you're in it, is it relevant to you? Because there is an entire library of what they call evergreen material for magazines where you could just put stuff off the shelf and stick it in there. It means nothing to you because it's not local. 100% Of the content in this magazine is locally produced for local consumption. And the way we do that, you'll look up in the upper right hand, upper left hand corner in this gray area.

That's my team. So we have 2 photographers. We have a content coordinator. We have a designer. And we have me, for better or worse.

Now, below that, we have what we call expert contributors. And expert contributors are sponsors of the magazine that have advertising space in the magazine and our other platforms. And they write. They have the ability to contribute once a quarter about what they know and what they're an expert at. So you have local people writing about their expertise for the consumption of local people in the environment.

So if we run down the list, you got casual dining from Craig Schwartz. Now Craig is professionally a contractor, but he has two restaurants. And so his passion is cooking. And so he gets to share that quarterly in the magazine. Below that, Christy Babcock, when she added her second location in Soldotna, she wanted to make sure people knew about it.

So she's in here as an expert contributor. And in this issue in the back, you'll see input from her on how to make the most of your policies and how to make and protect your home. Now, Jeff Bellamini is, is in the part of his life where he doesn't want to be seen in the public anymore, so he put Isha up front for Walters and Associates, and their specialty is commercial insurance. So they have a number of stories that they're going to tell over the next couple years about the businesses and how they've helped them. Moving on from there, a young man, Tanner Link, with financial, financial advising, and he has just expanded his office space, and so we were able to do a business profile on him about his new space and what he does for the community.

Now, of course, Dr. Bob has been around forever. He was an ER doc over at Central Peninsula Hospital for 20 years, but recently he has expanded into a health and wellness center out in Sterling, And so he talks about and writes about how to live a healthier and longer life. Dr. Todd Wortham. Now he has been around forever. When I first came to the Kenai Peninsula when I was still living in Anchorage, I was selling car parts.

And Todd was the guy that did the car parts ordering for his dad's tire shop. And so that's when Dr. Todd and I first met. Now since then, he has two operations. He has one, I believe, in Sitka. And then the one here in Kenai where he rehabbed the old Pizza Hut building and made it into a state-of-the-art dental facility.

So Dr. Todd gets to write about how to keep your teeth healthy and how to live a better life through dental care. And Ian Krogzing, another great story. His father and I, Dan Krogzing, if you remember Big Tonka's on the Bluff on the Millennium Square, Dan was the guy who put up the most equipment to help us put those events on. It was a Rotary event where we helped— we brought out heavy equipment, we brought out operators, and then we had kids line up and we would put them on the laps of the operators as they ran all the heavy equipment so that we could help in rehabbing that site. So we would actually pull the anchors for the old antennas and stuff.

And Dan was a big part of that. Dan is happily retired now, and Ian is going to take over the business. So I'm working directly with Ian so that we can keep him top of mind and get more business. And as you can see, it has a nice full-page ad right in the front. So that's how it works.

And if you go to the next page, you have the Grateful Gatherings. And so this is a community calendar. So we take input from both chambers, but then we actually went out and reached out to organizations so that we get a broader calendar so that people know more about what's going on in the Kenai Peninsula. And this improves the quality of life because there are times when people go, wow, man, what is there to do in Kenai? Well, here we go.

We got an entire monthly calendar of what's going on. And you see some of our other participants like North Beach Quilting. Then, if we move over to the next page, we see, "What do the Federal Reserve $3 trillion and your premium have in common?" So this is one of our expert contributor articles that, again, local content by local people for local consumption to make your life better. And we stack that on top of the Walters& Associates ad. Now the center of every magazine is this cover story.

And in this one, we're talking to Eric, and he has a story about thankfulness. So it made sense to, to do a Thanksgiving issue with him talking about why he is thankful for things, and it features his family. And this is the biggest article every month. It's somewhere between 600 and 1,000 words. Every other article is 500 words or less.

So we take the time to take everyday people in the Kenai, Central Kenai Peninsula, and make them into everyday heroes. And so I have friends in Colorado, I have friends in Wyoming, I have friends in Texas, and they all tell me, well, we got streams and we got fish and we got rivers, we got mountains. It's the people that make the Central Kenai Peninsula best place on the planet to live. And that's what we attempted, that story we attempt to tell in the magazine. Moving along, We have Cheesecake 101.

So this is from our very own cheesecake connoisseur here on the Kenai Peninsula, Justin Moulton. Moving on from there, recipes. We were actually— we had the ability to pull in the Alaska Spice Company and they talked about recipes to use their spices. We had a distillery down in Southeast give us a recipe that included their product. And so we're helping build awareness of not only the companies that are sponsors, but other people who are participating in the community.

And speaking of community, here's Hardwood Through the Years. So this gentleman is actually— turns out he has a hardwood restoration business on the side. He's a full-time pastor. And in a weird coinkydink, after I sat down and talked to him, we found out that he was actually conducting the baptism, performing the baptism on the the son of the family that was my first cover, which was Freddie Taylor, who grew up down the street on Deepwood. Navigating during the holiday season when the heat comes on, and one of my favorites, every month that there's an anniversary for one of the services, I make sure to talk about how the service came to be.

I find some veterans locally that were in that service and then what the mission of that service is. So here we see Dana Day and his son both residents of the Kenai Peninsula and one of them, one of your employees, and they're a little bit about their backstory and their experience in the Marine Corps, which has its birthday in November. And then like I said, there's more community. And in the back, again, an expert contribution from our very own Christy Babcock. When you get to the back page, there's a little QR code up in the corner.

And what we've done there, this is something we just added this quarter, what this does is this links to our library. So all of the expert contributor articles are on our landing page for River City Living. So you can go in and grab one of those articles and share it via various social media connections so that it helps your business, helps your credibility, and we build awareness of the expertise on the Central Kenai Peninsula. So Randy Daley, River Cities Living, we'd love to partner with you. Thank you for your time.

Randy, perfect timing. Once in a while. Yeah. Any questions for Mr. Daley? Cool?

Go ahead. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Did you say it and I missed it? Who is this— who receives this publication?

So currently, I have a distribution of about 3,000 households, plus or minus. And what we do is we mail it to homeowners We typically stay away from PO boxes for exactly what everybody was joking about this morning. They're going out of their PO boxes, grabbing all the junk mail out of it and tossing it. So we want to make sure that it makes it into the household. It's a monthly publication.

We find that it's in the household for the entire month, and people read it between 8 and 5 times, 5 and 8 times. But it is sorted by homeownership, age. So typically we're looking for 30-year-olds and above. Homeownership. And then we are certain— to keep the cost down, we limit it to about $3,000 until I can increase the revenues and pay for more.

So I have a waiting list right now of, I think it was 20 people last time I looked, that have said, hey, I'm not getting it, please add me to the list. And so as we increase revenues, I can take the expense, we'll continue to add. And as we expand the magazine, we'll also add pages. We're at 16 pages right now. And the next jump will be another 4 pages.

So I have to make sure that I can cover that cost as well. So the more that we do, the better it's gonna get. Thank you. You bet. Anything else?

Any further questions?

Sorry. Go ahead. So you talked a lot about the magazine. I appreciate that. Is there an online component as well that helps with this?

And what does that look like? So what we do is obviously when you go to all the work of laying out, designing ads for a physical print magazine, it's very easy to transition those into the file types that are needed for online representation of our clients. There's two pieces of the online universe. There's Meta, who likes to have a very big— has a lot of control over what they allow in their universe. And those are the Facebook, Instagram properties.

Along with some others. Now, outside of that, we have what we call display ads. So it's a slightly different layout to meet both those criteria. And on the display ads, you're going through Google, Yahoo, the rest of the 70 search engines that exist between the 20 in California, the 50 in the US. And so we're pushing information out to all those search engines as well.

Beyond that, like I said, we do have a landing page for the publication. And we do the covers off there, but we keep the content, especially the stuff that involves families, we keep that offline, keep it in the magazine, but the expert contributors, which is excellent for public consumption, those will all be added as they're published. So we'll have that. Now the other piece of it for online that's gonna happen, we're in the process of launching, it's a little side project for us, is there'll be a podcast called River Cities Live. And what that will be is basically the interviews done live with the people that are then in the magazine.

We'll actually have the capacity to do more interviews for the podcast than we actually publish, but we'll kind of keep the crème de la crème in the magazine for maximum impact. And then the backside of that is we all have a whole bunch of tools to help small business deal with the updates of all those 70 engines. As well as getting good feedback back to the clients through reviews from multiple places. And we simplify it by putting it all under one username and password.

Any further questions? Mr. Daley, I was wondering, you started the magazine this spring, correct? This is our 13th month. Pardon? This is our 13th month in business.

So what happens is DVM, the company that does a lot of the backend work for me, came to me and said, "Hey, yeah, we don't have anything going on in the Kenai Peninsula. You can have the whole thing." I was like, "Man, I don't think I like to drive that much." So we looked at the best concentration, the best demographic to hit the most people with the least amount of cost. Because we've seen in other published media what happens when you overproduce. One of the challenges that my friends at the Peninsula Clarion ran into is their whole claim to fame was always, "Hey, we're distributing 30,000 of these every day." Well, that's a huge expense to cover if you're not getting it read. So what we did is we geotargeted down to the most densely populated demographic that had the affluence to actually buy things from our advertisers.

And that's why we settled on Kenai, Soldotna, and Sterling as the main focus. Of our distribution. Did I answer your question? It did, thank you. Thank you.

Any further questions? I think none. Mr. Daley, thank you very much for coming and sharing your magazine with us. Absolutely. Stay tuned, coming soon, we've decided to call the one in Homer, Homer's Odyssey.

That brings us to unscheduled public comments. Are there any members from the public that would like to speak on any item not appearing on the agenda tonight? Anyone?

That brings us to public hearings. The first public hearing before us tonight is Ordinance Number 3546-2026, amending public noticing requirements within Kenai Municipal Code Chapters 14-05 Planning and Zoning Commission 14.10, Subdivision Regulations 14.20, Kenai Zoning Code 21.10, Leasing and Acquisition of Airport Reserve Lands, and 22.05, Disposition of City Lands to Modernize Public Notification Procedures. Brought to us by Administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin.

I move we enact ordinance 3546-2026. I'd second that. Thank you. Is there anybody from the general public that would like to speak to Ordinance 3546-2026?

Seeing no one, we'll bring it back to council.

City Manager Eubank, you want to give us a report on this? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of council, I'll do an introduction. If there's more specific questions, we have our planner here tonight. He can, he can speak to this.

This ordinance largely is in response to the reduced printing days in circulation of our print newspaper here in town. Kind of a timely discussion. And, you know, as a result, the deadline's now placed on getting public ads placed is, is, um, starting to interfere with, I think, our normal operations and, and with, um, you know, doing the business of the public. So this ordinance proposes to eliminate the requirement, uh, that is in code in these sections, uh, requiring publication in a newspaper of general circulation. Um, that Public noticing requirement is, is proposed to be met by a centralized page on the city's webpage where all public notices would be posted.

It also would require posting at 3 other places within the city, one of which would be in code would be this City Hall's bulletin board, and then 2 other locations. Those are not codified, but the intent at this point is to use the bulletin board at the post office here in town. And there's also a bulletin board at the library that would be consistently used. I really think the key to this, Council, is that we, you know, like the newspaper used to provide, we have to be consistent where people can find the information. And that consistency is going to be the key.

But we don't find that advertising in the newspaper any longer is producing the results. I think that was intended. And if there's specific— Kevin, did I miss anything, or you want anything? Okay, that's pretty thorough. Any questions?

Councilmember Daniel. Thank you, Mayor Naxat. A quick question, maybe for the planner. Um, is there— this doesn't change anything with noticing in terms of putting the sign up or sending out the postcards, anything like that, for any of those type of notices we have to do, correct?

Through the mayor, through city manager and the mayor. Uh, no, this does not change that at all. Um, we still put a sign up for a public hearing. It will still get mailed to people within, uh, properties within 300 feet of an affected property unless otherwise stated. So I think marijuana is 500 feet or 1,000 feet depending on the type of building.

So all those will still remain. The mailing will still go out. This just allows us to provide the information in a free form versus behind a paywall.

Any further comments? Council Member Kearney. I have a couple comments and a couple questions. I love this idea. I mentioned it months ago, and I'm really glad to see that you're putting it into action for a number of of reasons.

I have one concern, and that's related to the intent of public notice. When I think about public notice, the intent for me seems that it is information that's provided and accessible. It puts you on notice. You don't go seeking it out. My concern with it being posted on a website is that unless you're checking that website whatever, every week or whatever, you wouldn't know that there's a notice that might apply to you.

Same could be said for the bulletin board here and at the library and the post office. I would encourage your department— actually, I would ask if your department would be willing to, when you post notices on the website, if it could also be noticed on the city's social media that public notice has been posted on your website, provide the link. Um, the city's social media site includes public notice for other things like notice of election, notice of, um, proposals, etc. So could the same be done by your department for notices instead of, instead of just the website? Thank you, Councilmember Grimme.

Uh, I believe so. I'd work with the clerk's office. We also could theoretically create a page for our department as well, like other departments in the city have, that would be tailored for planning and zoning so people could seek it out, um, and potentially cross-pollinate those, you know, to get it started and get the membership growing. So I believe those would be options to do as well. Thank you.

I think, I think that could make a huge difference. And again, it's a no-cost option. It's a no-cost method of getting the information to people instead of forcing people to seek it out. Obviously gives them the opportunity to seek it out as well, but I think this is a great idea, and I'm really glad that, that you brought it before us and that we're hopefully going to move forward with it. I think, I think that this is meeting people where they're at for notification.

Thank you. Clerk Sander, did you have something you wanted to add? I did. I also wanted to point out roughly 5 years ago we started every public meeting we have creating a Facebook event that linked them back to the meeting page. So that is something we've been using for 5 years now too on social media.

I checked, I checked that just to make sure. That was my recollection as well, and I did check that earlier this, this week, which is part of why I was asking if your department could follow suit. Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Um, though it's implied, I just want to ask, so is the, uh, the, uh, publication and the paper not going to be used at all then? Uh, Mr. Eubank? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. That is correct.

Any further discussion? Seeing none, court.

Sorry, we are still using the paper for election noticing, and we do put a generic 1-inch ad that says when our meeting dates are, and that's in compliance with the Open Meetings Act. Yeah, thank you. I tend to be one of those people that still read the paper and the back part of it thoroughly. Vice Mayor Askin. Um, thank you, Mayor Nexted.

Um, I, I need to make a motion to amend the fifth whereas to add the word enact so that the, um, amend— after amendment it would read, whereas the Planning and Zoning Commission held a public hearing on October 14th, 2026, and recommended the city council enact this ordinance, and, and request unanimous consent. I'll second. Council consent was requested. Are there any objections? Seeing none, ordinance number 3546-2026 is amended.

Any further discussion? Clerk, would you please call the roll? Vice Mayor Askin? Yes. Council Member Petty?

Yes. Council Member Cassena? Yes. Council Member Soonaut? Yes.

Mayor Knackstedt? Yes. Council Member Daniel? Yes. Council Member Grimme?

Yes. Student Representative Bulley? Yes. You have 7 yes votes. Ordinance number 3546-2026 as amended is enacted.

Thank you. Now we are on item E2, Ordinance number 3547-2026, accepting and appropriating the award of a US Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Rural Health Transformation Program grant passed through the State of Alaska Department of Health in the amount of $435,770 for the purchase of emergency medical equipment brought to us by administration. Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askam. I move that we enact Ordinance Number 3547-2026.

I'll second. Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak to Ordinance 3547-2026? Seeing no one, bring it back to council. Um, City Manager Eubank.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Uh, I just want to first start by, um, introducing our chief. Jay Teague is here, and our deputy chief, Mr. Pete Kutz, is here. I'm going to let them take this here in just a second, but I just want to recognize their efforts, uh, in putting in for this grant and being awarded this grant. It's going to bring $435,000 of federal money to the community with no required local match to replace some equipment that we would have had to been replacing in the next couple of years anyway.

So I think this is really good news. And Chief, Deputy Chief, if you want to give a rundown on what we're doing, I'd appreciate it. I'm sure. We had some big-ticket items that we knew were service life, we're going to be terminating out and have to be replaced. Probably the biggest ticket item would be our LifePaks cardiac monitors that we carry on the ambulances.

The current model set to probably lifespan and term out within the next year and a half. We'd be forced to go ahead and move to the new units, new units with all the accoutrements that go with the system to the tune of $70,000 to $75,000. Per unit. And we were worried about trying to find a way to fund that without really taxing the city. The RHTP, Rural Health Transformation Program, came down.

And fortunately for the state of Alaska, the whole state is classified as rural, which allowed us to take advantage of this program. There are 6 core categories in the program, one of those being technology and innovation. And I want to give a big kudos to Deputy Chief Kootz. He first recognized the possible opportunity for us to have these costs basically picked up by the grant program rather than taxing the city and our taxpayers. And so he developed and put forth a grant application That's, in my 30 years in public safety, is probably one of the best, if not the best, public safety grant package that I've seen put forward.

I want to just tell you how great it was. The State of Alaska had 1,795 applications for the first round of RHTP, and only 403 were selected for advancement and possible funding. And that was one of ours. And to make it even more difficult, The category for which we were submitting for these funds is through the technology innovation category, which was one of the 6 core program areas they hope to address with this grant program. And it's also one of the most difficult because everybody can ask for equipment and technology.

And so we had that working against us as well. I think it was honestly— and I'll let Chief Kootz speak for just a sec and kind of sum up what we're getting and what we're doing with that money. And what was approved, but I think it was mostly in part to his innovation and creativity, how he put the packet together, and why the City of Kenai was selected for award over hundreds of other agencies that put in for similar requests when the odds were already stacked against us. So I just want to give Chief Koops kudos for that and the work that he's put into this. And I'll let him kind of give you a rundown of what we're doing.

Thanks, Chief, City Manager, Mayor, Council. Appreciate your time. So yeah, like Chief said, um, the big portion of this first phase is the, uh, the cardiac monitors, multifunction monitors. Um, but over and above that, you know, we have needs as the technology increases and our aging population, there's lots of opportunities for us to provide better medical care in the field for our residents. And so some of the other equipment we're looking at adding on is updating our CPR compression devices, which was kind of a joint project years ago.

We had a member of our community put some money forth to purchase one of those. We're updating that. Those are first-generation compression machines, and we're going to be getting the updated models of those. We'll have 3 of those. Additionally, we're expanding into portable patient ventilators, so as we're transporting patients over to Central Peninsula Hospital or to our medevac agencies locally, as we intubate, we're able to provide ventilations without having our personnel standing up in the back of the ambulance so that they're better protected in the back of the ambulance so the patient will get effective ventilations without having our personnel at risk standing up in the back of the moving ambulance.

Additionally, one of the more cutting-edge pieces of equipment we're looking at is ultrasound probes. So as we're looking for IV access or to scan a patient's abdomen for life-threatening hemorrhaging and things like that, we'll be able to detect those conditions in the field and make better treatment and transport decisions, whether we want to immediately medevac up to the trauma centers in Anchorage or transport locally here for immediate care. And we're also purchasing some infusion pumps as well. So we have some new medications that we're carrying that require kind of nursing-level dosing to be administered, and so having those infusion pumps in the back of the ambulance will be able to deliver the correct doses of those cardiac medications and other pain medications that we can give in the field. So it's a great, great opportunity for us, and I'm excited to help train the personnel and those new— and our medical directors on board with all of this.

And so we're— we've got a big training phase coming up, but it'll be great. Thank you. And just to sum that up and turn it back to City Manager Eubank, One last tidbit. In 1970, the City of Seattle founded and chartered an ALS service, which was one of the first in the Pacific Northwest. And they've been known as the cutting-edge front-runners technologically in the Pacific Northwest.

And after we get our ultrasound, point-of-care ultrasound, and our ventilators online in our ambulances, the City of Kenai Bear Creek will have a more advanced ambulance ALS service than downtown Seattle. We will also be the number one ambulance transporting agency in the state of Alaska to have all of these technologies onboarded in our ambulance. So again, back to Kenai leading the way. And because we're a small municipality doesn't mean we can't be the best. And that's the mentality we're running with, with the city fire department.

And I just thank you for considering this and letting us run this program for the city of Kenai.

Thank you. Council. Thank you. I think even before Chief Tigue mentioned the comparative between us and Seattle, I think I was already far more comforted to live in the city of Kenai than anywhere else with the attention that you're taking on providing early diagnosis on the transport. I think the idea of being able to make those decisions quickly could obviously save people's lives.

So I think in that way I'm appreciative and just thankful to be in the city limits. And, uh, but beyond that, I think as we look long term at building a new station, I think it's, um, it's nice to see that, um, you guys are working hard to try to save, save both us on council and the budget and the taxpayers as much money as possible. This is nearly half a million dollars in savings that you guys work to get on our behalf. So I appreciate that. Absolutely.

And just so you know, we're already working on Phase 2 application, so hopefully the half a million is just a start.

Council Member Grimy. Thank you both for, um, working on this grant proposal. I, um, I am familiar with the rural health Transformation Program, and I know that it was, um, pretty stringent competition. Um, so I know that what you submitted must have been pretty significant to not only be awarded funds but to be awarded almost half a million dollars of the $272 million that the Department of Health is managing for this grant for this year alone. Um, so I appreciate your work on that, and I appreciate that you have the support and the time within your positions to be seeking these alternative funding sources out.

As you mentioned, Chief Teague, the Rural Health Transformation Program is designed to strengthen rural healthcare and infrastructure workforce stability within Alaska and— well, overall, but in Alaska, we're all rural. I think that it is remarkable that we're getting such a huge bite of the apple for such a small municipality. And I think all of our residents are gonna feel that impact. You mentioned that you are working on a second application for the second phase of RTP funding. Would you tell me, would you tell us what that is focused on?

Councilman, or Councilwoman Grimme, thank you for your inquiry. Right now, my projected phase 2 was to bolster our patient simulation equipment for in-house training. We have some outdated cardiac simulating devices and things like that. And so we're looking to improve the fidelity of those trainers so that our personnel can run realistic scenarios with a patient simulator that will react appropriately, along with some additional skills trainers. And another portion of the, grant this year will be to strengthen workforce, as that's part of one of the ideas there.

And so kind of try to build into Phase 2 some funding for paramedic education for some of our in-house senior personnel that have been longtime advanced EMTs that are looking to move to the paramedic level so we can continue to improve our overall care at the paramedic level too.

Thank you. And I guess a follow-up question: has there been any consideration of maybe partnering with other emergency services organizations either on Central Peninsula or even a little further, you know, like CES and, you know, even Homer, Cooper Landing Emergency, etc.? Yeah, we've had those discussions. The borough departments tend to— I wouldn't say exclude us, we're not excluded, we're very well in the fold actually with our borough agencies as far as planning coordination. But the borough, I think, had little different priorities as far as some of the applications that they wanted to submit.

And so there wasn't an opportunity there that I think would have allowed us to get as much of the pie as we actually did. And so that's why we chose to go ahead and submit just our own separate application, um, on behalf of the City of Kenai. Well, it sounds like it was a good gamble, so thank you.

Any further comments? Councilmember Daniel. Thank you, Mayor Nextay. Uh, just want to say thank you, gentlemen, to you and your whole department. This is really exciting.

I mean, it's always— I shouldn't say fun, but it's interesting because, you know, I don't work in that line. I don't get to really see— I get to see on the outside looking in and all the different things that your department does, it just blows my mind that we have these capabilities. And now we have even— we're going to potentially even have more capabilities when this equipment comes online. So thank you for taking the time and trying to get this stuff in here. It's really appreciated, and I know the citizens will appreciate it, and we appreciate it.

Thank you.

Any further comments? Hi.

Yeah, go ahead. Thank you, Mayor Knackstedt. Just really simply, I wanted to say thank you to both you gentlemen. Your effort truly has paid off, and we're the beneficiaries of it. So thank you very much.

Any further comments?

Well, I was going to wait until the end. I was going to say something, but I figured I'll start and then you want to say something. No, but thank you very much. I've had some firsthand knowledge with our local ambulance and fire department, and we are truly, you truly are the best. Thank you.

Anything more?

Vice Chief Kutz, in particular, since I think you are probably the primary guy that worked on this and you probably had some assistance, I think that this is just really wonderful. Of course, you know, when we get the packet and we read through it, we see the dollar amount and I think that's probably the highest dollar amount for this sort of a grant that I've ever seen. And then you gave it some additional depth in that it's, well, it's money and we know it's going to go to your department, but the kind of equipment it's going to go to. And that does two things, is that it makes the Kenai Fire Department one of the best places, if not the best place, in the state of Alaska to work if you're in that industry. If you've got the equipment, you got that.

And then as a resident here, you know, I feel comforted to know that you've got that kind of equipment. So if you come to my street or whatever in town, that you're going to have that equipment and those type of people that are going to be able to operate that, and you're going to be saving lives. It's good all around. Thank you very much.

Any further comments? Clerk, please call the roll. Council Member Petty. Yes. Council Member Kusena?

Yeah. Council Member Sohnart? Yes. Mayor Knackstedt? Yes.

Council Member Daniel? Yes. Council Member Grieme? Yes. Vice Mayor Askin?

Yes. Student Representative Bowling? Yes. You have 7 yes votes. Ordinance number 3547-2026 is enacted.

Thank you. Next we have item E3, ordinance number 3548-2026, increasing estimated revenues and appropriations and the employee healthcare fund and authorizing a contract for employee healthcare and basic life insurance and other ancillary policy— policies effective January 1st, 2027. Brought to us by administration. And this is being processed through KMC 1.15070, which allows an ordinance making, repealing, and transferring or otherwise changing an appropriation. It may be enacted in the same evening that it's introduced.

So we'll start with a motion to introduce. Council, Vice Mayor Askin. Um, I move that we introduce Ordinance Number 3548-2026 and request unanimous consent. I'll second. Unanimous consent was requested.

Are there any objections? Seeing none, motion is introduced.

Next, we have a motion for the second reading. Pleasure, Council Vice Mayor Askin. I move that we, um, can we do a second reading for Ordinance Number 3548-2026 and request unanimous consent? I'll second.

Ordinance number— next, Vice Mayor Askin. I move we enact ordinance number 3548-2026.

I'll second.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. I, I wish this, uh, ordinance was as positive as the last one, but unfortunately it's not. Um, so annually The city contracts for health insurance, health and life insurance benefits for city employees. Our plans renew on the calendar year. It's a change we made a few years ago to accommodate some plan structures.

I do also have Ms. Randall online, and we have representatives from our broker online too. So if council has specific questions regarding the market and things like that, we could definitely ask Amanda those types of questions.

When we received our renewal this year, we were expecting an increase. We certainly weren't expecting the 36% premium increase that was originally quoted to us. Through some negotiation, that 36% was reduced to 30%.

Primera offers a— this year it's a 1%, what they call early bird discount, if we renew by November 2nd. That is the justification for the second reading here this evening, is in order for us to meet that deadline and receive a renewal of 29%.

These are big numbers. 29%, Um, effectively is, uh, in excess of $700,000 of premium increase, um, to the city. Uh, it will increase, um, for city employees, uh, it's, it's a little over $100,000 increase in their annual premiums. Um, they'll be their share of that $700-some thousand increase. Um, so like I said, it certainly wasn't what we were expecting.

Our plan year 2025, we had an exceptional year. We actually received a refund last— early this spring, uh, regard of almost $180,000 because of our claim performance in 2025. At that time, administration recommended, council approved, we shared actually about 13— there's roughly about 15% of that back with employees. Their share of the premium, and we gave a premium holiday in May. Since then, we've had substantial claims.

Our claims are largely being driven by large claims, and whether those are related to prescription drugs, especially specialty prescription drugs or really expensive diagnosis or treatments, I believe, and Amanda, you can help correct me here, but I believe we have about $1.4 million of our claims by about 17 different claimants. So it's really concentrated when you consider, you know, we have close to 100 insured. Less than 20% of that is just driving 80% of our claims. And it's, so this really is a large claim problem. The result of that is premieres increase.

We immediately, when faced with that increase, went to market.

We shopped with Aetna, who declined to quote under the same structure that we have, which is a— we're not in a fully insured environment. We are not in a self-insured environment. We're stuck somewhere in kind of the middle. We did get a quote from Moda. Moda doesn't do level funding, which is the structure we're in.

So they proposed a fully insured plan that represented, I believe, a 35% increase to our current premium. The deficit of, of Moda, not just the 5% additional cost in premium, is in the fully insured environment we, we are not eligible to share in claim savings like we experienced in 2025 when we got Nearly $180,000 back. Those opportunities only exist in the structure that we're in right now. So we looked at some planned structural changes with Premera. We looked at increasing deductibles.

After reviewing those, we really believe that Those structural changes still came with a significant premium increase. I believe it was 21% net is where we would have been if we went with higher deductible plans. Those higher deductible plans had higher copays and coinsurance for employees, would have resulted in employees being at risk for significantly higher deductibles, and we just didn't feel that the 8% savings in premium was warranted based upon the additional exposure to employees and disruption. So, um, we're recommending to renew under our current plan and plan structure, which is a 29% premium increase. Another situation we looked at, we were scheduled, proposed in the FY27 budget to increase the employee cost share from 13% to 15% of premium effective January 1st of this year.

Employees are also going to be experiencing roughly a 29% premium increase as a result of the renewal that we have. If we switch from a 13% cost share to a 15% cost share, the employer premiums would increase by about 48, almost 49%. And these are substantial numbers. So at this time, and looking at the reserves that's been built up over the years in our employee healthcare fund, we're recommending to renew with, with Premera at 29% and also maintain our 13% cost share with employees, and we'll be reviewing that in subsequent years depending on where, you know, everything comes in. Just to give council some perspective, you know, an employee with a family today is paying about $470 a month for coverage for their family.

Staying at a 13% cost share, that amount is going to go to $601 a month. So employees are going to feel this. It is going to be in excess of about $1,500 for that family.

If we had gone full boat to the 15% cost share, that renewal number would have been $693 a month. So, um, yeah, like I said, it's—. My hope is Premier is overshooting. My hope is that we'll be getting a significant portion of this back if our claims experience comes in closer to 2025 performance.

There certainly aren't any guarantees to that. So with that, like I said, Ms. Randall's on the phone or we have our brokers here if you have questions related to the market or anything else, I'd recommend we ask those. Council Member Cassano. Uh, my first question is mainly less about the, the 13% and 15%, which I would recommend we stay with the 13% we talked about. Um, but this would keep the same level of coverage for our employees that they currently have and wouldn't affect, um, you know Any other aspect other than the cost?

Terry Eubank? That is correct. It's renewing under the same plan. And then follow-up question is, did we see any savings in projected insurance costs in the other markets that can help offset this increase, like our property premiums or anything like that? Did we come in higher than we expected on those to where we can— kind of soften the blow for this increase?

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't really recall. I think, you know, our property and— what I can say is the fund we're dealing with here is solely for employee healthcare. So it only deals with health, life insurance, dental, those types of ancillary policies. It's not related to our property or general liabilities.

You're taking me back to last May, June, so apologize for that, but, um, it really is kind of unrelated to these numbers.

Council Member Daniel. Thank you, Mr. Knackstedt. Uh, yeah, not, not fun. Um, couple questions in regards to the healthcare fund you mentioned. Um, how is that funded over time?

How are we building up that reserve? And and, and we feel, we feel okay about what we have and where we're going and enough in the future. And I have a follow-up after that. City Manager Terry Eubank. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

So a number of years back, we developed the employee healthcare fund. The employee healthcare fund, uh, revenue comes from two sources. Um, one is the, the premium that employees pay, uh, for their coverage goes revenue into this fund. The other revenue source is the Employee Health Care Fund bills the other funds of the city for coverage for their covered employees. So each year we set that amount that we're going to charge our employees, we set the amount we're going to charge our departments for covered employees, and then we, um, pay the premium and the cost of operating the healthcare plan and those policies out of that fund.

The way the reserves in that fund get developed over time is when we're estimating what premium increases are going to be. Sometimes those premium increases come in less, we hope. The other way is that we build apartments based upon eligible positions, not necessarily if there's a body in that position. So in times where there's significant vacancies or multiple, you know, recurring vacancies like we've had in a number of departments, you have periods where we're actually not providing the coverage, but the department is still being built, and that's built up a reserve. Another significant contributor to those reserves is employees We have health reimbursement arrangement, an HRA, that we fund at a certain percentage, estimate what the funding level is going to be.

This is money that employees are able to use to mitigate part of their deductible. Our basic plan is a $3,000 individual, $6,000 family deductible plan, the HRA. Um, mitigates that down possibly to $500 individual, $1,000 family deductible. We really experienced about a 30% utilization of that, um, those HRA amounts over time. We budgeted usually typically around 50%, which results in additional savings in that fund.

So all of that over time cumulative has built up reserves of about $3 million. It's something we've recognized as being in excess of what we think is needed, something we've been targeting just to try to reduce over time and get to a happy spot. This is going to accelerate that path, unfortunately, but we'll see what happens.

Thank you. That was very helpful. The follow-up on this may be for our brokers. So if we go with this, year goes by, everything's good, do we experience a reduction in claim amount? Do we expect our next renewal, will that show up in kind, or are we going to stay at this elevated level now with continued, you know, small increases over time?

I have not seen a medical renewal come in with a rate pass. Or a reduction in a very long time. Um, there is a possibility that your rates could be reduced. What is more likely is that you will get a portion of your surplus like you did for the 2025 plan. So unfortunately, it is likely that from a budgetary perspective, this will be the new normal.

Um, but hopefully it will level out and over the course of multiple years, you will have gotten the same rate increase as if you had had small chunks at a time.

Does that answer your question fully, or do you want me to expound further? No, I think that did it. What I think you're saying is that I wouldn't— we hopefully, ideally see some money back in forms of better claim performance, but we wouldn't necessarily see a reduction in what the plan premium would be in following years. But over time, if the plan performs normally— we'll use that term, quote unquote— we'll see a back to a gradual what it would be over many years of cost increases, if that makes— I think that's what I got out of that. So yes, that's correct.

Thank you. So if trend is— I'm just using an easy number— if trend is 10% every year and next year you get a 2% instead of a large, and then the following year you get a 4%, and then you get— you're still at trend of each year. And that is the best we can hope for, is that going forward the cumulative increases don't exceed the long-term trend. With a group your size, there is going to be volatility because one or two large claims can have a significant impact on the risk. So looking at your claims, some of them are not ongoing, and I don't expect them to be something that we will see in the future, but some of them are ongoing claims that as long as the participant or dependent is employed and on the plan, it's going to continue.

Thank you, Councilmember Gramey. So I, I guess I have two follow-up questions based on what you said. The first would be, um, is it possible to negotiate a longer contract period, um, beyond just one year so that we have more time to if they're single event large dollar claims, it would give us more time to absorb those and maybe reduce our average. Is it possible to negotiate on a longer period of time than just 1 year? Insurance companies only typically for medical do 1 year, and stop loss, which is part of your funding arrangement, is only 1 year.

So unfortunately because of your funding arrangement, you would at least have a stop-loss adjustment if we were able to negotiate a longer, let's say 18-month, which I do not believe that Premera would have the appetite to do a longer renewal. And I think it actually may be to your detriment to go into a longer renewal. Um, but it would, um, your stop-loss would change and your stop-loss ultimately would filter down to your premiums because that is part of the premium calculation.

And stop-loss is the financial protection that your plan pays for when you have extreme claims over $100,000. You get reimbursed because you have that extra layer of insurance that you're paying for.

Thank you. So that actually leads to my second question, and something you'd said earlier was in a group our size, which I recognize were a relatively small group to be insured. Are there opportunities available to be part of, or to, I guess, join forces with other smaller groups? I, I guess I envision like a health insurance co-op, for lack of a better term. But if there are other municipalities or other groups in the same situation as the City of Kenai is this year, and I would assume there are.

If you said earlier costs have risen across the board, other, other entities must be feeling similar increases. If we were able to join with other groups to create a larger group and create a larger negotiation push, would that— is that an option available to us?

Thank you. I do have other municipalities and school districts who are facing similar issues, and we have explored looking at other things, including combining. I'll let Chris jump in here because he is kind of the pro at associations, but I would say that you run the risk of absorbing another unhealthy population. Yeah, and in addition to what Amanda just said, a majority of the other like cooperative buying arrangements that there are out there would require the city to change their funding arrangement. So we talked about that ability for that surplus and getting some of that money back.

Moving to other co-ops, you'd either have to take on much more risk going to completely self-insured or you'd have to go back to being completely fully insured and having no opportunity to take on that surplus. And as Amanda mentioned, you know, you're at that point potentially taking on somebody else's large claim, paying for those.

The payoff being they're potentially taking on ours too. That is true. One thing to consider though is Kenai is in an area where you do have good medical care, as we just heard from the last ordinance, whereas other municipalities that may be struggling are even more rural and have more expensive health care because of the requirement for travel for everything, or the somethings along those lines. So that is something that we would definitely want to consider. We would need to do a deep dive into their population, and sometimes that isn't even data that they're willing to give us unless we already work with them.

To look that closely into their claims and reporting history before we would recommend joining forces. Thank you. I, I appreciate that. And, and I, in reading this memo, it's clear that our HR Director, and, and I would assume in tandem with the Finance Director and City Manager, really did everything they could to try to find the best way to continue to provide affordable, viable health insurance for our employees, which from my point of view is really a non-arguable thing that we need to make available to our employees. But—.

And I trust your physical— your fiscal savvy based on this memo, but I would encourage you to maybe do a significant cost and benefit analysis of other opportunities, other options available throughout the next year if we, if we accept this contract to see if maybe we can do something better moving forward. Um, even a $3,000 deductible, even with part of it being, being refunded and bringing it to $500 and $1,000, that can still be steep for a family that's now paying $600 a month for basic health insurance.

T. Manji Eubank, did you want to respond to that? I heard you say that you looked at some other options that didn't pan out. Were there others that you could have looked at?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think we do, and we work with our broker And I think we have done everything that we could. I do think that there's always opportunity to continue looking for other opportunities or ideas that can help us reduce this. And I will tell Council, I got shared with a letter today from an employee that was talking about what it means to his family at a $1,500— and then more than $1,500 increase. And I truly sympathize.

I really understand, and I appreciate that perspective. You know, for this individual, their cost of living adjustment on July 1st barely covers that $1,500. And the other side to this, though, too, is that the citizens of the city of Kenai are being asked to pick up $700,000 worth of this cost. So I think we have a responsibility on both ends. I can tell you our health insurance premiums for our employees are going to be more than comparable organizations here locally.

I feel like we're probably just 6 months ahead of them. Most of them are fiscal year renewals, July 1 renewals.

These— maybe Amanda, if you could take just a minute and talk about the trends in the industry and what you're seeing cost-wise. I think most employers are going to be facing maybe not as drastic as what we are because of our large claims, but, you know, 10%, 15%, 20% renewals I don't think are going to be outside of the norm. But I'd let maybe Amanda speak to that a little bit as well. Yes. So 2027 renewals are just starting to roll in.

And you're correct that it probably is just a matter of time before several groups in the area who have not renewed yet are going to be getting larger renewals, um, especially if they're on a similar funding structure as you. The national trend is 10% increases for medical and 15% for pharmacy, and Alaska is always going to be higher than the national trend. So we are seeing growth in high-cost claimants becoming more frequent. 7-Digit claims are becoming something that is more common than not. I believe that for your plan specifically, plans that 77% of your total claims were $25,000 or more claims.

So, and it's not people that are overusing the costs, it's just, or the client plan, it's just that costs have risen. There are things like AI that are driving cost increases. Um, although AI does make it more efficient to provide care and documentation, and for both patients and providers, there are upsides to it, there are also potential downsides on the medical side because we are seeing AI coding and billing increasing utilization and sending through more claims than previously done when it was documentation done by a human. We're also seeing across the board nationwide and in Alaska that specialty medications are the fastest growing issue in all of medical sphere. If you have heard about it on Thursday Night Football, it costs a lot of money.

And I can tell you that the Thursday Night Football or Saturday night, whatever football it is, I don't know, I'm not a football person, but wherever they play the commercials, you do have employees that are on those drugs, and those drugs can be absolute lifesavers and quality of life enhancers for those employees. So it's definitely not something that we would want to take away from them. And in most cases, legally, you can't.

You're— because you're smaller, not only your plan is driven by your claims. So the market has an impact on your claims. So GLP-1s for both weight loss, which you don't cover, but also GLP-1s for diabetes, the increased usage and costs of those do have an ultimate impact on your plan because the market is increasing because of GLP-1s for weight loss. So we do expect pharmacy to continue to be the highest cost driver throughout the entire market going forward. Behavioral health is also something that is continuing to be a high-cost driver.

And then in Alaska specifically, we're seeing consolidation of providers, meaning that there's less negotiating power for network contracts. I will say that Premera still is the largest network in Alaska, and so they do have some of the strongest negotiating power. So staying with them right now is in the best interest of the city, even though you didn't really have a choice to switch to Aetna or, uh, and Moda was not fiscally possible. But, um, Primera does provide the best negotiating power. And then, as all of us Alaskans— and it was pointed out in the previous ordinance— all of Alaska's rural geography and even smaller communities and Kenai included, that creates shortages and it also creates the need to sometimes be sent out of state for specialty care, and that increases costs as well.

Waiting for the good news.

Uh, well, Uh, the good news is that the—. Premera is one of the market leaders in doing claim substantiation and combating AI, and not combating it in a way where they're denying things, but making sure that claims that are being processed through AI are actually at the level that they should be processed. Um, the better care that you have within your city, the less likely it is that someone is going to have to go out of state or out of your local area to get care. And I know that care is continually improving in this— the— your area. I work with multiple clients within that area and know that the provider network is increasing.

And the ordinance that we just saw, that is going to increase care and outcomes, which will ultimately decrease costs. Because if you don't have to take someone to Anchorage, even, because they received immediate care that they needed in the ambulance, their outcome is better, then costs will ultimately stabilize. Is that more good news? Sure.

We didn't use the word hope in there. We've used the word hope an awful lot in this discussion too, so— but I guess that's the way it goes. So any further— thank you for that. Any further discussion, Council? I wanted to thank the city manager and staff and our consultants for working for us and getting the amount reduced and doing the best you can with what we've got.

And it looks like this is what we're going to need to do to keep moving forward. And it just happens every year. And it seems like it should level off at some point. And then I understand going up, I know. But it becomes the norm.

And I don't know why. I don't understand the system. But it is what it is. This is where we're at. So we can't say no.

I, I think, I think that's it exactly. We, we, we can't say no, and we're just going to have to find a way to, to, to pay for this.

Yeah. Any further discussion, Council? Clerk, please call the roll. Council Member Kusena? Yes.

Council Member Soonaut? Yes. Mayor Knackstedt? Yes. Council Member Daniel?

Yes. Council Member Grimme? Yes. Vice Mayor Askin? Yes.

Council Member Petty? Yes. Student Representative Bowling? Yes. You have 7 yes votes.

Ordinance number 3548-2026 is enacted. Thank you. That brings us to item E4, Resolution 2026-67. Amending the city's schedule of rates, charges, and fees to add event rental fees to the Challenger Center building. Brought to us by administration.

Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move we adopt Resolution 2026-67 and request unanimous consent. I'll second. Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak to Resolution 2026-67?

Seeing no one, bring it back to council. City Manager Eubank.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. As council is well aware, about a year ago now, the Challenger Learning Center ceased operations in the city. The ownership of that building reverted back to the city as we own the land. Administration has been looking at a number of options to utilize that building. We've investigated whether or not it should be used for a potential location of one of our— one or both of our public safety agencies.

We've had a fair amount of interest from different local nonprofits or even different schools having interest in that. And at this point, I think the administration— the preferred direction we're working with is Bear Creek is cooperatively working with some partners trying to bring some workforce development to the community. Love to see the western campus of AVTEC open in Kenai, provide an opportunity for locals and local youth predominantly to get into trades and get some of that vocational training. So that's something we're working on. But in the meantime, we continue to have interest in Being able to rent that facility, portions of that facility for events.

I think it does fill a niche we have here in Kenai. It has got greater capacity than, say, our visitor center. I believe it's probably even got greater capacity than our senior center. So it does provide a niche for that. So we begin advertising— or not advertising, but we We had a first event there last weekend.

Um, this establishes the rate schedule for the rental over there. It is only for the, uh, large event rooms. Um, at this time we're not pursuing— um, in the past the Challenger Center used that to rent to a lot of out-of-town, say, high school teams coming down here and use the dormitories there. It's not something I don't think the city's really well equipped we're not pursuing that at this time, but it will be available to the public for rental of that— of the large event room in the middle.

So the rent schedules are— the rates here are based upon similar rates used at the visitor center. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions of the city manager?

Have you had any increase I know there was an event there last weekend and the Alaska Fire Conference was there before that. Have you had any inquiries? Do you have events booked already? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Girmay. Not that I'm aware of.

I have had other inquiries. I got a call from somebody the other day. They were looking for—. I'm not exactly sure the use, but looking for a large room and then breakout rooms. And I don't think that's the right facility for that.

But those calls come in. Come in. Um, those calls are now going to be directed to Parks and Rec, who's going to be just kind of managing that, that side of it. So I haven't— I'm not sure if they have had any other calls, but I don't know of any other events that are scheduled at this time. Thank you.

I, I appreciate—. This is another—. This is a way for us to try to offset the basic operation costs of that building. Um, and the rates are reasonable and they are comparable to Chamber of Commerce and Bear Creek, or the visitor center, excuse me, and several others within Kenai, Soldotna, and Sterling. It's all on par.

And as you mentioned, I think it's another great way for us to try to keep— have an option in Kenai to bring events here, similar to like I said, the Alaska Fire Conference that we had a couple weeks ago. Thank you for your work on this.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objections? Seeing and hearing no objections, Resolution 2026-67 is adopted. Now we're on item E3, Resolution 2026-68, authorizing a professional services agreement for legal services with Pioneer Law LLC for legal assistance with the pore space gas storage transactions. Brought to us by administration.

Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move we adopt Resolution 2026-68 and request unanimous consent. I'll second.

Thank you, Mayor Knackstedt, members of council. Um, I initially, uh, retained, uh, the law firm of Pioneer Law, uh, Craig Richards and his associate Dustin, to help us provide an outside legal opinion regarding ownership of pore space under the city. I did that under my authority authorized by counsel. Since he provided that opinion, um, I've asked him to do additional work. Um, his prior position as the former Attorney General of the State of Alaska has kind of opened some lines of communication that he's, uh, been able to help the city with, and I'm just asking for another, uh, $15,000 now, which, uh, the city manager and I can cover in our budget, so we don't need to appropriate any additional funds.

Any questions of Mr. Bloom?

Seeing none, notice of consent was requested. Are there any objections? Seeing none, Resolution 2026-68 is adopted. Thank you, Mr. Bloom. So that brings us to item H, new business action approval, purchase orders and purchase order amendments requiring council approval in accordance with KMC 7.15.020, brought to us by administration.

Pleasure of council. Vice Mayor Askin. I move that we, um, on my paper that we approve the purchase order and purchase order require amendments requiring council approval and request unanimous consent. I'll second. Thank you.

Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak to action approval item?

No one. Bring it back to council. City Manager Terry Eubank, if you would. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Um, so Council, what I would say generally is, um, this is a list that typically is, uh, included in the packet.

It's generally included as a consent agenda item. Um, this one's being brought— as Council is aware, we had a significant erosion event in the area of Mission Avenue last spring, uh, largely driven by, um, stormwater runoff the spring melt.

During that work, a lot of that repair work— I'll let Mr. Frye speak to this— a lot of that repair work has been accomplished in the last week. One item that was brought up at that time is there is a storm drain in that area that generally freezes in the spring or over the winter and then doesn't— it doesn't have the capacity to take water Crews spent an enormous amount of time out there last spring trying to thaw that to mitigate this erosion event. This heat trace, installing a heat trace in it, will be able to keep that, hopefully keep that storm drain open all winter and divert that water away from this area and mitigate any further erosion. But Mr. Fry, can you just talk about the work that was done over there last week?

And if you want to add anything to what I said about the storm drain, I appreciate it. Sure, so last week we had our contractor Peninsula Construction out there. They worked on essentially kind of rebuilding part of the bluff there, packed a bunch of material in to restabilize the erosion. We put a berm in there to stop water from focusing in on that spot, as well as some drainage gallery along there to get the water to go in the ground instead of over the edge. So we did put some erosion control measures up in place as well on the stable— on the, the bank, and we're going to have that hydroseeded here soon, um, and hopefully get some vegetation growing on the bank there.

Um, in addition to that, we did redo the water line that was to the, uh, the residents there that was in danger of freezing this winter. So that's been, uh, redone along, um, the property there as well. So, um, as City Manager Eubank mentioned, this, uh, kind of last portion of the project for this this year is to try and get— give us some assistance in trying to keep that storm drain thawed out. Next breakup is our kind of primary concern. We're already going to be hauling snow out of that area or blowing it over the edge and not packing any into that area so that we're trying to minimize how much stormwater is going to melt into that area.

A large portion of Old Town kind of drains into that area, and we've already set up other diversions to keep some of that stormwater from flooding into this area next breakup. So this is kind of the last touch before freeze-up this winter, and then we'll keep moving forward on it. Thanks for the report. Any questions?

Seeing none, I want to thank Mr. Fry and his efforts out there. I know the residents in that area have spoken to me and are quite happy when they saw the equipment arrive. And I haven't seen the finished work yet, so I'll be out there to take a look at that. And it makes me feel secure, and certainly them, you know, to know that their water's not going to freeze and that the erosion is going to be abated there. So that's great.

And then also, of course, the storm drain going down the bluff there, getting that taken care of. That'll be great if we can do that. And we can use funds from the bluff erosion project to do so. So if there's no further questions, unanimous consent was requested. Are there any objections?

Seeing none, the action approval is approved.

Thank you, Mayor Egstad. Um, the Council on Aging met on the 8th of October. Bear Creek, and they discussed their— one of their goals was to come up with a resource document for seniors, and they showed a draft of that. They reviewed that. They also discussed coordination of the senior prom with the Kenai Central High School, and they have a student representative, Caroline Karpik, who reported that their student council is putting together a— they're taking in gently used clothing for students who need winter coats and boots and stuff.

And that was about it. Thank you. Airport Commission Council Member Soournart.

I'm gonna ask him—. Pass that over to Vice Mayor Askin and thank her for picking up my slack. Thank you, Mayor Nagstad. The Airport Commission also met on the 8th at 6 o'clock in the evening. It was more a work session, then they didn't have any specific agenda items, but they reviewed the airport runway project and they were awaiting the final flight approach test, and then it would be considered done.

There was no accidents, everyone was really happy with the the outcome, and, um, they also spent some time getting to know the new airport manager, Mr. Johnson.

Thank you for the report. Parks and Recreation Commission, Council Member Grimme. We have not had another meeting since our last council meeting. Um, they did have the Pumpkin Festival on October 10th, and the next Parks and Rec meeting is scheduled for November 5th.

Next we have Planning and Zoning Commission. Councilmember Daniel. Thank you, Mayor Knackstedt. Okay, so a couple things happened at the last P&Z meeting, which was on the 14th. There's two conditional use permits granted for a cabin rental, which is a short-term rental like an Airbnb, and both of those were approved in the Woodland area.

And then something interesting happened. There is a conditional use permit to be granted for natural resource extraction in the Beaver Loop area, but the applicant applicant wasn't present, so it was dismissed and they'll have to reapply along with a variance to go with that. So that was interesting. And then they withdrew a resolution, or withdrew an application for a variance permit because it was, the applicant withdrew it, but it was already on there, so they had notices, had to withdraw it formally. So anyways, good times.

And then the only other thing left was, what we passed tonight recommending we enact the, uh, noticing, um, changes for the— on the website. And they will meet next Wednesday at 7:00. Thank you. Beautification Commission, Council Member Petty. Thank you, Mayor Nextead.

Uh, the Beautification Commission met on October the 13th, and, uh, they visited about the success of the Pumpkin Festival that we hosted here in Kenai, and what a wonderful success that was. Um, we got an update from Mr. Best of what's, um, headed for beautification in the upcoming, uh, year. And our next, um, opportunity to meet will be next year in January 2027. Thank you. That ends my report.

Thank you for that. That brings us to the report of the mayor. And I have a short report. On October 10th, I did go to the Pumpkin Festival. I left about an hour from the house after it had started.

It was pretty much all afternoon. I kind of had to put on my boots and my raincoat and all that. It was pouring out. I thought, well, I wonder what I'm going to find down there. And I parked by CAP and wandered over.

Pouring for what Kenai would call pouring. Kids were out playing ball without coats and hats and having the best of time out there. And then painting faces and pumpkins and all that kind of stuff. The weather, it's October weather. It didn't faze them a bit.

And there was a big, big crowd there. So I was quite pleased to see that. Mr. Best did a wonderful job and his crew pulling that together. And so I want to thank City Parks, of course, for putting that together. They were working with the airport— not the airport, but the library— and also our fire department.

We had the fire department there and, of course, the extension ladder. And I got to go all the way up to that. And I'm really not afraid of heights, so I think we took it to the end of how high it can go. Although I'm not positive, it was high enough. But, and, and, but the target got smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

So, you know, it's, it's not as easy as it looks. And it was— the pressure was on because if I missed the target, you know, kids weren't going to get ice cream, right? And I don't know, I'd probably have to stay up there where it's safe. But I did have 5 pumpkins with me, and I, and I hit it, I think, 3 or 4 of the 5 shots. So anyway, that worked out.

It's always fun even if it's pouring rain. It just, it wasn't blowing hard, so there's always a plus there, right? So great fun. And, uh, let's see, um, that's, that's all I have. I, you know, we are into election season.

I appreciate the Clarion. I had an article regarding the, you know, the city elections and others in KSRM is tomorrow they're going to have a forum for our council members that are running at 11:00 if you want to listen to that. Chamber isn't having a forum this year. First time I've heard of that ever happening, but this is the first time we've had an election in October and into November really. And it probably has something to do with the— the haunted house working there.

So, but hopefully we can get that coordinated. Maybe it took them by surprise and, uh, we can, uh, we can move forward. And, uh, that is all I have for my report. So that brings us down to administrative reports. City Manager Eubank.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. A couple things to report on the staffing and recruitment. Um, This one's sad for me. Our Senior Center cook Melissa Bailey will be retiring November 30th. She has over 24 years of service with the city.

Definitely have to thank her for her dedication to the Senior Center, contribution to the community. And if you haven't had a Missy cookie, you really missed something. So yeah, I just want to wish Missy the best. In her retirement. I want to congratulate Chief Teague, still here.

Fire Chief Teague has been selected to serve as president of the Kenai Peninsula Fire Chiefs Association board. We're currently recruiting for a public safety dispatcher and a cook.

I want to report on the city's upcoming strategic plan. This is the development of the city's first ever 5-year strategic plan. We are work—. Working diligently with our contractor, which is the University of Kansas, to develop the city's first 5-year strategic plan. The plan will help guide priorities, budgets, and services with input from the council, employees, and the public.

Council members, you should be expecting an invite to individual interviews with, with consultant staff. We'll have work sessions with community. Discussions are planned for December, including a proposed public open house. There will be opportunities to talk about what's working, what needs attention, and what people want in Kenai's future. Those discussions will help identify practical steps the city can take over the next 5 years as we finalize our details and how people can participate.

We'll get that information out through every channel that we can.

I am really happy the University of Canada says one of their real focuses is try to, to coin a phrase, try to meet people where they are. So they're trying to figure out where people congregate in the community that they can go be a part of rather than host these open houses and hope everybody comes. So, you know, we're looking for creative ways. Um, you know, I don't expect to see that this—. Um, Alex is his name—.

Out and about in the community and seeking a lot of input. I'm really excited about this plan. I think it's, um, it's really gonna, I think, inform council, inform the community, and, and create, um, you know, expectations measurable outcomes, and we'll see where it goes.

So looking forward to that. On the capital project front, I— a lot of this is taken out of Mr. Fry's monthly report, but I want to highlight a few things. So, you know, earlier this month we did open up, reopen our main runway at the airport. I think the only thing left to do is still one flight check Kenai, which may not even happen till November or mid-November or something. Takes a very specialized aircraft, my understanding, and last I knew, honestly, that airplane was heading to Antarctica.

So a little bit of a journey it has to come back. Alyak storm drain repairs, crack seal was completed. So that That storm drain was removed, drainage galleries replaced it, and the road was repaved. All of our crack sealing throughout the city was completed. We replaced two pavilions this summer, one in Municipal Park, one in Beaver Creek Park.

Right now, work is continuing on the wastewater digester blower replacement. Well, not the digester, the blower replacements, but crews brought down the city's digester, which I don't really speak wastewater, but I'm gonna do my best. It's a component of the plant. Honestly, it hasn't been down, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Fry, in 40 years?

25-Plus years.

Happy to report it was in, structurally it's in pristine shape. It was very dirty. It had enough flushable rags in it probably to clean the entire city 20 times over. Took crews about 10 days, I think, to get it cleaned out. Not a job I would ever want, but I want to thank those gentlemen for— and those folks for their diligent work in doing that.

So that's going on. What else here? We've got designs kicking off for some upcoming road improvements. Again, we did this last meeting for Willow Street out here, Airport Way, I think Tinker and Lawton Drive. So those projects will get redone over the next couple of years.

And our Public Works crews are diligently working to get all of our equipment transitioned We've transitioned over from summer to winter, and I want to remind residents, please get all those basketball hoops and all the other things your kids play with all summer long out that are in the roadways. Those need to come out now. We're getting ready for snow. I hate to say that word, but Anchorage got some yesterday, so it will be happening here before too long, and we need those items removed. We also need those those vehicles off the roads, uh, during plowing hours so that crews can, uh, efficiently remove the snow and, and safely for that matter.

So with that, Mr. Mayor, I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions? So City Manager Eubank, I've got a couple. Sure, easy ones. I also, also in Mr. Fry's report, he said that the walkthrough on the bluff erosion project was completed.

I was wondering if there was any check— any items noted or what the condition was after a very cold and heavy ice winter.

The report was we walked with two members of the Corps of Engineers as well as two engineers from HDR came down who designed the project. And we walked it up and down the entire way and didn't see any issues with anything. They thought it looked fantastic. They said and a few small rocks they noticed had been picked by the ice through the winter, but absolutely nothing that was any sort of, you know, a structural issue or anything that would need to be repaired. So they were very satisfied with the condition and how it held up for the winter.

Good news. Thanks for that. One other thing, City Manager Eubank, not a city project, but it was a council and administration ordinance that we did some time ago. And I, along Bridge Access Road, I saw dewatering happening maybe in September. There was piping and they were bringing the water down, and then they started installing a water main toward the cannery.

And I believe that's, well, as far as I can tell, been completed. And that was, you might recall, a short cul-de-sac that was partially dedicated, and we did a kind of a trade-off. So a water main could be extended down that way. I believe it's been constructed. Terry Eubank, do you— can you elaborate a little more on it?

Mr. Fry? Yeah, excuse me. Um, that was for, uh, Packstar Seafoods. They, um, did construct a water and sewer main down through the right-of-way there that we completed through the subdivision process to kind of clean up some of the right-of-way. Um, and then they installed service all the way down to their facility.

Um, I do not believe anything has been connected to the facility yet, but the mains, the, the piping has essentially all been installed, but not— it is not connected and live to the facility at this point.

Thanks, thanks for the report. That was just something that, uh, we, we worked on in the city administration, uh, did some, some creative work to get that to happen, and it's a, it's a plus plus, win-win. Any further comments, questions? Uh, City Attorney Bloom.

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

Thank you, Mayor Knackstedt. I have a few things tonight. First, I'd like to remind everybody that we are doing our board and commission recruitment. We sent out the term-ending letters to everybody that's— terms are ending on December 31st. We've already got applications from, I'm thinking, probably 80% of them back, but we still have vacancies that need to be filled.

If you have people that are wanting to serve the city, please send them my direction. We have applications online and we have applications in my office. Um, absentee voting is happening here at City Hall Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM. And on Election Day, 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM. I do want to note that from the turnout so far, it's looking like the Election Day move has been successful.

We average in 2 weeks about 200 absentee voters, and we hit 80 today, which was only our second day. It's been busy. Um, and then also one more thing, Deputy Clerk Parks has received a reimbursable scholarship for his attendance at the the AMC conference in Anchorage this December, and I'm available for questions. Any questions for, uh, Clerk Sener? Thank you very much.

So that brings us to additional public comments. Are there any members from the public that would like to address the council at this time on anything?

Okay, seeing no one, that brings us down to council comments. Student rep Bowling.

Good evening, Mayor Knackstedt and council members. Nothing crazy tonight, I just wanted to congratulate the Kenai Central High School football team for placing first at state. I wanted to remind everybody to go out and vote. Thank you. Council Member Gremy.

I too want to remind everybody to vote November 3rd, or as, um, Clerk Sainer advised, you can start early voting now. I started earlier this week. I wanted to say a special thank you to Parks and Recreation for getting all of the flags out along the spur to recognize Alaska Day, which was on October 18th, to celebrate the final transfer of Alaska to the United States. Thank you, Seward, for your folly. I've been appreciating it for my whole life.

And an extra big thank you to staff, volunteers, and local businesses that did so much work for the 11th Annual Pumpkin Festival to be as great as it was. As Mayor Nextedt said, it didn't seem to matter that Mother Nature was not there to play ball that day. The rain will not stop Kenai from being outside and doing things. So thank you to everybody that helped with that. Thank you, Councilmember Kusena.

Oh man, um, I was gone for about a week in Anchorage, which made me appreciate living here even more. Um, and other than that, I— before I had to go back up there, I got to go stand in the rain at the Pumpkin Festival. Uh, had a ton of fun, whole family did. And other than that, I've just been enjoying our multipurpose facility, I think, every day. So thanks for the work our Parks and Rec folks do there, as well as our contractor there.

So we have it all here. Thank you. Council Member Daniel. Oh yes, the Pumpkin Festival was a lot of fun. I too attended.

I got to help serve some hot cider. It was very popular that day. We served a ton of hot cider, and we ran out of the batch we had and Tyler ran and got more. I think he cleaned out Country Foods too of all their hot cider, but it was a smashing success, no pun intended. I think pun was super intended.

That was pretty cheesy. Dad joke special, right? No, but anyways, it was great. It was good seeing the community out there and having a great time. And I too have been spending way too much time at the multipurpose facility.

Hockey season's in full swing, and don't forget to vote, everyone. Council Member Petty.

Thank you, Mayor Knackstedt. Yes, I would like to echo the sentiments of all of my colleagues to remind all of my fellow Americans to participate in the privilege of being Americans and getting out and voting. I would also like to sincerely thank the staff and Chief Teague on the exceptional grant opportunities that they provided for our community, and it will be wonderful for our community and will achieve many things. So thank you so very much and hope everyone has a lovely evening. Councilmember Sounart.

Thank you, Mayor Knackstedt. I just want to say it is so good to be back home in Kenai. We're so glad you're back. Thank you. And again, thank you to both of our fire chiefs back there who did a phenomenal job putting together that grant package.

And I guess from what we heard tonight, help keeping our medical insurance expenses down too because of the— I mean, it's amazing when you look at the flow and how things interconnect. Anyway. Thank you.

Vice Mayor Askin. Thank you, Mayor Knackstedt. I need to echo the thanks to all of our staff. Everybody, it seems like this week stepped up extra. Fire Department, you guys are awesome.

Police Department, Mr. Fry, your department. Public Works, you guys did a whole bunch of extra stuff. And our insurance work by Mr. Eubank and Mr. Swarner. Thank you to everybody. I need to brag on the senior center just a little bit.

Every week— or every month, they have someone available via phone for people with Social Security questions. And today they had 3 Social Security representatives here in person and anybody from the community could go in and visit with them on questions they had and they'll be here tomorrow until noon. So— So that was pretty cool. Um, welcome back, Miss Sounart. Happy to see you.

And, um, remember to vote. That's all I got.

Thank you for that. Remember to vote early in two different places. Yeah, that brings us to Item M, executive session, uh, City Council discussion and review of the city clerk's job description and applicant qualifications for recruitment purposes. For AS4462.310, meetings of the government— governmental body which holding a meeting solely in the act of upon matters of professional qualifications. Brought to us by, by the mayor.

Pleasure of council. Council Vice Mayor Askin. I move we enter into executive session to discuss and review the city clerk job Description and application qualifications for recruitment purposes. Pursuant to AS4462310D5, a meeting of the governmental body held solely to act upon matters of professional qualifications, the executive session will include Mayor Knackstedt, city council members, and City Attorney Bloom. City Clerk Sainer and HR Director Randall will be included if requested.

Request unanimous consent. I second that. Any objections? Saying none, we are in executive session.