City Council - Regular Meeting

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This meeting is being transcribed and summarized.

All the regular city council meeting of September 3rd to order. Would you please call the roll?

Gage. Yeah. Zingy here. Bradbury here. Yes.

Yes.

Then again here. Here.

Please rise for the budget. Allegiance. Thank you. The catch camp city council would like to respect the traditional 1st, people of this land and catch can Congress. Under communications, we have a calendar and then the state capital profile and let's say priorities. Is there anybody to be heard tonight? No, 1's not up on the sheet or anybody in the council that wishes to speak to the council at this time. Please come up and state your name and resident.

My name is Margaret Cloud, and I live at 5314 North Tongass Highway. Okay. And I'm here to discuss really quickly here. I've only recently become aware that there are some city codes that a person can be in violation of the city code and be cited, but there's absolutely no enforcement ability. So what this means is that you can be violating the city code, receive a letter stating you violated the city code and the corrective action being compliance, but there's no chief, so nothing can be done. And the one that I've got that I became aware of is regarding surface water. So right now, if a homeowner or property owner has surface water on their property, that's coming down off their property and then intruding into another person's property. They can be cited as a code violation and they can receive a letter And they're told you need to get an engineer to take care of remediating the problem. And they will give them a deadline, I think it's 60 days, to apply for a permit and get everything together and submit it. And then they give them another 180 days to complete the work. And the reason why this is a concern that I have, we all know that lately we've been far more aware of surface water, the dangers of landslides, and so forth. So right now, the city has the building inspector, that department, public works, they can do their job only . And so really what it ends up being, unfortunately, is if you are the property owner that's being adversely affected by a surface water runoff from a neighboring property and even if the person is cited and everything happens basically all that can be done is the affected property owner has to file a lawsuit against the person And so even if that person is cited, the city can't do anything. You have to file a civil lawsuit. And how many people really have all that money in their pocket to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit? So this is an issue, and I've spoken with the city officials about it. And they said that it really is a serious issue and that their hands are tied. And it was recommended that I come and speak about it and ask that the city take direction in making sure that there are some teeth to this issue. So that way, when we have something occur, it actually happens, versus just having to sit and wait 180 days from the time, basically six months. A lot happens in six months around here with rain and water. And it's a very interesting and somewhat of a new area of concern. as well, and there's quite a bit of case law about it. And you kind of go to the point where the property owner has a right to do what they want on their property, except if the water is trespassing on another person's property, and it's a nuisance, and it doesn't, in fact, the property owner doesn't necessarily have to have damage to their home, like their basement flood or something really significant, but they can't file a lawsuit. And so there is some case law here in Alaska. There's one particular case where the defendants, the defendants were found, it was found in their favor, but then when it was reviewed, it was actually looked at, and this was a number of years ago, found, oh, wait a minute, there was a bunch of errors in this. And so it's being talked about more, and what we really need here is, not that I think we need, odds of regulation, because this is not anything new about the surface water. But what it is, is this, we need to have a means for the city to actually do something with these people that are violating the code. So nothing, nothing can be done to them, except that they get a really weird issue.

Thank you. Any questions from the council?

So hopefully you guys can do something about this because it really is serious. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Maybe a question. Yeah, question. Well, not necessarily for her, but just before you run out of here, I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you have anything to add to that? You know what I'm saying? Is there anything we can do to help this lady out?

Off the top of my head council member gas. I am not familiar with what we reinforcement in the code. I don't know if the public works director or fire chief know off the top of their head. If not, we'll have to bring that back to you.

Yeah, talk to them and I'll say I've spoken with light in. And he was like, Johnny on the spot done a great job.

We can bring some information back to the council. Perfect.

So that's the recommendation. Recommend you all.

Thank you.

Oh, I also forgot. Thank you for supporting animal rescue with your grant program. I had to do that.

Anybody else wish to speak to council tonight? Hearing and seeing none, we're going to move on to consent agenda. I'd like to move 1 item. Item. 7, C. 3, 0, 3, 5, authorized grant applications. So, with that, do I have a motion to consent and 2nd, any discussion. Would you please read? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Go ahead and read it. And I've got a question. Okay.

Approval Minutes Regular City Council Meeting of August 20, 2026. Budget Transfer City Manager General Manager Travel and Education Business. Approving Supplemental Agreement Number 4 to Lease Number 12010903L0108, between the City of Ketchikan and the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Award of contract number 2632, Martin Street Stairs Reconstruction, Southeast General Contractors LLC, um doing business as southeast contractors council review of renewal application for club liquor license 338 eagles nest and resolution number 26 3035 authorizing submittal of a harbor grant application in the state of alaska department of transportation and public facilities in the amount of 275 000 dollars for the project entitled bar harbor piles and electrical pedestal replacements

Yes, Dave. Yeah, I want to make a couple of comments about item C, the Forest Service and the Dock 13. 44 years ago, I was part of the game. Because when I was sitting out there at the Ranger, that's just when we made all this trade. And without any knowledge, it's still sitting here. And who do we point our finger at? The government, the feds, or us, if we wanted it, why didn't we do something to get it? So, I mean, nobody in here has got any responsibility, except I think we need to reaffirm. We want ownership and we've got something to do with it. And if we do, then we ought to put it on a calendar. Every six months, we go jab somebody in the rear end to get this thing done. Dave Kuntz, And that that's I guess my only comment I think it's a vacant space down there on the waterfront using for park. Dave Kuntz, And so we we can't drop the ball and it's it's frustrating having set there 44 years ago and watch that happen anyway that's my comment, thank you sure ever grab it run with.

um the only comment i have is on the martin street share i'm surprised that we're putting wood tread back and i know there was a long discussion on some particular stairways in regards to historic value this that and the other thing but i was a little bit concerned about the maintenance if we put wood tread down and then have to keep put felt paper on it to make it non-skid and you know i think at this particular point in time and i don't know if it's cost more money to Do it that way or not, but I think long term maintenance is what we have to get rid of that type of stuff.

Yes, the only thing I would say is that was in the metal because if it gets icy. It fills in, it'll fill in those. We'll slide down and it hurts. And that area gets pretty cool back there.

Yeah. I was just thinking if there's a better better animal that we can use here to make these stairways. Less maintenance, you could be looking at those things. Any other comments. Hearing none would you please call the roll?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Thank you. We have none. So it brings us into new business. The 1st, item was a work session mandated wastewater disinfection facility, planning presentations of alternatives and staff recommendations. Do I have a motion?

Yeah, I moved to turn to work session to discuss the mandated wastewater disinfection facility plan.

It has been moving 2nd.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. We do have Jacobs Engineering here tonight and they're going to give you a short presentation on the technical document that was provided in the packet. Before we get to that, I did receive a couple of questions from council members and I wanted to cover a couple of things that are not in the presentation from Jacob. So next slide. So, he's going to talk more about it, but we have the new discharge permit as was mentioned the disinfection plant required. That's phase 1 of the project and that's due to be completed by November 15th, 2026. so just a month and a half from now. No, 2 and a half months from now, the plan is complete and Jacobs is here to present that tonight and Floyd will talk more about the timeline as well as the plan itself in a minute. Next slide. Funding that we have, and how we're going to fund this project for 1 of the questions that I received so far, we've received 6Million dollars and congressionally directed spending through Senator Murkowski's office. We've also received a 1Million dollar loan funds that are will be forgiven after the project is complete or after the plan is complete. They're, uh, they're forgivable. Um. So, there's how do we fund the difference when we look at the plan here in a minute and the different options. We're likely going to have more expenses than what I'm talking about that we have for funding right now. If we choose the preferred option, it's about 10Million dollars. So we have a couple of different options for that one. We can continue to seek additional CDS funding. There were some other communities that received closer to that $10 million amount for similar projects in Alaska, so we could continue it on the on our priority list and ask for more congressionally designated spending. We can use reserve funds to fund it, or we can use bonds. You still have some bond capacity and potential for remaining balance on our low-end phone from the DEC. Next slide. 1, last thing on that previous slide that will depend, of course, on which option we select. That'll make a big difference on how much we need to fund. The other thing that we need to think about are working on this project is the fact that we have site constraint constraints where our current plant is that wastewater plant. At charcoal point there, and both the possible locations, as you'll see in Lloyd's presentation will be where we currently have public works assets sitting. The moving of the wastewater treatment facility that we have is going to be way more expensive than moving a public works asset. So we're going to have to make a choice there. EPA is also likely to require secondary treatment in the coming years. Probably within the next 10 years, we can expect some decision that we have to do secondary treatment. I've already talked with the public works director and Seth is working on a parallel plan or relocation of public works in order to fit the eventual wastewater treatment facilities at public works. that we can phase in over time as the requirements are added. But we're developing a plan for that currently. The sand storage site at Public Works is kind of the preferred location of the information you're going to see here in just a minute. And that's one of the probably the cheapest and easiest ones to move as this first phase, which would allow us to put the disinfection location there. I WILL ALSO HIGHLIGHT THE CURRENT BUDGET AND COST ESTIMATES DO NOT INCLUDE RELOCATION OF ANY OF THE PUBLIC WORKS FACILITIES. SHOULD WE NEED TO MOVE THOSE FACILITIES ULTIMATELY, THE OTHER QUESTION THAT I WAS ASKED IS WHO SHOULD PAY FOR THAT OR HOW SHOULD WE PAY FOR THAT? AND SINCE THIS IS REGULATORY DRIVEN, THAT SHOULD PROBABLY COME FROM OUR WASTEWATER FUND, FROM OUR ENTERPRISE FUND, AND WE SHOULD CONTINUE TO SEEK GRANT FUNDING OR CONGRESSIONALLY DESIGNATED SPENDING BEFORE WE PUT THAT ONTO OUR RATE PAYERS. Thank you. And that's, I believe the last slide is just a closing slide to void.

Sorry, we didn't vote to go into session. So, is that okay? Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Would you like me to repeat all that? Yeah. Okay. That boy, that's.

good evening honorable mayor and council members just want to introduce floyd damron with jacobs he's been here many times before talk wastewater and water and we have a good presentation for you tonight things to consider appreciate your attention thank you thank you so well mayor council members good to see you again it's my pleasure to be here to make the presentation tonight we're going to talk about

the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit. It was issued as a renewal November of last year, and it was a minor technicality that was made approximately in June. Could you hit the button one more? So it was a letter issued to Seth just doing a minor update. Next slide, please. So the agenda, I'm going to overview the whole permit situation, what the site challenges are that Manager Ho just spoke to. The testing that we did, we've come up with a very innovative way to solve the problem based on your very tight site. We're going to share those results with you. I don't think any other community is going to approach it the way we are. And once we decided that chlorine is the answer, we came up with three different methods of supplying chlorine, which we will share with you. All three of them were viable. If you add chlorine, the state of Alaska is going to say, well, before you get stronger scenarios, why don't you take it out for us too, please? So we have two batches of chemicals now we're going to have to add. You can only add now. And we'll give you a preliminary cost estimate. Recommendation. So let's go to the first slide.

So this is the overall system.

You have about 3,300 customers, population of 8,000. You guys know the community better than I do. One more click, please. And this whole thing is done with a staff of eight. It's a very large service area that includes the airport. So that's the general overview. The original plant, which was just a screen facility only, all the waste water just flowed through a screen only, that was built back in about 1985. In the early 90s, the primary treatment plant was added, and that's the system that you have now. Next slide, please. So what does the permit require? The permit requires a lot of things, but for tonight's presentation, we're going to talk about bacteria. We have to kill two different kinds of bacteria. Where are those? And since, like I said, since we're using chlorine, the state says, well, we don't need chlorine when the fungus narrows and I'll share with you the compliance schedule. Next slide, please. So what are the limits? Right now you're going to be operating under an interim situation where we're not adding chlorine, we're not dechlorinating. And to give you an example, your average monthly limit on fecal foliforms is around 800,000 and 100 ml. So let's put that in perspective. 800,000 is more people than the state of Alaska has. And what's 100 ml? It's about one third the size of a can of Coke. That's about what 100 ml is. So we have 800,000 to a million critters in there right now. The nice thing about it is, this is freshwater organisms. When it hits tonda scenarios, there's a natural die-off from the saltwater. And also, if the sun is shining, that also creates a die-off. So today, like today, a lot of die-off. What's going to happen in November 2030? The limits. Look at those limits. Centauropagus is a type of bacteria. And fecal coliforms. Most of us have heard of fecal coliforms. The numbers are so low, basically, They have to go for basically a kill. And as I mentioned, because we're going to be using chlorine, we've got to add a chemical to neutralize the chlorine before it hits receiving water. Okay, next slide. We'll talk about the schedule. We'll talk about chlorine and dechlorination. Okay, I'm sorry. Next slide. So on the schedule, we're a couple of months ahead of time. The facility plan, which was now 100% complete, due November this year, and then November next year, the system that you approve needs to have the design complete. That's about 14 months from now, design complete, ready to go to bid. You have some time to acquire some funding. They have mandates in your bid. When you break ground, we want to be ahead of schedule if possible. Everything needs to be in compliance, November 1. 2030. Next slide. So we have an interesting thing that the state and the feds have set up for us here. All the southeast communities that are going to have to de-coronate and de-coronate, and that's all of them, we're all on the same schedule. If everyone tries to bid a disinfection, say, coronation, de-coronation system at the same time, there's not enough contractors to do it. It's a train wreck coming up. What can we do about that? Next click. My recommendation is let's try to get ahead of schedule. Hopefully we can grab a good contractor, get a good competitive bid and get a good price before they get tied up with Haynes and Sitka and Wrangell and Peterburg and the other communities who are on the same schedule. So from the regulators, that may be convenient and make sense. John Gerstle, When you're going to build something that doesn't make any sense at all. John Gerstle, And these aren't big enough projects to attract. John Gerstle, More 48 contractors typically now, maybe if they were two or three communities and bid two or three together, maybe that's possible that's a lot of babies out there. John Gerstle, Next slide please. John Gerstle, So. John Gerstle, This is a really busy site click please. We have staff space for these facilities, and we want to do it with a minimum amount of disruption. Another click, please. So we've been working with Seth, Jake, and others to really look at what can we do on this site. So one more click, please. So you have two buildings that are basically at the center of the photo. You have treatment plan A, which is the screening building. And treatment plant B and the white arrow is the treatment plant B. You've got power plants around, you've got public facilities. You've got, I think, is it JAG Marine, which used to be bigger on the other side. So this is just a lot of stuff going on. That's why Seth sort of put the challenge to me and he said, well, let's figure this out, boy. You guys can do these things. So that's what we've done. We've come up with a way to minimize impact on site. So next slide, please. That's the entrance to the treatment plant B. Next slide, please. So this is a view of one of four primary clarifiers in the treatment plant B. These clarifiers are 14 feet wide, 90 feet long, about 12 feet deep. Each one holds 120,000 gallons of wastewater. And the wastewater enters on one end and flows to the other end before it goes to the outfall and Tongass Narrows. And our challenge was typically the way you accomplish this disinfection issue is you go downstream of your clarifiers where you have the cleanest water and you build a brand new concrete structure that's bigger than this room. And you let the water flow in contact with the chlorine called a chlorine contact basin. To get the kill on the bacteria, that takes a lot of property, it has to be deep, it all has to flow by gravity, so you're digging a giant hole in the ground, and if you do that, you still have to build a chlorination building and a dechlorination building. We don't have room for flying contact, basically. Another click, please. So we've got four of the clarifiers, another one, please. We wanted to prove that we can actually achieve permit compliance within the clarifiers. And it wasn't a black and white, yes, you can, that kind of an answer. Another click, please. So we wanted to do very detailed testing. We've done almost a year of testing in the lab. We've done four full-scale tests where we've actually put chlorine in one of those 120,000 gallon clarifiers and let it run for few hours and done very, very detailed tests. Next slide, please. And just for information, this is what one of those clarifiers looks like when it's empty. And you can see a chain and you can see some paddles on the floor. What happens on a primary clarifier, when the wastewater flows through that 90 feet, the solids settle to the bottom. And your plant has a very good system of collecting the solids, dewatering the solids with what's called a belt filter press. You put a brand new belt filter press in a couple of years ago, and those solids then go into the landfill. Another quick please. So that's your sludge removal system. And so as we get the sludge out, some people call it biosolids, that removes those solids that don't go to Tongass Narrows, and that's why you have the clarifiers. Next slide, please. So bench scale, that's in the lab, in the city's lab, and full-scale testing. So go ahead on the next click. So our goal, as I said, was to confirm that we can comply with the permit without building a big, expensive, reinforced concrete basin that would be maybe of a couple hundred thousand gallons in size.

OK, next click.

Clarifiers, we want to prove they can do the kill on the bacteria. Next slide, please. So this is from your lab. This is what we call bench scale testing. In the old days, we called it jar testing because those were jars. And now we have beakers that are a little more sophisticated. One more click. So your lab manager, Courtney Jones, conducted those tests. in coordination with the work we were doing, the whole purpose of this, this is fairly low cost, is do some bench-scale testing and say, is it even feasible to kill the bacteria in these beakers? And if it is feasible, how much chlorine is it gonna take? And we use that as the guidance to set up what full-scale testing. We literally came to Ketchikan for four-week trips August, November, February, and May, and ran full-scale tests. Next slide, please. So this is inside of the clarifier building. The clarifiers are just off the view to the left. In the middle, you can see there's a temporary drum of very concentrated chlorine. This is chlorine that's about 12.5%. Chlorine, when you go to the grocery store and buy a bottle of bleach, that's about 5%. This is 12.5%, so about twice as strong bleach as what you would buy. There's a pump on the top of that yellow barrel that you can hardly see. And then there's a line, a plastic line that that pump is injecting fluorine into one of those clarifiers. So next slide.

I just mentioned the work that we're doing there.

so um let's see yep you guys did a great job of supporting us we sent an engineer here each time and primarily uh jake and mike they were there for us others were there with this working hand in hand because they want us to be successful too to prove that this whole system is actually going to work and do it in a way that the operators We respect the operators and we do away that's friendly to them and then they can manage the system. They can take care of it. It's done safely, it's done appropriately and we're not wasting chemicals. Next slide. And while we're doing the full scale testing, here's an example of one of the operators getting ready with this long pole and the container there to grab samples. We did thousands of samples where we're measuring both bacteria and chlorine residual, and really wanted to dial this down. In fact, we'd only planned three trips, and I called Seth, and I said, Seth, we really need to do the fourth trip. And he said, do it. And I'm really glad we did, because when we come to you with a recommendation, we want to have confidence in what we're recommending. Next slide. So what are the results? So this is a graph. The x-axis along the bottom is time. That goes from about zero to maybe two or three hours. The lighter colored line, that is fecal coliform, which is a part of human waste. The darker orange line, that's enterococcus, which is another type of human waste. And I wish we only had the treat for fecals because fecals are easy. You'll notice, and this is one graph of many graphs that are on the report, but you'll notice we were permit compliance in about 45 minutes on fecals. The internal caucus took twice as long. And everything we're doing on the recognition we're made is we've got to make sure that the permit requires you've got to kill both. You can't just say, well, we did a peak, so we're home free. No, they want both. So internal caucus is what's driving the vote here. Click, please. The good news is, one more click, the good news is, it's feasible. We confirmed it. It takes quite a bit of chlorine, but we've confirmed, yes, this is going to work.

Another click.

So this is one of many graphs. They're in the report. The report's, what, 400 or 500 pages, I think. The report we turned down a couple of weeks ago. This data's in there. I'm really glad we did that fourth round of tests because not only are we going to get more data, let's look at different seasons of the year. August is different than November, different than February, different than May. So we want to make sure we get temperature, flow, want to get the full meal deal. And believe me, when we do the final design for you, if you choose to have us do the final design, we're going to have extra capacity in there. If you need a little more chlorine, all you can do is turn the dial and you'll have it built in. Hopefully you don't need it, but if you do, We're not going to leave you stranded where you say, wow, we were 90% there because the state and EPA don't care about 90%. They want to kill. Right? Okay, next slide. Okay, disinfection is required. Next one, please. So we looked at three feasible ways of using fluorine. And you say, well, Floyd, why are you using fluorine? Let's just use ultraviolet light. No chemicals. I'd love to use ultraviolet light. This is primary effluent. A lot of particles, a lot of fogginess. The UV light can't penetrate all the way through the wastewater. And it doesn't actually kill. It's called inactivization. The light actually sterilizes the bacteria so they can't reproduce. It's an amazing thing. 254 nanometers will sterilize a bacteria. doesn't kill it, it just can't reproduce. We can inactivate the ones on this side, but it won't go all the way through. So ultraviolet light works well if you have secondary treatment, or you have another set of chlorophyll, it's a biological process. And next, click please. Because the only feasible way for you is chlorine, we have to dechlorinate. It's a whole other chemical, another process. Fortunately, dechlorination is one of the most simple things to do in the world. You put in sodium bisulfite. It's an instantaneous reaction and the chlorine is gone. What we'll do is we'll take the sample and measure that sample and make sure that we prove to the state that enough sodium bisulfite is going in so that the chlorine is neutralized.

Next slide, please. Chlorine, let's talk about that.

So you have two on-site generation systems in your water system now. On-site generation, it's an amazing, amazing thing. All you have to do is bring salt to the community. You need 15 gallons of water, three pounds of salt, and about two and a half kilowatt hours of electricity and your brine solution becomes bleach. It's a weak bleach. It's only about 0.8%. So it's much weaker than the bleach you buy in the store. But the nice thing about it is it's so weak that it's not regulated. So that's one of the methods on site generation. You make your own. You have two of those now. The one at Bear Valley, I'm gonna show you a photograph of it. It's 200 pound per day facility. Because it's wastewater, you're going to need a 500 pound per day facility. Next hit. Commercial grade sodium hypochlorite. That was what was in that drum that you saw in that photograph when we were doing the testing. That's at 12 and a half percent. You buy that down in Seattle and you ship it here in 300 gallon totes. You're mostly shipping water, frankly. Think about what 300 gallons weighs, and your operator is going to have to handle those totes. It's all feasible. You put them on racks, you drain the totes into the wastewater. One of the disadvantages, in addition to the weight, is 12.5% material decays over time. At room temperature, it may lose about 1% every couple of weeks of strength, and so you don't want to store six months of this stuff. By the time you get to the sixth month, when it might only be 5%, and then you've lost a lot of investment there. Next slide. The third feasible method, calcium hypochlorite. These are hockey puck-sized solid chlorine. And there's things called tablet feeders, and you run water across the tablets, and you dissolve and erode the tablets. And as they dissolve, they release chlorine, they come in, 50 pound buckets. There's 50 hockey buckets in a bucket. It's a really easy system to install. Really easy. But the pucks are expensive. Very expensive. I'll show you that here in a minute. But those are the three feasible ways in Alaska to chlorinate your wastewater. Next slide. This is the Bear Valley facility that's 200 pounds per day. We designed that for APU about eight years ago. Another click, please. One more click. So you see on the left, it's sort of small print, but in those cells, those horizontal cells on the left there, there's plates in there, titanium plates with special coating on them. Some are anodes and some are cathodes. And when the brine solution flows across the plates, and you have an electrical current. The salt, NaCl, combines with the O, an H2O, and makes bleach, and hydrogen gas gets vented off the atmosphere. It's wet, and it's very, very dilute in very small quantities, so it's not economical to try to catch the hydrogen. And frankly, you don't want to catch hydrogen. Hydrogen is very explosive. You want to get rid of it fast. It's a very simple process. You can see on the right there, there's two tanks on the right. Those are a couple thousand gallon tanks. They're storing the bleach. And they have 50 gallon bags of salt on the floor there. For the wastewater plant, you'll probably want to buy one ton super sacks. And the one ton super sack is about three and a half by three and a half by about three and a half high. And you just pick it up with a forklift. You suspend it over the drain tank. You pull a string and you dump the salt. very easy process to do. One more click, please. As I mentioned, according to our calculations, instead of a 200 pound per day that you have at the water system, you'll need about a 500 pound per day. The water system is feeding a lower dose, but the water system has the capacity to handle about two and a half times as much water as the wastewater plant does, because your water demand is much higher because of seafood processing and other uses in what comes to the wastewater plant.

Okay, next slide. So where are we going to put these facilities?

So on the southwest end of the site is where Public Works has what's called the sand shed. And we've looked at several, we looked at three different locations. This is the preferred location of the three. At this location, we would put both the dechlorination facility. That facility is, let me look, is.

It's a little green square at the, kind of at the top of a stack.

Yeah, I've got the size. Let's see, what did I do with that? I think it's 20, I think it's like 24 by 30 in the, The larger facility for on-site generation is about 40 by 70. So we're showing a bunch of squares there. It would be the largest green square and the smallest green square with squares where the sand shed is. That's the preferred alternative. That's public works, so lead operator Jake, they like this location.

Let's show the alternative location, please, next.

Right now, we're in the Public Works building, so this would be a pretty major impact. But it shows an alternate site, and when you do a facility plan, it's best to look at more than just one solution. You look at a couple alternatives, at least. If we went with the generation facility where the Public Works building is, we would still recommend the dechlorination facility go down in the sand shed area, because that's where you're going to be injecting the chlorine, is just before the water goes to Tongass Narrows. Okay, next slide. And do about two more clicks for me. So the recommended is the onsite generation, which also includes dechlorination. So we've got numbers for you here. These are very preliminary numbers. This is not based on engineering drawings and specs. This is based on a lot of experience and a lot of numbers that are cost estimated to bring in so this needs to be refined but we're showing on preliminary basis on site is about seven million capital designs around two million total cost nine something a really important number which is a hundred percent local responsibility is what is the cost to operate this system and for both chemicals and operator time we're estimating 150 000 a year that's the lowest cost of the three we looked at Notice the hockey pucks are like twice as much per year. That's why we didn't go with those. So there's, as Manager Hogg mentioned, there's some grant monies available that we can reduce the capital costs way down. You can't reduce the O&M cost. That's local responsibility. So we want to be really mindful of what is, what are we going to be spending every year? How do we minimize that impact? Next slide. Next slide, please. So I just mentioned these are preliminary results. I strongly recommend that whoever does your design for you, when they get to about a 35% complete on the design, do a new cost estimate and refine the numbers. That $7 million, by confidence, it had 7 million. It could be between 5 and 10. That's the level of confidence I have in that $7 million number. And I realize that doesn't give you a lot of comfort, but I'm being honest with you. At this study level, we don't have detailed drawings where a cost estimator can go in and say, okay, how much rebar, how much steel, how much pipe? Wait up for the drawings. But this gives you, the level of accuracy is similar between all three. And notice we did a 20-year present value and the lowest cost. happens to be onsite generation, which is also your lowest annual cost. Next slide, please. I'm sure you're gonna have questions and that's why Seth is standing here. He's my question man. So, but I have additional recommendations for you and this is important and I'm stepping out of my realm here just a tiny bit and forgive me for doing this, but guys, you have a huge infiltration and inflow situation here And you're shipping million gallons of non-wastewater every day to that treatment plant. And when it's raining and you have high tide, you might be spending 4 million gallons of non-sewage to that plant. And if you send that much to the plant, I've got to add that much chlorine, that must be chlorination chemical. So I'm saying for every thousand gallons a minute, you can solve an ionitis fixing the leaks. replacing the corroded pipes, or fixing the manhole. For every thousand gallons a minute that you can reduce, and it's very feasible, frankly, you save 1.4 million gallons a day of flow to that treatment plant. Just think about that. This is something you can't do overnight. These could be 10, 15 small projects, but each project, we can knock down 10 gallons a minute here or 30 gallons a minute there. Those all add up. That's money in the bank. Next slide, please. With costly dechlorination, reducing INI is even more important. My last slide, click. We strongly recommend the City Council support future INI reduction projects. Cost savings will be significant. I'm done. Thank you. Thank you for listening to me. I hope this was helpful. And Seth, Seth is my man here for your questions.

Real quick, Mayor, if I can, if you have any questions, just to remind the council, we're not asking you to make a decision tonight. We wanted to bring this to you, have an opportunity to discuss, ask any questions you have, and then we'll bring it back to you to select the preferred option, which is the deliverable that's required under the new permit. So we'll bring that back at the next meeting, and we'll still well exceed the November 1 deadline to return that deliverable.

Yes, Dick, and then Jack. Yeah, since we've got the experts here, I don't know anything about it, except I know we've been putting that stuff in the narrows for, what, 50 years? And all of a sudden, the city and the state and the feds come along and say, you will. And my question is, if we do this, what's the improved quality of that water out there in the narrows going to be? How much is it going to improve or are we just meeting the requirement?

Council member accused. So what we'll have to meet is your total kill for vehicle call forms and intro caucus. So, you know, at least according to the regulatory bodies, that's an improvement that those are no longer in the wastewater. And so it's a very stringent set of things we have to test for and meet. But as far as overall water quality, you know, whether it's an improvement or not, it's really up to, you know, each person. I mean, definitely to the EPA, we're required to do it. So that's what we're up against.

From what I mentioned, Council Member, you might not remember from a presentation I did maybe about this time last year, and Thomas, you know, I vote now, There's what's called a mixing zone. And that may be like a mile long centered about where the ferry landing is. And it's as wide as Tongass Narrows. And with that mixing zone, the water is below state water quality standards. Now, so you ask, is there going to be an improvement? That mixing zone is no longer going to be there because it's not going to be gated. So I don't know that people are swimming there, fishing there. what they may be doing, but if someone were to go into the water now, they have a chance of picking up an infection. It goes way north of the airport, all the way down to about here, and as wide as the Narrows, and so that's a zone where you have less than water quality standard water now. I hope that answers your question.

It does, but I don't trust the feds, so that's the way it goes.

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate the presentation. It's kind of fascinating. Anything that happens behind the scenes that a lot of residents, I think, don't think about and it's obviously very important work. I also really appreciated the detail on the operation and maintenance costs. the dechlorination steps i wondered if those estimates were inclusive of labor uh they are yes okay and i wondered okay well that that answers the second part of my question okay thank you okay thank you very much riley uh just to kind of expand on where dick was going i think you know given that we've been doing this forever and ever and now all of a sudden

They just drop a hand and I know this has been coming and whatnot, but it is, it seems like such a. A vast increase on the regulation or increase on what we need and. Just an unbelievable amount of money we have to spend. I have 2 questions. 1 is. what if we don't meet the standard uh i mean i'm sure they're gonna find us or what because what i'm thinking here is uh as many problems as we have in our town uh at the end of the day i think it's fair to say we're one of the much more wealthier communities in the region and you named off all these other much smaller towns who don't have the tourism industry and stuff and everybody's going to be required this and it's a race to see who can spend 20 million dollars first is it really practical that all these little towns and our neighboring communities are going to get this done council member thank you for that question so first off i think that it's important to remember

is a requirement and we will face fines if we don't meet the discharge limits so that has to be factored in we are receiving the six million dollars at minimum we're going to be asking for more so there is support coming from some support coming from the federal government to offset the charge as far as the other communities yeah they're in the same boat as us trying to come up with So we've been, I went up and toured the Sitka treatment plant, I've toured the Wrangell treatment plant, and each one's a little bit different, but they're wrestling with the same gorilla that we are for sure. If we don't meet the, just to touch on, if we don't meet the timeline, which we're putting together a plan to try and get done early and meet those requirements so we don't face the fines, but it's not a perfect world. We may go long, And I hope we don't, but we may, and other communities may too. And then you face impacts, financial clients with that.

Well, the important point is that if Ketchikan is demonstrating a good faith effort for compliance, the city have a job under construction to build these facilities. And they're not quite done on November 1, 2030. They may not put it in writing, but I have a high level of confidence that the state will say, you're making a good faith member. We'll give you six months of grace. But a more important point, council member, a much more important point. The 301H waiver that you have, which says you only have to have primary treatment is worth its weight in gold. If you don't build the facilities and you start being a non-compliant violator time and time again, The next time you get a permit, you'll be ordered to build a secondary treatment plant, and you'll wish to God that that didn't happen. When you talk about financial impact, that will be major, major impact. And so as long as we can, reluctantly, we don't want to have to do this, but if all we have to do is add a little bit of chlorine and dechlorinate, and that allows a 3.1-inch waiver to continue, we don't like it, but at the same time, you ought to say thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I realize that me. I mean, I don't Yeah, like, bite my tongue.

It's just crazy how they just they just can just they can just screw so many communities like I mean, you're right.

I mean, they could screw us way harder. So I guess thank you for not screwing us so hard. But the state's goal, they'll tell you, right here, all is to protect public health. And they believe that these provisions go a long way to helping protect public health. And so they will stand tall, toe to toe with you and say, this is something you have to do because of their belief that we're protecting not only public health, but protecting the environment, the sea life, etc.

Stanley.

yeah my question is when you did the testing um throughout the year and and during the season with more visitors they did it also take into account the the amount of people going into the system you know the i'm sure it was a higher level of sewage compared to when in winter hits and it's just us um i guess my question would be and it'll probably be more to him but how we could um push that um some of that funding coming from the industry that impacts our sewer systems thank you council member for that question and so our summer flows definitely are higher for pico coliform

One, because it's warmer. Two, because we don't have as much INI from the rain like we do during the winter. So during the winter, we see much more dilute flow with lower numbers of fecal coliforms. In the summer, a fecal coliform will grow rapidly based on temperature. So we have a much higher number in the summer. because of that. So when it comes to funding as far as balancing the user fees based on summer use versus winter use, that's something that's open for discussion to look at.

I appreciate all the work you did.

Thank you. First off, thank you for the presentation. It made a lot more sense than that. So I appreciate that and dumbing it down a little bit. I have two separate questions. I don't necessarily know if it's for the manager or for the public works director, but for the O&M, we're looking at $450,000 roughly a year. obviously grant funding is not going to come to pay for the O&M. So what, when you say $450,000 extra a year, what does that look like in rates to our customer? Are we talking, It's a 453% increase, 2%, 5, 6, 7, 8. What are we looking at in terms of, obviously, this is the lowest option, so I'm trying to just gauge. Obviously, it would be double whatever you tell me for this one, for the tablet one. But I'm wondering, have we calculated any of that so that we know what the long-term impact to our citizens are going to be when we get to this?

That is not something we've yet calculated. We will obviously need to do that and once the finance structure back on Monday, we may even be able to do some of that. We've worked some on the rates previously, but across the board, we're going to be looking at rates and we'll be able to tell you. Sometime here soon what each dollar of increased spending. Affects how that affects the rates.

I would just like that before we make a decision or forced to make a decision that we have all of the information long term. So, I mean, I will not be supporting picking an option unless I know what that rate's going to be increased onto our citizens starting in 2030 when we start that cost. So I just want to put that out there and hopefully we can get that into a regular cycle that when we talk about spending money that we know what the end rate is versus just we need to make $450,000 up.

I can tell you, Councilmember Bradbury, the rate that it will cost our rate payers is twice as much if we were to select option B and, I don't know, 71.5 times as much if we selected option C. This is the cheapest ongoing rate for our rate payers with the recommended amount.

Obviously by the chart, I just wanted to know the number. The other question is for the Public Works Director. You guys talked about I&I, and I know, Seth, you briefly talked about like it has been a problem, but I'm wondering how many meters or feet of pipe are we talking about replacement? Like, is it the whole system is, you know, what are we talking about when it comes to fixing that to help relieve pressure?

Sure. Thank you council member for that question. Great question. So, last winter we embarked on. Really our 1st, I and I combatant project with our water street phase alpha and that was from. The former tablets now, the new town wharf location back to the intersection 1, where we did trench. just from that one project we sealed up about um 800 feet linear feet there and stopped water from getting in at high tides so we had a high tide in mid-august that was over 17 and a half so jake rogers the wastewater supervisor and i are sitting by the screen looking at it the next morning it came up one and 1 30 in the morning so we didn't weren't there for the actual real-time view, but the next morning we looked at it, and it did knock down, just that one project did knock down the flow for coming to our treatment plant during that high tide. We've got another set of really high tides in November. We'll be watching that, and Manager Hogue just signed an advertisement for Face Bravo of Water Street. And with any luck, we'll award that contract here later in October. And we'll start that this winter. That'll do the next section. It'll start there at the Eagle statue near the south portal of the tunnel and go to the entrance to Hopkins alley. That's the same reason we're trying to combat I&I there, finish out our force main replacement. Then we have base Charlie. would be next. So you're right, we have a plan and we just appreciate your guys' support in approving those projects for replacement. Another one that we did this summer with our own staff, we replaced about 80, 100 feet of gravity main in Bear Valley. That's another source of I&I. There's a lot of groundwater there. And I think we included some photos of that pipe. It was really, really bad on West Sesame. knock it down and like Floyd said, you just have to try and prioritize your worst pipes first and then work towards improving it foot by foot. Yeah, follow up.

Knowing the condition of the pipes in our community, are we thinking like there's like 25 to 50% of like immediate, like large cause of INI or is it less, more? like that you would recommend like in the next five years we need to get it fixed to help relieve the pressure? Do you have an idea?

I would love to swap out pipe and do as much as we could. And we're just bound by how much money we can spend. That's why we have to prioritize do the worst pipes first. But like Floyd said, every gallon we keep out of the pipe, we don't have to pump that. and then we don't have to add chlorine and add dechlor chemicals to treat it and untreat it. So as much of that we can get out of the system, the better off we'll be.

Do you have a pipe condition inventory, Seth?

We do. That's one of the things, one of my passions to bring back is some asset management with our pipe conditions. We do have a pipe inspection camera, a camera truck, where we go out, that's how we camera inspection, and it's not something you can see from above the ground. You have to get the robot down in the pipe and inspect it, and then that creates a score, and we tabulate those scores and bring them back for overall assessment.

And that's when you have on, right? Okay. So we can bring forward to counsel some informational presentations on that sort of thing. Seth has some good information on the wastewater pipes on our roads. Uh. Feel like there was 1 other thing you were showing me storm drain pipe and it's all color coded on the so it would be a great tool that we can show the council and help inform you and the community of what the condition of those assets is.

Mayor, if I may?

Yes.

For Councilmember Bradbury. Also, the DEC offers a $75,000 amount each year that we've applied for and received for this year to involve or engage with Jacobs for more I&I study. So it's about prioritization, which pipes are the worst, and making sure we get the most bang for our buck And that's offered every year, 75K from DEC, at least for now. So we're gonna keep going for it and getting it and then applying it.

Um, yeah, thank you for the presentation. So, um, there's a lot to come at the council in regards to this and there's going to be a lot of costs associated with it. So the bricks and mortar should be fairly straightforward. We'll decide the footprint, the size we need. and how we're going to manage that on the facility that we have. I foresee at some point in the future, all of the street department's going to be moved off that lot because the constraints are too tight to run both operations off of that. So I appreciate that the manager and you are looking at alternative sites to bring that together. When you do that, I hope you look at some shared service things like a garage or other things with that, or even Cape View, Uh, because we know that they've outgrown the building they have on Park Avenue. If there's a big enough piece of ground, we give you some of that kind of stuff. It would make some sense. Just just part of that. And then the operation costs, I think that it was very obvious that. That's a long term cost that won't be covered by grants and. Stuff like that that sometimes will be on the rate structure. So I think that's the generating of our own here in the community is probably the best pass forward with that over the long term. And then the eye and I, I think that's going to take years and years to get that through. And 1 of the things I. Like a plan for something to consider is it's. Cheaper if we do that stuff in the house, if we had a crew that was designated to do pipe work within the city of. There's more enough work for him to do if we could feed them the materials and get them that that's up in place. It's. Sometimes it's hard to get contractors, get the contracts out, then you gotta pay David Bacon, all those kinds of things. There are some things that we should be doing more of in-house. If it's a larger project, I get that. But as we go through this process, we need to be doing more of that in-house with our own crews. That means we're gonna save money in the long run doing that, right? And how we fund that's another story. And that pipe crew could be doing more than just wastewater, I think. I think there's a way that we could, Ditching and trenching and put pipes and ground specialty type thing. And you got to do all those. But I think it all comes down to this body looking forward at the future of how we're going to come up with funding with where we're going to get the grants. So as we go on a budget, we're good. We're probably going to look for another grant writer because we're going to be doing a lot of work in regard to get money into the community, using other people's money to build this infrastructure that we have. So I think that we need to consider that if we go through this. And we know this was coming and we know that secondary at some point will be coming. And then in closing, I'd like to thank Floyd and the staff for all what we were doing. And through that demonstration, we were able to save ourselves a considerable amount of money in investments. And so I'm hoping that we can take some of that and work it out here and do the best we can to keep the rate structure in an affordable manner that we can do the work we need to do and yet not over-tax the rate payers in the community.

I really appreciate your comments, Mayor. I really appreciate the article you wrote. regarding the LAF. We worked our hearts on that for almost seven years, and it was never a clear path that it was going to happen. In fact, the mayor and others were up in our office the day before the state of Alaska banned all travel because of COVID back in 2000. People flew from Fairbanks, Juneau, Ketchikan, And that's when we disclosed to the state for the first time. The state thought we were going to come to them with a plan to build a water filter plant. And we said, time out. We have a better idea. Let's talk about limited alternative filtration. And thank goodness, Cindy Christian, who was the top state water regulator, was there. And she goes, do you have a conference room where we can adjourn for an hour or two? And I said, absolutely, yes. And they came back. You were there. They came back and said, We support Catch a Can. So we've got the state on our side, but we didn't have the feds on our side. But Catch a Can, your watershed is so pristine, undeveloped, so much rainfall, so it's good quality water coming down. The feds didn't have a choice. You checked every box on the regulation and say, we comply. You did better than Seattle, and Seattle got an LAF. And I think that's what the fact that your watershed and the fact that your operators run such a tight system, they didn't have a choice. And I've been doing this 53 years. July 27th is one of the high points of my entire career. And that's the day that we got approval for LAF for Ketchikan. And thank goodness you don't have to build a water filter plant. You can spend all of that money and people down here, the water wouldn't be any better than it is today. Talk about chemicals and electricity and costs around the plant. So, Mayor, it was my pleasure to be part of that process from day one, working with Cindy, working with you, Sup, many others. And your real estate here proved that you deserved it. And thankfully, common sense, in this particular case, common sense ruled and it was granted. So my pleasure to work with you on that, Mayor.

Thank you any other question just 1 brief point, I think, for the manager through the chair. Thank you. Your honor. I know this kind of taste the Pre presentation presentation, and I know a lot of this is going to be coming forward. I'm making decisions tonight, but with respect to deciding on funding mechanisms, is that something we'll be discussing at that future date as well? Otherwise, I'd just like to weigh in very briefly and just speak to the fact that I think congressionally directed spending is, I don't think anybody would. Be surprised if anybody didn't see that as the 1st. and preferred path toward funding, but given uncertainties around that resource, I'm also curious about how the timeline of pursuing funding of that nature might impact our ability to execute. So if we pursue that as a funding mechanism, are we putting ourselves behind the curve in any respect with respect to pursuing a bond, for example, if that's the mechanism that we want to use to fund a project of this sort?

Yes, thank you. We will bring some more information back on that when we bring the item back. Um, I don't think that we would be prudent to pursue only 1 option at a time. We probably should be pursuing all the options at the same time. The timeline is very tight. We need to have the funding secured at X time. The less impact to our rate payer, the better. Uh, but we want to make sure that we have funding lined up. So that we can move forward when the time comes. So we'll bring that. I hear the question about the cost of the rate payer and I suspect it will extend not only from that, but also to any potential funding source that we might use for that remainder. So we can bring that information back to you. Yes. Thank you.

Yeah, after 2. Uh, referring to stepping on the gas and getting this thing out the door ahead of schedule and moving ourselves up. I think that's a good. Good plan. So, if you can come back with any steps that we need to include in order to get that done, please let us know. All right. Out of work session, I did a motion and 7 a, I moved the city council exit work session and reconvene in regular session. It's been moving second. Yes.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Thank you bring it to item B. work session capsus project for 2028. I have emotions.

I moved to enter the work session discuss fiscal year 2028 capsus projects.

So, yeah, it's been moving back in the next session. You're in 10, then put your please call the roll.

Gage yes, yes. Yep. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

All right. All right Thank you. Mr mayor. You there's a slide presentation that the deputy clerk is going to bring up, but I also gave you a copy because I know how hard these screens are to read. I'm not sure the slides are that much better. I apologize. I tried to make them a little bigger. Yeah, we'll put him on the plotter next time. So, this is an opportunity to discuss and provide direction on the state capsus projects and legislative priorities. Next slide. As you. All know the, this is an annual exercise that we go through the borough solicits community priorities. Each fall we received a letter from the requesting our input on those priorities. Uh, with 27 as the baseline, what happened in 2017 is that the council approved 12 capital projects and 5 policy positions. Um, last September, and rather than convening the lobbying executive committee, the borough, the city of catch, Canada, city of sex and managers brought to you joint resolution for adoption by the council. Today, what we're looking for is some discussion and direction on what you would like to see done with these priorities for this year. So that staff can make the appropriate changes before bringing out joint resolution back to. Excellent it does say the September 17th meeting. I do know and we'll talk about the timeline on another slide, but the borough meeting is on the 8th and we may that may slip till October 1st just to get the coordination done. So just. Uh, so the current progress on these requests, as I said, we did 12 submissions and 27 at the time that those were submitted in August of last year, we had secured 5Million dollars towards those 12 various projects over the last year. That's increased 6 and a half times. We now have 32 and a half million dollars towards those same 12 projects secured. Next slide. And that's a total of 114M dollars for those 12 projects that were submitted last year again 32M now secured. We have an 81M dollar remaining gap that we need to fill. As we go on to the next slide, the main things that I'll cover some things we've updated all 12 of those projects with their current status and we'll cover. Those status updates, and then ask for some discussion and guidance on some of the others that we are unsure of where we might want to go. Some of those things will be related to things like the water main projects, which are to happen on the viaduct here and the has changed the scope of that project. And so we probably need to change the scope of how we look at those water main projects. We had some scope and location changes. For example, what's labeled as Stedman Street restrooms, council has provided direction to locate those on Creek Street. So if we want to continue that, we'll need to relabel and update the narrative. And then we had an increase on the local match for the Spruce Mill Promenade project due to just the time that it's been since that project was initially, cost estimate was done. And then last is we have some funding tied to federal decisions and we'll talk about those. Next slide. These are going to be really small on the screen. I'll take these 1 at a time. I'll give you the updates on on the items. I may ask staff to come up and help update if necessary, or if you have questions that I can't answer and then we'll ask for direction and just we'll take them 1 at a time and work through these. So the 1st item is. The item we just talked about in the previous session, the wastewater treatment plant permit compliance upgrades. It was on last year's priorities as a $10 million total. We received $7 million as we just discussed. We have $7 million in combined federal and state funding currently since the 27 ask, but that still leaves us with a $3 million gap. You've seen the plan that was just presented by Jacobs Engineering. If we go with the preferred alternative that staff is recommending, it's about $10 million. So again, the $3 million gap. Staff is recommending that we carry this forward and seek CDS funding to make up that gap. Seth, I think you had some, you mentioned to me either loan or bond funding that we still had some capacity on that we may be able to make up the gap. Was that on this one?

manager hope that's correct the citizens did pass a vote on a bond initiative for 15 million dollars that included monies for wastewater treatment plant upgrade so whatever we don't get in grant funds it is one of the options to utilize the low interest loans from dec that would have a payback period for the rate payers but it'd be better than having a upfront cost

And we don't have to pay anything on those until we utilize them, right? Whatever portion of that that we may need.

Okay.

I'm just this stuff is all compliance regulated. So it got the clock ticking on us. So we have to come up with some funding and get this project. Designed and. Yeah, that's correct.

So the good news on that is that we do for some funding identified if we had to do it tomorrow, we actually have the funding identified and we can move forward. Um, but I think it's prudent to seek funding, keep this on the list or state funding to to help offset that remaining 3Million dollars unless council has any objection to that. That's how we'll move forward on that item. Okay, so the next item, thank you, Seth, is catch can lakes alternative raw water supply. That was a $2 million asked last year. We did receive loan agreement today for $2 million with $1.5 million of principal forgiveness. So we'll have to, we'll be responsible. We pay only 500,000 on that. Phase covers phase one design only it is ranked number 15 on the state's drinking water priority list, which is where that funding ended up coming from. And that loan agreement will require a resolution authorizing the manager to execute the agreement and we'll be bringing that back at the at the next meeting. But we did just get it today and I thought that was this would be a good time to share that information.

Thank you.

So that was just a status update. We don't have really anything to decide there. I just wanted to share that with you. Next item is the Park Avenue Harris Street flood hardening, $14 million. There's still a $6.4 million gap, but we do have $7.6 million in ADEC loans offered, $3.8 million from clean water, $3.8 million drinking water. Public Works is continuing to work on a related flood hazard susceptibility study, which could help us secure additional funding depending on the results of that study. WE HAVE MADE GOOD PROGRESS, BUT I WOULD SUGGEST THAT WE CONTINUE THAT ON THE PRIORITY LIST FOR THIS YEAR AGAIN AND TRY TO FILL THAT GAP WITH ANY STATE FUNDING THAT WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO GET. THE PARK AVENUE ARGUMENT, RIGHT? CORRECT. REALIZING THAT REPRESENTATIVE BYNUM BRIEFED YOU RECENTLY THAT CAPSYS PROJECTS ARE NOT LIKELY TO SEE A LOT OF STATE FUNDING.

SO IN THAT, TOO, WE HAD QUESTIONS ON DESIGN CRITERIA, WHETHER WE WERE HAVING TO REPLACE WALLS OR NOT OR IF IT WAS JUST PACKAGE THAT WE PUT IN OR DIFFERENT ALTERNATIVE TO JUST RIPPING IT ALL OUT PUTTING IT ALL IN TOGETHER SO SETH WHERE ARE WE AT ON THAT I MEAN IF WE DON'T COME UP WITH FUNDING THERE STILL WE HAVE STILL ISSUES WITH IN THOSE ROADWAYS IS THAT CORRECT THAT'S MY RECEIVERS AND THANK YOU FOR THAT QUESTION THE PARK AVENUE IS ONE PART OF THE

There's concern for flooding in the Freeman Street area, that low-lying area. We've had to evacuate that in past floods. There's also an area next to a museum that floods when the tide is high and there's heavy flow in the creek. There's also the retaining wall concern, and it's really high flows, Granted, the flows that we've noted in like 2018, 2019, we had some pretty high flows through the creek. Those were like 25% of what that creed can really creak yeah sorry about the technical term there part of that is is looking at what projects are already because there's a lot of really important infrastructure there's and there's emergency access. So yes, we want to prioritize what to spend money on the person there. It's a retaining wall or or flooded, flood hardening in another area.

So yeah, I think I think that we're coming down to that point where we're going to have to really think about prioritization, what we need to get done. And and then there's a lot of stuff we want to get done and that's going to have to

state turns around whatever mayor severson has an example there on park avenue there's a the sewer there is old corrugated metal sewer it's in really bad shape previously we had thought about doing an open trench we had a trench open the road cut down dig down to the pipe and replace it now trenchless technology has come a long way if you remember that and showed the council they're now starting to do corrugated metal pipes with that product and having success so we've started to look at using trenchless methods there one of our top expenses for any pipe removal and replacement project is the pavement or the asphalt cost to go back and if we can avoid that by going in a manhole and slip line having to rip up a bunch of extra stuff. Yeah.

Thank you. Okay. So, unless I hear any objection, we'll continue that and we'll just revise the ask to the remaining gap for that project. The next 2 items number 4 and 5 are both water main replacements. I'll talk about those 2 together as those are the 2 that are kind of tied or were tied. We were expecting the Viaduct project to happen potentially as part of that project had they. lifted the pavement, repaired the bridge structure, and or replaced it in many places. We thought we were going to have an opportunity to not deal with the expensive part, as Seth just indicated, the pavement, Tear up and replacement and as you may or may not have seen has revised the scope of that project. The currently funded portions are a much reduced scope from what was previously thought last year. They're going to do some repair. They're going to do. Some stabilization, and they're going to replace some covert, but nothing that's going to provide the opportunity for us to not have to dig up pavement or or that sort of operation in order to capitalize for these water mains. So, in talking with the water division manager. We think the best way to approach these two items for this year is to instead ask for design funding to allow us to design projects to replace those similar to what Seth has been doing with the wastewater lines where he's done it in phases because that line is in the same area. And by having the design, then we can start to cost out and do smaller pieces even if DOT does not do the project that they're slated to do.

some point and we still hope they do well i think we're going to have a have a larger talk with our state representation and dot because they changed up how they're managing capital projects in the state they put a single director in charge of all capital projects i'm afraid that they're going to start um haggling over funds to get tongas avenue in place and done we need to figure out a way to hold her feet to the fire on that in regards to a good plan that's achievable. And I don't think we need it over 10 years. We got to get that down in five years or something. We just can't afford to do that with our commerce over that period of time.

I agree Mr. Mayor, and when we get to it, one of the new recommended policy items that I would suggest that we include on this is advocacy for the viaduct project specifically for the pedestrian improvements and the viaduct replacement. But that being said for this year, I think our best potential is to try to get design money to get these other 2 projects designed the water line replacements. again so if we can't get our way then we at least have a design and even if we do get our way we still got the design and then it could be used in that project so my question is the design going to be acceptable to dot so if we design it then they come in and they touch it they're going to do their own design to put it back in right so I just would worry about continuing to wait for them to come through because we've seen them time after time not complete the project. And those water lines continue to get worse and worse. Mr. Kleiner can come up and speak to that if you like, but the hangers underneath are exposed underwater at high tide. The pipe is ductile iron. It's exposed underwater at high tide, and it's just continuing to get in worse and worse shape.

I understand we need to get those.

I don't think that it's the best use of funds potentially if we design something and then they come design something else and build over top of it. But it's the only way that we can try to ensure that we maintain that infrastructure in the meantime, until they give us a solid. Yes, we're moving forward, so that would reduce those 2 projects to about 25% of last year's ask on each 1. so around 875,000 dollars for design funding is what we would ask for. Number six is Beaver Falls powerhouse switchgear. And that item was a $750,000 ask, I believe. Ultimately, we ended up funding that with KPU money. We funded that locally. And the design has been done. And so that specific project will come off the list. There's no reason to continue it. We've already done it. We do have a recommended new candidate project that we'll cover in a minute, which is the next phase of that same switchgear project. Continuing on last year's number seven was Ketchikan International Airport power upgrades. It was a $750,000 ask. We have $363,000 in local funds committed and $1,200,000 federal CDS that's pending. So we've requested that in this last year's CDS fund allocation, and we're waiting to hear whether we receive that or not this year.

Are we doing that through AEA? Or the Alaska power group? Or?

I don't think so.

No, I'm there. Council people. No, we're not doing that through the ADA. We're doing it through our general revenue bonds. But for for that, the seat, that's the airport, the airport. Yeah, the airport, the CBS covers 1.3 million. And the total pot of money is only about 1.5 1

dollars would be impacted by the general money thank you you might as well stay for a minute on robert um a lot of like you you had noted in your comments to me just for the council's purpose something about cable cost and may not be eligible can you explain that say again the pre-award cable cost oh yes for the because we have to order the submarine cable so far in advance

When you buy something in advance of a federal grant or award, sometimes they disallow that. So you'd have to go to the grant person at the time of the award and request that they allowed it and say, hey, we have to purchase this in advance. And sometimes they're very understanding. Other times they may just say, no, I'm sorry, this was purchased or uncovered prior to the award, so it's not covered. and put that up here for bid fairly soon. Hopefully I've already talked to the project manager and we would only pay for that after delivery and installation. So we're trying to do everything we can to move it under the umbrella of that, but there's no guarantee. Okay.

1 of the keys to that is that we'll make sure we follow our procurement methods, but we'll also look at the federal procurement requirements for that purchase because. The only way it would be approved after the fact is if it met the procurement requirements. So we'll, we'll be following those as we go along through that project. Catch Can Lake Utilities is the next update, and this one's also a status update. Robert, I'm just going to let you talk through that one.

Yeah, Catch Can Lake, that's one of our dams that we have up there, and there is currently no monitoring. The monitoring up there, there's no power to it, and so what we wanted to do for a long time is run power up the road there. and provide power so we can have the cameras, the monitoring, and everything else to provide safety to the public because something happens up there, the flood zone is a direct impact to our customers. So we applied for a CVS grant. 4.07 yes and we applied for cds grant uh we're we're in the running for two million dollars of it to bring that off our rate payers that would leave the rest to either pay out of general revenue funds look for more funding or go for an ada loan so this line would come off the existing power lines

up by the landfill and then run up through Granite Basin to this particular area.

Yeah, we applied for the whole $4 million and after we applied for the grant, they only awarded us $2 million and that will get us the construction of the PVC pipe and everything going all the way up the hill. That's correct.

So this is going to be an underground system? Yes, yeah, it would be underground. Um, yeah, because that that grant basins all rock. Yeah. So it's all blasting and printing. Is there is there any option to do it overhead? Because it's not a. A large run and yeah, I don't know.

I understand, but the, the engineering is already complete on that and the engineering was done for underground run up there. Yeah, I. mean if you were to do it overhead what do you think it would run oh yeah i'd have to i'd have to get the cost estimates for that um there but i don't have those in hand or i can't just shoot off my hip or something like that but i can say that you're blasting foams in and then bringing wire which isn't as much as pinching the whole thing and rock yeah i mean it's all rock yeah

And that you said awarded, Robert, that's another pending CDS request, right? Yes. It has not been.

It's been awarded as pending award.

Okay. It was on Murkowski's list, but it hasn't been awarded.

That's correct. We're hoping it moves through the legislative process. Hopefully we'll hear something by the end of the year and maybe awarded by February. Okay.

president has to sign it so right find out okay thank you thank you so the plan with that one those last two is to continue them on the list for now until something is secured and final because right now they're still pending the next item nine item nine is spruce mill promenade as i mentioned um that match amount increased due to the just the time that's been since it was really originally costed out and um we've been running into some troubles with permitting or uh easements with the federal government surprise surprise as part of that project goes across federal property um and have we that coming out of cpb then Seth, do you remember where that was coming from?

Yeah. Mayor Severson, the local match, that's correct. Currently, we have planned to use CPV funding for the local match. If we were able to obtain outside funding for that, then we can turn that CPV funding to other local projects for it. But if we don't

And so, on that 1, specifically, the recommendation would be that we increase our ask from the 2.7M, 2.4M that we asked for last year up to the 3.13M. So, in a year, I'm sorry the years increased by. I'm not sure what the timeframe was from when it increased. I don't know when the original cost estimates were given, but. I don't think that was all just in this last year. Was it Seth?

Um, from sorry, mayor Sievertson manager hope. That's from last year's ask is, is what we're increasing and I really hope that it's not more. Okay, probably.

Yeah, they need to get off. They need to get the project underway and I understand federal government. The fish and game have a facility there that we have to get right away through.

And we're working with to try to get them to engage on that or.

Right yeah, at this point, I think that strategy is that the state governments. Maybe a higher power to view a federal government and we are at the local level. Okay. I also think we could recommend. Us also engaging our federal delegation delegation.

Christmas tree.

Hurry up and wait next item is in our station to replacements. And I'm going to ask the fire chief to come off and give you the update on that.

Status good evening, mayor and counsel. As, you know, we have a C. I. P. M. similar to the same match that was used to build Station 1 and the library. Station 1, Bond, THON BUT IN TALKING WITH THE MAYOR WHO BRINGS BERT STEDMAN AROUND WHEN HE'S IN TOWN I THINK LAST YEAR IT WAS APPROVED BUT NOT FUNDED RIGHT CORRECT SO HIS PLAN TO DO THIS WAS APPROVED AND NOT FUNDED SO I TALKED WITH THE MANAGER Um, and the consensus, I guess, is we should keep it on there. Or the off chance that. Senator Stedman allows that 5050 match and then we could start. Looking toward being ready to enter into that. Potential building at a 50% savings.

Thank you. Can we ask questions at this time?

Could you, whoever, just update us on, maybe elaborate on the need of why we would need to, I mean, can you just, obviously the building has a list of issues that are very serious, I'd imagine. Can you just update the public on that?

So if you think about a fire station, it's our folks' home. If a fireman works 21 years for the city, he lives in a fire station for seven of those years. he eats there, he sleeps there, that's his home. So you have to sort of look at that different than a lot of other buildings within the city. There's OSHA standards, there's NFPA recommendations, there's cancer prevention standards. There's a lot of standards that fall in that are continually updating that we need to try to comply with. And I think if you'll give me just a that firehouse is deteriorating pretty rapidly. If you walk into the bathroom and the firehouse, we have a four by four sheet of diamond plate covering a hole in the bathroom because the sewer backs up. So the raw sewer backs up so often in the showers that we have to go down and run that raw sewage out, right? So that enters in, when my folks come back and have been exposed to blood or a fire or cancer, they need to take a shower, right? we need to ensure that that shower is actually a shower that we can use. We lost a $100,000 air compressor, which we had to rebuy because of the wiring running underneath the building shorted out because of the amount of decay that's occurring under the building and the fact that they used, what type of pipes did we use back then that the salt water doesn't like? Was it iron?

Ductile iron.

Ductile iron.

so we're continually having problems where sus folks are scoping our drains and trying to look how the water's flowing so it this project mr mayor has been on council member gas spent on the book since i was the fire chief here we actually had engaged a local engineer and we had designed all the upgrades that were needed to be done to to try to bring it up to current standards the diamond plate's been on the floor there since i was here The walls have water that leaks through the walls and the fronts of them would need to be replaced to make it watertight again. I assume that probably hasn't changed because it looks the same from the outside. There's drainage issues with the floor drains inside the facility. When the chief talks about OSHA and NFPA standards, you have a garage right next to your living space and a single doorway between the two. Diesel exhaust is very carcinogenic, and current standards require that you have two doorways between any living space and the truck bays, for example. There's not an adequate area for decontamination of PPE and bloodborne pathogens, as he mentioned. All of these things have been there for at least 10 years, and it was several years overdue for an upgrade renovation or replacement again back when I was the fire chief. So. A lot of issues, but the chief will have a more detailed report.

That's part of what you're building currently with the contract that's out there was the plan to tear the building down and rebuild in the same location.

couple things um I'm gonna rely completely on what the engineers say if the engineers say the six million dollar remodel gets you where you to me or three million dollar absolutely we're going to do that I I'm going to link to what they say the second thing is is um but we're getting station three which is a shoreline station doing that puts every city resident within 1.5 miles of a fire station. That's a big deal for our insurance ratings. And I can give you an example. We found out some people at Shoreline paying, I think we saved them, I would say, $900 a year on their insurance rates because they were paying the old Shoreline insurance rate. We're a 2 and a 2Y now. So if you live within you live within that distance of the firehouse, you should be paying a much reduced home insurance rate. In the fall this year, we're going to go door to door and shoreline and engage every resident out there and say, hey, look, call your insurance agent because we're in 2 and 2Y ISO rating. That's what your insurance will be paying. And I think people would see a good thing. But one thing that could If you had to move any fire station, you would move Station 3 a little bit farther to the north, but we're encompassing the majority of our residents with 1.5 miles of a fire station right now.

And if you could do it, you would put the ladder truck at Station 2 to get ideal coverage for your ladder, credit for your ladder truck. That is correct. I can't really spoil my plans. They won't fit in Station 2.

sorry yeah uh thank you your honor um thanks for being here as well and you spoke to this a little bit just in a comment you made a moment ago about you know studies come back and you find that this project would be executed at a much smaller cost and of course that's the way that we could proceed i just wondered about this this current ask of 15 million dollars whether that was pinned to a sort of blanket estimate of what a pedal rebuild might cost and if so whether that was tracking with current Costs or projecting for costs as they might be. I know it's impossible to predict, but with respect to inflation and so on, if we're talking about rolling over a bond payment for construction that might begin in 203031. I'm just kind of curious as to how we landed on this number and whether it's sufficient to the cause.

So I based that estimate off. Similarly built sized fire stations that were being built new in the lower 48 and then I added the Alaska premium in Nebraska. You can build a replacement firehouse. million that would really meet our needs here but I think you pretty much have to estimate almost double for things to be built in Alaska and then also we're not really sure what prep work will need to be done to the site I mean if we could wipe it clean and start building up from the concrete there that's great but if we're going to have to excavate down and how we do that, then bring in rock, the cost substantially goes up.

I think it's an okay cost, but I'm always shocked when I get costs on projects. So that particular lot, you're probably going to have to go into the ground because saltwater runs in under that lot from the ocean in that area. It's very coarse. And then there's a huge electrolysis issue in that particular area. And Dr. Ryan and I ran the hydrant alongside. We've gone in eight years from the original building. So there's some problems there that you'd have to hear.

Yeah, and it was my understanding from talking to legacy firemen that the day they drove the last nail on that firehouse, the apparatus phase wouldn't drain properly. It's just continued to get worse.

Thank you.

all right next item is stedman street restrooms is what it was labeled last year 1.9 million dollar ask since then that's the restroom that was identified as needing to or being directed to move to creek street so we need to update the the language on that if we still want to continue to carry that item forward but other than that we don't have any new estimates or any updates to that item

So, and in caps this, when the state legislature looks like, they don't look at the city in a real separately look at overall projects. Right? So, we usually try to move the top 3 forward. It's usually 1 from each community to start with. And our recommendation at this time would be wastewater. What's the number 1 recommendation. probably wastewater still it's the most immediate yeah i think the order is still sensitive yeah so we'll pick our priority in that manner and then they put the language together and take it to the state unfortunately the way the state situation is now they fund the operating budget first whenever leftover goes in the capital and they don't

So, after after the 1st, couple of items, the rest are included in there as the jurisdiction priorities, but they don't make it into the caps list.

Generally what happened with that is sometimes the state ends up with some surplus money that project fits that size. So it's good to have them in the booklet. Yes, sir.

so the next item is the port of ketchikan electric electrification feasibility study wow we did complete the feasibility study in 2026 and uh robert is recommending that we move this item Forward, but change it to be for the plan specification estimate phase of the project. Just the next phase of the project design. Which has approximately the same cost. So, okay. That is all of last year's items, the updates on those and I think I have the information I need if we can go to the next slide.

Well, some of that design. for the portal identification.

I have to look at whether it, I suppose it depends on whether we can tie it directly to I think we could see the money says that is what supports the ship.

Yes.

And it seems like it could, it seems like it wasn't that the plan all along is there was all going to be from grants and grants and told us to use funds for this project in our last meeting neighbor.

Saying, please, and we did receive a grant from the state of Alaska. Funding from the state of Alaska here in regards to that.

I do believe that's the plan to. And if we can't get the fund, the funding that we can't get, we would use funds. So the problem is funds obviously aren't unlimited. We have way more projects that we want to use for for those funds than.

Well, 1 of the things we've always put in there to maintain the CBU funding, right?

Yes, sir. And that is still a recommendation.

I wonder if we could have a conversation with the state about raising that because it's been sent to Parnell administration at that rate with step. And things have changed dramatically over the years in regards to costs associated. With how we use those funds. But that's something that we should consider in a conversation with those that we need to talk about. Yes.

Maybe I'm way on my field here, but isn't this you're talking about the state portion isn't this from the local portion that we get that this was built on all along for this project. Yeah.

Yeah. But the state ports, we always say, we want them to continue the program. Right? So that's a state program. They get 34 something, whatever it is, for passenger and then they disperse it to the first seven ports of call and they keep a portion of it. But that amount they charge hasn't changed since the Parnell administration from what I understand. There might be a time, you know, just Uh, inflation is eating that up and it's not going to as far as it used to go in regards to. Funding projects that support the ships in the communities. When you put in filing infrastructure, water or. Let's go with the structure that cost.

You're thinking ahead of taxes.

Yeah, I agree. And I'm all in favor of increasing it every penny we can out of those people. But my understanding was this comes from the local charge that we've been increasing on them. But I'm getting off in the weeds here. But I think we're done. Yeah. And I do think even those in favor of this project have been resolute from the beginning and still that whatever happens on this, not a penny is going to come from our general fund. And I I just want to reiterate that. Yep, that's what thanks.

So, the, I did ask department has to submit any new candidate projects that they felt might warrant consideration to receive 5. Uh, items by proposals, a total of 60Million additional dollars. And 19Million dollars in state ask. and they're listed there, but I actually have them spelled out on the following slide in a little more detail. So if we can go next slide. As I go into these, I would say we already have a fairly long list. I think we've taken one or maybe two of the last year's 12 off. So I don't know that we would want to extend that significantly, but if you guys, I wanted to share these with you regardless. And if you see one that you think we should consider moving up, please let me know. They're all very valid requests, but the first one is Ketchikan Lakes Dam safety improvements, low-level outlet replacement, high-hazard dam. We do that upstream of Bear Valley. It is upstream of Bear Valley and downtown. We have $5 million in the draft CIP, and state funds could help us to reach that sooner. Next one that was submitted was a Bailey generator replacement. or feasibility design and permitting phase, $4 million of an estimated total $45 million cost. The next one would be the Port West substation restoration. It's an out of service substation that electric is looking at refurbishing and returning the ability to transfer load and unload other circuits. And they have funded design already. The next one that was submitted was a new third UV reactor and reprogramming. Anticipated EPA UV disinfection requirements are going to require additional energy from our two existing UV reactors, and we're going to need a third one. And I would say if we were going to move one forward, I would probably consider moving that one up in the list of the five that are here.

When would that, when are they talking about meeting that third? John, do you have any information on when we might have to have that third?

Mayor and council. No, there's no timeline. It's just anticipation. There's really issue requirements. you have further information that $500,000 was just a discussion item. And I believe there's a document coming. Perhaps a $150,000 less. Basically, what it and the equipment that we have can have its programming modified somewhat, but there's also a likely possibility that sometime in the fairly near future that we'll need a third UVA reactor. Unfortunately, there is a Seattle is replacing some of their units now, and the prices that they're quoting are much less than we paid when we bought our first, I think, units. So the competition is actually making a difference.

Thank you, John.

The last item that was submitted was beaver falls substation refurbishment and as you might recall, we had that on last year's we did the design and so this would be related to construction.

And estimated 2.4Million dollars.

anyone have any thoughts on any of those items that you care to share or are you happy with what we had from last year being carried forward yeah i think the reality of getting funding is very slim but i think that the the reality of it those are the projects that will make a difference here

About moving the new third UVF that's has been put up.

Like we did take away two projects.

Going down.

Yes, Abby.

I agree with Councilmember Gage on that. I also think we should be taking off number 11 Stedman Street restrooms. I thought we've had many conversations here that CPP funds, it doesn't need to cost $1.9 million. There's other options that are less than $50,000 and you could get triple what you propose for 1.9. So I think we need to get that off the list. We need to stop asking for money and just get the project done.

And I'll be bringing something back on exactly that. That's great news.

So I would like to take that off. I don't know if we need four hands or whatever, but... Yeah, four hands.

sure yes okay perfect my bathroom man you didn't give me a fourth hand i want a two million dollar potty it better be cold get him a seat okay is there general interest in moving up the uv item yes but what is the timeline on that if we're thinking

That we're going to have to comply.

You just said there wasn't 1, but there isn't 1 right now.

It's just looking ahead and the costs are lower right now. So. It's going to be down towards the bottom, I think of the list, like, maybe the last item even. Yeah, yes.

what does it hurt to put it on the list yeah it doesn't hurt to put it on the list i mean it never hurts to ask but also i appreciate us thinking ahead and looking at costs instead of having to wait to the last minute when we're forced to do it in a very short time frame like we just had a discussion for an hour about so i say put it on there maybe we get a little bit of money and if it's cheaper right now let's stop doing what we've been doing every other time we have a project here. So I think we should put it on us.

So we did take two off and we've put one on with the third UV. Would the council be interested in putting the Beaver Falls switch gear back on or continuing that one on as well? Just the new phase? Okay.

That was kind of falling apart too.

Not falling apart, but they're ancient.

So that'll maintain 12 submissions from us. Yep. ALL RIGHT. SO POLICY IS THE NEXT DISCUSSION ITEM. AND ON THE JOINT RESOLUTION THAT WAS PRESENTED LAST YEAR, THERE WERE EIGHT, I BELIEVE, ITEMS ON THERE FOR POLICY. FIVE OF THOSE ORIGINATED IN The city, and those are the items in the left column of your of your slide. The other 3 were submitted by the borough. My suggestion would be that. If the borough wants to include those again that they forward them. For us, I think the ones on the left are all still valid requests. And if any council has any input on any of those for any refinement of any of the items, I'd love to hear that, but.

So when we talk about pedestrian safety and long term replacement, are we talking about lighting and stuff? Or are we talking about? Is that a combination of the state TOT set?

Do you recall what the pedestrian safety portion of the? That priority was were you involved in that one?

council member gate you repeat the same so on the tongas avenue water they are now the yeah the pedestrian safety um and long-term replacement what exactly is that anything so they they've state has broken that into three components uh the first component is pavement restoration and that includes some sidewalk improvements as well because that section of Tongass in particular is older and non-compliant. The second part of the DOT project two is the structural repairs to the bridge. I don't think there's any AD improvements specifically in that section because it's mainly bridge repairs underneath, but I could be wrong. And the third section's replacing the Jim Creek pacific and that does have some some wheelchair ramps and ada improvements there that would be done or that i believe would be included as part of that project so there's an open house coming up september 29th at the library to go over that definitely encourage you guys to representatives will be down here and they'll have more information on the project that they need and courage to do these projects and more because Tongass is such an important corridor for us and they kind of drag their feet.

If we made any progress with DOT and putting the lighting at the stop signs, the actual letting people know that with low vision, the sounding that it's safe to walk because that is a requirement. And under the federal law, it is doesn't matter how many people you have in your community, even if it's one person. And that was said to me by a DOT guy out of D.C. So I would strongly suggest that that get pushed because they replaced the lights at Tongass, but they did not put them in. There's none at the light by Washington Street. and there's literally we have how many street lights um and i mean i will say uh the um blinking yellow lights at the crosswalk they maybe they could bring down the blinking a little bit but i will say that that's a definite improvement in making sure that people are seen um i know that in some communities in the lower 48 when someone steps into the pathway It automatically come on, which could. Be, um, I don't know if that's something that they could look into so that not everyone pushes the button. I noticed that the, uh, you have to walk clear over. And so then people are just ignore it.

Yeah.

And it is a very dark, especially in the winter. Um. Yeah, honestly, I think there should be a light there.

So I'm looking at the policy request from last year, the statement, and it's talking about those push button lights. It's talking about ADA improvements. What I'm suggesting that we do is actually expand that one slightly and also include the viaduct repairs, essentially encouraging DOT to do all the things they should be doing for the main highway through town.

Yeah, well, they, they told us that it's right now at 11, 4 drops to a level 3. we're doing lane closures and weight restrictions.

Yeah, we don't want that to happen.

Yes, Abby.

On the funding continuation, does that talk about. Um, like, asking for support of the principle or, or, or. Terminal there, or is it just say, hey, keep funding because if it just says a general funding, I would like to put a little emphasis of encouragement to continue working through the principle. Terminal since that has the biggest impact for our community. So, I don't know what I know. You seem to have a different document there, but and then I also agree with the tax program is encouraging that to continue, but also in a. A yearly increase to you can't do, so it has to be planned, but finding some formula that we can continue to grow that as these visitors enter state.

Okay, I so I have last year's priorities document pulled up. I just looked at and it did not have. I don't see any way Prince Rupert listed on here, but I have that noted and we'll see if we can add that content in. And also I've noted the CPV request.

Yeah, the terminal of Prince Rupert's been a big topic, but in the most part, all of us want it back.

Okay.

So unless anyone has anything else on those original items, there were a couple of policy suggestions.

Or if we can go to the next slide.

OUR ELECTRIC DIVISION MANAGER IS VERY GOOD AT LOOKING AT THESE THINGS AND KIND OF TRYING TO GO IN A DIRECTION I'VE BEEN REALLY IMPRESSED WITH HIS FORWARD THINKING, AND I HOPE THAT YOU ALL ARE AS WELL. SO HE SUBMITTED SEVERAL ITEMS HERE THAT I'D LIKE YOU TO THINK ABOUT AND SEE IF YOU HAVE ANY INPUT ON. NUMBER ONE IS FULL STATE CAPITALIZATION OF THE AEA RENEWABLE ENERGY FUND. THIS WOULD BE AN AD. OUR SYLVIS HYDRO APPLICATION IS UNDER THAT FUNDING. It will be ranked for winter of 2026, but those grants will only pay if the legislature continues to appropriate funds to the program. The next one is continued state support for SEPA's capital program. Half of the energy that SEPA, half of their energy that we use is from SEPA at 7.3 cents. And due to limitations on transfer capacity, they spill approximately 45 gigawatt hours per year. They're building an additional substation and a third TIEE unit. And so continuing to improve SEPA's generation and transmission capability directly improves our ability to keep our rates low. The next item submitted is AEA power project fund recapitalization. We have lots of upcoming generation and substation projects that we're going to need to take care of as we continue to maintain our infrastructure. And the BPF loans are the lowest cost debt path available when we unfortunately have to pay back the money instead of getting free money. And then there is one more slide. And the fourth item that was submitted is the request timely AEA pass-through of federal grid resilience funds. This is formula funding for distribution hardening and AP is eligible in future rounds. We want to make sure that that's passed through timely when it is awarded. Did I capture those, Robert, or did I miss anything? OK. The one thing I'll say on these is three of the four relate to AEA. So we could maybe do some sort of a one statement that relates to all three AEA items, if council interested in that. And then any thoughts on the SEPA capital program? Should we include that as an additional policy recommendation? Policy issue that we're concerned with or do we want to leave that one?

We're so interconnected you almost have to have it. I think in order to. We are growing need because we are growing by one 2% a year or something like that. 3% load growth. And when the heat pump started coming on, it's going to grow immensely. And if we get any of these other projects like the Coast Guard or more housing or something like that come to us, it's going to be necessary. And anything they can get for grants is less money they have to figure out to put in a rate structure. I think it's worthwhile to the community to support it.

Doesn't it? It also brings down the cost for the Wrangell and Petersburg, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Next slide, please. Oh, never mind, you're already on. So, I think this is the last slide, and that's just a overview of the remaining timeline. So today we've talked about these items. I think I have the information I need to. To work with the other managers to put together a joint resolution with the items that you're interested in the borough assembly considers this on the 8th with next Tuesday. I'm sure when the Saxon city council considers it, but I do know that. September 17th is when we might bring it back to the council here or October 1st is going to kind of depend on how quickly the borough. Does their component and we can meet with the other managers. So either of those will be fine. We'll still be on timeline to have this submitted into the caps this list by November, December timeframe. So. And that is the last slide, unless there's any final thoughts or discussion for me on these items.

Yeah, I'd like to go back to policy issues and the tax program continuation. I guess I have a question. How did they come up with the formula to give us the amount that we receive? Is there a document somewhere that I could. How the, how the formula happens, how they give it, you know, there are portion that we get from the state.

I can find where that's at.

That was a negotiated number. And the cruise industry balked at that, and they were starting to draw ships away from ports and doing things. And that was at Sea Trade in Florida. Governor Parnell flew back. I was there. And they negotiated it down to the 35 whatever, whatever the number is now. So that was through a negotiated process.

35 is what makes sense that it would be now if it goes to the first seven courts, but that wouldn't leave any money for the state because it's $5 per passenger. I think the question is, how was that decided? Where does that come from? Am I hearing you correctly?

Why hasn't it gone up? And it's never increased. And so I'd like to, as I understand the CPV, the rest of the state gets a portion of that money as well, not just the southeast. communities that receive the most cruise ships. I could be wrong. Is that how that works? Do you know, Abby? It's the first seven port calls. The first seven port calls.

So it doesn't matter if it's Whittier, Seward, Anchorage, any southeast, it goes to the first seven. So ships that come from Japan, like Anchorage would get it because they go to Anchorage and Seward, Kodiak. There's all these other, so it's the first seven of whatever the voyage is, but most.

I think the seven are here in Southeast.

It's every itinerary.

Because Anchorage doesn't get it.

Every itinerary is different. They do get a little bit.

They got the money out of Ocean Ranger money, but I don't think the BB funds are. So the state carry the pocket and the first seven ports get their five bucks.

I think it would be important for us to really I have a thorough understanding of that. I just think that when we talk about wanting to get more funds from the cruise industry and the states handling this money, they should be advocating for us. I mean, we're trying to get more money from the cruise industry by billing all these things. Why hasn't our portion increased? Why haven't they gone after that? It benefits the entire state, really. So I think I'm hoping that when this comes up as a policy issue, whoever is representing us will maybe ask some of those questions. Maybe the other communities have the same issues. I'm thinking they probably do, especially as we keep increasing the numbers and it's costing us more money. We should be getting a better portion or a bigger portion.

I'll get that answer, though, on where it's coming from and what exactly defines that.

Thank you. Right tag something onto that too. Yeah. Could we also get an updated. Reminder documentation, whatever on the cities. What do we call it? The head tax of that's on a, that's on a continued increase, but just where we are with that. And when the. What do we do? I think we did a 5 year thing, maybe just an update of where we are when the next increase is. And then we need to start looking at our increases in the future on that too.

I did 15% over 3 years because I couldn't get you guys to vote for 5. We'll need to review this upcoming summer to hit deadlines.

Anything else? It's got a motion to come out of work session.

Yeah, it's fine. I move the City Council exit work session and convene a regular session.

Second. Been moved and seconded. Any discussion?

And then, yes. And again, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

So, that brings it down to item 8 vouchers and we have done mandatory for what do you have for us?

So, white managers report tonight Mr. man, I actually don't have anything additional that.

Um.

okay so that's good any uh council committee reports can we get back to managers i got some questions here um i was curious uh through the mayor for the manager how often do we inspect creek street walkway structures like do we do a yearly inspection do we check the structure do we just wait until something fails like what is that procedure that we have

Thank you, Council Member Bradbury. Similar to the regular bridges, the vehicle bridges that we have throughout town, we have 17. Those are on a two-year inspection schedule per federal law. So we follow that for the Creek Street pedestrian bridge as well at a minimum. But I can say that we do an annual go-through for the boards, you know, Recently, I've seen some concern about the structural condition of the pedestrian walkway nearest Good Fortune Restaurant on Creek Street, so we're putting a plan together to go ahead and inspect that sooner. But as far as I know, there's no structural defects that have been reported. It's just a concern that there's a lot of people on that bridge, and is it safe? And I can say it is safe, but we're going to follow up with an inspection. Yes, Abby, when you say the pedestrian bridge, obviously there's that major 1 that crosses, but do we inspect like, the walk was a lot of Greek street as a pedestrian bridge because it's all wouldn't highly down to bedrock. Yes, we expect the whole thing all the creature.

Is there ever been a legal weight limit? Like, I mean, our bridges have them. Does any of that. Or is it just a wait and see?

So we have to follow the minimum pedestrian loading car by building code, but it's not rated for vehicles at all. It's pedestrian only. So basically in the design, you have to figure that that thing is completely full of people and snow load and make it structurally strong. Street is structurally stable. We are watching it. But it is a wood structure in a marine environment. So it is challenging and expensive.

And then my next question is, well, just kidding. You told me bathrooms are coming soon. Thank you on that. Yeah, I just have that. I'll do others in the next portion.

Anybody else? Should be noted there is a press release that says that the federal government for 441Million. I think it was into the Alaska Marine highway system. And for the 1st time, they put 136 of that into operations. I think it was, or something like that. So, um, kind of bolster that they're rebuilding some terminal. Smaller terminal, so they can take the main liner. So they just don't say on by and upgrades the ships. I think so.

I would like to see their investment in the room that we system.

Okay.

City clerk file, I just wanted to let people know that they can apply for an absentee by mail ballot available to the clerk's office or on the city's website as we get closer to coming up. And then we will be moving the 1st meeting in January to the fire station, because we will be moving forward with the council chamber upgrades. Right after the last budget meeting in December, we will remind everyone and we'll get advertising out on that. But just wanted you to be aware of that.

Sounds good. Thank you. So, the attorney. Future agenda item. Go ahead, Abby.

I apologize. I thought this was requested last meeting, but I would like four hands to do an executive session on the Ports and Harbor personnel investigation. As we were directed, we could not talk about a lot of it in public.

We have four hands. One, two, three, four, five. Yeah, we got enough.

Put that on your list, Abner. Yes, sir. All right. Mayor and council. You got another one.

Go right ahead. We earlier in this year talked about the Whitman true up payment. I'm not sure what all we're allowed to talk about in here, but I think that's coming up for discussion or potential discussion for us not to have to. keep that up and i'm wondering if we could possibly before we go into budget session for next year talk about this item i don't know if it has to be an executive session i know the attorney's not here because it does have to do with finances and Contracts and things like that.

But I think the agreement is a public document. So I don't think there's any problem with you talking about it. And of course, if they're spill, then that's displaced sales. And we run and we run Whitman that displaced sales to seep and it falls outside of the power sales agreement because it wasn't one of the legacy hydro plants when we originally signed the power sales agreement. And the power sales agreement came about when the SEPA took over the, the four dam pool divested and SEPA took the Tyee and Swan Lake projects. And so the power sales agreement is what they used to buy the projects. So we guaranteed as a community, everybody signed the document that said, we'll buy power from you first.

When we built Whitman,

We knew it was sold to us as using it just like a diesel. You know, when you were out of power, we could turn on a Whitman, but then it was realized that it has a debt service on it. So we should run it and pay the true up or we put a crew up in so they could do that. I think it is coming up and I think the power sale agreement is. 2032, 2033. Yeah, yeah, roughly. So we continue to have those conversations and I'm trying to push them into an earlier decision.

So, yeah, I would still like to talk about the payment and our legality of having to continue to pay it. under this projected growth of SEPA. I just want to talk about that because that is a significant amount of money that's going away from our citizens for ridiculous reasons. I just want to talk about it. I think it's important if we can save that revenue and then put that into our electrical system, then that's what we need to do. So I would like to talk about it with everything that's lining up and now the policy that we are encouraging.

I can double check with the attorney and either bring it back as a work session or as an executive session, depending on his recommendation.

We can reach out to TEPA and have them bring people in.

I feel like he told me last time we weren't allowed to talk about it here because of financials.

So I just want to make sure. In the appropriate manner. Yes.

Just this is things that have been brought up before in the future agenda, but I guess this is probably the time to bring it up. Abner, a number of things, well, from my end, things that I have interest in that have been brought up for future agendas, some of which were before you got on. some of which were after. So I just wanted to kind of do a little refresher. Earlier in the summer, we had our meeting with CLIA and around that time was when they finalized the MOU agreement, which prior to that, we were kind of told, keep everything CLIA related on hold until we can get this thing through. And shortly after that, when we kind of got the green light on, We wanted to try to do anything the council. Supported to to start kind of simple and I'm sure it won't be that simple, but to start off with that basically to direct staff to put in a request. To. Request permission to put some funds from the cruise lines into our utilities that they affect. At least as a starting point, a bargaining point to try to make some progress on that topic. So, again, that was before you were on. So I just wanted to kind of bring that back to the forefront. Um, and then there's a bunch of other kind of more specific issues that would kind of or requests that would kind of follow that. But I think that would be a good starting point. So I wanted to kind of bring that back up.

I appreciate that. And, uh, we also have a revenue discussion to have. So that's still coming. It's okay. We'll do that as part of the budget. The finance director will be back Monday. 1 of the 1st conversations we'll have all right while we're doing that.

I'd like a refresher on where we are on the app.

advisory board for 88. okay all right so let's bring it to mayor and council comments abby um um i just really would like keep your eyes in you only have a couple more meetings or maybe more um I just really want to reiterate that when we talk about spending money and we're talking about, we constantly say rate payers, rate payers, we need to start coming to the table and being forthright with what it's going to cost to our rate or citizens instead of, Hey guys, let's agree to this amount and then, and not. So I just really want to encourage, we've had this conversation before. Let's bring the full picture when we are needing to decide on funding and all that. bring it right away and not wait for later. I think it just is, we need the full picture. And so I just want to continue to encourage that, especially now that we have a new manager. I don't think I've said it with him in the room. So I just wanted to put that out there.

Thank you.

Jen Lee.

I have nothing.

Judy.

I have nothing.

Dick. Just a comment about talking about the cruise lines and what we'd like for them to pay. I don't think we're going to get very far until we put together a plan for downtown is what we need. Otherwise, we're saying, just give me. So at some point in time, we've got to have this plan that says, I need money for this, this, and this. And then I think we've got a chance to go after them and hold them accountable. Thank you.

Riley? Well, I just think...

I mean, I totally agree, but I feel like we just haven't made any progress on it. And so we've got to get going. And if anyone has specific suggestions on what we want to ask them to pay for, or what have you, let's do that. I just, I think the community desperately needs more input from them. for all these projects for all these rate increases for the continued growing rate increases for our infrastructure that we all talked about we have to start making some progress so let's ask them i mean i do think we're at the point where it it's getting to be ridiculous to think that they shouldn't have to pay for this stuff. And I know there's some rules that kind of help them skirt around it, but we need it. We've given up our town to them and it's crazy that we have this many visitors in our town and yet our town is in the position we're in with closing schools, with jacking rates up through the roof, raising taxes, costs of everything. I kind of feel like the time of playing nice and being subtle is we're past that. So I'm in favor of any way aggressively or not aggressively of getting somewhere started on this. So I just really urge the conversation to get started. It's tough sitting in these seats because individually, we're not really the ones to go out and make these proposals or these policy things but we've got to put full support so i fully put my support on dick's idea on my idea on abby's idea some way to get some more money out of these guys because our town is suffering tremendously and they are profiting tremendously which is great but they're doing it on our infrastructure on our roads on our

FACILITIES THAT ARE DECAYING AND IT'S TIME THAT WE START DEMANDING SOME SOME BUYBACK FROM THEM SO I GUESS THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY THANK YOU UM YEAH I THINK YOUR HONOR I'M SURE I'M NOT THE ONLY COUNCIL MEMBER WHO'S RECEIVED QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE QUESTION REGARDING LIBRARY POWERS THAT'S FORTHCOMING IN OUR NEXT MUNICIPAL ELECTION I'M NOT GOING TO ADVOCATE FOR A POSITION IN THIS CHAMBER BUT I WILL SAY THAT THERE IS A MEMORANDUM ATTACHED TO THIS EVENING'S agenda packet that gives a little more information and I feel like an informed voter makes a stronger decision. So if you're looking for information about library services, you might look at the memorandum attached to today's agenda to consider some of the decisions that are being made right there right now with respect to as council member gas members, school closures, etc. So I just turn the public's attention toward those documents and encourage them to learn as much as they can before they go to the polls.

Thank you. A couple of things I've received some communications. I think you've probably seen some 2 in regards to the state of the buses. In the community of the accusation that there's someone that are. Deteriorating shape, I understand that the emissions are from the date that they were. Put into service, but if there's concerns about that, I think we have a program inspection. Is that correct? I don't know who does that.

Uh, who sort of who signs off on it? Private mechanic sign off on a checklist that we have approved by the police or approved by the police.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. So if there's some of that stuff that's going on that we were hearing about and. Um, it's something that we need to, uh. Look at in regards to those inspections, you know, we pass that along and see if we can get that done. We also had 1 from a. Tour operator that misrepresented themselves, especially in regards to a. Compliant that person would put on the bus without a wheelchair and then couldn't get off the bus anywhere that stop. I think there's a best management practice that we have and I don't know what the bus companies have to sign that or the independent tour operators have to sign that. But. If there is, we got to figure out if there's some. Recourses we have to make sure this isn't how we represent our community.

By law, they should have a common name. They didn't allow him to have his wheelchair with it.

Yeah.

So, right there is a federal violation of the. I think that, like, you know, with the teeth. We need to have some teeth and we need to have some, I need to space them.

Well, I think the only thing that we really have is the fact that we issue permits to get on the dock. If they're not good actors and they're misrepresenting what they're doing, then we have the right to pull that permit, I would imagine, or other disciplinary action that's appropriate, I guess. Yes.

Can we not request or mandate that they be part of the... Tourism.

In order to get their permit. I think we have that power to do that, yes.

Because I'm preparing something to bring to the, put on the agenda after that happens.

Thank you. We do need to look at what the requirements are for the permits we issue, both for buses and vans. Yes. And vans are becoming a real problem because anybody with a dollar can go buy a van and start a tour and there's no consequences. So I think the fees, we need to look at the fees for the vans and anybody that gets a tourism permit of any kind meets the best management practices that's been set up by the Kitts Canyon Visitors Bureau. Just flat out, you either meet them or you don't get a permit.

So currently, They have to pay, it's $30 to engage in business, $50 for every vehicle. They have to be current with their sales tax. They have to have the name and branding on each side of the vehicle and then a vehicle inspection report for every vehicle plus proof of insurance, a million dollars. So if we wanted to add in, I don't even know if we can make them sign up for the Tourism Best Management Program, but we can look into that.

We need to inspect the vans. They don't have their names and phone numbers on the side of half of them.

So if they're just picking them up and taking them like to a tour, like if they're taking them to do the zip lining, then they're not considered a sightseeing vehicle. So then they don't have to have that window sticker on them and the branding.

Abby? Two things on that. We should really change that because definition of sightseeing is more than just that and they'd give it to her. So I think we should look in changing the definition of sightseeing to her or that just item. On the other, saying if we can force them, Juneau currently requires that for their vehicle passes. So I would recommend looking at their, what they have set up for how they legally require that. I also think we should look at that little parking lot at the visitor's center and looking at getting permits or monitoring that a little bit more because it is getting a little out of hand.

Well, at one point we talked about putting a barcode reader on there and they all have a barcode and they pay when they go aboard and then it's a time thing if they stay longer to get more paid. It's just like

So my two cents on this, what happened with that person, I mean, that's a reflection of who we are as a community. So we better just bloody well figure it out, period. And if that means that they don't get to, if they're going to work on our port, make money on our port, Frankly, I don't care what they have to pay at this point. If it means that if they have to pay something for best practices, then they should, because we're covering everything else, but how they conduct themselves in our community. And most of the time, many of them, I'm not saying all of them, but they make their money and they leave here. So I'm sorry. I don't feel sorry for them one bloody bit. I just don't. I mean, you're going to work here. You're going to conduct yourself in a professional way. And if you can't do that, then. Take your little van and go home. Done with it. I can't imagine being in a wheelchair, being in a bus, not being able to get off the bus.

We'll bring this back in the night.

I mean, this is not acceptable. We just sit and let it go. I mean, I can't get over that.

And I think that's why the advisory board with people with ADA, and they all kind of couldn't, because there's some things getting missed big time.

All right, anybody else anybody else weigh in on. Stir the Bob started in motion.

To turn off the microphone.