Assembly Work Session of February 27, 2025

Good evening. I'd like to call the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly Work Session on Thursday, February 27th, 2025 in order. Tonight we have citizens' comments. You can make comments in person or you can call 1-907-486-3231 or toll-free 1-855-492-3277.

9202. I'll say that one more time: 1-855-492-9202. You're limited to 3 minutes per speaker, and this will be the only opportunity tonight for public comments.

Any public comments?

Any on the phone?

Somebody was supposed to play the Jeopardy music while we do this, but I think they forgot. Okay, we'll start with our agenda. The first item on our agenda tonight is the Village Senior Disabled Veterans Property Tax Exemptions presentations, and here they come. Mimi. Thank you.

Uh, the Kodiak Island Borough Assessor's Office and the Kodiak Area Native Association combined efforts to assist Village seniors and disabled veterans to fill out their— and timely file their real property exemption applications. A total of 6 villages were visited by Assessor Seema Groot and Cassie Keplinger and Penny—. I'm going to mess up your last name—. Boucher. Thank you.

With KANA Elder Services in what they refer to as the best 4 days in November.

Good evening. Assembly members. Sorry, I was like, we don't have a mayor here, do we? No. In early March 2024, the Kodiak Island Borough Assessor's Office reached out to the Kodiak Area Natives Association Elder Services Director to help figure out how we could better serve our village seniors and disabled veterans with timely filing exemption applications.

Canis Cassie Keplinger and I tried to figure out ways to help. The fact that exemption applications are confidential wound up being a huge obstacle, so we ended up deciding that a visit to each village was the only way to help. After receiving the KIBI managers, the assembly, and KANA's Vice President of Community Services nod of approval, we then announced at last year's Rural Forum our plans to visit the villages. The feedback we received from Rural Forum about our idea was met with so much excitement from those attending and so well received, we began to move forward. KANA and KIB met several times to figure out dates, backup dates, book flights, and create flyers to send to villages to make sure all were informed of our plans.

The result, during the 4 best days November had to offer, Cassie Keplinger, Penny Boucher, and I went to Akiak, Karlik, Larson Bay, Old Harbor, Euzinkie, and Port Lyons. Both Cassie and Penny from KANA's Elder Services are here with me today. They will explain to you the Elder Service Program and how that program was essential in making sure that we were able to, to get to the right people to assist with village seniors and disabled veterans. Please welcome Cassie Keplinger. All right.

So I'm Cassie Keplinger. I'm the Elder Services Director at the Kodiak Area Native Association. So I'm going to give you a little overview of CANA Elder Services and what we do. So CANA Elder Services was established in 2022 as a strategic initiative by the CANA Board of Directors to enhance support for elders in the Kodiak region. Our program is funded through the Administration for Community Living's Title VI program and the Kodiak Community Support Foundation.

The Title VI grants provide eligible tribal organizations with funding to deliver home and community-based supportive services for elders, including nutrition nutrition assistance and support for family and informal caregivers. Through Title VI, CANNA serves our 6 remote villages. So Uzinky and Port Lyons, we— CANNA applies for their Title VI funding and we subcontract with the tribes so they administer their own Title VI nutrition program for their elders. And for the southern region villages, Akiak, Carla, Klarsen Bay, and Old Harbor, we directly manage the grant funds and employ Title VI cooks. So currently we have one cook in Old Harbor and we are recruiting for a cook in Larsen Bay.

And then since Akiak and Karlik have fewer elders, we provide quarterly food boxes instead of weekly meal services. KANA Elder Services offers case management and wraparound services to all elders in the Kodiak region. Our team assists with conducting intakes, accessing resources, completing applications, providing transportation as needed, conducting regular home visits. Additionally, we have recently introduced adult non-medical chore services in a volunteer program to further support our elders' well-being. We actively partner with organization— organizations such as the Providence Elder House, the Senior Citizens of Kodiak Hospice and Palliative Care, and the Independent Living Center, as well as our internal KANA registered nurse case managers and physical therapists.

Together we have formed an Elder Services Committee which meets quarterly to discuss upcoming events, new services, existing barriers, and strategies to overcome these challenges. As I have been in this position for 2 and a half years now, one barrier in the beginning that came up was property tax exemptions for our elders in the villages. This led to conversations with CIMA on how we can overcome this barrier to meet this need for our villages or for our village elders. And I'll let Penny take it over.

Hello, my name is Penny Boucher, and I'm the Elder Services Coordinator at CANA.

The planning process for the property tax exemption travel required extensive collaboration with multiple entities. We held several meetings with SEMA to establish travel dates and set up backup dates in case of weather delays. Ensuring that we met the January 15th deadline. Coordinating with Island Air Services was crucial as their winter schedule limited flights to Akiak, Karluk, and Larsen Bay. Additionally, close collaboration with the tribes, city officials, and Kana Village clinics was essential to ensuring a smooth trip.

Kana relies heavily on village partnerships to spread the word about events like this like this, arrange transportation to and from the airstrips, provide a space for elders to complete their paperwork, and assist with homebound elders by coordinating rides to their homes for paperwork completion. This effort was only possible thanks to the invaluable support of the tribes, village clinic staff, and city officials, whose help was crucial in reaching and assisting the elders in these remote communities.

Thank you, ladies. The KIB Assembly for the last few years has instructed the assessor's office to do all we can to help as many seniors and disabled veterans apply for these exemptions. We now send out reminder postcards and schedule an assembly day to call all outstanding known applicants wherever they may live in the borough. While these help, um, the majority of these efforts are received by those who live on the road system. Our goal this year was to include villages.

The handout, the Excel spreadsheet that we, um, have on your— the diocese there, um, shows the number of seniors we reached in each village. Of the 6 villages we visited, we brought home over 60% of the applications in 5 of the villages, and 3 of those were, um, over 80%. As you can see from the pictures above me, which you guys can't see because it's not on this side.

It's not on this side. But sorry, we met people not only at the government office, but also in their homes, on the road, and even at the airstrip. Kanna's help was essential, and traveling with Cassie and Penny allowed for us to be able to contact citizens on that day, as they have an intimate relationship with many of these people. For some, it was a simple reminder that we were in town. For others, it was notification that we needed to go to their homes or meet them somewhere because they were unable to get to where we were.

For some, it was notification that we needed to meet them at the elder house here in town. Contacts were made, address and phone— address and phone numbers were verified, and applications were stamped as timely filed. Additionally, once word got out, many seniors came to inquire about the exemption program, and we were able to get several new applicants or advised prospective applicants when they could apply. KIB even assisted with information on how to file probate documents, um, with the court. This year, all the villages had a post— postmaster, but many times important information does not always reach residents timely.

We were able to alleviate a lot of the hurdles that village residents have to overcome. Come. So many seniors and veterans were so appreciative that we came, and many others applauded us for taking care of their elders, as you can see from the community response posted online.

Cassie, Penny, and I have also been asked to present this year at the Rural Forum on March 26th because we were so well received. For me, what an experience to visit each village and see the beauty of why people live where they do. I have to tell you, Old Harbor and Port Lyons stole my heart. Getting to meet and work with Cassie and Penny was an honor and a privilege. Assessing's FY 2026 budget includes remote travel to each village for one employee in hopes of continuing this service to our remote seniors— to remote villages for our seniors and disabled veterans.

Thank you. Does the assembly have any questions for Sima, Penny, or Cassie? Ryan.

Thank you. Uh, first let me just say Awesome. Would you like me to turn it on twice? No. Okay.

Uh, awesome work. I really appreciate the collaboration. Uh, what this shows to me is that as a local government that represents all and not just a few, working with strategic partnerships with Canna, that just is— this is kind of the paramount to what I believe can continue to happen in this community. And I wanted to thank you guys very much. My first question that I have to you guys, can we separate out these numbers by seniors versus veterans somehow?

Honestly, all but one is a senior. We only had one disabled vet that lives in a remote village, but while we were there, he called almost every other veteran that he knew while he was filling out his to make sure that all of them knew of the program, and most of them were either on the senior list or were not disabled. Okay. The reason for that question, if I may continue, is that I am aware that the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs has a funding mechanism that can and may be able to tap into with identified veterans who are not receiving benefits, might be able to, I guess, tap into those funds. Property tax exemption is one of the listed benefits as a veteran, so there might be, again, additional revenue source.

I don't have any other questions other than, again, want to applaud your guys' efforts. I think that collaboration is amazing and really appreciate this and the efforts that you guys put into it. Thank you. Thank you. Assemblymember Whiteside.

Thank you. No questions, just, just gratitude. This is fantastic seeing those, all of those smiles. You can just see it in the pictures. You don't even have to come up and tell us how happy they were for you to be there.

It's, it's something that I know we've discussed and we want to expand services to the the villages and make sure folks are heard out there and that they receive the same kind of attention that people here on the road system do. So this is fantastic, and to do it collaboratively with CANNA is just outstanding. It's really, really neat to see this. Thank you. Kweyaa nashinak.

Awesome. Beautiful. Thank you. Any other comments?

I want to thank you for being here tonight. And it just makes me feel really good to see this kind of partnership. It's something that we talked about a couple of years ago, and I appreciate CMAA for following up and seeking out partners in the community so that we can work together. Thank you.

That brings—.

Brings us to agenda item number 2, which is discussion regarding the recycling contract expiration and renewal options. Manager Williams. Thank you. The current contract with Threshold Services Incorporated is set to conclude on June 30th, 2025. All available extension options outlined in the existing agreement have been utilized.

Staff is proposing an extension of the contract for an additional 2 years, extending the term through June 30th, 2027. This extension would synchronize the timelines of the recycling contract and the solid waste contract ensuring both agreements operate on a parallel schedule. Aligning these contracts would enhance strategic planning, improve coordination between service providers, and facilitate a more cohesive approach to waste management services. Threshold Services has been contacted and has agreed to the 2-year extension if the assembly is approving that. And if the assembly does not want to extend, uh, Kodiak Island Borough will prep an RFP for recycling services.

Thank you. I suppose the first question I have is how satisfied you are with the performance of the contract so far.

I have not heard of any problems with the contract. Patricia, are you aware of any problems? Or Jenna, do you know of any issues?

I think, yeah, in general, people that recycle really enjoy the ability to be able to recycle. We haven't heard any complaints about the recycling program at all, if that was your concern. Well, as I read through the contract, there are a lot of financial stipulations, and it was pretty detailed contract, and I was just wondering if the assembly, in the full spectrum of the agreement, if we're satisfied.

The contract is set up so that the assembly is supposed to see how much we're paying threshold each year, and that's in accordance with the CPI, um, changes. And so outside of that, there hasn't been a lot of discussion at the assembly level about this contract. I remember when this contract went into place and we were thinking about not recycling because it's cheaper to not recycle. Recycling costs us a lot of money, and the community showed up. I showed up and I was like, I want to live on an island where my daughter can be taught to recycle.

And then, uh, Mayor Roberts at the time said, I think the important thing to remember is this is not a ledger issue. This is what's right to do for our island community regardless of the cost. And I think that pushed it away from not recycling and over the finish line of recycling. So I would guess if we were going to suggest that we weren't going to recycle, we would get that same kind of community response. And I think The question tonight is, is it worth it to align the solid waste contract that will begin on July 1st, 2027, with our recycling contract?

And what that would do would allow us, when we go out and look for a new solid waste contractor, we have the option of including recycling with that contract. And we can do that either way. We could go out for an RFP for just 2 years for recycling and then still do that. So we have a lot of options. This is the easy button option for us.

Aligning those two dates. Thank you. Comments?

Go ahead. Have we involved the Solid Waste Committee on this at all? So I had a conversation the other day with Miss Andy Wall, and she would like to be involved, but I wanted to get direction from the assembly first on where we were going to want to go with this before involving them. So that we had a direction for them. I believe some time ago it used to be the case that Threshold would report on a timely basis to the Solid Waste Committee, but that sort of stopped, hasn't it?

Yes and no. Um, Chris is pretty busy, but she shows up when the topics are relevant to her and her business, and recycling more focused. I don't know— yeah, and when it's requested, she definitely—. Threshold is an ex officio member on SWAB, and so they are always invited to attend. But she was just in the building today, just talking to Jenna today, so we, we do have contact with her quite frequently.

Well, I was assigned to that a couple years ago, and they hardly ever showed up, and I think if we are talking about renewal of a contract, we might want to get the feedback from the people on the Solid Waste Advisory Committee because I think they— the marriage could be a little stronger, I guess, is what I am trying to say. Thank you. Other comments? Assemblymember Sherrod. Thank you.

I actually agree with that. Get Solid Waste Advisory Board's input on this before we even progress it forward. So if there is enough head nods, I think that would be a very wise direction for staff to go to seek input from those that we have asked to give us input. Thank you. [Speaker:CHAIRMAN BRYANT] It seems to me we have consensus.

Assemblymember Whiteside. This is a great opportunity to remind the wonderful people who have volunteered to serve on the Solid Waste Advisory Board to review borough code and know that you do have the ability to advise us on what you feel is appropriate and guide our direction on how we handle solid waste in our community. So please feel empowered to do so.

Yo.

I think that's a great idea to bring it back to SWAB and get their ideas, or if things need to be changed, and that's.

That's easy for us to do. Patricia, thank you for all your work that you do to support this.

Okay, next we're going to move on to Sourcewell Cooperative Purchasing presentation and discussion. Manager Williams.

Thank you. Sourcewell is a government cooperative purchasing program that offers a streamlined and cost-effective way for local government entities to acquire goods and services. This program enables municipalities to leverage large collective buying power, ensuring competitive pricing and efficiency in procurement processes. Today, uh, staff will present the case for adopting Sourcewell for KIB's purchasing needs. Our environmental specialist Jenna is here tonight to review the cost savings, time efficiency, compliance and transparency, access to a wide range of vendors, and flexibility and scalability of the program.

And she has presented us with a slideshow.

Oh, it's just attached with SourceWell provided to us during our presentation with them, or their presentation to us. So SourceWell is in the packet. Amy mentioned a few key points of why SourceWell is a great resource that we should be using. One is cost savings. You can go on their website, search many contracts.

I can— later in that packet, you have like dumpster— not dumpster, dump trucks as an example. It takes like 20 minutes to search, find a contract. They're very transparent. On one of the slides is also all the documentation you have— they have what their RFP was, how their evaluations went, what the final resolution was for the RFP, so everything is very black and white, provide everything, everything's easily accessible, so it saves time by staff not having to go out to bid, writing these documents, and then doing that whole process. So it kind of alleviates that cost savings.

Again, time efficiency, you can search something in 20 minutes compared to writing an RFP or an invitation to bid.

Compliance and transparency, like I mentioned earlier, the website has everything you need. It's pretty straightforward, has all the documentation, tells you the costs. Another cost-saving thing is almost all of the contracts or proposals, you get a cost savings with them. So you're saving money and also limiting that process that we usually have to do. There's a wide range of vendors.

One nice thing is they do proposals and it's not just a sole source vendor that could win. You have multiple options that they evaluate and say, okay, These are the vendors that you can use. So they could have Cat dealers, they could have Case dealers, they could have Bobcat. I'm focusing on heavy equipment because that's what the landfill needs. So you have all these different options that organizations can go to and pick based off their needs.

So if our landfill wants to try to get all Cat equipment, because if we bring a mechanic down, they can work on all of our equipment instead of just one piece of equipment. That's very beneficial to us and saves us money in the long run. So you have that option to kind of not pick and choose, but see what's available and what meets your needs and not just be stuck on one vendor.

It's pretty great in my opinion. The Municipality of Anchorage uses it. Kenai Peninsula uses it. North Star Borough. I just talked to NC Machinery and almost 50% of his equipment that they sell is through the Sourcewell contract.

The state of Alaska also uses SourceWell. Their statute allows us to use this. Our code, however, does not say we can or we can't. So there's that little bit of gray area and kind of just direction if this is something that we can, I guess, start using.

For, I guess, for clarification, because I do want dump trucks, and that's kind of why I did that example. And if I don't have to go out to bid for that and I can actually use SourceWell, that would be great time savings and cost savings. I just need a decision. I was told to kind of come here and ask if you guys would like a presentation actually done by Sourcewell or if we can kind of just move forward with this or how you guys would like to proceed. I'm very familiar with this kind of purchasing agreement, but one of the questions I have is if we don't do RFP, how do we ensure local preference so that our— for not dumb tracks because I don't think we have a salesperson in town, so I see it On the larger items, but some of the smaller items that local businesses may be able to participate, how do we protect them from it being so easy to go through, you know, this process than to develop an RFP that would allow local vendors to bid?

That's a good question. Some— I'm not sure how we could write that in there. Assemblymember Sharrett. Thank you. So I'm also familiar with these programs and specifically Sourcewell.

I won't speak on behalf of them. However, if a local company wanted to sign up for SourceWell to be a vendor, they would pay a fee in order to be notified of procurement opportunities. And I don't think that that exactly aligns or is congruent with what we need as a small town. So I would not be in favor of this for a multitude of reasons. If you want those reasons, I've jotted down several now, or I can meet with you guys individually.

I can tell you that the Municipality of Anchorage does use this, and the overall sentiment of this is not exactly enthusiastic. So, so for that reason, I guess I would need some more convincing whether or not this is actually for us. I also know that there's a significant shortfall in the cost proposal area of SourceWell that Alaska yields in any estimating software. RSMeans or any estimating software doesn't really have an Alaska factor. And there are also most of these programs' limiting factors Do not bring in any codes or ordinances that exist already for procurement.

So I would need a lot more information in order to just say go for it. So I'm a— if you need an answer right now, I'm a hard no. Thanks. Other comments? Mr. Wrightside.

Commissioner Burt. Thank you. First off, thanks for continuing to identify options for us to consider for cost-effectiveness, efficiency. This isn't the first time you brought something before us, so thank you for continuing to drive towards efficiency and cost-effectiveness. It's something that I notice that you are doing, so thank you for that.

I am not necessarily— lack of a better word— not necessarily indifferent, but I'm open-minded, open to the idea. I did read through this and this summary of how it works. I view it as a low-risk, no-cost, no-obligation item to, or service to at least explore. If it's a large big-ticket item that we're— I do agree with previous comments, we should be sensitive to local preference for certain procurement, either items or services. But if it's large items that we know we're not going to procure here locally and we can do it in a cost-effective and efficient manner, I think we don't have to have just one way to procure items.

Maybe this is just another, another approach to it, and we can have several options for the procurement process. This seems like a modern approach. I don't have the background or experience with this particular service, but I'm certainly open-minded to keeping it on the table. If, when you're ready for your dump truck and you want to use this to compare, I mean, it seems like a very low-risk scenario to at least keep it on the table. So again, thank you for identifying these.

I'm not against it one bit, but I do agree with, if it's an item that we can source locally, that would be my strong preference as well. Definitely. I definitely hyperfocus on the landfill because that's where I'm usually at. So like those larger equipment Um, we can get a contract or a proposal that you definitely get a percentage off. I think that's a win-win for us.

We use a NASPO contract in the past with the state of Alaska that we usually get a discount with that when we go through them, but they're very limited. They have like one single source is that's who won the contract and that is the vendor. So this just kind of gave us a little bit more flexibility if we wanted to try to keep a consistent, um, brand because it works well for us. And then, yeah, when we bring the mechanics down, they can service all of our equipment and not just one or two. So I definitely, yeah, I'm hyperfocused.

I understand you guys' comments and concerns because this totally makes sense. Dr. Spaley. Is there a chance that you could put together a proposal from somebody outside of Sourcewell and Sourcewell and compare the two for something like a dump truck or something that you can define and see if you're really saving that much money? Definitely. So the dump trucks, I used somewhere in here.

Last page. Yes. So RWC, I originally reached out to them when I was looking to see on costs for dump trucks for the landfill. This is before I knew about Sourcewell. So they gave me a quote.

It was a little over $200,000. Then we found Sourcewell. Then the 31% off, a portion of that.

Dump truck, and we definitely got some cost savings in that. If I can do more equipment, so we can kind of see and compare as well. That's a big savings. Yeah. I heard it during some of the discussion.

I heard no risk, no commitment, no cost. Are those three statements correct? Yeah, so you can sign up for free. We can use the programs. Like, I can go in right now, pick something.

If I find something I like, I reach out to the vendor, and then when we do our purchase orders, we just have to use the contract number in our purchase order. Or that's what they made it appear. It was super easy, cost-effective, low-maintenance kind of vendor— I don't want to say vendor, but resource. So technically speaking, if you needed a dump truck. You could look up Sourcewell, and in many organizations, they require 3 to 4 quotes before they would pick a price.

So let's assume that you— we went with this, and you looked it up, and you saw a price. Would you still be required to seek other quotes to compare? Would you automatically assume that this is the cheapest price available? Nope. So they have, like, for the source— for the dump trucks, they had 35 proposals.

They go through that, evaluate all them, reject if those proposals did not meet their specifications, and they only recommended 17. So when you go on there, there's 17 options that you can look through, and then you can go and choose— not choose, you should evaluate all the different 17 if you want different pricing to see what the lowest bidder is. But the nice thing is though too, like I mentioned earlier, you can— organizations can use that tool to also see what's out there and get what best fits their facilities. And just so I understand this completely, the organizations that participate that may be active vendors, they would have to be signed up. So if I sold dump trucks and I wasn't a part of their organization, my bid wouldn't be a part of what they said.

Is that correct? So I would assume yes. So like Enterprise or CAT, if I was looking at CAT Dozer earlier, so I typed in dozer, came up who— what organizations had it, and it clicked CAT and find a vendor, and it showed you all the vendors in Alaska that you could use. Okay. And I'm not personally opposed to this because there's no commitment.

It would just seem like it could open the door to poor practice if we weren't keeping a close eye on— if it became too casual. Assemblymember Sharrett. Thank you. Thank you. That is one of my concerns is the casualness, but also the decisions are not as transparent within a program versus the public process.

And I think that we as a government entity funded by taxpayer dollars need to remain as transparent as possible. So I would be interested to know what what the public access looks like through this example. Can the public log in and see what we bought? And if they could not, then again, I would still stand on a very hard no for our transparency and procurement processes.

Thank you. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Thank you. Um, I mean, I guess to that point though, it would still be transparent and public because this total, this purchase order, is still coming before the assembly for a vote.

Um, so I, I don't know, I guess maybe I'm the, the lone one out here, but as a municipal employee who has to deal with regulations all the time, any opportunity for somebody else to do some of that work and cut down on the red tape and to make it more efficient, I'm all for. I use multiple programs like SourceWell daily to get what we need. So I have no objection at all to it. I understand the concerns, but it's just one, it's just in my mind, it's just another tool in the toolbox that you can rely, you can use to help make informed decisions when it's, time to purchase things. So, um, for whatever that's worth, I say great, great find.

I think I have Sourcewell bookmarked on my computer as well. Thank you. Mr. Ames, do you have any comments? Mr. Ames is online.

Um, no, I think we need to be very concerned about making sure local vendors know about it. And I really think it should only be used for stuff that couldn't be gotten locally. And if it could be gotten locally, then I think we're going to have to go through the RFP process.

All right, thank you, Mr. James. Do you feel you've had lack of direction here? Nope. There's more questions. I definitely just wanted to kind of get this out there and get feelers for it.

So I think I got my feelers and now I know what I have to go back and do some more research on and get more concrete responses for you guys. Well, I'm looking forward to your next presentation. I think you— thank you very much for taking the leadership and saving us some money.

The next item on our agenda is the discussion of mental health facility buildings future.

Manager Williams. Thank you. The demolition and abatement of the mental health buildings has been contracted and is currently underway. This project involves removing all finishes and materials from two existing apartment buildings down to the bare studs and structural plywood sheathing. This includes the removal of plumbing, electrical systems, associated conduits, piping, doors, windows, and the roof fascia, soffit, and roof canopy down to the plywood sheathing as well.

Additionally, the project concludes the demolition of the existing mechanical laundry building and the removal of an underground fuel storage tank. Upon completion of the demolition and abatement, the borough will be left with two structurally sound buildings, each with temporary roofing underlayment. The exteriors will be weather-tight and the house wrapped— sorry, with house wrap installed. The crawl spaces will feature a vapor barrier and insulation, and all openings will be securely closed, either with permanent construction or substantial temporary closures. 3 Possible options for discussion tonight are brought to you because we've decided to go this far on the buildings, but then we have stopped and we don't know what we're going to do past then.

So some options tonight include asking our contracted architectural engineering firm, Jensen Yorba Wall, to design the remodel for structures in their current locations. There is an attached proposal for design and construction administration costs. The other thing we could discuss is changing the project scope and obtaining a proposal from the current contractor to demolish the buildings entirely or obtain a proposal to demolish buildings entirely and seek an alternative design cost proposal for future rebuild from our contracted architectural and engineering firm. I think the main concern tonight is the wrap and the weatherproofing that's put on those buildings is meant to be temporary. So delaying the decision is going to cause further abatement in the future because we won't— we'll have to go in and look for other stuff in the future.

So tonight our project manager and project assistants are here to answer any questions about the start of that project and what it's going to look like when they're done. Do you have a presentation to make before we ask questions or—? No, I do not have a presentation per se. I just wanted to seek some clarification on this and two points I'd like to bring up. I brought this to the Manager because we didn't really have clear direction forward the last time it was discussed.

Submittals are coming in. The house wrap material has like a UV rating of 4 months. The design takes like 6 months. And then upon also the design for this remodel— well, the abatement leading up to the remodel— this includes a significant cost for future remodel. So if we are going to demo, we have an opportunity as a cost savings to take that scope out of this project.

All right, thank you. Discussion? Mr. Johnson. Thank you. So a little facetious, but the, uh, the 4-month rating on UV, so that'll give us what, like 2, 3 years before we have 4 months worth of sunny days?

That I see, yes, in theory. The concern that I brought up to the architect and I want to discuss is because the birds and things that are also going to be pecking at it, and I do believe in conversations with other people in the community. I reached out to adjacent business owners, let them know of the project and the construction requirements. Nobody really understood that I had spoken with that this project was going to be quite literally two rectangles wrapped in white, potentially orange if we use commercial wrap, with no roof, just temporary roof. Thanks.

So if I might continue with that, um, so on a more seriously, like, I think I see— I heard 3 options: redesign, re-scope for a demo, and what was the last one? Change, change— Demo and then complete new rebuild. Yeah. You know, I've only been on the assembly since October, but we've had in that time 5 housing discussions, I believe, so the idea that.

You would take housing and tear it down after already awarding a contract to make it preserved. It's kind of unfathomable to me. Like, if that was the intent, that should have been the intent when this project started. I don't know that I think changing course right now is a great idea. I'd like to suggest maybe a fourth option.

Is to sell as is with a development covenant so that a developer could take ownership and finish the property. That's not my preference, but as big a stink as everybody on this side of the dais has made about housing in the short time I've been on the assembly, I don't know how that message is consistent if we then elect to tear down to apartment buildings that we— or complexes, whatever you want to call them, that we've said we were going to consider rehabilitating. So thanks. Assemblymember Burchett. Thank you.

So my idea is similar. However, it wouldn't be to sell because I understand that we have a restricted conveyance since we cannot dispose of the property. So my understanding of this is that we'll have an intact building envelope with temporary roof. So I would also like to repeat, I guess, that idea that I would like to see what community interest is out there and see if there are also strategic partners that would take this over that would forbear any cost to the borough, and we would be able to enter into a strategic agreement with somebody that might want to take these facilities over. I was not on the assembly, I don't think, when this discussion came up, but I do recall that there was local fish processor that was interested in these at one point, willing to do all of the repairs and renovations.

That was— I'm not sure what the— how that all went down. However, I do have to think that there's some community interest in this, and there might be somebody willing to put some money into this to save the building envelope, but If I'm misspeaking about the conveyance, please let me know. There's a deed restriction on the land of— on how we have to use the land, and then it's not like— it's not broken up in different parcels. That whole section is the borough's. So, um, yeah, it would— it— we'd have to go to the Department of the Interior if we actually wanted to sell it.

So that's probably not a great option. But the, um, there are strategic partners that are interested in partnering with us. I haven't asked anyone if they are interested in doing it without us.

Assemblymember Whiteside. Thank you. I would be more interested in that approach as well to see— I remember I was in Montana at a museum when someone called me about those buildings and wanting to pursue a partnership. I imagine they contacted— I don't remember who his name was. But that would be my preference as well.

I don't support tearing it down. Clearly, we couldn't sell it in a way that would not create a lot of headaches for everybody. I'm also not— I don't know how I feel about developing, using taxpayer dollars to develop it into housing while fully acknowledging I want more housing in the community. I would be more interested in if we did pursue something housing-related, that it was through a partnership, and that would be fantastic. To me.

Manager Williams. Thank you. Uh, we do have $4.7 million of ARPA money that does not have a deadline on it that is still, um, ours to use in the public's best interest. So just planting that seed when we're looking for funding for this project. Dr. Smiley.

Uh, I'm in favor of having shared development of this with a partner, but also keeping the Borough involved in it. I would like to make sure that we have a say in how part of that housing can be used. I think it's kind of too late to demolish it after what we have already done with it, and I think that the deed restrictions are significant enough. We don't want to step in that pot, particularly. Thank you.

One of the comments I was going to make is that I know that in previous employment, um, many districts are building houses with federal zero— actually free money for teacher housing. Our district has never applied for it because we didn't want to get into the housing business, but many districts— so there are And I don't really know what's going on where the money comes from down south, but, um, it might be that if we get busy, we can find some sources to actually build them and make it happen. Also, just because it's on my mind, you know, you have a high school right next to those, and I hope when you close up those buildings, you understand that they're really attractive nuisances for young people and other people that are not young people that might use them. And just keep that in mind. It's not so much the neighbors, it's the kids who are neighbors.

And, uh, just— pardon? It'll be plywood doors. We had that discussion already, the construction barriers. There's a decision to leave There will only be one entrance and access, and I think it's going to be one door, no windows. One of the leaders of the class of 1988 when I was a principal gave me— showed me 24 ways to break into Kodiak High School without doing any damage.

So good luck with the plywood doors. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] I glanced at the end of the dais when you made that to see if someone turned red, but he did not.

Through the chair, Madam Manager, could you expand— and please forgive me if you already did this previously— the ARPA funds, the amount, and what are potential uses for— oh geez, it's how embarrassing, right next to me.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] In December of 2022, uh, through fiscal year 2023-17, we accepted $4,787,173.04 from the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund grant. Um, that money has yet to be used, and so all of that is still in place. And we have left that alone since December of 2022 because we knew that it didn't have an expiration date and we didn't know what its needs were going to be in the future. So that money is available. It has almost exactly the same, um, restriction on it as all the other ARPA money did.

So I would have to consult with the finance director to get you more details about that, but that's that, um, Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund.

Thank you. Through the chair, follow-up. Uh, if you— if it wouldn't be too much work for Dora, um, to our Director Cross to identify how we could use that in a strategic partnership to develop housing units and how much of that money we could dedicate to some sort of partnership effort. I, without even having to ask her, all of it. Um, that's totally up to the assembly's choice on how you would want to use that money.

Um, I have had a couple of different organizations already ask, and then what— there's a mix of they want to have money and then they would have access to so many units because they gave so much money, or they want to give money and just have the— like, without an actual request, just to make sure that we add those. We do have the option as we move forward with design to design them differently. They were all 3-bedroom, 1-bath apartments, except Patricia probably knows the best. On the left side, there was two, like, smaller apartments, and so we do have the ability to make some smaller ones instead of the 3-1. But that's going to be— these are not new buildings, so we're going to have a lot more building codes and restrictions.

So we would have to ask the architect to look at if it's possible to make the, the two out of that space like we did originally. So the— I think what we need answered tonight, and it seems like the consensus is towards housing. Um, so what the architect needs is like, we need to be able to tell the architect to move forward with the design because that's going to take 6 months.

Mr. Sharrett. Thank you. Uh, so I want to make sure that I careful with my word selection here. My consensus is not necessarily towards housing. My consensus, or my suggestion rather, whether it has consensus or not, is still to be determined, is to find a strategic partner that would take the facilities as they are and come up with a use plan not including the $4 million ARPA money.

I don't want somebody to look at this and think that, you know, they've got almost $5 million.

Grant to do whatever they want with these buildings. I would, I would be remiss not to say that I'm going to be financially conservative until we understand what's going on with one of our more significant facilities that we just received back on spending money. So I would be open to proposals or ideas from strategic partners that are willing to accept the except the terms of the borough holding the land and the envelope and them putting in funds to create whatever it is they're looking to create while the lands and the— the lands are retained by the borough and there's some form of what we would know as a public-private venture, PPV, for the use of those facilities. So. Thanks.

One of the comments I wanted to make is simply these buildings were built in 1966 and you mentioned code, but there's been a lot of seismic changes, wind changes, structural changes. All would have to be remodeled into this frame, which is frankly the cheapest part of construction is framing a house. There's really not a lot there. And I'm wondering if— Don't misunderstand me if it would be more cost-effective to tear them down and turn over the land to a developer who could actually build houses according to code that maybe have more houses than what we have there right now, or more residences. And looking at the land as a whole, you know, what was built on it, how much it's going to cost us to redesign them all, fix them, versus new construction that's planned and designed specifically to modern standards and codes and also maybe using the land more effectively to further the opportunity to build other structures.

I was not here when they discussed this originally, so I'm sort of glad, but— Sir? Oh, Steve.

Yeah. The framing issue is, in my mind, correct. Bringing the old framing up to code might be a problem. I think we could include that in RFP. Now I have a question, I guess, for engineering.

Pretty much before the houses could be demolished, all the abatement work had to be done except for like the copper pipes and wiring that has been chosen to put in this contract, but The actual abatement part has to be done before the buildings could efficiently be torn down. Is that correct? Part— partially. Um, the abatement work regarding the hazardous materials, yes, that needs to be done. But the scope of work of this abatement and demolition project extends into much more than just the abatement alone.

We're going to completely demolish all the electrical, all the plumbing It will literally be studs, sheathing, and then they start to add new insulation, new underlayment, which they're looking at repurposing and using for future use, um, abating the crawl space, lining the crawl space, insulating the crawl space, um, preparing for future use. And so, um, another point is we do have the cost proposal and the ROMS, um, for future development that, uh, we got back in October. 25Th of 2024. Um, and so it's the total project remodel— they're estimating about a $9,478,606 cost on the estimate. And then you have the $415,910 design proposal that we have before you.

And that's kind of where I, I don't want to leave this where it's a shell. And then we have to re-abate mold or have some other future issue because the engineers and architects are telling us 6 months for a design. So this would be a 2026 bid for construction. I'm sorry, I missed the first figure that you gave. I got the architectural one, but the one before that—.

Not— yeah, $9.5 million if we round up. $9.5 Million to develop these into usable housing? Yes, because they're going to require a lot of as you say, code improvements. We're taking out all the mechanical equipment. The mechanical building goes away.

So there will be no hydronics, no heating. So all that has to be redesigned. And then because if it is housing, there's additional designs that are required for life safety. So how many units do we have there right now? I think right now it's vague because it's one— the Building 102 is one long building.

And so they're not really divided in any way, but it's split up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 2-story buildings, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. So 7 2-story, 6 2-story. So we're paying over $1 million a unit? I—. Why I wanted to bring this to everyone's attention, I don't— I didn't know if we all were given the same information that I was reading.

I see Officer Sharrod— I mean, Assemblymember Sharrod's hand up. Officer? Like policing taxpayer funds? Sure. I'll take that.

So I— again, if I wasn't clear enough, I'll try and be a little clearer. I am not for even moving forward on a redesign task order to our design company until we seek the validity of any public partners. If we get no public partners, then we will obviously need to have a very enlightened conversation about $10 million proposed cost versus lower disposal and demolition cost. So, but again, I'm— I think what I've at least heard is no one really wants to tear these down right now. And we don't really want to commit to a $9 million, $9.5 million obligation right now.

And so I think, at least from my perspective, I'd like to see what the public-private venture could yield for us.

Manager Williams. Thank you. So just for clarification, would you prefer that I went and asked, like, who our likely strategic partners would be if they want to partner with us, or are you looking for an RFP to go out for complete takeover? Like, what is that— what's the preference there?

Go ahead. So again, in the method of transparency, um, there may be people that are willing to invest in this that you might not normally ask. I'm not saying that this organization would, but maybe the the boat museum place. I'm just saying, like, there's a bunch of people that you may not— you might not ask. So I'm not sure the best way to do community outreach for this.

Social media, maybe we can get the newspaper involved in a potential article or write-up about it. I don't know, that's not my area of expertise, but I would be very cautious in selecting only a couple that we might only on the surface think would be financially ready for that. All right. Thank you. Go ahead.

The only concern I have, Madam Manager, is that when we reviewed that deed the last time, it's school, healthcare, Bureau of Indian Affairs, BIA. Those are the only three uses that were allowed for that.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I have that in my files, so I can— we can dig that out and relook at exactly what that says. We did determine— we asked our federal delegation to determine if housing for our main economic driver was an appropriate use, and according to the deed restriction, and we got a very vague answer back. But the clear answers were both education and healthcare, because they want that land to be offered to everyone, the use to everyone, and they wanted to make sure that it was a public process and we had to be able to tell them the dates that we put it out there and we talked about it in public and then the uses that were automatically approved were healthcare and education. Thank you. Mr. Weitzel.

Thank you. Through the Chair and through the Manager, what would be your suggestion for us to near term, if you are comfortable with the question, Given that there's, there's quite a bit of discomfort, myself included, with that very high estimate for turning these back into housing units, what would be your suggestion to us in the near term to make sure we're not going to— or to prevent further needs for abatement, to give us— buy us some time? Is there another option that we don't have in front of us that you would recommend we consider? I don't necessarily have a recommendation. I was just merely sharing the facts of the situation.

And if the decision was ultimately to demolish the facility, we have a potential to save a lot of money by not reinvesting into something that we're going to tear down. And/or if we are going to reinvest into it but we don't have a time that we plan to rebuild, it's either going to be an extremely large maintenance cost of making sure that, A, it's not being vandalized, there's not transients living inside, or B, the.

Materials that are being used aren't deteriorating and it's raining inside of that building. So those are my main concerns that I would bring before you and then share that we did have a proposal ready if that was the path forward. And then, of course, be transparent with the estimates on what the anticipated overall cost was going to be. Okay. Thank you.

Well, just my own comments. There's no way that I would want to authorize $10 million for these units. The, uh, I just can't even imagine it. And I don't like getting into the housing business, but I'm a little concerned. And I agree with Assemblymember Sherratt that we should look at public-private partnerships.

But, you know, I'm a layperson, I'm not a developer, okay? And nobody here on the assembly are developers, at least as far as I know. It might be really good. We have one of the top developers that lives on Kodiak Island in Alaska living here on Kodiak. It would be really nice.

I met with him one time with the previous mayor to talk about this building, and the ideas were just incredible. And somebody who understands financing options and loan programs and somebody that could really give us some good information to talk with. I almost feel like we need more information before we seek any partnerships because there may be better ways to accomplish what we want to do. As far as the ARPA money goes, it's money that we can use for almost anything, and I would hate to see it used up this way, especially since it would need to duplicate itself just to finish the construction. And I would really hate to tell the community or plan $1 million of their money per unit to build some housing when we could spend— boy, if we had $1 million to develop some land to sell to people and develop some incentives for people to build on it, that would be a good use of money.

So I'm not supportive of moving forward. Mr. Ames, do you have any comments before we move on?

Okay. Any other comments before we move on? Let's see if I can fire up my computer here.

It let me down at the worst possible moment. I do have one question. Go ahead. Madam Manager, with seeking public-private venture or other opportunities, do you have any concerns or any questions that would help illustrate what we are trying to look at here? I think as we seek public-private partnership, we are just going to have to be very transparent on what the deed restrictions are and what we can use that land for and that the Borough wants to keep the land.

And so I don't think that's uncommon that the government entity wants to keep the land. And so I think that we can work around all of that and just see, um, and part of the deed restriction was making sure that everyone in the community knew about the opportunity. So that's something that we would want to start as soon as possible so that, that if we are going to, or someone is going to reuse those buildings, those shells, that they can do it in a timely manner. So It sounds as if the direction is exactly that, to explore the opportunities of public-private partnership inside of the community with a focus on staying inside of our deed restrictions and a heavy investment on their part. Assemblymember Spilley.

I'm confused by this figure of $9 million for 13 units. It seems like that's outrageously high. For a community where you're talking about $450,000, $500,000 for, for a 3-bedroom, 2-car garage house in town. It just seems outrageously high, twice as high as it should be according to my family kind of views on the price on things. I know I'm outdated on a lot of this, but can we find another way of doing it so that we don't have to pay these exorbitant prices?

[Speaker:COMMISSIONER STEINGASSER] So I can only speak for clarification on the prices itself. The $1 million— these are the estimates from the ROMs, rough order of magnitude. We already know that we're $1.2 million into this overall, and so that's the beginning for the abatement demo. And then moving forward, it's 16,078 square feet. And they're estimating the cost per square foot is $369, um, is their gross estimate, but then the refined estimate they break down, um, as at $195 per square foot per building.

And so they're getting the $5,709,910 at that estimate. And then there is, of course, the engineering the construction administration and special inspections, and then the electrical servicing, permitting, and everything else, which comes up to the other $2,365,770. So, um, or outside of your abatement, they're estimating a little over $8 million. Are there other contractors who would do it for cheaper? This is not a contractor's estimate.

This goes through an estimating— a professional estimating service. Just to tell us based on the scope of work, the square footage of the facility, and then breaking it down into the most user-friendly and code-compliant, situations, which would be Building 101 would consist of 8,258 square feet with 4 3-bedroom units and 3 2-bedroom units. So that's 5 units total. Uh, Building 102 is 7,342 square feet with 3 3-bedroom units, 2 2-bedroom units, and 2 1-bedroom units. So that is 7 total.

And so when you look at that, you're getting 12 total units for $9 million or $9.5 million. Yeah, I'm not in favor of spending that kind of money.

Mr. Ames. Um, yes, thank you. Those estimates, I'm assuming, were if the borough did it. And so then you're getting into Davis-Bacon wages and a lot of other things, which is why I would be in favor of a private partnership, which would not be encumbered by all those restrictions and could probably do it for a lot less than if the borough did it itself. Um, I also don't think the borough should put that kind of money out.

And I don't think the borough should be in the landlord business of having to run those units. So if they're going to be used for housing, I would definitely want to look into a private-public partnership. And thank you for letting me speak. Thank you. One point of clarification, this does not take into account Davis-Bacon wages or prevailing wages, Title 36 with State of Alaska.

This is purely dollars per square foot on this cost breakdown. Thank you. And I've worked a little bit with Davis Bacon, and they pay very, very close attention to anybody that tries to get around Davis Bacon by developing these kinds of partnerships. It just— they keep a close eye on it because it's first thing people do when they want to build something. Thank you.

I appreciate you coming here tonight, and I know you've been put on the spot, and you did very well avoiding any specific recommendations on your part, but you've really enlightened Enlightened the Assembly. And it's clear that we have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. We've got a 6-month window to make decisions here. And so, I'm sure we're going to be talking about this a lot more in the future. All done with comments, sir?

Sorry. Real quick. Thank you. I'll make it as quick as possible. So that this doesn't fall by the wayside.

Can we see if we can get public comments back within 30 days and this be back on the agenda within 60 days, just so we have got some actual time hacks on this? Because I do not want this to just fall by the wayside. I agree with your timelines. I am confused about your question on public comments. Do you want us to— are we public hearing?

Sorry, interaction— no, interactions with potential stakeholders. Do you think we can get all those back within 30 days and then get this back on the agenda 30 days after that. Yes. Thank you.

That was pretty good. Okay, we're going to go to packet review. First on the packet review is ordinance number FY2025-02A, amending ordinance number FY2025-02, fiscal year 2025 budget, by amending budgets to account for various revenues that are over budget providing for additional expenditures and moving funds between projects. Manager Williams. Thank you.

This ordinance presents the net changes for additional funding requests which occurred during the current fiscal year for items or circumstances not known or expected during the initial creation of the fiscal year 2025 budget or project estimates. There are two sections: funds which do not include capital project funds, they are.

Are accounts established to account for the revenues and expenditures of money with a specified purpose. The following funds are being changed with this budget amendment: Fund 100, which is the General Fund; Fund 530, which is the Solid Waste Collection and Disposal Fund; Fund 540, which is the Hospital Facility Fund; and Fund 555, which is the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center. We'll also be asking to change projects within capital project funds. Since most projects cover multiple years, the borough does not create annual budgets for them. Instead, As I said, each project budget is developed when the project is originated.

Throughout the life of a project, the scope of work deadlines and the need for money may be amended. The projects being amended by this budget amendment are fisheries development, seawater storage and filter vessels, exterior to the KFRC building, the Baylor Building UST removal, the Leachate Aeration LTP pretreatment upgrades, the structural analysis and project list development, and the fire alarm replacement and upgrade. As you will see, the ordinance specifies the origin and destination of each transfer.

Thank you. Comments? Assemblymember Sherrod. Thank you. I overall agree with all of these.

I don't have any significant concerns except for the $692,000 hospital expenditure for the fire alarm upgrades. And I know that— there is a larger conversation to be had with regards to how that account is handled or managed. And so I just— I guess what I want to do is I want to support my— I want to voice my support for this, but I want to urge caution for this hospital expenditure and hospital expenditures moving forward. I'm significantly interested in the hospital dollars. Thanks.

Thank you. Any other comments? Mr. Ames, I don't see a hand up, but I want to give you a chance to comment if you choose to.

No, thank you. Okay. We're going to take a short break and we'll be back in 6 minutes.

2025-43, Multi-family facility elevator modernization, TK Elevator Corporation, in the amount of $677,804.45.

Patricia, I hope you know what the 45 cents is.

It's for a light switch.

Thank you. The Kodiak Island Borough owns two facilities with elevators that need modernization. The first is the Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center, and the second is the Kodiak Middle School. Both locations have endured multiple shutdowns of the elevators due to malfunctions and have system replacement parts that are discontinued or becoming extremely difficult to procure. Modernizations were selected as the most cost-effective way to both conserve the existing infrastructure and provide safer, more reliable elevators to the end users.

To align with the overarching goal of standardizing equipment controls and related systems, these efforts will be treated as two distinct projects but managed under one single contract. Staff issued a request for proposals for this project on January 6th, 2025, advertised for the designated 3 weeks per KAB Code 3.30.040, and bids were due February 4th, 2025. There was a mandatory pre-bid meeting held on January 22nd, 2025, and there was one contractor in attendance. At the proposal opening, staff received one proposal package. Staff sent the submitted proposal package.

The Architectural Review Board for review. Following the review of proposals, staff and the ARB determined that TK Elevator Corporation is a responsible bidder and recommends award to them. Proposals include an estimated total cost of $677,804.45, an estimated total out-of-service time of 9 weeks. Our project manager and project assistant are here tonight to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you.

Assemblymember Sherrod. Thank you. Um, PKIMC, is this coming out of the Providence Fund? It will be coming out of R&R Friends for the Hospital. And Kodiak Middle School, uh, this is coming out of which fund from KIB?

School Major Repair Funds. I am in support of this contract and appreciate the opportunity to have weighed in as an ex officio of the ARB. I did not return an evaluation because an evaluation process would grade two proposals against each other. So you would have received a proposal with a perfect score, sending the wrong message for me. So I did not turn one in.

So I appreciate the opportunity. I do support this. I appreciate what the staff has gone through and that level of transparency through the ARB and incorporating their opinions and their evaluation. So I do support this. I appreciate it.

Okay. Other comments?

All right. That brings us to Resolution Number FY25-14, Adopting the Kodiak Island Borough Multi-Jurisdictional Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan Update. It would be quite an acronym.

Are you ready for the staff report? Yes, ma'am. All right. The Community Development Department has worked over the past year to draft the hazard mitigation plan for the borough and jurisdictions within the borough. A hazard mitigation plan focuses on mitigating potential hazards by reducing risk and potential impacts of hazards such as loss of life and destruction of property.

The previous borough hazard mitigation plan expired in November 2024. The final draft plan included a public participation component that included in-person and online public meetings, a public survey, and a 30+ day comment period of the draft plan. The plan was drafted pursuant to the requirements of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Once adopted by the assembly, the plan will be distributed to all of the cities within the borough and to the Alaska Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for review. It will also go to FEMA for review and approval.

Once approved, the borough would be eligible to apply for hazard mitigation grants similar to the grant that was approved for the hydrology and hydraulic study for Russian River and Sargent Creek. The final draft plan was available via link. And I also want to take a moment to give a special thanks to Joe Grokmoll, James Dixon, Bronwyn Curry, and Mr. Chris French, who's here tonight to answer questions. This team put in a lot of effort to update the old plan into this new document. So thank you to you and your team, Chris.

And if there's any questions about the plan, Your subject matter expert is here.

Chris? I do have a brief presentation. I think I won't cover it in full detail as I will for the regular meeting, but we will cover it briefly here. Again, we are here to discuss the update to the Hazard Mitigation Plan that was originally adopted by the Bureau in 2019. Next slide, please.

So what is a Hazard Mitigation Plan? We get a lot of confusion about hazard mitigation plan from emergency operation plan. So hazard mitigation plan is here to try to reduce or eliminate risks of certain hazards that could potentially impact a community, whereas emergency operation plan is the actual response to an event or an emergency. So what we're looking for in a mitigation plan are what are things that we can do to try to minimize potential loss of life or damage to property if a hazard or a hazard event was to occur. Next slide.

So for the planning process— so we organize in several different things that are outlined in detail by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in terms of how hazard mitigation plans are put together and conducted. The main purpose for hazard mitigation plans is to involve the public, have them have input into the process. And so that's one of the major things as part of the planning process is that we try to do our best to get the word out on plans, get the public involved. So, for example, during this process, we had a survey, we had public meetings, we had a more than 30-day comment period on the draft plan to give the public enough information to be able to provide comments. But when we're talking about the hazard mitigation plan itself, There's a lot of things that are mandated by the federal government and the state of Alaska.

The information that's in there, like what kind of hazards are— is the borough at risk from, you know, explain what those hazards are, how they function, what that risk could be, what the risk assessment— a lot of that is provided for you by the federal government and federal agencies as well as the state government and even state agencies as well as University of Alaska, for example. So a lot of that's covered for you. What we're really looking for in a hazard mitigation plan are the action steps. So there's a table of action steps in the hazard mitigation plan that talks about certain projects that could take place or maybe should take place to help mitigate disasters from— in terms of damages and loss of life. So that is one of the main things that we look for when we're looking for comments from the public.

So— and we received quite a few different comments from the public as well as from other municipalities within the borough. Next slide. So we have 11 types of hazards that have been outlined by the federal government and the state of Alaska stating that could impact the borough. I won't cover all of them, but they include some of the ones that we're familiar with like earthquakes or tsunamis, severe storms, things like that. Next slide.

[SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] So in terms of the layout of the plan, it's pretty well set by FEMA in their guidebook for how to construct a hazard mitigation plan. So we go into things like an introduction of hazard mitigation requirements that the federal government and the state of Alaska require. We talk about what that adoption process is, which we're in part of that today. Community description, which is background of the community. We talk about what our planning process was, whatever the public events that we had, public input into the process, such as surveys and those kind of things.

We talk about hazard profiles, which are things that we receive. So they basically do a profile for each type of the 11 hazards and how they could be impacting the borough. But we explain how those hazards function. So a lot of that stuff is scientific information. If you see in this particular hazard mitigation plan, we have multiple pages bibliography of the sources on all different types of hazards and hazard impacts.

Next, Section 6 deals with vulnerability analysis. Again, that's something that we look at— are there critical facilities, how they are impacted by potential disasters, what are some of the risk assessment there. We talk about a mitigation strategy— what are we trying to mitigate from a specific disaster, what are some mitigation steps or goals, actions that we can take to actually mitigate that disaster. We have plan maintenance— is something that's required that we have to explain how we're going to maintain the plan over the 5-year lifetime of that plan. In other words, as part of ours, we have an annual review.

We also require to do an immediate review after a hazard event. So those things are all spelled out in the plan maintenance section. And then our appendices talk about all the public process pieces. And we provide the full survey responses. All these different things that we have got is all put in the appendices as well as the bibliography and whole discussions of planned maintenance and how we reach out to other communities in the borough for their hazard mitigation projects as well.

In terms of the adoption process, I think the borough manager pointed out how that takes place. My discussions with ADHS and EM about this— what their recommendation was, have the borough review the resolution and adopt it and then send it out to the other municipalities within the borough, send it to the state, and then also it would go to FEMA. This way we would have a step up in terms of the approval process and we can get hopefully an approval through the federal government quick— more quickly so we can apply for potential hazard mitigation grants. A good example of a hazard mitigation grant that we are currently using is the one for Sargent Creek and Russian River. That is a hazard mitigation grant project.

And that's the kind of projects we are talking about when we talk about hazard mitigation actions. So if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer those. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] Just a quick question, Chris. Does this include the whole archipelago, all the villages, the hazardous plan? Correct.

So it does include all of the villages, includes all the— what we would call municipalities in the state. The state requires all municipalities to adopt a multi-jurisdictional plan. It doesn't mean that your plan is not active if, say, one of the cities doesn't adopt it. It can be active for the borough. What it means is if, say, the City of Ozinki didn't adopt the borough's hazard mitigation plan, it just means they can't apply for grants using the borough's.

Hazard Mitigation Plan as evidence or support for their grant application. And could they develop their own if they chose to? They can. So the City of Uzinkee does have their own hazard mitigation plan. They were kind enough to let, you know, our staff look at it because it was happening about the same time as we were beginning this process.

So we did review theirs. We also incorporated quite a bit of their particular projects into the borough's hazard mitigation plan as well. So an example of something that you'd have in place would be like the sirens or the tsunami—. Correct. —The signs around town for high ground, that kind of thing?

Correct. Those can be projects that are hazard mitigation. I mean, sometimes the actual implementation of them may be part of the emergency operations plan, but quite a few things can be hazard mitigation-related. A lot of times they're studies, but sometimes they can be hard infrastructure as well. All right.

Thank you.

Mr. Smiley. In the news, there's been talk about the federal government cutting back on funds for FEMA. Is that going to slow you down at all?

To my knowledge, talking with the state, they're not aware of anything in terms of the review process on our hazard mitigation plan. Now, how that might impact future grants and how much money would be available, it's hard to say right now how that would impact it. Thank you. Assemblymember Sherrod. Thank you.

Just two quick ones is the borough co-funds with the City of Kodiak the emergency manager position has— and that's a recent development, and I know that we've been working on this plan for— since that predates that position. Have we or could you tell me that we have included or encompassed that position in this plan and in this effort? [Speaker:CHIEF BURKE] So the position is not really mentioned in here. However, the emergency manager has reviewed our hazard mitigation plan, provided comments to me, and those have been incorporated into this document. And the second one is more of a generalized statement for the manager is, if we're going to continue to expend organizational resources to position us for grants, I would like to see either a grant writer on staff or an agency identified on contingency basis for grant writing specific that we could tap into for FEMA.

Elon can do whatever he says he's going to do, but FEMA's not going to go anywhere. And so I would love to be able to, um, position ourselves to get the best out of that as possible. We've had multiple conversations, Cheneyak Water System, things of this nature that we know that, that federal funds exist for. So thanks.

Other comments? Mr. Ames, do you have any comments?

No comment at this point in time. Um, yeah, no comment at this time. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Chris. I am really pleased with the plan that you've had, and I'm looking forward to seeing the full presentation.

What were you gonna—. Before I start to Madam Manager, do you have something you wanted to add? I was just going to say that we will put that in the budget. So I— there are actually multiple departments that have asked for outside grant writing, so that would be something that would serve all departments.

Go ahead. Thank you, Director French. Thank you for your leadership on this one. You make it seem effortless, but I think those of us who have Who work in the realm of collaborating across agencies, across departments, federal, state, local municipalities. You make it seem effortless.

I know it was anything but that. My question for you, is there— do you anticipate any barriers for implementation? So I will say one thing that we have done recently, and I think the manager has talked about it, we have done some restructuring of the Community Development Department. Promoted some people. One of the people we promoted is James Dixon, who actually was pretty instrumental in getting the grant written for the hazard mitigation grant for Russian River and Sargent Creek.

His promotion to associate planner for enforcement includes a lot of work on hazard mitigation. One of the things that he's being tasked with is those annual reviews and then working with the emergency manager as well on those annual reviews and, of course, any responses to any events that occur. And so we hope to have— with that plan maintenance section that's required in the document from FEMA, we hope more action and certainly work with the other municipalities in the borough. Thank you. You're welcome.

Chris, just one quick question. Just give me time to think and more questions pop up. Seems like one of the greatest planning and mitigation efforts is to make sure that we have trained responders.

You know, for instance, if we have a disaster in one of our villages, I believe the city manager would be responding to that. Is that correct, or has that changed now? [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] So in our current emergency operations plan, the city manager is named as our emergency services director. Part of our code update will be renaming that to the emergency manager. So the emergency manager will be in charge of emergencies.

The emergency manager has reached through KANA out to all the VPSOs and have them, uh, the communication line started so that we can figure out what those needs are going to be. Um, our history with being able to help the villages in time of emergency is not strong. Um, oftentimes our resources end up right here, so they have very strong individual plans inside of the villages, but we are trying to reestablish community lines We are invited to go to the rule forum, which is on March 27th, that we're going to talk about our new emergency manager position and the new opportunities that are available because that position exists. Well, okay. Are we going to have a presentation sometime on the new emergency management leadership plan?

So this is not the presentation you're asking for, but Mr. Gonzales has hit the ground running and has identified the fact that our incident command system needs a lot of work. And when we look at having trained personnel in there, he's going to start with finding out which positions in the city and the borough will be identified to help in an incident command, and then making sure that those people identified, or those positions identified, have adequate training to, training to do so. The way our emergency operation procedure is set up right now is this City is the first line of filling up an emergency, um, position, and then the borough is set for backup. So he'll be working specifically with city employees to make sure that they have the training, and then the borough is the backup. We have a little bit of a hiccup in our positions helping out because we are unionized and we have very specific job descriptions for our union employees.

So that's something we'll work on the union with. To make sure in a time of emergency that those employees are allowed to switch their normal jobs to work on an emergency job. Well, the reason I bring it up is that in the far past, we had a well-trained community. All school districts' staff went through critical incident managers— critical incident command training. The borough did.

We did. Practices, if you will, to see, you know, brought everybody together, and that hasn't happened in years. And the school district, as an example, and I brought this up before, you know, they manage all the shelters, which frankly is, for many of the problems we have, is number one. And this isn't your responsibility, so I'm not looking at you like you didn't do something or you should do something, but I am concerned that the first question I asked the borough manager when I was in 2017 is, what's going on with emergency planning? And he said, yeah, that's something we need to do.

And it seems like we're still there. You know, and I hope that even though the city— this emergency management person responds to the city— that we're actively pursuing that training and preparation because all the tsunami signs won't mean a anything if we don't have good communication and good leadership that knows what they're doing, where, and how. And I haven't seen that plan, and I'm a little concerned. So Assemblymember Sherritt, um, gave us information to start having people from Texas A&M come up, and we had training last summer, which is the first time that group of people got together since COVID They are coming back this summer, so that group of people will be together again. And, uh, Mr. Gonzales has drills laid out or community scenarios that we're going to start doing again already.

That's one of the things he immediately identified that we need to do is naming those people, making sure that we're trained in those positions, and then practicing. Because you're right, that's something that hasn't been done in quite some time. And as we talked about in the joint work session, the ESC will get together and start looking at the code to change those codes around what.

The emergency manager is or what their role is. The emergency manager walks around and talks to people. I, I see him 2 or 3 times a week since he started. He stops by and lets us know what's going on, and he sends out weekly sitreps on anything that we should be aware of. So he really is starting kind of a, um, from scratch because that's a new position.

And also, um, we need a lot more attention to emergencies. So I think I I just talked to him today and I said, you have very good job security, sir. We have a long road in front of us. But I think he's up to the challenge and is already talking about how we can start the community on exercises to make sure that we're ready. Is there any way that we could have him come present to the assembly during a work session, tell us where we are, what we're doing?

Absolutely. Where we're going? Because I haven't heard that. And I appreciate all the good things that you're saying. I mean, it makes me feel really good, but it would be nice to have a public presentation so those who listen to these meetings and for our own learning where we are and what we are doing.

I think he would actually enjoy doing that. Yes, we will ask him to come. Is that satisfactory with other Assembly members? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. French.

That was very— just outstanding presentation even though it was small. I appreciate all the work that your staff has done. Great. Thank you.

Okay, let's see here. Next, other items to talk about are a mayoral veto on the amendment of the letter to be submitted to State of Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office, AMCO, transfer of ownership application from Suk Si Yoon DBA, second floor restaurant, license number 3293, to Noonak Cafe in Dali, and the transfer of location from the current location of 116 West Rezanov Drive to 113 Lower Mill Bay Road. And I understand this may be sort of a moot issue, so Manager Williams, where do you think we are on that, or should I talk to the clerk? Yes, either one of us can do that. Yes, it's now a moot issue.

The attorney advised that the mayor can only veto the protest letter in total, not in parts. So after we have gotten the attorney's opinion, I talked to the mayor and he said he agrees on withdrawing his veto, because otherwise, if he— if his veto stays on the agenda, it's pretty much vetoing the action that you've taken at the last meeting. So he decided to withdraw his We don't. Thank you. Okay.

Any other comments before we go on to the next session? I appreciate the leadership of a couple of assembly members to check on this. Thank you. Okay. We now have an abbreviated and informal hearing of the State of Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office, AMCO, liquor license transfer of ownership from Suk Si Yoon, DVA, second floor restaurant, license number 3293, to Nanak Cafe and Deli and Transfer of Location from Current Location of 116 West Rosenhof Drive to 113 Lower Mill Bay Road application.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the assembly. At the last meeting, you have voiced protest to this transfer, and you have instructed the clerk to send the letter. But before we can send a letter to the applicant and also So to AMCO, we need to provide an opportunity for them to be heard at this upcoming meeting, and that's in accordance with Alaska Administrative Code. So that's what we're doing at the next meeting.

We're just providing the avenue for them to defend that transfer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Any questions? Okay, we'll move right along.

Nomination of Mr. Elijah Jackson. Jackson for the Kodiak Village Mayor's Association seat on the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council Board of Directors. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, we have reached out to the communities if there's anyone else who would be willing to take on this seat, and we didn't receive any response.

We have reached out to Mr. Elijah Jackson, or Mayor Elijah Jackson, and he said he would be, uh, willing to continue his service on this board. So we would ask that you confirm his nomination to the seat. Thank you. Thank you, Nova. Any comments?

Okay, we'll move on to manager's comments. Well, I just— on the last item, real fast, Mr. Chair, um, Mr. Jackson is not only the mayor, but he's also the VPSO for his community, so he's a really great asset on that on the Prince William Sound Regional Citizen Advisory Council, so I'm happy that he's going to be back. I am too. Yep.

Thank you. Sure. Okay, um, the manager's report. Over the past 2 weeks, the, uh, borough has rearranged furniture, filing cabinets, and staff members to create a projects office on the first floor of the building. The project manager and project assistants can now be found in rooms 101 and 102.

It's right across the hall from my office if you're looking for them. There's also a project office report attached tonight. If acceptable, this report will be given at the last meeting of each month to summarize progress on projects and show which projects are being planned and designed. So we do have our project manager and project assistants— I lied— project manager in the audience. If you have any specific questions for him about this report, this is something we used to do when Matt Gandell was the project manager and it kind of fell off.

So we're excited to have that back. So it's a different source of information on the projects that we're doing. We already talked about Northstar Elementary tonight. Last week, Sima told you about essential air service. It was mentioned in Project 2025.

I included the passage in case you're curious there. If essential air service was not funded, there's a report attached that lists the areas of the borough that could be affected. Anything that says Island Air Service next to it in that third column will be affected. There's quite a few areas. As we move into future work sessions, we'll be discussing the budget schedule for departments.

It's listed there. On the 13th, we'll start with the Finance Department and Manager's Department. Sima will be the administrative official from March 5th through 7th, including a March 6th regular meeting next week. In Finance, as of February 21st, the annual foreclosure list has started its 4-week run in the local newspaper. That same list will run for 4 consecutive weeks.

Please contact the finance department for an updated payoff amount. In community development, um, as our director mentioned tonight, the hydrology and hydraulic study is going. It's where the one that we got through, um, FEMA. We met this week with our contractor, which is River Focus. Some of the work that they are doing is being repeated by an RFP that is coming out from the state.

And so I reached out to the state and asked them how our project might supplement their efforts or if they could actually just use the work that we've done to prevent duplication of the effort. I haven't heard back from them yet, but I'm sure I will. In assessing for senior and disabled veteran exemptions, we'll be getting— checking the PFD information after the 31st. You may have noticed a notice of value in your mailbox. They were mailed out on February 26th.

Appeal period for those notice of values began today and will run through March 28th. Appeal literature has been translated to Tagalog and Spanish. Uh, there's some located right inside of the building and then outside of the assessing office where the assessor has set up a nice little waiting area in case you're back there and it's not your turn yet that has that information listed as Well, in engineering facilities, the Breyer Building boiler installation is almost done. The final items are scheduled to be finalized over the next couple of weeks, and the subcontractors have completed their work. We should be closed out of that project by the end of March.

The pool facility condition survey, we've received a proposal from Jensa Jorvenwall for conducting that survey for the cost of $59,540. The proposal includes aquatic specialist WTI, structural engineering from P&D, and mechanical and electrical engineering from RSA, all the contractors, subcontractors with our Jensen Yorba Wall. The proposal will be presented, um, in the packet review on March 13th and then for approval on March 20th. Uh, because of the design and the time, the pool goes down each May, so this would be a project that we would do in May of 2026. At the mental health buildings, the environmental contractor has collected the PCB samples.

Due to those testing requirements, they will not mobilize until March 10th. We did get a preliminary estimate on what it's going to cost the borough to remove those PCB items, and it was— our preliminary estimate is $275,000 to have 20 containers removed. No matter what we decide to do, those materials will be— have to take— must be taken off island. There is no landfill in the state of Alaska that accepts those materials at the levels that they're testing at. Non-hazardous material will be removed for disposal at the landfill.

At the KFRC, Long Technologies provided staff with as-built and upgraded their current monitoring capabilities to reflect all sensors installed. This is something that hadn't been done, and we've had a lot more sensor.

That we could have been looking at that we did not look at. And now that we have those, we're going to be better partners with NOAA in making sure that their systems are up to date. At the landfill, the Baylor tipping floor project is closed out, and we have an RFP posted for the regional solid waste management plan. I spoke with our environmental specialist today about including the Solid Waste Advisory Board in that process. Leachate treatment plant, we're still working with the engineer, plant manufacturer, and the Department of Environmental Conservation about how good our leachate treatment plant is or is not doing.

We have that same foaming issue. I think I gave pictures last time it happened. It's a brown foam that comes out of the pretreatment plant. They think it is because of a pallet of hand sanitizer that was disposed at one point in time. Um, but they are testing to find out what is going on with that.

The high school roof, uh, we are working for a warranty claim. We were notified today that a field service rep— uh, representative is going to come out for an inspection. However, that is not going to take place until the spring, so we're working with the school district to determine the urgency of the repair, uh, if it's something we should get taken care of immediately or if we can wait for that service rep to come out. For service areas, we had a follow-up meeting with the Department of Labor just a couple of days ago, uh, to make sure that our new contracts would be compliant with wage and hour regulations. New contracts will be required to follow the State of Alaska Title 36 prevailing wage contracts, um, for any contract that goes over $25,000 cumulatively.

Um, the KIB road service area modifications to the standard specifications are posted on our website, and we will be getting ready for our invitation to bid documents, um, for each specific, uh, road service area. Those will then go out to those road service area boards to make sure we have addressed everything that's specific to their road service area before they come out. In information technology, we are busy finishing up our asset tag inventory. Um, the Bayside Fire Department has asked for their own specific email addresses, so we got a new domain name for them. They will be Bayside Fire AK, and the next step will be just configuring that for our systems.

And they are continuing to work with our new electronic time clock software software and our ongoing PACS migration. Additional to the packet is that essential air service information and the project manager or project office report. So last week I was told that the administrative official was told, are you going to read all of that? Which makes me wonder, Do you— would you prefer a manager report less frequently, like only at regular meetings, or do you want them to continue every week? Or I could read less.

So I just want to make sure that we're meeting the information needs of what you'd prefer.

Ryan.

I love your manager's report, but I also respect the time. So, I often will take the documents that I get handed out, and I will often reread them in the evenings or the following morning, and formulate questions or responses or concerns that I might not necessarily garner from the dictation. So, I think just a quick summary highlight, you know, 60, 90-second type thing, is perfect for me. I am a debate champion who went to nationals in high school, so if I have to fit the information in 90 seconds, I'm on it.

Similar, Member Smiley. I'm all in favor of the long form. I think we learn a lot from that. You bring your history with it, and you've kept up with these issues and everything, and I think it's really fantastic. And it is such a contrast to a former manager that is just unbelievably good.

So I eat it up. I do have a question, though. On the Litchi Treatment Plant, we were promised that we would achieve some standard, and I take it we didn't achieve that standard and we're now trying to get to that standard? [SPEAKING CHINESE] We have taken care of the pump issue. You're talking about the quality, the water quality.

Yes, when that system was designed, it was designed to meet a certain specification that was determined by the Department of Environmental Conservation. Leche is a goalpost that just keeps moving. It's not the same today, tomorrow, 6 hours from now. So we're trying to treat something that isn't the same. So, uh, does ADEC understand that?

I believe that they understand that. And, um, Jenna has a really good relationship with them and is able to call them up and ask questions. And, um, when we when we designed the pretreatment plant, from what I understand, is that was the newest, greatest thing and it was gonna get us to our goal, but that, I don't know if it's possible. [Speaker] Okay. [Speaker] So the next we will try aeration, and after that we're gonna try a new chemical injection, right?

And so it's just, there's just more and more things that we can try to get the solids out before it hits the plant. There's, Jenna has a lot of ideas. Those ideas are all very expensive. So we're doing the best we can. I have two more questions.

The first one is the ozone treatment at KFRC. That's been on the books for a long time, and it still isn't implemented. Is that correct? That is correct. So we have been waiting for GSA to confirm if we could use the funds in the R&R and the enterprise fund for that system, and we just found out that we can use 75%.

So that is great. So we have a funding source identified, and so they are preparing that right now. Okay, also on the Essential Air Service, there are several communities that aren't listed here— Lesson Bay and Old Harbor. They are listed, but just not by their community names. So, um, yes.

And so when we— this was originally brought to us, they're like, don't worry, only 2 places from Kodiak are on there. But as soon as we looked, we're like, oh no, there's, there's a lot more. So it would definitely affect us. And we were able to talk to Representative Begich while we were in Juneau. Both Senator Stevens and Representative Stutes know about this.

And we now know that all of our federal delegation knows about it as well. So it is being hopefully taken care of or voiced that it's how important it is for our region. [Speaker] Thank you. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [Speaker] I can give you all the backstory to EAS that you want. I helped author all of those.

So, um, I am really curious of how we progress to chemical treatment for leachate before we've talked about RO and evaporation. So, uh, I'm very—. I will direct you towards the environmental specialist for that. I don't think we're at the chemical treatment part yet, but that is like one of the options. So I, I will not even act like I know what's going on out there at the level that Jenna does.

So if we have questions, we'll direct them specifically to her. That's my only question. Thanks.

Thank you. I'll start with this project's report is fantastic, Mr. Allen. It's thorough. I really appreciate the ongoing projects and what level of completion they're at. That's really helpful for me to just kind of think about timelines and maybe sense of urgency.

Where we are at with all these. I think your descriptions are fantastic. It is very intuitive for someone like myself who doesn't speak the same language. So fantastic job. And then to— as far as the presentation of these reports, I appreciate brevity, but I also remind myself that the community benefits a lot from hearing these during meetings.

So I would prefer the more— the extended or detailed version because of the community listening in or watching later on.

Well, thank you. I guess I don't have any questions except I like your reports. I just think that on our website sometimes it's hard to find things like that. There's so much really good information. I wish it was sort of like a button right on the front page.

So what— I give Nova a copy of this and she puts it on right into the agenda. So if it's Friday afternoon, you're like, oh, I wonder what the manager's report was, you You can go to the agenda and go to manager report and click on it, and it's right there for all of the meetings. So it's— it'll be accessible as soon as the clerk staff comes in tomorrow morning. And I would like to have it there earlier, but sometimes the ink is still wet when I'm walking in. Just things change all day long.

So, but yeah, it is for anyone who's interested in reading those, they are available right inside of the agenda. For the work sessions, it's at the end, and at the regular meetings, it's right in the beginning. All right, thank you. One of the questions I've noticed is when I've come in the last few days, you've opened up an office here right at the entrance. Is that the project manager's office?

No, the project manager's office is actually located right across the hall from my office. We have— I had 3 empty offices around me, so when we were talking about moving them into a place where they could— the project assistant and the project manager could collaborate better together, there was space right across from.

[Speaker:JENNY] So, um, and I'm learning a lot by them being there, and I, um, so it's great. The office that you're noticing is, um, in past years, assessing used that for appeals. So when people came in, we don't always like to talk about, uh, properties, um, in like some people want to do it in private, they don't want to talk, so they had a space that they could use back there. This year, most of that stuff is going to get done back in assessing. Unless people don't have the correct mobility.

So if there's mobility issues, we can do it right inside the front door. Okay. Just for historical view, that used to be KMXT when they first opened. I'd like to have the— thank you very much for your report. We're now ready for the clerk's report.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the assembly. I worked on a code change regarding remote participation for meetings. A draft ordinance was sent to Assemblymember Dave Johnson last week. We have a placeholder for discussion on the March 13 work session agenda.

A friendly reminder that for those who haven't filed their APOC forms, you need to get those done by March 15, otherwise there's going to be penalties for late submissions. I have been getting inquiries about service area meetings and roles between the assembly and service areas. I reached out to the borough attorney and said out that information to the assembly. I think that was yesterday, and today I received this yellow form from Assemblymember Lee Doo, and I'm going to start working on a code change, a draft ordinance. I—.

This week, the manager and I were scrambling into getting the CAPSES sent over to our legislators in Juneau. So we got that done. I think it was a great partnership between the manager and I. We— it was a lot of work yesterday or the past two days, but we got them done. Those are for entering the capital improvement project list into the system. So records update, update, we have successfully completed 26 records requests and one is currently pending liquor licenses.

We have spent so much time and energy on liquor licenses. We take our jobs seriously. And also, aside from our day-to-day checking and monitoring and making sure we're in compliance and researching and stuff like that, we've also spent some— quite a bit of money on our legal opinions regarding liquor licenses. So I would appreciate you, like, taking those, those comments from the clerk's office into consideration as you formulate your, your decision, or in your decision-making. So we have staffed the Planning and Zoning Commission meetings this month, and that was a really good experience for Irene, she was able to do the roll call and, and stuff like that.

So it was, it was a good training. We are also staffing the Fisheries Workgroup and the Borderlands Committee, where we have received today the Aleutic Heritage Foundation filing for the appeal of their tax exemption, and I have sent that information over to you. In that email, I have also sent the attorney's opinion regarding ex parte contact, and so I would like to warn you about that. So officially, there's something that has been filed, and you can't be, be talking to people that you're going to be basing your— you're going to be basing your decision based on the appeal packet and what is going to be presented at the hearing. So I just wanted to, um, let you know about ex parte communication.

In addition to that, we're also preparing for the annual Board of Equalization appeal process. Um, the BOE meeting is scheduled on Monday, May 5th. There's going to be a training for the BOE members on April 24th, um, and the filing period Started today, and when someone appeals, they turn in their forms to the clerk's office. So we monitor those and we'll be passing them on to assessing. Budgets, we're doing good.

Legislative budget as of today is at 63%. Clerk's office budget as of today is at 65%. We have been advertising the service area budget public hearings. So far, all the service areas have responded and they have scheduled their budget public hearing. And the only one that has not scheduled one is Manasheka Bay because there's— they won't have a quorum.

That board is not filled. And that's all I have. I just want to emphasize that you have a March 12 joint work session with the school board. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Nova.

Any questions?

Appreciate all your work. We're now at the assembly member comments. And Mr. Ames, I'm going to ask you to speak after Mr. Smiley does and makes his comments. That'll give you time to prepare. Dr. Smiley, do you have any comments?

No comments.

That really didn't go— Steve, do you have any comments? I'm good. I got the mic on.

No comment at this point. All right. Thank you. Mr. Sherrod. Thank you.

My only comment is that with some recent personnel things that have come to light, I would like the Manager to address who the permanent AO is, is, and I'd like to see that come before the Assembly again. And I appreciate that. That's all I have. Thank you. Assemblymember Bowe.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to express gratitude for staff. Every presentation today made me feel really good about where we're at. I feel like we are whole, and it's a cheesy thing to say, but I truly feel that way.

I feel like we have momentum now and we have capacity, and I can already see the benefits in the community, and people are talking about it. I'm certainly really grateful for everybody. Thank you for everything you do. Please don't forget, we need your guidance. I don't want to be the one always up here talking to you and advising you.

If you have a recommendation for us, I welcome that, so please feel empowered to speak up. When you feel appropriate to guide us in our decision-making. Thank you. Thank you. Just a couple.

I was honored to represent the borough at the Coast Guard Appreciation Banquet, as Dr. Smiley was there too. It was an incredible event. I've never been one before— been to one before, but I was very proud to be there and It really, you know, brought back a lot of memories. You know, one of my pals when I was very younger was permanently injured in a crash of C-130 on Attu Island, I think in 1982. And we really have an incredible organization here in Kodiak taking care of us, and they have for many years.

And I sometimes think, you know, we just take them for granted. And certainly when you saw the dedication of the the folk at that banquet. It just made you realize how important they are to our community and to the people who live here, and not just the fishermen. Also, we had a fire, and I read on the internet the people who had the fire were praising Mill Bay Fire Department for getting there and taking it out. Did I get that right?

Bayside? Yes. I'm sorry, I live close to Mill Bay. It's always—. Yeah, that fire department has evolved in ways that were— are absolutely amazing under Chief Ellis.

We're really lucky to have him. Well, I'm very, very pleased. And one of the things I wanted to say, and I've got it right here, Bo, is I wanted to say your leadership in developing your staff is wonderful, and that won't happen without leadership from you. I feel really confident when you're staff presents, that they care about our community and trying to do the right thing. And I really feel that.

And Bo said it much more eloquently, but I feel really good. And every one of them that have come up here, and we always have good questions for them. And as the clerk said, I have, you know, I feel really helpless when somebody comes up here from one of our service districts with concerns because I, I want to say I don't know what we can do, and their concerns are real, but they think that we can take care of that. And so I have submitted a, uh, a possible ordinance that would provide more accountability to ensure that meetings are taking place and there is accountability for meetings. And so when I.

Co-sponsor to that. It'll, you know, come up because I really feel government should serve, and our service districts are related to us in many, many ways, and there has to be accountability. And I don't like being helpless when citizens have concerns that we're their only option. So I'll be moving— actually, NOVA is going to take care of that initially for us, and then hopefully it'll be on the agenda soon. So I appreciate that.

OK, brings us to mayor's comments. There are no mayor's comments tonight that I know of, so we are adjourned. Bye, Steve. Thank you.

Thank you for setting it up. You're welcome. Have a nice evening. Yep, right. That's pretty good.

I'm actually mourning, but you know.

I got it. Thank you, thank you.

Cackle, cackle. I sure wish I had one of those fancy manager reports that didn't get on my desk today from the manager. I thought I remembered I'd start my car before this meeting. What a show-off.

Goodbye, good morning, man. Keep stuff out of this.