February 5, 2025 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee

I'm going to call the Assembly Finance Committee of February 5th to order at 5:30. Uh, Miss Winder, would you please note the roll? Thank you, Chair Bryson. We have all assembly members present in chambers besides Assemblymember Atkinson, who is available on Zoom, and Assemblymembers Smith and Scandies and Wall, who are absent. All right, and Miss Atkinson, you can hear us okay?

Yes, I can.

All right, uh, so that, uh, brings us to the approval of the minutes. You've read the minutes. Are there any requests for, uh, minute changes?

Seeing none, those minutes are approved. Uh, agenda topics, um, Director Flick, we'll just dive right in.

Thank you, Chair Bryson. This is a change that we made last year that we're continuing this year, which is to have our partner agencies present to you the highlights of what they're working on. These are organizations that are funded regularly. They don't come through as a community grant request. They have received funding continuously over the years, and so they're included as part of the managers' budget.

Um, and so tonight, um, in the randomly drawn order, we'll have Travel Juno, the Juno Arts and Humanities Council, Juno Economic Development Council, Better Capital City, and the Juno Community Foundation. So if you would like to come up, Liz, and, um, make yourself comfortable here, uh Ms. Windle will have the, um, have things available, um, and you can direct her to do next slide, whatever. Mr. Chair, uh, thank you, Director Flick. And so, uh, we'd like to recognize that, uh, Deputy Mayor Smith has arrived.

Uh, no worries, Mr. Smith. Um, so before we begin, uh, I wanted to let the groups know that we're going to give you 10 minutes to do your presentation, and then, uh, that'll leave about 5 minutes for assembly to ask questions for everybody. And, uh, Hopefully it goes along that smooth. Ms. Peer, we're glad to have you.

If you'd like to begin, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Bryson. I appreciate the opportunity to come before the Finance Committee and give you basically a highlights reel of what Travel Juno has been up to for the last approximately 18 months. You have the memo in front of you, and I will be happy to take any questions that you might have as we from the reading of that particular piece. A couple of things that I would like to especially draw your attention to are the efforts that we're putting into local organizations. For example, Aukman Tri.

I have a short blurb in the memo that describes how we're working with that board to increase their participation. They want to grow that race They initially thought they wanted to grow the race pretty significantly to about 500 people, but they have since decided that 200 athletes is about the sweet spot for that organization. Through our efforts in promotion and through social and putting in ads, plus we also provided some seed money so that they could procure extra bike racks and some other pieces for the race itself. As well as hire some professional timers for the race. They actually increased their pool by 50%.

So they had, they've been right around 100 or so athletes every year. This year they had 150. And the race director tells me that almost every one of those people came in from out of town as a result of some promotion that we did on their behalf. So we are doing that again for them this year, working again with, uh, Aukman to, uh, work through an MOA to see what their needs are this year. We will come in at about the same amount, and we are also doing some promotional work for them in an effort to get them to that 2-letter mark where they want to be.

So that's a real success, and then it lines us up then to work with other local organizations to do similar things. And one of those is perhaps a music festival that I know Alaska Music is working on. Marian Call is trying— is putting those pieces together.

We also have an opportunity to do a food festival. That's going to take a couple of years to get ramped up, but we're working with a well-known Alaska chef to see what we can do to get that off the ground in the next couple of years. That would certainly be something that people would travel for. The other piece that I would like to draw your attention to are the videos that we worked we worked with Mary Goddard on, also in collaboration with Sealaska Heritage Institute. These highlight the Totem Pole Walk that has been recently installed.

It also highlights the arts campus at Sealaska Heritage, as well as 3 or 4 Alaska Native artists in various media. So these have been launched and have been picked up by various news outlets, and we're getting some traction on those. We look forward to working with Maryann with SHI to deliver some more video that provide a really authentic look at what Gino has to offer. That's the purpose of these videos, is to roll these out and get people educated and give them some perspective on what is here and the Alaska Native world and get them prepared for coming into Juneau and what they're going to be seeing. So you have in the memo, you do have the URLs to all of these.

They are also all available at the Travel Juneau YouTube channel, so you can view them all there. The print planner is here, and we'll be getting that out shortly at our annual event at the end of this month. And the other piece I want to draw your attention to is TB&P and the crossing guard program. We have put this out to RFP this year. This program did not deliver like it was supposed to this last season and required a lot of work on the TB&P administrator's part to just kind of keep up with what was going on or not going on downtown with crosswalks.

Proposals are due on the 20th, and we will make a selection as soon as we can after we see— receive those proposals. We've heard from at least one other organization that is interested in, uh, in doing this, and we have laid out some very clear deliverables and timing that are associated with the RFP so that we have a better handle on what's happening downtown in terms of the crossing guards, and so that there is more accountability to make sure that those crosswalks are covered. So aside from those, uh, highlights, I am, uh, happy to answer any additional questions that you might have about Travel Juno and, uh, the report that I've given and other things that we're up to. Thank you, Mr. Perry. That was a great report.

Uh, questions from the committee? Mayor Weldon. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ms. Perry, for being here. Can you just talk about— you say you secured over $4.5 million in estimating economic impact.

How does— how do you figure that out? That is a calculation that we got from McDowell Group, basically, now McKinley Group. They provided us a calculation some time ago that we work into our database. And so it is a calculation that considers the number of room nights, it considers the facility rental, it considers the number of attendees, total attendees, the number of people who are going to need those room nights, and overall spending while they're in town. So it takes into consideration catering and other expenses that the organization may incur during the course of that.

It's an old calculation, and I would warrant that this is a very conservative estimate.

Follow, Mad Mayor? Uh, nope, new question. Uh, first of all, thank you for all your, uh, folks who did volunteer hours down at the, uh, information services. Did you have a hard time filling those time slots? Is that a worry for you?

Um, thank you, uh, for that. And through the chair to the mayor, uh, yes, our volunteer corps has diminished significantly since COVID That is true all across the nation. I don't know that there are any organizations that are not having difficulty securing volunteers on a regular basis. We have approximately 80 to 85 regular volunteers down there. When we don't have coverage, then staff goes down and covers those time slots to ensure that we can keep those sites open.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] If there's no questions from the committee, I had a couple. Actually, one just about like, short-term rentals and hotel struggles. Do you have any anecdotal information about how organizations are finding, getting rooms when they're coming up or planning an event in Juneau? What is that experience like for those organizations now? Yes, Chair Bryson, thank you for that.

We are finding that it is a little more difficult for organizations to find hotel rooms, especially in the summer. So we have backed away from attempting to bring in large groups in the summertime for that reason. So for the summer, we're trying to focus, you know, if we've got room and there is capacity, we will try to get that group in. We'll do everything we can. But also focusing on smaller meetings like board meetings, smaller regional meetings of say 100 people or fewer.

And a lot of times we can get rooms and facilities to fill that need. Wintertime, of course, is a whole lot easier. What we are running into is that, again, you know, Centennial Hall is a difficulty because it's not big enough for many organizations that want to come in. I also know the Centennial Hall is busy a lot, and even though when you look at their schedule, it looks like there are gaps in there that we could slide something into, and it's just not it's not workable because they don't have time to turn things over and they've got to give their staff a break. So I think there's a huge opportunity here, both on the hotel side and on the facility side.

I am happy to report that the newly renovated Breakwater, which is now the Waterfront on Glacier, is beautiful on the inside. And we have— they've become tribal partners, and I have referred them actually to Legislative Affairs because they do have some suites available available for long-term rentals. So that's a great— that's a great property to have, um, at our disposal as well.

Thank you, Miss Perry. Any additional questions from the committee?

See none. Miss Perry, thank you for coming and presenting this evening. Thank you for the opportunity. All right, we will move right along. Uh, we have, uh, Juno Arts and Humanities Council.

And then Mr. Holst with JDC, you'll be on deck.

Hello. There you go. My name is Kathleen Harper. I am filling in for Phil Hipshin, who is in DC GEE today, so for the Gene Arts and Humanities Council.

I'm going to be reading from his notes that he sent me.

So we had an annual membership meeting, I think, back in August, and we can progress on to the next slide. Um, so the city funds the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council in several ways. Um, you can see a breakdown of those allocations on this current slide. Um, all of the line items, save for the regranting allocation, remain static from the previous year's amounts. Um, because of this, we were not able to implement any major changes to the JACS programming lineup this fiscal year, although we are working on some new offerings for the summer/fall of 2025.

Uh, regranting saw a notable increase, and you've got the little bubble there describing that, um, last year due to grant recipient demands and intent to use the increased funding to supplement the lack of arts programming within the school district during the budget crisis. Um, you can see we received 151 $60,000 additional last year, totaling for $266,000 for regranting the loan. Some minor notes: the $12,000 rental support is used to supplement discounted community rates we extend to our arts affiliate members in order to make the facilities locally accessible. And the $60,000 admin operating support goes towards covering administrative costs of facilitating, facilitating, excuse me, regranting processes and other activities.

And we can go to the next slide.

So we use some of the granting funds for individual artist grants. These awards go to individual artists for up to $1,000 annually. As you can see on the slide, we have a very healthy applicant pool this year compared to previous years. Artist awarded included Crystal Worrell, James Hoagland, Megan Chambers, who just opened her own gallery, Rochelle Smallwood, and Glo Ramirez. Awards are used to fund specific projects that they apply to the grant or apply to the JAC with, enable travel to regional conferences for professional development in order to expand their practices and artistic protection.

And you can go to the next slide.

We don't have time to go through all the projects that were funded, but here's some highlights. We were able to fund 18 requests from local organizations, our highest number of applications ever. The amount requested last year totaled $295,500.

And we have never been equipped to completely meet the needs of all the requests we receive. Here are a few highlights of how these organizations use the funds for operations, specific projects, and increased interfacing with students in classrooms. I don't know if you want me to read through all the slides.

But each of the, each of the different major grant categories there has just a little blurb about how some of that extra money was spent to increase educational outreach in the arts. So you can go to the next slide. And there's some more.

So following the understanding of the increased funding received last year, the JAC organized a town hall meeting between the Juneau School District administrators and all the major grant recipients. The purpose of this convening was largely to brainstorm new modes of engagement between these groups and a lot of activity that Phil has highlighted on the previous slide was a direct result of these conversations held at that town hall. We aim to turn this convening into an annual offering so that these collaborators can continue to be effective and impactful for Juneau's young people.

And we can move along.

Um, with last year's funding, the JAC did not receive any increase to individual artist grants, admin operations, or rental support. Because of this, we don't have distinct areas of program growth to report to you. However, we are planning to continue purposeful shifts towards enabling community education programs. This will be done through partnership with local organizations and businesses, initially having a focus on event organization and technical education in the summer/fall of 2025. Additionally, we are entering into a period of strategic planning and hopefully this summer will be focused on a 5 to 10 year institutional goal setting and community implementation.

And I believe that's it.

Thank you so much. Questions from the committee? Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for coming to present to us this evening.

I am just curious if you're able to speak to some of the criteria that's used to decide on the individual artist grants. Sorry, it might be Phil that might, but I can talk a little bit about it, but I can also write down the question to have Phil then respond back via email to the assembly.

Typically they have to apply through an application process. They have to put in things like their portfolio, examples of their work, and then a detailed description of how they plan to use those funds and what it's supposed to be used for. And then I believe they have to give some sort of like report afterwards to say, here's how it went. So yeah. That's what I know of the process.

Thank you.

Additional questions?

I had a couple. Um, how many artists benefit from these regranting programs? Do you have like a ballpark figure? How far does that reach go into the art community when you guys regrant?

That's actually a hard one. Um, just because, I mean, there's the individual artist grants, right, that go to a specific artist, but all of the major grants go to organizations who then use those funds for all of their operations. So it would require talking to all the different organizations to get their reports back. I can, I can, um, put that forth to Phil to see if he has better idea of how to get a good view feel of those numbers. I thought this might be a field question, and maybe not— I know I'm not counting each kid that's in Juno Dance that's now celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Thank you for helping them. Um, but an idea like, this is the artist that directly benefited from this regranting, and these are the work— this is the number of organizations. Uh, so a general idea of like how far that reach really goes. And I wanted to applaud the school district for getting creative on getting more art into the school. That's a really good thing that you guys have done here.

Any additional questions from the committee for Ms. Harper? Mr. Kelly. Actually, just a comment. Thank you for filling in.

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

All right, we're just going to keep rolling right along. We have Mr. Holst with, uh, JEDC. Unless Miss Flick, do we need to—. Is there anything going on? All right, we'll just keep rolling right through.

Mr. Holst, if you just want to go ahead and introduce yourself and begin when you're ready. Good evening, thank you for having me. I'm Brian Holst, I'm the director of the Juneau Economic Development Council. Great to be here, great to hear these presentations. We have amazing community, we have a lot of great community partners, I appreciate that support.

I have a brief update for you. Next slide, please. The—.

We have been in existence as a non-profit serving our community since 1987. For those of you that may not know this, it's a reminder, this was— the organization was created by an effort of the City Assembly and the Juneau Chamber of Commerce to create a third organization to focus on Juneau's economy, and we've been doing that since 1987. We're a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and we have a diverse set of funding, including, of course, annual support from the Assembly since 1987. Next slide, please. Our mission is Juno first, but it's Juno and Southeast.

You'll see that we participate in activities that focus on Juno. You touching your ear because you can't hear me? No. Sorry, I thought you were giving me a signal. Thank you.

It's Juneau and Southeast. So we focus on Juneau primarily, but we're looking at very much interested in how the region does as well. Of course, we know that how the region goes, Juneau goes. And we have a similar attitude about willingness to participate in activities of the state because that has a big impact on us as well. Next slide, please.

We have a number of supporters for our programs. We also have a group of organizations called investors, and those are organizations that, including you, that provide to us annual support. And with that support, we're able to leverage our resources and get additional support. But thank you very much for your support. And these, um, most of the rest of these are private companies.

Next slide, please. Our board is an appointed board. We delegate the responsibility of the appointment to our board to you as assembly. You make your appointment. We have 2 permanent seats on our board, the Mayor of Juneau and the Chancellor of the University of Alaska Southeast.

Thank you, Mayor. Welton has served on our board for many years. Thank you very much. Our staff, we have a a staff of quite a number of people. You know, we have— next slide, please— we have 18 people on our sort of a regular payroll.

When you— when you— we have 8 full-time, the rest are part-time of some, some type. And then we, in the summertime, we have an additional approximately 30 staff that join us to to do seasonal activities, summer camps, and other activities downtown. So it's, it's grown to be a substantial amount of work happening in the organization. Next slide, please. We work in 5 areas.

This is a kind of an evolution with, um, in communication with the Assembly and our board. We've arrived at sort of these 5 focus areas, then I'll give a little bit of a highlight of some of the activities in each of them. Next slide. Next slide. So on this, I'm not gonna read through, I'm just gonna cherry-pick a few of these that I think just you would be interested in.

And again, we were asked to focus on sort of activities that we're working on this year, right? This current fiscal year. We've been doing a little more surveys than, we're doing quite a few surveys this year. We proposed last year to get some support, additional support from the assembly for some additional survey work. You decided not to provide that support.

We were gonna do some of that work anyway. We're just maybe not moving as fast or as deep in those surveys, but we are conducting that work nonetheless. We just completed a survey. We did two surveys this fall, one with seasonal workers, essentially an exit interview with people that worked in Juneau in the summertime and basically in the tourism business. To kind of query them about under what conditions might you want to move back to Juneau and what was your experience.

And then we conducted another survey of non-resident workers, so those people that hold jobs in Juneau, year-round full-time jobs in Juneau, but live outside of Juneau. And as you can imagine, most of those are miners, right? That's a big segment of those, and we have the preliminary results. We presented those results to the two mines yesterday. We're getting a little bit of feedback from them, and we'll have a report which we'll share with you as soon as that is ready.

We're also conducting, in coordination with the Alaska Committee, we do a survey of legislators and staff during the legislative session. We do that every 3 or 4 years. And we do that, the Alaska Committee gives us a small grant to assist some of those costs. And it helps us to, helps you, all of us in the community to understand really what are the issues that, what are the concerns of legislators so that we can be a great capital city. So we get a great hospitality while here.

It's given us quite a few good insights that the community has acted on. We've been looking at some properties, particularly in the downtown area that are undeveloped, and we're looking, working with partners and trying to reactivate some. It's an effort that's, uh, long and slow, and I wish I had a little bit more to report on. The board did make an offer on a downtown property, and we're in negotiations with them. It's a property that the only reason the board chose to make that offer was because there was no private investors that were stepping in and making it.

We don't know where that will go. But if it does, the, the role of JDC would be to initiate the project, reactivate the property, and then sell it back into the market once it's activated. Next slide, please.

Under strengthening key regional industries, there's a— this is our cluster work, for those of you that are familiar with that term. Clusters being an economic term about those traded industries, those groups of businesses that bring in money from outside. We work really closely with the visitor industry in particular. It's really granular work. It's, you know, as demand for the tourism and recreation grows in America, people come to our region and they need things to do, products, right, visitor products.

And we work very closely with the Forest Service in getting access for commercial operators onto the Tongass so that people can have the great experience they want. It's also, we're also undergoing this year, it's a multi-year process, a plan revision for the Tongass Forest. As you all know, we live in the largest forest in the United States. The forest plan is basically the sort of the It's the planning document, it's the guiding document for the uses on the forest, typically updated every 10 or 15 years. Our plan in the Tongass hasn't been revised since 1997, it's almost 30 years.

The previous plan is heavily focused on extraction of timber and the American people want to see recreation happening, so we're working closely with that process as well and we do some of that work under contract with the federal government. We've assisted at the founding of the Navy League. We continue to host the Maritime Festival. We had a fun meeting this afternoon. It was the first meeting of the year where we met— meet with the committee of volunteers that support the Juneau Maritime Festival.

We created that in 2010. Last year there were about There were 94 vendors, lots of vendors. We count the, when able to, we count the participants, and it has grown to become the, besides the Fourth of July, which is, you know, I don't know if we try to compete with Fourth of July, but besides that, it's the sort of biggest outdoor event that happens in Juneau. It's the first weekend in May, and we're once again looking at Cold storage facility in Juneau, that's a project that the JDC has looked at several times over the years, and we see the— it's not lost on anyone how challenging the seafood industry is these days. We see an opportunity in talking to our local processors that there could be— we could increase our landings, increase value-added, increase jobs in Juneau and anchor an important industry more deeply into our community with a cold storage.

So we're in conversations with, with owners of our two major processors and other interested parties in evaluating whether that can be feasible or not. Next slide, please. And our entrepreneurship and small business work, we We're gonna have the Innovation Summit coming up. We host an event to highlight entrepreneurship. We're excited that we had 16 contestants sign up for, compete for the 5 opportunities to pitch at the Innovation Summit.

So I hope you come out to the Innovation Summit and watch the pitch contest. It's gonna be great this year. We continue to support an Angel Conference which allows, it's organized under the Alaska Crowdfunding Act. Which JADC and others had some success in getting the state to create several years ago, which is an opportunity for non-accredited investors, which means most of us in the room, regular folk, to be able to invest up to $10,000 a year in Alaskan businesses. Next slide, please.

Develop Talent is a— just another dimension of the work that we do. We're really supportive of the need in our state for, and in our nation, for people with skills in science, technology, engineering, and math. We support a national program, FIRST Robotics, with a statewide organizer for that. We're proud that there are over 2,000 young people in Alaska participating in this program. 170 Teams across 54 communities, all run out of Juneau.

It's our self-interest in Juneau. In order to bring that high-quality programming to Juneau, somebody had to run it for the whole state. The Juneau Douglas High School competed with 6 high school teams in, in robotics this year. So exciting that we're able to support this statewide but also have an outsized impact here on on Juno. And of course, we continue to lend to businesses, and we will now consider equity investments in businesses when that best meets the needs of the entrepreneur.

World—.

The elder care. I feel like I've passed my 10 minutes. I hope I'm not in trouble.

Wrap it up.

Next slide. I'll just go there since you can— the ARPA program, it says closeout. Just want you to know we have substantially finished the ARPA program almost 18 months ago. The design of that program— we're the contractor under that program— that the design of the program for the second phase was to give awards of 85% of the estimated awards. Then these businesses had to verify that they use those funds correctly.

I can tell you that not everybody verifies and uses the funds correctly, so it is a longer process than any of us anticipated. The state, when we signed this contract with the state, they gave us 5 years. We had no idea that it would extend beyond a year or two, but we're still— we're all at this point, we are only collecting from people that didn't use the funds well. And under the terms of our contract with the state, if enough funds are collected, it's our responsibility to potentially redistribute that. But essentially, we're on standby as the state collects funds from businesses that didn't use them according to the rules set by the state.

We have the Innovation Summit February 26th and 27th this year. Please join us. Next slide.

We have many partners to do our work. We, the Alaska Dome Corporation, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity which is a partner of JDC, we call it affiliated organization. We're proud that that organization is available in the community. Once again this year, like last year, it distributed the funds collected by the community through the Juneau Community Foundation to people affected by the Yokulu and does other services in our community. We have the ability to support, host some other organizations' administrative needs through the administrative capacity that we have at our organization, and we do that as well.

Next slide.

In our return on investment slide, This is— this 5-year look at our investments was created from feedback directly from this body, but maybe before most of you were on the assembly. It was a question about how do you calculate the return for our work, and so what we came up with many years ago, and we just continued to use this similar methodology over the years, is to look at the previous 5 fiscal years. In the past 5 fiscal years, you have given to the Juneau Economic Development Council about $1.8 million. We have taken that $1.8 million and we have managed another $10.3 million of resources because we receive grants or we receive contracts. And in our region, the $91 million in our region, Those are funds that we then were able to bring into our— into businesses in Southeast Alaska, primarily because the last 5 years we experienced COVID and JDC was one of the largest distributors of assistance in the state through contracts.

We managed quite a few of the money of the funds that the City and Borough of Juneau had, certainly the ones directed towards businesses. And then we also assisted the state with two of their large contracts. The numbers, you know, there's another $100-something million more that we distributed to businesses throughout the rest of Alaska. But the impact, as we agreed with the assembly many years ago, we would only look at the impact on our region. Next slide.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Holst. All right, questions from the committee about JEDC?

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Holst. Um, on the possible, you know, downtown property, there's a benefit of JEDC potentially buying those— buying a property.

And I mean, like, you have access to other financing or grants or things that a private investor wouldn't? You're breaking up a little bit unbelievably between here and there. Yeah, I was just wondering if by— if JEDC buying any of these properties, like, does it leverage additional funds or financing that, you know, a private investor would not? Mr. Ohls. Thank you.

Through the Chair, we are— yep, potentially. We have approached some large foundations in the state that are interested in making investments. So part of what the— if we were to be involved in investments, we have programming goals as well. You know, we have a potential partnership that would include a storefront that would support entrepreneurship development. Meaning an opportunity for new businesses to operate when there could be some support for that.

And then we have potential supporter that's interested in seeing increased housing, affordable housing, and then there could be some potential grant resources coming towards those. We have no promises from anyone. We are just in conversations. We do have a grant reading organization that has given us the red light to submit a grant that will be considered considered in a, in a meeting later this summer from a large foundation. Thank you.

Additional questions for Mr. Holst? Mr. Holst, I had one. Um, I, I've heard this cold storage idea. Uh, how much space, uh, is the initial thought that it require to have a cold storage? Like, is there part of Juneau that, that people are looking at for a cold storage?

Is it that far, or is it just still a a thought in the air? There's a potential location identified. There are— we have some rough estimates of potential use. And what's happening is that there's an emerging mariculture industry, and there's a considerable amount of investment in that space. Those companies need some storage capacity, But they also will need some processing ability as well.

So we're looking at, you know, it's really, I don't wanna go into too much detail. I'm not— I'm already ill. But there are real actors interested, a combination of private and potentially nonprofit granted funds to help this come together. Excellent, sounds exciting. Any additional questions for Mr. Holst, JC, and Ms. Hall?

Thank you, Chair Bryson and Mr. Holst. Um, in just maybe 3 short bullets, uh, what would be the best we could do in our community to support immigration? What are the 3 top priorities? Yeah, excellent. Bullets: community land trust investments, increased support for, uh, early education, child care, and consider investments to attract workers in key demographics.

I think there are some companies that you could potentially match, uh, uh, bonus or attraction dollars that they're willing to put in that the city could could match as well. You limited me to 3 bullets. That's what I can do. Opportunity to follow up. Thank you.

Last call for questions for Mr. Holz. Is that you, Mr. Kelly? I was thinking about following up on Ms. Hall's question. So you said investment to attract workers in a specific demographic. Which demographic?

Would be adults with children, 0 to 18. Thank you. Thank you for that question. I was curious how he was going to answer that. Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Holts. We appreciate you coming in and sharing with GPC. We now have Better Capital City, the Alaska Committee, KTOO.

Thank you for joining us this evening. When you're ready, you can go ahead and hit the green button, and try to keep it to about 10 minutes, and have a few questions for you. One more time. There you go. We're good.

All right. My name is Justin Shulman. I am President and General Manager at KTOO Public Media. I'm here to talk a bit about Gavel Alaska and of course our partnership with the Alaska Committee and everything that the Alaska Committee has assisted with in the past year and then some. KTOO Public Media's 360 TV Gavel Alaska provides all Alaskans with live, unedited coverage of the state's legislature.

This includes all Senate and House floor sessions, press conferences, other committee meetings and legislative events. We also broadcast and stream the Alaska Supreme Court, other press conferences, briefings, and the executive branch when press conferences take place here in Juneau. Occasionally we can partner with KTUU in Anchorage to provide footage when those press conferences happen in Anchorage, but of course our primary focus is here in Juneau. Gavel has been around for 30 years now. The pilot run was back in 1994, where we just broadcast, I think it was a week, maybe a couple weeks, just to see how it would go.

So our first full year— sorry, that was '95. Our first full year of broadcasting the entire session was 1996. So key anniversary coming up next year. Go to the next slide. Thank you.

Just a quick overview in terms of service provided with our statewide government access. In the past year, Gavel Alaska provided 864 hours of legislative coverage, 48 hours of judicial, and 8 hours of executive from Juneau. And again, a little bit from Anchorage when we can work with KTUU. Of course, all with the goal providing access and transparency across our vast and disconnected state to the state capital and what's happening here in Juneau. Next slide.

Oh, can we go back to Juneau Jobs?

There we are.

So with grant funding from CVJ, you help provide about 10 positions in total to support the GAVEL ecosystem, if you will. That includes one executive producer who is a year-round staff member with KTOO, one marketing and development position that is yet to be hired, and then during this session we have anywhere between 6 to 8 temporary staff. And part of what your investments have allowed us to do as well is invest in the technological infrastructure. So now we have robo-cams outfitted throughout the entire, or at least most of the Capitol building. So if you come to the KTO facilities during the session, it's a pretty hopping place downstairs with all of our control rooms full broadcasting up to 3 meetings at any given point.

One going out statewide on television, and the other two available on stream. Next slide.

In the past year, in terms of collaboration, we've made a couple key investments. That includes a new dedicated connection to ensure that our feed gets to Anchorage with limited latency. From Anchorage, it's picked up by Alaska Public Media, where it is broadcast to the the entire Anchorage area, including their coverage in the Matsu. It's also picked up by Alaska Public Media and transmitted to Denver via the Alaska Rural Communications System, where 360 TV and Gavel Alaska do reach the entire state, even the most rural corners, provided that the Arc's infrastructure is functioning. In those places, there are a few where it's down.

We've also invested in a new dedicated connection to ensure our signal gets to KUA. KUAC up in Fairbanks with limited interruption. Some of you who have been around for a while may remember that we, we were actually off the air for a while in Fairbanks a number of years ago. But that is now again a strong relationship, and we invested in that new connection system just last year. Other collaborations include KTUU, who I've mentioned, and then other Gabel Productions include The State of the State, which of course just happened last week.

And that also this year included a pre-show to provide a bit of context to what's happening in the legislature with guests from Capitol Views, the Alaska Beacon, and KTOO. We're the principal source of legislative video for nearly every other media outlet across the state. And that includes television, digital, virtually everyone is reliant on Galvo Alaska and the services provided by Galvo Alaska for access for their own reporting. And we also work very closely with the State Office of Legislative Affairs. That's where our partners in installing all the robo-cams, and we trade streams and production feeds back and forth as needed to ensure that the entire state, no matter where they're accessing it, has access to everything that's happening.

Next slide. Just wanted to mention a couple state or special projects, the most recent being the ranked choice vote count. And we did this in both '22 and '24, and that's working in close collaboration with the Alaska Division of Elections. So that was an opportunity for everyone to sort of take a peek inside of that process and see how it works. Um, very proud of that production this year.

And then finally, and I think this really gets at the bulk of where, uh, much of our investments have been made recently as we've seen significant changes in, in people's viewing habits, um, is really enhancing our digital infrastructure across the board. Um, as everyone here is no doubt aware, GCI ditched their cable system a number of years ago in favor of UConn TV, and now they're also sunsetting UConn TV, so it's leaving a bit of a vacuum in terms of some of the television service provision as people are moving to more streaming platforms. And then of course we're also seeing expansion, expansion of broadband and satellite internet throughout the state, which is making some of these streaming options more accessible. This little graph, well, it doesn't show huge growth. It does show consistent growth of what we're seeing with just our Roku TV app.

And this actually goes back to last year going into the final quarter of '24. So during session, we were just over 2,500 views. We typically see a reasonable spike around Q3 each year. That's a fiscal quarter for us. So that's January to March, that's when, of course, the legislature convenes.

And while I don't have a slide here for our Apple TV app, the numbers are similar. Apple TV came after our Roku app, so it's not quite as adopted at this point. But we've been making some very focused pushes to do that and also investigating what other smart TVs and devices in Alaska where we want to make investment to develop those apps. Next slide. And this one, getting sort of our raw numbers, it's a little bit hard to read, but contextually, it shows last year what our streaming activity looked like just over the months of January, February, and March.

Unfortunately, I don't have a comparative slide, but I can tell you that March of last year was 25% above what we saw from just the previous year in terms of streaming activity. And I think that total number— well, hard to read on my printout— is about 37,000 folks interacting with streams. And the colors represent— blue is a live stream through Gavel or another platform. The red is interfacing with archives. And the yellow would be streaming directly off one of the apps.

So we're seeing continued adoption, and then of course we see an additional spike in April, in part because the legislature is getting toward the end and also because we livestream Folk Fest. So, so an added benefit of all this infrastructure is the additional traffic we see for Folk Fest and other big events like Auk Rock Celebration and the like.

So then finally, in speaking to our partnership outcomes, Our priorities remain a continued investment in broadcast infrastructure improvements to ensure that sort of our primary product is still solid, enhanced digital capabilities where we've highlighted some of the investment, continued expansion of 360 TV and Gavel Alaska digital platforms, and that's marketing as well. And that's one thing I have yet to highlight, but we partnered with the Alaska Committee in the past year to engage in a marketing project. And I do believe that we are beginning to see some of the returns this year. We contracted Cedar Group here locally to, to build a marketing plan and help us implement some new marketing strategies. And I think one of the first indicators of that success is that this year our sponsorship revenue is record high, and it surpassed the prior record 2 years years ago by nearly 15% at this point.

So sponsorship is looking very strong, and I think that is in part at least due to our ability to get the word out. And that's also where we're looking to make that investment in having that full-time position on our staff. One other digital expansion piece that I would like to call out is we've also invested this, this year in a captioning service. It's AI-fed, so it has some funny little errors at the moment, but it's learning and it has a dictionary, so we're also teaching it. It doesn't appear on the broadcast feed, but you will find it on all of our streams and all of our archives.

It has an added benefit of it keeps a transcript of every meeting in the archive. So if you're just looking for a specific part of a meeting, those transcripts are now searchable. One of the things that we're also going to be investing in, probably not this year but next year, is the digital infrastructure to actually, when you click on that piece of the transcript, not just read it, but it'll take you to that part of the the video as well. That's going to take a little more digital engineering than we have the capacity to do during this session, but we're hoping to have that ready by 2026.

And I believe that's it. The final thing we'd like to do this year, pending staffing, is launch an email newsletter as well, just as one more vehicle to keep folks around the state connected to Juneau as a capital city and to what's happening on Gallo, Alaska. So thank you very much for your support. Thank you, Mr. Schellman. Questions for Better Capital City?

I did want to comment that I think that— oh, I'm sorry. Just my quick comment is that I believe that every one of us on here has some experience at being behind the camera during the candidate forums. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to be up here. So, uh, thank you for that. Um, whose hand went up?

Miss Hall. Good comment, thank you. I'm just really appreciative of the work you folks do and enabling all of us to, to tune in to what's happening. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Michelle. Um, we are now on to the Juneau Community Foundation. Chair Bryson, Ms. Gilbride will be presenting via Zoom, so we're bringing her over as a panelist right now. Excellent.

Ms. Gilbride, good evening. Can you hear us? Yeah, can you hear me? Got you loud and clear. You may begin whenever you're ready, ma'am.

Okay, so, um, I don't have a PowerPoint presentation. Um, I am out of town. Um, I did provide a report to you all on the 2025 grant funding that we received, and I just first want to thank you all for this opportunity to provide an update on what's been happening with those grants. So we gave out 21 separate grants for a total of $2,930,000, almost $31,000, and that included both $1.76 million from the city and $1.017 million from the Juneau Community Foundation.

In the letter that I provided, it talks about the different areas that we give the funding to. We give it for healthcare, adult education, increasing income stability, tackling homelessness, preventing suicide, addressing substance, um, misuse, supporting mental health, and providing relief for victims of violence. Um, each year we go through a fairly lengthy process where we support and connect with the organizations that have been provided grants. We received the interim reports from each of these organizations for the 2025 fiscal year grants early in January and have been able to look them over and see what, what people have been doing. I do have information sort of, you know, like 6,500 to 7,000 nights in shelter were provided.

Many thousands of meals were served, and so there's, there's a lot of statistics. But one of the things that I found over the years in doing this program is that providing some of the stories that show how these funds benefit individuals helps to bring it to life, because it's, it's hard to make the figures feel like individuals when you talk about such large numbers of support being given out.

We just finished our Listen and Learns this year for 6 Listen and Learns. The—.

Well, let me back up a second and say I've also provided attachments in your packet that show the 2024, what we call '24, but fiscal year '25 grants and utility— CBJ utility waivers that were given out last year.

And we have in the packet a chart that shows the grants that have been given out for the— over the 9 years that we've done this program in conjunction with CBJ, sort of who— which organization received how much money each year. And a cumulative total for each organization. It's also broken down into what funds were HOPE funds and what funds were CBJ funds. As far as the agencies applying, they're not applying for one funding source or another. They're just applying to the Juneau HOPE Endowment CBJ Social Service Grant Program.

We ensure— the only ones that we ensure get certain funds are when they are city-adjacent agencies like, um, oh, like the youth shelter, the hospital, um, the police force, the school district. They all get HOPE funds when they receive any funds.

From the 6th Listen and Learns that we held recently, um, and these were covered the major areas that we give out funds in. The 5 most important areas to address that became very apparent overall was first, homelessness is not decreasing in our community. We have spent money to try and keep people housed and through these grants, and we also assist with the nonprofits who are willing to develop additional housing to provide units of housing for folks. Which not only supports and provides permanent supportive housing, but also brings in significant money to Juneau, thanks to the Assembly's starting the ball rolling by providing grants to the organizations that are developing these housing units. While, while housing has been an issue and continues to be an issue, and homelessness It was sort of interesting this year, but sort of disheartening too, because the overriding sense is that substance use and mental health, behavioral health support are, are stressing our whole, our whole system in many ways.

And so that's something that we're looking at as we look at the funding for the next round of grants. How do we help support that? Where can we provide some assistance. One of the other things that became clear is service coordination and workforce development. A lot of organizations are having difficulty filling positions that were funded, whether they were funded by these funds or by federal funds.

Doesn't make a difference, it just is difficult to fill them for a couple of reasons. One, lack of, lack of personnel who are willing to do those jobs. Two is that they can get better paying jobs in different, um, from different agencies in town and better benefits than they can get at the nonprofits. Um, and those are sort of looking at— that's the reason they're looking at, can we help train more people in Juneau who are willing to take positions as more entry level and working up in getting different certificates and abilities to assist people? And the 5th area was looking at food access and distribution.

And, um, we're working with the Southeast Alaska Food Bank and others to try and do better coordination of food delivery from a lot of different agencies and individuals around town. Um, so those were the main issues that I had. It's interesting, um, other people have pointed this out in some way or form, but Four Acre Group up in Anchorage did a survey of nonprofits and jobs, and they found that in Juneau, 9 to 16% of our workforce— and I know that's a big— they categorized it by large, by I think almost 20% each time, but 9 to 16% of jobs in Juneau are at nonprofit organizations, and these do include health organizations, which are the largest, you know, employer in the state for nonprofits.

So I just want to really thank you all for the funds. We are looking at this year over, over $4 million in requests, about $1.5 million in requests more than there's funding for. And while we are grateful for the amount that the Assembly has provided last year and are requesting that same amount this year, because many, many of the organizations receive funds through us, we've been instructed that they would come back through us to ask for additional funds. So we are also looking at this time at additional funding requests to see what will come back to the Assembly for through the other, the non-partner process, the community process. And again, thank you very much.

It's just essential to have city support for these nonprofits that provide the Yeomans, you know, the, the most the largest part of the workforce working in these areas with a lot of difficulties that they face every day. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Skillbred, for the presentation. Questions from the committee? Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Skillbred, for all you do for our community and the help you provide us to make sure these funds make it to organizations doing good work. I probably know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What is the trajectory of other— I'm going to say others— like non-CBJ fund support for nonprofits?

I mean, your organization, private donations, you know, foundations providing grants, the federal government. Is it staying flat, going up, going down? Ms. Gilbert. Yeah, thank you for that question. And through the Chair, I would say that, you know, if we include the housing development, it's going up.

And I say that because we're, in the past year, raised, I think it was about $4 million of the $6 million needed for Housing First Phase 3, and we're currently in the process— by we, I mean the nonprofit community— currently in the process of raising about $9 million of the $11 million that's needed for Gasno Human Services. And so there's a fair amount of money that comes in for building. There's also money from the Alaska Mental Health Trust, from Rasmussen, from private foundations that comes in and supports programs. We have some new foundations just recently have started providing, you know, $100,000 or more for programs. Specific one was for food, Food for Kids, which is something that we do every year.

We raised $300,000 for that this year. That's the most that we've ever raised, and that comes from having two $200,000 donations or grants. So I think it's going up. At the same time, a little bit of uncertainty because of the congressionally designated funding and what might happen there. So, you know, it would be interesting to see what happens, hopefully interesting, positive.

With federal payments that are undergird a lot of our low-income people and a lot of the organizations in town.

Madam Mayor, uh, thank you, Ms. Gilbert, again for your work you do and for being here tonight. Um, when you're looking at, um, giving grants, how do you ensure that you're not duplicating efforts for that one entity is doing the same thing as the other, as entity A is doing the same thing as entity B? How do you make sure that you're getting money to the right entity doing the right thing? Ms. Gilbert. Yeah, thanks again through the chair.

I'd say that the way that we make sure of that is by bringing people together many times during the course of the year. And when we bring— when I bring these people together, they're usually the agency leaders, and they discuss together what's needed and where the gaps are that they see for their clients, not for their organization, but what's needed to support their clients altogether. And You know, I check in before we look at something that's new. I have to have a lot of organizations that provide these services say, yes, this is something that we think should be done, because I don't know intrinsically. I'm not working in that area 24/7, but we have a lot of really hardworking, bright people who are, and they can assess and say whether— is that what's needed?

And I think That's part of what I'm doing with them going forward, looking at any additional requests for funding is, you know, if it's a brand new program, is that really the right thing to do? Or should we be ensuring and shoring up the programs that we have and providing marginally additional things in the, in those areas instead? So I'd say that's one of the ways. I also have a professional advisory committee that we put in place early on. That looks at all the grant applications and looks at the letters of interest and the initial applications as well.

And a lot of those people are grantors to the nonprofits in town, and so I will talk with them if I hear something that sort of makes me think, oh, I need to find out a little bit more about what they're doing to assist in this area. And From those funders that I've talked with a fair amount, they are incredibly pleased with how different Juneau works than, say, Anchorage for nonprofits in, in this specific area of social services, that the nonprofits here are working together to figure out what housing is needed, working together to ensure that the Teal Street Center and the campus there with the Glory Hall and Saint Vincent de Paul all together, how do they best provide services to those who need them? And then adjacently, JAMI discussing their, you know, they own the building that used to be Juneau Youth Services, I believe, or one of those buildings, and looking at how they can provide services there that assist that area where most of the folks who need a high level of services are located. So I think it's, it's really been, you know, 9 years of working with these organizations and having a great deal of trust in them as they do in the Foundation. So, follow up, Madam Mayor.

Additional questions? Um, I had one. Um, you mentioned a little bit how, um, sometimes you get supporting grants. Do you—. Is there discussion about how using CBJ money, does it leverage other grant money to have this Juno money and I know that that's probably not an appropriate scenario for everything that is funded, but is there some— can you speak to some level of the leverage?

I don't know if I'm asking that right. Yeah, I can speak somewhat. I've never asked the question specifically for everyone to report how is this leveraged other funds. I do know that for several of our main organizations in town that provide social services, the funds that we're able to provide to them are, are the match that they need for federal funding. And so, and that's a huge piece because federal funding is usually 20-25%, and so the match is, is, is large there.

With every building, it's imperative to have CBJ funding in first, or say that, you know, they will— you all saying that you will provide the funding. And that has enabled us to build the whole of Housing First phases 1, 2, and 3 was the city stepping up first and saying we support this. And that's what's enabling the units at Gaston Human Services to go forward as well.

Well, thank you, Miss Gilbert, for doing good work with CBJ money. Any additional, uh, questions or comments, uh, for Juno Community Foundation? Miss Gilbert, thank you for joining us while you are out of town. We greatly appreciate you, uh, coming and speaking to the Finance Committee tonight. Have a good rest of your trip.

Well, thank you, and thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate it.

Uh, that concludes our partner agency program update. Um, Ms. Flick, did you have any last comments? Uh, what would be the next, um, steps, uh, for these groups?

Uh, Chair Bryson, for these groups, uh, that are part of our partner, um, agencies, they're providing, uh, budget information to staff. We're including that with the manager's proposed budget. Um, if they have any additional requests above, um, basically the status quo they would be seeking Assembly sponsorship, as would any other community organization that's seeking grants. Excellent. Any other comments or questions about where we are in this phase of things?

I was going to have us take a— I was going to say a 10-minute break, Madam Mayor, but we'll see everybody back in a few minutes. We're adjourned.

Bring us back to session.

Mr. W. Mayer, you ready to come back? Okay. All right. So we're— I want to thank again the partner agencies for coming this evening. We're moving on to the assessment ordinance 2025-09.

Director Flick. Thank you, Chair Bryson. Uh, if you would like to turn to page 56 in your packet, uh, you'll see a memo from our Law Department, and on the following page you will see part of the ordinance, uh, that was recently introduced, um, regarding aligning our code with the, um, state changes, uh, to the law, Senate Bill 79. What we wanted to do in bringing this back to you is make sure that we had a good— or that you had an opportunity to have a good policy discussion on one component that was formally required by the state. And when we presented an ordinance to you, we, um, following along with the state, we lined it out so it would no longer be in CVJ code.

And we want to make sure that you have a discussion and ensure that you really want that part to come out. And this revolves around tax abatements that are given for economic development. And so the state law used to require that you could abate the tax— property tax— except for the portion that was attributable to the local education. So every year when we, uh, work through the budget process, a determination is made on how much is going to the school district, determination is made on the mill rate. We back into basically that component of the mill rate that really funds education.

And so previously in the state law, you could provide a tax abatement scenario, but you could not abate that portion. So with the state law change, They took that out as a requirement, but you still have the option of whether you want to leave that in code and require economic development abatements to still collect, or that the, the city would collect that component that's attributable to education, or you could choose to remove that and give economic development abatements that is the full component of the property tax. For reference, right now we have, um, one property, um, that meets the economic development requirement, um, and their 2024 component of their property tax that was attributable to the education was just under $70,000. We do know that some of the affordable housing loans that have gone out will result in more properties coming on the rolls that would qualify under this exemption. So the, the question for you to consider is, do you want to continue to collect the amount of property tax attributable to education, or do you want to remove that from code and give full property tax abatement for those properties that qualify under economic development abatement.

And I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you, Mr. Flick. Yes. So, everybody get your questions ready. We'll start with Mayor Weldon.

Clear as mud. So, let's just take a stab at this using ROW thing. So, I think— Education is 2.65, correct? So you're saying right now, or maybe I have this backwards, there's a property that's built for economic development, whatever your definition of that one is, and right now they pay the 2.65, but the rest can be exempt? Or are you saying we can change it so all of it's exempt?

Is it vice versa, or is that correct? That is correct. So, um, right now, last year actually, under state law, they were exempt except for the 2.65. They pay property tax on the 2.65. With the change in the law, you have the option to require them— just assume nothing changes— 2.65 again in '25 and ongoing if you want to keep our code the same as it is today in that section, or you could decide for the time period under which they get this exemption, they pay zero mills.

Okay, and, uh, follow-up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, um, so let's just take, uh, Riverview for example. I believe we kept the 2.65 in that, correct?

Yes, that was required under state law. I see what you're trying to say. So, okay, got it. Additional questions? Mr. Kelly.

Thank you. Um, and this is kind of a matter of curiosity. So sometimes we do get revisions, um, to the, uh, school district's budget. So once we get that revision, does that, um, affect the abatement amount Um, or is that just like based off of the amount that we decide in the spring?

Assemblymember Kelly, I believe that amount is based on the, uh, approved adopted budget in June and the associated mill rate that is adopted.

Mr. Steineger.

Um, and just to confirm, regardless of the decision we make here our required local contribution is still the 2.65% based on the property value, even though we've abated that property tax.

Yes.

Mr. Smith, Deputy Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I could— I definitely understand how allowing an abated property to not have to contribute the 2.65%. I mean, that would obviously— I mean, it would make it a better deal or a cheaper project or whatever.

I mean, it would positively impact the finances of that project.

I guess it's so new that we haven't, like, heard that people are like, oh, this project wouldn't this project would only be possible if we weren't having to pay that 2.65%. Like, it's probably too early to know that. Do you want to speak? So I think that the only experience that we have is the tax abatement deal that we entered into under the previous statute where they had to pay the 2.65%. So their experience is would be status quo if you, uh, if you kept that, uh, that language in CVJ code.

Senator, and then back to Mayor Wilham. Um, out of curiosity, are there any tax abatements allowable under state statute that we have chosen not to implement as a city.

Mr. Barr.

Um, Mr. Chair, I believe you, you may or may not consider this a tax abatement, but I believe this state law has made it optional for municipalities to expand the senior citizen property tax exemption. Beyond what is required. I'm not aware of any others.

Uh, Mayor Wilburn. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, since this is so easy to read, if the 2.65 I want to collect, because, um, somewhat begrudgingly we usually give the school lots of money But we usually do it in the end. So if I wanted to keep that 2.65% on the tax abatement, do I take the section in all caps or do I take the revised section?

Okay, the attorney is telling me I should take the revised section.

Okay, thank you. I'd like to get a question in here because I think my question might clear it up a little bit. We usually fund the school district to the cap. My understanding, because our, our cap is now based off of property tax because our property tax value in our community was high enough, is 2.65 mill rate collection the cap that we can pay for school? How does the cap change if we're changing the 2.65 or altering that?

We can still only pay the cap How would this impact our ability to pay to the cap if we abate an additional 2.65% in future multifamily developments today?

Director Flicker, Madam Manager. Let me try to answer that, Chair Bryson. Um, the cap is our— let me get the words. Is our minimum, minimum required local contribution. The 2.65 represents that.

We back into the mill rate that it's associated with because we start with the dollar that we're going to give to the school district and then back into the mills.

So collecting the 2.65 from the abatement for economic development properties shifts the tax burden. So if, if we decide we want to abate all the way down to zero, then that means the portion of property tax that would have been collected from those organizations now is borne by the general fund or other revenue sources in the general fund.

That was actually helpful for me, Miss. Thank you. Uh, additional questions from the committee? Uh, Deputy Mayor Smith. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Sorry, kind of a basic question here. So we only currently have one property that we have abated this way, and then just based on the amendment, the only pro— only projects eligible for that are newly constructed residential units, exclusives of whatever. Those are the only— is the project that we've done— we did it for the, um, can I say that? I'm not allowed to say it out loud or something?

Oh, okay. Is it the— is it the Riverview Senior? That's correct. Okay, but the only other future projects would be newly constructed residential projects? That is correct, and we do believe that we will have at least one, um, up and running likely this calendar year, um, and so it would be, um, falling under this process for next year's property tax.

Additional questions?

Uh, we can move to comments now. Miss Hall. Thank you, Chairman Bryson. Um, I think this is not a good time to back away from collecting sales tax or, or property tax revenue for schools. So I would, I would think we should go with the status quo going forward regardless of the change in state law.

Thank you, Miss Hall. Additional comments? Mayor Walden. Just a question for actually staff. Are you trying to get us to move this tonight?

To the full assembly, or were we percolating this in finance? There's no, uh, obvious recommended recommendation on—. I believe this in— this ordinance was introduced on Monday, and so it, it has been introduced. We wanted to bring it back to you for this discussion to see if you want to amend the ordinance to remove the strikeout, um, in 69.10- 023 Part G, um, and that would— if you remove the strikeout, it keeps collecting the school portion. If you leave the ordinance as introduced on Monday, the abatement would drop to zero, so we would collect zero property tax.

Mayor Walden, you have a motion or you're making another comment? Nope, I was going to make a motion so we can entertain comments. So I would move that we remove the language that is in all caps from CBJ C69-10.023G and switch it to the alternative amendment to CBJ— the attached alternative amendment to CBJ C69-10.023G. .023G, um, and I think, um, Ms. Hall already spoke to me, so spoke to it for me, so I don't need to speak any further and ask for any questions and move it back to the assembly.

You have heard the motion. Are there any objections? Mr. Sinegar. I'll object, uh, I guess to speak to my objection Nothing about this property tax abatement will change the formula of how we fund schools. So our required local contribution is based on the assessed value, not on the amount we choose to tax the assessed value.

And our decision to fund to the cap, it won't change the calculation of what the cap is. So I want to make kind of clear here that I still have an intention to support funding to the cap for education. Not supporting this amendment doesn't change that. I want to make that clear to the public. We're not actually talking about something that impacts funding education.

I think that's important because it's very confusing. And the reason I'm objecting to your amendment, though, is I see this property tax abatement as another way that we can encourage more housing development. And, you know, it's a way that we can spend $70,000 and maybe a little bit more as new projects come along to support new development of housing. And that's something that I guess I'm willing to, you know, spend a little bit of money or defer a little bit of revenue to encourage. Thank you, Mr. Schneider.

Madam Mayor. So I guess I will speak to it. So I appreciate Mr. Steininger's thoughts. Um, however, that shifts the burden to, um, the city's, um, general fund. And as you recall, we do these for 12 years or so, and so that's a long time to be taking on the burden of this, where tax abatement may be a very small carrot, is not the big carrot.

It's either a loan or grant. That's the big carrot. So with that, I just think we have enough property exemptions as there are, and I don't have a problem with, uh, 2.65 being taken for just support the schools. Thank you, Mayor Weldon. Mr. Kelly, uh, thank you.

I, I think I share an understanding with the mayor and, uh, and with Mr. Steininger. I just think that, uh, support supporting this makes it easier for future assemblies to be able to justify, because we'll be able to see that we have— we can count on, on this revenue to support our decision to support our schools. So I see this measure as something that would support our, our typical practice. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Additional comments from the assembly?

Mr. Smith, we're waiting for you.

I can go first, Mr. Smith. Very good. All right, um, so I kind of was torn on this because one, I want to— I would like to follow the state so that way nobody in the city can say you guys aren't following the state code and have us duplicate that. However, our abatement that is available to Juneau residents or developers in Juneau gives them a 7-point-something tax abatement, 7 mil rates. That is huge, and that is enough to move the needle.

And this assembly has been really good. If developers came and said they had a greater need than what was on the table, we have met greater needs to get housing going. So we keep it at this rate, which even though it doesn't mirror the state, I'm comfortable with this because I, I'm not in favor of taking, uh, funding away. And we're trying to build multifamily housing, so we're trying to put kids into the very housing that we're funding. So I'm going to have to, uh, support, um, the mayor's motion, and we can fix it if we need to for a developer in the future, or that our future assemblies would be able to, uh, help future developers.

I think that's, uh, the end of my comments. Mr. Smith, did you come up with yours? Yeah, I actually have a question, and sorry if you already said it, Miss Blake. So if we, if we didn't adopt this amendment, if we didn't adopt this amendment, therefore allow it making property abated properties required, um, property tax mill rate to zero. Would that impact— that would impact the existing project?

So like the project, the Riverview Senior Center, now their property tax rate would drop, go from $17,000 to zero, or is it only for— is it only going forward?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the Riverview project has an existing contract that includes existing code requirement, so it would not impact— if you, if you change this section of code to make it so that future projects default into 0 mils instead of 2.65 mils, it would not change Riverview situation. That isn't to say that you couldn't take separate action to do so.

Thank you, Mr. Barr. A follow-up, Mr. W. Mayor Smith. Yeah, not a question. I guess I'm kind of leaning, knowing that it now won't impact, you know, the— it will impact projects going forward. I'm leaning towards allowing it to drop to zero.

I know we're 3 members down. This could be amended at full, at the full assembly when hopefully we have a full contingent, and then decide if there are 5 of us who want to do it then versus 5 who would want to take it away. Is it all the same? Sorry, I'm just trying to think. Madam Mayor.

Sorry, Madam Mayor. Thank you both, Mr. Chairs. Um, so typically something coming out of a committee is what we stay with at the full body. So with your thoughts right there and Mr. Steininger, I can count.

So I'm going to withdraw my motion and we'll take it up at the assembly. Madam Mayor, we're not quite there yet, ma'am. If you could, uh, hold that for one moment. I have Ella Atkinson. Uh, Miss Atkinson, uh, I just—.

Count-wise, I am in support of the mayor's motion here, so I wanted to get that on the record before anyone withdrew anything. Okay, appreciate that. I forgot about Miss Adkisson, so motion stands still. Uh, so, uh, Mr. Steineger, I believe we're on. I actually, even before you said that, Mayor, I was planning to withdraw my objection, actually almost based on Mr. Barr's response.

Um, then Okay, so just for—. So I'm—. Now we have a motion and we do not have an objection, or do we main— or do we have an objection? Uh, Deputy Mayor Smith, we have no objection. Um, Miss Atkinson, you said you were in favor of it?

Yes, sir. All right, I'm going to ask one more time. Are there any objections to the mayor's motion? Seeing none, that is so moved. Is that the direction that staff needed?

Excellent. Yes, it is. Thank you. All right, so, uh, let's talk about— oh, um, Mr. Steiner. Um, so I have another amendment while we're on Ordinance 2025-09, um, that hopefully is in everybody's packets.

Um, so this amendment, I'll, I'll move the amendment to add CBJC 1505 140 Parcel Cost Report to Ordinance 2025-09. I can speak to my amendment. Uh, Mr. Steiger, do we have a copy of those amendments? Um, it, it is a loose piece of paper, Mr. Bryson. Oh, I got it.

Um, so the intent of this amendment, um, in the the new code, or the new statute set by the city that we're adopting in this ordinance, um, it includes a provision that requires that the assessor answer all reasonable questions asked by a property owner, which is fairly vague. And I was seeking to add a little bit more detail in terms of the transparency and information provided by the assessor's office to homeowners and also, you know, try to address, you know, questions that people might have and address some of the comments and issues I've heard from people with questions about how their assessed value is brought about. So when you receive, you know, the postcard in the mail each year, you simply get a line item that says, you know, the improvement value and land value your total assessed value. There's a lot more information that goes into building to that improvement value within the state or the city's assessment system. This provision would simply put in city code a requirement that when a property owner requests or submits an appeal for residential property, just residential property, not commercial, that the city assessor shall provide them a copy of what's currently called the Parcel Cost Report that lists out the kind of details of their property and the factors applied to those details that then builds to the assessed value of their improvement.

I've included a copy of heavily redacted using a lot of our black toner here, copy of one of such reports, so you can kind of see what that information is. The idea being basically that a homeowner, you know, seeking to understand better what goes into their assessed value to formulate those reasonable questions that we're required to answer, you know, might have a better ability to ask a reasonable question or have a better understanding of what goes into assessed value. My hope is that that will increase the transparency by which people view our main process for collecting taxes from homeowners and help refine some of those questions. So they're a little more informed, a little more targeted towards things that actually impact assessed value. The one piece I mentioned currently called the cost report, one piece here is that the assessor is going through systems change.

So, Should this be adopted, you know, the end report might look a little different than what I've, you know, included in the packet. This is what it looks like now. It may look a little different. It may actually have a different name than the cost report, possibly. Maybe Director Flick might be able to speak to that or not.

But, you know, that's what I'm trying to do here is give a little more transparency into the factors going into the assessed value of your home. Thank you, Mr. Steineger. Uh, we'll entertain questions, uh, for the maker. Uh, Mayor Weldon. Uh, thank you, Mr. Steineger, for, um, trying to provide a little transparency, but I'll have to ask the staff, how does this work with our non-disclosure law?

Because we can't give out the sales price, can we?

Rector Flick. Mr. Barr.

Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, there are attorneys in the room who can correct me if I'm wrong, but there is nothing about, uh, the non-disclosure law, I believe, that prevents us from disclosing data. We are simply not able— no, we are simply not able to require sellers or realtors to provide that data to us.

Additional questions? Deputy Mayor Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Miss Flick, just curious on like staff time to provide this should we get 1,000 requests.

Anyway, yeah, thank you, Assemblymember Smith. I appreciate the question. Um, the information that's within this amendment is information that we provide provide to homeowners today if they request it. And so it is a normal part of business. And, you know, we often have this kind of information provided, the conversation, when a homeowner is wanting to discuss whether or not they want to appeal, or they filed for an appeal and they're seeking additional information.

So The way that this is written is that a residential property owner can request the information. They can do that today. I think from a staff perspective, it shouldn't change the amount of work because we provide for it here. What it does— not to put words in Mr. Sininger's mouth, but it just codifies that we will do this for residential property. Okay, thank you.

Additional questions, uh, from Mr. Steiner? Comments? This is a motion, um, it's not a motion, it's an amendment. If we pass this amendment, how would it move forward? Because it's part of something else that we have already moved.

Uh, Chair Bryson, I believe— and again, we have attorneys in the room that can help us if we get this wrong— just as an amendment has already been made to this ordinance, we would add this amendment. So when it comes to you for public hearing, um, you would have the amended version in the packet for public hearing and action. Excellent. Is that satisfactory for this committee? Is that good enough direction for staff?

I'll end up in the right place. It'll end up in the right place once you decide on this amendment. Yes. All right, uh, any objections, uh, to moving, uh, Mr. Steiner's amendment? Seeing none, that is so moved.

Thank you, Mr. Steiner. Now we will talk about bonds.

And I'm just— Director Flicker. Oh, Manager Kester. Thank you, Chair Bryson. So the, um, committee, uh, asked for a little bit more time to cogitate on, uh, whether or not you wanted to do the, uh, committee and the staff work to put bonds on the October 25 ballot. And so, you know, I've brought a little bit more context back to you for today's conversation, and it's broken broken into two sections, water and wastewater utility infrastructure and a potential bond for that, and then a potential school bond.

So I'm going to start with water and wastewater utility infrastructure, and I talk a lot about different rate increases and different mechanisms to, you know, mitigate the impact of what our consultant has estimated is that a 12.75% increase in wastewater rates and a 10.25% increase in water rates year over year for the next 5 years. So I— the conversation, the memo really speaks to that. But I want to encourage you that this is not a conversation about setting utility rates. It's hard to think about what you want to do from a bond perspective without thinking about utility rates, but any— so it would be a good opportunity for you to give me more direction on, you know, things you would like to see. But eventually we will have a meeting, you know, where we bring back more information to you, play around with some scenarios.

So I think getting two things out of this meeting would be kind of some guidance on how to further the conversation on utility rates that will really be informed by your decision on whether or not to keep talking about utility bonds. So it's a long way of saying, don't get too bogged down in utility— the utility rate conversation. We will make sure the consultants are here for that conversation. However, we were asked to model, you know, what would a $10 million bond— what impact would an additional $10 million bond have on wastewater rate increases? And I specifically talk about wastewater because wastewater, the capital need is just so much higher.

And when you look at your bill, the wastewater portion of your bill is so much higher. We do have a few customers that are water only, cruise ships and people who, you know, don't live connected to the sewer system, but do live connected to the water system. But generally speaking, we all pay both of those bills. So you'll see that the consultants predicted if you spend another $10 million in infrastructure, bond spending in 2027, you could bring that year-over-year rate down to 9.25. You know, I had a question offline that was like, well, what if we did $20 million?

And I think, you know, the metric is around 3% reduction in year-after-year rate increases for every $10 million. It varies because when you model that and time value of money, money and lending, borrowing versus cash and all of that is more complicated than I can just spit out. But it gives you a way to think about that. The complexity with bonding for more than $10 million is just we can do about $10 million of that work a year. That's about our capacity from an organizational perspective.

So if we were to bond for more than that, we would likely to space those projects out over a couple of years instead of doing them all in one year. So still possible to bond for more than the $10 million and have a greater impact on mitigating rate increases. I talk a little bit in this memo about a different idea for mitigating rate increases, and that is using some of our sales tax dollars that we traditionally spend on street infrastructure. So you're familiar with the 1% because we talk about the 1% all the time. That's the voter-approved sales tax.

We also have what we call the 3%. And 3% is used for streets infrastructure, capital infrastructure, and general government. Traditionally, we've spent about $12 million a year from that funding source on streets infrastructure. And really, it's broadly broadly defined transportation infrastructure. So your stairs, your sidewalks, pavement repair, match money for our bus, our capital transit system.

So much, much more broadly than just streets, but it's how we, you know, repair and rehabilitate our street infrastructure. And a big component and a big cost driver of rehabilitating streets and a big need is the condition of the underground utility infrastructure. So you may look at a street that's on our schedule to be replaced and be like, oh, it's only got a few potholes. However, the water line could be leaking and we could be responding, you know, 2 times a year to water leaks that are expensive and disruptive to the homeowners. So it makes it a higher priority for us.

Traditionally, those repairs have been funded out of the utility fund. So they've been funded either, you know, through utility fund balance or the previously 1%. The model that we're using estimates about $2 million in streets funding for water and $2 million for wastewater every year. Because when we package those projects, we got to make sure we have funding not only for the pavement part, but also for the underground utility part. Because we have had limited utility funding in the last 2 years.

You saw last year some spending of that streets sales tax money on underground utility infrastructure, and you will see in the proposed capital improvement plan a little over $1 million this year, just because we truly don't have the funding elsewhere. So I introduced that as an idea of a different way to mitigate and spend essentially sales tax dollars on utility infrastructure. The consequences of that are very real. We will have to do less street projects and less transportation projects. And I only talk about that to help, you know, you think about the bond, you know, the like, is a bond the only way to help mitigate pressure on utility rates?

And no, it is not. So the scenario that I asked the consultant consultants was, okay, they do— the assembly approves a $10 million bond, the voters approve a $10 million bond in fiscal year 2027, and we spend every year $2 million in sales tax, street sales tax funding in for water and wastewater utility. That diminishes by a third our ability to do transportation infrastructure. And so those are the rates that you see. We could buy down essentially the waste— the wastewater rate to 5.5% year after year and the water rate to 0% year after year.

And I'm not proposing that we do that or that that's the right number to land on. I think especially with water, you need— there are some challenges with going to zero with kind of like who our customers are and what that looks like. I just wanted to give it to you, give you those scenarios as an option as you're thinking about it. And I do want to also place as a caveat on this, a warning against not doing material rate increases because we will just keep digging ourselves into a bigger hole. So in 5 years when I'm, you know, still here, I will be like, now we need 25% year after year increases.

I don't actually know what that number is. Assemblymember Smith asked me that question. We don't have that number. But you can imagine a scenario where where we just never keep— we never keep pace with inflation and the rate shock in the future just becomes bigger and bigger. All of that being said, if you do have an appetite for putting a utility bond on the ballot this year, I would recommend referring that work of like, what's the best project that we can do from a capacity perspective?

And that's kind of the highest need, et cetera. To the Utility Advisory Board to bring back those details to you with a dollar amount. So let's say you could refer $10 million, $20 million. So that would be my recommendation, and I will stop talking to see if there are any questions. Thank you, Manager Kester.

Questions from the committee? Mr. Kelly.

Thank you, Manager Kester. I understand that we held a forum— it was either late December or maybe early January. I meant to attend, but I was unavailable. Did— are you— would now be a good time to ask, did anything fruitful, any valuable comments from the community come out of that discussion? Or should we maybe wait for that discussion with the consultants?

Yeah, well, I'm happy to summarize the kind of public sentiment. Obviously, there was a concern for the sharp increase in utility rates. There was a desire and suggestions on ways to defer that to other payers. There was talk about, okay, can we charge cruise ships more because they're, you know, not residents? And there are, you know, we already do cruise, charge cruise ships for the highest strength waste.

So happy to get into that. Conversation, you know, in detail offline or at a future meeting. There was conversation about, you know, like a seasonal sales tax or some type of other dedicated funding for utility rates. And, you know, I will always advise you against dedicated funds because it limits future assemblies, but that's just obviously your decision. So I think, you know, I think the public was pretty, like, thankful for the opportunity.

Understood the, uh, need and really not happy about, uh, rate increases. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bryson. Um, just briefly, are you— are in the '26 budget, are you going to suggest using street funds, you know, street funds for Anyway, just shifting those to utilities and— sorry, and the utility rate increases are projected to start in '26, is that right? Like these, these high, the 12.75 ones or whatever?

The, um, we are hoping that we will have a utility rate increase passed by the fiscal— the '26 fiscal year, right? July 1st fiscal year. Okay. And I'm sorry, and yes, we have just under $1 million proposed in the CIP, um, from street sales tax for utility infrastructure. Okay, gotcha.

Another one, or follow? Miss Hall, I understand historically utilities— a portion of the sales tax did go to utilities. Can you talk a little bit about about that history and when, if there might be an opportunity to come back to having a dedicated portion of the sales tax going to utilities? Manager Kestler. Yeah, so I'm not sure how far it goes back and maybe one of the finance staff can help me with that.

But certainly the last time we did a 1%, so that's a voter-approved, sales tax that we dedicate to capital projects with a long list of projects. And the last time that we renewed that, utility infrastructure was not included on that list, and we renewed that 2 Octobers ago, I believe.

So October of '28, that decision will come before the voters again. The last 5-year cycle, we did include utility infrastructure in the 1%. And I cannot recall off the top of my head to what degree. I don't know if either of you can. I don't think it was the full $4 million that I'm scenario planning in this, $4 million annually.

I believe it was more like a $10 million total over 5 years. But Adrian can check for us.

Miss Wendell's checking. Uh, Mayor Weldon, I, I have a motion for you when you're ready. Let's see if we can't get an answer and then see if there's any more questions. Miss Wendell, in the FY19 through FY24 1% sales tax initiative, we had $15.5 million allocated to both the wastewater and water infrastructure maintenance. Excellent, thank you for that.

Any— Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I, first of all, I appreciate like the attention on, you know, solutions to kind of maybe bend the curve down a little bit on these utility rates. I also understand your point on that the jump, I mean, the need will continue and there will be just natural pressures to increase the rates from inflation and things.

So just to make sure that I'm maybe thinking about this right, so in '26 you're saying $1 million from streets to go to the utility or for wastewater, you know, water projects, and then in '27 you were saying you'd— it'd be like a $10 million, you know, $10 million bond, $2 million from streets, that brings us down to $5.5 million, and then that would continue on, you know, you're The streets sales tax piece would continue on. Would it lead to the same rate if we had passed a $20 million bond this year and $10 million went into effect in '27 and $10 million went into '28, and then we, in '28, we stop drawing from streets? I guess I'm just kind of slightly concerned that, oh, now we're going to, you know, We're trying to fix one problem, but now we're potentially creating another one over on streets. So I'm just wondering, like, if we were to pass a $20 million bond, I hear what you're saying on there's the capacity to execute those projects, and I also appreciate, like, trying to get us to that next 1% time so we can maybe— I can be a little more responsible then. But, um, I'm just wondering, like, if a $20 million bond went into effect, could we essentially get to the same 5.5% increase, but, but only have to pull from streets for '26 and '27, and then we can, then we can fully fund streets again.

Manager Kestler. So I, I, without running the, um, that, that scenario through the model, um, which, uh, which I have to use the consultant to do, I, I cannot answer that question. However, when I look at the scenario that I did have them run, which is— it's essentially what you're saying with a different timeframe. It's saying, let's invest $20 million in wastewater utility infrastructure to buy down our wastewater utility rate to 5.5%, and let's invest $10 million over 5 years in water utility infrastructure to buy our rate down to 0%. So while I'm sure it would vary, I think that you're kind of conceptually thinking about it correctly.

Additional comments?

I'm a bit hesitant. While I fully support water and wastewater, and I'm very proud that we have some of the cleanest water on the planet to drink. Correct, Manager Kester? Water's excellent. And our effluent is also excellent because we are one of only 2 secondary treatment plants.

So that is why when you look at our, our wastewater rates, they're higher than other places in the state because we treat our water to a higher standard because we discharge into a river, as does Fairbanks. Uh, thank you for that follow-up. Um, what I'm worried about is another bond issue. Third or fourth year in a row, and voters have said no on bonds. While we want to support wastewater, I'm not going to deny any rates that we need to do.

By not asking a bond for one year and give the voters a break to not be asked to go further into debt for the city at a time when we're trying to solve the Mendenhall flooding, and the citizens have not gotten a break. I want to have—. Continue to have the cleanest water in Alaska. We need $20 million to do it. I just want to wait one year and not ask the citizens to have a bond question on this election.

We've asked them year after year, and they are saying no. We put this up here and they say no, because last year we just asked to borrow $10 million for wastewater, and now we're back at them and asking $20 million next year, that has a likelihood of saying no. And then where will we be, Manager Kestler? I imagine it would be in a little bit more hot water than if we waited a year, really got a great water bond package, said this is the water solution that we need, and then can ask for a— go back to the voters for a bond after a year and not ask them this year. I just— the writing's on the wall for them to say no to a $20 million ask this year, wait one year, and then get the project we need for wastewater.

That would be my— that's be where I'm going to have to support. But I believe, Madam Mayor, you have a motion. Uh, thank you for that, Mr. Chair. And, um, we're way early in this discussion, and just because we're looking at things doesn't commit us to anything.

I hear what you're saying, Mr. Bryson. I almost tend to believe it— or not believe it, agree with it. Um, but with that said, we can't make decisions without having information. So I would move that we give the Utility Advisory Board direction to develop a $10 million project and a $20 million project and bring it back to Finance, unless the staff would like it to a different committee beside Finance. Okay, seeing none, you've heard the motion.

You've heard the motion. Are there any objections? Seeing none, that is so moved. And that brings us to the next bond discussion, I believe. Yes, Madam Manager.

Thank you. So you also did discuss to the last assembly I'm sorry, Mr. Kelly. Sorry, just a quick point of order. Were we also going to discuss anything about the Juneau School District?

That's okay. I thought we were moving on to the next page. All right, sorry about that. It's a little late for Mr. Kelly. Madam Manager, please continue.

Thank you. Yes, and thank you for separating those two topics just to help keep my brain A little bit more on track. So you also asked for information on JSD capital improvement projects. So you do have the most current copy of their 6-year plan from the CIP in your packet. I think that we heard at the legislative breakfast that this school debt bond reimbursement program was likely to be reinitiated this year.

And that would, I think, would make us well positioned to have some projects that would be eligible for them. I have to say, I did struggle a little bit with eligibility and kind of wondering, are they gonna, is the state by regulation gonna change any of those requirements? It really mirrors the other program and mirrors the capital grant program. And the capital grant program has lots of requirements you know, kind of eligibility requirements that the Juneau School District and the Facilities Committee are very familiar with because we submit projects to that program annually. So I think that it would be well within the, um, the committee's capacity to, you know, look at the, the long list of needed projects and find the projects that would be most eligible and most competitive for that program.

I also think that, you know, if there's appetite to put a school bond on the ballot. You know, there are lots of projects that we are just going to have to do anyway. And so while, like, a renovation of Mittenhall River, which has always been on the long-term plan, it's a very different project than the list of roofs and boiler systems and all of those things that the school district has on their 6-year plan. So I think my recommendation would be, if there's appetite for a bond for the school district, that you have the Joint Facilities Committee that is chaired by Chair Wohl and is made up of half assembly and half school board members do the work of really determining what the best projects would be for that program. And I would recommend giving the committee a target number, much like you did with the Utility Advisory Board.

And I do see that the Juneau School District is here. I'm sure they know more about their programs and their facility needs than I do. Thank you, Manager Kessler. Questions from the committee on school possible bond? Deputy Mayor Smith.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Steineger brought it up when we were discussing this last, and that's just like timing, and I'm just thinking about, yeah, I guess just timing of, you know, the vote and then when it would actually go back to the legislature for, and governor, for a determination on funding. Like, so say we put, say the vote goes before the voters and this fall it is approved, like when would, And sorry, and this moratorium ends, like when would that, do we know when that would be back to the legislature and the governor to determine whether or not they fund abortion?

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Sorry, no, if I can clarify, I guess I understand when the moratorium ends, I'm just like, ends in July 1st of this year, the vote goes before the people in October, it's approved, when would that money, when would the state's share come back before the legislature for an appropriation?

Based on my understanding of past experience and potentially Superintendent Hauser has more experience, but when the program was active, that funding was included in the annual budget. So under that, you know, if it's like it was before, it would— we would pass the bond, it would be eligible, it would be included in next year's budget, the legislature would fund it, and the governor would not veto it. Um, so, but, but there's lots of, you know, ifs in that, uh, scenario.

Director Flick. Assemblymember Smith, if I could add a little piece as Um, Department of Finance must submit to DEED our current school debt, and so we do that every year. So if, if we follow the scenario that you described, voters approve in October, we would in our submission to DEED indicate that we either are going to issue debt or have issued debt for X number of dollars that would then hopefully qualify under that program.

All good, Deputy Commissioner Schmidt. And I guess so, and that would be for— so again, if it's on this fall's ballot and is adopted by the voters, we would— that would then be going— that would be then up for appropriation by the legislature and the governor in the '27 budget, is that right?

Director Flick, their—. I would assume so, because the deed would have to collect the information to figure out what they would be reimbursing to include in their request, in their budget request.

Um, Mr. Kelly, thank you. And, and this might be something of a follow-up to Mr. Smith's question. Uh, it could probably be answered by our staff But it's also great that we have the superintendent in the room. So would you know offhand or be able to have an estimate? So when we, before we had the moratorium, how, what percentage of projects are usually reimbursed?

Is it something automatic as long as they have the money or is it a certain percentage usually? Who can speak to the mechanics of it? Director Flick, I will give a shot at the mechanics of it. Um, when I joined CBJ 3 years ago, um, we had a number of school-related bonds. All of those were in the queue with DEED for their appropriate— whether it was 75% or 60%, they had some some different numbers based on the projects within the bonds.

Those were all submitted to DEED every year. There was at least 2 years where funding was not approved, but then, um, goodness, I think at the beginning of FY23, those— it was about $16 million, if memory serves correctly. Were retro-reimbursed to CPJ for those years of debt payments that had been made and not reimbursed from the state. Thank you. Additional questions?

I think my question just kind of got answered. What is the likelihood if the state implements this program that they pause it or suspend it later on. I'm in— I am a little more in favor of a school, uh, debt, a school bond with the promise of state reimbursement. That's using Juneau money to get some state money. That makes total sense.

What I don't want to get us into is a Mendenhall River renovation size project and then not be reimbursed reimbursed and be on the hook for the whole thing, and then we're just added to our problem instead of leveraging our money.

I, um, so I would probably be in favor of moving this forward more than the water and wastewater because I believe that we would have a higher likelihood of something like this passing with the promise of state reimbursement. That's something that I believe that Juno voters could support after telling us no on a different, um, uh, bond request. Um, do we have a motion, Madam Mayor? Um, one more question for Mr. Kelly, and we'll go to the mayor. Actually, um, if, if it's okay, I'd like to make the motion.

No, um, I, I move that, uh, Miss—. Mr. Chair, Oh, I'm gonna— oh, okay, so Ella's gonna bring us back in order. Miss Atkins. Sorry, I didn't wanna— I just wanted to real quick, so folks know, I'm not sure if this committee is aware, I don't necessarily think that the moratorium extension is any more likely to pass, but it was included, an extension of the moratorium until 2030, in the Governor's Education Omnibus Bill.

So that is just a new development on this front. I just wanted the community to know that.

Thank you, Miss Atkinson. That was very pertinent information. Madam Mayor, I'm sorry, did you have a motion? I do.

Um, but because of all these uncertainties, my motion will be a little bit different than my last one. So, um, I recommend, uh, that Joint Assembly School Boards Facilities develop a list of maintenance projects that would meet program eligibility requirements, um, and go for 3 different target numbers: $5 million, $10 million, and $15 million. Um, because as, uh, Manager Kester said, I think we're gonna have to do some stuff anyway. So, um, just to give us some things to choose from to see what the appetite is for everybody. You've heard Madam Mayor's menu approach.

Are there any objections? Mr. Kelly. Thank you. Just a question for the maker of the motion. I think some guidance that Madam Manager was also asking for was related to perhaps setting a date for the— or a deadline.

Did you want to add any deadline for the committee to meet and come up with those recommendations? Madam Mayor, I'm gonna leave that up to the chair and the school board to make those dates to figure it out. We know we have to have this stuff in by August 1st, so they have to have it back to finance before— way before then. My objection. You've heard Madam Mayor's motion.

Are there— Mr. Smith? Thanks, Mr. Chair. Just to comment, um, I know our schools need support. I guess there's two things on my mind.

One is if, you know, the reimbursement were back next year in FY27 budget, I guess I would feel probably more comfortable for it being back in FY28 budget just due to elections and such is how I'll phrase it. And then, yeah, I guess part of me too is, I don't mean any offense, but I do, I almost wonder, that public appetite in terms of, you know, public trust in the school district. And obviously a lot of work has been gone into this, but I just— that would be in terms of your concern about wastewater, that would be a concern of mine on schools this year. But obviously the needs are significant, but I'll remove my objection after that comment. Thanks.

Any additional objections? Seeing none, that is so moved. Is that enough direction for staff? Yes, thank you, and I think you've given me some good fodder for our forthcoming utility rate discussion. Excellent.

Thank you, Manager Kester. Um, that brings us, uh, to Juno Fireworks. And before we be— before we begin the discussion about Juno Fireworks, I wanted to make it crystal clear: we are not talking about the firework ordinances that residents are allowed 36 hours twice a year. That is not the firework discussion that we are having tonight. I wanted to put anybody's mind at rest.

We are not reopening that discussion. We are having a discussion about the community fireworks show that happens, um, at 12:01 on the 4th of July. Um, circumstances have come up that it requires our attention, and Mr. Barr is going to tell us what that is.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to note and thank HR Risk Management Director Hargrave and Risk Management Officer Swick that have hung out with us until this topic. You have a memo from me in the packet. I'll give you some summary of that.

As far back as I can easily find, we have typically offered as part of the Assembly grant process a direct grant to individuals that wasn't really a grant. It was, you know, community volunteers have long put on the fireworks show that we are all familiar with that happens in the middle of Gaston channel on the 3rd of July. And how that's functionally worked is that those volunteers have worked directly with a fireworks vendor to prepare an order. That order comes to us, we pay an invoice, the fireworks come, the volunteers pick them up, do what they need to do with them, store them, connect them up, rig them, and then discharge them during the show.

2 Years back, some fireworks detonated prematurely on the barge. You might remember that if you were watching the show. And when that happened, that really was kind of the triggering event that, you know, made me, made some other CPJ staff really look at how we were managing that process. Really out of a concern from a risk point of view. And we drew two conclusions.

One, that we believe we do have significant risk exposure because of how we conduct that particular process, and that our historical and up until now current practice isn't in line with our procurement code. So those are two separate separate, but I would say equally important challenges that we are trying to overcome. Last year, right after the Assembly budget process, we attempted to address this by issuing a memorandum of agreement to the Fireworks Committee, like we do for all Assembly grants that you issue every year, that you decide on every year. And that didn't work out because there there isn't actually an organization that represents that group of volunteers. They're just a group of volunteers that volunteer their time for the betterment of the community and do something that we all get to enjoy and watch.

But we can't issue an MOA to an individual. We have to issue an MOA to an organization.

We attempted to help with that by— and there was some pro bono legal work that we were also grateful for. That happened through one of our private attorneys in town to either create an organization that could sign that MOA or to connect that group of individuals up with an organization that already exists who was willing to kind of take them in under their umbrella. But those attempts were unsuccessful. And so that brings us to where we are today. The memo gives you a handful of options.

The first one is the status quo choice, and that is to deal with those two problems that I told you by accepting the risk, which is a little bit hard to pin down on because in order to know precisely what our risk is in any given situation, we have to first define the harm that occurred, and no harm has occurred, right? So we think that in most situations that we can imagine, our liability would be— I'll call it a deductible for ease of understanding. It's not technically a deductible, but a $350,000 payment that would come before our general liability insurance kicked in. That's, that's CBJ. Why general liability?

It would pay up to a much larger amount of above that outside of the general fund.

So accepting that would be the first part of that. And then the second part of the status quo solution would be to direct staff to prepare an ordinance exempting this particular purchase from the procurement code. We don't have the ability to do that, or we don't have the ability and/or the comfort. I can talk more about that if there's interest to do that without your direction. The second option is probably not, although I'm not going to say with certainty, an option that would work for this year.

But it is something that we could explore for this year and more easily for future years if the body determines that either of those two problems are not solvable. If you, if you determine that the risk is too high or that the procurement code exemption is not non-policy call that you're willing to make. And that would be to issue an RFP that vendors would respond to who conduct fireworks shows. It would almost certainly involve bringing a vendor up from down south. It would certainly be a much higher expense than what we currently pay right now.

We—. I think it's important to acknowledge that the volunteers who are doing this work for us are giving us a deal. And we are— we are, from a staff perspective, we're paying in risk rather than dollars for the status quo option.

So issue that RFP, see if there are vendors who are willing to do this work for us, who would take on that liability, have insurance coverage that we don't currently have, and do that for the community.

The third option is really to do either one or two for this year, and then explore alternative options, which could include an RFP to commercial fireworks operators down south, include— could include other options, um, that we, that we would explore, um, that staff would spend time on over, over the next year for future years. There, there are many possibilities there, um, everything from, again, RFPs to thinking about alternatives to fireworks. Some communities have started to explore drone shows. That is more common in fire-prone communities than it is in ours for obvious reasons. But that's something that people are starting to do.

And then of course there are other potential local partners that we may be able to engage with in an organization-to-organization relationship. So that's what I have for you. I'm happy to take any questions. Questions. And again, Mr. Hargrave, Ms. Wick here as well, uh, to, um, answer questions that I might not know.

Thank you, Mr. Barr. Questions about the community downtown Fourth of July fireworks? Mr. Deputy Mayor Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Um, I guess just to confirm, I know it says it's like you feel like for any, God forbid, terrible event regarding the fireworks show or the fireworks as they're being stored or something, the city's maximum risk is $350,000.

Through the chair, um, yes, you know, it really depends on the event that would occur. So in a truly catastrophic event, no, I don't believe that that is like the minimum amount of risk that we would— the minimum amount of— the minimum dollar amount that we would be exposed to. Um, it is in a, in a truly negligent, uh, event, no, we would be exposed to more. But from a general liability perspective, that is, that is the amount that we would be on the hook for before our general liability insurance kicks in.

Mr. Kelly. Thank you, and I hope this question isn't too much in the weeds, but just kind of a question of how that general liability insurance works. So if it were to kick in, we'd owe the $350,000 deductible. Car insurance and medical insurance is usually some sort of percentage, so would we still owe a percentage on top of that, or assuming that we are liable for less than $2 million, we would not pay anything more than $350,000. Mr. Barr.

Through the Chair, Mr. Kelly, I believe what you're referring to is coinsurance, and I don't believe coinsurance would apply for a general liability payout. It is worth noting that, you know, our rates are dependent upon our experience, And if we do, partially dependent upon our experience, and if we do experience events, that can have an impact on rates organization-wide. Thank you.

I see no questions this time. Mr. Barr and I did discuss this, and one of the issues that we may be facing is that can we make enough changes if we chose to change the way that we were going to have a fireworks show, could we do that in a timely enough fashion for this year's Fourth of July? And my understanding is that is not guaranteed, that it would be, or it might not be possible to change the procurement process and find an organization and do an RFP. Mr. Bar. Thank you, Mr. Bryson.

It is possible, um, to pass an or— it is possible for the the body to pass an ordinance in a way that would enable the status quo. I guess from a timing perspective, I think you are correct that it is, at least what I'm interpreting you and, you know, based on our conversation that we had, that it is unlikely that we would have a fire— the same sort of fireworks show that we have seen in years past if we chose to go a path other than the status quo option. I will also say that we are still talking with the community volunteers that conduct this show, and we have asked the question of, you know, are you, are you still game to do this under a status quo option? And we have not gotten that answer yet, so that, that's still out there. So I brought back that, uh, that background, because one of the options that is available to us would be to allow this year to stay a status quo so that way we are having the first Fourth of July show in the country.

And that would give us a whole year to fix the firework code, find the organization, have the RFP, and, uh, conduct the firework purchase and show in a manner that is city responsible, right? We're trying to do it in the same way that we do everything by the city. We, we wouldn't be able to sneak that in this year. We would have to be okay with status quo for this year to be the same. But I— as Mr. Barr put it, this is our level of comfortability.

And if the citizens knew that we were accepting status quo, trying to fix it for next year. I think that the average citizen would understand that level of risk. Oh, that's why they did it one more year like this and they're trying to fix it. It seems like an appropriate response to knowing that we're not doing things in line with the city. We—.

Everything in the city has to be processed, but at the same time I do not want to be part of assembly, of any assembly that denies this city the Fourth of July fireworks. I do not think that that would be a wise move on our part as an assembly, but that's mine. I think we can do both, do it this year and get it fixed so that we don't harm anybody moving forward, including the city. Mr. Kelly, uh, thank you.

Um, the, the answer to your question From Mr. Barr actually raised, I guess I just wanna follow up with that. You said that the volunteers who've done it historically have not committed to doing it in future years. Did you also mean like we don't have a commitment from them to do it this year as well?

Correct, not at this time. I don't, Mr. Kelly, through the chair, I haven't gotten indication one way or the other.

Um, Miss Hall, if you have a— are we still on questions? Um, if somebody has a comment that can help guide us, that would— oh, thank you, Madam Mayor. So, uh, we're still in question period. Uh, Mr. Steingart, how much are we spending currently on the fireworks show?

Thank you, Mr. Steingart. I'm sure, um, Miss Flick and Miss Wandel are going to give me a specific number, but about $50,000 a year.

Mr. Steineger. If we go through the RFP process and we, you know, do this right with the insurance requirements, do you have a wag as to how much a similar size, similar scope fireworks show would cost? Mr. Barr. Through the Chair, I don't have a wag for you on what what a similar-sized fireworks show would cost. That's information that we could get.

If you're interested in something other than fireworks, drones, that would also be something that I could get if there's interest in that. But whether I would, you know, I could do one or both.

Additional questions? Mr. Kelly. Thank you. So if we were to go with issuing an RFI or RFP this year and the volunteers were interested, would they be able to apply for the RFP or would, how would that work? Mr. Barr.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. They certainly could. Any, any, or they would need to be underneath an organization. Any business can respond to an RFP.

Mr. Barr, if I could interject, that's the problem right now. The volunteers are not an entity that could apply. They're just 3 guys.

Is it, was that an accurate statement, Mr. Barr?

Mr. Chair, that is accurate. I wouldn't presume to say that if we were to issue an RFP, you know, people can make different decisions. Possible that they could make a different decision. Thank you, Mr. B. Madam Mayor.

Okay, are you ready for your motion? Yes, Madam Mayor. Okay, so this is going to be a blend, so pay attention. I, uh, move option 1 for this year, and hopefully, um, if the people that want the, the, uh, volunteers that want to do it, they will figure something out. Um, and if they don't, then I would move Option 2 for 2026, not 5.

I think that's too soon. And at the same time, I think we should also be exploring other options. So I would move all 3 of them, changing the time for number 2 to 2026, unless, um, the volunteers, uh, join with a nonprofit so we can take care of our liability problem.

Staff, is that good direction for you? You've heard Mayor motion. Are there any objections to the Mayor's motion? Mr. Kelly. Thank you.

I guess I just feel concerned, and I'm not sure, maybe this might be covered under Option 3, but I just feel concerned that we, if the volunteers are not, do not actually commit to doing this fireworks show and we don't issue some sort of RFP, that we might not have one. Um, so I, I kind of looking for some way to, to care for that possibility. Uh, thank you, Mr. Kelly. Um, I kind of interpreted Mayor's, uh, moving all three as giving us all three options. So if the guys say yay, we can go that path, and if not, Madam Mayor still provided direction of staff to I'm sorry, Madam Mayor, is that an accurate interpretation of what your motions were?

You're kind of both right. So I am, I am assuming the volunteers will want to continue doing it this year. It may be a wrong assumption, but I don't, and I don't think that RFI or RFP will be soon enough for this year. So if it turns out that they don't want to do it this year, then we're going to have to revisit this very quickly. At the same time, I'm counting on them to be wanting to do it.

They've done it for many, many years, and I think they enjoy doing it. So it's a good way to give for them to give back to the community. So, but if they decide they don't want to do it, then we'll have to change rapidly. Um, so, uh, the one comment I make by Madam Mayor making this, where those volunteers have a path forward, peer pressure is probably going to be pretty high on them because they do have a path forward. Forward that they can still be in charge of fireworks.

I— it would be hard for me to imagine them just instantaneously giving up that responsibility now that we've kind of given them a path forward for this year. I'm sorry, I saw hands. Miss Hall, a comment. You know, I think if they decline to do it this year, you know, as sad as it may seem, we would just have to say to the community you know, sorry, it's not going to happen this year because we didn't have enough time to move forward with an alternative plan that was cost-effective. Um, but also with going ahead with number 3, if there is a, a group here in town that is willing to take this on, then, you know, saying the city is no longer going to— you know, this will be the last year that the city's doing it this way.

And going forward, if there's another group that wants to step forward, then we can resume them or can keep going. But as far as kind of letting this, this, uh, the volunteers, you know, I'm okay accepting the risk for one year but not going forward year after year kind of letting them drive the bus. I think we need to say, yeah, we'll do it this year, but going forward, we need to, to find another solution. So I agree with your, uh, motion. So that means— or do we have any remaining objections?

I withdraw my objection. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Seeing no objections, uh, the mayor's motion is moved, and I believe that takes us to the end of the public meeting. Madam Mayor, were you going to bring us into executive session? Chair Bryson, I'm sorry.

Oh, Director Flick, hello. If, if I may, before you break into executive session, um, our next meeting date is March the 5th.

We are still, uh, working with Chair Wall on, uh, whether or not to include the joint Eagle Crest meeting at that, at that meeting. You guys have a lot to talk about, so the balancing act of stacking a really long meeting or 3 meeting nights is— continues to be a struggle.

Go ahead. And then the other thing I wanted to mention is in the supplemental packet today We've prepared what I will say is a draft of the budget process for you. And so for those of you that are new to the assembly, um, we tried a little bit, uh, different process last year that seemed to work well. So we spend a long Saturday in here getting an overview of all of the budget needs, and that allows us to skip a couple of Wednesdays where in previous years We were every Wednesday in here for all of April and all of May. You'll see that we've got some in April that we're intending to skip.

We've got a few reserved in May for ongoing discussion, depending on how much time is needed to tackle various topics. We wanted to make sure that you had this before we got any closer to April. Thank you, Chair Bryson. Director Flick and I would concur that last year's streamlining of the budget process was phenomenal for those who haven't gotten to go through 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 of them. Any additional comments or questions about the upcoming budget session schedule?

Seeing none, we do have the short-term rental task force has been canceled for tomorrow. And we will be moving to the 1 and 2 Thursdays. Um, and then, Madam Mayor, would you be kind enough to take us into executive session, ma'am? Certainly, Mr. Chair.

I move we recess into executive session to discuss matters which may tend to prejudice the reputation or character of any person, specifically to deliberate on concerns regarding airport board members and ask for unanimous consent. Any objections? Mr. Kelly? Thank, thank you. I actually have a question for the attorney, um, if that's all right.

Attorney Wright, thank you for joining us. I, um, I'm just noticing that I am not seeing any executive session on the, on the agenda this evening. Uh, would we be in compliance with Open Meetings Act and everything if we were to recess into executive session. Thank you. Through the chair, so it was, um, published 24 hours ago, and I, I did see that the printed— some of the printed versions don't have it, but it is on—.

It was published, it was publicly noticed. We're in compliance. Thank you. I withdraw my objection. Uh, seeing no further objections, we're going to move into executive session and have a 10-minute break.

Is that what those 10 fingers were? And we're going to go into break once we go into executive session. We are in executive session. You're coming out of executive session where we, um, deliberated concerns regarding airport board members, and I have two motions. Madam Mayor, would you, uh, do those motions please?

Or the first one? I move that we remove, uh, Ms. Garza from the airport board. You've heard them. You've heard the motion. Are there any objections?

Seeing none, that is so moved. Madam Mayor, your next motion. And I move that we remove Mr. Custer from the airport board and ask for unanimous consent. You've heard the motion. Are there any objections?

Seeing none, that is so moved. Anything further for the committee, Madam Mayor?

No, other than remember our next finance meeting is March 5th. March 5th. Any other comments or questions for the good of the order? Director Flick, are we all good? Finance meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.