The Valdez City Council held a regular meeting on April 7, 2026, at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers. The meeting covered a wide range of topics including updates from the Valdez Snowmachine Club, presentation of the Tourism Task Force report, adoption of a public art policy, multiple budget amendments, and first reading of an ordinance establishing firefighter collective bargaining. The council also approved a consent agenda with seven items and went into executive session regarding Trans Alaska Pipeline System ad valorem tax issues.
Order. Do we all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance? I Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic Representatives. Under God. Indivisible. Alright. Madam City Clerk, if you could do a roll call, please. All council members are present with the exception of Mayor Fleming, who is absent and excused. Councilmember Foster and Councilmember Devons are joining us online this evening. Great. Thank you. Next up we have approval of the minutes. We have any corrections to the minutes. Alright. Seeing none. Do I call for the vote? Pass as approved. Stand is approved. There we go. All right. Item five. Public appearances. We have Ken Lares from the Valdez Snow Machine Club with an event update. Ken, are you here? No. You're up, Ken. There we go. Everybody hear me okay? Yes, we can. Right on. Pleasure to be here. Um full house. Lots of good stuff going on. Um yeah, I just wanted to take this uh opportunity to come see the council. Haven't seen you guys in a while, and also just present to the community, people who might be listening. Um, you know, and let everyone know we've we've uh had a you know, even though the snow hasn't been super great this year, we've had a real successful season and and I wanted to just share with everyone that you know all our snow cross races went really well with all the kids. We had a great turnout, lots of participation, lots of fun. Um our mayor's cup race here uh on the 21st of uh March went went phenomenally well. Largest turnout we've ever had. Uh we had 110 racers come down and compete, people from all over the state, and so it's uh yeah, super well regarded within the sport, and uh a lot of a lot of great participation and happy people. So um, you know, I had a couple of numbers offhand just to share because uh we appreciate your guys' support. And I know that uh these these events, you know, a lot of times maybe they don't bear fruit, and you gotta try them for a while or whatnot, but I just like to share that you know this one has repeatedly you know brought a lot of business to town for everyone, and so uh we had like I said 110 racers, we had who brought with them 406 people into town with them as in their in their uh their groups there and stayed for a cumulative of 242 nights worth of hotel rooms, Airbnbs, whatnot, what have you. Um I'm sure if any of you guys went out to dinner, you probably saw the impact on the restaurant outfits and stuff like that. So anyway, it just was a phenomenal success, and thank you enough to um all of our our sponsors, including the city of Aldees and all of our wonderful volunteers. And you know, one thing that's super cool about it is it's you know, I see the city of Aldees, but it's it's not just you know the sponsorship that the city provides. There's a lot of in-kind services that come with that as well, and it goes across like all the departments. Like we work with everybody from community development to ports and harbor, the um uh uh uh public works, uh parks and recreation, like it's a gamut, the whole group, everybody kind of like chips in a little here, a little there, and covers their piece of it. And so it's a really awesome cohesive event that's led to a lot of good partnerships, and we really appreciate that. Um I've got a video that was put together for us that I thought was pretty neat, so I'd like to share that with you guys here and uh see if we can get this to work.