City and Borough Assembly - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody, thank you for joining us tonight at five o'clock. I made it on time, I almost didn't, so that's a good thing. Tonight we're here for a special meeting to interview a municipal administrator applicant. Should go pretty quickly and smoothly, so we'll just jump right into it. I'll call to order the special meeting of Friday, August 21st, 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. Is there a roll call, please?

Mayor Eisenbeis?

Present.

Ms. Carlson? Here. Mr. Yesdad?

Here.

Ms. Riley? Here. Mr. Christensen?

Here.

Mr. Mosier?

Here.

And Mr. Selene? Here.

Great, thank you. So new business this evening is our municipal administrator applicant interview. We, as the assembly is aware, one of the two that we had had selected for interview processes determined that this was not the right time and or place for them right now, and so has withdrawn from our interview process, leaving us with just a single interview to conduct tonight. So Jerry was nice enough to be able to switch it to five. I understand on East Coast time, that's probably a whole lot better. as well to be able to get it in a little bit earlier. So I think it works out well for both of us. So I'll turn it over to Josh for some reminders of procedures during interviews and any comments Josh might have as well as an introduction with our applicant tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The first thing that you have there in front of you is the interview guidance. We've been through this a few times, so I'm not gonna go over it all. The important things there are the things we don't wanna do, so any discussion about protected categories or any questions about things that fall within a protected category, race, religion, age, things of that nature. There's also an example of prohibited questions, and please kinda take a look at that, make sure we don't ask any of those. Miss Cotter has already she actually showed up a few minutes early. I asked her to step out from the from the Room so she's ready and as soon as I'll text her here in a minute I assume we're gonna do how we've done in the last few times. It'd be around Robin and I think we're starting with mr. Mosher tonight That's all I have pending any questions Questions for Josh on procedures for tonight I

Great, thank you. Chris, I'm gonna do my best to remember that you're in the circle as well. Please, if I happen to skip over you, or Kevin will throw it in at the end after Katie, so if it comes back to you without acknowledging Chris, if we can, okay, I'm gonna need some, I'll need some help on this one. I asked JJ for help too, so between all of us, I think we got this. All right, yeah, if Josh, if we could meet our interviewee, please.

All right, Senator Tex, you should be joining us here in a second.

And we do have about an hour scheduled for this interview, correct? Okay. I'm also be paying attention if the assembly seems like they've asked the questions that we need to for this part. We can definitely wrap it up, but we'll also give our applicant a little bit of time to ask questions of us as we've done in the past.

Chris, let's see your full graphics of that T-shirt.

Hi, Jerry, Josh here, can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

All right, we have you loud and clear as well. Mr. Mayor, are you gonna do a quick introduction or are you gonna kick it, okay.

Hi Jerry, this is Steven Eisenbice. I'm the mayor for the city and borough of Sitka. Thank you for joining us this evening and thanks for your flexibility and scheduling. I cracked a joke that's probably not a joke that a little bit earlier on your time zone, it's probably a great thing for you as well. So yeah, we appreciate you being here. So the assembly's gonna ask several rounds of interview questions tonight, just trying to get a feel for you and for you to get a feel for the current assembly as well, right? I've always believed that good employment has to be mutually beneficial, so I understand that you're interviewing us as we interview you. But we'll go in a round robin status tonight, get some basic questions from the assembly answered, and just remember to have fun in this, right? Wanna make sure that this is gonna, as I said earlier, work out for the municipality and the assembly and you as well. Any questions before we start tonight?

No, I don't think so.

Okay, great. The one thing that I did omit from that introduction, we have about an hour scheduled for tonight, and we will give you some time to ask us questions as well before we end this evening. So that'll happen 10, 15 minutes before our scheduled end time tonight. So with that then, we'll turn it over to Kevin Mosier to start the interview. And again, thank you.

Hi, Jerry. Kevin Mosher. I'm one of the assembly members. The first question is the following. What has prepared you to be a good administrator in Sitka?

Okay. Well, I think I have a wide range of experience at both the local and state level in government. Most recently, I've been working for Perry Township in Stark County in Ohio. We have about 28,000 residents, and we have police, fire, zoning, parks, and roads departments. And so I've been township administrator there for the past year. And I've done quite a bit to help them modernize their processes. It was, I guess the government in Perry Township had mostly paper processes when I arrived. So we've been trying to streamline their processes and move to more, using technology more rather than paper processes. Also, I worked for a number of years with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, and I led a statewide program there amongst the different workforce areas and our county agencies for young adults. It was a workforce development program for young adults. It was a bit unusual in that we were combining two different federal funding sources. Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding, which is from the Department of Labor, and then also funds from Health and Human Services or TANF funding, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. That made it a little bit more complex program. On the upside, it was certainly a very well-funded program compared to what we had in the past. And but there's always challenges. Each federal funding source comes with its own strings and requirements, things that you have to meet. So that was a bit of a complicated program. But we were able to work with our local agencies and workforce areas to improve the program over time. I ran that program for about eight years. And then prior to that, I worked in the agency director's office developing and recommending policy for the agency for different parts, you know, on the workforce development side, unemployment, also with on the HHS side for cash assistance, you know, food assistance, child care, and at the time we also had Medicaid in that agency too, so And then prior to my role at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, or I should say my roles, I had several there, I also was a trustee in a township in Ohio. I also served on the school board in the city of Westerville. So I've got a wide range of experience, much of it with local government. I really enjoy being able to see the improvements that you're making at the local level. It's much easier to see those improvements when you're working in a particular community, so I do like that aspect of it. I'm also a licensed attorney in the state of New York, so I'm certainly capable of interpreting, drafting, recommending policy. I've also done some Grant applications that have been successful. In Perry Township, I applied for a energy efficiency grant with the state of Ohio. We received funding about $299,000 for energy efficiency improvements. And then at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, I also applied for grants with federal agencies with success. I got two grants from Health and Human Services for $500,000 and then two from the Department of Labor they were all, those two were each about a million or a million and a half, so.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome. Hello, my name's Scott Saleen. I'm also an assembly member. I just wondered about department heads and stuff and wondering like, you know, for you to take command here in Sitka and then to show up and then have so many department heads that maybe you don't have there in, you know, Ohio, whether it's a hydroelectric power generation or, you know, fish, where I'm going with this is if you come on board and you don't really have the necessary technical aspect of a certain department, how are you gonna know that you're not being bamboozled by a department head that, you know, when you just get there and you don't really know what's going on, are you gonna be able to get some insight instead of depending on a chain of command that you're just learning yourself and they don't steer you down the wrong hole?

Well, I think that, although I might not be familiar with some of the departments and the technical aspects like you mentioned, I think that I am, one, a fast learner. Also, I like to do my own research. But I also think that department heads are meant to be the subject matter expert, and really, you do need to rely on them to a certain extent for their technical expertise. And so I think it's important to... work with department heads, but also ask questions to try and make sure that what they're saying makes sense. Make sure that the direction they're heading in makes sense. And listen to other sources too, if you can, just to make sure that things are, like I said, making sense. and they're not trying to bamboozle you. I haven't found that happens too often, but I did have to do similar things at the Department of Job and Family Services when I first worked there in the director's office. There were a number of different departments that had very technical aspects to them based on different federal policy. I think one of the things I was able to do is ask those hard questions to make sure that they were thinking about things and thinking about potential consequences.

Okay then.

Hi, Jerry. My question is about leadership and building a team here. So there are three plus generations currently in the workforce, each with a different set of needs and expectations about employment and the workplace. Describe how you manage the differences and expectations in a three-generation workforce in order to build a cohesive team.

Yeah, that's a great question. I think that you can have differences in generational thoughts and priorities, certainly. I think I'm probably more familiar with our younger generations and maybe a lot of folks in my generation, having worked with the youth workforce development program. But I think keeping in mind those different perspectives, but also knowing that each individual is going to be slightly different. You really can't fully generalize folks based on their generation. I think just being open-minded and listening to staff to hear what their concerns might be or what they'd like to see changed and being flexible enough to consider those things is really important, especially when you're dealing with diverse folks, whether it's generation or other types of diversity. I think it's really important to listen to folks and try and see if they you know there's things that you can potentially make changes that would make sense uh for the organization and um just being open-minded and being willing to listen i also think there's ways that you can um you know maybe create some more camaraderie and find commonalities and things that folks enjoy doing together to try and create that team environment too thank you

Hi, Jerry. I'm the one here just under your face. My name is JJ. We're doing a little half circle here, so I'm sure you assumed, but, you know, hi. What do you like to go by? Is Jerry a good way to... Yes, I definitely prefer Jerry. Wonderful. Thank you. I prefer JJ. How do you like to introduce yourself? Just given the opportunity to just state yourself from your shoes. Please just introduce yourself to us.

I'm not sure what you mean.

So we've just been asking really pointed questions. I'd just like to give you an opportunity to kind of launch yourself towards us, introduce yourself, and just... More of a general introduction?

Yeah. Sure. Well, I go by Jerry. I... I really enjoy working in public service. I enjoy talking to folks, whether they're residents, other staff members. And I think that some of the things that I really enjoy doing is, you know, looking at ways to do continuous improvement, streamline operations, those types of things, but also just like challenges that working on creative problem solving to resolve issues that come up, I do really enjoy working in government, because I think there's a lot of variety and that's one of the things I really enjoy doing so. Great, thank you.

As a general introduction, we appreciate the opportunity just to hear you from your words, and that kind of starts this dialogue of sorts, and I'll have some good questions here, probably some pretty specific ones that are very particular to the state of Alaska, so a nice opportunity to hear your strengths before we get into some very challenging topics. I like that opportunity for folks. So thank you, and I'll ask one of those hard questions on my next round. So good to meet you, and I look forward to hearing more of your perspective on topics of local government.

Thanks, JJ.

Hi, I'm Tor Christensen, also on the assembly there. I might turn the wave. And I'm just really glad JJ didn't take the question I had started, because that seems to happen every time. So, if you would talk about the relationship that you would expect to have as administrator with the assembly, how you would communicate and, how every administrator's had a little different way of dealing with the assembly and the back and forth. And so how would you foster that relationship and what would kind of be the high points of that relationship as you would see it?

I think that it's really important to try and share information with members of the elected group as equally as possible. That can sometimes be challenging. I think that it's important to work with each individual elected official to learn what learn some of what their preferences are. So right now I'm working with a board of trustees. There's only three trustees, right? So that's less folks. But they all have different individual needs. They all have full-time jobs. One likes to meet once a week. So I meet with that trustee once a week. We go over things. There's another one who has been a trustee for a while, really doesn't want to meet as often, which is completely fine. But we do meet every so often. And I use a range of different methods to communicate with them. Sometimes, if it's a, you know, a short informational thing I'll send a text, or I will send a text and ask when they have time to have a phone call. Some things I can just, you know, forward information via email, really depends on what the topic is. But I think that, you know, meeting with people in person, and having some type of cadence that works for each individual really makes sense. I'm guessing you all have other things you're doing besides assembly. Usually that's the case. So I like to be respectful of your time, but also make sure you have the information that you need well in advance. So if you have questions before meetings, you have an opportunity to pose those.

hi jerry this is katie riley over here nice to meet you thanks for being with us today i have a bit of a follow-up question on that communication and the relationship with the assembly our role as the assembly is really to be the touch points for the community members that elect us and obviously communicate with those folks but also alaskan residents tend to expect direct direct access to their local government and so a lot of times that engagement will also be on your plate and uh you know you will be representing the city um in a lot of public relations fronts and so i'm wondering you know do you have a similar situation with the township administrative position that you're currently in or how would you go about building public trust and handling situations that may turn contentious

Sure. So yes, residents in Ohio also like to have access to folks. So one of the things I've started in Perry Township is a monthly coffee with the administrator meeting. And I've been rotating between different locations in Perry Township so folks have an opportunity to come and ask questions directly if they have them or just show up and chat. I've been trying to include one of the department heads with me in these coffee engagements and so far it's been going pretty well we certainly do you know have folks that come in with questions some meetings or even during the day and ask questions at the office so or they call sometimes people send in emails so i am used to engaging with folks one of the things that I think it's a little bit challenging for me in Perry township is I right now I don't live in Perry township I live outside Perry township so it's a little bit harder for me to get to all of the Community events, I would like to. But I do think it's really important to you know, be available to folks to answer questions if they have them. and maybe advise him about things. It doesn't necessarily have to be controversial either. Sometimes just answering questions for folks is helpful. So being accessible is important for this type of role, I think. Thank you.

Chris, we'll go to you. Jerry, Chris is on Zoom. He's a commercial fisherman and has to be out on the grounds right now, but was nice enough to give us his time as well.

Yeah, hi, Jerry. This is Chris Yestead. Yeah, kind of changing gears here just a little bit. Tell us how you would go about preparing a budget.

Go about preparing a budget. I think that it's important to find out, you know, working with the departments Also, it's important to work with them on the budget, but also learning, you know, what what's the current year look like? I think that's a good place to start trying to figure out what the estimates are for revenue. Think about what projects are needed and then, you know, talking to folks to determine what's going to be a priority for the upcoming year. I think that I would probably look at the strategic plan to consider those priorities. I know CICIT has one. So I think you just need to, you know, really look at what were the prior expenses? What do we anticipate coming up for the future year based on priorities? What is the revenue likely to be? You know, we're going to have to look at projections for that and think about whether they need to be different from the prior year. And then... come up with priorities, obviously work with the assembly to ensure those priorities match their priorities and then, you know, finalize the budget that way.

Great. Thank you.

Hi, Jerry. Kevin Mosher again. So my question is this. Before I ask the question, I'm just going to let you know Sitka has its own utility department and the city actually owns and manages that. It's not very common, so I'd be interested to know what your relationship with utilities is. But the main question is this. Full-service cities carry a lot. Police, fire, public works, utilities, parks, and more. When resources are tight, how do you evaluate service-level trade-offs? Can you give an example of where you recommended reducing or restructuring the service? Sub-questions here. How do you involve the community in those kinds of decisions, and have you restructured fees, cost recovery programs, or enterprise funds? I can repeat that. That's a lot of . I'm still absorbing it.

So I do think that right now Perry Township is having a bit of a challenge with its road funding. So Before I started there, they had failed a couple of road levies, and they let one expire in the hopes that a new one would pass. And funding is a little bit different in Ohio, I think, than it is in Sitka, where we get our revenue from. Most of the revenue for the township comes from property tax. I should put that out there. And in Ohio, anytime you want to get an increase in property tax, you have to go to the voters, and they'd have to pass a new levy. And recently they've reduced the types of levies you can go for. So even if property values increase, the levy amount doesn't increase based on the property values, if that makes sense. It stays flat. So whatever you pass it for in that year, whatever the value was that year, it stays flat at that same level. So, anyway, we lost about $500,000 in funding in our road department, and so we have been not replacing openings as folks leave the department, unfortunately. That's certainly a challenge. And so we are in the position now of trying to go for a renewal levy. And so it would renew a 1986 levy at 1986 rates. So whatever the values of property were back in 1986. It's still that levy amounts to just over $700,000. So if that doesn't pass, we are going to have to look at reducing staff further. So that's not a great position to be in, but it's certainly one we have been looking at at this point in time. Another thing that we would have to do if this renewal levy doesn't pass is we would have to only provide snow removal during business hours and during the week when workers are supposed to be there so that there would be no overtime. Right now, Perry Township is actually known in the area for having really good snow removal because we have some really old school road workers, I guess. They've been fantastic about really staying out as long as they need to stay out to clear the roads. We have 145 miles of roads in Perry Township, so it's a big job. But I think that, you know, Unfortunately, if you do have a revenue issue, you're going to have to make those hard choices. And I know residents, if we don't pass the renewal, will be unhappy with limited snow removals, especially since they've been used to such good service in the past. Um, but that's just something that you would have to do and we'd have to look at other ways to cut costs as well. Um, luckily we already have all the salt we need for this upcoming winter. Uh, so that's a plus. Um, but we would have to probably provide less services. Like right now we do, um, replacements for culverts for people's driveways. We probably wouldn't be able to do that because we'd have such reduced staff. And, you know, it's really very inexpensive for them to have a township do it at this point in time. So.

Okay, if I could add a follow-up to that. So in these kind of things, and thank you for providing those examples, in those kind of things, do you provide, what's your engagement with the community regarding any big or major changes other than public persons to be heard? Do you do radio interviews or reach out to the community, ask for input, or do you do any of that?

We do. So like last time we tried to pass a new levy for the roads, we requested volunteers for a road advisory group to get their input in what they thought the levy should be. And so we worked with that group for several months to develop a recommendation And the Board of Trustees approved that. It went on the ballot. And unfortunately, it didn't pass. It's a bit of a specifically challenging time in Ohio because there's also this statewide movement to reduce property taxes overall. So there's a lot of things happening. I think um not going in the road department's way um and and hampering their ability to pass a levy the other thing is is I think just generally speaking and I've seen this across Ohio road levies are much less likely to pass than say like a police or fire levy um so So it is definitely challenging. One of the things, and I don't know how important property tax is in SICA. I'm sure you have some type of property tax, but with levies in Ohio, it can only go for that specific purpose. So like we can't just do a general levy and then allocate funds. It has to be a road levy for road funds. Same thing for police and fire. Those are much more likely to pass. People like police and fire better, but I'm trying to convince folks that it's important for them to be able to drive on safe roads to get to your house too, right? So we are working on it and we recently hired a new public works director and we're working together on some plans to have, maybe some more appealing social media efforts. And I think that we have some good strategies in place that I'm very hopeful we'll be able to pass renewal levy.

Okay, thank you.

Hey, Jerry, Scotty again. I'm still stuck on my department head questions here. you know, like one thing that we're making it easier for you or the candidates to come here is we got another position of assistant administrator. So like when you got so many departments going on and then a critical budget question or something, you're going to have somebody else in your corner to bounce stuff off of, you know, because what Sitka is dealing with is mistakes made in the past and then those people leaving town and then the town sitting here with the rest of the mistakes and, that particularly would be our utility department with our dam where we have the largest municipal debt in the state for a town of 8 000 people to raise our dam by 90 feet so we could have more water pressure and squirt more power through the turbines except somebody at city didn't line that penstock with concrete, so we can't get that velocity of water that we raised the dam for. So there's many different things. Another example would be our building department for having so much money being wasted on refrigeration equipment, Now suddenly you got to have a Freon card to get a job in the refrigeration billets here. So there's a lot of faith that's been lost because we got a revolving door and the administrator of holding that whole command together. You know, I just, I want to paint the right picture for you to know what you're getting into with a town like Sitka where people are going to live here no matter what happens. And then, you know, people come and go for government jobs, but people remain here for their lives. So, I just want to encourage you to keep with the process and I don't really have anything else to tell you except we got a bag of worms here and we need help bad. Thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Jerry, in preparation for this interview, did you read our general code or charter? And if so, did anything stand out to you? And if not, what have you learned about our town since we reached out and scheduled an interview?

Sarah Silver, So I did not read the general code or charter, but I did reach I did read the strategic plan and I looked at also your tourism Commission and an action plan there I thought that was interesting I really was impressed with the fact that sick it has a strategic plan and that you've been updating it so.

Okay, thank you. I would add to that that charter definitely drives everything local government does here, and General Code fine-tunes all of that. So that will be your lifeline to live by within the municipality here.

Okay.

I like homework. Yes. JJ again. Alaska has unique intergovernmental picture, boroughs, tribal entities, state agencies, and federal land managers, and they all kind of sometimes intersect with city operations. Describe a time where you had to work through a complex multi jurisdictional situation.

Well, sure. In my role at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, I worked with county agencies and workforce areas. We had 88 county agencies, 20 workforce areas. And I had to work with them all the time on that workforce program I mentioned. earlier and I would say the county agencies had a much different list of priorities compared to the workforce areas and really a whole different cultural mindset. The county agencies were much more focused on public benefits and like cash assistance and food and I would say very compliance oriented, whereas the workforce areas were used to, I guess, working more in the gray areas of how to prepare somebody, you know, for the workforce and get them the skills and work experience they needed. So that was an interesting effort, trying to work with both groups, but, you know, finding commonalities where we could and working to continuously improve that program. In the In Perry Township, more recently, I have been working with the county, the county's Economic Development Board, different county agencies. I've also been working with some state agencies. We recently had an EPA audit on our stormwater program. And so that involved working with the Public Works Department, also our county Soil and Water Agency, Ohio EPA, And we're working on updating our policies to make sure we're meeting the Ohio EPA guidelines on stormwater. So that's been an interesting experience. And I think that we're going to do well in improving that for Perry Township. It had been about 12 years since we had an audit prior to this year. Okay.

Yeah, this kind of governmental picture here, we're pretty wide, we're kind of flat, like the city and borough of Sitka is kind of a combined municipal and county structure. So we do generally the services which, you know, elsewhere would be two different levels of government. So that kind of cues into why we have our own utilities, water, waste water, garbage collection, as well as our own electric department, which is quite unique nationally. And as well as those roads and other services like police and fire that you're familiar with. The other piece of that that's not so typical is that we overlap with the local tribal government. We don't do reservations in Alaska. We have other structures there. So that relationship in that intergovernmental picture is not just talking about your federal, your state, your local, but also those sovereign nations as well. So thank you for that.

Hi, this is Tor again. So I'm going to, I guess, talk a little bit about relationships with the public And more specifically, when they're not happy with us, or you, because that will happen. And so I guess what I say is, first of all, the first part is how would you handle the complaints? And then how would you handle a complaint where they come in adamant, and you, for whatever reason, can't give them what they want? possibly because it's illegal or, you know, we don't have the money, whatever. How do you handle that person? And they're hot under the collar and you can't give them what they want.

Well, I mean, I think it's... I've certainly dealt with unhappy members of the public. I think it's important to remain calm, try and listen to what their concerns are, provide... you know, whatever help you can, even if it's just providing the information and as to why you might not be able to do something they'd like you to do, right? I think, you know, it doesn't matter what level of government you're at, you're always going to have folks that you have to tell things that they don't want to hear. I think a lot of times people that are unhappy want to at least feel like they've been heard. There are some folks that it just doesn't matter if you're not going to tell them what they want to hear. They're just not going to be happy. You have to kind of know that too. But I think being patient, calm, and providing information information in as helpful way as you can is all you can really do. You're not going to make everybody happy, but I think as long as you're being respectful and trying to, you know, be as helpful as you can, again, knowing that you can't just give everybody what they want, that's about all you can do.

Hey Jerry, Katie here. So wanna go back to something that you said about yourself and your introduction, you like challenges. Well, Alaska can be a challenging place, especially infrastructure wise. It's extremely expensive and complicated to do large infrastructure projects here. We have remote location, super inclement weather, especially land availability is very difficult for some of the larger housing projects, things like that. And so lots of different reasons why infrastructure is a challenge here. So I'm wondering if you can tell us about a significant capital project that you managed in a challenging environment and how you balanced competing infrastructure needs. And I think you referenced this earlier when you were talking about the snow removal and the tax challenges. You talked a little bit about, okay, we're going to prioritize snow removal during the workday. We're going to not fill open positions. So those are some of the trade-offs, but How did you make those prioritizing decisions, and how would you do that here in terms of capital projects?

Okay. I think capital projects, I would think, would certainly be challenging in Sitka. I know it's remote, and so things are going to cost more just to get it there, let alone to make the necessary changes and installations. I would say probably most recent example would be, we've been doing that energy efficiency grant, but it's not really a big project. I would say when I was on the West Terrell City School Board, we put together a plan to renovate a number of the buildings in the Westville City School District. And we had to, you know, put together a plan for a bond levy just for capital improvements. It's a little bit different than, you know, regular operational levies, what folks are normally putting on the ballot here in Ohio. But there's an option to put a bond levy on the ballot. That's actually something we've looked at even for our roads in Perry Township. But I think, you know, we did in in the city of westerville school district um we we surveyed the community to see where folks thought which schools they thought needed the renovations most urgently compared to other buildings and just to give you an idea of the size like the city of westerville school district had three high schools with about a thousand students each and then you know middle schools 15 elementary schools so it's fairly large and a lot of the buildings were older so um so we looked at the elementary schools first because we had some that were from you know open classroom style i don't know if anyone experienced open classrooms at the elementary level anyone on the assembly Anyway, it's basically like wall-less classrooms. So that was popular in the 60s or 70s, I guess. And so we had several elementary schools that were open classroom style. And so the noise between classes was a lot. And so we prioritize those elementary schools. And then We needed more space at the middle school level, so we added a new middle school building. And then we prioritized renovating the oldest high school building. So there was no way we could really cover all the buildings, so we really prioritized the ones that needed the most. And we did that based on community surveys, focus groups, and then also staff input through surveys. We worked with an architectural firm to come up with some cost estimates for the bond levy. And then we thankfully passed that bond levy and we were able to do the renovations. I would say my only regret was I thought that the oldest high school, we probably should have just built a new building. I think it wouldn't have cost that much more to build a new building. And the renovations on that high school turned out to be challenging. They were trying to do it during COVID. So a lot of the costs skyrocketed compared to when we put out the bond. So that took a longer time for them to complete that renovation. And it probably wasn't as effective as if we had done the new building. So I think those are the types of things you need to think about. How long is it going to take? How much is the cost going to increase over that time? And, you know, is it something that needs, depending on what the project is, is it something that needs to be replaced or is it something that you really can only renovate? I think it's important to consider all of those factors when you're looking at capital projects. And then you really need to stay on top of whoever is doing the project, whether you're project managing or if it's a department head that has to project manage a project. Or sometimes it's important enough to hire a separate project manager just to track the project. It really depends on what the capital project is. But I think, you know, it's one of those things you don't want it to take, you know, too much longer than was planned. Because if it does, it could increase costs dramatically. So. Thank you.

Yeah. Chris. Thank you. Yep.

So you've been kind of touching on this throughout the interview here, but I'll give you a chance to expand on it if you'd like. Could you describe your management style, specifically with staff, but you could even go towards how you deal with the assembly and potentially even the public?

Sure. So I would say that my management style is more a coaching style. So I really like to work with staff to help them develop their skill levels. Department heads, I think they should hopefully have the technical expertise they need for what they're doing, but maybe they don't always have that. But so hopefully, you know, if folks do have some type of gap, I think I would try and see if there's training available or if there's maybe another, you know, neighboring community where there's someone they could connect with that does something similar. I think that's, you know, good potential resource or some other level of government even if there's somebody that could be a resource for them i've been working with some of the department heads in perry township i think many of them don't have as much experience with hr and hr type issues so that's something that i've been working with some of the department heads on in trying to help them resolve hr issues that they might have So I think it's just a matter of, you know, trying to work with folks because everybody's different, right? People have different experiences, knowledge, and skill sets. And so trying to take advantage of strengths people have, and then any weaknesses that you identify, trying to help them bolster in those areas. Or, you know, sometimes somebody has a strength that, you know, I don't have. So, you know, it's a good compliment. So, but I like to, as far as hiring goes, I like to hire folks that would compliment other people, either in the department or at the agency. so that we have a broader skill set overall.

Great, thank you.

Hi Jerry, Kevin Mosher again. So another longer question, so I can repeat it if you need me to. Tell us about your collective bargaining experience. How do you prepare for negotiations and what's your philosophy on the relationship between management and organized labor? Have you negotiated contracts when the city's financial situation was difficult? And how do you maintain a working relationship with union leadership while still representing the employer's interests?

Yes. I've been involved in collective bargaining negotiations at the township level, also at the school district. And I've been involved when, you know, levies failed. So I think I'll give you an example. In Perry Township, we have three different unions. And I think it's helpful to have a positive relationship with each union as you can during the day to day, right? So if I know that there's a challenge coming up, sometimes I'll reach out to the union leader and I'll talk to them about it. But I do think it's important on a day to day basis to try and have engagement with the union. So that when it comes down to collective bargaining time, it's not as difficult to negotiate and hopefully things are, you know, requests are more reasonable. But I do think there are ways to prepare for collective bargaining so that there's less likely you're going to have an issue. so for example in perry township like if they're it's important i think to have capital accounts uh to make sure you're budgeting for future costs like things like you know fire trucks ambulances um or if you did need to um have a capital project and do a renovation It's important to set aside money in capital accounts for those. And this is how it works in Ohio. So if it works differently in Alaska, please tell me. But if you had a bunch of money in an operational account that you're just carrying over every year, that starts to look very attractive to the unions when it comes to collective bargaining time. So it's really important to have those long-term plans in place and set aside capital funds for the long-term plan so that they don't end up becoming a bargaining chip when it's time for collective bargaining. And in Ohio, if you end up going to arbitration because you can't agree during negotiations, then they're going to look at those extra funds that are being carried over, and the government entity is going to be unhappy with the decision.

Thank you.

Jerry, Scotty again, not gonna babble about department heads this time. I wanna know if you got a plan for stress, like coming into a duty situation like this with probably like a two or three year limit, maybe more hopefully, but do you have your own little plan? Like when you come up against it, like twiddly your thumbs or read or go fishing or how do you deal with it when you're all alone and it's just you holding it together?

Yeah. I think that I'm pretty good at dealing with stress. I'm certainly an avid reader. Maybe a bit of an addiction for me. But I do enjoy getting out and doing a little bit of not very aggressive hiking, but a little bit of hiking. I really enjoy being out in nature. I find that to be a good way to de-stress. And then... You know, I have hobbies, so. It's important to set aside time to enjoy yourself too.

Seeing the time, Jerry, this will probably be my last question for you this evening. But I was curious. So Alaska receives per capita one of the largest influx in tax revenue from the federal government of any state in the union. State and federal monies are very important to the maintaining and growth of Sitka as a municipality. Could you talk to us about any state or federal lobbying efforts that you've gone through, what your understanding of that is, and any successes that you may have had at the state or federal level in lobbying for your township?

Sure. Well, I certainly have had success at applying for and being awarded grants at both the state and federal level. We've also done a bit of lobbying from the township in regards to getting some capital fund money set aside in the state budget for parks. We've been working also with the state government And I don't know, I don't think this is probably not an issue in Sitka, but in Ohio, townships can be annexed by cities and villages. And so we've been working with our local state senator and representative on annexation reform to try and protect Perry Township a little bit. It does sit in between two cities, so. But, yeah. Yeah, and I've also, when I was a trustee in another township, in Genoa Township, I did some lobbying with the Ohio Department of Transportation to get a stoplight. And I had to work with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission on that. We were able to get a traffic study done by ODOT on a state route going through Genoa Township. And it took about three years of lobbying, but we were able to get that approved and funded through the State Department of Transportation. That was one of my most exciting accomplishments as a trustee.

Thank you.

I appreciate you looking into our strategic plan. It's been kind of a guiding document for Assembly's work in that timeframe. Another important document we put out is our legislative priorities. So your last answer was based on kind of the lobbying stuff you've done, but that's our kind of unified voice for when we do lobbying here to our state government and our federal government on our priorities. There's some unfunded mandates that we like to remind people about. There's some priorities that we see that really help us in Sitka as well as our region of Southeast Alaska. Our concerns here are pretty consistent with our neighboring communities around our region. and that's just based on the things we've been talking about tonight. One thing we haven't quite talked about is our dedication to school funding. Sitka funds to the cap, that's a phrase you'll hear around our state. The way the formula works for public schools, there's contribution levels and it's it we're in an election cycle for governor but the governor really kind of determines quite a bit of where the state money goes and i'm guessing since you've been on a school board since you've done a lot of kind of volunteer work in addition to to your kind of you know day job things that you understand kind of those roles and those plays but can you tell a little bit more to us about what school funding and municipal government can look like in your mind in a place like Alaska.

Okay. I feel confident I know what it looks like in Ohio. It seemed to me that... some of the sales tax was funding both Sitka government and also the school district? Is that accurate?

Yes and no, yeah. So a bit more of a background there to kind of help you answer that question. You know, we have property tax and sales tax as our largest basis. There's other excise taxes that we do as well, but we do have that 1% on top of our base sales tax dedicated to the facilities, so the buildings that our schools operate in, which are owned by the municipality. And there's...

out of the general sales tax that's where the you know operational funding for for the district from the municipal contribution comes from okay um so i i'm guessing that the governor has a lot of say over how much funding the school district gets in yes okay um i think that be important to try and get as much funding as as possible for sick i know that's the obvious answer um i don't know if there are other federal monies available i mean the school funding has been really dwindling at the federal level it seems like and with the department of education at the federal level um not sure if there are other grants available um I guess I'm just not as familiar with how schools are funded in Alaska.

Absolutely. Thank you. That's a great answer. You're wishing to learn more when the time comes, of course.

So this is Tor Christensen again. I'm going to lighten it up a little bit because school funding will, if you get this job, dominate your life. Okay. But to a little bit is why are you applying to Sitka? I mean, and if I might add on that, what do you know about us? I mean, what do you know about Sitka, and why did you apply specifically to us up here?

yeah i um you know i saw the opening um i did a bit of research uh i know it's isolated um i know that you know you have to take a plane or boat to get there um it really seems like a community that is a good size um and would be um more small town where folks know each other um hopefully most often are supportive of one another that was my impression um although i know you know of course it's going to be residents who are unhappy on occasion right um and it really it seemed like a good opportunity um to potentially move to a place that's beautiful, a lot of natural qualities, and just really seemed like a great opportunity to be in a place that's a small town, hopefully friendly, but also some variety as well. I mean, I know it's a big tourist destination too, and it just, you know, it looked like a really good community and one that I would like to be part of, so.

Thank you. So my final question, I wanted to hear a little bit about your workforce development experience. I love that you have extensive workforce development experience. Something that is really hard in Alaska is recruiting and keeping good employees, especially for specialized roles. But also in general, you'll have noticed from our strategic plan that housing and child care are top amongst the quality of life initiatives those are also some of our top economic impediments people can't come here because they find it difficult to access and afford housing and also child care so we really um in addition to you know recruiting and keeping good employees we want to grow our own uh into the roles that that are available at the city so i'm wondering you know what kind of approaches have you used um

if you have some examples on the township level of uh keeping employees on board and how do you build a culture that makes people want to stay yeah that's a great question um i think that you know at the township level i think um treating employees well is important um you know working with uh folks being respectful of them and um their knowledge, giving people the opportunity to grow and expand their skills, whether that's through training or stretch assignments. I think that's really important. We've been dealing with workforce housing issues in Perry Township too, and we are making some progress zoning changes with overlay districts to allow some higher density i saw that you guys were looking at potentially higher density too i think it's really important to make sure people you know that are working can afford the housing so having different housing options is important too and trying to develop a sense of camaraderie amongst staff members. So it really depends on what folks like, whether it's having some kind of internal friendly competition or maybe meeting somewhere after work. I think making people feel like they're appreciated is really important and a good way to get folks to stay. Trying to just check in with people make sure things are going okay. If they have any, you know, challenges, knowing that they can share them and maybe potentially get some assistance with it, depending on what it is. But I think making people feel like they're valued and appreciated is really important. Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, Jerry. This is my final question for the evening. Uh, what do you consider to be the administrator's role in the community?

Yeah, I think the administrator is a resource for the community. Um, you know, one, uh, that's accessible should be accessible, hopefully one that folks may be recognized by site. Um, and, um, and that people feel like they can reach out to if they have questions or suggestions even?

Okay, thank you.

Well, Jerry, that does just about bring us to time this evening. On paper, an hour sounds like a long time. And then once we actually get going on these questions and start to learn more about each other, become a little more comfortable with each other, an hour goes by very, very fast. I know there's still some things that I would love to hear from you and about you. And I'm sure that there's a couple that you would like to know about us or our community as well. So with our last little bit of time here, I'd like to open up the floor to yourself. to see if there was anything on your mind, any questions for us that we could help you with.

Yes, I'm wondering what you're hoping the next administrator will be able to accomplish in their first three months.

Ah, see, that's a question we should be asking you. What are you going to accomplish in the first three months? And I'm gonna speak with the Assembly on this one, not necessarily for them, but this has come up in some previous interviews. If you've done some research on Sitka, you know that we've been going through application process for some time now. And the assembly has definitely said that they want someone to come in and understand our community at first. That's gonna be very important to the job success here. Becoming familiar with all the departments that you may or may not have a familiarity with. and basically inserting yourself as a good member of the community. Three months, just as this hour has, is gonna go by very fast for you, so just becoming comfortable in your own shoes and in your own office here has been a strong point for this assembly in past interviews.

Okay, what are your favorite things about Sitka?

And that I'll let each assembly member answer because I think we all have our own answers for that. You know what I love about Sitka is that we don't have a lot, and that means a lot to me. There is no Walmart here, and that's massive. We have enough to get by, but we don't have everything here. So I really appreciate that about our town, enough without too much.

hey Jerry JJ here my favorite things about Sitka are you know the people the place and the pretty I would agree with both of those and add I love the fact that on my way to work in the morning it's not uncommon for see to see otter or sea lion or look out and see a whale out my window or and If you try and count all the eagles, you're gonna lose count really fast. So just every once in a while, just on a normal day, I'll look out the window or out my car and go, oh yeah, wow. And I've lived here my whole life and I still have that, so.

That's amazing.

Yeah, absolutely stunning community and very tight-knit. I liked what she said about the community seems like we really support each other and I think that is something that we do even if sitkins disagree on things. When push comes to shove, we have each other's back And also it is a community that yes, it is small and maybe doesn't have too much, but we do have a lot going on. And I think that we have a large opportunity and a lot of innovative thinkers here to be able to try things out that can have much broader impacts on our state and our region and show different models for doing things. So I appreciate the, you know, really innovative, hardworking nature of Sitka as well.

For me, you know, when I first, the first time I flew into Sitka, it was the absolute beauty of this place. Rugged, but just gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. Volcano is a backdrop. You know, I had some kids from Montana working for me this year and multiple times throughout the summer. You know, we all made the comment of not a bad office view. So the beauty of this place is just amazing.

Yeah, I don't know if there's much to top there, because I agree with everything everyone said. For me, it's the, well, in addition to the beauty, the absolute stunning beauty, and I'm very grateful. Sometimes I do that as well, to where I just, I look out my window and think how grateful I am to get to live here. But it does come at a cost. The price of living is high here. But because we're an island, we're a very tight-knit community, And there's this kind of sense that we have to rely on each other, that that creates. And I am very impressed by the degree of love and service I see within the community. You could drive down the road. If your car breaks down, you know, instead of getting hurt, you're going to actually get picked up for a ride or helped out. It's a wonderful place, and I'm grateful to be here.

This is Scotty again. Yes, all of the above and yeah, go into my story or whatever, but the thing about Sitka is you can be a sidewalk urbanite, or you could be digging clams every night. And there's a little bit of Alaska for everybody, whether you're really, you know, urban in your framework, or if you're trying to be, I guess we don't have too many more float house people, Yeah there's a big slice here and it's all about people that are going to live here, no matter what so meaning they're not just here because of their job if they lose their job they're going to stay here and you'll find a lot of people like that here.

that's great.

Yeah, Jerry, as you can see, a lot of pride in our community, right? I think Alaska and Texas are two of those states that have the most state pride. We all know Alaska's much bigger and better than Texas, so we'll leave that argument on the table. I'm sure Ohio's great, too. But that does wrap up our time this evening. Hopefully you were able to get a sense of us as we were able to get a sense of you. We are going to have some deliberation this evening, and then we, through Josh, will be back in contact with you regarding any potential next steps.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you. It was really great to meet you, and I look forward to seeing you again.

Me too. All right, bye.

Bye. All right, assembly, that does wrap up our interview this evening. We have the opportunity to enter executive session if need be. Josh, can I confirm that our applicant has said, so we are okay to enter executive session to discuss our applicant, so if there is a motion.

I move to enter executive session to discuss tonight's interviews.

Second.

Could we actually, there's a motion in the packet.

And the only reason there does have to be a reason for entering executive session. We've all got to open up our iPads now and go to the motion sheet, so. It's gotta be on record.

I can hand it to someone. I move to go into executive session to discuss subjects that may tend to prejudice the reputation and character of municipal administrator candidate Jerry Cotter and invite in assistant municipal administrator Josh Branthover. In addition, I move to exclude the municipal administrator and municipal attorney.

It's been moved and seconded to enter executive session. Is there any public comment on entering executive session? Sarah?

All right, on the motion to go into executive session, Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mr. Christensen?

Yes.

Ms. Radley? Yes. Mr. Mosher?

Yes.

Mr. Salin?

Yes.

Ms. Carlson? Yes. And Mr. Yesdad?

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0. Chris, if you'll leave the Zoom meeting, and then I will call you from executive session. Okay, thank you.

And Assembly, please take a break on your way into executive session. A motion to reconvene.

So moved.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, we are reconvened as the assembly in regular session. So tonight the assembly had an interview with an administrator applicant. In executive session we discussed the merits of that applicant and through consensus have decided to have a second round interview. So we will work with HR and Centennial Hall and the clerk's office in order to get that scheduled. As soon as we have a schedule for that second round interview, we will get that out in the public as soon as possible so that people who are interested in this process can tune in and or come down. Anything else from the assembly this evening? Great, thank you all for your time. Privileged motion?

Motion to approve. Leave.

Leave works.

Second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Assembly, we are adjourned.