I can call.

Good evening.

I'd like to call the to order the August.

I'm sorry, the January 30th assembly meeting.

December 30th.

And I'm trying to get ahead of things here.

Yeah, happy new year.

Please stand for a flag.

The assembly of the city and borough of Sitka would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional first people of Sheetka.

With gratitude, we proceed on Clinkettani.

Sarah Roll Call, please.

Mr.

Pike.

Here.

Ms.

Carlson.

Here.

Miss Riley.

Here.

Mr.

Christensen.

Here.

Mr.

Mosier.

Here.

And Mr.

Selene.

Mayor Eisenbais is absent this evening.

Thank you.

Are there any moving on to correspondence and agenda changes?

Are there any correspondent or agenda changes this evening?

Seeing none, we'll move on to special reports.

We have three scheduled special reports.

First one tonight will be the Sitka Tribe of Alaska.

Thank you.

Good evening, Assembly members.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Elena Peterson.

I am the vice chair for the SICA Tribe of Alaska, and I'm glad to be here to provide some updates tonight.

So STA had our annual meeting in December on the 2nd.

And we just want to thank everyone who attended the event.

It was uh really fun.

And I also brought copies of our 2025 annual report for you all, which um we distributed this at the meeting.

The council also swore in our new and re-elected council members Woody Widmark, um, Gary Pulital Lang, Martha Moses, and Rhonda Stiles, and we also thanked outgoing council members Lisa Way and Fred Olson for their years of service.

Uh another announcement is that we um Lisa Gassman resigned, and so we thank her for her many years of service and all of her accomplishments, and so we're now undergoing a search for a new GM, and uh the interim GM is Rob Allen.

The uh tribal youth winter solstice celebration was also held on December 5th, and that was at Blackley Middle School.

So children families uh were able to gather for fun and festive evening with games, crafts photos with Santa and Mrs.

Claus, and uh we just wanted to give a big goodness cheese to Shiatica for co-hosting that event with us.

We also had our SNEP culmination um event for our SNEP students who finished a semester of work um with a performance on the 6th of December.

And then on the 17th, we had our tribal council meeting where we took care of quite a bit of bit of business.

We appointed our officers and completed our committee selections.

So uh I was elected as vice chair and Lillian Felposch as treasurer and Martha Moses, who's here tonight as our secretary.

We also appointed Martha Moses and Lillian Felposh to one year terms on the BHA board of commissioners.

We appointed um Lisa Way to the community seat for the Biha Board of Commissioners for a three-year term.

We approved the FY 2026 budget and fiscal timeline.

Uh and an MOU is the Alaska Heritage Institute to collaborate on a black seaweed research project was approved.

We approved a collaboration with the Sikasound Science Center on the communication and reciprocal exchange, also known as the CARE program.

We uh we approved a co-production of a Mount Edge Come Volcano hazard maps and education materials alongside a letter of support, and our offices have been closed um for the holiday and will will remain closed on January 1st and 2nd and then open again for business on the 5th.

And during uh the government shutdown and in the fall of 25, the essential services like SNAP benefits were disrupted, and so many federal employees went without pay.

So in response, Sika Tribe organized the HERT program, which stands for helping everyone access resources together, and this accepted monetary donations, gift card donations, and we hosted a fill the bus food drive uh to support affected families in SICCA.

So I'm just gonna share some of the outcomes of that program.

$550 in gift card donations were received by community members.

From the GoFundMe was raised on a fundraiser page.

$200 from individual staff at Clinken Hyda was raised.

A $1,000 donation from BihA.

$783 in cash donations from the fill the bus food driver received for a total of over $11,000 of cash donations.

And then the fill the bus food drive additionally brought in over 200 2,000 two hundred pounds of food and household essentials for distribution to affected individuals and families.

So just a really big good cheese to the community for showing up in that way and helping us uh make that program possible.

And then the last announcement I have is that the um Kalyan helmet is coming home.

So we're really delighted to announce that this uh uh this helmet, it's Catlianne's helmet, it's a Raven helmet or Raven hat is coming back to Shikaquan.

This helmet was worn by Kalyan in the battle of 1804, and it's one of the most important at U for the Kixati.

It's more than just an artifact, it carries the spirit of our ancestors and embodies our history, resistance, and connection to those who came before us.

So we really wanted to thank the dedicated efforts of our legal team working in concert with the Cultural Resources Committee and years of persistent advocacy that culminated in this moment of repatriation.

And that is all I have.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Pike.

Uh greetings, everyone.

Um I thought maybe I would do some update on budget stuff since we're heading into that season timber receipts.

Yay, we love that.

Thank you, uh, everyone who helped push that through.

We had our first budget meeting on December 17th.

Uh, we discussed where we are, but until we get our audit finalized, which still hasn't been done, it's more guesswork than even usually that it is around this time.

But it looks like right now we have decent reserves, um, somewhere between 1.4 and 1.6 million, and that's before the timber receipts come in.

So uh that looks uh looks like a good piece of information.

Um we're planning on hosting those community meetings that we held last year.

Um we had parent meetings at every school, we met the we at the chamber of commerce, uh tribal citizens at Nakahiti, and both the elementary and secondary staff.

This year we hope to refine our questions a little bit and meet community members at maybe some more different venues still to be determined, and including Zoom for those parents and community members who can't make evening meetings.

Um I was in conversation with Lon Garrison from the Alaska Association of School Boards, asking him what he thought the legislative session is gonna look like.

Um, and he gave me a couple of bullet points that I thought I'd let you all know about.

Um just a reminder that the $700 increase that we received last year is really is actually resulted in only a $20 per student increase in funding from the previous year.

And while we're appreciative that that increase is in statute, we're still way behind where we were in 2011 in terms of purchasing power.

So because we got that additional funding, I think many legislators are gonna think they've already funded schools now.

Um, with the increase, um, that's just not quite true.

We still haven't kept up with inflation and revenue is still a huge problem.

There's no long-term fiscal plan with new sources of revenue, and the finance committee is gonna be pretty challenged this year to balance that spending and revenue.

Um there's also an overwhelming need for the state to fund major school maintenance and capital improvements for the schools and the university of Alaska system.

Um, and without those revenue sources, that's gonna be tricky.

Um, and again, he's he states that he believes that there's universal fatigue now that the advocacy for adequate funding went uh was so successful last year.

Um, but there's a lot of other issues that need to be dealt with, including energy for South Central and Interior Alaska that haven't seen any resolution, and that will compete for attention and resource.

And of course, the PFD is always a factor in the ultimate funding outcome for all state services, and Governor Den Levy has offered us $3,800.

So that's a huge chunk of the entire state budget.

Maybe we can figure that out.

Um and then I also was in conversation a little bit with representative himself since we're worried about revenues.

Um just want to remind everyone that Senate Bill 113 was vetoed by the governor over the summer.

Um that's an Alaska corporate tax framework that was written well before the internet was born, and companies that deliver services electronically, Netflix, gaming platforms, they're not addressed in those statutes.

Senate Bill 113 would shift where the corporate tax for those businesses is collected from the location of the company's headquarters to the point of delivery here in Alaska.

So there would not be an increase in the taxes on those companies, but Alaska could receive as much as sixty-five million dollars in new revenue just from that adjustment.

So that bill was passed.

Dunlavy uh um vetoed it, but he vetoed it um in the summer after they had met for their special meeting.

So there's still a chance for this to be uh overridden.

That override vote has to come in the first five days of the session.

So please contact representatives to remind them that we need revenues to fund governments and schools.

And finally, I want to just thank you again for all of the work that we do together to make this budget work.

Um, and I appreciate all the support that y'all have given us in the past.

So go to Jeez.

Have a great rest of your break.

Thank you.

Brings us to department quarterly reports, Chief Gaiden.

Chief Gaden Sitka Police Department, thank you for the opportunity, ladies and gentlemen of the assembly to bring you uh to give you an update.

This week marks six months in this job for me, and I'll start with the good news.

In six months, we've hired six people, which is pretty incredible.

That is the end of the good news.

Um I don't want to be alarmist or catastrophic and tell you that we're capsizing, the boat is not capsizing, but we are taking on water.

We are going in the wrong direction.

Of those six people, one of them has been a dispatcher.

Unfortunately, that person didn't make it through training, so we've made zero progress in our dispatching, and that is one of our biggest areas of concern.

I have had zero other applicants make it all the way through the testing, even get to testing.

Most of them won't even complete filling out the application.

We're just we're struggling in that area, and unfortunately, it's to the point where I think we have to seriously start considering possibly contracting out Graveshift dispatch to another community because we're just not getting the applicants.

And it is causing burnout amongst my dispatchers.

My admin assistant is literally now a full-time dispatcher, and then doing admin assistance stuff on overtime because that's how short-staffed we are.

Fortunately, we've been able to hire a dispatch supervisor.

She will be here in February.

That will be a great benefit to us.

Um, some of the other folks that we've hired, they're in training.

One of the people that we've hired, we took out of the jail and put them into patrol.

So technically it's a hire, but we just moved our chess pieces.

When it comes to the jail, our longest serving employee uh who's been with us for nearly 16 years, is resigning because he can go to the state, and this is his intention, and within a year he will be making more at the state than he's making now with the city after 16 years.

So I I think we're seeing a trend here, unfortunately.

It's just we are we're in competition, not just with other police departments, but with the world at large.

Uh, I didn't believe this when I read it, but I checked into it.

A first year over-the-road truck driver for Walmart can make almost twice what our dispatchers make, including the mandatory dispatch, excuse me, the mandatory overtime that our dispatchers have.

So we are in competition with a whole world of employers who are desperate for employees, and and that's kind of where we are.

So um, I'm just taking a quick look at my notes here, see if I've missed anything.

Uh we're we're making progress in other areas as far as body cameras and the like, but our biggest issue is staffing and just trying to get the applicants through the door so that we can get them into training.

That's all I have, unless anybody has any questions.

Thank you, Chief.

Appreciate it.

Um, just to clarify, you said it was uh the good news, of course, being hiring six people were those, and then you mentioned um dispatch.

Were there any uh patrol officers hired and not six people?

Yes, one of them is uh and some of these were included in my last quarterly report, so it's not all been in the last three months.

Uh, one of them is on the road.

One of them is currently in field training, one of them is starting the academy.

He's the one that was a jailer and now has gone to the uh to the police side, which we're happy to have him, starting the academy January 25th, and we have one lateral who will be coming to us in mid-February, going through a two or three month uh field training program, and then we'll be able to put him on the road.

Thank you.

Chief, wasn't there something like with the last chief that we were answering dispatch calls from out west or something?

We were at one point uh this is the reverse of what I'm talking about doing.

Uh I believe it was Gerdwood head, or I'm sorry, Whittier had contracted with us that ended before I took the office six months ago.

So in order for us to do it, we would have to put in about 15,000 dollars in hardware so that the people in other towns can talk to our officers in the patrol cars.

Right now we don't have that capability, and then we would look at I I don't want to get rid of dispatch entirely, but even if we just went with Graveshift, that would take the burden off of my dispatchers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other special reports municipal boards, commissions, and committees, students or invited guests seeing none, we are now at persons to be heard for public participation on any item off the agenda, not to exceed three minutes for any of individual.

Is there any public comment for items off the agenda?

Seeing none, moving to the consent agenda.

I move to approve the consent agenda consisting of item A, approving the minutes of the December 16th and 18th assembly meetings.

Second, it's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent agenda consisting of item A, minutes of the December assembly meetings.

Is there any public comment?

Assembly deliberation.

Sarah?

All right, on the motion to approve the consent agenda, Mr.

Pike.

Yes, Ms.

Carlson.

Yes.

Mr.

Celine?

Yes.

Mr.

Mosier?

Yes.

Ms.

Riley?

Yes.

And Mr.

Christensen.

Yes.

The motion passes 6-0.

Thank you.

We are now at item B.

I move to reappoint Joe Dorenzo to a three-year term on the three tree and landscape committee and Von Hazel to a three-year term on the Terrorism Commission.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to appoint those two individuals to their respective commissions or committees.

Is there any public comment?

Assembly deliberation.

Thank you so much for your service.

Thank you.

Sarah?

On the motion to um approve the reappointments, Ms.

Riley?

Yes.

Ms.

Carlson?

Yes.

Mr.

Mosier?

Yes.

Mr.

Pike?

Yes.

Mr.

Christensen?

Yes.

And Mr.

Celine.

Yes.

Motion passes 6-0 on item B.

Moving right along.

We are now at item C.

Ordinance 25.

I move to approve ordinance 2025-29 and second and final reading, making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2026 Airport Terminal Project.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance 25-29.

Is there any public comment?

Assembly deliberation.

I'm just saying we deliberated this quite a bit last time, so I'm in favor.

This is definitely not a new topic for two us.

All right, on the motion uh to approve ordinance 2025-29 on second and final reading.

Mr.

Christensen?

Yes.

Ms.

Carlson?

Yes.

Mr.

Celine?

Yes.

Mr.

Pike?

Yes.

Ms.

Riley?

Yes.

And Mr.

Mosier.

Yes.

The motion passes 6-0 on item Cem D, please.

I move to approve ordinance 2025-30 on second and final reading, making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2026 visit SICKA supplemental funding.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance 25-30 making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2026 visit SITCA.

Is there any public comment?

Seeing none.

Mr.

Moser.

Oh, was I raising the no?

Um I have no, you know, we again we deliberated this quite a bit last time.

Um and there is a note for people in the public uh who don't have the packet in front of us.

The note is that a consideration of the new visit sick contract will go before the assembly on January 13th.

Yeah, and there's a the con there's still not a contract in here, and so this is just that funding that we talked about, Mr.

Christensen.

Yeah, um I just wanted to make a comment that I we've received a little bit of mail about this, and I think there's some misconceptions over where the money comes for this that I think need to be cleared up.

That we had a vote, although I don't remember what year it was in the 90s, uh, to create this fund and fund it with the bed tax.

So we can't use it really for anything else.

Uh I mean I know technically if we've got a little bit extra, we can, but uh if we did anything major that wasn't visitor enhancement, uh we'd be in court, and we should be.

Uh so plus it was a vote of the people.

So as much as I know we've had saying, well, we should be using this money for other things, we can't.

Uh and and I think that needs to be made clear.

Uh and if this were unencumbered, I may not vote for this right now, but it isn't.

And so uh, you know, I I'm not crazy about this still.

Uh there's some I think some glaring holes and considering that it's not doing as much as we hoped and for the cost, but it also is what we got.

So that's about where I'm at on it.

Riley.

Um, yeah, thank you for those comments.

Uh Tor, I agree um that this is just regarding the expenditure of the funds um for that gap period.

So I'll try to keep my comments limited to that.

But in terms of what we can use the visitor enhancement fund for, it is limited, but it can be changed by assembly action.

Um, and so I think that that is something that this body could consider uh given how much you know feedback we've received from the community about um the level of visitation that we have and the funds that we put towards it while other services are lacking.

I think that there uh could be some deliberation at this body about how those funds are best spent.

Um, and I will be excited to have those conversations in the new year.

Uh, but as far as um the rest of this uh contract goes, um very interested in seeing yeah, what kind of um what kind of information we get during this period that we are budgeting for, and then how we uh see how that enhances our our visitor um strategy and what kinds of things we can take into account there going forward.

I guess I guess I will go a little deeper uh since uh folks made comments.

Yeah, I agree.

This isn't necessarily perfect, but I I do want to point out like I did last time, um, there's no one else really doing this.

And uh I understand some people feel that you know all we focus on is tourism.

Well, tourism is one of our biggest, if not our biggest uh revenue generator, and it's not just a sales tax that comes in, it's the money that that gets transferred and multiplied every time someone spends a dollar and that dollar goes to uh a business owner and then they do something else with it, um, has a multiplication effect.

I don't know what that term is, but it's very important.

And um, although I find having a lot of tourists all over the place, at least downtown, a little frustrating sometimes since I work downtown uh in one of the office buildings there.

Uh I do understand and recognize that this has helped the city significantly to for core basic services such as taking on the school maintenance as well as uh uh things like reopening Blacksley Pool and restarting the uh parks and rec program, which has been hugely popular.

So it's a means to an end, I I think, and I am glad that the people stepped up and offered this.

I think um we'll see how it goes.

I am excited, like Katie said about the information, you know, that they'll have to be giving us more information this this um process, so I'm looking forward to that.

And thank you again to Amy and staff who who did this uh work on this.

Yeah, and I'll just say again that there's the contract is yet to come.

So the you know what what some of what both of you have alluded to is still to be worked out.

So I mean I think that's one of the things we talked about.

This is a split of the funding just making sure we're clear about what we're doing this is how we're making the fiscal note then what this actually is going to be used for in terms of the contract.

I mean we have a rough idea or we wouldn't be voting at all but um but that's just to be clear January 13th is going to be an interesting day.

Sarah all right on the motion to approve ordinance 2025-30 on second and final reading Ms.

Carlton yes Mr Ms Riley yes Mr.

Selene yes Mr.

Mosher yes Mr.

Pike yes and Mr Christensen yes motion passes six zero on item D all right new business item Ecussion on the bear trash management strategies go sponsors are assembly members Celine and Isenbise um and again this is a discussion so this is a assembly led conversation here um and I believe Scotty you're gonna start us off I'm bummed that uh I didn't I just use my comic book mind to communicate verbally and some entities didn't show up here because I thought we could really go forward and get the people up Indian River some some relief on this and this stems from the troopers stopping me on the street telling me that they want to go to the old style dumpster with the green ones with the bowlers outboard uh the deal with the Pacific waste they don't have enough equipment to pick up the number of cans that would be requested if we moved to these uh garbage cans um so I've asked people to show up here and just try to uh re-emphasize what it's like to live up Indian River with brown bears squishing on your front doors and kids waiting for the bus year after year with bears in the shadows so I'm just hoping that people didn't show up because they're shy to come before the assembly so it's like you can't subpoena people but I'm gonna get the paper trail going so that the next meeting um we could have people here and make this come together we don't know what it's gonna take so I asked specific waste to be here but not through proper channels and just to try to tell us what costs are gonna be incurred so that they can pick those dumpsters um I was here when the first garbage company got put out of business because of when Strager showed up and all these new garbage cans came about um so I don't know how much we're gonna get done today except talking about it but um and the troopers said they were gonna try to be here but had other stuff going on but uh um that's all I got is to get it out on the table like there was a solution that the professionals wanted so I wanted to jump on that and I've heard from other houses up on top the hills where the bears wander right behind them that this would be uh doing something and uh so that's what this was all about yeah yeah I mean I I definitely would support working I mean if going to the old style steel ones would work great although I have to say when I saw this I thought well we should just make the bear take their trash to the transfer station because it's anyway uh sorry dad joke um but uh yeah I I I think that strikes me as an elegant solution if that would work so I I definitely would love to follow up to hear what they say and all that and I thank you for bringing it up because it's kind of cool that we're actually getting a chance to push a little bit.

Yeah because they had come up with sorry well with new cans for Baldees or Cordova or something and I'm like we don't want to buy nothing else you know and then um yeah so I'm just trying to get some relief because could be a lot of dead bears around once people get chapped on it so Scotty can you kind of step it out for me I think it's my understanding from what you've said so far is that um you're not asking us to remove all the bins that picked up at the houses but that you're asking that say in a place like Indian River and possibly elsewhere I'm not sure but that we use older style bins are those bins for individual houses or are they like the bigger bins that people walk up to and throw the trash in.

Can you just like step it out on on kind of from point A to B what you're wanting or what your vision is?

Not like big bins at Elias and Harbor, but the small little dumpsters with maybe a four-foot, and now I'm speaking for the troopers.

I just had my comic book mind lapsed around the horizontal bowls that you back up a regular three-quarter ton pickup truck, and the whole thing, you know, slides into it, you know.

So, like a so it's not individual, but it's not huge, it's kind of media in between somehow.

Yeah, I don't have the volumes in my mind of what they would be.

That's why I was hoping that the troopers, whatever they were envisioning, and then to have Pacific waste here about what's possible in the whole realm.

And I didn't know what the contracts were, but I just like the tops that you could put a padlock on it, let them beat on it all day long.

Okay, so okay.

So that sounds good.

I mean, uh, so you're talking about say places like uh Indian River where it's a high traffic area.

You put a couple there, one or two there, then people can walk it in and then lock it.

They have we'll have persons to be heard will be able to share with us how it is now.

But to my understanding, in Indian River, they have those type of dumpsters in a central location, and so you get your garbage away from your house perimeter and put it over there, and this would be in the house perimeter just to make it a fluid garbage pickup.

That's what you're you're proposing.

I'm proposing that everybody gets together with all the entities here and hear what the troopers say to see what the reality is of being in Indian River and then go forward, which would entail costing more money to the borough for because the Pacific Waste doesn't have enough trucks as they would imagine they would need for individual homes up Indian River and what's coming up, you know, because they're gonna need more homes are gonna be built, so there's a future planning involved, and this is just to try to get something happening before herring season and okay.

Like thank you.

I was just trying to vision it out.

I actually been here for quite a long time, but I just for some reason can't remember what those old bins look like.

It's been a while.

Those are bigger than individual bins, though, right?

Like they're as far as what I can see, yeah, but smaller than the ones at Eliason, and they're the ones we used to have, but I just don't have my nomenclature or the volumes down.

You know, I would just guess maybe like the ones I'm thinking about with like a fathom wide the bowlers on the side, maybe would be three or four of the big ones that we have now, but that's all just a guess, you know.

And so I just trying to get a solution.

Yeah, I'm just thinking about like I mean, I don't know that it's uh feasible or financially uh sensible for us to get those for every house, but if like what kind of trash management strategy can we have for each neighborhood or um street, um something like that, like looking at collective strategies, I think is a really good idea, especially given the new development and how that happens and how space set aside space can be made for um placing those bins so that they are accessible.

Um but yeah, you know, fishermen have been carrying their trash down the docks for a long time, so it's not unreasonable, I don't think, to have people walk a little bit of ways if it can help them protect their their property.

Um but yeah, it would be interesting to hear uh from Pacific Waste about what kind of expenditures might be involved in doing a neighborhood wide expansion of that because they have the they have the one right on the street.

Um and then it would also be interesting to talk to the sustainability commission that has been working on solid waste.

Um I think that's mainly been reduction efforts, uh, but I know that that's a focus of theirs going into this next year, and so seeing if we can dovetail some of those efforts um to both like reduce the amount of solid waste that's being generated and uh figure out if there's any kind of like um value added thing that we can do, especially with organic waste um to divert that, you know, is it like a particularly bare attractant waste, and then uh come up with some some of those neighborhood wide solutions, like that could be all part of a comprehensive strategy.

I I could be wrong, but a quick Google searching.

It looks like the old style you're talking about are two-yard and the ones we have now are either four or six, the green ones.

I mean at Eliason, those are four to six yards.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I guess you're thinking about a two year old.

And then and then uh the kind we're talking about, I think, are two-yard.

So like one to two houses, I'm sure stewing on this for a while, so people have thought about it.

So thank you.

I I think I'm starting to understand, and I know that action's not going to be taken here.

This is just a discussion.

I want to throw out some points for consideration just so everyone understands how complex of an issue this is.

Um I'll start with the the bin that is over in Indian River.

Um and Mark, you don't have to come up here.

Did we remove that already?

Okay.

That was a seasonal pilot kind of test that we did this year to see if it reduced any of the traffic, if that was used there to get it away from the homes.

Um we still have to kind of check the measures on whether or not that was successful.

But in that program, uh as that being back there, um the city picked up the tab on that one as part of this pilot program.

Um, another important thing to note if if we do start headed that direction, our garbage rates, our municipal solid waste rates are set by code.

Um, and there is no code-defined rate for for these bins, so uh an ordinance change would also have to come forward to to set those new rates, and then it's kind of the chicken or the egg.

Do we renegotiate a new contract as well to find out what the code rate needs to be?

Because ultimately, whatever the solution is, and if it's going to cost more, it's gonna get passed on to the ratepayer in some expense, meaning uh if you don't want the bin at your house and want to use the big one, like how's that gonna work?

Are you gonna pay for both of them if it's in your neighborhood?

I I don't know.

Um, and then also the question is you know, if if there's a centrally located one, let's say in a neighborhood and you still have to transit that garbage to that thing.

Do we to pay for that get rid of the 200 free pounds at the transfer station to pay for that?

Because that's if you're carrying it to one place, uh you know, the argument would be you could just carry it to the other one where you get 200 pounds free, and maybe one of the avenues to pay for the alternative solution is just get rid of the 200 free pounds dropped off at the uh at the transfer station.

But um, I just wanted to explain kind of the the complexity of it, right?

If if we know what um the solution is going to look like or something we want to try, um, knowing we're we're locked into a contract for I think it's about seven more years, um, that we would have to renegotiate that, figure out what the funding looks like, set the new rates, adjust that in code, uh, and then do whatever appropriation needs to take place because of that, and then readjust the uh the garbage rates for folks.

But it's a it can be a lengthy process, but um I'll wait to see where the discussion goes and and uh what future tasking comes out of it.

Yeah, I think uh you know we've heard about this now for a couple of years, obviously, and um and and it's not just you know we're referred about it, it's a problem around.

It's it's we live in bear country and and we don't want to uh not deal with the solution.

But I yeah, I mean there's a lot of moving parts to this, and uh we're obviously not gonna solve it here today.

I think the question I have for um you and Steven going forward is what do you envision is the process that will get us the answer to what we need to do?

So, what group are we gonna put together?

How are we gonna do it?

I know we had a bear task force.

I see Martha's here, so that talked about this.

Um, but you know, I think you know, if what we're saying as an assembly, which I'm certainly saying is it's time to have for a solution to come out of this.

Uh we still need a process and a uh a way to go forward that gives everyone a chance to get their information to us so that when it comes time to renegotiate the contract, we know what we're talking about.

Because right now we don't.

Like maybe those four yard, those two-yard ones are you know, the bear's gonna flip it upside down and we're gonna have problems.

I mean, maybe they're not built strong enough.

Who knows?

I mean, um, so I think um, you know, what is the process we're gonna go through to get the answer to the question of what it is we want for this, but I think you know, if nothing else, I think what I would like to say is I want us to start working towards the solution so that we can get an answer to this thing.

Because yeah, there's gonna be expense to this.

Um, but I don't want expense to stop us from giving the right solution for the bears and the people.

So um uh people obviously first.

So yeah, I'm in favor of looking at this process, but I would like to hear from you guys in the form of an ordinance, probably how we're going to um move forward, which group's gonna work on this, and how are we gonna get an answer so that we can have what do the numbers look like?

Um, so that we can make a good good faith effort and also gets us some solutions.

But I agree with John.

I mean, any time you're gonna talk about contracts with somebody, it's a big company specific ways, it's not gonna be quick.

So but they're gonna want to know what do you want.

And I think we need to have that answer first.

Their employees have told them what we want, and nothing's being done.

And so I want to make a motion that we have Sarah come up with uh our stakeholders besides the people that live in town and compel them to come forward and get it all out right here.

Because to me, we just wasted two weeks by these guys not showing up tonight, so we could ask them, hey, what's up with the contract?

Get your lawyer to call Rachel, let's see what we gotta do so that something could get done.

Um so I'm gonna pick it back up again and try to figure out how I can get everybody on here to have Sarah write a letter to Pacific Waste troopers.

The chief was just here with chiefs right there, you know, so under Persons to be heard, we'll hear that, but to compel them guys to come here, and if they don't have somebody in town that could speak to a concern that everybody's talking about, then we got a subpoena people, and then I'm just looking at it like we're being jerked around again, and so I'm not gonna I don't want to presuppose that these that anybody doesn't want a solution to this problem.

I think everyone sees the problem.

The question is how do we get from here to there?

So are you seeing saying that you're gonna bring forward an ordinance of the case?

I want to figure it out right now.

If you guys hold my hand, let's take a vote, have Sarah write all these guys a letter out of the code.

Because it's a discussion item, we're just talking, we can't make motions right now.

Um it's advertised as a discussion item, Scott.

So that's all that can happen tonight.

So anything action that you and a co-sponsor would like to take that needs to come back at a future meeting.

Yeah, you could do a discussion direction next time.

Yeah, you don't need one, you don't need a motion.

You just had to put have a community meeting, just like we did with the uh four-wheeler thing.

That was not a assembly action.

That was me and Dave with the help of Sarah, got the got this room, and we asked this stakeholders to come in, and we and we drank brainstorm for a couple hours.

And I'm sure that if you we set up something like that, John will make sure that the appropriate people are there, uh, and maybe you can get some information.

But we don't need to have a motion for you and maybe another assembly person to have a public meeting.

Uh and but come up, you know, again when we did that one, we got those big giant sheets of paper on the wall, and we wrote down what we needed to do for this ordinance, and then I handed it to the attorney and said, Okay, now make an ordinance, and he did.

Um so like I say, it doesn't take assembly action.

That's just you gathering the information that you then you can put an ordinance forth if you need to.

I don't think it's just gonna well, it'll take some ordinances eventually, but it I think um figuring out what the best solution is from the people in Indian River and other places and the and the uh sanitation company, once you figure that out, I think then it becomes you know, it would then it becomes obvious.

Uh so if I would suggest that we and if you want help, uh stop volunteering.

I'll help you.

Um but uh you know it it's not it's not that hard to do.

Uh I mean to set it up.

It's hard to actually get the thing.

Uh so and I that's what I would suggest we do.

And and uh sometime maybe in a couple weeks, or you know, get some time to get the word out to everybody and get in the paper, we can have a public meeting about it here.

Okay, then Kevin.

Thank you.

So, yeah, there you you got Tim's idea of an ordinance, you got Tor's idea, those are good ones.

That's also the possibility of doing a discussion direction item about the one thing I want to caution.

I was I would shy away from just trying to compel people to come.

Say you went towards method.

Um you just invite people, get a hold of them, talk to them, try to set up a meeting that everyone can that is convenient for everyone and talk it out.

But um, one thing I wanted to ask John, because you're talking about reopen, like say we say uh Scott and Tor did something, had a public meeting, got information, and they decided to maybe take an action to bring to the assembly table.

You're saying to do anything with the contract, we would have to reopen a negotiation that is normally pen uh set to expire in seven years.

Does that carry with it any risk of them saying, hey, well, while we're doing this, we're gonna do something else, we're gonna add this, or you know, we need to we have extra expenses.

We were gonna raise them anyways, but now we're gonna raise them now since we're reopening it.

My favorite answer, it it depends.

Um I I haven't looked at the um at the solid waste contract and in quite a while before uh coming in here, so I'd have to dig into the details and see specifically what um avenues in the contract allow us to approach the other party for uh for renegotiation.

But uh I would imagine that once you do quote unquote crack the contract open, um it can it can lead to other areas that uh that might also be renegotiated, saying, you know, for example, if we wanted to negotiate on the pickup rate, they could say, Great, we'd also like to negotiate on the shipping rate.

Uh and if I say no, I don't want to negotiate on that, then they could say cool, we don't want to negotiate on the other one either.

Then so again, I I'd have to review the contract and see what what avenues are available for us in there.

Thank you.

My my point is, Scotty, I think this is a great idea.

I I'm definitely excited about it, and I am wanna be us to be a part of the solution.

We just need to um, you know, especially when it comes to a uh organization like Republic that we have a contract with.

We you know, we need to be careful and make sure we have a plan correctly before we just try to change uh a contract because that could have other repercussions.

Um but I do think it's a good idea, uh, and I'd love to see you guys put on a meeting or something.

And I would I would definitely attend and watch um and throw my two cents in there.

But more anything, they'd be listening to people, listening to people and and uh at Indian River, listening to people at the state troopers, listening to the police department, and then perhaps if we could get someone from public just uh share their thoughts, you know, that would be helpful too.

That's a it's a good thing.

Thank you for bringing it up.

Tim, if I may.

Absolutely.

Hey, um Scott, big question for you.

Um, you're talking about green dumpsters that we used to have.

Is that because the recommendations out of the bear task force from beginning of January 2023 uh weren't suitable?

Or do you do you know of that report?

When the troopers told me what they wanted, then I realized the Bear Task Force hasn't been doing anything, and then to get this out of the way, you know.

Oh no, I didn't I didn't look at what they have.

I just went for what the troopers told me and the troopers bummed from killing bears.

He's having head trips over it, and he's motivated to get a solution, and that's where I wanted to jump on it.

And why I'm bummed that waste management ain't here to tell us what it's gonna take to get a solution for town, of which you'd think they would want to, you know.

So I I guess I'll I'll go back and see what the Bear Task Force said so next time we meet, I'll be able to answer your question.

Great, because they were uh I think established in March of 2022, and then gave their report in January 2023, um, kind of formulating a same kind of origin story as what you're mentioning now, and they recommended uh a particular can that was a bear-proof can to be replaced for the residential and gave us cost estimates for what the 95 would be and what the smaller can would be as well.

And it was a replacement that would I believe still be you know possible to be lifted um by the machines that our current contractor have and would not need a renegotiation of any contract, it was just replacement of residential cans.

And the you know, the bears out of the sanctuary kind of helped in the discovery process of what of the the three cans that were tested, which one was was most resistant.

Um it was it was good work from that volunteer group, which I believe did include uh some of the wildlife troopers.

I'd encourage you to look into that and see um what could be done.

Um there was a cost associated with it all, of course.

Um, but it seems probably like a good avenue based on what I'm hearing here, like renegotiating a contract and opening it up and maybe needing to have other aspects come forward to new cans for residential is an option to be considered.

Roger, that and then that's what I the troopers partook in that, and then that's when they stopped and talked to me that they didn't like what came out there.

I'm not putting words in their mouth, but I kind of am because they've expressed frustration, and the simplest thing to do would go back to the steel cans that Hercules would have a hard time getting into once to figure out a latch on them, and then it gets back to the contract and equipment, and then that's where my focus was trying to streamline this instead of two weeks between each little increment of going forward, and it's been years, and then with the frustration of troopers participating in that task force, and then stopping me out of the blue to try to make this happen is my motivation.

So I'll go back and learn what they had.

I'll re-establish calms with my trooper and see what's up and report back.

Yeah, yeah.

I I'd like to say uh I I think JJ brings up good points.

I think the Bear Task Force did uh they did a lot of work and presented some stuff.

I wouldn't put on them, I'd probably put it on us for or not choosing to do anything about it at the time.

And it was my guess.

I don't recall, you know, there's been a lot going on these past couple years, uh, probably because of the cost was something that we has why we hesitated, but it's definitely good to look into that.

I think she makes a good point.

Um and as far as a two-week frustration, it is it is hard.

It is frustrating sometimes when you uh see something that can be done takes time.

But I can tell you, you know, from experience, it does take a bit of time at first, and it can feel really slow, but once you start moving, then it goes fast.

So I'll just encourage you to stay patient with the process and uh and you know, do lots of listening and and investigating.

Thank you.

Sounds like we have uh several ideas in flow here, so anything else.

Thank you.

Is there an opportunity to take public comment on this issue?

Not in a discussion item.

Okay.

But coming right up is persons to be heard.

Okay, this is persons to be heard for any item on or off the agenda, not to exceed three minutes.

If you're interested in persons be heard, please come forward, state your name for the record, and your time will start then.

Good evening.

Uh, my name is Leah Mason.

I am uh sensibly here to listen on behalf of BR and uh to provide uh any information we can uh as some of the people who've had the most experience with trying various methods for dealing with bears.

Um I think it's really important to know that in my experience, just living here, Indian River is taking a lot of heat given what we know about where bears end up in town.

I've been house sitting in Björka Street when somebody shot a bear across the road from Market Center.

We've had bears getting into the large cans at Monastery.

Um the bears are currently opening people's cars.

So I think we need to there's some extraordinary footage going on at the moment.

They're opening cars.

Sitka will end up with locked vehicles finally because the bears are getting in.

Um we've had a garage door pulled off by a bear trying to get to something in someone's garage.

So there's a lot of discussion about what would work, and we have a lot of experience of what doesn't.

Um and so as people putting together plans for a subdivision, we're getting a lot of that heat.

Now we got a lot of bears in town when we opened a longer road down to Catlan.

Um so I think what we can safely say is that any kind of activity we do as humans, if we choose to develop housing behind the the high school, for example, we will also be bringing our garbage closer to bears.

At any point, the organics going into these cans could be less of a problem if we chose to look at it in a different way as a resource and as an expensive resource because it is full of water, it's very heavy, it uses fuel.

So we would use less fuel if we were picking up less of it using our garbage um.

Uh, we have interest from people in using organics, and I would like to put in front of you the idea that using a catch all is going to get you an unsorted waste.

You you might get the organics out of it, but you're also going to get tires and crab pots and whatever else, and that's a resource you can't then use.

It becomes something that has to go to landfill.

So I think there are there's a way to look at this as a diversion problem.

And what you would end up with is no change to the to the cans.

You would end up with, depending on how you chose to go about it, uh one or more collection businesses and a processing business, which sounds to me like a more interesting proposition.

But I think education is a huge part of this.

I think you can find people, but you can also make it clear that it is acceptable to handle your food waste differently.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello again, Alena Peterson, and I'm joined with uh my colleague Martha Moses.

We're here on behalf of the Sica tribe.

I mean, we just wanted to share some thoughts as it relates to the bear issue.

Uh first I just want to express gratitude for the actions that the city has taken and the pilot test over the summer.

I think it's great to see we're trying things.

Trying something is better than doing nothing.

So we just really appreciate the the effort um from the city.

And I'll just pass it to Martha, who is on the task force uh to share a bit more from her position of knowledge, uh better than mine.

That was shared.

Three minutes.

Okay.

Well, I uh I want to echo the appreciation for the discussion.

And um we too have been having um progress in talking with um the DEC, Zach Giannotti.

Um he offered mini grants, and we've been looking into that.

He made us contact with um Isabel Grant from the uh Defenders of Wildlife, who also offered to help with a mini grant, but also to do an environmental scan of the new development of Herb Diedrixen and the upper areas that are being affected by the um problem bears.

I think we talk about a lot about the garbage situation, but we have a bear problem.

And I heard that the bear that was causing the problem was dispatched when Fish and Game had their presentation at the library in September.

I'd attended, found that they had just started a bear population census for Baranoff Island, and it's gonna happen for five years after the presentation.

I went to Mr.

Bethune and asked him if he could start with um they'd already in August started and had 14 bears that were collared.

And just to get a um a census because we had a prediction of possibly 1,500 bears that live on Baranoff Island, and I would say I think that we have more.

And um, so I'm really glad we had to wait our turn.

We found that there were regions that were getting their their um bear count, but now it's our turn for the next five years.

And I asked him if he could um the person that was leading that, if they could go down Indian River and meet with the um maintenance staff down there, they're the staff that have to go down into the bear into where the bears are uh take pulling the garbage after spring when it all thaws out.

They go out and clean out the um the bear, the trash that's been pulled into the um woods, and they know the direction because they go towards their den and they know where those dens are.

So I shared that with Mr.

Bethune and said that um if you could collar that one and and identify their dens, and let's deal with the bear problem and not call it garbage problem.

Um I really appreciate that because um we want to we want we know bears develop habits and we know that the bear that's going over to the Coast Guard housing and to the Edgecombe school area has got a habit because he's been going there for two, three years now.

And so that's what I you know there's more than just Indian River, there's other areas that we've shared at the bear bear task force.

And so when they become a problem, they should be taken care of.

That's that's what we really wanted to have.

Not just Indian River, but our community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else for persons to be heard?

Thank you for your comments.

All right.

Moving on to reports.

Uh the mayor is not currently here.

I have no report for him.

Uh John.

Um happy new year.

Um with the turn of the new year, that's when uh I would say the busiest time of year starts for me.

I think I make this report every end of December, early January, because we're in the middle of uh putting the next fiscal year budget together.

And I think January 8th.

Do I have that right, Sarah?

Is our next uh budget meeting?

Um, but I also have lots of travel coming up.

Um we have the AML winter legislative session in January.

I think that's in January.

Um, and then there's a Southeast Conference session in February.

Um I've got a Northwest uh cruise symposium, and in lieu of going to uh C trade, we go there.

Uh that'll be happening, I think also in early February.

Um, but uh there'll be a good portion of time where I'm out of the office for a few days or a few weeks over the next quarter.

Well, and also some added assembly meetings while we're working through the uh FY27 budget.

But that's all I have for my report now.

Thank you.

Uh attorney uh no report from me tonight, thank you.

Thank you.

Liaison representatives.

Yeah, I was gonna say I thought the holiday kind of messed that up a little bit.

Uh Sarah.

Oh I have one, yeah.

Uh the planning commission had a meeting in between the other two meetings.

I almost forgot.

Um, and the conditional use permit for the uh bus depot that was proposed in the central business district was denied.

Um there was a significant amount of community churn-out.

I think there was like 23 people that uh spoke for the record.

Um so just wanted to provide an update there, and uh we did not get to discuss the land study, but the um first phase of the land study is done.

There's a report that's in your packet um under the last planning commission meeting.

You can read about it, and then I think that will be discussed at the January 22nd or something.

It's the the third Wednesday in January that we'll um be discussing that thank you, Kevin.

Did you have that one?

No, actually, I was gonna say when we're done with these, can we take a bathroom before break before we go to executive session?

We will uh all right, yeah.

Sarah?

I don't have a report.

Thank you.

Any other reports?

Okay, brings us to item F.

And yes, we will take a break between I move to go I move to go in to executive session under the statutory statutory category of matters that by law, municipal charter or ordinance are required to be confidential and to invite assistant municipal administrator Josh Brantover to attend, followed by municipal administrator John Leach when ready.

In addition, I move to exclude the municipal attorney.

Second, it's been moved and seconded for the assembly to go into executive session to discuss the items in the ord in the uh motion.

Is there any public comment?

Assembly deliberation actually.

Okay, Sarah.

All right, on the motion to go into executive session, Mr.

Pike.

Yes, Mr.

Mosher?

Yes, Mr.

Selene?

Yes, Ms.

Carlson?

Yes, Mr.

Christensen?

Yes, and Ms.

Riley, yes.

Okay, we'll take a we'll take 10 minutes to get there.

What room will be in, Sarah?

Uh we are in room four.

So JJ, if you want to leave the Zoom meeting and then we'll call you from the room.

Okay, sounds good.

Thank you.

Am I like in the world?

Yeah.

I mean, you were talking about the time, so I was curious.

I'm on mountain time.

Okay.

All right, okay.

Hold on, hold on.

Three hours.

JJ, what time is it there?

11.

Oh wow.

Okay.

Uh may I have a motion to reconvene as the assembly?

I may move to reconvene as an assembly.

Second.

Okay.

We are reconvened.

Doesn't say that here.

Uh can I have a vote?

Uh Sarah?

Do we need to vote on that?

No.

No.

No, not to be.

Okay.

I'm open for adjournment.

I move to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

We are adjourned.