2025-11-14 Anchorage Council Legislative Program Work Session
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2025-11-14 Anchorage Council Legislative Program Work Session
This work session focused on reviewing the draft 2026 Anchorage Municipal Legislative Program, presented by Mayor's Office staff. The administration outlined prioritized state funding requests categorized under themes of Port Modernization, Public Safety (Safe), Infrastructure Resilience (Secure), and Affordability. Council members engaged in detailed discussion regarding the inclusion and exclusion of specific items,提出了 concerns about the balance of funding between surveillance and crime prevention, the prioritization of state park studies over wildfire infrastructure, and the omission of long-standing priorities like defined benefit restoration and education funding.
Consent Calendar
- No specific consent calendar items were presented or voted on during this work session; the focus was entirely on the discussion and potential amendments to the draft 2026 legislative program.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Council Member Johnson: Expressed skepticism that district priorities have historically been fulfilled, noting that the submission process felt like "going through the motions" despite submitting requests. However, the member acknowledged submitting basic needs such as pedestrian safety and infrastructure.
- Council Member Silver: Stated that while the district submitted priorities, they felt the effort was performative given the low likelihood of state funding for district-specific projects in previous years, though they were open to both including and excluding them.
Discussion Items
Port Modernization & State Funding Context
- Mr. Cloud (Administration): Identified Port of Alaska modernization as the top request, citing a need for ~$200 million in state investment to prevent surcharge increases that impact consumers. Noted the challenging state context with projected deficits of 1.4 to 1.5 billion dollars.
- Council Member Johnson: Expressed strong support for the Port of Alaska funding request, identifying it as the significant financial request related to operations.
Public Safety ("Safe") Priorities
- Mr. Cloud (Administration): Presented requests including $1.5 million for the Anchorage Police Department (APD) real-time crime center, blight reduction/nuisance abatement, and inflation adjustment to the E911 surcharge.
- Council Member Johnson: Strongly opposed the prioritization of the real-time crime center over blight reduction, arguing that the current split reverses priorities. The member contended that the city should mitigate the environmental conditions (vagrancy, drug use) that lead to crime rather than solely expanding surveillance tools.
- Council Member Johnson: Expressed support for the blight reduction funding to address dangerous properties.
Infrastructure & Security ("Secure") Priorities
- Mr. Cloud (Administration): Listed a $250,000 request for a Chugach State Park Access study and increased rates for general relief in assisted living as key "Secure" items.
- Council Member Baldwin Day: Expressed confusion regarding the prioritization of the Chugach State Park Access study under "resilience and infrastructure," questioning why it rose above other unfunded infrastructure needs.
- Council Member Johnson: Expressed concern that the study is the only infrastructure request under "Secure" and suggested that funding for a wildfire "Firewise" program and wildland firefighting readiness should be prioritized to secure the urban wildland interface.
- Mr. Cloud (Administration): Explained that the Chugach study was selected to guide future state-municipal investments in an area where bonding is not an option and to align with strategic state-municipal intersections.
Affordable Housing & Education
- Mr. Cloud (Administration): Outlined requests for a waste-to-energy project ($2 million), weatherization funding for mobile homes, and new financing mechanisms for attainable housing.
- Council Member Johnson: Expressed deep concern regarding the removal of the "Restoration of Defined Benefits" and specific education funding requests. The member noted that these are perennial issues, with the Anchorage School District facing a reported $70 million shortfall, and argued they should remain in the program even without a specific dollar amount attached to maintain community advocacy.
- Council Member Gates: Expressed agreement that defined benefits and education are critical workforce and community retention issues.
- Council Member Kirker: Expressed support for the administration's decision to exclude the "Restoration of Defined Benefits" from the program, citing the high cost and the need for financial realism.
District Priorities & CIP Integration
- Council Member Johnson: Reported low response rates from districts regarding the request to submit priority projects, noting only one response had been received.
- Council Member Silver: Argued that if the Legislative Program is to contain district projects, those projects must be included in the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) to be fundable. The member warned that without CIP inclusion, projects fall through the cracks of the state funding system (CAPSIS).
- Council Member Ross: Acknowledged the need for CIP inclusion but noted procedural flexibility exists to amend the CIP and budget to enter projects into CAPSIS if they are extraordinary, though this places a burden on limited staff.
- Mr. Cloud (Administration): Discussed the potential to expand the document length to include district priorities but noted the risk of the document becoming too long ("TLDR") based on legislative feedback.
Procedural & Formatting
- Ms. Van Clause: Noted the legislative program must be introduced before the budget adoption to comply with code and suggested adding it to the addendum for a December vote to allow time for amendments.
- Council Member Johnson: Requested that members draft amendments for the upcoming Legislative Committee meeting on November 19th.
Key Outcomes
- Agreement to Receive Amendments: The Assembly agreed to solicit amendments from members for discussion at the Legislative Committee meeting scheduled for November 19, 2025.
- Deadline Established: Staff (Ms. Benaclos or Mr. Johnson) will communicate specific deadlines for members wishing to add items to the project.
- Process Clarification: Discussion concluded that for district priorities to be fundable, they ideally must be in the CIP, though administrative staff can assist in entering extraordinary items into CAPSIS if necessary to avoid them falling through the cracks.
- Draft Status Confirmation: The administration confirmed the draft 2026 Legislative Program was introduced in a timely manner, allowing for the subsequent amendment process before budget adoption.
Meeting Transcript
To the folks on the phone, we're just waiting for the administration to attend. So we'll get started when they get here. So we'll go get go ahead and get started. Welcome everybody. Today's Friday, November 14th. This is a work session on the legislative program. Item number for it yet. We will soon. We're on the calendar from ten forty to eleven forty today. It's ten forty six now. We'll start with introductions. Christopher Constant on the phone with Silvers. Silvers? Mr. Martinez. Yes, I'm here. Oh, thank you. Mr. Martinez, are you there? Yes, present. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Martinez. Mr. Johnson. Sure. Thanks. And we're joined by our legislative services staff. Also, Mr. Gates, Mr. Hurt for the legal clerk's office, and Mr. Clouder from the administration. Mr. Cloud, take us away. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, Nolan Clauda with the mayor's office. So what you all have in front of you is the draft 2026 legislative program. This has been gone through with the legislative committee and drafted by folks in the administration, including myself and put out for your consideration as a as a body. If I can, if you'd like, Mr. Chair, I can walk you through the program and what we have in here. But what we have is that it is kept it focused on on items that are of, you know, pri that are that are more that are very direct municipal interests. And starting with the port of Alaska. So our top request is for funding for the port modernization. And this is, you know, this is obviously not this is a perennial topic and something that matters a lot to us by keeping those surcharges from from being too high so that they don't impact consumers in anchor gen around the state as much as we can. So that's the top of it. We know that the context for any asking for funding for the state right now is is going to be very lean. We're hearing very large numbers about what this projected state deficit is going to be, you know, in the 1.4, 1.5 billion range I'm hearing. So capital asks may not be uh may not may not may not be super fruitful, but nonetheless, we do think it's important to try. And also, if there's any possibility of a general obligation bond, we want to be included in that.
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