Note: The agenda for this meeting was dated June 17, 2025, but the user-provided date is July 8, 2025. This summary uses the July 8 date as instructed, while the source materials reference the June 17 agenda.
The Valdez City Council held a regular meeting on July 8, 2025 (per user directive), preceded by a work session on RV park and campground code. The council approved consent items, a professional services agreement, an insurance renewal, and a fire engine purchase. An ordinance amending the Code of Ethics was introduced with two council amendments. A resolution for a T-Mobile Hometown Grant was approved. Reports covered capital projects, the GFOA Distinguished Budget Award, and legal updates.
The meeting adjourned to executive session.
Mayor, everyone uh is present, um except for council member uhster who is absent and excused okay we're gonna go right into uh uh public business from the floor, and we have Dawson Moore from the Valdez Theater Conference. Hi everyone, it's nice to see you. I just thought I would microphone. Hey, turn it on or something. Yeah, just push button here. There you go. Oh, yeah, that's true. I hear myself now. You think I'd know how to do that with my field. Uh Rigos, hey, I just wanted to come and say uh thank you. Uh we wrapped up the 33rd uh annual conference this year. It was one of our best. Uh we were a little smaller uh than usual. Usually we get up to around 200. This is more like 160. There were a couple of interesting factors to that. Uh, but it was also one of our smoothest years. Uh I was very happy with our evening shows and what they provided. I wanted to share how much love my participants have for this community. Um after we had our city dinner uh on Wednesday night, I went to fringe and there was a song composed about Valdez and their great love for it. After the conference is over, the American theater's social media explodes with pictures of our community talking about the magical experience that they had here. Um yeah, I wish you could hear the song. It was uh Greg's got a terrific voice, like so many of them do. You don't want to compete karaoke with the theater crowd. Uh I will be living in Anchorage now. I'll be moving there on July 26th. Um I have high hopes for bringing the energy that we create for our theater conference here to that community. I also have high hopes of increasing my recruitment there uh from that uh from that community. Um I don't want to say too much about it. The theater conference holds a unique place in the American theater and is one of the largest of the types of events in that. The fact that a tiny staff uh in our small community can put on a thing like that um and be so well known and so well respected uh is an accomplishment that is due to everyone. Leaders get lots of credit, but it would never happen without the city support, without the college's support, without hundreds of volunteers every year, moreover, more than volunteers, they pay to register for something that would normally be a job. Uh they give us money because of the experience that we provide them with. Um tricky economic times for the entire university system. Uh and that trickles down to us. Uh it is possible that I might come to city council and ask for a little help on a specific thing. Uh I'll let you know about that, but I just wanted to share with you all. I greatly appreciate uh how this conference changed my life in 1995, uh, and that it is the great honor of my life to change lives on an annual basis with this conference. So uh that's all I want to say. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, Dawson. Okay. Uh moving to the consent agenda. We have the Sherry, do I have the noble? Okay. Just that's okay. Consent agenda. Um we have uh five items on the consent agenda proclamation Juneteenth, 2025. Uh number two is approval of the liquor license renewal, Wukung restaurant, number two three two six. Number three is appointment to Ports and Harbor Commission applicants Nile Vince Kelly and Alan Steve.