NSB Assembly: NSB Assembly — Regular Meeting & Public Hearing

I will call the North Slope Borough Assembly regular meeting and public hearing to order. This meeting is being recorded and summarized. Today is September 1st, is now 1:30 PM, year of our Lord 2026. That, Madam Clerk, you have roll call. Avaya Brunel.

Frederick Brower. Here. Michael Donovan.

Here. Trina Paul. Here. Martin Edwardson. Here.

Celia Atungarak. Here. Robin Collette. Here. Crawford Putkuduk.

Here. Eva Kenevak.

Here. Thomas Nepageak Jr.

Here. Assembly President, you have a quorum. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next item on our agenda is invocation. If we can all stand.

Thank God for our early leaders, our elders that came before us, that reminded us all the time to keep God first in everything that we do in our home life, in our business life, in our civic duties, in everything. And it's a friendly reminder, even from some of the elders that we have with us today, what they were taught growing up and the seriousness of our faith in the Bible, our faith in Christ. This was something that, this was something that not only our elders, but our leaders before us that filled these positions here in the North Slope Borough Assembly, from the, from the days of the petition to form the borough, the opposition that we had, it seemed like an impossible thing. And our, and our leaders look to the Lord. They look to our elders for prayer.

And growing up, that's what we grew up with. We've seen our leaders seeking advice, seeking God for advice. And today that has not changed, that we look to our Heavenly Father for all that we need, for He tells us He will supply us all our needs according to His riches in glory. There are several scriptures that remind us. He tells us in Matthew 7, "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto thee." And He also goes on to say, "For whosoever asketh He that receiveth, receiveth; whosoever seeketh, findeth; whosoever knocketh, it shall be opened unto them.

Thank God for His word. He also reminds us in Revelation 3:20, Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and let me in, I will sup with him, and he with me. Thank God for that. And, you know, our elders and our early leaders, to name a few, like Edward Hobson Sr., who served in different capacities, and some of us start to follow the footsteps of them. But we have a rich history of our leadership that were praying people.

They had faith in God. And some of the major challenges that we faced as a people on the North Slope, we were able to overcome. Forming the borough, forming the different entities that we have locally.

It also is a friendly reminder of how we must be faithful stewards over that which has been given into our hands. Whether it's our family, whether it's the finances, whether it's the material things, all these things that lead to healthier living, better living.

Those are things that, that we never forget. And the scriptures that he gives us, how wonderful they are. To be able to acknowledge His promises that will never die and they'll never be taken away. Because He also reminds us in Hebrews 4:12, "For the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So God knows each and every one of our hearts.

And when we look to him, he is faithful to answer in a mighty way. He is faithful. So I thank God today for that.

And I thank God for our early leaders that reminded us. I mentioned Edward Hobson Sr., who some of us grew up around. And we know how— what a man of faith he was. But he was also very strict, very disciplined in the things that he did for our people. And he served a lifetime of service for our people here on the North Slope.

The others that come to mind, Jacob Adams and Oliver Lovett, who again, they held different capacities of leadership And they too reminded us to keep God first and to stand on his word. Thank God for that. And with that, I'd like to ask Assemblywoman Kinnawea'ak Iwa if you can lead us in invocation this afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Yes, it's an honor. It's an honor to come for our God. You know, thank you for continue reminding us to keep putting God first.

And when we do that, he blesses us. It reminds me of my grandparents, our Anna Daisy, even my auntie Patrick and Eva, and I know some of the elders. My mom was a very devout Episcopalian.

They didn't ask us to go to church, they made us, you know, they didn't give us a choice. And that's where our foundation came in. And even the leaders of the different entities, our president name. Even in our lives, God placed different ones in our path to lay that foundation, to make sure that we stay close to the Lord, and he will bless— he will bless the rest. Just like in Matthew 6:33, seek first the kingdom of God, which our president keeps I'm quoting, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, seeking a right life, and all these things shall be added unto you.

It's—. That's why, look at our region. I've been to— I'm sure you guys been to different regions. Our region is so blessed.

We are so blessed.

And for the younger generation, ones that have young kids, you start giving them that foundation of God's Word and prayer and church. So with that said, We stand before you, Father.

We stand before you. You, you already see our hearts. You, you even see our, our intentions. You, you see everything about us, but yet you, your love and mercy, your compassion on mankind, you You are so faithful, so merciful to us, even though we fall short many times.

Father God, I, I just thank you for your multitude of mercies. Father God, your compassion on, on us.

Thank you for blessing our region. Thank you for blessing our mayor and his staff and the assembly. And all the other entities across North Slope. Thank you, Father God, for so much you've given us. Let us, let us be grateful for what we have.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

Father God, I just thank you and I just praise you for all the leaders, all our mentors, the one that has already gone before. Us, that laid the foundation in, in allowing us to grow in you.

Father God, I just thank you and I just praise you, Father God, even placing the leaders in, in positions, whether it's in our village, whether it's in our region, our state, and our nation.

Father God, you said when the righteous are in authority, when the righteous are in authority, the people will rejoice. Father God, teach us to live right. Teach us to, to be honest. Teach us to have integrity. Teach us to have respect.

And even most of all, teach us to love you with all of our heart. Father God, and everything will fall into place. Father God, we apply the blood of Jesus over the assembly chambers, over our region, over our state and our nation. We apply your life-giving blood over the agenda, over our homes, over our region, Father God, because we need healing. We need protection, we need restoration.

Father God, we need you even more so in this day and this hour. Father God, thank you for waking us up. Thank you for shaking us like never before, Father God, because your— those trumpets are so close and that we need to be ready for that first trumpet sound.

Father God, let our— let us be ready for your return, Father, in the name of Jesus. Father God, I just thank you and I just praise you for your love and mercy upon us. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

For that wonderful, powerful prayer.

Kasimalasirugut. We can have our meeting now. With that, we'll go through our agenda items. And item 4 is approval of agenda and consent agenda. All items listed in with an asterisk are considered to be routine and non-controversial by the assembly and will be approved by one motion.

At this time, there will be no separate discussion of these items unless an assembly member so requests, in which case the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered in its normal sequence on the agenda. Item 5, approval and/or correction of minutes We have our regular meeting and public hearing minutes of June 2, 2026. Item 8, introduction and/or approval of resolutions and ordinances. 8A, Resolution 59-2026, a resolution waiving competitive bidding for a change order to North Slope Borough contract number 2026-003 with ASRC Builders, LLC, for the North Slope Borough Administration building roof upgrades. CIP project number 18-109.

8B, resolution 60-2026, resolution waiving competitive bidding for a lease amendment to extend North Slope Borough contract number 2015-013 with UIC Real Estate LLC for property located at NARL. And for facilities to be utilized as office space for the North Slope Borough.

Item 8C, Ordinance 2026-3B, an ordinance appropriating money out of the treasury for fiscal year ending June 30, 2027. Public hearing date set for October 13, 2026. And 8D, Ordinance 2026-10C, an ordinance adopting a long-range capital improvement program and financial statement providing for the acceptance of certain powers transferred and appropriating funds to accomplish the capital projects outlined. Public hearing date set for October 13, 2026. What's the wish of the assembly?

Move to approve. There's a motion. Do I hear a second? Seconded, Mr. President. Seconded by Kupa.

Any discussion, Mr. President? Go ahead, Kupa. I'm in the middle of talking and I don't know if I'll lose service between Wilimtuk and Nooksack. I just wanted to let you know. All right, man.

Adiós. Au revoir.

I'd like to pull 8A, Mr. President. 8A has been pulled. A has been pulled.

Any others, Mr. President? Assemblywoman, I'd like to put, um, pull 8B. 8B has been pulled.

Assemblywoman Paul. Oh, Mr. Mayor, thank you. Just under discussion, Mr. President. What a blessed observation to have two assembly meetings in the same day and two assembly members in the middle of harvesting the aloe vera for our people. That's the epitome of Inupiaq self-governance.

And thank God they're able to be connected.

Do we have any others?

Call for question. Question has been called for. All those in favor of the approval of agenda, do so by saying aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay.

Hearing none, our agenda has been approved. Kwe na puk. Next item on our agenda Is, uh, item 6, Communications. We have, uh, 6A, Employee of the Month presentation awards. 6B, memo to the North Slope Borough Assembly from Borough Clerk dated September 1, 2026.

RE, confirmation of election chairpersons. 6C, mayor status report. C1, legislative update with our Senator Diane Sullivan. And 6D, Monthly Financial Report. Mr. Mayor.

Kweyinak, Mr. President, members of the assembly, listening audience, for the opportunity to bring business before the body this afternoon.

Starting off at the top with our Employee of the Month.

I can't see online if Kwak To'wik is in video in person, but I hope if he's not there, that he's all welcome. But we are proud to present the Employee of the Month for this month, September 2026, with Nathan Gordon Jr. If we can have our wildlife representatives come and speak to the accolades that we think Nathan should be deserving of this Employee of the Month presentation. Director Wojciechowski, Mr. President John Quincy Adams.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, President and members of the assembly. We are proud to recognize Nathan Gordon Jr. as Employee of the Month in honor of his exceptional leadership and dedication to the North Salt Borough and their Polar Bear Patrol program. Nathan currently works as lead polar bear patrol for the North Salt Borough Department of Wildlife Management in Kwakhtokvik since November 2024. Nathan first began his employment with the department in October 2018 as polar bear patrol.

For the last 8 years, Nathan has done an outstanding job coordinating polar bear patrol in Kaktovik.

Nathan has— he is effective in communicating with the residents in the department when polar bears are in or near the community. Nathan has extensive knowledge about his work because of his deep knowledge of the environment and wildlife. He does all he can to ensure the safety of his community by hiring polar bear patrollers in a timely manner, setting up schedules, and ensuring that patrollers have the right equipment and training. This work is crucial for the safety of the people of Qaqtoqvik. Polar bear patrol is tireless work and he has navigated through some bearish times.

In one year for the community of Kwakhtolwik, he had submitted over 400 reports for one season. We cannot thank you enough, Nathan, for your accountability and dedication to your community. Kweyenukpuk. Billy Adams, our Deputy Director, could not be here today But he also adds he accepts great responsibility after a record number of polar bear callouts that were more than 600 reports in a short period of time. Safety for the community has been the reason.

It takes heart and integrity as a part of his position. Nathan sets an example to the young generation to follow. His decision to stay was incredible to serve his country and the North Slope Borough. I'll turn it over to Quincy, our subsistence research coordinator, for anything to add, then read the certificate. Kweyonakpuk, Nathan.

Hey Nathan, while you're online, I just want to thank you for coming into the office to answer any polar bear questions that you—. I thought I was in trouble. No, but we just want to thank you for your outstanding work ethic. You know, safety being the highest priority among any community on the North Slope, and with you leading the Polar Bear Patrol program over there and doing an outstanding job, you know, we just want to recognize you for Employee of the Month and keep up the good work.

Good seeing you, Nicole, Billy. Nathan, do you have anything to share? No, nothing at this time. Okay, I know. So I'm good.

All right, that's good to hear. Um, okay, thank you, uh, Mr. President. I just, just, I'll read the, uh, plaque, uh, for those online. It says, uh, Employee of the Month presented to Nathan Gordon Jr. in recognition of your outstanding work ethic, cooperation, and dedication as Employee of the Month for the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management. We value Nathan's timely communication with residents in the department when polar bears are in or near the community.

His role as lead polar bear patrol is much appreciated for the safety of the residents in Qaktovik. And I think it's important to point out that as a part of Billy's message, he said thank you to your service to your nation. And I know that sounds a little far-fetched, but for those that are unaware, members, community members in Qaktovik have been indicted for different kinds of run-ins with polar bears. And so keeping them away from the community, depending on what federal policies, what federal policies are being imposed from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, is a service to the residents, but also to make sure that we don't end up with felony charges for some of our residents that are just trying to go bring trash to the dumpster without running into a potentially endangered species.

So again, thank you for your service, not only to the Borough Department of Wildlife, but I know that you have other responsibilities, including to the city of Kwaktuvik and to the Whaling Community there in Kwaktuvik. So thank you for all that you do, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and congratulations, Nathan. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor. I had to go back to work.

How big is the well that they pulled up? Did they pull it up? 25 Foot 3 inches. Wow. Hallelujah.

Congratulations, Nate. Time to get busy. Thank you, Reverend. Again, congratulations. Keep up your good work.

Good luck, everybody. Moving on on our agenda, we have 6B, memo to the North Slope Borough Assembly from Borough Clerk dated September 1, 2026, re confirmation of the election chairperson. Madam Clerk. Thank you, Assembly President. Since you read the title, I'll go to the body.

The following names are submitted for confirmation of appointment for election chairperson for the North Slope Borough regular election to be held October 6th, 2026. On Octuvik Pass, we are still looking for a person. Akwesasne, Ethel Nungasuk. Barrow Precinct, Ambrosia Levitt. Browville, Falara Hobson.

Kaktovik, Clara Tagaruk. Nuuksuk, we're still looking for a chairperson. Point Hope, Phyllis Frankson. Point Lay, Pearl Nakook, Wainwright, Hazel Phillips. For your consideration, Assembly President.

Madam Clerk, what's the wish of the Assembly? Move to approve. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Under discussion.

I know we've been challenged over time to try to hire and attain election judges in the villages and the election chairpersons. And I think we're going to have to come up with some incentives to incentivize some of our local folks to take on these temporary positions and I think it's important for locals to be handling the local elections and having to fly folks in is another challenge that becomes hard. So with that, Madam Clerk. Thank you, Assembly President. The Clerk's Office has had notice for a chairperson in each village since early June 2026.

My coworkers and I suggest to incentivize more to getting chairpersons to join the North Slope Borough Clerk's Office to conduct the North Slope Borough elections from mid-September to early October. For instance, like offering higher wages, possible airfare to and from their village with a local carrier and/or gas cards from local villages, gas stations. And I'll take any suggestions that may incentivize a person to come and be a chairperson within and conduct our elections. Thank you, Assembly President. Thank you, Madam Clerk.

So with the things that we can act on as the Assembly moving forward, because right now you don't have two villages that are covered, right? Or one?

2 Of them? Yes, Assembly President. Nuukset and Anaktuvik Pass. So trying to come up with the right incentives, whether they're gas cards or maybe tickets or something like that. Did you come up with any kind of recommendations or specifically an amount maybe on the gas card?

Yes, I could. I'll work with my coworkers and we'll get something more enticing than just a winter jacket. So under discussion, what's the wish of the assembly for these types of incentives?

Mr. President, I'll make a motion to approve some of the incentives that the clerk's office had mentioned. And to use the—. If she needs to use the assembly reserve to do that. There's a motion on the floor.

Amending motion. It's been seconded.

Be an amending motion to the main motion. Under discussion. Is there any other discussion?

Mr. President, Celia, just to add an idea for incentives is someplace like Pointe-Laye or store is low on stock on quick microwavable foods, just a grub box even for them for the day. It's a good idea. Thank you. Thank you so very much.

Any other discussion on the amending motion? Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President. Just based on Assemblywoman Oteng-Aruch's point, I know that when we have families that experience loss in the communities, We go and get like tea, sugar, coffee, those kinds of things. So at the clerk's discretion, we can help with some of those ideas.

We send out boxes and all that kinds of stuff for grieving families. So, Mr. Mayor, I think that's the right thing to do. And we encourage all of our local folks to get involved. Any other discussion on the amending motion? Question.

Question has been called for. All those in favor of the amending motion to incentivize folks that would apply for election chairpersons, do so by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay. Hearing none. Amending motion has passed. We're back to our main motion. Any other discussion?

Question. Question. Question has been called for. All those in favor of the adoption of the main motion, do so by saying aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Those opposed say nay. Hearing none, the confirmation of the appointment of election chairpersons have been approved with the incentives Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you, Assembly President, Assembly members, Mr. Mayor. There you go.

That will move on to our next item on our agenda, 6C, Mayor's Status Report, the legislative update with our sitting U.S. Senator Daniel Scott Sullivan. So, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Assembly, listening audience. As always, I think it's good to start with the preamble of the Home Rule Charter.

It reads, we, the people of the North Slope area, in order to form an efficient and economical government with just representation and in order to provide local government responsive to the will of the people and the continuing needs of the communities, do hereby ratify and establish this Home Rule Charter of the North Slope Borough of Alaska. And with that, I'm going to ask Chief Advisor Martina to read the rest of the report in the record, and I'm open for any questions before we move on to the next item. Ms. Levitt. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly. Martina Hobson, Chief Advisor to the Mayor.

Mayor's Office. Mayor's Office staff traveled to Nooksack for the community engagement events, providing a community update, hearing concerns and feedback and joining residents for dinner and Eskimo dance. Healthy Communities supported back-to-school barbecues in Wainwright and Utqiaġvik, donated bicycles for community raffles, and participated in Qaktovik's 2026 revival and the police department bike rodeo. MIAC recruitment is underway for the 2026-2027 school year with radio outreach developed and voiced by our college interns. Borough departments also partnered on a cleanup day around Public Works and surrounding facilities.

External and Government Affairs continues monitoring Alaska LNG discussions and advocating for durable long-term solution for the NPRA Impact Mitigation Grant Program following restoration of funding earlier this year. Staff presented a community, community proposal to the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat and joined EPA and environmental management representatives for a tour of Willow Project to provide federal decision-makers firsthand exposure to North Slope communities and development. Mayor's Office and Government Affairs also co-hosted Aspen Institute, welcoming 15 members of Congress to Utqagvik for meaningful dialogue on U.S. energy priorities and to build relationships while educating congressional leaders about the Inupiat people our community's culture and way of life on the North Slope.

Environmental management. EPA completed its annual Kaktovik inspection with inspectors describing it as the borough's strongest inspection in the past 3 years. Environmental management continues internal field audits throughout the communities to identify and address compliance issues early. The department is now fully staffed with environmental compliance technicians in every North Slope community. Staff are also coordinating with fire and search and rescue on disposal of legacy PFAPs containing AFF, AFFF, and continued summer site characterization, contaminated site assessment, and waste segregation work.

The concrete— or CIPM— the concrete foundation for the Wainwright Power Plant has been completed with barge materials arriving for vertical construction this fall. The second phase of Kaweluk School is also awaiting barge materials and is expected to begin vertical construction this fall. A Barrow High School walkthrough identified a roof issue The building has been determined safe to occupy, with the roof loading requiring continued management.

Fire Department staff continued Firefighter 1 and EMT training across the slope, including village coverage and emergency trauma technician training in Point Lay. Staff also participated in the Utqagvik 5K Color Run and Back to School Barbecue and traveled with the mayor's office for community updates in Nooksit and Point Lay. The fire department is planning future EMT-1 and Hazmat operations and awareness training and continues work to remove AFFF from borough fire stations. Call volume from July 16th through August 15th, 2026: total ground EMS calls 321, 14 fire calls, 38 ETOH, 12 drug calls, 46 full-time staff, and 26 active volunteers. This month there will be a total of 321 dispatch calls.

Of these, fire calls represented 4%, while EMS calls made up the remaining 96. With calls, 12% were related to alcohol and 3% were associated with drugs.

Aero Medical Division detailed report Total requests for service, 45. Total missed flights, 12. Total missions complete, 33. 36 Medevacs and 3 search and rescue. Health and Social Services continues expanding community health prevention and outreach across the North Slope.

Prevention and Public Health Nursing partnered with community organizations for the Utqagvik 5K Color Run, drawing 170 walkers 60 runners, and 62 volunteers. The department is also preparing for the second annual health conference, September 29th through August 1st, focused on cultural resilience and behavioral, physical, and community health. Public Health Nursing served 302 clients, registered 271 new clients, and administered 127 vaccines to 61 clients with 50 58% provided in the villages. CHAP reported 537 patient visits and 15 medevacs across village clinics. The department continues its partnership with Samuel Simmons to support health aid reentry and certification training.

While upcoming efforts include village school screening and continued wellness and prevention activities. Prevention also has their wellness coalition meeting on September 2nd. Human Resources.

Human Resources continues work on borough-wide FMLA and grievance procedures, the SAGE paperless personnel action rollout, benefit systems, ADA implementation, and discipline process training for supervisors. HR finalized the borough-wide CDL and ADL position review and continues NeoGov training and internal data cleanup. OJT student hiring is underway with approximately 50 students anticipated slope-wide. Permanent job offers accepted: 27. Permanent job offers declined: 5.

Total temporary hires including ETP, interns, and substitutes: 19. Total positions closed: 37. Total positions posted: 38. Planning and Community Services. Planning followed up on community concerns regarding undocumented or unknown operators and participated in the Barrow Restoration Advisory Board meeting regarding Army, Navy, and BLM cleanup efforts.

Land Management Regulations participated in a Hill Corp spill drill and CRP orientation. Through interdepartmental coordination, issued 5, 5 notices of violation to non-permitted operators within NSB boundaries. Planning received an NPRA grant for helicopter inspections and expects to bid SEWOT inspections in the coming months. On Octuvok Pass and Akwesasne, comprehensive plan updates are scheduled for October assembly consideration, and the first Nooksit Swat community meeting is scheduled for September 3rd. Police Department.

During the reporting period of July 16 to August 15, 2026, the police department responded to 548 incidents, 92 of which were alcohol-related. 14 In Anaktuvuk, 61 in Barrow, 10 in Nooksit, 2 in Kully, 1 in Utqasuq, 1 in Ulugnaq, 2 in Point Hope, and 1 in Kwakhtoluvik. 6 Reported vehicle thefts. A total of 41 criminal cases were designated for submittal to the District Attorney and 4 to the Juvenile Probation Office for prosecution. 33 Individuals were arrested.

Police Department staff attended and participated in multiple community events during the reporting period. A few highlighted activities include participating with Coffee with a Cop, Events in all communities hosted a bike rodeo event in Utqalvik and escorted Walking Wednesdays.

NSB detectives and task force— NSB detectives across the North Slope, Anchorage, and Fairbanks continue to participate in multi-agency task force with our law enforcement partners to include the Drug Enforcement Agency Homeland Security, and the U.S. Postal Service. Drug and alcohol seizures occurring within a North Slope Borough community or conducted by a task force officer where the intended destination was identified as a North Slope community are documented in the list. Seizures not meeting these criteria reflect enforcement actions in Anchorage or Fairbanks. Total alcohol: 3 750-milliliter bottles of of distilled spirits were seized in Utqalvik with the intended destination of Nuukset with the street value of $475.

12 750Ml bottles of distilled spirits were seized in Utqalvik with an intended destination of Point Lay with an estimated street value of $1,750.

2 750Ml bottles of distilled spirits were seized in Utqaluvik. Estimated street value: $250. Total drugs: 2,112 gross grams fentanyl, 4.5+ pounds, approx— approximately 1,056,000 potential lethal doses. 2 Milligrams is a potential lethal dose. 9,000 Gross grams of cocaine, 19.8+ pounds, approximately 128,571 to 300,000 doses.

13,118 Gross grams of methamphetamine, 29 pounds, approximately 65,590 doses.

57.1 Gross grams of psilocybin mushrooms. 1,125 Gross grams of marijuana. THC products. Total known estimated street value of seized controlled substances: $2,565,600. 57.1 Gross grams of psilocybin mushrooms were seized in Qalvik with an intended destination of Nuxit.

Estimated street value: $570. Public Works, Roads, Airports, and Sanitation continued road maintenance and daily community services during August. While Water and Sewer began annual water processing operations, Public Works reported 401 trouble calls for August, including 287 Water and Sewer repair calls and 114 bus calls. Water processing has begun in Akwesasne, Cocteau Vic, Nooksack, Tiksiak, Kali, and Olo'onep. Water and sewer operations, and below you'll see the breakdown by community.

Search and rescue, Pilatus representatives visited Barrow from August 19th through the 21st and provided a demonstration flight in the newer PC-24 aircraft. The King Air flew off-slope for some repairs and returned August 19th. There were 10 missions for this reporting period: 5 in Barrow, 1 in Point Hope, 1 in Ivasuk River, 1 in Dalton Highway, and 2 in Point Lay. Equipment for 7/20, July 20th through August 19th: King Air, total hours flown 8, aircraft availability 90%, uh, the air conditioning is being repaired. Sikorsky S-92, total hours flown 19, aircraft availability 100%.

Pilatus PC-24, total hours flown 65.3, aircraft availability, availability 95, uh, and the radar is being replaced. Bell 412, total hours flown 0, aircraft availability 0. And the note says, 12-month, 100-hour inspection commenced. Wildlife staff continued beluga harvest studies in Point Lay, Wainwright, and Kjellvik. Staff served as commissioners and scientific advisors during the August Inuvialuit Inupiat Polar Bear and Beluga Management Meetings in Edmonton and presented fall research plans and updates to the Barrow whaling captains.

Polar bear patrollers were hired for Cross Island and Qaqtoqvik. Upcoming work includes the NSB Fish and Game Management Committee meetings, September 17th and 18th, and the International Whaling Commission meeting, September 28th through August 2nd. IHLC continues preparations for the Elders and Youth Conference scheduled for September 22nd through the 24th. Museum collection staff completed another phase of display case improvements, continued inventories, and archival preservation. Filled— they filled the vacant Wainwright IHLC specialist position and supported cultural programming through materials for traditional sewing activities.

IHLC is also coordinating repatriation work with the Native Village of Barrow for the Molly Greist collection and other Inupiaq items. While production Productions continue. The digitization project provides audiovisual support for public meetings and cultural and educational initiatives.

Housing Department, housing leadership traveled to Nooksip for the community event and to Utqasuq to inspect 8-plex units and address tenant concerns. The borough and Broad Creek Capital continue working toward site control for housing projects in Qalvik, Wainwright, and Qaktolvik.

Housing crews traveled to Barrow, Unaktuvuk Pass, Atkosuk, and Nooksuit for emergency heating, plumbing, and window work. The department is also following up on assembly concerns regarding housing conditions in Kaktovik and materials outside the Unaktuvuk Pass 10-plex. The 6 12-plex units are vacant, placing those buildings at approximately 90% capacity, with 5 units under resident renovation and one ready to move in. Administration Department: the desktop upgrade project launched, launched in August, beginning in— on October Pass. Administration coordinated with North Slope and state service providers on outage-related infrastructure upgrades, completed area-wide battery backup enhancements to the core network, and remains on schedule to begin an internal rollout of the new help desk platform on September 1st before phased implementation across remaining departments.

Port Authority. The Port Authority and ASTAR coordination team presented the Tri Village ASTAR PEL to BLM during an August 6th pre-application conference. Coordination continues with state and federal agencies on potential funding, right-of-way applications, seawall work, and ASTAR planning. Small boat docks have arrived in Wainwright and Barrow, and the Port Authority is preparing Tri Village A-Star updates for the Planning Commission and Assembly for your consideration.

What's the wish of the Assembly?

Move to approve. There's a motion to approve. Second. Been seconded. Any discussion?

Do you have any questions?

Go ahead. I just had a question about the senior van here in Cocteau. I haven't seen it on the road lately, the bus. I noticed the senior van drivers has been using the clinic's cars. Do we know when that's going to be up and running again?

Mr. Mayor, thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, listening audience, for the line of questioning. I do know that But as barges have been being offloaded, we have new ones coming into different communities. We'll follow up if there's a new one slated for Cocteau Vic and if it has not arrived yet, and then simultaneously if there's something that needs to be fixed on the old one and what the status of that is. You know, hope that helps.

Robin? Yes, it does. Another one. There's quite a few of the houses here in town that are still having sewer problems. Could we have Public Works water plant look into those houses?

Green up, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Assembly, listening audience. For bringing that up. I know that personnel from our water sewer leadership division are currently either in Anaktuvuk or on their way back from Anaktuvuk to verify substantial completion on the water sewer connections there. I will have Public Works follow up.

With the community members there in Cocteau Vic. Maybe if we can have them elevate their concerns from Public Works over to the mayor's office. I know Cynthia is there and can take down names and house numbers so that we can follow up from this side. Green up, Mayor. Hope that helps, Robin.

Yeah, thank you. I got one more. So with the— it gets starting to get darker now. And the polar bears are obviously going to be around for a while. We have Public Works do like a survey or something going around town to see what areas need streetlights, because I know there's some intersections that are pretty dark and some of the streetlights are not working around town.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, listening audience, Assemblyman Kolek for bringing that up again. I know when we had our assembly meeting there in Kaktovik to open the new portion of the school that we took down note from one of the intersections down the street from the school that didn't have a power pole. And I know that Division of Power and Light were sending linemen to complete the light installations for the clinic outside Point Lae and then the power poles in Point Hope and then responding to various emergencies with the understanding that the rest of the additional lights in the other communities need to be addressed.

So I'll follow up with Deputy Director Aiken to, A, make sure we put up that one that we talked about putting up in December, and B, see if there are other opportunities to shed some light on the matter.

Any more, Robin? Nami? Come on, just one more.

Any other questions or comments on the mayor's status report? Oh, by the way, they're done. Already? Yeah.

Awesome. Fresh. Yeah, I was down there and I looked at the time, I was like, oh, I gotta go.

Other questions? Mr. President, thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. Mayor, for your status report, and Mrs. Hobson for reading the 6 pages of updates there. Um, just real quick, just want to thank your staff, the health department, obviously, for the event. You know, when we're seeing that type of activity happening in the communities and that level of volunteerism, I think it correlates to the fire— the police department's report and how we're seeing the numbers go down from last month on alcohol-related incidents.

In that month, we had 89 just in Barrow. Slope-wide, it's 92. So I think those type of activities are really showing the effects. I know we talked earlier about KPIs. I know they're around here somewhere.

Sage. Yeah, Sage. But it's that kind of stuff. You know, when you're really able to see the numbers and see the events happen, it's showing up. The work's not going unnoticed.

I think over the, the months and years that you've been in, taking a hard stance on, on the mental health, the Healthy Community initiatives, um, is going a long way, you know. And like I've always said, as long as I'm sitting here, that's something that I'm going to talk about, um, when we start thinking about our slope. And I really feel it when Eva gives our prayer, when she talks about our region, praying for those that are sick, in jail, grieving. So how we speak to it and the action that's going in, I think it's just really showing up. And I want to tell your staff and you and this assembly for thank you and thank you for supporting these initiatives.

Because I think they're very much needed for the kids to see. And a lot of that is what we saw was the kids in these fun runs. You know, it's the throw the color on you stuff, man. I—. It's kids, man.

Kids and crayons. Don't leave me her white wall or with white shirts. Yeah, Marines, you know, Marines and crayons. Me and Dad know all about that.

Maybe that's what drew my mind, but I just want to tell you thank you. I, I think it's having a very big impact on our community, so thank you very much. You want to respond, Mr. Mayor? Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, listening audience, Assemblymember Bernal, for, um, the encouraging words. I think, uh, as you mentioned, over the last couple of years, it boils down to accountability, right?

The charter talks about the will of the people, so if we hear concerns here at the Assembly or at the store or wherever me or my staff are present. And once we're aware of them, it's our duty as public service members to try to respond to those things. And so a couple of things come to mind when you talk about key performance indicators and how you track that accountability in such a big organization like the North Slope Borough. And I think about the strategic plan that, you know, when we first started meeting with it, I think we spent two 8-hour days with all department leadership talking about how do we put together a plan that we're not just going to put on a shelf, that we're going to execute on every month. And I want to document it so that I can hold you as the director and your staff accountable.

To the plan that we agreed to pursue. And that accountability down to making sure that if in this case the— I divide the borough into 4 different operational wheelhouses, and this division is Life, Health and Safety. So it's Health Department, Police Department, Search and Rescue, Fire/EMS that are under this wheelhouse. And all the things that come with that, right? Breaking down the silos, making sure departments are talking to each other, relying on each other to develop the best product for the resident.

And then I, in the catbird seat, can track all of that, see key performance indicators, ask, how come that's not happening? How come we haven't We pursued what we said we were going to pursue. What's the issue? And if it comes down to money or Assembly resolution, we bring that to you to adopt. And so it's a team effort, accountability all throughout the ranks.

So I think about that when you mention the key performance indicators.

And you can't leave out the faith aspect, right?

In your personal individual lives, there has to be some recognition of a higher power because there's so much that if we were focused only on the negative that we can have a bad perception about. And so all of those things I think, the last point that I'd like to make is that we can do anything, we can do anything. With the amount of resources that we have as a region. But I think it's prudent and wise that as we build response mechanisms and programs, any program, whether it's for, for mental health, substance abuse, housing, home loan type things, any program, we have to build it in a way that's sustainable. Otherwise we have boom and bust.

And over the years, if you, if you read into the history of the North Slope Borough, we've had all kinds of boom programs that eventually became unaffordable. And did they actually get to the heart of the concern that was trying to be met? And so I'm thankful for a good team because we have honest honest, non-ego-oriented conversations to come up with a well-balanced plan that's affordable and that can reach the most people. And I try not to bring any program to the Assembly for authorization until we've met that threshold. So thank you for the trust and look forward to continuing the work as we go.

Into the next assembly meeting. So, you know, you know, Mayor, hope that helps. Any follow-up? Do we have any other questions from the assembly?

Mr. President, this is Eva. Assemblywoman Kneebill. I just have a couple on your environmental. Do we have I know you have a list of ones in the communities.

Can we get an update, um, even next, next month's meeting? That, that would be very helpful, the ones that are in the villages. The other one I have is, um, for Public Works. I know in June we had our, um our, our budget meetings and, you know, what was being laid out. And my question for Public Works is, you know, can you refresh my memory on the list of the villages that we're gonna, um, we were gonna tackle, um, their public or DMS buildings first?

I know once there was some that were very dilapidated, and, um, the— and what number was Tikiaq? The other one I, I just want to throw out there before this question is answered, um, I know— was it last, last month's meeting where I asked about, um, wanting to, you know, put up an artist and start painting our water tanks that are in the villages. I just don't recall an answer. So if that can happen, that sure would be great. Thank you.

I know Scott Tanner is a real good artist.

He actually drew the Barrow Whalers emblem, right? Mr. Mayor, thank you. Mr. President, members of the assembly, listening audience, assemblyman Kinneville for the line of questioning. We can have a more formal report, but essentially under the consent decree, we signed up for a schedule in— we as in the borough—. In—.

I was serving in the legislature at the time, so it was 2020, 2023, I believe. And from that schedule came commitments from the borough, which ultimately I sought Assembly approval for the funding mechanisms for, which estimated $50 million in each budget cycle, which will end up probably being in the $130 to $150 million range that was agreed upon in that 2023 timeframe. And so what that meant was that But the environmental work for Phase 1, which is majority characterization and storing of hazardous materials according to law— Phase 2 is more so the haul-out cleanup, downhole injection, making sure we get it to a proper level dump, which most of the time has to be in Seattle or Oregon.

And so Phase 1 has It stopped in Barrow and Kaktovik for Phase 1. We didn't move on to Phase 2. Phase 2 happened in every other community this summer and continuing to happen as we speak. There are a few things that are going to happen in the wintertime that will probably come to the Assembly in a couple of weeks for supplemental on, but we can have a more formal report that lines all of that stuff out. Simultaneously, we're trying to renegotiate the consent decree so that we can get to a more attainable schedule versus, you know, it all being signed up for from 2023 to 2027 or 2028, to where we can do Phase 2 over the next 10 years so that it's smaller chunks every year versus a big windfall of revenue that we have to work towards.

And so we're trying to renegotiate the consent decree. It's sitting on Department of Justice desk. With the work that we've done with the EPA Region 4 administrator.

Bruni, remind me her name.

I forget. Emily? Emma Polkon. Emma Polkon is the administrator. And so she's conflicted because she used to be a borough attorney, so that's taking a little bit of time to work with other staff in the region office.

And then lastly, we've been working with our congressional delegation to figure out, because it's in federal statute that contaminated waste must be hauled out to staging facilities within 270 days. And so we've been working with the congressional delegation to look at lengthening that timeframe in which we need to haul out, because if it's 270 days, that means we have to fly it out at some point, and that's too expensive. And so we're working with them for a federal statute change for that. So we'll provide a more formal, I guess, report on paper. And then as it relates to the public workshops, the 3 dilapidated ones in the communities that I got to look at were Point Hope, Watkossiikenuksit.

Site control is number 1, and so we've established that and we're moving forward with the design and we're going to treat it much Much like other projects that we've done more recently where we do a design-build, you can see in the report that Wainwright is going very well and on schedule. Under the normal practices of the borough, the Wainwright Power Plant would still be being designed before construction could happen. And so that's how we're trying to expedite the constructability, working with CIPM and Law Department to make sure we have contracts that allow for those kinds of things. And so, Nuuksuit is currently being designed. There was some money that we requested the Assembly adopt in the last PRC cycle for the design, and then the idea is that we can use that design for Point Hope and Utqasuq afterwards.

So Nuuksuit is going first. They're the most worst condition community, and, um, but, but they're all in real terrible condition, honestly. Um, and then, uh, Tikiaq and Atqasuk will be 2 and 3. I don't know the, um, order, but I can follow up with Public Works and CIP to see if they have an idea of the order. But it's really just going to boil down to funding.

We're looking at, uh, $50 million roughly per Public Works facility. We just concluded the Public Works facility in in Nunavutuvuk Pass that should be opening, final completion at the end of the month. And so that's a good cost estimate from one of our more remote communities where everything has to be flown in. And then as far as the artist tanks, I will follow up on the follow-up. I know that we were going to have to get permission from the tank owners, which is Public Works and Operators, and then work with with Mayor's Office and the respective community to kind of lead on the design, the engagement with the contractor, maybe the painter.

I don't know if they contract painters or not. But I will follow up on making sure that we get the formal permission from the tank owner, the borough, to paint it and then the partnership with the city to get the painting done. So thank you. You know, Mr. Mayor, hope that helps.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Mr. President. Um, just to follow up on the environmental, I, you know, there was a, um, on your report about the environmental compliance technicians within the villages and I just wanted the list of workers you have within the villages. So if we can get that, that would be great. And I knew that there was one other village that was ahead of Tikia on the public works, and I'm looking forward to seeing how well Wainwright is doing because, you know, those those, um, DMS buildings are much needed. And I will reiterate what I said in, um, in our meet— how many meetings before— about the, the, um, demand of Public Works and how large our, our community is.

So, um, with that said, I, I'm looking forward to seeing when Nuxit, Point Hope, and Akwesasne's designs are completed and the time frame of the, um, those buildings, um, coming up. So, and with the painting, um, you know, it's already getting cold here So we might just have to wait till next spring or next summer, but it should brighten up our communities. Not, not just the, not just the tank farms, but, or the water tanks, but, um, but the dump, dump, um, what's those containers outside of our homes, you know, to brighten up our communities. Those, those would sure would be very, very helpful in getting, um, our communities brightened up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, listening audience, Assemblywoman Kinneville, for the clarification. We can distribute, I think, the Employees for the environmental technicians, I know that we were working on getting all of them hired a couple of months ago. We had one vacancy that I believe we filled now, and then running them through the RCRA and hazardous waste training so that they can go around and, and to the, uh, North LaBrea facilities and make sure that we're following the consent decree items. And then I forgot to add, in the Public Works discussion on the buildings, we do have some plans for design to at least fix up where we have visual daylight holes in floors and walls to the outside, to making sure that we have a shop that can at least stand another couple of years, knowing that these projects take a few years to get into place. Last thing I'll say is that if we're running $25 million a power plant, $50 million a shop, and I mean, the Barrow High School is going to have to get replaced sometime soon.

That's probably going to be $100 million.

The school project in Qaktovik, first half was $50 million, second half is $50 million.

These are the types of things that I think we've worked very hard to be able to afford when it comes to the financial acumen perspective. And so working with the Assembly on structured draws from the permanent fund, doing what we can to make sure that our debt is manageable, but we're maximizing and pushing the envelope to make sure that we can deliver the services. I really think about what you say, Assemblywoman Kinneveff, when we talk about the permanent funds, a rainy day fund. Well, it's been raining. And so, you know, I look forward to, as we go to that reinvestment in the borough infrastructure, which needs to be done doing it in a way that's financially responsible, doesn't put the borough's financial standing in jeopardy.

And we can do it. You know, when I took office, we were under $1 billion in the permanent fund, I believe $850 million, and now we're at $1.45 billion. And so the difference in that is that 4%, if we agree upon a draw, 4% is a lot more 4% of $850 million is a lot less than 4% of $1.4 billion. And so, you know, that financial stewardship responsibility that we have, I believe we can get a lot of these things done. It's just going to be a matter of, much like the SAGE discussion, doing one to make sure we know that that's the way we want to do it.

So this design-build in the Wainwright Power Plant, and then cut, copy and pasting that same process across all of these other projects, knowing that the money can be in place. So look forward to the partnership with the Assembly on those things.

Any follow-up? Any other questions from the Assembly?

Mr. President, second. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. Mayor. I, I just really want to highlight and point out and thank once again you and your team, the government affairs team, the VOICE staff, um, for co-hosting the Aspen Institute. You know, I was there, and being able to see 15 different members of Congress in Barrow versus us having to travel all the way to D.C. for them to see what the Arctic is.

Night and day difference when these people are making decisions on our behalf as an Arctic nation to actually walk the grounds that we live in.

More of that is needed. I think it was huge when you, when you were able to see them in the beginning versus the end. And how they got to finally understand who we are as Inupiaq people and our ways of life, our culture, our communities, and being able to speak about the outlying communities, the self-determination of the North Slope Borough, our people, I think really hit home with them because once again, both sides of the aisle They're going to make decisions on our behalf. But having a better understanding of who it impacts first, as we just talked about the needs of the North Slope Borough, whether it's the needs of brand new schools, health facilities, fire departments, power plants, how that all relates to our lands, our resources, and the taxation that the borough implies on that. And how that goes full circle for these people to understand how we're doing what we're doing.

I, I can't thank you enough for having that here, to everybody that helped get that done. I think it was huge. You know, we had multiple members of Congress, whether they were Democrat or Republican, wanting to invite us to their office in DC to continue hearing our concerns and how we could find solutions to the problems. I think it was huge. So I just want to thank you and your staff once again for making that happen and building and educating with those people.

So thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Assembly, listening audience, Assemblyman Bernal, for your help in the hosting. To the point of experiencing the Arctic, I think it was good that they got a delayed flight. And we're stuck here an extra 4 or 5 hours.

And with that, right, you get past the surface stuff and then try to develop a real relationship with these people so that they can understand that— something I had to learn as I was walking the halls of Congress and trying to advocate on our people's behalf is I sat with the Deputy Secretary of Interior and I said, "Nothing personal, but—" and I was corrected. It is personal to us. This is real life stuff that we're dealing with it when we go and advocate on behalf of— and so I took the highest ranking congressman Democrat and kind of kidnapped him in my truck and we went to the hospital and walked through the hospital. He's on the Subcommittee for IHS. And so to that point, I want to thank the ASNA staff that— I think it was 7:30 at night— we pulled folks out of their houses to go and kind of host us over there.

I know a number of them went across the street and got with Ives and walked the utilidor. And the explanation that as aged infrastructure that you see here in Barrow, we have so many other communities aside from Barrow that have, if not the same, worse infrastructure. And that's all the borough's responsibility. And so to the point of networking, I was texting with a congressman from Kansas this morning, and aside from all the surface stuff, he said, I'm praying for you and your community because I know that you guys believe in the power of prayer. And I said, I'm praying for you and your wife too, man.

So So when it comes time to advocate for the changes that we want to see for our region, I'm hoping that those networking opportunities pay off. I know the Voice, along with Senator Sullivan and Senator Murkowski's offices, played a role in making sure the Aspen Institute folks made a tour up here. From what I understand, they make a tour every year, and it was a real big push to make sure they got here on the North Slope. So to all of those involved behind the scenes making sure they got up here, thank you. So, Corino.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We have any other questions from the assembly?

Any other discussions?

Question. Question. Question. I'd call for all those in favor of the approval of the mayor's status report, do so by saying aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Those opposed say nay. Hearing none, motion is passed. Mr. Mayor, as an extension to my status report, Mr. President, we received communications from Senator Sullivan's office to provide a legislative update to the Assembly based on all the things that the federal government has authority over in our region and the things that his office is working on, I think, could be appropriate for that now. Thank you.

We're glad to have with us today our United States sitting Senator Daniel S. Sullivan. Welcome, Senator.

And we look forward to hearing from you with all the work that you've been doing for our region, for our people. Whenever we brought something to your attention, you went out of your way to pursue that and do that. And so we appreciate your hard work, whether it was our cultural rights, our resource development rights, and self-governance.

We appreciate all that you have been doing and going to continue to do so. With that, you have the floor, Mr. Senator. Thank you, Mr. President.

See if I get this.

And Assembly members, thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, thank you. I am very, very honored to be able to present to the Assembly and the North Slope Borough.

As I think you know, I spent a lot of time up here. This is a community that's very important to me. I also want to introduce my wife, Julie. You know, I've learned a lot about this great community over the years. I think some of you know my wife, her family.

Her mom was an Athabascan leader in the interior. But on her father's side, she has a connection here. Julie's grandfather was a, was a doctor in Barrow many, many years ago. Late '40s, early 1950s, I think was the only doctor, Dr. Hugh Fate. So it's great for me and her to be back, and we have a great team.

Larry Burton, my chief of staff, is here as well. Bailey Ware is also part of my team as well. So we are honored to be back. And, you know, I want to mention we've had a great two days here. We did a town hall yesterday.

We had the incredible Incredible church service yesterday that was, uh, really rejuvenating. Thank you, Pastor Arnold, sir, for that incredible service. We loved it and, um, and were inspired there. Had a busy day today. We're at the hospital, walked the seawall, on KBRW, went to Elisavik, which I always do when I'm here, and I'm honored to be able to present.

I did want to just mention, you know, there's a lot of talk of elders and learning from the elders here, and one of the great honors in my life is not just having friends here on the Assembly, people I've known for many, many years, people I see as brothers and colleagues and friends, but also have had the opportunity and real honor to be mentored by some of the great leaders here. In this community. Jake Adams, Oliver Levitt in particular. I've learned so much from them. Some of you might know the story.

When I was Attorney General, I had a difficult issue, flew all the way up to Barrow just to meet with Jake Adams and get his wisdom. And I'll always be grateful for that mentorship. I think a lot of people in this state have been mentored by great leaders from from the north slope. So it's great to hear about the whale successes already for the fall hunt. Very exciting.

One of these days I'm going to get out with one of the— with Crawford's crew, Mr. President, your crew, as a— not as a hunter, but as a boyer, so I can make you guys coffee. But I'm looking forward to that at some point in my life. Season has started. Okay. But I do want to talk about whaling because it's an area that I think it's very important where we can lay out what we've done together.

And one of the things that I really, really appreciate about the leadership here is we've always come up partnership. Let's learn and then let's act together on the priorities that matter to this wonderful community. And so we've done that on whaling. And, you know, I made a commitment when I first ran for the U.S. Senate that I would take this hugely seriously. I know how important it is to this community.

I would put my entire, you know, energy and effort into always making sure that our whaling captains, the whaling communities had the right to hunt bowhead whales no matter what for thousands of more years. And it's a commitment I made seriously and it's a commitment that I've kept and I've kept it working with so many of you. So many of the people in this room. But we had that big win in 2018. It took a lot of effort to go to the IWC down in Brazil to get the automatic extension, uh, in terms of the quota.

That was something I know that our whaling captains had been trying to do for decades, and we got that working together. As you know, one of the things that I mentioned last night at the church service, I like to spread the Spread the word, spread the word of how important whaling is and what it means to the culture on the North Slope. So whether it's advocating to the President of the United States directly or the Secretary of State or all of my Senate colleagues how important this is, and have legislation ready to go had that IWC meeting not been successful. And then have the big reception that we had. All the whaling captains came to DC and we invited the ambassadors from the countries that we thought were going to vote against us.

And I always say, one of my fondest memories as a U.S. senator was looking out over this reception, and it looked like every whaling captain had a Latin American ambassador under his arm, educating that ambassador on the vote. And we won that vote, and it was not an easy vote in 2018. So since then, I've stayed very focused on The whaling issues, staying vigilant. Some of you know, last year we got passed legislation that I led on to get the tax break and tax deduction for our whaling communities and our whaling captains that had not been touched since the mid-1980s. $10,000, Which costs a lot more than $10,000 to go hunt whales.

And we got that tax deduction for charitable deductions passed into law from $10,000 to $50,000 for all of you, and that was something that we got done to strengthen and show respect for our whaling communities. We also recently got a grant to the borough from NOAA for about $1.5 million for focusing on the strength of the, of the The census on the whales. And thank you, Mr. Mayor. And that was, again, something that we've worked together on. So I know how important this issue is to all of you, and it's something we've been very, very focused on in my work.

You know, I left a lot of handouts. I like handouts. Hopefully you all have them. We can leave some for all the, the attendees to this assembly meeting. They tell stories.

So I'm going to go through a couple of these handouts. But one of the things in addition to whaling that we focus on is whaling, but Alaska Native culture on the North Slope in particular. There was an issue that came up many years ago where states— California, New Jersey, Hawaii— started banning the ability for Alaska Native artists to sell their art as it relates to ivory. And you have some of the most amazing ivory artists anywhere on the planet Earth here. And yet we had big states in America saying, you're not allowed to sell it, you are going to ban it.

Well, I thought that was wrong. So again, working with all of you took a long time. Sometimes people, uh, fight against your bills for reasons I don't fully understand why. Um, we got my Artist Act passed about 4 months ago, signed into law. I've been working on that for years.

What does the Artist Act do? It preempts every state law in America and says, no, Alaska Natives who have been doing this for thousands of years, if they're carving ivory from walrus tusks, then they can sell it in California, in New Jersey. We are going to override those laws for the benefit of the people who live here, for their economies, for the culture, for the art. And so, Mr. President, I'm glad that we— again, working with all of you, that we got that done. Today I had the opportunity to start to walk the construction site with regard to the Barrow seawall.

Some of you might remember about 4 years ago I brought up the top of the head of the Corps of Engineers for the United States, and I want to mention to what Assemblymember Bernal said about bringing up members of Congress, bringing up cabinet members, bringing up admirals, generals. They should be coming to you, and that's part of my job. But we brought up this top Corps of Engineers, uh, general. We walked 3 miles here in Barrow, and I said, General, come on, we need this wall. So it was great to see, and we got it in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, the bipartisan bill, the over $400 million that the federal government is now focused on, uh, with regard to the seawall.

And it was great to walk the ground again today and see that starting to be built. And it was also great to see that the feds are listening. And if they're not, you should tell me, you know, for having boat docks and traditional use entrances, uh, with regard to that seawall. And the other thing that we were able to get done in legislation that really matters to the borough, matters to the state, we got a 90-10 split Usually on infrastructure, the federal government says, all right, we'll give you 70%, you the borough, you the state of Alaska, you got to pick up 30%. And we said no, not for infrastructure in Alaska, not for infrastructure on the North Slope borough, 90/10.

So that is a really, really big savings for the borough, savings for the state. And we will keep working that until that seawall is built. The other issue we've worked together on, it's one that I feel very, very strongly about. And I know all of you do because we have some heroic veterans in this assembly room today. The Alaska Native Vietnam Veterans Allotment Act.

This was my bill that said, wait a minute, you're a Vietnam vet serving your country overseas and you came home. You weren't treated well because you were a Vietnam vet. You weren't treated well because you were Alaska Native and you were told you can't have your allotment because ANCSA passed while you were fighting for your country. Wrong answer. So we got it so Vietnam veterans could apply for their Native allotment.

No, it wasn't without some pains. A lot of the Native, Alaska Native Vietnam veterans, uh, on the North Slope Borough wanted access to land near their home, like in ANWR, um, or an NPRA. They haven't been able to do that, uh, but we did get the program extended. At the end of last year, that entire program was going to expire. A lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were fighting it.

They didn't want anymore. I brought it to the floor every week, every week, and I said, extend this. If there was ever an issue of justice, right, people serving their country, fighting a war when others weren't, and they come home and they can't get their Native allotment, that's wrong. We got to fix it. So I got that extended for 5 years thanks to all of your support.

And, um, the next step is what we're going to try and do is get access to land closer to the veterans on the North Slope, like, um, Pastor Arnold right here in this room. And we're doing the same for the veterans in Southeast. So that's going to be an important thing. This is a smaller issue, but I know it impacts everybody here— the deaf issue, the You know, the diesel fluid issue where it seizes up your truck at 12°F because of a regulation that doesn't work, doesn't make any sense. We've held hearings on that.

I've had the EPA start the regulations to fix that. So your diesel engine, you know, at 12°F or below, as I told the EPA at a hearing, wait a minute, that was a one-size-fits-all If you have, um, if you have a diesel engine with this DEF system and it's 12 degrees or below, your whole engine starts to freeze up. It makes no sense. It's a safety issue. And, uh, I told the EPA, hey, 12 degrees below in Barrow, Alaska, that's a balmy day, right?

We're having 20, 30, 40, 50 degrees below zero. So we are working on that one, and I think that's important. We're continuing on the issue. It's a tough issue to talk about, but I think it's important on the problems we have throughout our state with domestic violence, sexual assault. You know, I passed a bill a number of years ago called the Power Act that brought free legal services to survivors of these kind of heinous crimes with a particular focus on Native women.

And that has brought thousands and thousands of attorneys doing legal work for those survivors. We recently had a roundtable on this issue of missing and murdered indigenous women. Some of you might remember Tara Sweeney when she was Assistant Secretary of Interior launched this big initiative called Operation Lady Justice that was focused on this issue to bring attention to it. And the day we did the roundtable about a month ago in Anchorage, the Department of Interior relaunched the Tara Sweeney initiative on this. And we think that that's important.

And finally, Mr. President, I want to talk about resources. I want to talk about resources on your lands, on the North Slope. One of the handouts I have is this one. This was from the previous administration. It's important.

I think hopefully it's gone now, but this was called the Last Frontier Lockup. Take a look at it. This was the 70 executive orders and actions targeting Alaska exclusively by the federal government, by the previous administration, to shut down opportunities in terms of the economy. Unfortunately for the North Slope Borough, if you look at the list, it's 70. 7-0, Our own federal government was saying, nope, we are going to shut you down.

The whole idea of the borough's local control that the mayor read at the top of this meeting was crushed by this. In most— not most, but a lot of these were focused right up here: NPRA, ANWR. And, um, it was hard, it was wrong, and it was the federal government, the previous administration, not listening to the voices of the people here. Now, again, uh, we just talked about having people come up here. During that time, the borough, ICAS, the ANCs, all collectively with the voice, came to Washington, D.C. 8 different times.

8 Different times. I hosted them. Saying we're going to meet with the— this administration, say, do not issue your NPR rule. That will really hurt our state. That will really hurt our community.

That will really hurt the borough. That will really hurt the tribe. That will hurt the people here. 8 Times, and you couldn't get one meeting. It was very frustrating for all of us, for all of us.

And they did do that. They issued these executive orders. To lock up the lands here. It was a huge frustration, not just for you, but for Alaska. My view, for America, because these areas are so important.

But collectively, we work together. And when there was a new election and new people in charge of leadership in Washington, D.C., the one thing I said to them is, you have to meet with and listen to the people of the North Slope, the people in ICAS, the people in the ANCs here. And so what we did, we passed legislation, all kinds of legislation last summer that you all— we sat down together again, the voice, ICAS, ANCs, the borough, said, okay, what should we do? How should we work? How should we work this?

Let's work together. And we got a lot of this done, a lot, and it's historic. We got mandatory lease sales for ANWR. Mandatory lease sales for NPRA. That means the federal government has to bring leases every year so people can take advantage of the opportunity.

We got what are called, um, legislation to rip out the previous regulations that were hurting the community that nobody in leadership here wanted. We got all that done, and I think that was very, very important for the future of the economy, future of revenues, future of strong families here. Because at the end of the day, this is a lot about— this is all about healthy communities. And if you look at this bill, at this handout, this was the bill we passed last year called the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. I like to call it the Alaska Opportunity Act because there were so many good things in it for our state.

No state did better than we did on this. This lists the lease sales. Um, this lists projects that help the LNG project that I think we're all interested in. This lists the healthcare system. We got a $50 billion fund to revitalize healthcare.

And when the federal government put out its award, Alaska got $1.4 billion over the next 5 years. To bring healthcare closer to home. My tour today of the hospital here was fantastic. I think there's already over $5 million from that fund coming to the hospital, and it's really exciting because when— what they are doing, and there's great leadership there, is bringing healthcare closer to the people here. And that's what we're going to be able to do with a fund that is $1.4 billion for Alaska healthcare particularly in rural Alaska, saying, how do you want to design your healthcare system that can make it closer and better for the people you represent?

We are doing that right now. It was great to see that happening with regard to, um, the hospital here. A lot of, lot of exciting things. There are other things in this— aviation safety. We've secured the border finally.

Why is that important? Well, listening to the mayor's report, it broke my heart. Alaska has had the highest fentanyl overdose rates in the country for 3 years in a row. In the country. We're 4,000 miles away from the border, and yet that fentanyl has been pouring in, poisoning our children.

We had over 400 fentanyl overdose deaths last year. 400. A lot of Native communities, a lot young Native. People with brilliant futures, and now they're gone. So this has been a huge focus of mine.

We have to secure the border. This bill did that. There's no illegals coming into our country anymore. None. There's 11 million in the previous administration.

There's none coming in because we're securing the border. But we have to secure this flood of fentanyl, both on the supply side, what's coming in, which we are working on And then on the demand side, here's another handout that I have for you, and I'd love to partner with the borough on this. This is my One Pill Can Kill campaign. I've been going throughout all the schools in our state, high schools, even junior highs, telling the young people, don't do it. You got one little speck of fentanyl on a pill that you're not sure of, or a marijuana joint, and you smoke it or take it, it can kill you.

So it's both demand. We got to stop the demand, educate our children, but also supply. And we are doing a lot on supply. So this is about healthy communities, what we've been doing. Some of you may know on the Anaktuvuk Pass, we had the Secretary of Interior go there to lift the restrictions on access to lands for hunting that have been limiting that community's ability to hunt, subsistence hunt for decades.

And when he made that announcement, and I was glad he did, and I encouraged him to do so again, that's so— again, that's them coming up to us, not you guys going down to them. There were people crying in that town hall because they had been trying to work on that for so, so very long. So these are some of the things that we've been working on, Mr. President. I'll end with one final one that matters to the whole state, I think matters to the whole country, and it's this final handout. This is called Adversaries in the Arctic.

You know this, you've been on the front lines of protecting our great nation for decades, but this has a list, and it's actually not even up to date, of all the recent incursions from Russia and China into the Arctic. Some are up here. Some are joint. If you look at this slide, the green ones are joint Chinese-Russian operations, strategic bomber task forces, naval task forces in our waters, in our airspace, in the communities here have always been on the front lines in terms of the patriotism, defending our country with the dew lines, with Alaska Natives serving at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country. So a big part of this legislation that we passed last year has a huge buildup of our military, of our Navy, of missile defense.

All of these things are going to take place— of the Coast Guard, biggest Coast Guard buildup in American history. I chair that subcommittee. All of these things are going to make us safer, but they're going to bring jobs as well. I'll just give you one example. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, we're doing a $7 billion recapitalization of that base.

That's going to be 4,000 jobs just to do that. That can be ANCs certainly doing that work, and it's exciting. So in the defense bill that we just passed out of committee, um, the National Defense Authorization Act, we have about $2.6 billion in military construction for Alaska. But one element of that bill that I'm really excited about that matters to this community. We had a great discussion at the hospital about it today.

I have a bill in there that's part of that bill. It's all about revitalizing the National Guard units that were all throughout Alaska Native communities, rural Alaska Guard units. Some of you might know we had dozens and dozens of armories and small guard units in the North Slope Borough in western Alaska. And in the late 1980s, early 1990s, we shuttered most of those. My bill says no, we need these great patriotic people.

We need to be on the front lines again. Let's start to revitalize the National Guard in rural Alaska. There's so many things we can do with that. Reopen these armories. The U.S. Army, The Pentagon fully supports my bill.

It's in the NDAA. It's going to pass by the end of the year. So it's exciting. So we want to partner with all of you on that because this can be how to train our young people again, give them pride in service, have the ability, um, to respond to disasters. And even the hospital today said this could be a great opportunity to partner on military things, emergency facilities in terms of hospitals in rural communities in the North Slope.

So there's a lot more that we need to do, a lot more partnering that we need to do. But I will tell you, Mr. President, this has been, I think, a very productive couple of years on some big things that we care about: our resources, healthy communities, Stronger families, stronger jobs, historic, um, healthcare spending for our rural communities. But it hasn't been without a battle. As you know, these aren't easy to get done. There's a lot of people in Washington, D.C. that want to keep this region shut down.

They want to turn this region into a giant national park. That fought me on every single one of these pro-North Slope Borough pro-Alaska Native provisions. Fortunately, we prevailed because we worked hard, all of us collectively. And I think that our future certainly isn't without challenges, but we have a lot of things that are happening, from whaling to NPRA to Willow to ANWR to strong healthcare opportunities, that we're going to keep going. So with that, Mr. President, Members, again, I'm honored to be back here.

You might remember last time I was in these chambers, um, I did what you're all asking. I had the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Interior, and the EPA Administrator— first time all three of them ever came right here in this assembly room doing a town hall, saying to the people that I got confirmed, saying, hey, the last group never showed up here, they never listened. I want to bring you guys here to listen to these great people and then work with them on a more exciting future. And that's what we're going to keep doing. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, and all the other assembly members.

Appreciate it. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for your report on all the important work that you've been doing with us for our region. It's a, it's a reminder after serving as the co-chair of the NPRA working group since 2013. We thought it was bad under Obama.

It got 10 times worse under Biden. Yep. Under Trump's administration, we've had an open door access to our government and the second term rightly so, we have access again. And all that work that you've been able to do working with us is so important. The gas line that you mentioned, Alaska natural gas line that we've been all pushing for, hoping that it will happen.

You know, it's been 40 years.

These are things that Jake and Oliver held very close to their heart as far as energy for our region, natural gas being a key product that we have. And we need to make sure the competing project, the proposed shipping of the natural gas through icebreakers, we need to make sure that doesn't happen. I look at it as folks trying to push this project for the quick buck. Yeah. When this Alaska Natural Gas Line is going to be our next economic lifeline for the next 50 to 100 years.

And so it's important. The cost of energy we all know here on the North Slope is so expensive. Yep. Barrow has been blessed with natural gas since 1964, they actually had it and discovered it in '54. It took 10 years and an act of Congress to get access to that natural gas for our community here before our time.

And we're, we're blessed to have Nuxit with the Alpine coming online in 2000. They were able to get natural gas into that community.

When my uncle Isaac Akutuk in Qaktovik, every time we went to go see him, he would remind us, they're getting closer. And I was like, what? The natural gas is getting closer. Industry is getting closer. And he was very adamant.

We need natural gas here. And these are the older generations that grew up without natural gas, without oil, without the resources needed. They had to live off driftwood and trying to stay warm, and they had it tough. And some of our elders will remind us of that hardship that they lived through just a few years ago, a couple generations ago, and how hard it was. And that Rex usually tells the story of his Dad, as the North Slope Borough formed and they were able to get generators into their community, and he was so glad he could just flick a switch on to get light and turn the dial to turn the heat up.

He didn't have to go out and collect driftwood. And so these are things that are so important and have been life-changing for all of us. So again, we appreciate you being able to come up the folks that you have brought up before engaging firsthand with all of us. And that's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it should be.

Yep, absolutely. With that, I'll open the floor for any of the assembly members. Mr. President, just a real quick comment. One other handout I forgot to mention because you mentioned the gas line.

So after the 70 executive orders shutting shutting our state down from the Biden administration. That hurt us. And this was also, again, you know, some of my Democrat Senate colleagues on the other side of the aisle, a lot of them, uh, this was not good for us. This was really bad for the borough. Certainly nobody wanted this.

Nobody asked for this. And this is about the opposite of local control. This is the feds saying, we're going to tell you what to do even if you don't want it. That's what happened. It's not good.

So we work with the new administration, the Trump administration coming in, and on day one they issued this executive order called Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential. And it's a very good document. Take a look at it. A lot about issues on the North Slope, Earl. My team and I wrote a lot of it, right?

We got this to the administration. But I mention that because it was day one. It's the only state that has one of these. The only state, and it focuses a lot on the issues that the borough cares about, but it focuses a lot on the gas line. And I agree with you 100%, that's the priority project, 100%.

It's the priority in this administration. They lay it out as one of the most important infrastructure projects in America, and I think we've never been further along. Uh, I've done 4 different trips to Korea and Japan, pushing this. We got all the permits. We finally have a federal government that's working it day in and day out.

So this is something that's a huge opportunity for all of us. But you have my commitment as we continue to work on this, I will take and listen to and work with all of you the way we've done on all these other issues that matter so much to our state. Yeah, the other reminder was just The most recent, right before Biden got out of office, was the Willow Project, man. And all the environmentalists and animal rights groups were hell-bent on closing or shutting it down, not making it happen. And we all know it was all hands on deck, right?

All of us on the North Slope, the state of Alaska, all going down to D.C. and pushing for that opening. And when they did, decide to approve it. What, what, remember what they said? This is all you're going to get, right? Attitude.

We're going to— then they said we're going to shut down the rest of the NPRA, which is, by the way, illegal. But again, with the legislation that we have now have in the law that I led on, they can't do it. If you have an administration 2 years from now saying, I'm going to do what Biden did, I'm going to come up to the NPRA and shut down North Sloboro. They can't do it. It would be illegal.

Now, they might try to do it. They did it against ANWR even though it was illegal, but they can't do it. We got the regulations ripped out from Biden legally, which says you can't re-regulate. And we got the mandatory lease sales for the next 10 years. And that's why we had this big NPRA lease sale that was so successful.

A lot of companies now are coming back, and this is going to be opportunity, and this is going to be revenue, and this is going to be jobs, and this is going to be enabling your way of life in a stronger way. By the way, a lot of people talk about who is responsible for Willow. Remember, Willow was approved, uh, by the Trump administration. All 5 pads, NPRA plan was approved, was something everybody here wanted. The only reason we had to go in and try recover Willow was because the new administration came in and said, we're going to shut down the entire NPRA, including Willow.

So when you hear people say, oh, I got Willow done, or I got— no, no, no, right? I'd been working on that for decades with all of you, from the time I was DNR commissioner, with all of you. And we got it done in the first administration, approved, it was done. The NPRA rule was done, whatever he wanted And then the Biden administration came in. We lost control of the Senate.

We lost control of the House. And they did what they always do. They came up here and said, we're going to shut you down. As long as I'm your senator, I'm not— I'm not going to allow them to do that. And I'll fight like heck with all of you to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Absolutely. Do we have any questions from the assembly?

Bernell. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. Senator. Um, one of the things that I thought you were going to go to when you said one thing that affects us every day, um, aviation. Yeah.

Um, thank you for getting some of that funding in to Alaska for aviation safety. You know, short couple months ago, I had a medical scare where I couldn't get medevaced out of here. Due to weather. And it's like that in multiple of our villages, you know, whether it's Cocteau Lakes weather, Point Hope's weather, from the very east side to the west side of our region, weather plays a huge factor in the safety of flying planes. So I can't tell you thank you enough for, for having that.

Along with that is the fight for the bypass mail. Yeah, that goes unheard of so much. Of our goods here on the North Slope is that bypass mail stuff that comes through at a lesser cost. And your fight to keep that, I can't tell you thank you enough for that, uh, because it's huge, especially in our villages, um, where costs would go way up if we didn't have it. So I, I just want to tell you thank you for that, um, your advocacy to your colleagues in DC to come up here and see us.

Like I had said earlier, when we talked to those Congress members, I asked them, what do they see when they, when they come here? A lot of flat land. I told them, when I go to DC, I see endless roads and endless power, something we don't have here on the North Slope. We have all the resources in the world, but we don't have it. Um, so I think that was helpful for them to come up.

So I can't thank you and your, your staff for that also. Advocating for all these, whether they're House reps or senators. There were some from Maine, Texas, Florida, California, Kansas, uh, Washington, on these key decision makers, um, that are voting on our behalf, you know, as a nation and as a state, as a region. So I just really want to tell you thank you. When you start talking about roads of the resources, that our communities, our people are also the resource of this region.

Yeah. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Assemblymember Bernal, I want to thank you because your advocacy is what helps us get this done.

Now, I know it was frustrating when so many of you and ICAS and The Voice and the ANC showed up 8 different times, couldn't get one meeting with the previous administration. And I know why, because you were here to tell them, don't do that NPRA rule, we don't want it. It's going to hurt our subsistence opportunities. It's going to hurt our economic opportunities. It's going to hurt healthy communities.

And guess what? They didn't want to hear that from you. So they just didn't take the meeting. It was, it was one of the most shameful things I've seen since I've been a U.S. senator and frustrated the living daylights out of me. And what I said when we kicked those guys out and got rid of Schumer and the Senate majority leadership And we took control.

I said, the people I represent are going to get a voice, and it's not going to be a canceled voice. It's going to be a strong voice, both when they come to town, they get high-level meetings. I know the mayor has met with the Secretary of Interior a number of times already, and, um, but I'm going to bring them up here because they need to be respectful. They need to be respectful and listen and then act. And the other guys weren't.

And if they gain power again, they won't. No matter what they say, they won't. I know them. They want to turn you, this place, into a giant national park. And then they're going to come after whaling.

I know it. They got all the animal rights groups that, that influence them. They're going to come after whaling. We're not going to let that happen. But I want to talk about very briefly aviation safety.

You've seen in the last 3 weeks, it's heartbreaking. We've had 2 additional airplane crashes. And several Alaskans killed. This has been an issue that I've been working on since my entire time in the Senate. I had the National, um, NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the FAA do a study on crash rates in America.

This was in 2020. The NTSB did a study. We had the hot Highest crash rates, 2.5 times the national average. 2.5 Times with an X. And we had 1.4 times the casualty rates, people dying, of the lower 48.

So we launched what was called the FAA Alaska Safety Initiative, the FASI initiative. And I've been putting significant money into the FAA system to get us more infrastructure. More weather reporting systems. But this bill, again, from last year, if you take a look at it, we have a huge aviation upgrade for America. $12.5 Billion for air traffic control and safety reform, and we're going to get a bunch of it.

As a matter of fact, we just did a roundtable on FAA safety aviation with the NTSB administrator, with a bunch of stakeholders, including one of your experts from the North Slope Borough has been flying up here for 40 years. He did a great job testifying at my roundtable just about 4 weeks ago. The FAA mentioned at that meeting, in the next 2 to 3 years, they're going to put a half a billion dollars of aviation infrastructure into Alaska to make us safer— communications, weather systems. You may have seen the President of the United States himself with the Secretary of Transportation announced 170 weather systems, AWOS systems coming to Alaska. That is going to make us safer.

That will save lives. But we need it. We need it badly. We are losing too many Alaskans due to aviation safety. But that's also in this bill, and it's a good start.

So I appreciate you highlighting that. Do we have any other questions or follow-up? Follow-up, Mr. President. Just real quick, maybe you could help us get more than 2 flights a day out of here.

Tell me what to do and I'll go work with you guys to get it done. With that, I'll recognize Assemblywoman Kinneberg.

Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, teku, Senator Sullivan, you know, for advocating for all our subsistence NPR, the economic development. I mean, you've been at the forefront doing the battle for us as Alaskans and even in our region.

And one thing I'm sure a lot of our people now is, you know, all these commercials, you know, really pushing to see who's gang gonna win, whether it's Democrats or Republicans. And my daughter, she made a comment, she said, man, all they do is bring out their dirty trash and just throw them at them, you know, instead of saying positive things. And it's kind of sad. So I can't wait for the commercials to stop. But, you know, as a Republican, you know, to assure our people about the abortion, assure our people about righteous living, you know, this as Republicans, we are backing you up and praying for you and your wife and your seat.

And if we don't vote You know, for, for you, if we don't vote for the Republicans, we are going to start taking step backs like you mentioned what Biden did. Look at what both Biden and Obama did to our country, and they stripped everything from us, and even watching and censoring social media. Right now, I'm just so glad, you know, we have you as our senator. I'm glad that you're here advocating, you know, for our people, and we'll continue praying for this election.

It's a very important election, and we're praying for you, Senator Sullivan. Thank you. Well, I'm very honored by those comments, and they mean so much to me, especially the prayers. Um, they matter, and, um, I'm, I'm just touched and honored. And I will tell you, I'm in strong agreement with you on I can't wait for the commercials to stop either, because I know they're bugging everybody, but they're bugging me and Julie and our daughters.

Um, but I will tell you You know, there's a lot of ads that are being run. You're seeing them, and we're gonna put up a website here very soon to kind of just make sure people know the truth, you know, about these scandalous things they're saying about me, none of which are true. This insider trading thing, this Jeffrey Epstein, it's ridiculous. You guys know me. It's ridiculous.

They're ridiculous. Now, I think people do that when they have no record to run on. Right, so they do that because they try to trash your reputation, they try to trash your honor, um, because what are they going to run on? Putting Chuck Schumer back in power so he can shut down NPRA in the North Slope Borough again? That's exactly what he'll do if he gets elected Senate Majority Leader, which is why I fight so hard for this community.

But it is frustrating But, um, uh, but this is a really important election in everything that we just talked about. All of it, all the progress in my view is at stake because I know what these guys will do if they gain power again. They will do exactly what Biden did, Obama did, and they will come for this great community and the people here. They don't care. They will come.

And as a fact, it's not speculation. I know them. That is a fact. And I fought them on every single— heck, they even fought me on the whaling captain charitable deduction. I had to go toe to toe with Chuck Schumer to get him to not try to strip that out.

And I won on behalf of the whaling captains of the North Slope Borough. And I'll keep fighting for you. Yeah. When we seen the weaponization of the agencies of the United States government going into cahoots in every area, right, whether it was resource development, and a lot of the bureaucrats that are buried deep into those agencies. The example was for whaling, right, when we passed the resolution from the Bear Whaling Captains through the AAWC and we went to our agency folks, right?

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Service, State Department, all of them singing the same tune. You'll be lucky if you get status quo. And they didn't want to do the heavy lifting. And that's where you came in.

And that's where when you brought it to the president and when he said, we will support our whalers. And then I asked you, can I run with that? And he said, yeah, that's exactly what he said. So we go back to those agencies, right? We're still trying to get their support and they're hemming and hawing and they're coming up with every kind of excuse.

And it's like, we're just here seeking help. But the words of the president, he said, we will support our whalers. So if we can't get your help, we're going to go back to our senator and somebody's going to go in there. Their whole attitude changed, right? And oh, what did you need?

Right. And so I would think there's There's still a lot of work to really clean out some of the deeply buried bureaucrats within D.C. because they've been there for so long. They want to target this. Exactly. And I really believe they wouldn't care if we starved, you know, and as a friendly reminder, it would be a sad day.

If the resource is still in the ground and we're starving, you know? And so that's something that Jake was very adamant about, long-term sustainable development that helps us financially, culturally, in all our living up here. So very important. And we appreciate all the work that you've been doing. Thank you, Mr.

Ha. Thank you. It's a partnership. Yep. With everyone, with everybody here, it's a partnership.

And, and ICAS and the borough and the voice and the ANCs. And we're making a lot of progress on the ANCs too, on the 8 program. It's all going in a really positive direction. It's awesome. Any other questions from the assembly?

Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly.

Senator Sullivan, for— I think the resounding theme that I'm hearing here is you help elevate our voices, whether you agree with them or not. Most times you agree with them. I do. That's part of the respect of our local determination here. And, you know, we can spend many hours laying out examples of where I've shot you a text.

I remember the hour and a half phone call around the gas line work. And so just want to thank you for being available. And, you know, it's, it's funny when, when we had the change in leadership at the, at the White House and all the departments meeting with the different secretaries, whether it was Secretary Bergum, Secretary Wright, EPA Administrator Zeldin, to name a few. We had some State Department meetings. We had Department of Commerce meetings.

Soon as I mentioned, you know, after talking with Senator Sullivan, here's what we're looking at doing, snap to, and how can we help you, right? And so I think that is just a testament to the fact that you've helped elevate our voices on the different matters, and we look forward to working with with you continually. I know there's some work to be done on the NPRA grants— yeah, mitigation fund process that was part of the big beautiful bill. And you have my commitment on that, Mr. Mayor.

Yep, absolutely. And we look forward to that because we have too much to lose if we don't work together on these kind of things. So just a couple examples, and I want to thank you for being a few strokes of the thumb away from a text and a phone call. So thank you. Well, thank you.

I think you're doing a great job as well. This whole assembly is. And, um, you know, I'll just end where I started. There's so much wisdom here, and one of the great privileges of this job is to learn from people who have so much wisdom. And there's so much wisdom in this community.

And for, you know, hundreds of years, thousands of years, and, you know, we saw it last night, that church church service last night was just wonderful and reinvigorating. Julie and I came back and, and we were both like, gosh, why didn't we tape record that? There were so many speeches. Pastor Arnold, maybe you did tape record it, but there were so many great speeches filled with so much wisdom and understanding and history that, uh, boy, I'm just so honored to serve with all of you, and we're making important, important progress, and we can't go backwards. I think I heard Suleiman Qalq willing to say something.

Robin? Yeah, I just wanted to say a very big thank you to Senator Sullivan. As a whaler, I just wanted to say thank you for your dedicated dedication of fighting for our way of life with whaling. And as a soon-to-be whaling captain, sometime hopefully soon, it's a— it's nice to know that we have that reassurance of somebody dedicated to fighting for our way of life. I just wanted to thank you.

Well, thank you, Assemblyman. And as I mentioned, I, I, I, I made that commitment to the whaling captains back in 2014. I will fight no matter what, no matter what, with you to make sure you always have that right to hunt for 10,000 more years. And, you know, it's an honor of a lifetime to, to make that happen. And one way we make that happen is we're all talking about spread the word, spread the word, spread the word.

People don't understand what whaling is about. They don't understand how important it is to the culture here. They don't understand the deep bonds that it brings, connections to the communities here. And that's part of my job. And with your help, we've done it with everybody— the president, the secretary of state, other U.S. senators, and even those Latin American ambassadors who are going to vote against us at the IWC meeting in Brazil.

Right, at that reception. All you guys did such a great job of advocating for the whaling captain issues that a lot of those countries that we thought were going to be no— because remember, we had to get a, what, 70% of the world, of the world, to vote with us. That was not easy. And a lot of those countries, the guys who weren't pro, uh, uh, Alaska Eskimo whaling, they ended up abstaining. And that was great because we didn't— if they abstained, that was kind of a yes vote for us.

So that— so we will, we will keep doing that together. Again, we appreciate you, Senator. I haven't heard any other assembly members that want to ask or say anything. So for your Nukpuk and welcome to Talvik again. And glad you made it.

Yes, sir. Thank you again, Mr. President. Welcome your beautiful wife, Julie. My much better half. Much better half.

Let's give her a big round of applause. Thank you, Senator. Make sure and come back for some more tuktuheart for breakfast. Adiós. Good update.

Good report. Let's take a 7.5-minute break at this time. Yeah, let's do a photo op with the Senator. Those want to be in the photo.

Meeting and public hearing back to order. It's now 3:56 PM. Moving on our agenda, we have 6D monthly financial report. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly listening audience.

Before I pass it over to the finance team, I just wanted to update the body in regards to some of the concerns that came up during the monthly status report. I know it's past that, but we had 8 streetlights that were fixed in Qaktovik last week. Lineman had to head to Unaktuvuk to take care of some emergency things there. He's on his way back to Qaktovik as we speak. And then in regards to the water and sewer issues, it's a vac leak.

Travis, who's in the back there, is aware of it, and they've been trying to find where the leak is so they can begin to fix it based on the concerns that were brought up earlier. So with that, I believe Deputy Director DeMoulin is ready to walk us through the monthly financial report, and I know Director Lamani is online. Just I want to share that we know he's experienced a personal loss. His grandfather, close to 100 years old, passed away in Macedonia, and Fadil's down there with his family to lay his patriarch to rest. And with that, Deputy Director DeBoulon.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Mr. President, members of the assembly. I am here at the table for Director Lamonti, who, as the mayor has just as I mentioned, is out of town for this particular meeting.

But his devotion to the borough, he is online to be able to walk through the monthly status report. If there's anything in the report itself that you want to be able to reference on screen for the listening audience, I'll be here to support him in that. And then any questions are afterwards. So I will pass it on to Director Lamani, who I believe is still online. Director Lamani.

Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly. Good afternoon. First, uh, what an incredible presentation and update by our Senator Sullivan. That was, uh, an exceptional update, and, uh, glad to see him, uh, come up to the North Slope and representing the region and all the work and efforts and the advocacy that he's done for the region in the time that he's been not only as the U.S. Senator, but also just representing us at the state level as well.

Not sure I can top his speech, but I'll certainly do my best not to bore you guys with the monthly financial report. With that, Mr. President, I'll lead right into the monthly financial report for the month of July, which is the, uh, first month of the new fiscal year for fiscal year 2027. We opened the year, um, fiscal year '27 with a position of considerable financial strength, uh, following yet another year of a strong financial performance for fiscal year '26. With respect to the revenues, uh, for the month of, uh, July We saw general fund revenues total approximately $543 million, which represents approximately 101% of the $536.5 million of the approved budget. You will notice that that's an increase, uh, over what was already budgeted, and that's attributed to the fact that we still haven't done the supplemental appropriation that's going to be presented at the special assembly meeting on September 15th.

We received the certified tax roll from the state of Alaska relative to the 4356, and we're going to see a substantial increase not only on the O&M budget but also on the debt service as well. And that's why you're seeing the slightly elevated revenues in axis of the budgetary figures. Uh, with respect to the property tax of what was being collected, um, that was approximately $542.5 million, or 108% of the budget, which exceeded that by approximately $38.1 million. The concentration in the property tax receipts at the beginning of the fiscal year is attributed to the continued large-scale investments that's being made with Willow. Uh, Pika development, as well as other mature fields within the Prudhoe Bay Unit, as well as the Milne Point.

The other revenues are relatively inconsequential as the first part of the fiscal year, with intergovernmental revenues totaling approximately $82,000, while charges of services total approximately $419,000. $1,000,000. Given that it's the first month of the new fiscal year, uh, because of the timing and preparation of the fiscal year '26 audit, we haven't done our reconciliation for our investment earnings relative to Central Treasury, but that's something that's going to be reflected in the August monthly financial report. Moving on to the general fund expenditures, which totaled approximately $56.7 million through the end of the month, which represents approximately 11% of the $529 million for the operating expenditures. The borough departmental expenditures, which includes the encumbrance, uh, totaled approximately $37.3 million, or 10% of the departmental appropriations.

Specifically looking at the departmental monthly activity, the Department of Administration has demonstrated higher than normal expenditures at the commencement of the fiscal year. And this again is attributed to what the mayor was sharing a little bit earlier about the ongoing environmental cleanup efforts that are being done by the Department of Administration, which the majority of the work is being perform over the course of the summer months, uh, and a lot of that expenditure is being captured the month of July. We are required by North Littleboro Municipal Code that by the beginning of the fiscal year that we appropriate 50% of the appropriation to the school district, which was approximately $19.4 million. Um, thus far we don't have any expenditures reported relative to the Elisabeth College or debt service, as those are going to be realized a little bit later into the fiscal year.

I, as a result of the timing of the annual property tax revenues, uh, in looking at the expenditures, I just want to make note that just because of the timing of the cash receipts, which are front-loaded in advance of the new fiscal year, you know, should not be viewed as an annual operating surplus by the $486.3 million.

I will stop there for a second, see if there's any questions. Mr. President. Director Lamani, do we have any questions from the Assembly?

Having none, you may continue. Thank you, Mr. President. Moving on to the capital improvements. As of July 31st, 2026, we had approximately $1.6 billion appropriated for capital projects.

Project-to-date expenditures total approximately $1.15 billion, and encumbrance totaled approximately $171.6 million, which, uh, brings the total project cost to approximately $1.37 billion, or 83% of the total appropriations. In looking at the business-type activities on the enterprise funds, as you all know, these are reported on a cash basis. On a monthly basis, uh, and are, um, converted to modified accrual at the end of the fiscal year. With respect to the July activity, uh, we see Service Area 10 reporting operating revenues of approximately $2.2 million and a positive net position of approximately $2.1 million. Um, the other side, the real property management also reported a positive net position approximately $190,000.

And the Power Generation and Distribution reported a net operating loss of approximately $500,000. And the Technical Training Center also reported a loss of approximately $100,000. Thus far, there's not been any operating transfers from the general fund. Those will be done sometime in mid-year. Where we'll do approximately 75% of the operating transfers that were originally budgeted, and then at the end of the year, uh, we'll do the true-up as part of the year-end audit process.

Moving on to the investments with respect to the central treasury, uh, and the bond proceeds, portfolio totaled approximately $1.275 billion at month end. Compared to approximately $1.339 billion as of, uh, the year-end June 30, 2026. Uh, the month of July consisted of approximately $544 million in the operating accounts and approximately $200 million in the intermediate fund, and also approximately $530 million for the bond proceeds across 25 uh, funds. Um, this represents approximately, uh, $64 million, uh, in decrease from, uh, last month, meaning end of the year. And this is as a result of, um, ongoing daily operations and departmental, uh, expenditures creating a draw for the, uh, operating fund.

Moving on to the permanent fund. We saw a slight increase from the prior month of approximately $2.9 million or 0.20%, bringing the fund total to approximately $1.433 billion. The July performance was led primarily by the real assets, which increased approximately $7.7 million or 5.4%. And we also had global equity with a slight gain of approximately $2.2 million or 0.30%, and the private equity with a slight gain of approximately $738,000.

Some of these gains were offset by the declines in fixed income of approximately $4.7 million and the absolute return of approximately $2.6 million and the private credit of approximately approximately $470,000. Generally, just to summarize the July market performance relative to the permanent funds, those were sort of characterized by the increased volatility and sort of sector rotation, meaning the repositioning of the investments from— away from some of the tech industry sectors into the financial markets as well as the energy and the commodities. We've seen higher interest rates and continued geopolitical inflationary uncertainty. And so that's what sort of redirected some of the positions with respect to the global equities. We're also seeing higher Treasury yields, which have pressured some of the fixed income and market volatility, which ultimately created some headwinds on the alternative investments and some of the strategies there as well.

But for the most part, our portfolio is well balanced, well diversified, so we're still reaping the benefit of seeing an increase from last month as well. Looking at the debt service, our outstanding general obligation debt, for both the principal is approximately $410 million, uh, at July 31st, 2026, with $70 million, uh, of that being relative to interest, and the total debt service being approximately $480.2 million. The anticipated scheduled debt service for fiscal year '27 is estimated to be approximately $103.7 million. Moving on to the grants, both the state and federal grant fundings continue to support a broad range of the borough's programs and capital initiatives. As of July 31st, 2026, we saw the grant portfolio of approximately $166.4 million in total awards, which approximately $70.2 million has been expended and $21.3 million was encumbered, which leaves approximately $74.9 million available.

On a combined basis, approximately $91.4 million, or 55% of the total grant awards, have been expended or committed thus far.

Overall, Mr. President, um, uh, The first month of the fiscal year '27 represents a strong opening financial position. We'll continue to monitor the, uh, activity within the borough's, um, financial position, including the departmental spending, capital projects, uh, execution, uh, business-type activities, as well as the investment performance. Um, but we're still relatively early into the next— or into the fiscal year '27, um, uh, position of, of the borough's finances. And as I noted a little bit earlier, we'll, we'll see a significant increase to the borough's operating budget come here in about 2 weeks when we present the supplemental appropriation. And with that, Mr. President, that basically wraps up the monthly financial report summary.

I'm open for any questions the assembly may have or dive into the underlying details of the report itself. Thank you, Director Lamani. We have the monthly financial report before you. What's the wish of the assembly? Move to approve.

There's a motion by Martin. It's been seconded by Robin. Motion under discussion. Do we have any questions?

Question.

Question has been called for. Mr. President. Oh, before I recognize the question, Assemblywoman Keneville.

Sorry, Mr. President. My phone was probably on mute. I didn't quite get it in time, um, but I just have a question on the debt service. So, um, we have $480 million in debt, then this $103 million, is that going to be a payment in fiscal year 2027? Director Lamani.

Thank you, Assemblywoman Good evening, Mr. President, through the Chair. That's correct. If you look at page 16 of the monthly financial report, you will see the amortization by not only the fiscal year, but also by the different bond maturities. As you can see, $83.2 million is expected to be for principal and approximately $20 $103.4 million is intended for interest, which brings that total to $103.7 million. So looking at the $480 million, we will see by the end of the fiscal year a decrease of that $103 million.

But also be mindful that with the authorization that we had, we have $150 million for the 2027 or 2026 bonds, which will add to that. And also we're looking at defeezing some of the school bonds, which is approximately $60 to $70 million in our amounts. And with that, we're going to look at a couple of different options, one being able to tender some of our debt relative to the callable debt, and then whatever participation level we get on the tender, then we'll be able to defuse the rest, which means basically we'll put the money in an escrow and take it off our balance sheet. And that's— that debt service is going to be paid off over time based on its original maturity. So we're taking an aggressive measure, being able to reduce our debt load while we're continuing to make some significant capital infusions into the North Slope infrastructure.

So hopefully that gives you some perspective on how we're approaching the borough's debt.

Structure. Do you have any follow-up, Eva? Uh, yes, Mr. President. Um, so with that answer, Director Lamani, so we would have $350 million, um, remaining after that payment?

That is I would say that that would be approximately $377 million netted. And then we will see an increase. We haven't structured the 2027 or 2026 debt yet because we're wanting to see the capacity relative to paying off the school bonds. And we have approximately $60 million in the debt service levy as part of the supplemental. So we're trying to utilize that, that capacity for paying off the outstanding school bonds.

And, and so we're not anticipating in front loading in that fiscal year '27 any of the new debt. But we're still going to try to keep the debt compressed within that 4 to 5 year time frames that we've originally done. So we'll have a little bit more visibility as to what those numbers are, are going to land. But just looking at where we stand today, that's where we're anticipating to be for fiscal year '27.

Does that help? Thank you. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Director Lamani, for explaining and seeing where we're at, you know, with our debt service. And on another note, um, we're sorry to hear about your loss, but I'm glad you're with your family during this time.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Assemblywoman Kinneberg. Much appreciated. Appreciate the support and prayers that I've received so far.

Do we have any other questions from the assembly, Mr. President? Hearing none, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President. Just, uh, kind of dovetailing off of Director Lamani's, um, discussion around strategy, uh, on page 16, if you go to the bottom half of slide show, it says debt service by bond issue and then it has a different series of debt.

And if you slide to the right under the interest column, that $2.734 million, all the way down, it's roughly $20 million of interest. Those are uncallable debt. And so whatever decisions were being made around the finances of the borough from 2020 to 2023, to not have callable debt, said that we're locked into those interest payments. And then moving forward, we enabled the call option on the debt for Series 24 and Series 25. And so we were not married to the debt service schedule, and, and we can take out that debt ahead of time without having to be stuck by that, that interest penalty.

And so I guess what he's talking about is we're weighing on the school bond debt, putting an escrow account, securitizing the debt by— with cash that we have on hand, even though we can't actually pay it off earlier. We're going to put it in an account so that we can avoid the interest, and then we'll realize the savings on the interest at the time that we defuse the debt when it's to be paid off. And then what's happening in addition to that is, as you guys were talking about, we're going to pay the $103 million in normal debt service and then we're going to at the same time issue about another $150 million. We're going to securitize the interest on the old debt of about $24 million. And then in addition to that, we're going to look at early repayment in later in the fall.

So we'll take $150 million $150 million of debt will pay right about the same time, $103 million in debt service on the old stuff, and then we're going to look at early interest payments that have to be a part of the regular budget cycle that will decrease that $150 million right off the bat. And so a lot of moving parts, but I think at the end of the day, it's, it's being able to maximize the, the monies that we have here at the borough. Uh, A, you have to understand it. B, you have to be able to look at the entire picture and make moves in, in the machinery, um, as it's required. And so, um, we, we've moved away from, uh, uh, seriesing the debts for schools separate from GO bonds.

So that's what you see in the 2025, and, and what that allows for, as I mentioned before, is better interest rates rates on the debt because it's a bigger chunk in each maturity.

So perhaps at some point as we work through the supplemental and the operating dollars that we're going to put towards financial strategy to making sure the borough has the flexibility to maximize any savings and take advantage of the opportunity to early payoff where we can. We can kind of line all of this out, but it's pretty complex, I guess, as far as the, the debt management structure and the changes that we're making to— a million here, million there in savings adds up at the end of the day. And so it's been good to have Director Lamani out of the country, and I can play finance director for a little bit, but we look forward to having him back, so I don't got to worry about it all too much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I did want to emphasize a little bit— I know I mentioned, uh, this new concept of tendering of the bonds, and I just wanted to give some perspective, uh, to the assembly members of what that term entails. So generally, in, in some of the bonds in which there's a call option provision post the JOBS Act that went into effect in 2017. Historically, if you had a call option provision on any of your outstanding bonds, so long as there's a market opportunity to take off your debt and it was feasible, the issuers would, you know, even if the maturities were 2 to 3 years out, they were able to exercise the net present value savings on that debt. Post-2017, uh, because of the federal law, uh, basically you could not take out the debts, um, up to 90 days to maturity, meaning if there was any savings to be recognized within 90 days, you were able to, uh, take advantage of that. However, there's this new concept or I shouldn't say a new concept, it existed historically, but the participation level was relatively low in the market.

And that's called tendering of the bonds. And what that means is that if you have bonds that are even non-callable or even callable, what you do is you subscribe to a service, what's called DTC, because when these bonds are sold, they exchange hands multiple times throughout the life of those bonds. And so what this, um, third-party subscription does is gives us, uh, an ability to see who currently holds our bonds. And then what we're basically doing is going and negotiating with these bondholders and saying, we are willing to buy these bonds back, uh, from you, um, in an accelerated uh, uh, format, but then be able to reissue those bonds at a lower, um, yield, which basically creates, uh, an economic value. In some of these maturities, we have the ability to do that, and we anticipate that we're, we're gonna have some cost savings, but more than anything, create capacity, uh, as we're contemplating on the broader authorization that allows us to do some larger-scale capital investments for some of the infrastructure.

Great. Do we have any other questions for Dylan? Or you had more to add? And just to, Mr. President, if I may, just to kind of close everything, you know, You know, heard the mayor talk about, you know, the debt strategy, but, you know, I take great comfort in having, you know, and I was going to say this a little bit earlier today relative to a lot of the initiatives with respect to the digital transformation with Sage. You know, these are some large-scale initiatives that the borough has never chartered before, and it takes leadership.

It takes the right team, takes the right people to be able to do that. I believe the mayor has assembled in all fronts to be able to do exactly that, not only on the digital transformation, but also he himself being as sophisticated as he is in understanding understanding and thinking outside the box of positioning the borough financially. And so oftentimes we get an opportunity to geek out on trying to figure out new strategies on maximizing the borough's financial opportunities and putting the borough in a better place moving forward. So I want to say thanks to the mayor for being able to pioneer that leadership.

Do we have any more questions for our finance director?

Any further discussions?

Question? Question has been called for. All those in favor of the approval of the finance report? Monthly finance report, do so by saying aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Hearing none, motion has passed.

We end up— monthly report has been approved by the assembly. Mr. Mayor, thank you for the discussion, deliberation, and look forward to continuing to move the ball forward. Next item on our agenda is item 7, community/assembly comments and audience participation. An individual with a concern must go to the teleconference center in their community.

Be respectful. No obscene or vulgar language. No threats or language that may defame the character or reputation of another person. No language that may incite violence. No fraudulent comments.

Please note that the North Slope Board will refrain from making Making any public comments on matters under ongoing investigation or pending litigation. Please state your name for the record and each participant will have a 3-minute limit unless an exception is granted. We'll start off with the City of Anaktuvuk Pass. Do we have any concerns from the Gates of the Arctic?

Good evening. Good afternoon from Manitobit Pass. I have one resident here with a concern for you. Good afternoon, Larry. Good afternoon.

You ready? Yeah. Okay. Good afternoon, I'm Mark Mori III, president of UCAN. I had a couple of concerns.

What is North Slope Borough Wildlife doing to monitor the Brooks Range and all areas around Unit 26A?

And, um, how will the ownership of the corridor by Coldfoot, how will that affect the migrational route for the caribou? Because every fall the migration Everything gets turned around and that's affecting our traditional practices, same as your guys whaling. Fall and spring, they're being affected by sport hunters and there's no monitoring going on. There's lots of planes flying west to our allotment areas. There's nothing we can do.

We just got the bill rescinded for the regulations to hunt in the park, which I'm so thankful for.

And we're finally allowed to go to our allotments that our people have been wanting to go to since Gates of the Arctic was made and created.

Kreenok Mark, for your questions, Mr. Mayor. Kreenok Mark, for the questions and, you know, congratulations on the community of Anaktuvuk reestablishing the UCAN. I know in one of my early meetings there in 2024, That was a big discussion as far as restarting the UCAN with the trilateral, Nakhraramute tribe and city of Anaktuvuk and the Nunamute Corporation. So on wildlife monitoring, typically we've used the search and rescue assets to allow planning department to go inspect either privately owned land, which is one of the Native corporations, either ASRC land or Nunamute land, Native allotments of our residents that own Native allotments, or state lands within the area. And that's typically where we see in public lands is where we see the sports hunters being able to fly in.

And so a couple of things on that front. I've asked the planning department to be able to go and inspect these alleged sport hunter violations, and I'm only saying alleged. I know that they're there, just like you know that they're there, but we need to have our field inspectors to be able to document it and then issue notices of violations. And so we should have some quotes boats because we had unavailable aircraft under the search and rescue assets. And so twofold: fix all the aircraft that we own so that we can use them with our field inspectors and also still be able to do medevacs.

And then the other is, what is it going to take to charter another helicopter to go and inspect borough lands and potentially issue notice of violations? And so Planning Department has been working on what that looks like. It's not only the public lands north and west of the community of Anaktuvuk, there's also on the way southeastern corner of the jurisdiction of the borough, there was some like border of Upper Anwar sports hunting that was going on that we had to fly in. And we actually applied to own the land from the state to own the strip and then not allow— the airstrip and then not allow sport hunters to come in. In the Anaktuvuk area, it's a lot harder because most of that is federal land and they fall under federal jurisdiction.

So we monitor where we can. We issue notices of violations as we can, and then we're working towards having more of a presence in the farther-reaching areas of the North Slope through charter companies. And then I think your question on the land ownership of the Dalton Highway corridor, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline corridor, I think that's what you're talking about. That's Public Land Order 51. And it was the transition of property ownership of the pipeline corridor from BLM to the state of Alaska.

And we're actually just debating this a couple of days ago in our pre-assembly meeting as far as what that means, because if it's federal land, then it's enforced by U.S. Fish and Wildlife and they have a different set of rules. And then if it's state land, it's enforced under state law. And so Unless state law changes, the Dalton Highway corridor is managed in which they had to get real creative on the law. And it was adopted roughly 20 years ago with our state representative Reggie Jewell at the time.

And it's that within— no motorized hunting if the motorized vehicle originates from the highway. Motorized vehicles coming from off the highway, meaning residents from Nunavut, could skidoo to the highway and hunt with that. And so they had to get real, real tricky with that. And so we're monitoring what that public land order and that ownership that you're talking about as it changes and then looking to intercede if we need to, where we need to, for game management regulation changes. That happened there.

And so, um, that's kind of what I got as far as stuff that I'm personally aware of that we're, that we're working on. I can have Director Wysihowski from the Wildlife Department, um, follow up with you directly. She had to step out, uh, earlier, earlier this afternoon. And then if there's anything to add from, uh, Director of Planning, uh, uliman Doesn't sound like it. I think I covered everything, so I hope that helps.

And was there another concern with those, Mark? I apologize if I forgot it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Another thing, I'm not too sure if it would be considered poaching, but there's some pictures from what are they, airlines that have the permits dropping people off and they're hunting wolves and wolverines out of season. You know, like for us it's November and it's the same with the Park Service. The Park Service is supposed to be monitoring their lands but they aren't. They're letting hikers come in here and leave trash all along from east of us to the Dalton Highway, like that whole area there's some trash from airplanes and helicopters flying through. There's barrels, empty barrels, empty Blazo cans all along the trails over that way.

East of us. So we, we tried to get in touch with the Park Service, but we have— it's radio silence from them on their end. And, you know, that really affects us. It makes us look bad.

No, that was another concern I wanted to bring up. Um, we get a lot of hikers through here all summer, every summer, and we just find a lot of trash along the trails.

And it's really frustrating because, you know, they're supposed to follow the park rules and leave no trash behind, but there's a lot of trash behind.

Mr. President. Greenup, Mark. Mayor, thank you, Mr. President, members of the audience. Mark, for clarifying that, I think what we can do now that we have the, the rule from the Department of Interior, the Fed, BLM, U.S.

Fish and Wildlife changed to where you guys can have access, right? What the attitude was before from, from the borough was that we don't want park rangers in community because they're blocking access of our local hunters. And so now that that rule's changed, maybe that's a discussion that we revisit as far as enforcement, either from U.S. Fish and Wildlife or National Park Service. And what I'll do based on that is I'll reach out.

If you're saying that you guys have reached out and there's no radio, it's radio silence, I'll reach out with, with our contacts within the, the DOI Anchorage, Alaska office. And DOI, Department of Interior, oversees both U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Park Service. And then follow up, if you can leave your contact info, known details of where that littering is occurring, and maybe the— and I'm sure we could find the, the permit holder for the aircraft, we can put all of that together and send it over to the BLM office and, you know, kind of just ask, what are you doing? And if they're not willing to do anything, the other thing that we've done on other wildlife issues is try to get some authority from the borough to be able to issue either complaints, notice of violations, fines maybe.

And so we try to, especially under this administration, we try to work closely with them along with the tribal organization. And I will say, and thank you for bringing this up, generally because Native allotments, and once we start getting into the western part of the west of the Colville, you start getting to federally managed lands. We're starting to actually gain traction on some co-management authority as it relates to permitting. And so I know Director Uliman, in concert with ICAS, has been working with the BLM Anchorage office and then eventually the D.C. office on if it's going to cost too much for the federal government or whatever the reasoning is to not have a presence to be able to enforce what we want to see enforced, maybe they can give us some authority to have some of that enforcement here at the borough. And so Chastity, I know, has been working with the ICASP team to look at if it has to be a partnership from the feds with the tribe and then they essentially contract the enforcement out to the borough, then that's a route that we can go.

So we're kind of workshopping all of those ideas. And having internal meetings to figure out what's possible and then begin the outreach to the communities as to is this something that we want to pursue. So thank you for bringing it up, and I know Wildlife Department Director Wysihowski is texting me now, and she says that they have been monitoring the migration patterns as far as the tuktuq go, and what we don't want to do is put out the information for maybe a a sports owner to see. So what we can do is forward the information on to, is that Larry sitting there with you? And that way you can have it available to you as a resident.

So I hope that helps and thank you, Mark, for speaking out. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. That really helps us.

Yeah, fall migration coming up and, you know, the last time the migration Migrations came through for fall-time bulls was in 2018. And you know, it's been, I know it probably sounds like a broken record. A lot of our elders that passed on have been saying the same thing as us, the newer generation. And we're trying to pray and hope that we get a fall migration. Thank you.

Mr. President, if I just might ask, Mark, as a member of UCAN, at your guys' next meeting, perhaps discuss what is the appetite of the community to inviting in Park Service now that you guys have legal motorized access to the park to enforce the other things that you're mentioning. I think that would be a good discussion discussion to be had at the community level. And, you know, our different departments can be available to be a part of that discussion to kind of figure out with the federal government and the federal agencies what's the art of the possible on that kind of thing. But if the— right, if the messaging that they have had for years, and understandably so, that we don't want DOI officers in our community because because they end up just issuing violations to all the residents, then maybe now that that's changed, we can start to reengage that discussion to find out how we can execute it. So look forward to the follow-up, and, you know, I'll follow up with Department of Wildlife Director Wyjahoski when she gets back into cell service.

So— Mr. Mayor, do we have any other concerns from Anaktuvuk Pass?

Larry, anybody else?

Oh, I'm sorry there. Uh, I wanted to send—. Say that, um, there's Earl Williams who came by earlier and mentioned something about the placement of trash dumpsters, concerned that sometimes there's been crashes, people driving the four-wheeler, and he was wondering about a safety, maybe some kind of sign or something to prevent crashes into the dumpsters.

Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, Larry, for relaying the message. A couple of things that we've been working on with the city, since the city has the powers to post the speed limit and then if they do select a different speed limit, right, the borough has to buy new speed limit signs. So we've been in contact through Public Works in the city to, A, not only make sure that we're following the city's request for speed limits, but B, speed bump placement.

I think we've got the second one that was put out at request of the city, locations determined by the city, the Public Works put out. And then the last thing, only because It was curious to me when we paint dumpsters, are we making sure, you know, we don't paint the reflectors. And that's something that we make sure, we try to make sure that the reflectors are kept intact on all of the dumpsters depending on where they're located. So if there's a specific dumpster, these types of things can be addressed with the local public works supervisor. And if they're not being addressed at that level, Director Danner, Deputy Deputy Director Amalwaq can be reached out to also, and I'll follow up with those two respectively to make sure, you know, it's a community-led effort on where they want the dumpster placement.

So kweyenuk for relaying that.

Mr. Mayor, any others? Larry?

And I'll have the Director of Wildlife again follow up, Mark. The other thing that I forgot to mention is that there is still some controlled use area restrictions in place. And so we can relay what all of that means from the federal perspective on controlled, controlled use area for commercial hunting. So Very good. Co-management idea is a good one.

Good afternoon, everybody. Moving on, City of Atkasuk. We have any concerns from—.

Good afternoon, everybody. This is Della with the mayor's office. I'm the only one here today and nobody has any concerns. Thank you. Good afternoon to everybody in Atqasuq.

City of Cocteau Vic, we have any concerns out of Barter Island?

Good afternoon, Cynthia Adams here. I have Officer Peterson here with me also, and we have nobody here for comments or concerns.

Good afternoon to everybody.

Next we have City of Nooksack. Do we have any concerns from Cookpikmoot?

Good afternoon, Mayor Kevin Boyer with Mayor's Office. We have no comments or concerns from Nooksack.

All right. Good afternoon to everybody there in New York City. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President. Just want to highlight on some of the work that we've been doing.

I know that there's a potential native allotment encroachment from a commercial operator who purchased the Helmrichs property downriver. Planning Department is working with ICAS to appropriately get the notice of violation if there is in fact encroachment. First, we have to build the case that there is encroachment and then issue the notice of violation. And so kind of anticipated that being a concern. I'm happy that we were able to work it out ahead of time.

But just if you hear that that's happening, know that we're doing something collectively, not only with the Native allotment owner, the Regional tribal government, Cook Peak Corporation is involved, planning is involved, planning department is involved. So we look forward to bringing a resolution to that, and the notice of violation for that was issued August 20th. So thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that update. Moving on, City of Point Hope.

Do we have any concerns or questions from Tikyaak?

Good afternoon from Kikiak. We have no concerns today. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone in Kikiak.

Native Village of Point Lay, do we have any concerns from Kully? Good afternoon from Kully. I'm the only one here and nobody is here with any concerns. Good afternoon to everyone there in Kully.

City of Wainwright, we have any concerns from Ulukhunuk?

Good afternoon from Wainwright. Here with me is Abraham Tepi from the mayor's office, and there is no one here for any concerns. Thank you. Queen Akwerna and Abraham, good afternoon to everyone there in Ulukhunuk.

Next is Dead Horse. Do we have any concerns coming out of Saguannoc Toolik? Chinooked up here from Saguannoc Toolik. We have nobody here, no questions, no concerns.

All right, good afternoon to you all. Dead Horse mute.

Next is audience participation. Madam Clerk, do we have any Anybody from audience? Assembly President, I do not see anybody wanting to have audience participation. Really not?

All right, moving on on our agenda, we have Item 8.

Introduction and/or approval of resolutions and ordinances. We have 8A, Resolution 59-2026, a resolution waiving competitive bidding for a change order, North Slope Borough, contract number 2026-003, with ASRC Builders LLC for the North Slope Borough Administration Building roof upgrade, CIP project number 18-109. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, for pulling 59-2026. I do believe this is a second change order at discretion of CIPM for things that we were unaware of.

So Director Adams can walk us through the resolution itself and answer any questions if needed.

Mr. President, Director Adams, or Assemblyman Bernal. Thank you, Mr. President. I pulled this resolution.

Can we waive the reading, please? Make a motion to waive the reading. Motion to waive the reading. Do I hear a second?

Second. Second. Second. Any discussion?

Question. Question has been called for. All those in favor of the waiving of the reading of the resolution, do so by saying aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. There was opposed, say nay.

Hearing none, the reading of the resolution has been waived. We have Resolution Serial Number 59-2026 before you. To approve. There's a motion on the floor to approve. Second.

Second. Under discussion.

Mr. Mayor, just under discussion. This is actually a good resolution to discuss. I don't want to talk too much about it. I know the purpose was just for abstention, but one of the things that we learned internally is that CIPM can manage a project all the way to the end, and then if the customer, which if it's a department or facility maintenance, anybody isn't happy with the work, work, it's gone so far that we really can't change it. And so we've implemented a few controls within CIPM to have sign-off from the customer.

And so in this case, there was something that was dissatisfactory from facility maintenance that was satisfactory to CIPM. The final decision needs to be made by the people that are going to maintain it in the end. Facility maintenance essentially requested this change order at the general contractor's request, which we see Bernadette and CIP team as the general contractor. They need to build to the standard that the customer wants to maintain it at. And so that's the result of this change order.

There was some weak sheetrock upstairs that was damaged, dried out. There were no mold spores, but we had to change the sheetrock, essentially. So, you know, Mr. Mayor, do we have any other— any discussion from the assembly on this resolution?

Any questions? Question. Question has been called for. All those in favor of the adoption of Resolution Serial Number 59-2026, do so by saying aye by way of roll call vote. Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Assembly President. Trina Paul. Aye. Martin Edwardson. Aye.

Leviat Brunell. Abstain. Crawford Pocadoc. Abstain.

Robin Collette. Aye. Celia Atanaruk. Aye. Michael Donovan.

Frederick Brower.

Aye. Eva Knoback.

Aye. Thomas Jr. Yeah, Assembly President, you have 8 yeses and 2 abstain. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Resolution 59- -2026 has been adopted by the Assembly, Mr. Mayor. Next we have 8B, Resolution 60-2026, resolution waiving competitive bidding for lease amendment to extend the North Slope Borough contract number 2015-013 with UIC Real Estate LLC for property located at Narl and for facilities to be utilized as office space for the North Slope Borough.

Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, listening audience, and for pulling the resolution. This is the old college, essentially college location out at Norrell. Director Evans can read the resolution and walk us through. Any questions that the assembly might have?

Director Evans. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly, and Assemblymember Kinevich. For the record, Scott Evans, Director of Administration. Mr. President, since you read the title, I'll just read the body of the resolution.

Whereas in July 2014, the North Slope Borough entered into a lease agreement with UIC Real Estate LLC under Borough Contract Number 2015-013 as a result of negotiations authorized by the assembly's approval of Borough Ordinance Number 20-13-17, the lease. And whereas the lease premises include certain properties located at the site formerly known as the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory, NARL, to be used for Elisava College, and facilities at 1250 Augvik Street to accommodate the borough's assessing and finance utility billing. And whereas the lease term was expired as of June 30, 2025, and the borough to extend the term for 1 year ending on June 30, 2026, to accommodate the time needed for discussions of a new lease for the premises, and whereas a lump sum payment of $3,214,595.53 is anticipated to secure the 1-year extension of lease, and whereas it is in the best interest of the borough to approve this lease amount as there is currently no other property available for the operation of Elisabeth College and the borough's assessing and finance utility billing. And whereas the Northville Borough Municipal Code 2.36.180 permits a waiver of competitive bidding in excess of $1 million upon approval by the assembly for contractual services or purchases where no competition exists. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Northville Borough Assembly authorizes the mayor to negotiate negotiate and execute a lease amendment to North Slope Borough, contract number 2015-013, with UIC Real Estate LLC to extend the lease agreement in the amount not to exceed $3,214,595.53.

Thank you. We heard the reading of Resolution Serial Number 60-2026. What's the wish of the assembly? Move to approve. There's a motion by Martin.

Do I hear a second? Second. By a way, under discussion, Eva, you had pulled this resolution.

Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I just have a question on the dollar amount, and this is a 1-year lease agreement for $3 million.

Oh, how much, you know, for other properties, how much, um, do we pay for lease agreement, you know, for other properties? I know this is for the college and, um, the finance assessing and finance utility building, but I'm just curious, for other properties, what do we pay? Thank you. Director Evans. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, Assemblymember Knevyuk.

You're correct. This— the total amount is for the portion of NARL, the NARL facility that is for the— that Elisavik uses, utilizes, plus the quantity that's out there they utilize for, for just the college campus as well as the small office building that's behind the UIC main building here in town. That's where our assessing and the utility billing folks are set. For some reason, those were combined in the, in the Elise Abick master lease a number of years ago when this was put together. Um, this— what this allows us to do— we weren't— the borough has negotiated with UIC for the length of, of the previous lease, and we're trying to get to a place where the college can negotiate directly with UIC, so the borough is not the middleman, and we're not trying to be put in a position where we have to have a sublease with Milisavic at that point because it just— it's additional work that really doesn't make much sense.

Um, they were unable to come to a resolution during this last year, and that's why we're asking for this amendment. It's just basically last year's or the previous year's amount plus the escalator that's typically in that lease that had been agreed upon a number of years ago. So that's how we came up with that number. To answer your question about how much we pay for other leases, I don't have that information right in front of me right now. I could certainly put some numbers together and bring it back to the assembly if that's what you'd like for us to do.

Is it comparable to a per square foot basis? Well, Mr. President, that's That's, um, it's hard to answer that question just directly because depending on the, the age of the facility will also drive that cost per square foot at some time. So we can't just look at something and say this square footage of this, this facility compared to the other one. And, uh, so we already tried having El Salvador negotiate directly with UIC and that didn't work out, you said?

Well, they're—. They just didn't come to a resolution, which, um, I personally worked on the lease extension the year before, and I know it's difficult because all the moving parts. And so they just weren't allowed— they weren't able to do so within the amendment that we got the year after the amendment we had last year in order to be able to pay it. Eva, I hope that helped. Do you have any follow-up?

Um, yes, um, so we're, we're doing this on behalf of, um, do we normally pay for, um, at least all weeks portion?

Mr. President, Assemblymember Koneviak, we do usually. This is part of the, the borough's financial commitment to the college every year as they, they to cover this lease.

Mr. President, does that help, Eva?

Um, yes, somewhat, but I, I think that's really steep. And if we're gonna continue doing that, you know, for the lease agreement, you know, you could— I don't know if UIC is able to allow us to purchase land, because paying a lease agreement continually, that's a large chunk. Thank you. Green up, Eva. Mr. Mayor, thank you, Mr.

President, members of the assembly. Sanumun Kenevel. First thing I'll say is that if the assembly would like to postpone this resolution to next month to wait for the square footage report from DOA, we're totally fine doing that. A couple other things that I think are important here, in addition to the in-kind leased— the lease cost that we donate in-kind on behalf of Iliesović to UIC for the lease, right, we have that $13— roughly $13 million, I think it was $12.8 million in operating dollars that we send to the college College to use for the operations of the university. And so that relationship is what we're trying to change that Director Evans is speaking about as to, you know, we'll negotiate for behind Quick Stop for North Slope Borough Assessing Department with UIC for that space, but the college should negotiate on their own behalf for the building that they utilize with UIC.

And then we're trying to make that change, hopeful that we'll get to a resolution of that. And to your point, , as far as land sales, whether it's the housing development project that we're working— we, Director Franz and a few others, met with the housing, UIC Lands Committee a couple of weeks ago. We have a full board, UIC board meeting, I think September 15th for that potential acquisition of land for housing. And then there's also the new wildlife facility negotiations for land purchase that Director Wojciechowski of the Wildlife Management Department is heading up. I've been involved in a few of those negotiations, but what I'll say is that to your point of our village corporation here in Barrow, appetite changing for development of Barrow needs within UIC lands, I would say that that relationship is going a lot better than it has in years passed, and so now we just need to work together to get things across the finish line.

I will say that it took a number of months based on different legal requirements to acquire the laydown yard next to Shop 2, and so UIC indicated to us that they want to get that done before we start discussions on acquisition of any other land, so we just got that completed sometime within the last month where we had to get that check finalized. And the issue with that was that the sale couldn't happen with bond proceeds for the installation of gravel plus the actual purchase of land. We had to split those two things based on real property management fund use. And so to your point, UIC is willing to enter into land sale discussions so that we can get a lot of these things that were done, uh, you know, in the '80s, um, squared away. The other big one that's going to come to is the, uh, 21 singles.

As anybody that's done, uh, civil work, uh, in the water sewer across from Stokbuk there, the 21 singles issue, and then each of the 12 plexes have been on a land lease with UIC since like 1986. And so That relationship with our Native corporation, the borough's relationship with the Native corporation in each community is very important. We're trying to hold up our end of the bargain as far as the commitment so that we can begin moving into the future for what the borough's needs are for all of these different facilities. The next discussion that we're going to be having is— and we invite the assembly at some point in the future to go take a walk through the Barrow High The next discussion that we're going to be having with UIC is where do we want to locate a new high school, because that one's 19— I believe it started construction 1981 or '82, was completed in 1985. So those things are happening.

Those discussions are happening. There's a lot of work to be done. And again, if we want to wait for the square footage comparison, we can— We can wait if that's what the assembly wants to do.

Green up, Mr. Mayor. Set it up, Eva.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Any other questions from the assembly? Mr. President, assemblyman Bernell. Thank you, Mr. President. I, I mean, I don't need to wait, but I would like to know the number on the square footage rate that the North Slope Borough does lease, maybe in the Barrow area, um, and other villages, and to see if it's comparable. Because when we go back to land, the land purchase we did from UIC, and I brought it up then, we paid $1.5 million for whatever acreage where we didn't even have $1.5 million worth of equipment sitting there that was just junk.

So it would be nice to see it comparable, what the square footage rate is. And I think it goes to the broader question of what it's going to cost in different villages when we ask to purchase land there too. So thank you. Any other Discussions, any other questions? Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. President. Um, in my tenure in, in this role, we've stuck for the most part very closely to about $10 a square foot with all of our village corporations. And so we can get the lease comparisons for other things. I know like in the community of Wainwright, we rent from the city for office space.

And major maintenance comes into play on who pays for major maintenance, whether it's the borough or maybe the city, the property owner. And so we can get that comparison. But I will say, by and large, we purchased the multiple properties in Tikiaq, we purchased the properties in Qaqtovik, the property in Barrow that you referenced, and we stuck fairly closely to that $10 a square foot, whether it was the housing department or Public Works that was leading on the negotiations. So, and I have my justifications for Native corporation land going into public ownership. Get private land into the hands of Native corporations.

December 18th, 1971. And if it's going to go back into public land, I believe that a premium should be paid on it at that $10 a square foot. And so I stand by that. All day long.

Okay, Mr. Mayor, do we have any other questions on the resolution?

We have, uh, it's been moved, it's been seconded. Any further discussion?

Was that Robin? Did you call for a question? Call for? Yes.

Question has been called for. On the motion for resolution serial number 60-2026, all those in favor do so by saying aye.

Roll call vote. Roll call vote, I mean. Yeah, Madam Clerk, sorry. All right. Thank you, Assembly President Thomas.

Nipawap Jr. Michael Donovan.

Aye. Robin Klap. Aye. Rafford Patak. Aye.

Avayak Bernal. Aye. Trina Paul. Aye. Martin Edwardson.

Aye. Frederick Brower.

Aye. Eva Kenevek.

Nay.

Celia Atangarak. Aye. Thomas Neparek Jr.

Assembly President, you have 8 yeses and 1 no. Madam Clerk, Resolution 60-2026 has been adopted by the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President.

Look at the follow-up information made available. We know.

Next we have item 9, public hearing. Move to get into public hearing. There's a motion by Martin, seconded by Trina. Any discussion? Call for question?

Question. Call for all those in favor of going into public hearing, do so by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. No opposed, say nay. Hearing none, we are now in public hearing. We have 9A, Ordinance 2014-01-2, an ordinance amending Title 4 of the North Slope Borough Code to establish the North Slope Borough Department of Commerce, recommended to be postponed until October 13, 2022.

26. We also have 9B, Ordinance 2026-02, an ordinance amending certain sections of Title 18, Subdivisions, and certain sections of Title 19, Zoning, the North Slope Borough Municipal Code.

Mayor, clear note, Mr. President, members of assembly listening in audience, I guess in regards to 9 Bravo, our planning department leadership can walk us through the changes and to just start off, I want to thank the Code Book Committee for all the work that those members of the assembly that sit on that committee did to get us to this place. I think we got a good product at the end of the day. So, Director Lemoine.

Thank you, Director. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, Assembly members, listening audience. Chassidy Oliman, Director of Planning and Community Services. Um, it was a good meeting with the Code Book Committee both last month and this month, um, and they did, um, recommend for approval as presented, um, in the packet.

I'll turn it over to Kinneran Wadi, Assistant to She's kind of taken the lead on these changes, working with all the other departments to include their information too, just for the internal review. Unfortunately, I don't have a voice today.

Anakalouata. Kenuan Radi, for the record.

Just read the ordinance. Okay. North Saltboro Ordinance, serial number 2026-02, an ordinance amending certain sections of Title 18, Subdivisions, and certain sections of Title 19, Zoning, of the North Saltboro Municipal Code. Whereas the North Saltboro Municipal Code Titles 18 and 19 contain outdated and unneeded provisions and whereas the amendments to these titles will provide for more efficient and progressive guidance to subdividing and zoning procedures, and whereas the Planning Department staff and the Law Department worked with the Department of Administration, the Department of Finance, the Department of Search and Rescue, the Department of Port Authority, the Department of Housing, and the Mayor's Office during the drafting of the amendments to remove outdated, unneeded provisions and to include further provisions that will provide for more efficient, progressive, and progressive guidance to subdividing and zoning procedures of the North Slope Borough. And whereas, in accordance with the code 19.30.060, the zoning commission must review and make recommendations to, to the assembly on amendments to the text of Title 18 and 19, which govern development within— and whereas the Zoning Commission adopted Resolution 2026-01 on May 14, 2026, recommending the Assembly approve the amendments, a copy of which is attached as Exhibit D, and whereas in accordance with the code 19.30.050A, the Planning Commission must review and make recommendations to the Assembly on amendments to the text of Titles 18 and 19.

And whereas the Planning Commission adopted Resolution 2026-08 on May 28, 2026, recommending the Assembly approve of the amendments, a copy of which is attached as Exhibit C. And whereas the code 19.30.010 requires the Assembly to review to review and act upon all applications for rezoning and amendments to Title 19. And whereas, in accordance with the code, 19.60.090, amendments to text of Titles 18 and 19— 18 and 19— shall be enacted by ordinance of the— by the assembly, which is attached as Exhibits A and B.

Now therefore, be it be it enacted. Section 1: Classification. This ordinance is of a general and permanent nature and shall become part of the Borough Code. Section 2: Severability. If any provision of this ordinance or any application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of this ordinance and the application to other persons and circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

Section 3, Effectiveness. This ordinance shall become effective immediately upon adoption. Section 4, Amendment of Sections. Title 18 and 19 are hereby amended with new language indicated by underlining and bolding, and deleted language by brackets and strikethrough brackets, as annexed in Exhibit A and be hereto for your recommendation.

Do we have any questions from the assembly?

Thank you. Hearing no questions, thank you.

9C, Ordinance 2026-3A, an ordinance appropriating money out of the treasury for fiscal year ending June 30, 2027, recommended to be postponed until September 15, 2026.

9D, Ordinance 2026-06, an ordinance amending Titles I and II of the North Slope Borough Code of Ordinances to authorize the revision and correction of manifest errors. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, distinguished audience. Borough Attorney Kim can walk us through, uh, the ordinance 2026-06.

I will say 2026-3A is a supplemental ordinance that we're scheduling with the assembly in a couple of weeks. So, uh, ask why. Kim, thank you, Mr. Mayor, Mr. President, members of the assembly. Juan Kim, Borough Attorney, for the record. This ordinance for, um, code amendments is presented, uh, for your approval to enact enable correcting obvious clerical errors and such in the borough's ordinances and resolutions.

Um, to provide some background, the current process is to make even the most minor corrections is through the formal motion process under the Robert's Rules of Order, which can be cumbersome and unnecessary at times, especially when the purpose is simply to delete a comma that's not supposed to be there. The purpose of this ordinance is to enable efficiency in that regard without changing the intent of the legislation. This ordinance was presented to the Code Book Committee last week and was approved for recommendation to the Assembly. The entirety of the ordinance, including the exhibit, was read into the record at that time, and so we are requesting to waive the full reading today and instead only to read the whereas paragraphs. With your permission, um, Northboro Ordinance Serial Number 2026-06, an ordinance amending Titles 1 and 2 of the Northboro Code of Ordinance, is to authorize the revision and correction of manifest errors.

Whereas the Northboro Assembly adopts a plurality of ordinances and resolutions during the regular and special meetings of the assembly and whereas from time to time manifest errors of clerical nature are discovered in the ordinances and resolutions before and/or after codification under the North Slope Borough Charter Section 4.050, the correction of which would not affect their meaning and intent, and whereas the existing procedure to correct such manifest errors under the Robert's Rules of Order pursuant to the North Slope Borough Code of Ordinances Section 2.04.01 3.7 is deemed impractical, and whereas the Assembly finds it in the best interest of the borough to authorize the borough clerk to correct said errors, provided that the meaning and the intent of the adopted ordinances and resolutions are not affected. Now therefore be enacted that Section 1, Classification: This ordinance is of a general and permanent nature and shall become part of the Borough Code. Section 2, Severability: If any provision of this ordinance or any application thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the remainder of this ordinance and the application to other persons and circumstances shall not be affected thereby. Section 3, Effectiveness. This code ordinance shall become effective immediately upon adoption.

Section 4, Repeal, Amendment, and Adoption of Sections. Code Sections 1.04.120 and 2.04.120 4.050 are hereby added and amended to read with new language indicated by underlining and bolding, and deleted language by brackets and strikethrough brackets, as set forth below in Exhibit A as part of the Code of Ordinances of the North Slope Borough, for your consideration.

Do we have any questions?

Any questions from the assembly?

Hearing none, moving on to 9E, Ordinance 2026-10B, an ordinance adopting a long-range capital improvement program and financial plan providing for the acceptance of certain powers transferred and appropriating funds to accomplish the capital projects outlined. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President. This ordinance is our normal monthly ordinance, uh, for capital projects. Director Ulliman can walk us through the changes contained therein.

Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, Assembly members, listening audience. Chassidy Ulliman, Director of Planning and Community Services. I'm going to hand it over to Katuk Danner, Assistant to the Director. She does the day-to-day work for the CIP ordinance within the Planning Department.

Good afternoon, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, assembly members, and listening audience. My name is Katuk Danner, Assistant to Director of Planning and Community Services. Section 1, classification. Section 2, severability. Section 3, adoption of long-range CIP and financial plan.

Section 4, acceptance of powers from the cities. Section 5, appropriations. Section 6, education and service center facilities fund. Section 7, public road, streets, watercourse, and flood Control Facilities Fund. Section 8 Public Housing Fund.

Section 9 Water Facilities Fund. Section 10 Sewage Treatment Disposal Facilities Fund. Section 11 Airport and Airport Terminal Facilities Fund. Section 12 Urban Development Projects Fund. Section 13 Light Power and Heating Systems Fund.

Section 14 Section 14, Public Safety Facilities Fund. Section 15, Sanitary Facilities Fund. Section 16, Industrial Parks Fund. Section 17, Communications Fund. Section 18, General Capital Projects Fund.

Section 19, Health Facilities Fund. Section 20, Library and Cultural Facilities Fund. Section 21, Industrial Development Facilities Fund. Section 22, Administration. Facilities Fund.

Section 23, Projects Approved, Responsibilities of Other Agencies or Cities. Section 24, Submission of Applications. Section 25, Grants and Aid. Section 26, Administrative Action. Section 27, Lifecycle Cost.

Section 28, Report of Progress. Section 29, the source of funds for RELI projects. Section 30, general funds project. Section 31, permit review. Section 32, bondable projects.

Section 33, effectiveness and repealer.

I will read the CAPA improvements program project justifications for CIP 2022. AP Project Number 60-120, Bus Pump Station Number 5 Upgrade Phase 2, Project Scope Modification and Budgetary Guideline Revision, decrease of $5 million. Total current budget $1,777,000.

Total project amount $1,777,000. Source description: $5 million in GO bond funds are being transferred from CIP project number 60-120, Bus Pump Station Number 5 Upgrade Phase 2, to CIP project number 60-123, Area-Wide Sewer System Upgrade. Project description: CIPM is requesting that the Project Review Committee considers to reallocate capital funds and budget for projects within Section 10, Sewage Treatment Disposal Facilities. Justification: CIPM is requesting to move funding to the area-wide sewer system upgrades as the funds currently available in account 60-120 are insufficient to complete the planned upgrades at Pump Station Number 5.

Project justification 60-123, area-wide sewer system upgrades. Project scope modification and budgetary guideline revision increase of $5 million. Total current budget $22,204,000.

Total project amount $22,204,000. Source description, $5 million in GO bond funds are being transferred from CIP CIP Project Number 60-120, Bus Pump Station Number 5 Upgrade Phase 2, to CIP Project 60-123, Area-Wide Sewer System Upgrade. Project description: CIPM is requesting that the Project Review Committee considers to reallocate capital funds and budgets for projects within Section 10, Sewer— Sewage Treatment Disposal Facilities. Justification: CIPM is requesting to move funding to complete the Arrowhead Sewer System upgrades, as the funds currently available in account 60-120 are insufficient to complete the plant upgrades at pump station number 5.

CIP project justification 64-132 for the NSB PSO facility phase 1 design. Project scope modification, budgetary guideline revision increase, $265,440. Total current budget, $265,440. Total project amount, $3,268,440.

Source description, $265,440 $1.2 million in new NPRA grant is being appropriated. Project description: the purpose of this grant is to provide funding for the construction of the police department hot/cold storage.

Justification: $59,610 will remain in grant code 4020.G012522 and $265,400 $40 will be partially appropriate to the CIPM code 64132.G012522 for your consideration.

Do we have any questions on ordinance 2026-10B? Any question from the Assembly?

We are still in public hearing.

What's the wish of the Assembly? Get out of public hearing. There's a motion to get out of public hearing. It's been seconded. Any discussion?

Questions? Of course not. Call for all those in favor of of getting out of public hearing and back into our regular meeting. We can do so by saying aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I was supposed to say nay.

Hearing none, we are out of public hearing.

We have 9A, Ordinance 2014-01-2, which is recommended to be postponed until October 13th, 2026. Move to postpone. There's a motion on the floor. Second. Seconded.

Any discussion? Mr. President. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President. With the addition of Director Brower to the administration over the Port Authority Department, my goal with introducing this amendment not only was a name change, there was also some code revisions as far as treating the department not like a normal department amongst the borough.

After some, some discussion, I believe there's another way that we can do it, and it probably is going to result in an enterprise fund creation function under the Department of Port Authority. And so myself and Director Brouwer and the Law Department and a few other departments are working together to make sure that we're creating the proper vehicle so that we can work on some of these major projects within the region, including the, the A-Star Road, as we begin to move to actually building the road, getting the, the gravel surveys, all of those things done, and, and the contracting process that other enterprise funds take advantage of like SA-10, Real Property Management Fund. And so that's what we're debating internally on what's the best way to move forward to accomplish the task at hand. Originally, I thought that it was going to be specific code revisions, but there's already existing enterprise fund that maybe could meet the need of the goal there. And so it may be postponed until the things 13th of October, at which maybe we take action on it with the Code Book Committee and make changes to the code, or maybe we also start the process for developing an enterprise fund.

So we'll keep the Assembly up to speed as those decisions are made internally. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Any other discussions?

Question. Question has been called for. All those in favor of the motion to postpone until October 13, 2026, do so by saying aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. No.

Opposed, say nay. Hearing none, Ordinance 2014-01-2 has been postponed until October 13th, Mr. Mayor. 9B, Ordinance Ordinance 2026-02.

What's the wish of the assembly?

Move to adopt. There's a motion to adopt. Second. It's been seconded. Any discussion?

Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to the planning team. I know that this has been a few years in the making, um, with all of the cleanup revisions that we've looked at for Title 18 and Title 19. Some major takeaways under this piece of legislation, it's 67 pages between the two titles. There's a plethora of cleanup, regular just cleanup amendments, the requirement to advertise on television versus using social media for public notices, those kinds of things.

Modernizing that aspect of it, but also making sure that both Title 18 and 19 reconcile with each other. So if one says that there's a setback of 10 feet and another says there's a setback of 5 feet on one area, we should have the code say the same thing about the same area. A number of other things. One of the more interesting ones on page 44 of 67, you can see the density adjustment. It's, it's a simple number change, but what that— what it then allows for is that under— right now, before you guys pass this and we sign potentially.

You can only have 2 single-family dwellings on a residential lot with administrative approval from the land management officer, which is Chastity— Director Uliman. What this amendment allows for with the density is that on a traditional 70 by 130 lot, 70-foot by 130-foot lot, 9,100 square feet, you can have potentially 4 single-family units on that piece of property with the understanding that you still have to meet fire marshal building separation setbacks, firewalls, etc. And so this is something that, as I was a specialty contractor before taking this office and had done some development projects for ASNA, trying to navigate the different requirements of the— under Title 18 and 19 in a way that doesn't require entire rezones. This is something that I'm excited to see go into place, and coupled that with the property tax waiver that we're working on to come into— to take advantage of the state law that's changing here in a couple of weeks.

Additionally, coupled with the work that we've done in the housing department to try to get more material more affordable to each of our communities, coupled again with the Siwat program, all of these different things, I believe we're creating the environment in which we can help alleviate some of the housing problems without the borough necessarily having to subsidize every aspect of it. So I'm excited to see all of these things come together as, as an entire gear to help with some of the The things that we struggle with in all of our communities. A couple other things that come from this, it clarifies as we have a responsibility as a permitter, when somebody files a permit, we have X amount of days to do something, whether it's public notice, make a determination as a land administrator, all of those things, and we've gotten into little squabbles with people that have applied for permits for if Chastity or the planning department team needs to communicate their decisions in 10 days. Is it 10 calendar days? Is it 10 working days?

Something as simple as that we're clarifying here in the code. So plenty of other changes that modernize and I think really bolster our planning authority to make it clear that we have these different authorities for things that happen in our communities. Another thing, the width of a road was different between the two titles, Title 18 and 19. We've clarified that. You'll see that as arterial setbacks.

And so thank you for the work on this, and thank you really to the planning team for— as is 3 years in the making, so I'm excited to see it put to work. And thank you guys for for the consideration and whatever you decide to do with it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Do we have any questions, any further discussion on Ordinance 2026-02? Questions?

Questions have been called for. All those in favor of the adoption of Ordinance 2026-02, do so by saying aye by way of roll call vote. Madam Clerk. Thank you, Assembly President. Trina Paul.

Aye. Martin Edwardson. Aye. Avayak Bernal. Aye.

Crawford Putkuduk. Aye. Robin Calac. Aye. Celia Atangara.

Aye. Michael Donovan.

Aye. Frederick Brower.

Aye. Eva Kenevac.

Star 6, unmute. Eva Kenebek.

Aye.

Thomas Napraak Jr.

Assembly President, you have 9 yeses. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Ordinance 2026-02 has barely caught it in time there. Ordinance 2026-02 has been adopted by the assembly. Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. President, members of the assembly, and the Code Book Committee for all the work, and Planning Department. Next we have 9C, Ordinance 2026-3A, an ordinance appropriating money out of the treasury for fiscal year ending June 30, 2027, recommended to be postponed until September 15, 2026. What's the wish of the assembly? Move to postpone.

Move to postpone. Been moved twice. Do I hear a second? Second. Second it.

Any discussion? Well, question has been called for. All those in favor of the postponement of Ordinance 2026-3A to September 15, 2026, do so by saying aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay.

Hearing none, Ordinance 2026-3A has been postponed until September 15, 2026, Mr. Mayor. Look forward to the supplemental budget discussion September 15th. Next we have 9D, Ordinance 2026-06. What's the wish of the assembly?

Move to adopt. There's a motion to adopt. Do I hear a second? It's been seconded. Any discussion?

Mr. President. Mr. Mayor. Mr. President, this ordinance comes from my time in the legislature where We operated under Mason's Rules of Order versus Robert's Rules of Order, and it was a quicker process, I believe, from meeting conduct. But essentially, the takeaway is that the administration and the law department and the clerk's office has the authority to make conforming changes based on the intent of the discussion and the fixing of the clerical errors.

So I think this will— expedite the work that we have to do after the assembly takes action on something, and then on the back end of it, right, the clerk is required to make available latest copies of the ordinances and any kind of municipal code amendments that happen. I believe that this will, at the end of the day, create a better product without changing the intent of the work the work that we present to you and to the listening audience and what you take final action on. So I know it sounds like no big deal, but essentially this is the extension of trust between the Assembly, the public, and the administration and the Clerk's Office. So I look forward to the efficiencies that this brings, and hopefully all the time I just talked we can save on other parts of the meeting. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Do we have any other questions or comments on the ordinance? Of course not. Call for all those in favor of the adoption of Ordinance 2026-06, do so by saying aye by way of roll call vote.

Madam Clerk. Thank you, Assembly President. Trina Paul. Aye. Martin Edwardson.

Aye. Levi Brunell. Aye. Crawford. Aye.

Robin Kaler. Aye. Celia Atangarak. Aye. Michael Donovan.

Aye. Frederick Brower.

Aye. Eva Keneback.

Aye. Thomas Nebuchadnezzar Jr. Aye. Thank you, Assembly President. You have 10 yeses. Madam Clerk, Ordinance 2026-06 has been adopted by the assembly.

Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. President. We will fix all clerical errors.

Next is, uh, 9E, Ordinance 2026-10B. What's the wish of the assembly? Move to adopt. There's a motion by Martin. Do I hear a second?

Second. Seconded. Any discussion?

Question. Question has been called for. All those in favor of the adoption of Ordinance 2026-10B, do so by saying aye by way of roll call vote. Madam Clerk. Thank you, Assembly President.

Trina Paul. Aye. Martin Edwardson. Aye. Avayak Brunel.

Aye. Crawford Puttkadap. Aye. Robin Colac. Aye.

Suya Atangara. Aye. Michael Donovan.

Frederick Brower.

Aye. Eva Kneebach.

Aye. Thomas Nebrak Jr. Aye. Assembly President, you have 10 yeses. Madam Clerk, Ordinance 2026-10B has been adopted by the Assembly. Mr.

Mayor, thank you for the adoption. We'll implement the changes and keep capital projects moving. Next item is Item 10. Old business. We have our special meeting tomorrow at 1 PM.

Uh, sound like we have a submit— somebody submitted their names for the vacant spot. Madam Clerk? Yes, Assembly President, we did get one letter of interest and we'll be ready for tomorrow's meeting at 1 PM. Very good, thank you.

We have any other old business from the Assembly?

Any old business from administration? None that I can think of. President, is tomorrow's meeting at 1:30 or 1 o'clock? 1, Right? 1 PM.

Got it, Patrick. 1 PM. Assembly President, the meeting invite I got, it was Showing 1:30.

I stand corrected. I stand corrected. 1:30 Tomorrow. 1:30. Okay, good enough, Frederick, for bringing that up.

It is at 1:30. Thank you, Madam President. All right, do we have any new business from the administration? Uh, no old business, no new business. Mr. President, we do look forward to updating the Assembly.

We have any new business from the Assembly?

Any new business from the Assembly?

Hearing none. Item 12, appearance requests. Madam Clerk, do we have any appearance requests? There is none, Assembly President. There was one request Yes, but they pulled their request, so there's no appearance request today.

Thank you. Next item is adjournment.

There's a motion by Robin Jonah, it's been seconded by Martin.

Any discussion? Question has been called for. All those in favor of adjournment, do so by saying hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Woo!

She said it's cool.