City Council Meeting 5/26/26

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:04:56]Okay, we're streaming to YouTube. Are you when you are?

[00:04:58]>> Okay, I'll call this meeting of the Seward City Council to order. It's Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at 700 p.m.

[00:05:28]Mr. Would you please call for tonight's meeting here?

[00:05:37]>> Here, Warner >> here.

[00:05:39]>> Draper >> here. Corno is excused. Grace >> here.

[00:05:44]>> And Mayor Mccclure >> here. You have a quorum.

[00:05:46]>> Okay. Thank you. There are no proclamations andor of words. So, this brings us to citizen comments on any subject except items scheduled for public hearing. There are no public hearings tonight. Um, if you signed in, you'll be given the first shot and then after that I can take short hands up to 36 minutes total and you'll get 3 minutes. Um, and when you come up, there's some instructions, but you need to give your name and if you live inside or outside the city limits. Mr. Clerk, who's signed up?

[00:06:20]>> There are four people signed in to speak. First on the list is Amanda Sweding.

[00:06:29]>> Hello, Swinging outside city limits. I'm here on behalf of the sewer chamber of commerce and visitor center bureau. Um, I have a statement to read. Uh, we know many local businesses and community members are looking to the chamber for updates regarding the cruise ship terminal opening and resulting schedule changes. We are actively working with our cruise railroad and community partners to gather and verify information and we are continuing to share updates with the community as soon as information becomes available to us.

[00:06:58]Here are the latest updates. Royal Caribbean is providing complimentary shuttle service between Seward and Wier for impacted cruise sailings. This means visitors who booked hotel stays, tours, or other reservations in Seward prior to imbarcation or following debarcation may still keep their existing Seward reservations and travel between the two communities via the cruise free shuttle service. The June 2nd Winstar cruise sailing abroad, the Starseker is currently being rerouted to Whiter.

[00:07:27]Royal Caribbean reached out today and confirmed that Silver Moon on Thursday the 28th will be coming to Seward.

[00:07:33]No direct confirmation on the 29th yet, but hopefully tomorrow will we'll hear.

[00:07:39]Um, other cruise companies are given the option to tender passengers or utilize the freight dock and sewer while construction continues. In many cases, reroute decisions are not finalized until approximately 48 hours prior to sailing depending on the cruise ship company. Premier Hospitals has been very helpful ensuring communications that they have received regarding other cruise lines. Current delays are related to ongoing construction at the dock and at this time no firm completion timeline has been provided. The Alaska Rail and Royal Caribbean have been very communicative throughout this process and are working to write updates as soon as information becomes available. Um so we'll post uh about the 20th on our social tomorrow, but I thought I'd let you guys know. I just heard like a couple hours ago. So uh okay, cool. Moving on. Um we had our summer seasonal meets which used to be called the double scoops event on Sunday at the CI Center. We partner with CI Center. So, we put that event on. Uh we had about 120 people show up uh and about 14 businesses and community organizations had tables. Uh and we've already heard back from a couple of those and people are already receiving applications from that event. Uh it's supposed to be like kind of like a second job fair. Um so that was great.

[00:08:46]Um the Silver Serby registration is open. Uh so we're super excited about that as well. Uh and in the derby we've also um evolved the pro category to the charter competition. Um so if you guys are interested to hear about charter competition, we're posting it on socials um or talk about it more time. Um also we have a really exciting partnership with the uh charter uh association and um we'll be talking about that later. Um and then on June 4th we have the port partners event. Uh it's not our event, but Roina is hosting an event. Um and they would request that everyone RSVP.

[00:09:28]Don't forget. Um there's going to be free food and drinks and music and um you get to hear locals present.

[00:09:35]Thank you so much, Mr. Next on the list is Andy Mezero.

[00:09:51]Uh good evening and for the record Andy Mezero. I live outside city limits. I'm here on behalf of the sewer charter boat association and uh we'll be talking later about this uh salmon issue, but for right now what I wanted to just bring to your attention was that there was um believe on Saturday a catastrophic marine accident out the Gulf of Alaska or charter boats hole breached and it flooded and capsized and um there were passengers on board including a 10-year-old child and uh people ended up in the water and so there were two charter boat operators that were doing their and listening to the healing distress frequency and responded and saved those people's lives. And I want to bring this to your attention because I think it's the kind of thing that's um appropriate to recognize these two captains that did go out of their way and took substantial risk to rescue these people. And had they not done that, we would be having a different discussion right now because there's pretty much no doubt that there would be fatalities. The water is 41° right now. They were 6 milesi from Cape Resurrection out in the ocean. So, um, these two captains are both, um, local residents, Will Gentry and Nick Spur, who grew up here and they both behaved in very high professional standard and maintained their composure and rescued these people and brought them back safely to the dock. And so I don't really know what the policy is for the city council to issue accommodations or whatever you do, but I thought I would bring this to your attention and encourage you at a future date to discuss this and decide if this isn't the kind of thing that you would want to recognize people for their selfless behavior for.

[00:11:31]Okay, >> that's all I got.

[00:11:33]>> Okay, thank you very much, >> Mr. Clerk.

[00:11:37]>> Next on my list is Peter Frank.

[00:11:48]All right. Uh, good evening, council members, administration. My name is Peter Frank. I live in city limits, and I'm here tonight to discuss motor vehicle idling and propose that the council consider a new ordinance which would limit the duration of time a vehicle could be left idling within city limits.

[00:12:05]Idling a vehicle or running the engine while parked or stopped is an unnecessary and wasteful and harmful practice. It's unnecessary because most modern fuel injected vehicles uh only require 30 seconds to a minute to warm up effectively even in extreme cold. Uh the state of Alaska has recognized idling as a wasteful practice and has instituted a 10-minute maximum idling policy for their maintenance and operations vehicles.

[00:12:30]Idling is harmful because it creates unnecessary noise and air pollution which are especially impactful in urban areas.

[00:12:37]Unfortunately, my family has experienced excessive idling firsthand. We live just south of the post office. And for the last 16 months, the semi-truck uh contracted by the postal service has idle outside of our house for 6 to 11 hours uh 6 days a week. The sound of the truck idling and the smell of the exhaust is noticeable throughout our property and in our home all day long from about 6:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays. contacted the postmaster and the driver to address the issue with no success.

[00:13:09]So in researching how to address this issue, I quickly found that uh island regulations have enacted uh quite commonly throughout the United States.

[00:13:20]Uh in fact, 31 states and dozens of municipalities have enacted regulations limiting vehicle idling times.

[00:13:29]And I'm not trying to propose uh a uh overly burdensome uh limit. You know, I know many of us, including myself, start idle our cars in winter warm up and defrost cabins. And I don't want to prohibit or stop that practice.

[00:13:45]Um therefore I am proposing that tour uh follow the president enacted uh by other uh um municipalities across the nation and uh issue an ordinance which would limit the duration of vehicle can be pitled within city limits to 15 minutes.

[00:14:05]Uh I sent council administration a draft of proposed ordinance. Um and if you have any questions please thank you very much.

[00:14:14]Mr. Cler, please.

[00:14:16]Okay, last person signed in to speak is Elia.

[00:14:30]I forgot my glasses.

[00:14:33]My name is Elzernia. I live outside of city limits. Um, I wanted to come now that it's passed and talk about mermaids. Um, I wanted to thank everyone who brave the cold. It was our probably coldest fest yet. Um, and uh, Shel and I are internally grateful for everyone that showed up. We love seeing all the locals enjoying the festivities. Um, we want to thank all the excellent entertainment, the reason for hosting the beverage bar, our local waste management that has stepped up and helped with rubbish assistants for our 9 years running since our very, very first fest. Um, I also want to recognize and thank Nate Smith, Brian Mali, and all of the marathon wrestling team. Um, this is I might have this wrong. This is either their third or fourth fest where they have donated their time for the entire festival to help me clean out the trash cans.

[00:15:35]Um, and they've done an excellent job and we couldn't do it without them. Um, we also wanted to thank Changing Tides through the Sewards Arts Council. Thank you. We absolutely loved the Flash Mob um and hope that it grows uh in future fests. Uh we want to thank all the restaurants and local bars who participated in the pub crawl and uh most of all um we want to thank our city departments here at the city of Seward um for 9 years now. Um the harbor master's office has stood behind us and helped us facilitate this event. The police um is always ready and willing the moment we call and need anything. They are there in moments. The fire department whenever we've needed them has come right away.

[00:16:25]Um the public works people have always been so great uh gracious with allowing us to use some of their resources with regarding to signage and all of that kind of stuff. Um parks and wreck for letting us use the lot. Appreciate you guys. Um, and I just like to remind everybody that, you know, um, we're not as a festival in the business of making money. We do it for our community. Um, any money we have left over, we give back to our local programs, including sports clubs, youth groups, nonprofit programs, arts endeavors. Um, and next year is going to be our 10year anniversary. It's going to be our biggest fest yet. So, um, again, I just wanted to thank everyone. Thank you for letting us have it, um, and continuing to let us do so. And if you ever have any questions, concerns, or want to volunteer to help out, um, let us know.

[00:17:21]And, um, just on a total second side note, um, I was going to mention it, but Andy did a great job, um, about talking about our local heroes from this last week. Um, I also wanted to just mention EMS.

[00:17:38]Um, and thank them. They showed up and were very professional and handled the situation beautifully and and really I got to see firsthand how interacting with those victims was so great. Thank you. Anyone else? That was all that signed up, right? Anyone else wish to speak at this point?

[00:18:02]Mr. Yeah.

[00:18:04]>> Okay. Seeing none, I'll bring it down to approval of the agenda and the consent agenda and ask for a motion to approve in a second. Please move for approval of today's agenda and consent agenda. I'll second.

[00:18:18]>> It's been moved and seconded. Is there anything anyone would like to change?

[00:18:26]I'm not seeing anything. So, Mr. Clerk, let's vote. Voting on the approval of tonight's agenda and consent agenda.

[00:18:33]Oena, >> yes. Calhoun, >> yes.

[00:18:37]>> Crates, >> yes.

[00:18:38]>> Warner, >> yes.

[00:18:40]>> Draper, >> yes.

[00:18:41]>> And Mayor Mccclair, >> yes.

[00:18:43]>> Your agenda and consent agenda have been approved. And on the consent agenda were the May 11th, 2026 city council meeting minutes, the introduction of ordinance 2026-005 amending Seward City Code 2.10.071 071 council packet and 2.10.100 decorum and no grounds for protest for the Amco beverage dispensary liquor license renewal for the Gateway Hotel as well as the Highliner restaurant.

[00:19:13]>> Okay, thank you. Um we have a couple of first is the city manager report. Madam city manager, thank you madam mayor.

[00:19:23]Just a few things I'd like to highlight from the city manager report. The big one is that I was absent from last meeting along with Vice Mayor O Singa as we visited Washington DC to meet with our entire federal delegation as well as some key agencies. The big um the big visit I think of the whole trip and vice may disagree but I think you will agree um was our visit to the Coast Guard was really productive. In the past, we visited the Coast Guard and had a brief 10 to 15 minute conversation, shook hands, and walked out the door. But this time, we um visited and brought with us a white paper to explain and showcase how the city of Seward is an ideal candidate for up to two of the Arctic security cutters that have been approved by the federal government for the Coast Guard. And so I feel like it was a great conversation. We talked about a lot of things throughout the community like housing availability, child care, education, quality of life, rail access, road access, all the things that make s a wonderful place to live and would make it a wonderful place for a coast guard expansion and coast guard to live. We also um met with our federal delegation like I said and we got some good news as well while we were down there that both Senator Macowski and Representative Begage have submitted three of our project funds for the congressionally designated spending. And this is sort of our wish list that we go over each year and say these are the things we'd like to request from our federal delegation.

[00:20:57]and then they our delegation either chooses to submit them and then it's discussed further or not be submitted.

[00:21:03]And so we we pass that first hurdle and have had three projects submitted.

[00:21:08]Senator Macowski submitted drinking water main replacement for 3.4 million and sidewalk replacement for 1 million.

[00:21:16]And Representative Megage submitted a Smick infrastructure upgrades for 3.7 million to expand and modernize SMIC.

[00:21:24]So, a big thank you to both of those representatives and we look forward to following along and fingers crossed they get through the entire process and we see that funding brought to Seward. We also got some good news back home um in a similar fashion. We received an update from the rural health transformation fund that two of the five projects that we submitted alongside with the Providence Hospital Center were approved to go to the next stage of application and so we got the green light to submit applications for the integrated home health project and the MRI with modular pod project. So really excited to work with the hospital to move those two forward. And then I would be remiss if I did not say for Russ who put so much work into the work session earlier. I told him not to come to the meeting tonight, but he wants me to remind everybody that we need volunteers for soccer and people sign up for soccer at sports and rec. So, if you are um excited about the World Cup and would like to share that excitement with the youth and stewards, sign up to volunteer for soccer coaching with sports and wreck. And with that, I'll open any questions if you have any.

[00:22:36]>> Okay. Questions for the city manager?

[00:22:41]Yes. Thank you, Madame Mayer. Um, I was wondering if you could give the public an update on the vending machine and the amazing um, yeah.

[00:22:54]Yes. Oh my gosh, I am so glad you brought that up. So, we have been working at um, urging we applied for a nar vending machine and we worked with Kuch to do so and um, one of the big a lot of the work behind that was the exact through our executive assistant Kristen. And with that program, she got to go up to Anchorage for a Pathways to Recovery conference where she was awarded with a distinguished service award. So, we're really excited to hear and see that she was honored for her role in that project and she's been doing a great job and it's excited to see it celebrated at a statewide level.

[00:23:34]So, thanks for inviting me. Yeah, kudos to Kristen. I know she's watching.

[00:23:40]Good. Um, any other questions, comments?

[00:23:43]Mr. Bickling, do you have anything?

[00:23:45]>> No comments. Thank you.

[00:23:46]>> I just want to tell you I appreciated all of your attention while the city manager was gone because he was right there every time I needed something and just like she is. But it's good to have that reassurance that problems can be solved while the city manager is away.

[00:24:07]I'm also very reassured by that and very grateful Jason appreciated several things there. Anything else?

[00:24:15]Okay. Thank you. Uh city clerk, you've got something you want to say. Yes.

[00:24:19]Thank you, mayor clerk. In page 40 of the council packet, this is just a repost from the burough clerk about the vacant seat on the burough planning commission. They're seeking a representative from Seward, someone who lives inside city limits. So, if anyone is interested to be on the Burough Planning Commission, check out this flyer on page 40 and follow the application instructions.

[00:24:44]>> And I highly recommend it. I've said before, this is how my meteoric rise to fame began back in 2008. I got on that and it was it's it's a good thing. If you have any questions, I I was on it before I got on the burough assembly.

[00:24:58]So, >> okay. Anything else from the clerk at this time?

[00:25:03]>> I think that was it. Okay. Um, no attorney report. So, I guess we're down to presentations. And the first is the Boys and Girls Club presentation by uh CEO Chanette Quick.

[00:25:23]If I can just add to I will um cut in ahead of time and say that we will be hopping out right after this because they're driving back to Kada now.

[00:25:32]running after the boys and girls club outside of city limits obviously with our team Michelle Jackie and Dora and the awesome Katrina Towns and her husband from the sewer clubhouse I know most of us probably want to get right to the sewer stuff we're really obviously a growing organization. So last year alone we provided and this includes our steward numbers and I will get to them individually over 750,000 in scholarships and served over 2,200 kids.

[00:26:14]We take a lot of pride in not turning anybody away.

[00:26:18]One of our favorite things is food and as these are two things that the kids draw now when we talk about what they love about after school. These were only two. These were not the only two. These are just the two we put in here. So many of the kids have chose food over athletics or or gym time or so it just it really does remind us how important our meals are. Su unfortunately doesn't qualify for our child nutrition program.

[00:26:45]This school needs to be 50% free and reduced but we continue to serve a breakfast, a lunch and then a snack.

[00:26:54]Here's our cano house. uh people with they had 329 members with 79% being uh scholarships and quite a bit of meals.

[00:27:03]So clubhouse just moved back into an elementary school and which is where super clubhouse was for a very long time with so 166 kids with 46% receiving scholarships. Here's our super clubhouse. We have 30% for our scholarships and serves 64 members. And that's something we really do want to concentrate and work on next school year promoting it. I know Cat serves on our board. We've talked in depth about that as a as a board and at our meetings with 4,700 uh males, 4,787 males. And her average right now is 23. I was just there. It's really hard to get away sometimes from the peninsula. So, it was so awesome to go to there and watch all of the kids.

[00:27:48]One of the things that stands out is when you have a stranger come into a facility and the kids don't miss a beat and that's a sure sign of safety. Uh knowing that um Katrina and the staff do an amazing job when you visit and I ran a club for 18 years. uh it is really important that kids feel that and and I I can tell when I came into the space uh our K19 center almost 200 kids were enrolled 100% scholarship we don't charge our teens any money as most know they would probably drive or walk away if they were had to pay a fee uh almost 6200 meals and their ADA is 39 kids uh in your little book your annual reports that we handed out this sticker was um something the kids spent and probably about 3 to 6 months designing and we were actually able to turn it into what is now our 2026 sticker and hopefully our short logos. Uh these teams are amazing kids. Uh and we're super thrilled to have this sticker which we just got a week ago out everywhere.

[00:28:54]Our athletic department said that we were like we just got our last coach like a week ago with like 28 teams. I love the fact that uh is we're not the only ones looking for coaches all the time. Um it's a growing program. We're really going to this next winter being in our facility try to focus on our uh 3, four, 5 year olds, which seems to be a lot of parents are looking at a way to keep their kids active in the winter at that age. We have our banners, our banner sponsorship opportunities, child care. I know that pursuer that is a big like ours on the peninsula. We launched this almost 2 years ago. It would be great for our Selata or maybe one day our server program. This has been extremely successful. Uh really strong team and I can tell you it helps fund our campus and uh it serves all we have so many families. I think it's eight or nine right now that can walk over from the childcare center to the clubhouse to pick up their kids. So, it's just serving our families better and we have an incredible childcare center and if it works right or continues to work great, it'd be great to implement in our other communities like workforce readiness. I know Sue has the same problem we have on the peninsula and that is looking for work year round. We kind of thought let's train them young. Let's get them in there more than just reading the curriculum. We have them work with our men. They're paid. Um so they're learning how to clock in, what to wear, why your phone is locked up. Uh the importance of what you post on social media. Um just it's incredible the growth that we've seen in these junior staff and they now they average 15 to 16 I think. Oh 17.

[00:30:43]Um we're hoping to develop or uh put out some great workforce on the peninsula.

[00:30:50]of our campus. This is how it kind of started with Royce and Noel Roberts. We too received a CVS with Marowski almost $5 million and that is how the childcare center is a great process. Just buckle down. It's quite a ride if you've never had one. And then we do five big big events on the peninsula. We now can do a rental. and Michelle Haymon received one of five or she's one of five that received the state of Alaska superhero after school award. Quite an accomplishment and cat was out there.

[00:31:28]We can go back to sword. Uh apologize. I do think it's important that when we present that everybody sees us as a whole organization. I know sometimes when I just did the chamber, but we prevent her when we present to the city of Kel. Sometimes it's nice to focus on those inside your book also has a nice little summary of her kind of year 2025 sub. It was her last 6 months. Katrina does an incredible job telling her story along with our pictures. So, when you're dist like we are, it is so nice to be able to feel like you are kind of knowing what's happening consistently.

[00:32:09]And I do believe Michelle emails those to you all uh every quarter.

[00:32:14]So, is there any questions? Did I miss anything?

[00:32:17]>> Thank you. Are there questions, comments? Council member Warren. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh thank you for the great presentation and this booklet um in the 2025 review is is great. So, thank you for writing that. Um my question is could you give us any examples of how the overall Kai Peninsula Boys and Girls Club is partnering and collaborating with other local organizations that square you within side city limits of Seward? Like I know you guys have like athletics program and stuff over on the other side. So is there any of that collaboration happening with the Seward Clubhouse? and yeah, not at this time that I'm aware of and I'm sure but I would encourage that. I think that it does help grow in the communities that we're in.

[00:33:04]Usually there's a need and reach out and we're all about it partnerships that we we do our own athletics but we now currently partner with the fieldhouse so that we're not overlapping. And so what we've created is instead of us all offering the same height score or the same age group, we're now deciding if you run that one and we can run that one. There can be a partnership with that.

[00:33:28]We like to focus on the older kids. What we found is we like to be the introductory introduction to sports cuz a lot of parents recogn.

[00:33:43]really important for us to be kind of the intro to sports. So if our customers like we would like to focus on maybe the next level and then comp so we think okay we can introduce them to volleyball or basketball or soccer floor hockey before they do hockey then the parks and w maybe can do the next level and then we have comp that steps in and a lot of kids if they're a little bit more serious or maybe looking at scholarships can go there but we're 100% about partnerships. A lot of it is I don't know what I don't know. So I encourage anybody to reach out.

[00:34:15]>> Thank you. Other questions?

[00:34:22]>> I'm sorry that this is our first time presenting. We don't have um and we look forward to doing it annually. I do appreciate the opportunity to tell our story. So >> and drive safely, please. Okay. Our second presentation is the Seward Salmon Partnership.

[00:34:40]So salmon people come on out or person or however you um you already know who I am because I've introduced myself before mero I'm the vice president of the sewer charter boat association. I'm sitting up here with Katie Zernia and give her ample time to uh talk to you in just a minute. Um but basically um I'm here today to talk to you about a new program that we're developing that really started off as Katie's idea in the first place. Even though we've all been thinking about salmon enhancement, um she came to me and asked me um what I thought about doing it. And because I've been in fisheries management for years, um, uh, Chance Miller, the president of the Charter Boat Association myself, spent quite a bit of time figuring out a path forward to try to help with salmon enhancement because it's kind of been a declining deal here for years. And I think we all realize that this community is better for it. When we have positive salmon runs, people have better shore fishing, they spend more money in stores, our season gets extended by several weeks. there's just a number of tangible benefits that occur. Um, and uh, so but what I'd like to do is let Katie kind of tell you her story and she's going to be our community outreach person that's going to go around and try to help with fundraising and so I'll give her a chance to kind of speak to you first and then I'll wrap up with uh, a few comments at the very end.

[00:36:24]>> Hi. Um, I'm Katie Zernia. I was raised here in Seward. Um, and I'm a third generation charter fisherman out of Seward. Um, I kind of came up with this idea as something that my brother and I were working towards. Um, we have some clothing that we sell in a couple places here in Seward. And so, we wanted to take some of the profits from that and donate it towards salmon enhancement.

[00:36:51]Um, there wasn't a clear path for how to get that done. Um, so I came to Andy to try to find a path. Um, and once people started hearing about that, um, that it was something that, you know, we were trying to move forward with, others became interested in also having a path to donate towards. Um, other charter businesses um, and other people in the community. Uh so just kind of the idea that you know if we are taking so much out of the ocean we really should put some back in when so many of us rely on it and salmon is the only thing that we can do that with right now. Um especially as you know halibet regulations tighten on the charter community. A lot of businesses are going to be looking towards that to fill the other two days a week um that they have cut off from halibit. So, you know, that'll be important for everyone. Um, and then with stronger silver runs, the derby participation um increases, you know, when people are excited about going fishing for salmon.

[00:37:57]Um, other than that, you know, it'll bring more people to Seward when we have better salmon runs. Um, you know, the city campgrounds will hopefully be full fuller. Um, if you know, people are driving down from Anchorage to go snagging.

[00:38:15]Um, other than that, I didn't have >> That's fine.

[00:38:21]>> Thank you.

[00:38:23]>> So, so what we did is we went uh we first went to the commissioner of fishing game and talked to him about it because K's original idea was to add more king salmon to the bay. That was the original thought and that is very difficult right now. There's not enough returning king salmon to do egg takes annually. they only only if we have an exceptional year can they do that enhancement effort. So king salmon is just really hit or miss. And honestly Seward is known for it silver salmon fishing. That's what it's known for. And I think what's happened I'm sure you've talked about this in the past but basically what's happened is as the the runs have diminished. The buyback during the chamber which supplies the money to buy more small has been diminished. And it's sort of this self-fulfilling prophecy where the runs get smaller, the money gets smaller, we get less fish coming back, and it's been winnowed down by 50 or 70% from when the derby was in its sort of glory. And I think everybody here been here long enough to know what that was like when they used to give a truck away and hundreds of people would come and participate. and and as someone who's at the end of my career after 30 years here, I'd like to see if we can do something to make things a little bit better. And uh right now, halibit is in a persistent low level of abundance. Rockfish limits have been significantly reduced and there's nothing we can do about that. The way fisheries management works in the state is the state waits for a good recruitment event. When a lot of babies are made, when conditions are ideal, the stock goes up and then you fish on those fish and then it goes back to this low level like it's at now. And so right now, rockf fish and halibet are at a low level. And salmon enhancement is the one thing we can do as residents in sewer to make fishing better here. And so the idea is we have um these sort of little handouts that are going to be soliciting businesses to put them up. And what it boils down to, it's about $3 a smold. So if you went out on the bay and had a good day of fishing and you caught six salmon for $18, you could replace those salmon. And so we have different categories of donation, including an unlimited amount of money. But the idea is we're going to ask our charter clients to replace the fish they took by donating. And we're hoping that we can put these in businesses. And I've seen where they put those little square things in the bar where people put their drink on. We want to get those with this code on them. So when people are telling their fish stories at the bar and they have bad judgment, they blow up their credit card is one piece of this, right? Um the community involvement and I think it's we we've had real positive feedback from people in the community because we're trying to do something with the chamber to make this better. But I also think we're going to go beyond the community and go to larger corporations and solicit this kind of thing. And it doesn't take much to get back to where we were. I think it was 20,000 small, which is a manageable number, which is about $60,000. It's not that much money to raise if you spread it out over a number of businesses and small donations. And so the really the reason we're here today is just we wanted to alert you to what we're doing here. Want to encourage the city to help us uh spread this message and maybe encourage the city to make an annual donation to this thing. Um the way we set it up is 100% of the money goes towards salmon enhancement. We don't take a dollar from the charter boat association and the chamber doesn't take any money. This just goes to try to solve the enhancement conundrum. And I think if we succeed in this and we're able to start putting those bigger numbers in, maybe we won't need to do this anymore. Maybe the buyback will sustain the salmon derby and it can get back to that level that really excites the whole town and and even what happens in September where there's 50 or 60 or 100 people at the culvert and down by the harbor snagging fish for their own food security and personal use. You know, these are all benefits that come with this. And so we just wanted to bring this up to you, give you a chance to think it over, see if there's anything you want to do or at least help us spread the word and uh help us with this sort of community- based enhancement effort.

[00:42:28]Thank you. Questions? Yes.

[00:42:30]>> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Um, is the chamber going to be your nonprofit if people want to donate money? Some people are happy to donate money if they can get a tax write off for it. So, have you guys found your own vote? The cross chamber is a 501. The the charter boat association is a 501c3 and the donations are going to go into a bank account that the charter boat association manages and each year once we get our donations in after the salmon derby, we'll have a deal where we uh present a check to the chamber for this enhancement effort. So, I think you can get it. I think you can get the benefit either way.

[00:43:06]>> That's smart. That's great. Great. I appreciate your shirt.

[00:43:11]>> Yeah.

[00:43:14]>> If you can't see on, it's salmon, I'm assuming. I >> Thank you for your time.

[00:43:21]>> Exciting, right?

[00:43:22]>> Yeah.

[00:43:22]>> Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Do we need a break? Can you Okay. We'll move on to our one big item of business here. We have one resolution. It's resolution 2026-053.

[00:43:38]Mr. Clerk, could you please read that in the record?

[00:43:42]>> Resolution 2026-053 authorizing the city manager to accept the proposal from CRW engineering for professional design, engineering, and surveying necessary to expand electrical and water and resurrection resurrection south and area campgrounds in the amount of $119,454 plus 10% contingency and appropriating funds.

[00:44:07]>> Thank you. And you'll see this on page 41 of your packet. I'd ask for a motion to approve in a second, please.

[00:44:14]>> I move for the approval of resolution 2026-053.

[00:44:19]I'll second.

[00:44:19]>> Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

[00:44:21]Administration.

[00:44:22]>> Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm park director to speak to this busy day for you.

[00:44:34]So, um, under director of parks and recreation, uh, this can be for council to add, uh, 36 utility sites along the waterfront campground in Resurrection.

[00:44:49]Um this is this has been a priority for parks and recreation for over a decade and um it's remained on the city city's capital improvement project uh for the past 5 years I believe and to move forward with the projects and recreation reached out to CRW uh to submit a proposal their scope uh so this is what this will include is uh engineering and design of 36 electrical pedestals and water water connections.

[00:45:24]Uh land surveying, preparation of bid ready construction documents, permitting, bidding and construction support and milestone inspections throughout the project. So this the proposed timeline for the uh anticipated uh project is going to be fall of this year possibly into spring of 207. Uh no firm projects costs have been uh established. Uh, I did give a layown and a rough estimate of uh there was a rough there was a rough calculation back in 2021 of the project costing uh $400,000. So, I'm sure will be much higher.

[00:46:15]Uh, so this effort would build on prior campground improvements. I did a little research and in 1995 the department installed 20 water and electric RV hookup sites followed by the conversion of 75 uh dry camping sites to utility sites in 2004.

[00:46:37]So it's been over 20 years since uh campgrounds have made any major improvements to the campground. Uh the campground season runs April 15th through September 30th. So that's roughly that's approximately 167 days.

[00:46:54]So we calculated predicting 150 days of full occup occupancy.

[00:47:02]Uh we were looking at $680 per day of extra revenue amounting to $100,000 for the season. And I provided a map as well and all of our uh along the waterfront. Uh we were we just wanted to continue the electric all the way along the waterfront closest to the water. Those are the our most popular sites all season long. So, so one thing to add to that too, thanks M for a thorough explanation, but when you're looking at this, it's 100, sorry, I should have $119,000 for the engineering for the project. And so, like Mel said in 2021, we had done preliminary costs for what this would look like and um it was about 400,000. So, we're looking at what this could cost today. Kind of anticipating anywhere between 6 and 8 potentially.

[00:48:06]Um, so this is the first step in that investment. We're talking back and forth about what we'll do if that price tag comes in pretty high. And I think the first thing to note is that the plans that will be made from this could be continued down the line. So, if it comes back and it's super high, like council isn't really excited about it, we can table it, but it's never going to get any cheaper as well. So if you think through the general um idea of it as well as that it brings in additional revenue each day and we could increase that revenue to potentially cover those costs of what that electric site works.

[00:48:41]So this isn't a this isn't a department that creates revenue. So just to kind of prepare you to say this if this passes and we move forward it won't be the first there'll be another um resolution later that will be for installing and going forth with the project but it can create revenue for itself down the line.

[00:49:00]Okay, council questions, comments, concerns, I know there would be something. Council member Calhoun, go ahead.

[00:49:12]>> Oh, madam, I'm okay right now.

[00:49:14]>> Oh, okay.

[00:49:16]I was just looking at your face. That's all. Go ahead. I mean, if you want to speak.

[00:49:20]>> It's just fun. Is it's just where is this going to come from? I mean, obviously it creates its own revenue, but it's not going to create $800,000 in one week or when this bill is due.

[00:49:37]So, uh, do we have a plan on how to fund actually improving this infrastructure?

[00:49:49]me. Oh, is as far so uh we're talking about a camp enterprise fund for the campgrounds. So, we would be funding out of that, but the initial cost for the engineering would uh be >> Could you could you speak? I'm sorry.

[00:50:05]They can't hear the original cost for the engineering would uh be under a capital improvement funds. So the initial cost will be from capital the capital improvement and then moving forward in um 2027 if that's when it comes through. We're anticipating turning the campgrounds and parking into one enterprise fund and utilizing the funds from that to help fund the rest of this project.

[00:50:33]Yeah, I know this has been discussed during the long time I've been on council and um I don't recall why we put it off but probably it was funding. I mean, >> um, but this is just if indeed the engineering that we're getting here can be held over if we can't fund the whole thing. I guess that's a step. I don't know how the rest of the council feels about this. Or we could just vote if you don't want to speak on it.

[00:51:09]Oh, council member Wernner. Thank you, Madame Mayor McCclar. Um, I I personally think it's a good investment. I mean, we see how full our campgrounds are every year and more people that come and can reserve those spots with added utilities, I think, is is a bonus. Um, but I do hear what council member Calhoun is saying about, you know, where's the funding going to come from in the budget. Um, but I don't know. I could see it. I could see it being a good driver to get more individuals, especially Alaska travelers down to Seward.

[00:51:45]Counc.

[00:51:47]>> Yeah. And thank you, Mer. I just uh wanted to add that, you know, we were talking about this earlier. Those are going to be premium spots. They will they'll um >> kind of more more uh a higher price tense.

[00:52:00]So, they will pay back. It'll be a pretty long payback. Yes.

[00:52:06]something we need to visit right now.

[00:52:10]>> But yeah, it will enhance the visitor experience. And another thing I wanted to bring up is some of these waterfront campsites, we're noticing so many more motor homes becoming bigger and bigger.

[00:52:23]So, uh they're going to be up to 50 ft.

[00:52:25]And we'll we will charge the premium rate on I think it would be $10 above what we charge for premium campsites.

[00:52:36]And then we were also assuming that payback period based off of today's rates for the campground. So if it comes through and we do see a big boom to the um premium level campgrounds, those rates can be adjusted in our fee schedule. So all things to consider as we potentially move forward with it.

[00:52:57]>> Okay, you guys want to vote?

[00:53:00]Looks like we're ready. Mr. Voting on the approval of resolution 2026-053.

[00:53:07]Draper, >> yes.

[00:53:09]>> Calhoun, >> yes. Oena, >> yes. Warner, >> yes.

[00:53:14]>> Grace, >> yes.

[00:53:16]>> And Mayor Mccclair, >> yes.

[00:53:18]>> That resolution has been approved.

[00:53:20]>> Okay, thank you. Um, that was the official business. We've got other new business. The first is a discuss to discuss any action items based on the work session about the Seward Middle School closure. So, madam city manager, do you want to kick that off? Yes. Uh, thank you, Madam Mayor. So, as we discussed in that in our previous work session, um I added or we added this um discussion item to see if council would like to direct administration to move forward with exploring the opportunities available with a lease and of the middle school and operating it as a community rec center. I think we had heard a lot of really great input and had a good conversation about it. But I also wanted to make sure that we before we put too much time and effort and energy, we had the will of the council behind us to move forward and have those conversations to bring back a robust package to you. So this is similar to what we've done with the pool.

[00:54:20]>> Yes. Very similar. So council >> I don't think we have much choice.

[00:54:27]>> I I agree with you that >> I think we should just go ahead and see what you can come up with. Great.

[00:54:34]>> I mean that's my opinion, but yeah. Um, do we need to vote on that direction or can we just have a unanimous Mr. Clerk?

[00:54:44]>> Well, I have a question for Oh, sure.

[00:54:46]What exactly are we asking for? A detailed performance.

[00:54:51]>> Yes. So, what I'm anticipating is a um a lease agreement with the burrow would be the first step as well as a proform that breaks out what the sub leases within the building would cost. So setting up those prices as well um in then including um programming and etc. So yes uh two separate things an initial contract to lease the building from the bureau and then a detailed overview of what we would actually be utilizing and doing the within the building and any potential revenue that could bring in >> which would be something that would come back to us to amend if we needed to or I mean discuss.

[00:55:33]>> Yeah.

[00:55:34]Okay. Does that sound good?

[00:55:38]>> Yes. So, do we need to vote? I'm sorry.

[00:55:41]That's >> Oh, yeah. I don't think you need to. As long as there's no no questions about it.

[00:55:45]>> Yeah. I think we're we're good on that.

[00:55:47]Great. Thank you, madam.

[00:55:48]>> I feel directed. I feel directed. Okay.

[00:55:51]Uh the second is a recap of the electric utility community engagement effort. I have a feeling some electric department Good afternoon, ma'am. Evening, I guess it is, madam here and council members. Thanks for having me tonight. I'm going to bring Charlotte to she's working with us on this from Compass just to introduce her background on this. I want to say uh right off the bat the last line you know 11:00 last night seemed like a good idea in the middle.

[00:56:50]Um, so we're going to recap sort of where we are on this governance transition discussion we've been having for almost uh at least a year now. Um, and Sha works for works with me and and at the Compass and she's helped us set up the surveys and the town halls and kind of vetted some of the information.

[00:57:10]She didn't bet this because I did 11:50 last night and when she met this afternoon she gave me some but that we'll just kind of move right along. Um why we began the process and this is some history. I mean some of you may you all may know this or or not. Um you there was a couple attempts to sell the utility. There was an agreement after those were resolved not to attempt the sale for a couple years. Um, but I think the the determination that the organizational structure of the electric utility as a department of the city hadn't been functioning well for a long time and really isn't well suited to meet what I would call the changing conditions in the electric industry today. Um, one thing I want to emphasize up front is the the city cat and and myself and and the team I'm working with, we are committed to an open transparent process. This was one of the key points that came out of the survey that we did. People felt like they wanted an open and transparent process and we were trying to do that through a series of town halls and focus groups um and surveys. Um the core question that the community of Seward from my perspective needs to answer is how should you organize this electric utility and and electric utilities tend to be a little different than other utilities because they can be a big economic driver for a community. But how are you going to manage those things like ownership and financing and and uh and the community voice of the utility um in a way that ensures that it provides safe uh reliable and cost effective power energy that can be used to promote economic opportunities. Um that's kind of a heavy lift but that's the question in front of the in front of SURA today. Um, stepping back a little bit, last summer we did a survey. We we had 422 respondents. Uh, it's a plus or minus 4 1.5% um uh margin of error and basically it says that uh you know 95 we are 95% confident in the answers we got within plus or - 4 1/2%. Um we also had two focus groups that we brought some of the more disperate members uh members with disperate responses together and tried to flesh out why what what they felt and why. Um at the very top and it's no surprise are rates and reliability. Um number two respondents wanted a robust open transparent process and we're really trying to accomplish that. Uh a number of the folks said they did not have enough information to make an informed decision last summer. So that's a lot of the part of these town halls. Um and it was interesting, but a majority of residents both inside and outside city limits believe that all the users of the utility should have a voice in utility decisions. And that that was kind of a I thought that was a really positive statement for the community. Um what did they say? 85 people said rate rising rates were their biggest concern.

[01:00:19]48 was reliability, representation, uh local representation, transparency and local control. Um I think the implication to take away from this is that whatever governance model we come up with has to has to be evaluated based on all of these uh these primary um concerns or or or beliefs of the center. So from that, Sean helped me and and we framed five objectives um to measure the alternatives that I'm going to talk about in a minute against and so the first is uh cost effective long-term provision, safe, reliable, and cost effective electric service. I've got that in there twice, so I apologize.

[01:01:06]Um use lowc cost, reliable, resilient energy as a driver for sustainable local economic growth.

[01:01:13]uh give each electric consumer a voice regardless of their geographic location.

[01:01:17]Attract and retain skilled employees and build a workforce needed to execute the above and retain local inference or control to the extent practical and consistent with reliability and cost. So I think the retaining local control was not it clearly in the in the in the survey was not an at any cost um element but that's sort of what we the objectives we came up from much broader survey. I just hit the high points of it there. Um our outreach to date was the community service and if you'll recall we had a town hall number one and in that town hall we brought in um the small seabboard electric cooperatives Cordova, Copper Valley and Kodiak and they sort of talked about what it was like to be a co-op uh you know the size a cooperative of the size that Seward would be um or smaller. Uh I think um you know Corov is about half the size from a load and member stand or consumer standpoint as sewer. Copper Valley is about twice as big and Kodiak is a little bigger than that. Um in town hall number two we brought the rail belt CEOs and senior managers from the big red boat utilities from Homer Chu Ma and Golden Valley and they sort of explain talked to folks about what their mission vision and values were. Um, and in the third one, we wanted to cover the um, what a municipal agency would look like.

[01:02:46]And, and that's a body that some municipalities have used where you set up a semi-autonomous part of the city under separate procurement and human resources and governance rules to operate specialized things. So, uh, Mark Bage came down and talked about his work when he was on the assembly in Anchorage setting up the Anchorage Telephone Utility as a municipal agency and and how that worked for those folks. And then finally, we had the two in-depth focus groups for rateayers. Um so with that we sort of pulled together out of out of that discussion what four alternatives uh that we could put in front of the community sort of narrowing down there's an in there are many possible alternatives of to what you might do with utility but we sort of we narrowed it down to these four and and um the reason we chose these four is I think at one end of the spectrum you have selling the utility and it has uh many benefits and many costs. Um on the far uh other end of the spectrum you have the municipal utility authority that is as close to the existing structure as you have right now and it might also meet some of the objectives that we listed up above. And then sort of in between you have forming electric cooperative of the whole Seward region, the old service territory of of the city of Seward which is out includes quite a bit uh about half the customers are outside city limits. Um forming that and then as a cooperative or forming a cooperative that will then serve that area and there are two sort of alternatives under that cooperative formation. One is an asset transfer where that organization actually buys the city's properties and um the other is a franchise cooperative where there's some sort of a long-term arrangement agreement made between the city and that organization similar to the providence hospital or the sea life center. Um Deion's arrangement with the joint rich Richardson is a little different but in that same vein. So it's not this isn't something that's never been done. So those are the four alternatives. Um there are other structures that could work. Uh you could sell utility to investor owned utility.

[01:05:13]I mean that's what AEL did in June. They sold to a visa out of Spokane. Um, but AEL was an investor owned and they sold to an investor owned and and one of the challenges they're going to cross with an investor owned utility is, you know, they want to they need a rate of return that's probably three times what three or four times what a publicly owned utility. So your rates just go up immediately. Um, you could operate a franchise with another railbo cooperative and I and I think while that's possible, in my experience, it's highly unlikely that one of those folks would take something like that on. Um and I say that because there isn't a lot of advantage for them. There isn't a lot for them to do that and their boards would say might say why why are we doing this? Um charter changes there is possibility of trying to change the charter so you could grant special privileges to folks outside um or some other hybrid structure. I don't think any of these are likely to meet the five objectives for a number of reasons and I think they're very difficult to um they'd be very difficult to execute on.

[01:06:18]So we kind of settled on these four alternatives and our goal is to sort of bring those forward to the community um uh to talk about it. I I think at the fundamental um at a fundamental level the question is you have you have local control which gives you increased influence and opportunity and you have a sale and from that you're going to have scale simplicity and I think a perceived sense of safety because you don't really have to deal with it anymore. You flip the you expect the lights to come on and you flip the switch. Um and really the community has to decide what they want to do. how much strategic control, financial responsibility, um, uh, operational complexity and future economic upset are they willing to retain because to retain that is going to take effort, commitment, um, and, uh, you know, that's sort of the question for the community. Uh, in the near term, our objective is to hold our fourth town hall, which will be on Thursday. Um we're going to compare the five uh uh the alternatives against the five objectives. Um evaluate rate impacts um and some of the more qualitative questions about you know access to capital regulatory feasibility that type of stuff. Um clarify how each option treats what I'm calling G4J cuz I got tired of writing it down. That's a fourth of July project.

[01:07:44]I have a paper website of July. I'm a lousy type. So I got a couple because I can't type that over again. Um future resource development and the value of local control. So we're going to try to put those in tables and qualitative charts and and we've done some highlevel what I'd call economic analysis from sort of the 250,000 foot level. I wouldn't call it I would call directional in nature. I think the community has to decide something and then we can dive into it and figure out what would that really cost. But I do have some directional um financial information. Um and then as we move through the year, I think we want to continue the public engagement. Um we'll probably rerun the survey with very similar questions to understand have we made any progress over the last year. to those I can't remember if it was it 48% of the people who thought they didn't have enough information to make an informed decision. Hopefully that number gets down to closer to 5 6 10%. And then um I think maybe another focus group with sort of a visioning session to kind of discover and align the vision of uh the community. I I I like the comment that uh Senator Begage had at the uh uh third town hall. you know, he said, "If if you can get to a vision, then the path to that vision will become known to you, but you have to decide where you want to go and then you can figure out how to get there." And I think that's kind of where we are right now. Um, and I trust you, I don't know if you have a copy that I took the image of a massive record, but I just really wanted to throw that away. Um she said it to me like uh see engineer recovery engineer. Um so question for information like I said the decision before the community is to whether you were going to retain old controller. It's pretty straightforward in that regard. Okay. How do you feel about it? So I don't know if you all have questions for us uh anything that's technical SHEET be very interesting with respect to the process of where we question I had a question about the focus groups we never got any detailed information about the results of the f focus groups how many people participated like they were targeted for I mean, I know that I wanted to be in one and they SAID, "NO, YOU DON'T." SO, UH, can you talk about those a little through the chair? Um, the focus groups, there are two focus groups so far. They were a few months apart and they were actually run by an outside organization.

[01:10:45]So, it wasn't even us. So, it was a professional firm called Hayes Research out of Anchorage. And those uh, we do have reports for those. We can get you those if we think those are available and we should get them. I thought we did maybe but we were kind of cranking out a lot of I'll send them out.

[01:11:05]>> Yeah, you should take a take a look. It was these are very frank conversations and they were recorded too. They were in person. So the researchers came down here and met with people on their own turf and you know we just got very valuable information from people who have you know they can say whatever they want. So, and the longer they go on, so it's about an hour or so long. The longer they go on, the more comfortable people get and the more honest they are.

[01:11:28]So, it's just a great way to hear from people directly.

[01:11:33]>> Other questions?

[01:11:35]It's an ongoing process. Did you go ahead?

[01:11:38]>> Oh, thank you, M. I think, you know, one of the things that needs to happen and and is happening, but maybe not as quickly as some would like, um, is getting to an end to this so that we can actually make a decision because we keep spending money on the utility, which I'm not going to say is a bad thing, >> but we don't really know where we're going yet. And I think because of things that have happened in the past and how certain things were done and and maybe good or bad information, whatever it was, the community is is a little skeptical on this whole this whole thing. And so I think if you know this next town hall, which a lot of us plan on attending, um, you know, I'm looking for numbers, unbiased opinions, not feeling like people are being pushed one way or another to a cooperative or selling it or any of that kind of thing.

[01:12:47]Because I think out there's a a lot of people like, well, they just want us to sell Well, there's pros to that. There's also cons or they just want a cooperative.

[01:12:59]There's pros and cons. And as long as everybody feels like they're getting the honest truth and the cost that's going to come with each of those, you know, where the rates are going to go regardless of whether we get hydro in 10 years or however long it takes to develop those, cuz those are not next week projects.

[01:13:20]And so I think that's the biggest concern that I've heard from people is there's a little skepticism that you guys may want to direct us one way or the other.

[01:13:38]So what I'm looking for is just here's the numbers. Here's what's going to happen with each of these. And the sooner that we can do that, the sooner that we can get a decision made, then we're well, I can't speak for everybody else, but personally, I'll feel more comfortable about saying, "Okay, yeah, let's spend that money on this. Let's spend that money on this cuz we know where it's going and we know what we're going to get back from it." Does that make sense? Sure. Let me just tell you a lot of lot of thoughts there. Um, but let me be perfectly clear from my perspective. The city of Sur needs to decide what they want to do with this utility. I have no dog in that fight.

[01:14:19]I'm very near the end of my career.

[01:14:31]So, um I am that fight. I I and I'm going to present the information as unbiased and uh as as openminded as I possibly can. You have that commitment from me. Um when we talk about some of the investment we've made, I am very careful to measure those investments in terms of how they apply to the netbook value of the utility. And as long as they're contributing to netbook value, they will be considered in the price if you choose to sell the utility. whether you sell it to a local cooperative or to chew edge or MEA or home or whoever whoever is the person.

[01:15:09]So I I don't think any of these investments are wasted. They all hit the books and and and uh you know at the end of the day having been through a a handful of mergers in my career um in this type of business it's going to come down to the netbook value. it's going to be some multiple either maybe you might get a little premium on it but it's basically going to be the netbook value.

[01:15:34]So you really have to make sure that that the investments you're making are contributing to that. And I think everything from getting your metering correct um uh getting putting PCS in place so you have a the uniform system of accounts and you actually look like an electric utility to another electric utility. um those kinds of things. uh the assets themselves land on the books and get depreciated over time that we're putting in as well as the um conversion to like I said the uniform system accounts which well I did after I came here there are quite a few small small unities who don't use it but every other utility in the country of 10,000 of them use the uniform system account I know where I know where 571 is transmission line maint any any other guys from the country can walk in and know But so we are moving to that. So I just want to make it clear that the effort we are undertaking I think it it it will clearly be reflected irrespective of which way you go on this and uh we'll present um you know as unbiased a picture because really at the end of the day you all have to decide because it's going to require if if you choose to keep the utility. What what's happened in the past is there hasn't been this commit commitment to actually operate a utility. Um I I was down at the sustainable energy conference uh last week and Doug Bergam who's the secretary of the interior was talking.

[01:16:58]He had a very what I thought was a very profound comment and he said you know in the early 1900s we learned how to take uh energy and make it into electricity and then electricity into light and then we learned how to make electricity into heat and now we've learned how to make electricity into intelligence.

[01:17:19]and electricity is going to become fundamental to the existence of communities as we move forward in this AIA. Scary as that may be to me it kind of frightens me but but I think that idea that you've actually learned how to take electricity and turn it into intelligence um kind of gives you the aspect of how important this kind of a decision is for the community. I I but you have to carry that forward. long to other things.

[01:17:51]Hope I answer your question. Absolutely.

[01:17:54]I just want everybody to understand where you guys are coming from because I don't think everybody understands that and clear.

[01:18:04]I just want everybody else to hopefully get to that point.

[01:18:08]>> Brian would much rather be skiing.

[01:18:14]>> Okay. Any other questions, comments?

[01:18:19]>> Okay, thank you.

[01:18:21]>> Thanks so much. Um, our last item and I'll have the clerk comment on this is to appoint up to four applicants for the Historic Preservation Commission. Mr. Clerk, tell us what the problem is. So, the issue on that one, it's on page 55 of the packet. There's a copy of the public notice that we've been advertising. There's three seats expiring as well as one vacant seat that's been available for about a year now. And uh we received no applicants for the commission. So that leaves the Historic Preservation Commission with only three members starting June 1st. So until they get at least one more member, they won't be able to have any meetings.

[01:19:03]And maybe people aren't aware of what the Historic Preservation Commission does, but um it's not the same as Resurrection Bay Historical Society, which I'm president of. That's a um nonprofit. We we take care of the museum contents. Basically, we preserve things.

[01:19:23]Whereas this historic preservation commission was formed mainly, I believe, to get governmental grants for preservation of uh historical buildings and places around Seward. And uh I'm hoping it's just an error and maybe miscommunication that some of the people haven't reapplied, but we're putting out an appeal now again that we need applicants. Correct.

[01:19:46]>> And the commission is open to applicants all the way from low point out to the Y.

[01:19:52]be within the Seward area though. I mean out to the Y, not other communities beyond.

[01:20:00]So spread the word. It's a chance to give back.

[01:20:05]Okay. With that, I will move us to citizen. I believe that's it, right?

[01:20:11]Yeah. Uh citizen comments. Um this is your five minute up to 5 minute time and there's no sign in. You just raise your hand and I'll call you up. So, does anybody want to say anything?

[01:20:26]Wow, we've said it all.

[01:20:29]Okay, then I'll bring it to council and administration comments and responses to the citizen comments perhaps from before. Um, administration. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I really appreciate all of the conversations tonight. It was an interesting meeting but we only had one actionable item but I feel like uh administration is leaving with many action items. So thank you to all thank you all to everyone who spoke today and to everyone for engaging me.

[01:21:00]No comments. Thank you.

[01:21:01]>> Okay. You want to be complimented again?

[01:21:05]>> Okay.

[01:21:07]Thank you madam. I just want to say thank you to everybody that presented the information you gave us tonight.

[01:21:13]Some really good stuff. I'm sure that we will move on something for the two charter boat captains and their actions.

[01:21:20]I don't doubt that's going to happen.

[01:21:23]Um, you know, the vehicle idling limits is an interesting conversation to have. Uh, there's some good things and maybe some negative things about that, although maybe more good than negative. So, we'll see how that how that pans out. Um, one thing I did want to bring up and I hope city manager doesn't mind. And the financial the quarterly financial reports, there were a couple items in there that were interesting. I think since this was printed, we did get the sales tax numbers, didn't we?

[01:21:58]>> That we didn't have before. So, maybe you could just chat a second on that.

[01:22:02]>> Yes. Thank you, Council Member Calhoun.

[01:22:05]Yes. So, if you look on page 56, um you will see the beginning of our Q1 financials and our sales tax is in at a measly $112,000.

[01:22:17]But on the day of printing this, we received the number that that sales tax would be. And we're going to reprint the financials, but it hasn't hit our account yet. So, the number would still be low. But um sorry I'm looking for the number off the top of my head but it came in the sales tax numbers did come in. Unfortunately we are at about 5% decrease over last year which is our first decrease that we've seen in a while. Um definitely something that we're being mindful of and engaging with. We think there's a few things that could have led to that. Um and we'll be digging into it a little bit more over time. But yes, we have seen those Q1 sales tax numbers come in and they are um a bit lower than anticipated and Jason is amazing as always. And um we saw them come in at um uh 18 million of versus last year when we saw 19 million of taxable. Um so a bit a bit of a decline there. We will keep that um on our radar and report back. We are in a um a position as everybody probably is aware that Q1 is not really what floats our entire general fund. It's Q2 and Q3 the summertime. So um we'll have a different conversation if that continues in Q2.

[01:23:43]>> Okay.

[01:23:44]>> Thanks. I didn't mean to put you on the spot with that, but I just wanted a little clarification for everybody to understand.

[01:23:50]>> Yeah, thank you for that. a little more where we were. Um, just a couple other things. The the May activities were were busy. Um, I'll speak a little bit to the American Legion if you guys will give me that. Uh, the hot dog feed during Mermaid Festival was uh a success fundraiser and partnering with everybody for that whole weekend is great. The Harbor Master is awesome to let us use that space along with the Coastg Guard Auxiliary. And the girls troop of scouting America also uh partnered with us. So, we raised some money for them.

[01:24:26]Some some great young women coming up through there. So, uh you guys should look into that if uh if you have some young ladies that would like to get into scouting. Uh combat fishing tournament was uh a a good success. The weather wasn't the best in the world, but it wasn't horrible. And we we got to feed about 280 people that night. Um had a great time with all those folks and comment after comment how appreciative they were from the charter boat association donating all those boats and everything for a day of fishing. And so many of those troops had never been fishing before. So they they were just awesome.

[01:25:10]even the ones that were were ching to help their buddies catch fish. Um, and then of course we just had Memorial Day and uh that was a a great ceremony. God blessed us with some wonderful weather and I know the mayor was uh was in attendance and the city manager was in attendance and it was just an awesome day to uh to remember all of our fallen soldiers and their families and we appreciate everybody's support for that.

[01:25:39]um coming up. I know it's probably a meeting before that, but we do have flag day this coming on June 14th and we will have a ceremony on that date um at the American Legion for anybody that's interested and then we'll also discuss a little bit at some point a little bit of flag things. Um, and the only thing that I will say when we lower the American flag to half staff, every flag goes to half staff.

[01:26:14]There will not be a flag higher than the American flag uh when it's displayed.

[01:26:19]So, we all just need to remember that and uh and we'll work on that a little bit. Thank you, Madam.

[01:26:25]>> Thank you, Council Member Draper. I have a big glass.

[01:26:30]paradigm a little bit. I was going to say the uh the favor utility feels urgent right now because we have financing decisions to make that could be affected by whatever path forward we we decide to take. So I don't know I feel a sense of urgency of like what are we doing with this? Um, and then, uh, I wanted to mention something that has come up at a couple council meetings from a citizen comment is the open loop system of scrubbers on cruise ships.

[01:26:58]And, um, did a little research with with the city manager and found that the cruise ships that come in here almost exclusively do not use those. And the one uh, ship that is that would be coming to Seward that has one is is not coming this year. So, they're um the the Carnival ships have the open loop scrubbers. What they do is discharge the water into the ocean and have to be really highly monitored and regulated, but the ones that come in here are internal uh scrubbers. Um also was super interested in the vehicle idling question for Mr. Frank. I really appreciate him coming in today. Um, yeah, I wanted to say that I um kind of started to have a conversation with Sulie about possibly having the department heads or enterprise heads um make comments on the quarterly financial statements because they're close to it.

[01:27:52]So, you know, like Brian, you'd be commenting on uh variances of certain amounts with certain parameters or or just, you know, looking at finances and telling the council, you know, what are you what are you gleaning out of this this quarter? So, that was one idea that I was going to pull up to and see if we could could um start doing. Um, and then one more thing, Mount Marathon Race. I'm surprised the Chamber of Commerce didn't bring it up at all, but I have the uh distinct honor of being in charge of the finish line. And if anybody wants to find uh to volunteer for that spot, you uh come to me if I have them not put it on the the sign up because I like to pick my my own people, but it's kind of a coveted spot to watch the race and you get a cool t-shirt. It's a big deal.

[01:28:35]>> It's very fun. So yeah, that's all I had. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kits.

[01:28:41]>> Okay, Vice Mayor O.

[01:28:44]Um, we had a lot of good presentations today. So, I just like to thank everyone that came and gave us all the important information that we we heard today. Um, I did go to DC last week or last two weeks ago. And, um, I would be in error if I didn't admit let you all know in front of me that our city manager once again stepped up.

[01:29:09]um few meetings we had a couple of uh discussions where topics were brought up where I was like going I don't know anything about this and she was there to answer all questions and handled everything perfectly and I think we had some really good meetings. Uh I think Seward's in a good place to where u a lot of good things can happen. Um and I think that we presented that in DC as best as we could and I think Cat did an absolute wonderful job. So, I would just like to give her some kudos for that. Um, and that's it.

[01:29:41]>> Okay. Thank you. Well, what they said also, I've already been planning a proclamation to honor the our local heroes, uh, Will and Nick for what they did for the the uh, boating accident. I need details. I think the clerk and I will work on that together. He forewarned me that there we need a proclamation also, probably for Flag Day, I think.

[01:30:06]lots of proclamations. And by the way, the way it works is I'm the one that approves the proclamations. So if you ever want a proclamation, talk to me person. It's easier, you know, then he writes them generally. of the Memorial Day ceremony at the Legion Cemetery is something that I value every year and um a lot of people do and it's it's important to be there even if you don't know of relatives or friends that have passed in wars. you're honoring everyone that has has been out there and it's it's um it's something it's important to me at least, you know, um we've had tourists here and we haven't had the ships yet, but we've had a lot of tourists driving erratically. And my opinion is that perhaps people and I know this for a fact cuz I have traveled too that people never behave on vacation the way they would in their own hometown if that makes sense. I'm saying it very very carefully here. So just be really really careful with people darting out in cars and just aberant behavior. And also uh especially now, watch out for the kids that are out there on their bikes and um things like that. And voting safety is important too as more people are out on the water. This is the time of year when things happen and and um you know, we don't want to we don't want to make our our emergency people work too hard, I guess. So anyway, any last minute comments? He said it all. Okay, I I think that's all I have. I will adjourn us at Oh, I will adjourn us. I will adjourn us from this. I was I think I still adjourn us from the main meeting, but at the end, we're going to have an executive session. So, I can entertain the motion to go into executive session. We'll vote on that. then I'll let everyone else leave and we're going to be evaluating the city clerk in executive session.

[01:32:21]Correct.

[01:32:22]>> Correct.

[01:32:22]>> That is correct.

[01:32:23]>> Okay. So, uh I entertain a motion to go into executive session for the annual evaluation of the city clerk. And I need a second for that. Also, >> I'll make the motion to go executive session for reasons stated. I'll second.

[01:32:38]>> Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Um, I don't know that we need discussion on this. Um, Mr. Cler, before we vote, I just like to invite uh the city manager and deputy city manager to stay if they so desire.

[01:32:54]>> If they would stay, you can't go home to your kid.

[01:32:58]I know it's totally optional.

[01:33:01]Can I put on the record that Chris is doing amazing job?

[01:33:09]Um, okay. So, with that in mind, we need to vote on going into executive session, please. Okay. Voting on the motion to go into executive session for the annual evaluation of the city clerk. Um, we lost uh Warner during comments.

[01:33:27]Yes, she had an emergency to go to her >> is excused.

[01:33:36]>> Yes.

[01:33:37]>> Sorry.

[01:33:38]>> Yes.

[01:33:40]>> Crates.

[01:33:40]>> Yes.

[01:33:41]>> Oena.

[01:33:42]>> Yes.

[01:33:42]>> And Mayor McCclair?

[01:33:43]>> Yes.

[01:33:44]>> Okay. That motion has been approved. And did you want to take a recess before the session or do >> we need a recess?

[01:33:53]>> Yes, please. 5 minute recess.

[01:33:56]Um, so I will call recess then of the regular meeting. We'll come back after the executive session to actually close out the meeting, but you don't have to stay. So 5 minutes We're back on the air.

[02:00:30]>> Okay, we're back. I'm going to g this back in. Uh, we had an evaluation of the city clerk and discussed it. And now I am going to adjourn this meeting at 8:56 p.m.

[02:00:44]Good.