City and Borough Assembly - Regular Meeting

Holly, we good to go on your side? Awesome. And Katie, one more radio check before we get going just to make sure we got you. Perfect, thank you. All right, once again, welcome everybody. I will call to order the regularly scheduled meeting of Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. Please join me for a flag salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The Assembly of the City and Borough of Sitka would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional First People of Sitka. With gratitude, we proceed on Tlingit Aani. Polly, roll call, please.

Mayor Isenbaez?

Present.

Mr. Pike?

Here.

Ms. Carlson? Here. Ms. Friely?

Here.

Mr. Christensen? Here. Mr. Moser?

Here.

And Mr. Saleem?

Here. Thank you. Any correspondence or agenda changes this evening? Seeing none, we do have a ceremonial matter tonight, a service award. Tim, you have any idea who this is for? I couldn't tell you. As many of you know, Tim Pike has resigned from his assembly service. We're really sad to see him go. Let me read this first and then I'll have a couple more words on the microphone, I guess. So a service award is hereby awarded to Timothy Pike. On behalf of the citizens of Sitka, we hereby express our sincere appreciation to Timothy Pike for his diligence, dedication, and community service during his tenure as assembly member, serving the city and borough of Sitka from 2022 to 2026. Signed and dated today by myself. we'll grab the uh handheld mic um tim i'm sure you'll want to say a few words and we'll want to get some pictures and all that too uh but before we do that tim just wanted to say it's been an honor to work with you um it's kind of been a full circle moment for myself, right? Tim was one of a very influential teacher for me back in high school. I think that ages him more than me, something like that. But then to see that come full circle to where now Tim who helped shape me is now on my assembly working as my deputy. That was a really, really cool Sitka moment, right? Where you know, you never know the kid in your classroom who's going to become the next leader of whatever in the community. If you ask Tim, I'm sure the next leader of the community would not have been myself. You can ask probably any of my teachers and that would have not been the career path that they would have gone down. But Tim, this has been very special to me. I really do appreciate your steady, calm leadership. I've seen that multiple times over and over and over again in different instances and circumstances. So, That voice, that presence is going to be missed, and I'll do my best to try and continue it. So thank you.

Thank you.

I mean... I think you're supposed to say it's been your honor to represent the community, but it really has been. It really is an honor to be asked by the community to speak for them and to answer the questions that come in front of us and to be part of this assembly and this city. This city is filled with amazing people and amazing people that work for the city and get things done, and it's been an honor and a pleasure to be part of it. Yes, Stephen, it has been strange having my former student sit next to me as the mayor, but I think you'd be surprised. I think it isn't that I saw you as mayor, but as a teacher, I've learned that you can't always see the future for people and that a lot of people have become some pretty amazing people that I've been able to work with, and you're one of them. And there's a few other people that have, you know, that are in positions of leadership that we're students that sit guy too. So thank you very much and thank you for this honor.

Thanks, Tim. Moving on to special reports this evening. We do have some scheduled special reports. We will start this evening with Tribal Council and Yeti Kuka. Welcome.

I'd like to begin just by thanking Mr. Pike for his service, having served on the Sitka School Board, and then of course now in the Tribal Council, I know how tough it can be. And it does definitely have its rewards, but definitely also has its drawbacks. For my report, at our June 17th Tribal Council meeting, we approved an MOU between the tribe and Lauren Eckert for gray whale research, as well as a joint letter with TNH to DEED and the federal DOE explaining why SSD should not be required to consult with TNH regarding K-12 matters in Sheetka, as well as approving the Interim Kanawha Historic Site Management Agreement and Land Management Plan, and also a resolution approving a limited waiver of sovereign immunity for the Interim Management Agreement with Sealaska. Other things happening at the tribe in September of 2025, STA's air quality monitors picked up something unusual at the roundabout and the monitors began reporting levels in the hazardous and dangerous zone. Come to find out that it was a large tour bus that had caught fire downtown and since then we've installed 15 more sensors to monitor air quality and there are multiple ways that people can access that data. They can visit purpleair.com to view real-time air quality data, or also we have monthly reports that provide a summary, which you would contact calisimmons at sicatrib-nsn.gov if you want more information about that. We also have looked at several different ordinance updates and are at different stages with them. We're currently reviewing a new draft judiciary ordinance which is available for review at our tribe website which any ordinance that's under review is always available to be seen at our website. We also approved a new election ordinance which went into effect on the 19th and also a change to our code of conduct as well on our third reading at our last meeting. Upcoming events, we have gentle flow yoga on Mondays from six to seven at Yoga Union, and we do that in partnership with them. Classes are open to all with no cost to tribal citizens and STA staff. Just a notice that the STA office and also the ride will be closed for Independence Day and the observance of it on July 3rd, since it falls on a weekend. Our annual picnic for the community is July 11th from 11 to 1 p.m. at Kikushihin as it has been for the last several years. We'll have food and games and a lot of opportunities to spend time in community. And then there's also the opportunity for beach asparagus harvesting excursion July 18th from 9.45 till 1.45 p.m. And that will be through, there will be various family engagement activities this summer, and that is one of them. And so the cultural activities are intended for enrolled STA tribal citizens and their families. And just a side note that I am starting to take a look at activities for Every Child Matters Day, which is every year on September 30th, Indigenous Peoples Day, which is the second Monday, I think, in October. And then starting to take a look at Native American Heritage Month activities as well for November. I know it's a little bit early, but just in terms of securing space in Sitka, it's always best to start early. as well as just trying to plan activities. So I'm looking for any kind of help. If anyone in the community wants to help, just get those things together, as well as suggestions for topics that people would like to learn about during Native American Heritage Month. Otherwise, we really just love to see people come participate in those events like Every Child Matters Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. So and if no one has any questions, that's my report.

Thank you.

Moving on in our scheduled special reports, this evening is our department quarterly reports. I will start with finance.

Good evening. The finances report for this assembly meeting was the interim financial statements through December 31st, 2025. So these statements, before I get into it, I don't have a very long summary because we did spend so much time during the FY 2027 budget process talking about financial performance and some of the things that I saw. So I think there'll probably be more interesting data at year end than there will through these financial statements. So like I said, the statements represent a midpoint snapshot of the city's financial position through the first six months. of the fiscal year, because many revenues and expenditures are seasonal, project-driven, or otherwise in some way timing-dependent, mid-year results aren't necessarily indicative of year-end performance. Overall, we're in a stable financial position that's generally consistent with the assumptions we did discuss during the budget process. Most major funds are performing at or above budget expectations at mid-year, although a portion of the favorable results do reflect expenditure timing, staffing vacancies, and strong investment earnings. One area I did kind of want to talk about is sales tax revenue because of some of the comments that I made during the budget process. So if you look at the financial statements, it looks like sales tax revenue came in higher than projected the midpoint and it did, but there's some important information in the details. So that revenue includes collections for previous periods and we have, my staff has spent a lot of time and effort putting in some work on compliance this year that has brought in some additional sales tax revenue from past periods. And then the first sales tax revenue sales tax revenue for the first quarter of this fiscal year came in about $197,000 higher than projected. But that second quarter of FY26 is where the data is telling sort of an interesting story that we're keeping an eye on. That quarter sales tax revenue came in about $140,000 under projections. And so provided, combined with the fact that I kind of looked into the details and we're seeing some softening in discretionary spending categories for that quarter, it just suggests that there could be some changes in consumer spending that I'm keeping an eye on and will continue to and will keep collecting data as it's available. There's just nothing else to report on that quite yet. The city also continues to manage a significant volume of capital projects and some increasing long-term infrastructure responsibilities. Staffing has improved in a lot of areas, but project delivery is significantly impacted by how complicated projects are, any grant requirements, procurement timelines and then competing priorities across the organization. Overall, I don't believe there's anything in the interim financial statements that should come as a surprise and that the results are generally consistent with discussions that occurred through several meetings and through the kind of expenditure projections that came out through the budget process.

Great, thank you, and thank you for keeping your eye on revenues as they come in, especially since I know we budget conservatively on purpose. So when it does not exceed our budgets, that is definitely a yellow flag, for sure, that we need to watch that. So keep us updated as you can.

Thank you.

Our next department quarterly reports will be the police department.

Need a wider chair.

I was about to make a joke about how we needed to bring the bigger chair here, but. Need a wider chair. We will accommodate next time.

Good evening everybody and Mr. Pike thank you for serving on the Police and Fire Commission even though we didn't get to spend much time together. My predecessors wanted me to thank you for sure for all the work that you did with us, and you're gonna be missed there. Thank you for your service. You should have the report in front of you. Just go through some of the bullet points, and if you have some questions about any of them, just let me know at the end. Staffing, we're looking a lot better this quarter. The jail we are currently accepting Applications for part-time jail officers, we do have one that's in the background investigation right now, a local person, which will take a few months. If you look at some of the stats at the end we'll get to, we've had quite a few guests in our facilities over the last quarter, and at times it does get a little bit complicated. well, we need a little bit of extra help here and there, as well as one of our jail officers would like to be a patrol officer. He actually applied to be a patrol officer and we felt like he needed a little bit more time to get a little older and he's done a fantastic job and we'd like to maybe put him to the academy next year if he continues doing the job he's doing. So getting somebody part-time that we can pull back in on a full-time basis and backfill that position down the road. We have hired a multi-services officer. His name's Shannon Oswald. Shannon has about 25 years of service. He was a lieutenant in the fire department in Virginia, right outside of Washington, D.C., Manassas, Virginia. He came after he retired, and he's doing a fantastic job. His main priorities right now are dealing with abandoned vehicles, which is... a big hall here. We have a lot of abandoned vehicles here. And also looking at how we can auction those vehicles to help bring some revenue back into the city instead of just crushing all of them, give people an opportunity to buy a decent beater and a heater, as they say here. So he's doing a great job. He's also helping out with our animal control officer with some project areas where we have a lot more complaints, and he's helping detour folks in some areas and writing some citations here and there. Dispatch, where we were down pretty low, I am comfortable to say that hopefully by July we would have all those positions filled. We just got an offer signed back from a new hire that will start July the 6th. She will be our fifth, sixth dispatcher. She comes here, her husband's in the Coast Guard, to be here for the next three to five years at least. This is their last duty station, and they're already talking about they love the place already. a lot better than Wisconsin where they were planning to retire, where they grew up at. She'll start July 6th. We also had one that started about a month ago. Her name's Brandy Osborn. She's doing fantastic and hopefully she'll be out of the training portion in about a month or month and a half or so from now. In our leadership side, we froze the one sergeant position to accommodate for the city's budget. We will be doing one, I think, sergeant promotion this summer with one of our staff that's already there. We're coming up with kind of the prerequisites for that and some testing. I'm sure there'll be some folks in-house that are looking forward uh to an opportunity to promote uh in our uh patrol uh operations uh we're still doing some of the uh temporary officers uh they're not coming in as often as we're starting to staff up akira handy did come out of the graduation uh the academy he's in field training doing fantastic and we hope to have him uh in about another two months be out on the road on his own We still do have a few of those. We still have the two two-week on, two-week off. But one of our two-week on-off officers got an apartment here and looking to move here full-time, hopefully by the end of the summer. But he does have an apartment here now, and he's making his way to be here full-time. On the patrol side, we got an offer back this week. A guy named James Myers is going to come to us from the Michigan area, Detroit area. He'll start the academy July the 16th, looking, July 26th, sorry, he'll start around the 13th. Looking forward to having him coming in. He's going to be a phenomenal pick for us. This year, at the end of the physical year, we got 69% of our annual budget, well inside our financial targets. We got a lot of community outreach getting ready to happen. We're still doing our high visibility patrol areas, We're stepping up also some of our patrols at the airport. So as more people come in the summertime, we actually have an automated list that we started that will dispatch the guys out when the planes come in. So we'll have more of a presence at the airport. And... especially when they come and go to try to keep everybody who's had a good time here and sick and make sure they have a really good time when they leave. We had the Special Olympics Torch Run. It was fantastic. We had 40 participants, and we raised almost $3,000 total for the Special Olympics. It was a good event. Traffic safety. We had a lot of concerns about, I think I had, my favorite was the Catlian Speedway event. I don't know. Everybody drives fast, so we've been directed patrols on Catalina Street. You'll see us on HPR as well in Sawmill Creek. Stopping cars, not necessarily writing everybody tickets, but trying to get them slowed down. We just had Porch Festival, I thought was a great, great event. Good turnout. Myself and Lieutenant O'Shea actually worked a project that day, and it's a great time to meet people. Fourth of July parade coming up. It's going to be a big event. It's my first Fourth of July here. I'm excited about it. I believe that the new route is going to be down Jeff Davis, and we're going to come around this way since Lake Street is blocked off because of the construction. So I think we're going to start around that area, come down Lincoln Street and over, just looking at a new way to route to get everybody outfitted in. Second night out against crimes coming up. We have changed the date. It says here that's Tuesday, August the 4th, but talking to some of the sponsors and some others, and also talking to the city administration, I think that Saturday of August the 8th will be the best time to do it. So more kids can come out and participate with their families. And a lot of our sponsors, other businesses like to come out on a Saturday when they're not have to go to work the next day. So we're gonna be looking at that Saturday. We're still working on where we're gonna do it, and I think we'll do what we did last year, but we're still working out some of those details. We're using our new body-worn cameras, not fully yet because Axon has yet to come and do the training, and part of that is they can't find a hotel. here in SICA during the summertime, which we try to warn them beforehand, but some of our officers do use them that have used them in the past and are sharing that knowledge with others, but they are being warned quite often. And we're utilizing three new police cars you'll see driving around. We ordered blue cars, we got white ones, so the new SICA police car color will be white from here on out. So it's just gonna be a white car. I saw a new white truck.

Yeah. So they all have to be white now.

They gotta be white now. White is new. So we have more white cars, I think, than blue now. That's it. I think white should be easier. I'm sure when we order white, we'll get blue ones, but so far, we're sticking with the white cars. Just some statistics this quarter. I would say that the police department has done an exceptional job. It's been a busy summer, to say the least. We had, from the last report, which has probably gone up about 50 calls plus since then, but 3,447 calls for service to the police department in the last three months. We had 71 booked into the jail, 62 agency assist, 319 security checks, which is pretty much the bars. We do two or three bar checks every night just to keep everybody happy, make sure everybody does a good job. 108 animal calls, we've had 26 bear calls so far this year. 63 arrests made, 212 traffic stops, and 515 emergency 911 calls we received and responded to. So it's been a pretty busy three months. It's been a pretty busy last two days as well. So a lot of events happened in Sika. And really proud of the men and women that work at the police department. They've done a phenomenal job.

I think you appreciate that. There was a lot of positive news, which I know our community has been desirous of out of the police department for some time. So I can walk around and let people know proudly that we are where we're supposed to be now. So I do appreciate that.

Thank you.

Also, earlier you said something was going to be a big haul.

Was that a pun? Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. I am the big haul. Because I heard it.

Thank you, appreciate it.

No questions, I like it.

Moving on in special reports this evening, was there anyone else here for government to government, municipal boards, commissions, committee, municipal departments, school district? Please. Welcome.

Deidre Jensen, superintendent, Sitka School District. Summertime kind of tends to lead us many different directions, so I am here for board members, because we're a little shy on board members, and some are all over the place. So I guess I'll just kind of give you a little bit of summary of kind of what's going on. There are some professional development for staff that's going on right now. Summer's a good time for them to go participate in professional development. They don't have to be out of the classroom. Saves us money, we don't have to find subs. Those kinds of things. We just returned from one out in Montana where we took a team out there, Sitka Tribe, sent some staff with us. It was part of a grant that we had, so we invited some community partners, and STA and some community partners joined us. It was a really good opportunity to connect with our community partners and plan some events, some of them like Yadikuka was talking about, so we'll see what comes with that. Also checking in with maintenance throughout the summer. They're doing a phenomenal job with our summer projects list and got some temp employees that are busy working around the grounds and different things. So thank you to the maintenance department. Again, thank you to the assembly for supporting the maintenance team. One of those projects that we're kind of trying to troubleshoot is around parking and transportation because we are adding all day kindergarten kindergarten's going to be get out the same time as first grade. So there's already a little bit of a bottleneck sometimes with parent pickup, so we're trying to troubleshoot how to work that travel flow so it doesn't stop traffic up on Sawmill Creek and other different ways. So we're trying to make sure that we can get that kids picked up safely. So we're working on that. And I'm sure we'll get there. Of course, we wanna thank Tim Pike for his service with the assembly, also with the school district. Him along with seven other teachers retired. Some classified staff retired. We also had at least four resignations of teachers, I believe. And so, With all that, with all those cuts, we are not backfilling all those positions. So that leads to cuts and added duties to everybody, including administrators. We're all constantly looking at ways that we can make some cuts. We are still unsure if we're getting anything extra from the state. So we're anxiously awaiting to see if anything comes of that. But we are also not alone in this position. The school districts all across the state are looking at severe budget cuts Closing schools, we're not quite to that position yet, because we lose funding if we close a school. And we still have, we'd have to retrofit some of our buildings in order to combine some of them. So we will continue to look at closing schools if that comes up, but right now we have a lot going on with pre-K, a lot going on with ventures, expanding our, our cultural programming, so they're taking up classrooms as well. So those were just not to the point where we're enough where we can fit in. and without losing the revenues. It has to do with the state foundation formula. And when you close a school, you lose that revenue, even though you have the same number of kids. So we will continue to look at that as we go through it. And I guess, I don't know if this is the time to speak to it, but I guess I will. Like I said, we are not alone with the budget restrictions and budget cuts, and Secure Rural Schools is going to save our bacon. And I appreciate the support that, the assembly gives us, funding us to the cap. We have used Secure Rural Schools for budgeting, for balancing the budget this coming year. And it's huge. We would have had to probably look at cutting another six to 10 teaching and classified positions. We also cut classified positions this year too, so. Anyways, I just wanna thank you for support, and I know that that's not an easy decision, because it means somebody else has to give things up. So I don't know if anybody has any questions for me.

Appreciate it, thanks for coming. Moving on in tonight's agenda to persons to be heard. This is public participation for any item off of tonight's agenda not to exceed three minutes for any individual.

Good evening, Mayor, Assembly. My name is Austin Cranford. Before I begin, I do want to piggyback off what the Chief said. I have seen the Chief out. He's done a lot of good work, and so far, I approve. I hope he keeps up the good work. The reason I'm here is on Monday, June 15th, I submitted an administrative inquiry to the clerk's office. Administrator in this assembly, I asked for clarification regarding the legal framework of the newly implemented next request public records portal. I followed up on Friday, June 19th, and today, June 23rd. To date, my inquiries have been completely ignored by all three offices. My questions are simple. First, I asked what statutory authority allows the city to implement a system designed to prompt citizens to narrow their records request, a feature publicly touted by Deputy Municipal Clerk Holly Bain in a June 12th KCALL article. As stated in that article, the software itself provides tips to push the burden of narrowing requests onto the citizen before they even submit their form. However, the Alaska Supreme Court explicitly ruled in Fuller v. City of Homer that the Public Records Act creates a presumption in favor of disclosure and must be construed broadly. A government system designed to prompt citizens to artificially restrict their own request directly contradicts the Supreme Court mandate for broad public access. Second, I asked what local ordinance or state statute authorizes the city to require citizens to sign a mandatory certificate of non-litigation affiliation just to use the digital portal, something that I do note is missing from the paper form that the city provides. AS 4462312, paragraph four of the Open Meetings Act explicitly states that, quote, the people in delegating authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for the people to know, unquote. The implementation of this portal and its gatekeeping measures is public policy and it cannot be conducted or shielded in secret. Because my administrative inquiry has been ignored, I am now escalating this. I will be handing a formal Alaska Public Records Act to the Madam Clerk after my comment. I am requesting the specific legal authority documents for both the narrowing requirement and the certificate of non-litigation affiliation. This formal submission on the record triggers a 10-day business day statutory response clock furthermore under alaska municipal code as-2920 this assembly has a duty to its constituents therefore i am formally requesting on the record that the assembly direct city staff provide a written response to the three specific questions outlined in my june 15th correspondence by close of business friday june 26th I'm not asking you to debate me from the table tonight, but before my time expires, I am asking this assembly to acknowledge my request on record. Will you make a motion to direct staff to respond to my policy inquiry, yes or no?

Mr. Cranford, as you know, this is not a time for back and forth. We appreciate your public records request and you're welcome to hand it in to the clerks during business hours.

Thank you for establishing on the record that the assembly declines to direct staff to respond.

Thank you.

Anyone else this evening for persons to be heard? Anything not on the agenda? All right, that'll bring us to consent agenda.

I move to approve the consent agenda consisting of item A, approve the minutes of the June 9th assembly meeting.

Second.

That's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. Is there any public comment? Holly?

On the motion to approve the consent agenda, Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mr. Christensen?

Yes.

Ms. Riley? Yes. Mr. Moser?

Yes.

Mr. Saleen?

Yes.

Ms. Carlson? Yes. Mr. Pike?

Yes.

The motion passes 7-0 on item A.

Thank you.

Item B. I move to reappoint Burt Steadman to a three-year term on the Investment Committee.

Second. It's been moved and seconded to reappoint Burt Steadman to a three-year term on the Investment Committee. Is there any public comment? Seeing none, assembly deliberation.

I just wanna say that when Bert was on the assembly, he's the only one on the assembly that voted down a Stevens money loan for $400,000 at 5% for somebody to buy what's now the Mean Queen because they were gonna hire three ex-mill workers. And I've been voting for Bert ever since, investing in the state and the city.

JJ?

If anyone's interested in joining this committee, there's also a full term and a backup term, or what is it called, an alternate term. You can join a good team.

Thank you. Holly.

On the motion to reappoint Burt Steadman to a three-year term on the Investment Committee, Ms. Riley?

Yes.

Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Ms. Carlson? Yes. Mr. Moser?

Yes.

Mr. Pike?

Yes.

Mr. Christensen? Yes. And Mr. Saleen?

Yes.

The motion passes 7-0 on item B.

Unfinished business, item C, please. I move to approve ordinance 2026-14 on second final reading, making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2026 secure rural schools.

Second.

That's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance 26-14. Is there any public comment? Assembly deliberation. Holly?

On the motion to approve ordinance 2026-14 on second and final reading, Mr. Christensen?

Yes.

Ms. Carlson? Yes. Mr. Saleen?

Yes.

Mr. Pike?

Yes.

Ms. Riley? Yes. Yes. Mr. Moser?

Yes.

And Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

The motion passes 7-0 on item C. Thank you.

Item D, please. I move to approve ordinance 2026-15 on second and final reading, amending title two zoning of the second general code for the Gary Paxton special zone.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance 26-15. Is there any public comment? Assembly deliberation. Holly.

On the motion to approve Ordinance 2026-15 on second and final reading, Ms. Carlson? Yes. Ms. Riley?

Yes.

Mr. Saleen?

Yes.

Mr. Moser?

Yes.

Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mr. Pike?

Yes.

And Mr. Christensen? Yes.

The motion passes 7-0 on item D. Thank you, that'll bring us to new business tonight. Item E, please.

I move to approve Ordinance 2026-16 on first reading, amending Title IV, Revenue and Finance of the SICA General Code by amending Chapter 4.25, Sales Tax, Section 4.25.330, Security Limitations, Sales of Security Deposits and Auction Bonds. Second.

Thank you. Brooke, I understand you have an introduction, which I hope is less confusing than the title on this one. I know what you're trying to do, but the title is awfully wordy on this one. So thank you for your help on this.

Okay, so this ordinance is primarily a housekeeping update that aligns our code with the finance department's longstanding administrative practice. So when this code section was originally adopted, Corporations were the most common business structure, and the code was really written around corporate officers, directors, and shareholders. Since that point, LLCs and other business forms have become a lot more common, but the underlying sales tax collection requirements have remained the same. The finance department has historically required personal guarantees from owners of all business types. including sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, and corporations. So I do wanna point out that this is different than ordinary business debt. So sales tax is collected from customers and required to be remitted to the city. So the business is essentially holding these funds until they're paid over to the city, which is why it's treated differently than other kinds of debts that a business So that's the reason that the city's historically required personal guarantees regardless of business structure for this kind of debt. It doesn't create a new, this ordinance doesn't create a new requirement. It just updates the code to reflect existing administrative practice and accommodates business structures that are commonly used today. It also provides greater clarity and consistency for both staff and business owners. The form that was included with the memo is not a new form. It's just an update to a form that already existed.

Great, thank you. If we have questions, we'll call you back up. Is there any public comment on ordinance 26-16? Back to the assembly for deliberation. JJ?

I have a question for Rachel. If this, you know, so line 69, there's some switches from the word shall to may.

can you help me understand why that like loosening um has happened i can thank you so this is one of the tools in our enforcement toolbox and it works in tandem with 420-030 the municipal collections policy and that subsection has the city and borough of sika shall take lawful actions to collect all debts and shall employ progressive steps so that that mandate is in the collection section and then that section goes on to include the progressive steps may include the following and it's got you know a whole bunch of actions the finance department can take to try to collect debts and this piece is really part of that toolbox by having the may in there for requiring a guarantor it's fitting in with those collection toolbox pieces so the the escalating collections is mandatory but each tool in the toolbox may or may not be appropriate for a particular situation so you may put a lien well that only applies to real property May shut off utilities doesn't work if the debtor is a tenant and the landlord's paying utilities. And in this particular instance, there are some organizational types where a personal guarantor may not be appropriate, such as another government entity. So if the Coast Guard, say, opened a swag shop, asking a member of the Coast Guard to provide a personal guarantee for the Coast Guard's sales tax account might violate their policies, and it gives the finance department that flexibility, as with the other enforcement mechanisms, to choose among tools that work for the facts on the ground for the particular situation.

Okay, so the loosening just provides other positions in code to?

It's bringing it into uniformity with our other collections tools.

Other selections, okay. Thank you, I appreciate that. That explanation from Brooke about kind of how this is remitting something, it's a pass-through sales tax obligation and not necessarily like a liability as we think of it as debt. really helped me to understand why we're listing out things, because from regular business, you think of a limited liability company is there to provide provisions from the person at that present level or guiding it, but this isn't like that. This is just money being collected that has always been intended to give to the city, and when it's not, when it's kept, this allows for some some opportunities to collect in other ways or to encourage collectment. And I appreciate this clarity. I think it's probably been out there for a long time that this hasn't been kind of buttoned up. So thank you. Thank you, Brooke, for taking care of this. You've done a great job with budgeting. And then right off the bat after that, you did that interim financial report. And here we are seeing some other great work come out of the finance department. So thank you. um, for doing all of that and keeping things in track.

I got a question on the enforcement tools. Is this from all the delinquent tax returns that have been in the paper like the last year or so there's been all kinds of delinquent returns and then it gets less and less. Some people are, you know, 12 returns behind. And then, uh, then the next question is going to be, is this for like, cruise ships that come inside of Sitka that have sails. I'm really confused on the, when you say forms of, like it's for limited liability corporations or somebody that's fronting your sails that somebody else owns and then they leave without paying and then, I'm just confused as to what this is about, really.

I think when the the code was first written, there were fewer types of corporate entities. So there were there were corporations, there were partnerships, but limited liability companies weren't really a thing that had rolled out yet. And so this is just bringing that language to make this tool available against any form of business ownership that isn't paying their sales taxes or isn't filing their returns on time.

how's it gonna be an enforcement tool to find the money that you're looking for?

So the personal guarantee means that the city can collect not just from the business, but personally from the person who is the guarantor. So it gives collections against an individual natural person and not just the business entity.

So like the people that have been in the paper for missing 12 and 16 quarterly tax returns, then this makes it so the borough can assess what they figure that they owed or that they earned and then didn't pay the money on and then assess on their personal property to collect as an enforcement tool.

Do you wanna speak to that?

All this does is really help with our list of options that we do have when somebody isn't paying. So you've seen people, businesses listed in the paper if they're delinquent for whether they're not filing or whether they have filed and they just have an unpaid balance. And we post people's names in the paper, we take progressive action to try and collect on debts owed, and there are two different kinds. There are businesses that don't report at all, and part of what we can do, part of our options include assessing sales tax amounts that they might owe, but then there are also the kind that do file, but don't pay that amount, and they continue to meet the filing requirements, but don't pay. And so we, if, If, especially with sales tax, if it's just for the business, that means that our progressive collections attempts are focused just around that individual business that files. The personal guarantee means that we can then take some of those progressive collective actions against the individual that's personally guaranteed it. Does that help answer some of it?

I'm tracking, but I'm looking at, just from being a square head, I look at the fish

for sales tax if you're buying fish.

So if you leave the state halfway through the season, you've left a guarantee that you've already estimated what you think you're gonna... Anyway, I'll let it go. I just... making my hair stand up on the back of my neck. When you say you don't need it, but then you need it, and it's like not gonna increase any revenue, and it's just a tool, and then I'm like, I don't know, I just don't understand how, anyway.

And Scotty, I'll talk about how I looked through this and that might help some of you because when I first read this ordinance, as a corporation owner, as a corporate officer, I despise personal guarantees, right? Because my business is there to shield me from personal liability, right? So I honestly at first thought I wasn't going to be able to vote on this because of a conflict with it, a bias. But as reading through this, what this one does is so if I'm collecting sales tax from residents and non-residents and then I decide not to pay and I don't have a personal guarantee, I could collect $30,000 in sales tax from our citizens and then disappear. and there's no recourse for the municipality. What this does is make sure that if I disappear with that money, that the municipality can then use tools to come after me personally, not just my business, right? Because that is money that is collected and is supposed to be remitted to the municipality. It's not my business's money, never has been, never will be. And so I think that this is going to help us encourage those who collect sales tax to continue to remit it. And if someone is a bad actor, then this comes into play. If they collect and remit as they're legally required to, then they'll never know it's there. So as a corporate owner, I'll reluctantly sign it because, again, I don't. personal guarantees are harder for me, but the amount of personal guarantees I have, if something happens, I'm gonna burn it all down and go to Thailand.

Thank you, Your Honor.

John? Yeah, hopefully I'm not oversimplifying this, but I'll try to add some more information to it. As Brooke said, this is not a typical debt that an LLC or a business would take on. When you start a business, you get a business license from the state of Alaska. The city doesn't necessarily issue business licenses. You register your business by getting a sales tax account. When you get that sales tax account, the reason we need the personal guarantee is because, again, hope I'm not oversimplifying it, we are essentially approving you to act as an agent on behalf of the city. So we need that guarantee. we need that guarantee that you acting on our behalf are going to collect that sales tax and you will then remit it back to the city acting as our agent.

I'm just thinking back in the past when the city's rated different merchants office while Problem Corner was on and it was a live deal all about sales tax, and that was for making payments that the business owed with the sales tax money. Time after time.

Jim? Correct me if I'm wrong, Brooke, but I think you started by saying this is not a new thing, right? This is updating the code to reflect current practice. So you're just asking for us to make sure the code matches what you're asking people to do already. So this isn't a new, am I correct in that?

That is correct, it's just updated language. At the time it was written that LLCs were not used at this level, so it's not, that's why the fiscal note says it's not gonna really make a noticeable financial impact, because we're already doing it. And I do wanna say that the finance department did get a lot of help from Rachel and Mindy on this, so it was not just effort from me and my department, it was legal as well.

So nothing is going to change for anyone who's currently doing business in Sitka based upon this particular thing?

No.

Okay.

Thank you. Other questions for Brooke while we have her in front of us? Thank you. Appreciate your time. Further deliberation from the Assembly? Polly?

On the motion to approve Ordinance 2026-16 on first reading, Mr. Pike?

Yes.

Mr. Moser?

Yes.

Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mr. Saleen?

Yes.

Ms. Carlson? Yes. Mr. Christensen?

Yes.

And Ms. Riley? Yes. The motion passes 7-0 on item E.

Thank you, Assembly. I know we're at the top of the hour. We just got two quicker items left here, and I'd like to do those before we go on our break, before executive session, because we do have cupcakes for Tim's celebration. So that'll bring us to persons to be heard this evening. This is public participation for any item on or off tonight's agenda, not to exceed three minutes for any individual. Okay, moving on to reports. I have no report this time. It's been busy and quiet all at the same time. And Yeti Kukaw gave my report from tribal council meeting. The only thing I talked to with them was going over our childcare meeting that we had so that they're aware of our actions and our progressions so that we can continue to collaborate. John.

Thanks, Mayor. I don't have a lot for a report here. As I said, it's been busy with the fiscal year coming up and getting all the new contracts, progress payments, a lot of the paperwork that has to take effect on July 1st in place. I had a visit from Bill Hill came by the office last week, had an opportunity to speak with him and just kind of go through some of the challenges we're facing here in Sitka. And I just want to take a moment to obviously express our concern and our thoughts for our Sitka Coast Guard family and the incident that they experienced yesterday and give some kudos to our police and fire department. They were on scene immediately and rendered as much assistance as able. I know I personally made a stopover at the fire hall, and not only did they have that incident happening, it was a pretty busy day for both police and fire, and I got to see them in action, and honestly, I don't know how they do it. So thank you to our first responders.

Thank you. Rachel, attorney's report.

The public records request software rollout's going really well from legal side, especially with the redactions. It's been a real time saver, particularly for Mindy. So she can, instead of having to go through the documents and highlight and black out an email every single time it occurs and a person's name every single time it occurs, you do it once and then the program fills out. And it's already, it's been a week or so, a huge... impact just on how long it takes to get things turned around. So still debugging some things and figuring out how the software works, but overall we're seeing an impact already. So thank you for approving that earlier than the budget cycle would have otherwise been. It's been really great to get that going. We're also, with the fiscal year coming up real quick, starting to look toward implementation of the centralized lease management software and getting a job description ready to get that data entry person and start getting our heads around that and getting things moving. The code recodification is going on in the background. And then it's just with town being so busy for the summer, there's been a lot of kind of one-off questions, so people stopping... not people, but department heads or our boots on the ground folks stopping and calling quick emails kind of all throughout the day. And it's been a real pleasure to be able to work with folks as issues are arising and kind of get them resolved in a forward-looking manner instead of having things escalate to legal on the back end. So I really, really appreciate that folks have been bringing issues into our department sooner so that we can kind of get that help right out the gate.

Thank you, liaison representatives. JJ?

So I was getting ready for the other reports, if that's coming.

I will move on to Holly's clerk report. And Holly, I'm really proud of myself. I didn't call you Sarah once.

No, you did great. Sarah gave me a really long report. So for upcoming meetings, we have our July 14 regular meeting at 6 p.m. And then we just scheduled a work session about childcare, be the second work session for that. That'll happen July 21st at 6 p.m. It'll be held here still in room six. Thanks for responding so quickly to all of you. And then vacancies and board and commissions. We have vacancies on the Animal Hearing Board, the Building Department Appeals Board, Health Needs and Human Services Commission, the Investment Committee, the Library Commission, Parks and Recreation Committee, Police and Fire Commission, and the Tree and Landscape Committee. And if anyone's interested in applying, we have applications online, and we'd be happy to help you at the clerk's office. We have them in paper as well. And then the final thing are some filing deadlines for Mr. Pike's vacant seat. Please submit your applications to the clerk's office by noon on July 8th. And then lastly, for candidate filing for the regular election, that opens on July 20th at 8 a.m. And packets are available at the clerk's office. And that runs through 5 p.m. on August 7th. And the seats that are up for election during this regular election, we have the mayor seat. It's one two-year term. In the assembly seats, we have two three-year terms. And then for school board, we'll have two three-year terms and one one-year term. And that's it.

Thank you, appreciate it. JJ, any other reports this evening?

Yes, thank you. With the Sickle Walkability Advocacy CoLab, we're kind of Getting to the end of kind of our open call for people to help us with crosswalk safety design ideas by turn your entry sheets in by tomorrow evening at five because on Thursday evening we're having that community showcase. We've received about 50 entries so far. Porch Fest was also successful for the police department. It was also successful for our group. We had a table there. Melissa, I, and Amy, the other local member, helped people kind of see the needs and what we were about. And they submitted a sketch of earth tone repeating geometric patterns that we have grant funding to paint one, two, three, who knows of the crosswalks along Lincoln Street this summer with some volunteer labor from the Outer Coast students. So please come tomorrow evening, Thursday, sorry, not Thursday, no, not tomorrow. Please come in two nights on Thursday, June 25th at 6 p.m. to Room 3 here in Harrigan Centennial Hall to see the submissions, to see the great ideas of your community, and we can, you know, together, improve some safety aspects of the crosswalks in downtown Sitka.

Any other reports this evening?

Great, thank you. We'll need a motion to go into executive session. After that, we will take a brief recess. We'll enjoy some cupcakes and camaraderie with Tim. Katie, have a nice virtual cupcake for us. And then we will meet back in executive session. So if I could have a motion to go into executive session.

All right, I move to go to executive session to review applications submitted for the municipal administrator position under the statutory category of discussing subjects that may lead to prejudice and the reputation and character of an individual and invite an assistant municipal administrator, Joshua Brantover. In addition, I move to exclude the municipal administrator and municipal attorney.

Second.

That's been moved and seconded to enter Executive Session. Is there any public comment? Assembly deliberation? Holly?

On the motion to go into Executive Session, Mr. Moser?

Yes.

Mr. Pike?

Yes.

Ms. Riley? Yes. Mr. Christensen? Yes. Mr. Saleen? Yes. Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

And Ms. Carlson? Yes. Motion passes 7-0.

Thank you. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We are reconvened as the assembly in regular session. The assembly met in executive session to review municipal administrator applications. I can't say that word for some reason tonight. We did so and our recruitment process will continue. Thank you. Motion to adjourn.

So moved.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We are adjourned.