Beautification Commission Regular Meeting – January 12, 2026
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Beautification Commission Regular Meeting – January 12, 2026
The City of Valdez Beautification Commission met on Monday, January 12, 2026, at 5:00 PM in the Community Development Conference Room. The agenda included a presentation on the Flash Vote civic engagement tool, an update on the Wayfinding Phase 3 banner and art panel project, and a discussion about forming a working group to draft a public art policy. Commissioners Minor and Green were present, along with staff liaison Elise; Commissioner Avican was excused. No public comments were received, and no formal votes were taken.
Flash Vote and Public Outreach Options
- Sarah, the city’s Communications Manager, described Flash Vote, an anonymous civic engagement platform the city has used since 2022. Surveys are designed to take 1–2 minutes, close after 48 hours, and are reviewed by Flash Vote staff (Jeff and Kevin) to reduce bias.
- The city targets a flash vote every other month (roughly 5–6 per year). Current subscribers number 288, about 7–8% of the population; Sarah’s goal is to double that.
- Past flash votes informed the diagonal parking lines on North Harbor Drive, CSO event planning, city communications (leading to a weekly newsletter), and Parks & Recreation programming (including a new evening Mighty Mights program).
- The next flash vote will run March 2, 2026, for community voting on the children’s “I Voted” sticker design.
- Commissioners asked whether flash vote results could be used to identify topics needing deeper public meetings; Sarah confirmed that a flash vote could be followed by broader outreach and public meetings if a topic is divisive.
Wayfinding Project Phase 3
- Martha (Economic Development) presented the project, clarifying it mainly involves public art panels and banners rather than signs.
- Twelve 53" x 53" art panels will be installed in the Kelsey Dock breezeway, created by local artists Rhonda Wagner Taylor, Celeste Addison, and Heidi Frank. Panels are weather-resistant and will be removed and stored by Ports & Harbors in winter; no city maintenance is required.
- Twenty 60" x 22" banners will replace existing banners around Kelsey and along Egan Street, with additional winter and summer banners at the airport (six each). Designs include locally created airplanes, boats, and other imagery.
- Martha is also developing “Valdez Voices and Visions,” an oral history project with the museum (Kate Dugan) featuring earthquake and pipeline era interviews with QR codes. A T-Mobile grant was not awarded, but the Rasmussen Foundation indicated it could provide up to $50,000.
- Martha committed to seeking commission input earlier in future projects.
Options for Creation of a Public Art Policy Working Group
- The commission discussed forming a working group to draft a public art policy that could be adopted by city council. Staff liaison Elise compiled model policies from other communities, including Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Homer.
- The policy would cover definitions of public art, application and review processes, maintenance, ownership and deaccessioning, private vs. city property, funding (including the matching grant program), and possibly a future “one percent for art” requirement.
- Participants favored a small working group, with no more than six members and four considered adequate. Potential members discussed included staff representative Mark, Karen (participating as a private citizen rather than as museum curator), April Basher Dean (Economic Development), and community member Magdalena.
- The working group would be informal, with a target to present a draft policy at the April 2026 commission meeting.
- The group agreed to meet first on Thursday, January 15, 2026, at noon in council chambers; a special commission meeting was planned immediately before to formally establish the working group.
Key Outcomes
- No formal motion or vote was taken; the public art policy item was listed only as a discussion item.
- The commission gave general direction to create an informal public art policy working group (4–6 members) and aimed for a draft policy by the April 2026 meeting.
- A first meeting was scheduled for Thursday, January 15, 2026, at noon in council chambers, with a special commission meeting beforehand.
- Staff will distribute a one-page summary of the discussion to commission members for feedback.
Meeting Transcript
We'll call this meeting of the beauty over at 5 p.m. January 12th. Present in the room are commissioners minor and see green. And our staff liaison, at least. And also Jordan's. Sorry. You got it. You're going to know. Yeah, that's a person. They're saying Corbin Green. I can just go green. I know. Yeah, I almost said Sarah Gio. And missing tonight are Commissioner Avican. And we unexcused. And then we produce that excuse. Yeah. She was not feeling well and didn't want to spread it to us. So that's considerate. We have on our agenda tonight after public business on the floor, which we'll acknowledge, but there's no on to our new business. We have three discussion items. The first two will be um presented. Um open for questions by um Chris Sarah and then the our number two. Um and then the third will be our discussion about our committee that we'd like to form for policy. Um so starting us off, Sarah, would you like to take the floor and give us a flow down on the great stuff? Yeah, thank you uh for inviting me in to talk about flash vote and how we can use it for commissions specifically, how we could potentially use it for the beautification commission. So um, you can go to the next slide. I clicked it and I was like, nothing happened. Come on, come on, whatever. We're there with the band. Uh so flash vote is um it's it's a civic engagement tool that the city has been using since I believe 2022 is kind of the first time that it came around. Uh Hannah Ingle brought it on when she became uh commission or communications director. Uh it is a platform used by hundreds of other municipalities, some much larger than our us, some smaller than us. Um, but the key features are the um that it takes one to two minutes, like it's designed to take one to two minutes, definitely less than five minutes. It's also designed to it comes out and it's gone in 48 hours, hence the flash vote. It's kind of flash on two different levels. Um it's you can do it in a flash, and it's also gone in a flash. Um, but the neat thing about flash vote is that you have a team at Flash Vote, we've got Jeff and Kevin over there, and they help us um create really sound scientific um questions. And sometimes it's easy when you're just making your own survey to accidentally be leading in a way. Um, I remember from my uh education when I was doing my education degree, there was a lot of science, and there's a lot of stuff that goes into making a good quiz or making a good test. Um, where it's not too easy, it's not too obvious, but it's not too difficult. So that's the lovely thing about FlashVo. These guys, this is their job, this is what they do. They do it for hundreds of other communities. Um, and you get these clear user-friendly results as soon as the flash vote is done within four, so you have 48 hours as soon as that flash vote finishes, even if you didn't participate, you get the link and it tells you here's what everybody said in a nice clear fashion. Uh, you can use it across devices, they can they you can do get a phone call, you can get a text message, you can get an email, you can sign up for whichever one you prefer. Um, and then what I like is the independent vetting of survey questions. So they they want to make sure that it's neutral, unbiased, and reliable. And that's the lovely thing about having kind of an outside group that we take our topics, we can we can even create all of the questions, and then I take them to Kevin and Jeff, and they'll sometimes reword them or fix them in a way where they're not maybe leading or they're a little unbiased. And so to us, you know, as much as I try to be objective, it's hard to be objective.
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