Assembly Work Session of August 28, 2025

Go ahead and call to order the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly work session, Thursday, August 28th, 2025 at 6:30 PM, and we are in the assembly chambers. First item is citizens' comments. The local number is 907-486-3231.

The toll-free number is 855-492-9202. And I ask you to, if you're in the audience, come forward and sign in and state your name for the record. If you're calling in, please turn off any listening devices so we eliminate the feedback on there. Anybody wishing to come forward at this time, please? Do.

This is the only citizens' comments in the work sessions at the beginning of the meeting.

My name is Carleen and good evening.

Two weeks ago I was asked my reason for coming And sometimes I don't even know, and it takes me a while to figure things out. It took me a whole week to figure out that Bill Odum Distributor Wholesale Liquor, that's what that was all about. And actually, it took me 10 years to figure out when I sang with the balalaika players that I was portraying as gypsy. So it just takes me a while. Took me a little while to figure it out, but I do listen to conservative radio.

I start listening to NPR 4 AM to 6 AM, the Homer station 6 AM to 8 AM, Charlie Kirk Show till 10 AM. Then I listen to Financial Issues, the Tony Perkins I just have my special programs that I listen to, and I take a lot of notes, and I spend 2 to 4 hours a day in the Kodiak Daily Mirror. Well, I don't have television. I don't have an iPhone. I just have a little TV for DVDs, and I have a landline.

So I'm— I wake up curious, what happened next? You know, because on NPR about a month ago at the noon hour, the news was that the borough assembly made a boo-boo. That's how they stated it, but it wasn't on ever again, and our journalists didn't write it up. So I was curious, um, they didn't figure out to add, um, the school bond to the budget. So I've come wondering the rest of the story, what happened.

And I go to city council meetings too because GCI contractor cut a water line on a holiday a couple of years ago, and I wondered who pays for that. It was $2 million, so it was never written up, so I don't know the rest of the story. But I did go and talk with Mr. Tavengay at his, um, going away party and told him that's why I showed up. So he invited me to stay and eat. That was really nice.

So I keep learning and I'm growing. I don't have the skills that you guys have or the experience, but I do have 74 years of understanding of things. It just takes me longer. So thank you for letting me come and learn and figure things out. Thank you.

Thank you, Carleen. Do we have any calls? Anyone else in the audience wishing to come forward?

Seeing none, we'll move on to agenda items. The first one is Northstar School facility. Discussion. Amy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I asked to have this added so that we just continue the conversation since we have such passionate interest in the North Star facility. Uh, the borough will be taking possession of the facility and has the opportunity to partner with various local organizations. The City of Parks and Recs is requesting to use the gym and attached restroom facilities so that the Little Dribblers program can continue this year. And as you heard at the last work session, the Shoonac Tribe is requesting more information on a lease rate for one of the wings of the school. I also have in here that the YMCA of Alaska is interested in office space, but we have shifted focus for the YMCA to the left-hand side of the college— cottage buildings right across from the high school.

Red Cross is currently occupying the right-hand side, and we're going to see if we can get YMCA in the left-hand side. That'll be a better, more centralized location for them. In order to determine if these uses are viable, these organizations are asking for rates. The school— the city parks and recs have agreed to pay for the janitorial services for the gym and the adjoining restrooms, so that is helpful so far. And as that kicks off, in your packet tonight you have a draft memo from the Board of Education where the The superintendent listed out many of the costs of, um, that building as when it was the school district's building.

You have some information on utilities, what the utilities were for June and July, and it's important to note there that there was no heating fuel added to the tanks in those months, so that's not accounted for. And then you have the total annual utilities, um, from fiscal year '22 to '24, including the average. Our finance director gave me the insurance rate for this year. That's that $27,000 number. I also gave you an additional sheet with your manager's report tonight that's all color-coded.

It gives you a little bit of information. That is the amount of space they're requesting. I mentioned what our Red Cross lease is right now for one of the cottages. And then in fis— I didn't want to use fiscal year '25 because there wasn't really any snow this year, so we went back to fiscal year '24 and it was just over $11,000 for snow and ice control. Uh, the other thing that, um, we are going to need up there, but the tenants could actually pay for, is internet.

But we'll probably need to do something for a security system, but that should be more of a one-time cost than an annual cost. And then we'll also need to decide whether or not we want those street lights that the, um, like the school was— what organization was that? Um, well, there's the streetlights for the school parking lot area, and then there's the streetlights on Lily Drive, Antone, Ah Boy, right, that they were paying for, and that's about $5,000 a year if we want to continue those streetlights for that facility if we have renters in there. So, uh, the request tonight is just to continue the conversation so that we could come closer to a lease rate. Um, I went back and listened to the last work session when there was a presentation, and there is a variety of opinions on whether we should include we should not include maintenance.

If we know we're going to take a loss on that building, how much of a loss do we want to take? All those things. So I'm just trying to keep the conversation going so we can provide answers to those that are interested.

Discussion? Steve?

Looking this over, Obviously the $150,000 is below the $171,000, but that's only part of the building they're leasing, correct? Right, so the $171,000, that's the cost for the total building, um, depending— the total square foot for the building is 39,800 square feet. That includes like second floor where the HVAC system is. That's that's a weird number because some of that area would never be leased, but they are just a little over 25% of the total square feet.

Okay, so they're only about 25% of the school's square footage? Yes. Um, well, I mean, if we find other people who were willing to go in also, then The discrepancy should go away. Probably hallway should be split between the tenants that are using the hallway, in my opinion. That hallway square foot is just the hallway in the wing that they're looking at.

They would be using— okay, part of it. So then even that number, um, that's that $150,000. So we're only about $20,000, $21,000 off from the cost plus maintenance. But if the gym's going to be leased to someone, the other wing gets leased, then we shouldn't be losing money on it as I see it. Is that correct?

I, I think we're going to be close to that. The gym is not under a lease, it's just under a use agreement with City Parks and Recs. Um, we have had that Northstar facility meeting where the school district had mentioned that they would be willing to put put some money towards this, and there is a possibility that the City of Kodiak would put some money towards this, but we haven't officially made an ask for that. Okay. Um, I guess that answers my questions.

Uh, considering the amount of building wanted, I don't think we can expect to break even renting 25% of the building. I mean, I know if I have a fourplex and only rent I'm going to lose money. Um, so we got to look at this realistically. And if anything, we might be charging more than we should be. But, and then the maintenance is going to have to be written out, I think, pretty well in the contract that they need to do the day-to-day maintenance.

But as a landlord, I'm responsible for my boiler. I'm responsible for major things like that. So in my opinion, that's just a matter of writing a proper contract so it's very clear who should be doing what, because some of the contracts we have, I think that's a little vague on. But well, it's very—. I think this is a good starting point.

Yeah, it's very vague here as who's going to be responsible for that boiler maintenance and stuff like that. So Ryan, and then Scott. Mr. Burchett. So I, again, I just want to restate what I had said last time. At a holistic level is that I'm not interested in taking on maintenance.

So I think any movement for potential tenants or occupancy should include maintenance. I made a statement that said we're not good at maintenance. And I stand by that statement. Um, we can look at any facility that the borough owns, and if you tell me that facility's in tip-top shape, then I will retract my statement. I think this is a safe one to make.

Uh, we have a history of not, uh, performing maintenance functions that, uh, avoid the need for capital projects and big large dollar expenditures, and if we're going to keep an asset, we need to protect our asset with whoever is going to occupy it by saying protect our asset. So I understand Mr. Ames's point about the boiler. We're, we're just not in a position to do that. If we were in a position to do that, By calculations with a maintenance technician too, parts and materials, you're somewhere north of $300 grand. So that's substantially more than the number that's in front of us, and that would substantially increase that square foot— square footage calculation.

So if we can't find somebody to take on the maintenance, then I will be the unpopular one here and say I would absolutely support disposal of this facility from the borough's rolls.

Thanks. Scott?

I don't think we can expect these people— I mean, the Sunak people— to pay this kind of money. I don't think they have that kind of money. And I think that anything we get from them is going to be against what it would cost to rebuild the place. If we do get rid of it, there are now calls for 300 new people at the Coast Guard base— service people at the Coast Guard base. That doesn't count family and children.

300 Plus they're going to build what, 15 new duplexes in Nimitz. That's a lot of people and that's probably going to exceed the capacity of Peterson, meaning we're going to have to use North If you want to close it now, we're going to have a $30 million bill building a new school, at least. I think we want to increase and have somebody in there to keep it from falling apart, and I don't think we want to make them pay full freight for it. Thank you.

Dave.

Having worked on a couple municipal leases, I'd just like to offer Maybe my thoughts on it, that it's fair to say that routine maintenance is routine— is commonly underperformed in governmental buildings. I don't see it necessarily as a wait for a capital project issue so much as a chronic underfunding issue. Facility budgets are typically some of the first cut when budgets need to be balanced. So if we fund the maintenance programs sufficiently, then the maintenance gets done. So that's on us up here on the dais as much as anyone else, in my opinion.

As far as who's responsible for what, I've got very limited experience with commercial real estate leasing. But my understanding is it's typically what's called a full-service lease, and that normally includes maintenance and other expenditures. So I don't know the right answer for the Shunak Tribe's request for this space. I think even if we were to offer a full-service lease at the stated rate of $1.20 per square foot, we're talking about a pretty substantial number. I'd be interested in what our maintenance department thinks the estimated annual cost to keep the building closed but openable in the future as far as the security we're going to have to provide, the low level of heat that would have to stay on, the continuing electricity use, and if we can calculate that and then maybe calculate the difference, we might come up with a better solution for everyone.

Thanks. Any—. Bo and then Larry. Thank you. I'm—.

In this— the $171,000 figure, does that include custodial services? No, uh, Schunack, um, their current daycare, the teachers provide their own janitorial. They said they would very much be interested in not having to do that, but if we were going to include that, that would have to change the cost, I believe. And then if we entertain the, the current rate and have this shortfall which doesn't include maintenance costs Where would those maintenance costs come from? They would come from our building and grounds fund.

Um, I, I don't know if I would call it a shortfall because they're not renting the whole school. So yeah, well, meaning, are we— we're essentially, if we agree to this rate, would be subsidizing this organization to function in our facility, but at the— on the backs of our taxpayers. Am I, am I incorrect there? No, I don't. I have lots of thoughts about that, but I, I think an empty building is more likely to be vandalized.

I think having people in there is actually going to save us money from, uh, spray paint and rocks through windows and having a presence there. So I, I think there's that to consider, um, on the backs of our taxpayers. Yes, this building is going to fall on the back of our taxpayers, just like it did when it was a school. School, either way taxpayers are paying for this. [Speaker:DR. BOLL] Well, and to be clear, I don't— I'm not against this proposal, but we do have to be mindful of stewardship of this building and who is paying for the maintenance.

And essentially we would be subsidizing this organization using taxpayer dollars. [Speaker:MS. ANDERSON] That is one way to look at it, yes. [Speaker:DR. BOLL] If we— I guess one last addition is Again, I think this is a huge need for the community. I'm not discounting that, but we do have to be mindful of stewardship of our public resources and tax dollars. Has there been any other interest coming in that could— we have this whole other wing available, you know, if we fill that wing, you know, that would probably easily get us there, including maintenance.

Um, but how long would be, I guess, willing to wait for that to happen? So there has— well, the YMCA request, but I think we're going to reroute that. There has been some vague interest from the Alaska State Defense Force for office space. There has been talk of storage space for KCHC and possibly admin offices for KCHC, but I just started those conversations with them. That's brand new.

And then I also heard of a need for one of the other organizations that I don't want to say out loud, but that might need storage spaces too. So there are some organizations that are interested, but I don't— like nothing has been finalized and no one wants to make any kind of commitment because I haven't been able to give them any kind of rate. And so until we get to that point where we have some kind of idea of what a rate would be, and then the wings, like we can control the temperature separately. So if we have a storage wing, it doesn't have to be 70 degrees. Right, so that would— that's something to take in consideration because I don't know how much it would cost to keep that building at 50 degrees because it's never been kept at 50 degrees.

And so unless it sits— and if I do it right now, it's still 60 degrees outside, so it's going to be hard to know what that is until we actually get into a cold winter season. Sorry, I'm gonna— this is a really long bite, I apologize. One more popped into my head. I just want to remind folks too that if we establish this, again, fantastic service to the community in, in our— in the school facility. And to Mr. Smiley's point, if we begin to expand our need for schooling and we then have to vacate a service that our community has become accustomed to, how do we reconcile that?

That's going to be painful, and that is going to be highly contentious. We have something we need to think about. We have told them even in their walkthrough that there would be a 2-year clause in there that if we saw the student count continuing to increase, or if it changed course and increased and the school district was looking at needing another elementary school, that they would have a 2-year notice. So that was from day one part of the conversation.

Larry, and then Dave. I had to smile at the last comment you made about people getting used to it. The Cana Field, we decided to let the football team use it one year. And we said, oh, well, if they were going to use the land, they'll just move the football field. That's never going to happen.

I think we have— the first thing that comes to my mind is we have this beautiful facility that's relatively new in terms of our district or borough-owned buildings. It's probably been newest building, and it's a real asset to our community. And I think we have to be very careful how we use it. I sort of look at it a bit differently.

If we realized that we have to protect this asset, because if we decided to sell it, and as a borough assembly here to get $5 million, and 10 years from now, we go to one of our assembly members who wanted to sell it and say, we need $30 million from the community because we got rid of this asset. They're not going to be happy about that. And, and I've said this before, I think it's important.

The state was ready to build us a new high school for free. The assembly turned it down. Okay. And that cost— that was an $80 million decision because they weren't looking ahead. And I think one of the questions we have to ask ourselves is where are we going to be in 10 years and 15 years as a community?

Community. Are we going to grow? Are we going to shrink? But if we do grow, then the schools have to be able to accommodate that growth. And we have old build— old school buildings that are going to take a lot of work, and I don't know what they'll look like in 15 years.

Main is old at this point in time. So is East. Peterson is older than all of them. So I think we have to be very careful. If nobody used the building, we would have to heat it, probably keep our fire alarms going for insurance, have to take care of the building.

We even have to do that. So let's say that we spent $100,000 for 10 years, $1 million, and we need it as a school. Well, it's good money well spent because we have a school that we don't have to pay $30 million for it because we own it. So I think it's very important that we look down the road, not just what's going on right now, because if we do have to build one, the state's not going to help us at all.

So, but we also know, and I think you mentioned that too, that if we did maintain it and kept the heat on and took care of the building and boarded it up, buildings don't do very well that way. We did that in Karluk. It took us a lot of money to go down there and open it up again one time, I think, in Larsen Bay. Same in Port Lyons when we closed the building. It's expensive.

We want somebody in there. In fact, it's almost like we want to do everything we can to have somebody in the building instead of us just paying to keep it heated and open. We need ownership of the building, someone that will report when a window is broken or there's a leak in the roof or something going on. It has to be owned and and managed. So, um, I think it's very, very important that we find people, but I also feel that we have never advertised the use of our building.

If we're going to lease it out, then we need to get in the newspaper and say we have this building, here is what we're going to charge, and find out exactly what kind of interest there is, because right now we just have people walking in the door. And it seems to me if we were going to lease out the building, we would have to do that anyway. I don't know what the laws are regarding that. So I certainly would never want to sell it. Our community can grow.

We may need it. One of our other buildings, if we lose one of our other buildings through a fire or something like that, you know, We need it, and I don't mind spending money to maintain it because it's an asset worth keeping and taking care of. Again, I do hope that if we— we should go out to lease. And the very last thing I would say is that it might be that the school district has a maintenance crew. They've been taking care of the building.

They've done small maintenance. They have contracts to take care of sprinkler systems, to check them out, alarm systems, instead of charging them for the use of the facility in the gym, or it may be that we could do a quid pro quo where they provide services for us that they already have the people to do, and they have the background and the history and the equipment, the filters, you name it, they have it for that building, that we could do a quid pro quo where we could negotiate that kind of deal with them instead of a cash deal. Deal. Thank you. We have Dave, then Jared, then Ryan.

Dr. Levine said everything I would have and better. Okay, we'll skip right over Dave. Jared. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. I appreciate that, Larry.

Yeah, I think we talk about how there's a housing shortage, but we also— what doesn't come up a lot is there's a commercial space storage or commercial space shortage. In our town too. I don't think we'd have any problem finding people to— or organizations to lease space from us in there. I really like what Dave said about looking at what is— if it remained unoccupied and we would have to maintain that building in case we do need that building as a school later on, let's take that cost, find that cost, and then create a differential with then what we can do for organizations that want to lease from it. I really like that idea too.

But yeah, it's got to stay in our hands, I think, and it's got to— so that we can— I think it helps us be flexible and serve the community at the same time.

Ryan.

So this is probably going to be a little long-winded.

I have to say that the theory of holding for 10 to 15 years is not a valid theory because building codes change, occupancy requirements change, fire suppression system requirements change. The changes that we would need to keep up with in an unoccupied facility or a retrofit to then equip the facility, say, seismically, say, old hospital, we aren't learning from the mistakes that we've made with our other facilities. So, case in point, old wing of the hospital, case in point, the old mental health buildings. If we truly wanted to, look at this through a different lens, we would actually run an aging asset management program. So the Bureau would look at all of its assets and see—.

Bad boy—. Would see what assets are aging out, the lifespan, the expectancy of a facility. And we would find that this building that we're in is the oldest and most environmentally unsafe. And Mr. Turner spoke on this last week where, you know, suggested moving borough offices. I'm not opposed to the idea, and maybe the borough is the other wing of this suggested, um, proposal that's in front of us.

But I think that we need to have a model, and I'll look at the educators up here who base all theory of education off of models of some sort and say, hey, here's a model that we should follow. We should do the same thing with making sound decisions. So an aging asset management model is very common in the private industry. If I were to run my business or my personal finances on a hold for 10 or 15 years, somebody might accuse me of being a government entity. Not managing my personal funds very well.

And I guess the last thing is, is whenever I hear somebody say quid pro quo, the shivers go up my back. I call them drug deals because, especially with the school district where the, the state of Alaska is cracking down on what local municipality contributions can be had, these are considered in-kind donations or in-kind tracking. So I would definitely not support a quid pro quo deal on this.

I guess that's where I'll go.

Thanks. Steve?

I agree with Ryan in the point 10, 15 years is unrealistic. Because of the age of the building and changing things. I could see us wanting to find a way to hold it 5 to decide what the school district is— population is really doing, how much effect the incoming Coast Guard is going to have on us. And so therefore, doing something with the building now with everyone knowing it's a limited time, that— or could be a limited time, I'll leave it at that— is a smart move.

As for the burden on taxpayers, the building is going to be a burden on taxpayers, and if part of it's not rented, I will stand by my statement it's unfair to ask a tenant who's renting 25%, even 30% of it, to cover the whole cost. I mean, right now I can tell you for a fact the John Hancock Building is about 40% full after COVID, and those people are not covering the whole building cost. Um, there's some serious office buildings that are going to be in trouble because they're not full, and you can't charge one tenant to cover a whole building, and I will stand by that opinion. Thank you. Amy.

I just wanted to mention, because our finance director texted me, our insurance company will not allow us to insure a vacant building. So if it is vacant, it will sit there without insurance.

Thank you, Amy.

Bo. Thank you. I appreciate the discussion. And again, Just to be abundantly clear, I do support this organization using this facility on a limited basis should the need arise or we need to re-expand our school capacity. I'm also not against the idea of moving borough offices there, but that comes with a more permanent— and is more of a more permanent move in my opinion.

If we move the borough offices there, they're there to stay. Stay. We're not going to renovate this building and then move everyone back once school expands. So while I think that's a great idea, um, that completely negates the option for using it as a school ever again. Um, do we retain that facility and maintain it?

Absolutely, in that case. But, um, I, I agree with Mr. Ames in that, you know, if, if we're looking at a 2-year lease, um, this is a huge need for our community. Does it cover what we need to for maintenance? Clearly it doesn't. It doesn't even really— fair point.

We shouldn't expect that of them, and that's not what I'm implying. My hope would be that if we entertain this and go with this lease at this rate, that we can fill that other wing in a short amount of time and be able to at least float some capital towards maintenance and buy us some time to decide what the final use for that building or long-term use will be for that facility. So I support it, but I'm cautious— cautiously optimistic that this is a good long-term solution.

Larry, you got your hand up. I'm just verifying. Um, I don't have to worry about it 10 years from now or 15 years what's going to happen because We're going to have a different assembly. I mean, they're going to have the ability to say, all right, this isn't happening. You know, this is, you know, the community is still here.

They still speak through the assembly and the elected governance. So I trust in the wisdom of future assemblies. And as we move down the road, our community changes, so will the assembly, so will the needs of the community. I trust they'll make good decisions down the road. What's important is that we make a good decision now in terms of what we hope will be happening in 5, 10, and 15 years.

Thank you.

A few things I'd like to say is, um, this didn't happen in a year or two. It took 15 years to get to this point of closing a school on there, and you're not going to reopen a school in 2 years, 3 years, 5 years. It's more like 10 to 15 years. And what you would do is, rather than opening a school, is put modular units at an existing school to augment the space. I don't see this being reopened as a school.

I think we're kidding ourselves at this time in the next 5 to 10 years. The, the census is show that we're going to continue to decline in population, not increase. Yes, the Coast Guard's doing some of that, and they've accounted for some of that on there. They're going to get back up to what their— I'm going to say their numbers were 10 years ago. They're not going above that on there.

And so I think we're thinking short range here, and we're going to We're going to put ourselves in a real problem down the road. These buildings cost money to operate and maintain in any way, shape, or form. And, and we have shown, as Ryan had said earlier, that we do a piss-poor job at that. And I think that we need to look at all options on the table, and the disposal of this facility is one of those things that needs to be looked at and looked into. I do not agree with a 2-year notice to evict.

You have to— you have 1-year notice if you're going to do something like that, not 2 years. You know, it can go a little bit longer, go a year and a half, because you don't necessarily do it right there if you know you're we're gonna do something, but we're kidding ourselves if we think we're gonna reopen that as a school in the next 5 years.

So my opinion. Ryan, you had your hand up. Yeah, I need to try and say this without being confrontational, so please put an emoji on this or whatever your guys' generation does.

So the statement of I don't have to worry about it in 10 or 15 years is exactly why I'm leaving Kodiak, because elected officials 10 or 15 years ago didn't care what was happening today. And that is absolutely the worst comment— insert emoji— that could be said from this assembly. That's actually infuriating to me. So yes, we do absolutely have to worry about what's going on in 10 and 15 years here in the community.

Okay, so one of the things that was brought up tonight is to cap the time. I absolutely love that idea. If you went into this venture saying, okay, we don't really know what's going on socioeconomically over the next 2 to 3 years, let alone 5 to 10, anything and everything that happens with this facility has a cap. I think we as an assembly, if we could get behind that, should agree on whatever that cap is— 3 years, 5 years, whatever that is— and say, okay, look, some of us are career politicians and some of us are not. So that also gives people an end date, a term, right?

Like, hey, I'm not happy with this decision that was made, but I know that it's going to be reevaluated and rediscussed in 4 years from now, and I'm going to start building a case or being more involved with what this facility could be used for. We have a hard time getting public engagement unless it's something to do with the school district or some, you know, hot contentious item. This isn't hot and contentious. We've been throwing around wild numbers like If we sold the facility for $5 million, I will literally write a check tomorrow. Here I am on record.

You want that facility gone for $5 million? I will go to the bank tomorrow. I will give you $5 million. I want conveyance of that property. So because it's not— it's worth well and above $5 million.

So the numbers, you know, we're talking in a vacuum about— we haven't had a fair market value analysis done. We haven't had a rent analysis done. $1.20 A square foot is extremely cheap for Kodiak. And if we are going to, as Beau said, augment a tax basis or augment from a tax basis, let's at least do it the right way and actually get a fair market value survey conducted on what the square footage— let's get it classified. Is it A space, B space, C space.

Like, let's, let's actually do this with a model again and have real data going into this. The last thing that I'll say with, with this is that when we get that square footage number, we should be able to have all of the data of what it costs per square foot to break even or to actually put money into a reserve account. So one of my previous businesses, we had aircrafts and we had these little things called engine reserves. So every X number of hours, we knew we had to replace an engine. So for every X number of hours, we put a little bit of money into an engine reserve account.

So then when those hours timed out, we had the money to just go buy a brand new engine. And so, uh, something like that I would love to see a reserve account. The maintenance is the biggest concern that I have with this facility.

I just don't want to see us have a rerun of the old mental health buildings. So I guess that's all I'm going to say on the topic tonight. Thanks. Yeah. Bo.

I know there's— it was a— I don't know the details of the offer other than an offer was made to purchase that facility, was that made known, or do we have any idea what the value, market value of this facility is? Because I agree, we, we're a little haphazard with throwing figures out and what we could sell the facility for and what it would cost to build a facility. I don't think there's anything backing those numbers, so I agree that those are a little careless in throwing those numbers around, but it would be helpful for the public to know what we're doing with their facilities and the value of this facility and how we approach this scenario. So, um, I don't know how difficult it would be to obtain that. I don't work in commercial real estate either.

Um, if it was a reasonable ask for the assembly to get on board with to determine what the market value of that facility is, I think the public would be curious to know. Larry. I think both suggestion is a very good one. I would say this, um, the reason I'm not concerned about 15 years from now is I'm concerned, as I said before, about a previous assembly that made a decision without caring about what's going to happen in 15 years. That our decision today has to be made in such a way that we don't tie the hands of future assemblies in the future, that they can make good decisions, but we need to make a good decision now so that, um, an assembly or our community down the road doesn't find themselves in a position where they can't afford to do something.

As far as, um, predicting student numbers, um, the district will know, um, when they need to expand, and it doesn't happen overnight. Uh, it will happen. When we needed a new high school back in the '90s, we knew a high school was needed back, frankly, in the '80s because we were looking at the cohorts of kids that were coming in. We had 200-student cohorts coming into the district at that time. Now they're not even close to that.

But in any case, uh, the community will know when they need a school, and they'll be able to predict it much sooner than 2 years.

Before they know that. They won't need it immediately because they'll know when they need it. It'll be down the road. But I do think we need to make a good decision so that we don't— our community doesn't find themselves in a financial situation they can't handle. Thank you.

Jaron. Thank you. This is kind of an open question, but for the manager, maybe the finance director, I'm just now really learning the ins and outs of non-commercial lease agreements with Providence is calculating depreciation typical in these kinds of lease agreements is kind of to Ryan's point about, you know, knowing the timeline of the— or the life of equipment and you plan for that. So, in the nonprofit world, right, we— that's called depreciation and that's how we account for that.

Governments use depreciation for enterprise funds. You can set up a sinking fund similar to what Ryan was talking about, setting aside some— a set amount to take care of that if you estimate how much—. How long the life is going to be. For buildings such as the hospital, that's really complicated. So with the dramatic years for the different builds there, um, some kind of component evaluation would be good for, for that one.

But for this building, um, you just have to determine how long it's going to, going to live and decide you're going to set that money aside, as Ryan indicated earlier. That kind of is what depreciation does, but we only do depreciation in enterprise funds because that's the funds that are businesslike in nature. Okay, right. Thank you. Yeah.

One of the things that you need to look at too is $1.20 a square foot, you're not going to find that anywhere on the market. If you look at what we charge for the borough building on here, it's a little different. The borough doesn't include— what we charge ourselves and what we charge the city, we take out the hallways, we take out the bathrooms on there. You got net square footage. And we're at roughly about $275 a square foot.

That's rough. I don't have those numbers on me. $255. I wasn't too far off. But when you look at $1.20, it's not going to cover it.

Now, part of why I say you need to look at this building and not hanging on to it as one of the options is we already know there's over $1 million needed, $1 to $2 million needed on the replacement. On the roof. We've been told that in the last 2 years while everybody's here. We've heard that. That isn't going away.

That isn't funded here. So you're talking about capital costs that are going to be necessary on this facility, and somewhere you need to take that into consideration whether you hang on to it or not. So, because this is not You know, we're looking at it, you know, with blinders on a little bit is my concern and need to open up this wider to all options. And then from what I've heard on the— Amy was filling us in a little bit on the fire alarm system. You know, nobody's going to be allowed in the building without a fire alarm system working.

Ryan, you had your hand up. Yep. Bo had indicated if he could get some support for asking the manager to do a— you know, requesting a market survey. I'd like to voice that support to get a market survey and a conditional assessment so that we know in the next 5-year period— I'm just going to pick an erroneous number— 5-year period, part of that consumer market survey would include, hey, in the next 5 years, we also think this. You need a new boiler.

You need a new fire suppression system or fire alarm electrical upgrades, something like that, that we could have all that data in front of us for the next 5-year period to make a very well-informed decision about how to move forward. So I'd just like to give that support. I think we need it. Is there any objections? Seeing none.

Okay, directions given.

All options. Okay. Yes, Amy. So just summarizing, and so we understand direction, a condition survey that includes consumer market survey for the next 5 years including system replacements, accurate?

And a market value, are those one and the same? Both rental market value and disposal value, I think, would be the complete picture. Both. Also, what it would cost to build, replace the facility. Replacement cost.

What kind of inflation would you like me to use? COLA. Or CPI is more accurate. CPI. Can you tell me what the CPI is going to be 10 years from now?

Okay, just checking. I mean, right, like, I don't— but like, is almost impossible, but we can—. I think the Alaska Department of Education, their facilities office, will have some good information. Okay. I think what you do is you look at what the replacement cost is today, not what it's going to be in 10 years.

You look at what replacement cost of that facility is today. And then everybody can put their own numbers on it, but that's where you're going to get the most accurate number is what it costs today, because that's how we look at construction. My second question would be, uh, is Joy listening? Um, do we want to make this an enterprise fund? An enterprise fund pays— the school pays for itself, which probably isn't practical right now.

The building, you mean, pays for itself? The ex-school pays for itself? Yes, the building. It's probably not practical right now because we don't have revenue sources, so we're good to pay for this stuff out of buildings and grounds?

Okay. Temporarily. Okay, we will move on to the next item, which is discuss the designation of the Community Development Director as the chairperson of the Borough Lands Committee. Amy, do you want to start this, or do you want the, the, um Yellow paper people, that would be Bo and Larry.

Sure. So where to begin? I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. I'll front load with I understand the designated or the person I wish to designate to chair this might be a challenge. However, I do want to put everything on the table in that I've been up here for 2 years.

I don't think there's been a week that's gone by in the past 2 years where I haven't either heard someone at that podium chatting in the, in the audience or at Walmart or Safeway discuss the need for land. We hear it week in, week out here. We know we've heard it from the city of Kodiak. We've heard it from the The Kodiak Economic Development Corporation, I believe it is called, did their housing study and they have a housing action plan. All of these mention we need land disposed for housing development.

And I've heard assembly members who've been sitting up here for probably as long as I've been alive saying they haven't seen hardly anything done in their term in municipal government. And it's to me, so I started doing more research. Why has there been inaction? Well, in the past 7 years— let me rewind a bit. I'm looking at Borough Code here.

Borough Lands Committee 2.160.020 organization. The mayor will serve as the chair of the committee and shall designate a vice chair at the first meeting of the calendar year and shall hold at least one quarterly meeting. So in the past 7 years, there should have been 28 meetings held for the Burrow Lands Committee. There have been 5 in 7 years. So it's no secret to me why we've been stagnant in this area.

And so when I think about functional government, this is an area where people are crying for help, screaming for it. We have not stopped hearing about it, and we have done Nothing. This is the definition of ineffective government, and it's really discomfort— it causes a lot of discomfort for me. So how do we address this? We need something to change.

Status quo isn't working. We are failing our community. If we expect growth to happen, this is one of the areas we can put some attention to, to provide growth. If you want to see school numbers increase, if you want to reverse the trend of outmigration, people— the jobs are here. We have no housing for the people who want to do these jobs.

People want to come here. We hear it from— there are jobs out there for our first responders, our healthcare professionals, our educators, uh, fishing industry and support industry for fishing. All of these sectors of our community and economy have people who want to move here and live, they don't have a house they can buy, and this is one way we can help. We haven't done much good in this area, so I'm frustrated with the lack of inactivity. We haven't seen anything come before us yet.

I know there are some town lots that are working their way towards us, but I'm also equally frustrated at what's coming next with the Lands Committee. So I looked back to where the most previous meeting was and there's still a really strong emphasis on Chiniak. I'm not discounting the viability of this option for land disposal. It's a beautiful place. I'm sure there are some people who would like to live out there.

But when I think about if we're going to leverage public resources to develop land for expansion of our community and economy, This is not what appears to be the most logical option to put our focus. If we're going to lock down resources, both staffing and funding, to develop infrastructure for land development, this is not going to help our first responders. This is not going to help our educators. This is not going to help fill vacancies for our public health or our health— healthcare professionals. Certainly not going to help anyone in the commercial fishing industry and support services.

So I question the prioritization. And my suggestion, and I guess food for thought for the assembly, is would you prefer this piecemeal approach that happens highly infrequently, or would we prefer to have this committee present several options for land disposal for the— for us to consider, but more importantly to place options in front of the public, to have the public weigh in. Where should we prioritize our resources in developing infrastructure, infrastructure for land development? So I think this is a flawed process. I think we need more transparency in how we're discussing options.

If Chiniak lands in front of me without other options included for the public to consider, that's going to be an easy no. I think it's a beautiful option, but I don't think we should prioritize it. So coming full circle, we need some better leadership for the Lands Committee. I'm not sure who that person should be. I'm not singling out any— anyone, an individual, because this has been a problem for 7 years, clearly.

I do know we need some continuity. I don't know who the mayor is going to be next year. I don't know who the mayor is going to be 3 years after that. Does that person have the knowledge and expertise to drive discussion for this committee to identify parcels of land to dispose for development? I'm not confident that's the right person for the job, regardless of who's sitting in that seat.

Um, I proposed the Community Development Director. However, I do understand that there would be a conflict there in being unable to, to serve in that role while also filling other roles for our community. But I'm open to suggestions from anyone, from the assembly, from staff, from the manager, who would be the best person to serve in that role that would provide continuity with our process, that would identify several options at a time for land disposal for the public to weigh in, and that we can then prioritize and then use public resources to leverage for development of land. So long-winded, but those are all of my thoughts and what led me to filling out that sheet. I'm frustrated because the public's frustrated.

We, we need to do better. This is, this is embarrassing. Um, 5 meetings in 7 years. It's no longer a secret why we've— we are stagnant. If we're gonna— if we're gonna grow as a community community, this is one place we can start and we can start quickly.

So I'll end it there. Thank you for your patience. Larry, then Steve, and then Ryan. Well, I want to thank Bo for proposing on this, and I certainly agree with everything that he has said. I just want to look at it also just a bit differently.

I was on the Bureau Assembly when the Lands Committee was put together, and it wasn't designed just to to find borough land and get it on the market. It was designed to provide leadership for our entire community to explore different ways that land can become available. Everything from tax incentives to develop land, working with the Coast Guard to see how they manage their land, partnering with Native corporations who own land to become sort of a community focus on what we can do to make land available for people that want to live here. And it wasn't just focused on borough land. I think that it would be difficult for the director of P&Z to be in that because it's somewhat political at times.

And I don't believe in putting staff members except the manager into political positions. Sort of fits your position naturally. But in any case, there's so much that we could be doing to provide leadership in our community. The Lands Committee had representatives from different organization landholders. And you can't produce a product if you never meet.

And I've attended, I was on the Lands Committee when it was first formed, and the discussions were rigorous and enlightening and pretty exciting. And then it just sort of disappeared, but it's leadership, not just bro land. And I believe that many of the committees that we have in the district— I think, Jared, you're chairing the Hospital Advisory or Facilities Committee. We've elected somebody in the Parks and Rec Committee that's on the committee. I think Architectural Review Board, do they elect their person in charge there, or is it just facilitated through facilities?

In any case, I believe with the firepower that the Borough Code asked to be on the committee, I believe that they could designate a person that would carry on those responsibilities to make that happen. Our community needs it, and it's been one of the great disappointments of my presence on the assembly that in 3 years we've done pretty much nothing about distributing land, period. That's just the bottom line. Thank you. Steve, then Ryan.

I agree, I would like to see things moving faster. I'm not sure who— right now it's designated as the mayor, but I'm not sure who best to run it is. I do know part of the problem of land not being sold sooner was the Lands Committee came up with the proposals, and the people who didn't want it in their backyard or neighborhood because they like the woods or whatever, had enough strength that the Assembly would not back the Lands Committee. And so there are a lot of fingers that can be pointed at a lot of people of why things haven't moved faster. Do I agree they should?

Yes. I'm not sure putting in charge of it someone who is on paid staff, unless that was designated as part of a job description, is appropriate.

That would be something we'd have to talk to Amy about and get an input on.

They have a job, and if we're putting more on top of them, is this correct, is something to think about. Thank you. Ryan. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] So I also appreciate all the work that Bo put into this. I did not know the background and the numbers, and the numbers are staggering.

Less than 25% of available meetings were commissioned and actually met. That absolutely is a root cause of an issue. My suggestion— I also don't want to point fingers and don't really care, but my suggestion would be is to incorporate service districts into this. We already have some form of segregation throughout the borough. Perhaps we ask service district involvement for, you know, potential land disposal in their respective service districts and represent their— that they're already an elected official, so that would remove the political concerns, you know.

And so I would just— we've heard from the service districts a couple times this year, and I think they want to be more involved in the decision-making process, certainly from a contracting standpoint. So maybe from a disposal point, maybe we could ask the manager to query the service districts to see if they'd be interested in that. But I do agree that we need to have the right— the right people in the right positions at the right time. We're in the right time. We know what the positions are.

Now we just need to get the right people. I don't believe that it's an employee of the Kodiak Island Borough, even the manager, is the right person for that. So thanks. Dave, and then Steve. Thank you.

I'll agree with my fellow assembly members that I think in good governance, having an employee told to chair a board is a really bad idea. I think what I'd recommend maybe is that we look— we look at it, you know, it's— they provide recommendations to the assembly to take action on. I think a body that this board, that this assembly codifies. You know, off the top of my head, you say, you know, a homeowner, a representative from the different service districts, a, you know, not more than one person involved in the development industry, not more than one person involved in the real estate industry. So you get a good cross-section of the electorate of the, you know, at least one renter.

You know, you can form the criteria for a board and then you assign one assembly member ex officio. Then they're allowed and empowered to make their recommendations independent of assembly influence, and then the assembly all gets to take a fresh look at it and approve or abstain from their recommendation. So I think that model may work. I also just want to reiterate, I wouldn't support trying, you know, having been in a similar situation as a staff member who's supposed to provide subject expertise, then also being asked to chair is a really, you know, difficult thing to put on anyone.

What you have— Steve, go ahead.

Um, a couple of things. Maybe we need to figure out a better way. I believe Assemblymember Bowe said that they're supposed to have 4 meetings a year. Maybe that number should be changed so it has more meetings and maybe more progress could happen. The other thing is land in Chiniak, I think, is a good idea, but I agree, close land needs to go because not many people want to make that drive.

That would more be for people who are retired or semi-retired and want to stay in Kodiak and don't mind coming to town once a week or twice a week. And there is a population that, that would help. And if they move out, then there's a house available. Um, so I do think that's a realistic option. It should be done in stages out there, um, because if we try to do one massive one, I'm sure we're going to get a lot of complaints from people living there.

Um, and also, if you put too much land up for sale at the same time, you're not going to get price. But the need for finding land that the borough owns, or we can find other organizations that own and approach selling some of close to town for people who work and live in, or want to live in town, would be a good idea. Thank you. Scott, and then Amy.

I did research on SEQR, so I don't know anything about land really. However, I've heard that there's something like 600 lots within the city that aren't built on. Some of them can't be built on because of terrain, others could be, but they're held by people who don't want to build on them now. I think whatever the new version of Lands Committee should be, it should include the city because that's where a lot of the empty lots are, and that's where people that are going to be in the teaching position or in first responder position is going to— they're going to want to live in town more than Chiniac. Thank you.

Okay, then next is going to be Amy, then me, then Larry. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I just wanted to touch on the housing action plan, and I think that's great that KD DC has done that work, and I know a lot of us have gone to those different meetings. The action plan is calling for affordable housing, and selling land does not necessarily result in affordable housing. And I think that that's a link that we have to think about, because while it could possibly, if we don't have restrictions on that land or find a developer for that land or put rules around those land sales, we could get very unaffordable housing.

So the idea of the Assembly subsidizing land or having tax breaks for new construction or doing something to help make that affordable, I think, is something that should be discussed. Someone else mentioned the purpose of the committee, and I think that's brilliant. One of the purposes of the Lands Committee was to work with private landowners and talk to them about selling land as well. It's just not— the committee wasn't just for borough land. It was for city land, borough land, and privately owned land.

And then I think the final thing is, is this topic has come up over and over again, and here we are at a work session talking about it brilliantly. Why don't we just talk about it at work sessions? There's no reason we can't bring in a map and show you where the borough land is and what's available and have— if it's a priority, we can go through the Lands Committee, but if those committees aren't working as needed, we can talk about it here. I used to have a huge map. I moved it down to the conference room to show you where the borough land was.

And so we have an idea of what we're actually talking about. And then maybe we give direction. Let's talk about Chiniac, or let's not talk about Chiniac, or let's talk about remote, or let's not talk about remote. Like, I think if the assembly, uh, maybe gave some direction on what their thoughts were, that that could better guide that committee. Because the meetings that I've been to— it's the opinions of very few people about what we should be selling and what we should be doing, and not— we're not— no one from the community is coming in and saying what they need, and so it's very limited into what the discussions are.

And I think that one of the things that we'll look at first, some of the information that Bo stated right off the bat is inaccurate. So we'll get the information accurately from the clerk's office. You need to see who's on the committee now on there. And because there was a— during the period that you're talking about, the committee didn't exist. There wasn't members on.

It was just more in the last 2 years been re-stood up. So, I'll get that information for you. We'll get the information on who is exactly on it, the different positions, the people come from and give you some of that information. Now, and so that you basically will have everything. Amy, everybody's got good ideas.

There's not a problem with that. So the intent will be to bring it back forward. But next we have Larry, then Jarod, then Ryan, then Bo.

I think that we can all agree based on our testimony that we've had in the last several years that we're in crisis in our community. People can't live here. Young people who graduate from high school can't afford to live here and have to leave. And we all know what's going on. We've heard it over and over.

It's no simple solutions, but again, um, The Lands Committee was created again to provide leadership, to work to not just be a focus of discussions, but to galvanize the community, those people who— to be creative, to say, hey, let's swap this land here and we'll do this, to find a way to work together to solve the problem. ADUs are part of the problem, but we've shelved that until we come up with something real. For whatever reason, we've lost a whole other building season. But in any case, I believe that the Lands Committee needs to meet regularly. It needs to involve lots of folk.

They need to be creative. They need to look at incentives. They need to ask questions about the— whatever number of lots are available that aren't being built upon, that the Coast Guard needs to be involved. I mean, it needs— if it's a crisis situation, which it is, then it needs to take center stage. And some of our goals that we have, if we had a strategic plan, we'd probably have that at front and center, wouldn't we, Manager?

In any case, I think that it's not just a matter of meeting more. It's a matter of really sitting down and providing the leadership or identifying leadership in our community, wherever it is, to really make this happen. The most exciting thing, uh, that I've seen happen was the presentation by the housing authority, if you will, to put up some housing in Kodiak. Because whether people agree with it or not, it was pretty exciting that somebody was actually doing something. And I also believe that affordable housing doesn't mean a lot of apartment complexes.

It means that a young person or somebody can buy a lot and build a house like we used to and, and have that dream and start building forward. So, and that begins with having land that you can buy at a reasonable price to get forward. Thank you. Jared, then Ryan, then Bo. Uh, thank you.

Um, so I, I think we can, uh To kind of echo Larry's phrasing, I think we could also agree it seems to be that having a staff director chairing a borough committee is probably not good practice.

The principle is called ultra vires, ultra vires, and that is when you delegate governing authority beyond, you know, what our structure allows. And so staff are, you know, have their role, and then we have our role. And so when we break that, we are committing ultravirus. That's right. So I think there are a couple of issues here.

One is that the immediate issue with the Lands Committee And then more broadly, how accountable do we hold ourselves to holding meetings? What if I, as chair of the Health Facilities Advisory Board, what if I decided to just stop having meetings? What's, you know, what's the recourse if I don't tell anybody? There's— I don't think we really have a mechanism for that.

Also, making policy based on one person is never good policy. You are already starting off on a bad foot. Instead, I think we need to explore mechanisms to ensure that meetings occur. Right? So we can codify the director's role as an advisor.

I think we can certainly do that. And then we can codify a vice chair that is an assembly member that also has the power to call and conduct the quarterly meetings rather than reassigning that leadership to staff. And we can do that. If we need to do that with more than one committee, then we certainly can. But I don't want to risk the political or the legal liability with the— if we cross that staff line.

But I believe that there is a balanced approach here that will ensure that meetings that aren't hold, we can— keep ourselves accountable up here to make sure we do what we're supposed to be doing up here.

Ryan, then Bo. Thank you. Um, as I was listening to my fellow assembly members state their opinions, um, kind of became clear to me that we're using terms interchangeably, and I think that from a communication perspective, I think we probably need to get on the same page. So, um, I would offer this, um, there is a difference between development and disposal. Disposal is when you are getting rid of 1 or 2 lots at a time.

Development is when there are 3 lots or parcels or tracts that you're getting rid of. And when we start talking about disposal and then we throw in the term development and it goes, "Oh, we can't afford the development of this," and then all conversations stop. So I think that we need to clear the semantics, the difference between disposal and development. And I would offer up that it's disposal is 1 to 2 lots and development is 3 lots or tracts. Second is— The one thing that I would say that I've learned the hard way being on the assembly is that everything follows the money.

Without money, without a source, nothing exists. So what I would propose, when I first learned about this, this thing, I had no idea what it was until about 3 meetings after I first heard about it. And there was this pilt. I'm like, what the heck is pilt? Uh, so when I learned that payment in lieu of taxes came from the federal government and what pilt actually represented, I was like, oh, that's like a slush fund because you don't know how much you're gonna get.

You have no idea where that's gonna go. And pilt is so loosely defined as a receivable, in my words, or or receivable, that you could be so erroneous as to throw it at nonprofits if you wanted to. So— and I say that tongue-in-cheek because that was my idea, by the way. So what I would suggest is that we take some portion of PILT and allocate it as a funding source for development surveys and plannings of developments. Developments, not disposals, developments.

Part of that process, you know, when you are looking at a development, you run through kind of the 5 key steps of a development. You have your identification, you have your planning permitting, you have your surveys, and then you have your incentives.

Little-known fact that when a municipality or a borough disposes of property, they actually will owner finance. I didn't even know this until recently. It's that— and you guys can please correct me if I'm wrong— but the 10-10-10, right? 10% Down, 10% interest in 10-year terms. To my knowledge, there's not even a credit check, is there?

Correct. That's crazy. That's an incentive right there. And so I think that we should look at PILT as a funding source that actually brings validity to the commission that you're trying to recodify. That way we've got money that that commission can spend for the development and that we can clean the terminology up so that we don't stall out when we're talking about dispersal disposal, and then somebody throws in development.

So I just would offer those up as some clarity as we move this entire incentive forward. So thanks. Bo. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate that.

I will remember— try to remember that terminology. Um, so, Mr. Mayor, my information is correct. I'll save you the trouble. It came from the clerk's office, so that's about as accurate as you're going to find. And I do have the roster for Borough Lands Committee in front of me, which is, I imagine, updated.

The clerks do a fantastic job of keeping these rosters up to date, so all information is accurate. And I really— I'm not hung up on, on who's designated in this role. This was the goal, right? Discussion. We've generated a lot of ideas in a short amount of time, so this is where, where I wanted this to go.

I love the idea from Madam Manager in that having all potential options in front of the assembly for development or disposal in front of us, and we can select and not prioritize, but select several tracts or parcels of land or lots that we can forward to the Lands Committee for discussion, and they can discuss and troubleshoot and prioritize based on the needs of the community. I think that is a beautiful approach. To how we can consider disposing of lots, tracts, etc., for development or disposal. I think that's a brilliant idea. I would love to see that happen immediately, um, not— and not meaning tomorrow, but, um, the next time this discussion comes up, I believe we should have this on the agenda.

We should have these options in front of us. Let's get to work if that's what it's going to take, is we do some— shoulder some of the brunt of the legwork, identify some areas we can forward to the Lance Committee for discussion to lend our options and then have them lend their expertise to the exercise. I think it's a beautiful idea. I really appreciate that suggestion. I think we should run with it.

I'm clearly not going to pursue this ordinance for— continue to push this ordinance through for introduction based on all of the very logical reasons why we shouldn't. However, I think we have a lot of room for growth here and some great suggestions we can put into motion. I don't know what would be the logical approach of how we take Madam Manager's suggestion and put it in action. What we're going to do is we have agenda setting on Tuesday, September 2nd, and it's my recommendation that we put this back on the agenda for the work session on the 25th of September. So, Dave.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And, um, I also wanted to thank the manager for addressing the difference between disposal of, of, uh, property and affordable housing. Um, hopefully I'm not running afoul of, uh, the agenda item, but as That was brought up. I just want to make my position clear on moving disposal forward. I will be in favor of disposal that allows for individual owners to submit sealed bids that have very strong covenants for development requirements and living in the home for a period of time, much like is being done with the Kodiak Island Housing Authority.

And that any— and then if we don't receive bids, we can move it into a call, you know, a call bid auction style for other parties. But having seen the poorly executed disposals in the past where lots of been sold and are now being sat on, I feel very strongly that a covenant in there, a repurchase clause, if it's not developed within 5 years or 10 years, the borough can buy it back at purchase price.

That allows for the borough to maintain the ability to ensure development of those lots so we don't add to the number Mr. Smiley was speaking of, of undeveloped lots that are just being sat on.

Ryan? Yeah, sorry to belabor the point. I love that idea. I think that not only can I get behind that, but I see that tying back into another Assemblymember's recommendation of that strategic plan. If you were to quantify in your strategic plan what that development looks like, then you actually have the model to follow.

So thanks. Okay. With that, I— we're going to take a 5-minute recess and then go into the packet review. Thank you.

That's the gap. Aim down, down a half inch, right? Correct. And then look, line it up with the target and go right back up. Yeah.

We'll go ahead and reconvene the work session. And starting on the packet review, first item is public hearing. And this is Ordinance Number FY 2026-5, amending Kodiak Island Borough Code, Title 3, Revenue and Finance, Chapter 3.35, Real Property Tax, Section 3.35.050, Board of Equalization. Staff report, Amy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

This change will make it so the Board of Equalization cannot raise an assessment in the current year unless the appellant requests an increase. Also, if an appellant provides a long-form fee appraisal and the board does not rule in favor of the equivalent, the board shall make specific findings on the record to support its decision. The assessor is also here tonight if you have any questions. Any questions of the assessor at this time? Seeing none, we'll move on to contracts.

Contract number FY 2026-13, purchase of enterprise storage from USI Corporation. Staff report. Amy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Kodiak Island Borough currently utilizes on-premise systems which require high-performing enterprise storage.

This storage is in the form of an HP Nimble Storage array, which is rack-mounted, highly redundant disk-based storage that is assessed by KIB servers and stores its critical compute and networking systems. The current Nimble array is over 7 years old and has reached its end of life requiring that be replaced and upgraded. The cost of this system is $52,786, which is a smidge over my spending authority, so we're coming to the assembly to get approval for it. It is expected to last for 7 years. Thank you.

Any questions? Ryan. So, um, I love the fact that we're going to go off-site with storage. My only question is, is the supplier, are they a hardened system? And that's something that you can have your staff get back to me on.

Thank you.

Any other questions or discussion? Then we'll move on to ordinances for introduction. Ordinance number FY 2026-7, amending Kodiak Island Borough Code, Title 2, Administration and Personnel, Chapter 2.10, Appointment of Officers, Commissions, and Committees. Section 2.10.030, Compensation for Regulatory and Quasi-Judicial Boards and Commissions. Staff report.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Board of Equalization for Valuation typically meets twice a year in May to hear valuation Appeals and approved the— and approved. The board consists of 5 members and 2 alternate members, each serving 3-year terms. According to borough records, the last time this board's compensation was reviewed and increased was 2008. The board chair is requesting the compensation amount be raised from $100 to $170 per meet— sorry, $175 per meeting.

Any discussion? Questions? Move on to ordinance number FY 2026-8 Amending Kodiak Island Borough Code, Title 3, Revenue and Finance, Chapters 3.35, Real Property Tax, Section 3.35.030, Real and Personal Property Exemption from Taxation Regarding Good Cause Appeal Hearings. Staff report, Amy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

This ordinance updates the process in which good cause hearings shall follow. This ordinance clarifies the role of the assessor, the borough clerk, and the claimant, and the procedure that the assembly will follow for the public. This is actually the procedure that we currently use. However, it has never been placed in code. So the idea here is to put the procedure we do in code, so if there's any questions or appeals, we have it in our code.

Again, uh, Sima is here tonight if you have any questions. Any questions?

Moving on, ordinance number FY 2026-9, amending Kodiak Island Borough Code Title 3, Revenue and Finance, Chapter 3.35, Real Property Tax, Section 3.35.040, Method of Assessment Regarding Correction of the Assessment Roll. Staff report, Amy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Senate Bill 179 describes specific information for the assessor's role in assisting the public during appeal period after the notice of values are mailed and how errors and omissions may be corrected. The first part of this change is for optional exemptions to be added, and the second change clarifies how errors or omissions will be handled.

Again, our assessor is here tonight if if you have any questions. And if you do, great. I just want to thank Seema for taking the time. You'll notice these are all coming out of the same chapter and all clarifications. As we have people appeal or ask questions and we find that the answer is not in code, she's been taking the time to make notes and get these all put in code.

Will make our appeal process much easier in the future.

Any questions? Moving on then, there's other items on the agenda. Abbreviated in informal hearing of the State of Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office, AMCO, general wholesale license renewal application for Southern Glaziers Wine and Spirits of Alaska LLC, doing business as Southern Glaziers of Alaska, license number 4860. Staff report, Nova. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly.

At the last regular meeting of the assembly, you have voiced a protest to the renewal application of this license. The statutes require us to provide an opportunity for the, for the licensee to defend their application before you, so we have sent them a letter. We have also sent them an email an email letting them know that there's going to be an opportunity for them to defend their application before you. When you hear from them and you've decided that— and when you decide, or if you decide that you want to retract that protest, then we have provided you a motion in the guidelines in your agenda summary. So that's all I have.

For this item. Any questions?

Moving on then, under other items, there'll be a mayoral veto of contract number FY 2026-6, Kodiak Island Borough Facilities Contract with MK Enterprises LLC. That'll be on the agenda there for next week. Then, Amy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You'll notice in the packet there's just the summary sheet and the mayoral Veto, I would like to ask the Assembly what information they would like to see in the packet for next week, if there is anything you haven't seen or there is extra information.

Ryan. Thank you. Yes, there is some extra information. So I just want to make sure that I understand all this correctly. So this original contract passed 7-0, all Assembly members were present.

And then it was vetoed. The premise of the veto was because we were not given all of the information during the presentation. So, um, and that was a, that was a statement from the mayor. So not knowing what that information is, that's the information I'd like.

Should that information not be available, uh, I think a 7-0 0 vote was pretty self-explanatory. Thanks. Thank you, Ryan. Okay, then next we have an executive session, which will be discussion of pending appeal of the Luthic Heritage Foundation property tax to the Superior Court. That will be on the agenda there.

Then next, as manager's report. Report. Amy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I attended a meeting today with the superintendent and members of the advisory board for the Chinook School today.

As Assemblymember Smiley brought up last week in his comments, there was concern about the classification of the water system. Once a water system is regularly serving— and that's an important word, regularly serving— 25 or more persons, it should be reclassified into a public water system. A public water system is required to have a water plant, which also requires operators. At least one of the operators would have to be a Class I State of Alaska certified plant operator. The school district has had to deny waivers for students who live outside of Chiniak that would allow them to get bussed to Chiniak in order to keep the number of persons in the system below 25.

Um, the community of Chiniak is missing those people that the waivers were denied for. Um, there are a couple of people from the Flats who have been out there and gone to school for the last 6 years and then were told this year that they can't go there. And so they want to continue the conversation with the borough and the school district to see what needs to be done and what a future plan could be for changing that water system in Chiniak. So we're scheduled to meet again with them in 2 weeks. I met with the interim chief executive of Providence Alaska this week.

Uh, his name is John Hill. He came in to introduce himself, share information about his past, what his vision of healthcare is for remote communities in Alaska, and asked us to share information on our process to upgrade, uh, the hospital facility itself. I just spent about an hour with him, so got that relationship started. I intended the OnRoad CEDS, which is the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy that's authored by Canna. Uh, this document is really important for our nonprofits in finding grant money.

I already talked to you about the YMCA and North Star. So in community development, there is a new Parks and Recs, uh, survey that is opening on September 2nd. The address is there in the report. Our transportation community facilities survey closes tomorrow. The multi-jurisdiction multi-hazard mitigation plan was adopted by both the city of Kodiak and the city of Izinki in the last week.

So we are doing very— we didn't even get the city of Kodiak to adopt the last one, so we're doing very well in getting additional communities to adopt it. If you are paying your property taxes and it's because it's not included in your mortgage, The next payment deadline for those wishing to make a full payment, or if you paid your first half payment after the deadline of August 15th, your payment date is Wednesday, October 15th. For our senior and disabled veteran exemptions, we still have 18 that are undetermined. Our senior citizens and disabled veterans village trips with Canna are scheduled for the week of November 17th. This year we'll be having an town application help period during Canna's Coffee Hours.

They have two, one on December 3rd and one on December 10th. And we're also working with the Senior Center this year to set up a Senior Day in Town for senior and disabled veterans as well. Assessing is working in our villages and remote areas, and we've had some interesting times learning the new Tyler software. Assessing in particular had some hurdles to overcome Tyler has decided to send staff on their dime to Kodiak and will be here September 29th through October 3rd to help us with our transition. And Information Technology, IT, is working with Engineering on upgrading the landfill network, uh, including a new server for the landfill.

They also updated our Laserfist servers to, uh, version 12. And GIS is continuing to work on maps for community development for their upcoming comprehensive plan as we go into new sections, and they are an integral part of our new, uh, PACS migration into Tyler software. In Engineering Facilities, we had a new temporary laborer start this week. For our Regional Solid Waste Management Plan, which there is a flyer attached so you can use the QR code to take the survey if you haven't, uh, it closes August 30th, which is upcoming. If you do enter your contact information, you can be entered into a drawing for $100 of produce from the Kodiak Harvest Food Cooperative.

Highmark Marine is prepping the school exterior, exterior out at Chiniak. There is a preparation work inspection scheduled for Tuesday, and then as the weather cooperates, we're going to start priming. Our fall commercial hazardous waste disposal event has been scheduled for October 1st and 2nd. There's also a flyer attached for that. Out at the landfill, the Regional Solid Waste Management Management Plan waste characterizations are in for Old Harbor, Port Lyons, and Kodiak.

The Jacobs team is now compiling all that data, and there's a flyer attached for that as well. That survey also closes on the 30th. Uh, the landfill scale truck platform replacement, staff has received the 100% design, and that's off to the ARB in case there's any notes or comments. And then again, the flyers, there's commercial hazardous, uh, the solid waste Regional Plan, and there is an event coming up for formerly used defense sites. That's the back page if you have any questions about those sites and where they're looking at on Kodiak.

They are having a meeting on Wednesday, September 10th from 7 to 9. That's going to be held at the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Scott, um, uh, my understanding is in Chiniac, there's a family trying to rent a house there that would have children and will bring the number of kids above 25. My under— oh, sorry. And if that occurs, I heard that we had a study for what it would take to put in the new water system, and it was really expensive.

My understanding is that there, just last week, a house went up for sale that's a 3-bedroom house that could potentially have children, but it is not sold yet and we do not know about the children aspect. In 2023, we did have an engineering study to find out what would need to be done. That would be just the interim plan before a water plant would be built. So we have a couple of different options. I'm happy to share that with you if you're interested, which it sounds like you might be.

Um, those price in 2023 were between $500,000 and $1.5 million, which would would just be a disposable cost on our way to the water plant. So what we do have in our back pocket is Alaska Aerospace had to create a water plant, and their water plant operator was none other than Keith Morin, who is a retired borough employee. So we were able to reach out to Keith and talk to him about what worked and what didn't work and lessons learned from the Alaska Aerospace plant. So I feel like we have a leg up on getting that started. Chiniak is asking for the school to grant those waivers and just launch us into the DEC process.

DEC won't even talk to us, won't even look at us until we cross that point. If we don't have a new water system in and Chiniak has more than 25 students, are we just going to bus them into town? It's an option, maybe. No, I don't think that's an option that the school district is looking at, but that is an option that we've done in the past. We've also done a switcheroo where a bus stays out in Chiniak, brings high school age kids in or middle school age kids in, and then back and forth.

Um, those are all options that, that's going to be on the school district side of things. Obviously, once we do pass that threshold, we are at 24, uh, that one of the teachers coming in is bringing a child with them that will attend that school. Once we cross into 25, that's at the first time that D KIB will talk to us about a plan. Okay, thank you. Ryan.

Hey, what's our lease agreement say for the Chiniak School between KIB and the KIBSD? There are no lease agreements for any of our schools.

You done? Jarrod and then Steve.

For in preparation of the executive session next week, is it possible, can we get the materials a few days beforehand, or are we going to get a document? I really don't like document dumps at the beginning of—. Understandable. For the Aleutic Heritage Foundation, they are just appealing your decision where the assembly stood as BOE, and so I can just— you can just reference those materials. I can have them resent.

They will not be confidential. The only part that is confidential is we've been in touch with our legal representation, and he would like you to know what your options are for proceeding in that case. Okay. And then, so what is interim Chief Executive John Hill's vision of healthcare in Kodiak? He has just started in that position.

He's expected to be there 6 to 8 months. His visit to Kodiak, he's been here before, but never in this capacity, so he came to learn. Um, he's very concerned about mental health services in rural Alaska. Um, he is looking at, um, hospitals in Valdez, Seward, and here, and what he's specializing in those three, um, and figuring out what we need. So, um, I suggested that it would be nice if we had permanent leadership because we've had an interim a hospital administrator for a very long time after Carl Hertz left, and it's hard to make decisions and feel like they're gonna stick when you don't have permanent leadership.

So I did a plug for Lori and told, explained to him the process for HFAB and how we use the ARB and HFAB to move projects forward to the assembly in that process. So he's open, he wants to come if you have questions for him. He'd be more than happy to fly back to Kodiak and answer your questions. Thank you. Steve, and then Bo.

Um, back to the Chiniek School thing. If there are more than 25 people, the water problem is about potable water. And is it feasible to have more than 25 use the wild water for toilets, washing hands, stuff like that, and on a temporary basis at least, either trucking or supplying somehow. Because I mean, you can truck a lot of water for a million dollars, and it would give you time to sort things out. Just the thought.

We had a step-down transformer, if you remember last year. They're made of copper. It was stolen from right by the well. And the school district did have to truck water out for quite some time while we ordered and waited and waited for that transformer to get here. That was very costly and very time-consuming for the district.

And while yes, we could do that for a lot for the money, if we don't think that Chiniac population is going to decrease, we're going to be at that threshold for quite some time. So it's at least something that we should look at consider, and as the mayor mentioned, we should be looking at all the options for population. Um, the community would like to jump into it right now, and unless you guys think differently, I would really like to know what the financial obligations— what we're saying, um, before we would like encourage the school to do anything. I think we have a lot more research to do. Even our engineering, um, report that was done in 2023 is is no doubt going to be much more expensive now than it was then.

So hopefully it's all made in the United States. But if not, like, we're going to have to face some different issues. So we're going to continue working on that and continue working with our partners in that to make sure that we are moving forward. But to promise anything without understanding the financial impact, I think, is shortsighted right now.

Bo. Thank you. This isn't related to these current updates, but I'm curious if we've heard back from the City of Kodiak regarding obtaining the service to monitor short-term rentals. And if we have not heard back from them, do you need any more direction from the assembly to begin payment for that services? I think we're ready to move forward unless folks feel otherwise.

That would end up going on a work session. Bo, that's not part of this. Action item here right now. But Amy, go ahead and respond. The city has had their demonstration and they see value in the software.

Um, we have no one in the city manager— well, that's not true, Tim Putney is there. Sorry, Tim. Um, but the manager, uh, the deputy manager is out through September 5th. Um, I think once they're back in office, we'll be able to move forward on that. I, um, what my plan for that software is, is it's not on our budget, so you'll see it in a quarterly budget amendment coming up.

It'll go into the Community Development budget because that's who I'm going to ask to run the software, and we'll just do that borough-wide. When they first looked, they found 75 active in the city and 50 outside of the city, but I think our plan is just to split it 50/50 because I think it benefits us all. Thank you. Larry, just a quick question. During the last meeting, we allocated $70,000 of public funds for Discover Kodiak.

One of the questions I had, and perhaps this is something I just need to ask you privately, is we have the Chamber of Commerce, we have Discover Kodiak, we have the City of Kodiak, and we have the Economic Development Council and maybe some other— do they really work together to figure out what's going on with tourism in Kodiak, or do they they all operate sort of independently. I got the feeling, and excuse me if I'm wrong, that they don't really work together. We allocated $75,000 in that contract for Discover Kodiak. That's the same we've done over the last about 7 or 8 years. And the chamber and Discover Kodiak have some overlapping duties.

When I worked at Discover Kodiak in our cycles, we would help the other. So when we were busy, the chamber staff would come help us and vice versa. The Kodiak Economic Development Corporation was only started in 2020 and didn't start, um, anything outside of just COVID money until 2022. So they're still fairly new. I would say there are 3 distinct lanes that they are swimming in, but there are models in the past here in Kodiak where economic development was covered by the chamber, and there are a Lots of models throughout the state where the chamber is in charge of tourism as well, or they're one entity.

It was in the '80s that the Kodiak Island Convention and Visitors Bureau broke out from the chamber because we saw tourism as a viable economic stream that needed nurtured more than what the chamber was capable of doing at that time. There was direction from that meeting for the manager to start that dialogue, and I was like, how am I ever going to start that dialogue? But then I went to the SEDS meeting, and the vice president of KDC and the director of the chamber were there. So I did get a chance to start that conversation and talk to them and let them know what the assembly was feeling and, and how when nonprofits are needing more and more money, how they're going to need to provide more clarification about how they're different and what they're doing in the community. Well, the reason I ask is that, you know, we see thousands of people coming into Kodiak especially when I want to drive through downtown in a hurry.

But it doesn't seem like anybody has done anything to help educate our community how they can take advantage of that, how somebody, if they wanted to have a tour bus or a stand, I mean, it doesn't seem like anybody's really helped our citizens take advantage of this. Who would— otherwise we just got tourists coming. I think that's a dual responsibility, Discover Kodiak definitely can help recruit new members and new businesses. And the Chamber in the month of September is doing a whole series of small business workshops, including business plans, where to find financing, what licensing you need. So some of that stuff, if you want to angle it towards tourism, will be available.

I think it's on the 22nd, but I would have to verify that date. But the Chamber does have a series coming up that you can check on their website. It's listed there.

Any other questions? Seeing none, we'll go on to, uh, clerk's comments. Nova. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly. I just want to remind everyone that the nominating petitions for write-in candidacy is still open.

It will close on September 30th at 3 PM. We currently lack sufficient candidates to occupy the positions on several service area boards, and there are no candidates right now for Manasheka Bay Service Area Board. We have received our ballots yesterday, and we were able to do a pre-test this morning, and everything looks good. Our machines will be set to election mode on September 12th. The by-mail ballots will be mailed out to Chiniak and villages on the second week in September.

Our, our pamphlets will be mailed out during that time. Also, the election training for the city precinct workers is scheduled on Monday, September 15th. The borough precinct workers are scheduled to be trained on Tuesday, September 16th. For those who wish to receive their ballots by mail, the The absentee by mail applications are available on the Kodiak Island Borough website and also in the clerk's office. Early voting will be available starting on Monday, September 22nd, in here in the chambers, and it will, it will end on Monday, October 6th.

Election is October 7th. I just want to note also that the hearing for the second floor REPL Did not happen on Monday. Um, the appellant licensee decided to withdraw their appeal, so that license will become available shortly for the community. For the community. That's all I have.

Any questions of the court? Okay, next is assembly member comments. Ryan, we'll start with you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, I spent the first 5 hours of my day today at the VA hospital, and, uh, it was an interesting trip because I was talking with the health providers, uh, and the Alaska VA system has 9% of the mental health providers of what they actually need. In the state of Alaska. So to hear your update about Providence Health Systems and the new executive director's position on mental health is refreshing, but it's a daunting climb that they are going to have.

It also lent itself to the broader discussion of mental health. I've said this on on several occasions that mental health should be paramount when talking with somebody. You never know what their silent struggles are. And I just appreciate those that take a kind heart approach to those that have struggles and their, their reactions to those struggles. So Anyways, appreciate the discussion tonight.

I think that it was very productive, and I hope we can follow through with all of the things that we said we were going to do rather than keep admiring the problems. So thank you. Scott? No comment. Larry?

I just want to thank our manager. These meetings go so smoothly that when we ask you questions, you— dig them up. One of the questions a constituent asked me is, are there any regulations on helicopters landing in someone's backyard?

Which was an interesting question because you have airports and you have a neighbor's backyard with somebody having a helicopter. And so, uh, that was the question. Is that something that is, um, um, so anyway, That's a question I have for you. It's been researched well. Steve.

I'll just second that. We had a lot of discussions and we need to make sure we keep moving forward and they don't get lost.

Dave. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yep, I appreciate our robust conversation tonight. I'm very excited for the potential opportunity to open land in a deliberate way to help create affordable housing for our community so we can stop this outmigration that we're seeing. Regarding the Chiniak water situation, I don't know how much it costs to build a water treatment plant, but I imagine it's a pretty daunting number.

So I would encourage the folks of Chiniak to come to the borough with solutions. You know, there is grant money out there for these types of situations, especially in a community as remote as Chiniak. So maybe coming with a grant proposal and asking for some assistance in community development in refining that grant proposal is a good way for them to have some skin in the game rather than just asking the borough to open its coffers to create a multimillion-dollar facility. Other than that, thank you. Jared.

First week of college, we're back in session this week, and there's just a really great energy on campus right now. You can, you can literally see how the borough's investment and students over there for some tuition relief. It makes a huge difference for them. They can fit in an extra class because of that. And so went to the Phi Theta Kappa barbecue today, so a lot of good vibes.

So just want to relay the thank you from students. Bo. Thank you. And I'll echo that. The appreciation for thoughtful discussion and also feel that we need to make sure we're following through, right?

These are great ideas. We need to put them into action. I think the community is tired of waiting for us to act. They're tired of us listening to, as Mr. Sharrett put it, appreciating or admiring our problems. They're ready for us to act, so we need to get to work here.

And also, I wanted to thank the clerks. Every time I request information, I hit send on that email, and I'm not gone from my computer for more than a minute or two, and I hear it bing, and there's my response. So I really appreciate that. Without your guidance and your reliable source of information, we would have a really hard time progressing up here. So thank you.

You're welcome. All righty. And don't forget to vote. With that, Mayor's comments, no comments further tonight. So at this time, we'll adjourn the work session at 8:32 PM, and thank you all for attending.

Good night.