Borough Assembly - January 22, 2026

• Call to Order
• Roll Call
• Approval of Minutes: 
  • October 9, 2025, Special
  • October 16, 2025
• Approval of Agenda
• Reports of Officials and Committees: 
  • Mayor’s Report 
  • Assembly Committee Reports 
  • Treasurer’s Report 
  • Manager’s Report
• Communications to the Assembly: 
  • Correspondence 
  • Hear Citizens Present
• Ordinances, Resolutions, & Proclamations: 
  • Public Hearing and Adoption of Resolution No. 25-29R: Approving “Concept 5” as the Preferred Concept for Development of the Main Street Rehabilitation Project (Active motion from December 4, 2025; public hearing closed) 
  • Public Hearing and Adoption of Resolution No. 26-01R: Supporting Full Funding ($18,186,535) for the State of Alaska Municipal Harbor Facility Grant Program in the FY 2027 State Capital Budget 
  • Public Hearing and Adoption of Resolution No. 26-02R: In Support of Raising the Maximum Available Alaska Department of Transportation Harbor Facility Grant to $7,500,000 for Eligible Projects on an Annual Basis
  • Public Hearing and Adoption of Resolution No. 26-03R: Certifying That the Municipality Did Suffer Significant Effects During the Program Base Year from Fisheries Business Activities That Occurred Within the FMA 17: Northern Southeast Area Fisheries Management Area 
  • Public Hearing and Adoption of Resolution No. 26-04R: Repealing and Replacing Resolution No. 24-06R to Reallocate the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line $75,000 Donation Towards Senior Programs and Facility 
  • Public Hearing and Adoption of Resolution No. 26-05R: Declaring Local Disaster Conditions Resulting from Extreme Winter Weather 
• Unfinished Business
• New Business: 
  • Award of Ore Peninsula Limited Slope Removal Contract 
  • Approval of Limited Slope Removal Construction Management & Support Services Proposal 
  • Approval of Support Letter for Rural Healthcare Transformation Project Funding Proposal 
  • Consideration of Liquor License Renewal Applications: 
    • The Station Bar & Grill; Beverage Dispensary Tourism License #4379 Combined Renewal 
    • Alaska 360; New Seasonal Restaurant or Eating Place Tourism License #5896 
    • Liarsville; Recreational Site License #4567 Combined Renewal 
  • Confirmation of Appointments to Boards, Commissions, and Committees 
• Mayor and Assembly Discussion Items
• Executive Session
• Adjournment

Packet

Transcript

Mayor Hanson: [00:00:00] Call to order the Assembly meeting for Thursday, January 22nd, 2026. We respect that we're conducting this meeting on historic lands of the Tlingit people. People, please rise and salute the flag.

Unidentified Speaker: Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mayor Hanson: Roll call.

Clerk: Mayor Hanson.

Mayor Hanson: Present.

Clerk: Burnham.

Assemblymember Burnham: Here.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Here.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Present.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Here.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Here.

Clerk: And Weddell is absent. Quorum is established.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Moving on to approval of minutes.

Assemblymember Potter: I move for the approval of the October 9th and the October 16th, 2025 minutes.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Second.

Mayor Hanson: We have a motion to approve the October 9th and October 16th minutes, first by Potter, second by Pomeroy. Discussion? Roll call.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Item four, approval of agenda.

Assemblymember Potter: Move for the approval of the agenda.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Second.

Mayor Hanson: We have a motion to approve the agenda, first by Potter, second by Pomeroy. Discussion? Roll call.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Under Mayor’s report, this is the first meeting of the year, as the first Thursday of January was New Year’s Day, which is a holiday. And then the following meeting, both my Vice Mayor Potter and myself were out of town. By code, we’re required to have one meeting a month, and we do. The most important thing maybe we do, which is pay our bills. Um, but I think this is a fairly simple agenda, but we’ll see how it goes.

Mayor Hanson: [00:03:00] We’ve had a rough patch of winter. Special thanks to Petro Marine, AT&T, and Public Works for keeping our heat on, our lights on, and the roads clean, plowed. And we’ve all endured various phases of crazy snow and wind and very cold temperatures, but we’re stronger for it, I guess. Manager Deach, Port Director Jennings, Vice Mayor Potter, and myself will be attending Mineral Roundup next week in Vancouver. We have meetings set up with the Yukon government, First Nations government, mining corporations, and other current port partners. This will be my fourth time attending Mineral Roundup. I believe these meetings are extremely important in promoting the operation of Skagway as a multi-use facility that serves Skagway and as the gateway to the Klondike.

Mayor Hanson: Assembly committee reports. We will start with Finance, please.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. I move that we approve the check run in the amount of $3,610,543.24.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Potter, second by Hillis, to approve the check run in the amount of $3,610,543.24. Discussion? Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. Just some notes, it’s a little on the higher side because, as you mentioned, we’re only meeting once this month. There’s a couple notable items in there. There’s some legal fees. There’s some engineering for the school rehab design. There’s some money for some checks for the 911 system upgrades and, uh, what we talked about at the last meeting, the purchase of that Ford Transit van for the Rec Center in the amount of $27,365. And what I am also very excited about, that we spoke about in previous meetings, is we have successfully purchased that aerial truck from the Salem, Oregon Fire Department. And that still needs to be transported, but it will be up hopefully early March. But those are some of the notable items in this check run.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Further discussion? Roll call.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Assemblymember Potter: Alright. Finance met last night. We reviewed Resolution 25-13, updating the accounting policies and procedures as directed by us at the December 18th Assembly meeting. Excuse me. Treasurer Rodig noted that after listening to the questions and concerns expressed in that last meeting that were focused on the enterprise fund net position policy, she requested that that policy in particular be removed from the resolution and that we move forward with the other accounting policies, acknowledging that the enterprise net position policy does need some work. So that is going to be on our next agenda. We reviewed two items that are also gonna be on the next agenda: a resolution requesting CPV excise tax funding from the state to be used for rockslide mitigation for port safety, and a resolution setting the priority list for capital improvement projects. Once again, we’ll see that on the next agenda. We also reviewed items 9A and B in tonight’s packet and recommended both of them for Assembly approval. And we also reviewed the letter of support for Rural Healthcare Transformation Project funding and recommended that for approval.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Assemblymember Potter. Public Works.

Assemblymember Burnham: Thank you, Your Honor. Public Works has not met. However, probably during discussion at the end of the meeting I will set a meeting for the next week or so, and we will take on some of the issues that the manager has brought up.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you, Assemblymember Burnham. Civic Affairs.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Thank you, Your Honor. Civic Affairs met last night and we reviewed the resolution that is on the agenda today. It’s in the packet. It’s Resolution Number 26-04. It repeals and replaces a previous resolution reallocating the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line donation toward senior programming. And it’s basically a shuffling of money to what Civic Affairs thought was a more appropriate use of that money for the seniors of our community. And so we voted to recommend its passage by the Assembly.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: We also did a first review of a submission by some citizens for code change for districting, zoning maps, and zoning classifications submitted by Mike Healy and Josh Hunter. They put an extraordinary amount of work into this item, and Civic Affairs recommends that it move on, through preparation by staff, to Planning and Zoning. And I think it’s gonna really get the ball rolling in making it easier for people to build in Skagway. Can I also cover Visitor Advisory Board while I’ve got the mic?

Mayor Hanson: Absolutely.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Thank you, Your Honor. Visitor Advisory Board also met since the last meeting, and Director Bricker introduced some new language for the TBMP program that is fantastic and I think covers some of the issues that we’ve had on the roads. So for all of the businesses participating in the TBMP, which hopefully will become all of the businesses, it is an agreement from them that they will follow specific guidelines for safety on the roads. And it would be nice, in my opinion, for every private company to look at that new wording in the TBMP program, and especially those companies that have rental cars that they rent out, and they adopt it and they pass it on to their people. Alright, thank you.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you, Assemblymember Pomeroy. And I do intend to bring that to our agenda for our next meeting. We absolutely need to stress not to feed animals. That is not acceptable and very dangerous, both for the people and for the animals. Okay. Parks and Rec.

Assemblymember Hillis: Don’t have anything to share, but all of you Parks and Rec Assembly members are members. We have a meeting we are trying to schedule, so as soon as we get agreement on that, we’ll have a meeting scheduled in the next week or so.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Public Safety.

Assemblymember Henry: Yes, Your Honor. Nothing at this time. I’ll be setting a meeting for the latter part of next week.

Mayor Hanson: Very good. Thank you, Assemblymember Henry. And would anyone from HEW have anything to report? Okay. Moving on to Treasurer’s report. It is in the packet. Does anyone have any questions? Manager Deach.

Borough Manager Deach: Can I just note that we’re still getting invoices in until mid-February that are for December expenses, through December, for the last fiscal year budget. So this is as of December 31st, but this may change as we get more invoices in. But there is a cutoff mid-February.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Any questions for the manager about the Treasurer’s report? Okay. Moving on to the Manager’s report. Manager Deach, do you have anything to add to your written report?

Borough Manager Deach: I do not have anything to add. Thank you.

Mayor Hanson: Any questions for the manager on her report? Assemblymember Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: I just had one question on the port projects updates, I guess from the Port Director. It just said there were some signage plans included in our packet and I didn’t see ’em, and I was just wondering if I didn’t go far enough somewhere, or—

Borough Manager Deach: No, I think this report was originally drafted for the Ports and Harbors Advisory Board, and so those signage plans are in that packet. And I should have noticed that and put ’em in this one as well. But I can get that to you after this meeting.

Assemblymember Burnham: I can probably just look in their packet. Thanks.

Mayor Hanson: Okay, thank you. We will move on now to 6A, correspondence. Clerk, I believe we had some correspondence.

Clerk: From the Visitor Advisory Board and from Ports and Harbor Advisory Board.

Mayor Hanson: I think we had one citizen who wrote in about port issues, harbor issues. I’m sorry.

Clerk: Okay. I was not aware, so I’m sorry if it should be in the packet and it’s not.

Mayor Hanson: It’s in the packet. And I very much like his idea of renaming the airport after a very valued citizen, but that’s just my opinion. Okay. Moving on to Citizens Present. Please come forward, state your name, if you’re representing an organization, if you’re representing yourself as a citizen, and try to keep your comments to five minutes. We’ll start on the front row, Mr. John Tronrud, second row, I guess.

John Tronrud: Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. I am John Tronrud, representing myself, and I just want to take one moment tonight to say I have given you—publicly admit that I’ve gifted you a copy of the book that I’ve just recently published, and you each have a copy there. I hope you enjoy the history and the stories that are in it. And that’s all I have at this time. I’m kind of excited. I’m glad if someone asks you what to do through COVID, well, write a book. So thank you. Hope you enjoy it.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you, John. Sherry.

Sherry Corrington: I bought a copy for my stepmom Christmas. Sherry Corrington, citizen. I came tonight to speak on something that doesn’t show up on the agenda again. I did earlier. So I wanted to speak about the Main Street project going forward and to encourage a green strip as a filter between the sidewalk and the street. [00:16:00] And that was on the agenda as an amended item, and I don’t see it tonight, so I’m gonna keep talking about it as if it’s still there because it should be. It is very important to have a green strip in between the sidewalk and the street. A 10-foot sidewalk without that doesn’t make a lot of sense. We just lost all the green strip on State Street, and what the green strip does is filter pollutants from pouring into the storm drains. These storm drains are pouring straight into the ocean, and we have a responsibility to do what we can to keep this down. Total suspended solids, 40 to 90%, are removed using a green strip. Nutrient removal, up to 40% or more, can be removed. And this helps to keep down nitrogens and things that can cause algae blooms, things that harm the ecosystem. It slows the runoff and helps to reduce peak discharge in huge rainstorms, like we’ve been getting more and more of every season. So I do hope that that finds its way back into the discussion tonight, since it did pass at the last Assembly meeting. So thank you all.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Clinic Board President Deitrick, do you have anything you would like to say?

Bob Deitrick: Bob Deitrick speaking as a senior citizen of Skagway. And I see you have a resolution here about senior activities and senior donations that we’ve received. And I just wanted to give recognition to some companies that have provided some donations and assistance for senior activities throughout the summers: AlaskaX, Skagway Brewing Company, Carcross Learning Center, Days of ’98 Show, Float Tours, the Haines Senior Center, the Holland America Skagway Inn, the Klondike Brewery, the Klondike Tour, Skagway Haines Fast Ferry, Skagway Museum Street Car, Tesoro, White Pass and Yukon Route. And they gave us that fancy coach last summer with someone there to service and give us food. It was amazing. And the Yukon Suspension Bridge, as well as the community supports that we have through SEARHC and so on that come over and speak to us about some services that are available. So I feel like we’ve had a lot of support from our community, and it makes one feel good about being here to see that that’s happening, and I appreciate the resolution that’s on the table tonight. Thank you.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you, Bob. Mr. Wall? Officer Michaels? Okay. Is there anyone on the phone? All right.

Mayor Hanson: Moving on to 7A, public hearing and adoption of Resolution 25-29R approving Concept Five as the preferred concept for the development of the Main Street rehabilitation project. We have an active motion and the public hearing is no longer open. Clerk, could you please state the active motion so we are aware of where we’re at?

Clerk: The motion was to hold a public hearing and adopt the resolution.

Mayor Hanson: Discussion. Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. I move to amend Resolution 25-29R as proposed in the manager’s proposed amendment dated December 22nd, 2025.

Assemblymember Burnham: Second.

Mayor Hanson: We have a motion from Potter and a second from Burnham to amend the motion as pointed out in 7A3. Discussion. Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. It is in the packet under 7A3, the proposed amendment that includes what we talked about regarding Concept Five. So this—there it is. You will see the proposed amendment in 7A3. This is exactly what we talked about at the December 4th meeting, to amend that 10-foot shared use path to an 8-foot-wide path with the 2-foot-wide curb and green space. There are some notable—I’m not sure how I feel about this now. I understand the arguments in favor of the environmental concerns. I’ve also spent a month with my 84-year-old mom walking around navigating different sidewalks. And so I do have accessibility concerns stepping up onto a sidewalk that you’re confronted with that green space. It’s a little more difficult for people with mobility issues than not. But I don’t have my mind made up in this moment. But I do just kind of want to read from Manager Deach’s memo. Benefits: in the areas where there are greater elevation changes between the street and properties, the green strip could potentially eliminate having to install small retaining walls. The sidewalk could be put closer to those property elevations and the green strip could be sloped down toward the street. Another benefit was mentioned by a citizen, helping to act as a filter as water goes out to the street. Then we have the drawbacks. If grass is used, over time the grass strip will rise in elevation, causing puddling and icing during winter months. Also, if grass is used, over time grass will grow over the top of the sidewalk and, if not trimmed back, it could encroach on the sidewalk. It also seems important to note that per Skagway municipal code 8.04.050, the green strip maintenance is the responsibility of the adjacent property owner. And that last drawback is a grass strip could be steep and difficult to mow through. So that is what is before us. This amendment with the 8-foot wide is still a great—I was particularly aware, mindful, of the width of shared use paths and sidewalks that I was walking along when I was down south, and 6 feet wide seems pretty wide. So 8 feet I am confident will give enough room to make it a useful shared use path. But I do have some lingering concerns about the drawbacks of the green strip.

Mayor Hanson: Assemblymember Pomeroy.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: So I was speaking with a friend about this earlier, and my absolute loathing for the green strips that I have mentioned before comes from the fact that the only time my mom, who had a disability, fell hard enough to break bones, it was because of issues with those green strips. And so they can be an extraordinary mobility hazard to those with mobility issues. So it is a frustration. And I know I spoke on this last time about having this discussion with the former director of the Taiya Inlet Watershed Council about them. And the one thing that she said was, it doesn’t have to be grass. And it is a failure of mine that I did not contact her between our last meeting and now and get input on the other possibilities. Because the biggest issue is that we put grass because it’s what we know and it’s what’s easy. But I know she had said there were alternatives. Obviously it can’t be anything that grows tall. It can’t be anything that causes a bulge over time. So I also am feeling very conflicted about this because of the environmental lecture from a person who really knows her stuff, and I feel very strongly about that, but I also feel very concerned about the hazard. And I would like to say I received some correspondence from someone in the community regarding this, and this was also a concern that they brought up, that they were very concerned about those with mobility issues being caused harm by those inadvertent things, the drawbacks that it does cause, especially here where we have a freeze and thaw. It changes. We don’t have flat lawns here in Skagway because of the nature of our valley. And, yeah. So I am just saying, I cannot say yay or nay right this second. I’m feeling very concerned about it.

Mayor Hanson: Assemblymember Hillis.

Assemblymember Hillis: Thank you, Your Honor, for reading my mind. We looked at this during Public Works, talked about it a lot, and the green strip was not something that was recommended at that time. And I still don’t think it’s worth the effort now. I think the maintenance alone would be quite a bit of extra load. I believe there’s an extra piece of equipment that we would have to get to really maintain those. That’s basically a brush that can brush out those strips to keep them truly the way they should be kept up. Or we can leave them as our green strips are currently and they cause piling and eventually puddling and ice strips, which are no fun for anybody. I just don’t think it has that much value as opposed to its detriments and setbacks. So very much in favor of just keeping it 10 feet of concrete, or if we wanted to make it smaller, 8 feet of concrete to the curb. I’m not concerned about the width there, but the green strip is not really worth the effort in my opinion.

Mayor Hanson: Assemblymember Burnham.

Assemblymember Burnham: Thank you, Your Honor. I came into this evening thinking the green strip was pretty much an easy win, and I didn’t think that I would be the one defending a green strip, but I would say we can have whatever we want. If you look at the plan of the way they’re gonna change the entire road, it’s going to an 8-foot sidewalk. That changes the whole dynamics of, say, the west side of Main Street. It’s going to change the levels of yards with 8 feet. It’s gonna give a path to where you can run snow removal equipment, so you can have cleared-off sidewalks. It probably won’t be as bad of a slope on each end of the blocks. Oh, full disclosure, I live on Main Street. So if anything, it will save money to put that green strip there. It’ll give a place for snow removal to drain. If you just move it off to the green strip, it will give area to where when you have an 8-foot sidewalk and then a curb, you’re not gonna have a 2-foot drop to it. And even if you did, it would only be about 16 inches, so it’d pretty much be a step. And if you’re going to worry about mobility issues, not accusing or pointing fingers, I’m just saying you should walk to an alley or a street and go up the sidewalk. I watch my neighbor do it just south of me all the time. He’s not exactly the most agile person, but he walks all the way to the street to get back to his car that’s right in front of his house. The green strip is just a choice. In the summertime, like three of these things had to do with grass and removal and maintenance and all that kind of stuff. I saw the city going through, and even some owners of the property by a green strip, they just weed-eat it. But that’s because it’s sloped so steep that you can’t mow it. What we’re doing is changing the elevation of the sidewalks, so it’s not going to be that anymore. There’s no—it’s not like we’re trying to take care of the green the way it is right now. It’s gonna be a 16-inch break, ’cause you got 4 to 8 inches of curb and then sidewalk. So it’s not a real 2-foot hole. It’s gonna allow drainage. To me, it seems like a no-brainer. It’s gonna save tens of thousands of dollars on concrete, taking out 16 inches of concrete on that sidewalk. And when you’re talking about retaining walls, if we don’t have to use those, then we’re saving thousands there. It seems like the best course of action. As far as maintenance, like I was saying about the grass, if you take a Bobcat, you put one wheel on the curb, you put one wheel on the sidewalk, you drive—it levels everything on that 16-inch stretch. So the maintenance isn’t what I’m wondering about. It’s just the decision, yes or no, to put it in. And I think it would be advantageous to have it in there. I haven’t seen a single puddle on any of those green strips anywhere along that Main Street. But if anything, like I said, when they redo the whole street, it’s all gonna be an entirely different landscape and it’s not gonna be what you’re thinking now of a steep incline. So that’s my 2 cents, if it’ll do any good.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you, Assemblymember Burnham. Assemblymember Henry, do you have any comments?

Assemblymember Henry: I agree 100 percent with what Assemblymember Burnham just said. Thank you. I don’t need to be redundant with it.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. I have a question for the manager. Talking about small retaining walls, and there was correspondence, I think it was an email that we got in late today. Would that retaining wall be effectively at the curb, or would it be bordering someone’s property? Would we be cutting these high points to make the street that whole sidewalk and cutting it all the way down basically to their property line, then having to build a retaining wall to people’s property? Or would that small retaining wall be basically right at the curb?

Borough Manager Deach: I do not know the exact answer. My understanding is that we’re cutting—I don’t think that we can have a retaining wall along the road because it’s not ADA compliant. You can’t step up onto it. The curbs have to be a certain height from the road. And so I think the retaining wall has to be back further. My understanding is that we’re cutting through. If the sidewalk’s here and there’s a hill that goes up, we’re cutting in and then up, and that would be where the retaining wall is.

Mayor Hanson: I bring that up because I had a citizen who came in my office hours yesterday with that concern. And in transparency, that house borders my house, and it is a spot where the yards are elevated. So you walk up, and she’s worried about that, that it undermines her landscaping, her property, that if you have to then do an extreme cut, she’s worried about that. And I get that, and it’s actually going toward Jay’s house. It’s the same thing. You kind of go up a little bit both directions. And I know that’s part of this whole expense of this job, to make it a more accessible walking path that you don’t have so many rises and drops and non-direct paths. There was a comment that it’s a problem for opening doors. I don’t think that’s actually relevant here because either you’re cutting the ground all the way down or you’re not. It’s one way or the other. It’s opening a door and saying that’s gonna push you further in the street. I don’t follow the logic on that actually. I do want to go to something that was just commented here about snow and plowing. When snow is plowed, it is pushed up over the curb and onto the property there. And having all of us having shoveled a whole lot of snow here lately, I think we’re pretty familiar with how that looks and how hard that gets. And I’m not sure that bringing the sidewalk all the way to the curb actually helps with the mitigation of all that hardened snow that then is packed up onto your street. And that said, everybody knows you walk in the middle of the road when it’s that bad anyway in Skagway in the middle of the wintertime because that’s the only safe place to be. But I digress. Having a lot of experience with permits in urban areas, permeability was always a big concern. It was part of the review process of not having so much impervious ground that it does not actually filter out contaminants. And it’s actually part of our code. It’s not directly written that way, but you can’t have more than 50 percent coverage on your property, and it’s indirectly related exactly to that. So I don’t think that’s irrelevant to this conversation, that you have a green strip that helps filter out things before they go into the storm drain. And I do think having ground that can leach through is relevant. If you know how a septic field works, that’s exactly what it does. It makes it so that contaminants filter through the ground slowly. Whereas a storm drain runs all the way to the ocean. So I do think that’s a relative consideration from my perspective, from someone who’s dealt with a lot of residential permits in my life. That was more than 2 cents, but there we go. Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. May I ask the manager a question?

Mayor Hanson: Go ahead.

Assemblymember Potter: Manager Deach, unless I’m not seeing it, we’ve got some feedback on this new proposed 5B concept, but I didn’t see a new cost estimate. Do you know anything about what that looks like? Does it save money? Does it save a lot of money?

Borough Manager Deach: I was told that the costs are very comparable to what Concept Five comes in at. As you said, there’s probably a little less concrete, but I don’t know if there’s additional expense with the green strip. My understanding is the engineers did not create that because it would be a very small change. We were getting to the end of our budget for them.

Mayor Hanson: Might check the math on that. Assemblymember Hillis.

Assemblymember Hillis: Thank you, Your Honor. I will say I don’t think there’s a wrong answer on this. Either one is fine. But I would point out that this is a sidewalk that we’re talking of. This grass strip filtering—it will filter some contaminants, but there’s a road right next to it that has all the traffic on it that’s flowing directly into the storm drains. I don’t know that it’s a huge thing, but either way I’m happy with either one of ’em. They’re fine. I just don’t think the grass is the best. But yep, either one’s a right answer.

Borough Manager Deach: We purposely made the amendment so that it calls it a 2-foot-wide curb and green space because there was discussion that grass does not need to be used. Perhaps if you went that way, we could investigate other material, which might cost more than grass, but I don’t know.

Mayor Hanson: Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Your Honor, may I ask the manager a question?

Mayor Hanson: Yes.

Assemblymember Potter: Whatever we do approve tonight, what are the next steps? This project is not happening anytime soon, so what does that look like? We’re still at minimal percent designs. Can you speak a little bit about that?

Borough Manager Deach: Yes. So we had money in the budget last year to finish these conceptual designs and take us through the process of deciding which concept we want. So that contract—we don’t have funding for that contract in FY26. And we removed the funding for the first—we were trying to decide how we could piecemeal out the engineering because you could do it all in a year or two, or you can go to 35 percent and 65 percent and sort of piecemeal it out so you’re not spending all that money in one year. We are planning to apply for a BUILD grant for planning to pay for a portion of this. So right now we don’t expect to move forward with engineering until at least 2027. So I would say that you do have time to contemplate it. We may incur additional expense if we have to ask the engineers to do more work on the concepts, but other than that I would say we probably want a concept in order to apply for the planning grant. We could probably, if we are down to Five or Five B, that might be close enough where we could put a grant application in because they’re so similar. And I think you’re looking at the same length, the same width generally of the street, all that sort of thing. So I think you have a little bit of time.

Assemblymember Potter: I move we postpone item 7A until the first meeting in February, when we will maybe have a full Assembly table.

Assemblymember Henry: Second.

Mayor Hanson: We have a motion to postpone to the first meeting of February. Motion by Potter, second by Henry. Discussion?

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: All right, we’ve got a brewing wood chip rubber mulch controversy on our hands. Item 7B, public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-01R supporting full funding for the State of Alaska Municipal Harbor Facility Grant Program in FY2027 state capital budget.

Assemblymember Potter: I move for public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-01R.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Potter, second by Hillis. Discussion. Member Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. As the Ports and Harbor Advisory Board member, Ports and Harbor Advisory Board did discuss this at our January 13th meeting. This is an annual thing that we do. The state legislative session just convened yesterday, I believe, where their main job is to pass the budget. In 2006, the state created the Municipal Harbor Facility Grant Program, which has been very vulnerable in recent years due to ongoing state budget shortfalls. So every year, the Alaska Association of Harbormasters and Port Authorities asks their membership to submit letters or resolutions like this in support of funding the grant program, which has not happened in a couple years, despite an estimated $500 million in backlogged necessary repairs and replacements for ports and harbors around the state. So this is kind of our annual request that the state funds this grant.

Clerk: Further discussion? Roll call. Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Moving on to 7C, public hearing and adoption of Resolution 2026-02R in support of raising the maximum available Alaska Department of Transportation Harbor Facility Grant to $7,500,000 for eligible projects on an annual basis.

Assemblymember Potter: I move for public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-02R.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: A motion by Potter and a second by Hillis. And I need to be slapped on the wrist—public hearing. Would anyone like to speak to this issue? Okay. Public hearing’s closed. Discussion. Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. Port and Harbor also discussed this. It is related to the resolution and grant that we just spoke about. If the state were to fund this grant and give away these grants, since its inception in 2006, $5 million is the maximum award. So this just adjusts for inflation and raises that $5 million maximum award to $7.5 million.

Clerk: Further discussion? Roll call. Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. 7D, public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-03R certifying that the municipality did suffer significant effects during the program base year from fisheries business activities that occurred within FMA 17, Northern Southeast Alaska Fisheries Management Area.

Assemblymember Potter: Move for public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-03R.

Assemblymember Burnham: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Potter, second by Burnham, to adopt 26-03R. Would anyone from the public like to address this issue? Mm. John was tempted, but he didn’t. Okay. Public hearing closed. Discussion. It’s an annual thing. Housekeeping. And I think we have to designate this either to a school or roads. Is that right, Manager Deach? No, that’s something else. Manager Deach.

Borough Manager Deach: I just wanna note that the way the formula works out, this will bring us $276 this year. So we feel we are impacted, but the formula says we are not as impacted as other areas.

Mayor Hanson: Treasurer Rodig would say that every cent counts. Any further discussion? Roll call.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: All right. Moving on to 7E, public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-04R repealing and replacing Resolution Number 24-06R to reallocate the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line $75,000 donation toward senior programs and facility.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: I move for public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-04R, which repeals and replaces Resolution Number 24-06R to reallocate the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line $75,000 donation toward senior programs and facilities.

Assemblymember Burnham: Second.

Mayor Hanson: We have a motion by Pomeroy and a second by Burnham to repeal and replace 26-04R as written. Public hearing. Would anyone from the public like to address this issue? Hearing none, public hearing is closed. And we thank Mr. Deitrick for his comments in citizens present related to this. Assemblymember Pomeroy.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: When this was first allocated, the funds were—there was an idea for what the funds would be used for, and that’s why it was allocated in the way that it was. And then that did not pan out. It was using the former Taiya space as a senior center. And so that turned out not to be a viable option. And so other things have arisen over the last few years, and the senior programming has become a lot bigger, a lot more defined, and it just makes more sense to allocate more of the funding to that. And again, this was discussed, or just reviewed, last night at Civic Affairs, and it was the recommendation of Civic Affairs that we do adopt this.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Further discussion. Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. This is kind of—we did get some late correspondence about this that notes—it’s, I don’t disagree, it’s a little…. That this is still the $75,000 generous donation from Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines back in 2023. But, you know, sometimes plans change. And so I guess the other side of this is that we’ve been more prudent with this donation than just kind of throwing it at things that wouldn’t be as impactful. I do appreciate the comments from Mr. Deitrick earlier about this senior activities program that has become quite successful. I’m really proud of that. So this was last amended in 2024 by Resolution 24-06, that adjusted the original resolution, allocated $50,000 to outfitting a potential senior center that just hasn’t quite materialized yet, and then $25,000 to hire a program coordinator. We shifted to the Rec Center kind of running that program, so we’ve slowly been throwing more money to the senior activities program through this donation money. I do think because we haven’t actually budgeted for senior activity funding—we’ve just been taking it through this donation—I would ask us to look at that this next budget cycle to just allocate some funding so we don’t have to keep taking it from this donation. But the administration asked for this because the budget of that last amendment has been spent. So if we want senior activities this year, we need to pass this amendment.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Any further discussion? Assemblymember Hillis.

Assemblymember Hillis: Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to clarify. I think the motion was stated backwards. It is repealing and replacing 24-06R, not 26-04R.

Mayor Hanson: Let me fix that. Clerk did. I was dyslexic on that.

Clerk: I think that it’s probably best if you just restate it before you do your roll call because I wrote it down correctly and I couldn’t tell you if you didn’t speak it correctly.

Mayor Hanson: Okay. Any further discussion? Assemblymember Henry, do you have any comments?

Assemblymember Henry: No, sir. I was in the meeting last night and Charity’s covered it.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Okay. Roll call to repeal and replace 24-06R and replace with 26-04R.

Clerk: Roll call. Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Moving on to 7F, public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-05R declaring local disaster conditions resulting from extreme winter weather.

Assemblymember Potter: I move for public hearing and adoption of Resolution 26-05R.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Potter, second by Hillis, to adopt Resolution 26-05R. Would anyone from the public like to address this issue? Hearing none, public hearing is closed. Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. I don’t think I have to say this out loud, but this winter was a little rough. And I cautiously use the past tense in that I don’t want to jinx us all, knock on wood. This is about documentation, not setting off any alarm. What this disaster declaration does not do, it does not activate any emergency powers or authorize necessarily any new spending. What it does do is acknowledge for the record that the extreme, and what most people I’m sure would hope is a once-in-a-lifetime event, winter weather that happened starting early in December—we’re not declaring an emergency, we’re just acknowledging an extreme event that impacted numerous residents here. I did, about—I guess it was just a few days ago, it was not even a week ago—I posted on Facebook on the Skagway Swap just a little roll call, taking a poll of how many community members did incur some kind of property damage. And I just checked it before I came in here and it was up to 21 yeses, 21 yes responses for that. And that’s—you know, we still have the spring coming when everybody will turn on their water with very firmly crossed fingers. So this also kind of provides some future-proofing to everybody and so much knocking happening in the event for this future spring kind of de-winterizing, when you might still notice some damage. So it’s really just kind of providing some documentation that may or may not be able to be used by our residents for property and insurance claims. And maybe just as importantly, it acknowledges that that was a doozy.

Mayor Hanson: Any further discussion? I will say, while this is very well written and stated, I think that the intent here is to potentially help people with their individual property claims. And if this gesture, this resolution, helps folks as they deal with their insurance, it’s the least we could do. And I thank Assemblymember Potter for drafting this doozy. Any further discussion? Roll call.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Okay, thank you. I’m ready to keep rolling. Are you guys good to go? Okay. Brings us to 9A, award of Ore Peninsula limited scope removal contract.

Assemblymember Potter: I move we award the Ore Peninsula limited scope removal contract to Hamilton Construction in an amount not to exceed $666,165.90.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: A motion by Potter, a second by Hillis, to award the Ore Peninsula limited scope removal contract to Hamilton Construction in an amount not to exceed $666,165.90. Discussion. Manager Deach, just for the record, could you describe what this job is, please?

Borough Manager Deach: So pretty simply, we have a high spot that is near the southwest corner of the new cruise float. So at extreme low tides, we’re getting very close to the ground there, or underwater. So it is supposed to be a fairly quick job. I think I’ve heard a couple days of excavating. There’s probably going to be more, though. They’ll take the soil out, sample it as it comes out, and then sort it into different containers. And we don’t know how much—if it’s too contaminated, if there’s any sort of elevated levels of any metals or anything like that, it needs to go in one container. If it can be reused somewhere else, it doesn’t have those levels, it can go in the other container. And disposing of either of those containers costs different. It’s more expensive to dispose of the contaminated soil. So it was a little tricky because we don’t know how much, we don’t know what’s under there necessarily. So we’re looking at about 100 cubic yards coming out. And they’ll be sorted, sent out, disposed, and then we’ll be good. And it should be a pretty short project.

Mayor Hanson: So, to play devil’s advocate with how this motion is stated, what happens if all 100 yards are contaminated?

Borough Manager Deach: Then we may have to come back for an amendment, because you’re right. If you look at the bid schedule, we’re assuming that half needs to go to a landfill down south somewhere, which is expensive, and half can be used beneficially elsewhere. And you’ll see that the cost per unit for beneficial use is $502 a ton; for landfill disposal, about $2,400 a ton. So you’re right. There is a likelihood—I don’t wanna say there’s a likelihood—that the soil or the sediment in this area cannot be used beneficially elsewhere. So we’re hoping that our estimates are right, or that from sampling that we’ve done in the past in the area, it seems to be cleaner there.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Any further discussion? Hearing none.

Clerk: Roll call. Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Moving on to 9B, approval of limited scope removal construction management and support services proposal.

Assemblymember Potter: I move for the approval of the limited scope removal construction management and support services proposal to KPFF and Anchor QEA in an amount not to exceed $144,407.

Assemblymember Burnham: Second.

Clerk: Where’d you get that number?

Mayor Hanson: I’m looking at a cheaper one. Manager Deach, can you confirm the amount? Because I’m seeing a different number.

Borough Manager Deach: Yes. If you look on the page right before you get into Anchor QEA’s scope of work, and I’m not sure exactly what page it is in your document, but there’s a chart. It’s after KPFF’s memo. There’s two pages of a chart showing what the tasks are and what the costs are. And on page two, on the right side, you’ll see the total at the bottom is $144,407.

Assemblymember Burnham: Okay?

Borough Manager Deach: And it’s broken up a little bit differently over on the left, but that total—it’s all coming over to this total of 144,407.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Who was the second?

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Potter, second by Burnham, to approve the slope removal construction management support services contract in an amount not to exceed $144,407. Discussion. Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. We also discussed this at Finance last night. And Manager Deach I’m sure can correct me if I’m wrong, but this is kind of based on an hourly contract, so there is a chance that not this full amount will be needed. We budgeted a total of $800,000 for this project, so if it did go that full 144,000, that would put us about $10,000 over budget. But there is a chance that not all of that money will be needed.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Further discussion? Roll call.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Alright, that brings us to 9C, approval of support letter for Rural Healthcare Transformation Project funding proposal.

Assemblymember Potter: I move for the approval of support letter for the Rural Healthcare Transformation Project funding proposal.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Potter, a second by Hillis, to support the rural healthcare proposal letter. Any discussion? Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. We also talked about this at Finance last night. So the state has received—I’ve lost my notes all of a sudden. I’m gonna have to use the old mind. I believe $272 million for a five-year period. My understanding is it hasn’t been quite determined how that money is gonna be used. So this is a support letter from the community health center emergent services to help what is happening with our clinic and the three or four others in the state that are similarly licensed to ours, because we are licensed as a federally qualified health center. We are not licensed as an emergency care room. But obviously, because we’re the only medical facility anywhere near here, we provide those emergent services, which our license prevents us from being able to bill appropriately for, hence the skyrocketing costs. This is a letter of support to hopefully be able to use some of that $272 million to take some pressure off of clinics like ours.

Mayor Hanson: Further discussion?

Assemblymember Potter: And another thing that we discussed last night that I didn’t see corrected yet was the misspelling of the board president’s name.

Mayor Hanson: I wanna thank the clinic board and Director Wall for being proactive and addressing I think something that’s pretty lopsided and unfair, that we may be providing apples-to-apples services and insurance will not cover us. And therefore we are faced with significant budget shortfalls. We had a very substantial budget adjustment in December when a lot of that was due to the stress and strain of the equivalent of emergency room responses at our clinic, particularly in the summer months. I think we had almost a 200 percent spike from the levels we’ve seen in the past. And we’re not able to bill that in the same way that an ER or hospital is because that’s the way the system is. And that puts a strain on our budgets. That’s not very fair. The system’s not working, and I applaud the proactiveness in one short month of trying to petition the state and the Department of Health to recognize that discrepancy and take action. So we got your back, and if you need any further letters of support, all you gotta do is ask. Thank you. Roll call.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Moving on to 9D, consideration of liquor license renewal applications. Let’s do these one by one. We’ll start with The Station Bar and Grill beverage dispensary tourism license number 4379 combined renewal.

Assemblymember Potter: I move we protest The Station Bar and Grill beverage dispensary tourism license number 4379 combined renewal.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Potter, second by Pomeroy, to protest The Station’s beverage license number 4379. Discussion? Roll call.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: No.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: No.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: No.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: No.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: No.

Clerk: Five no. Motion fails.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. 9D2, Alaska 360 new seasonal restaurant or eating place tourism license, app ID 5896.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: I move we protest Alaska 360 new seasonal restaurant or eating place tourism license number 5896.

Mayor Hanson: Okay, we did not get a second on that. So let me restate this real quickly. 9D, Alaska 360 new seasonal restaurant or eating place tourism license number 5896.

Assemblymember Potter: I move we postpone the consideration of license number 5896 until the second meeting in February.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: We have a motion by Potter, a second by Hillis, to postpone the Alaska 360 application, license number 5896. Discussion? Assemblymember Burnham.

Assemblymember Burnham: Thank you, Your Honor. Are you going with the application ID number or the license number? ’Cause license number, it says on mine, is 60331.

Mayor Hanson: I’m reading off the agenda, so I could be incorrect.

Assemblymember Burnham: I was reading outta the application packet. I mean, kind of a clerical thing, but—

Clerk: At the top of the state’s notice to us it says our app ID 5896. So that’s what we go by.

Mayor Hanson: Okay. Does that answer that question? Assemblymember Potter, can you describe the situation, or do you need me to do it?

Assemblymember Potter: There is a possible issue with the need for a conditional use permit, but I believe you could probably expound on that a little bit more.

Mayor Hanson: Yes, I’ll do my best. This is a new application. This is not a renewal. And typically with any kind of alcohol application that goes through Planning and Zoning, the state alcohol board sends these to our Clerk’s Department, and then they bring it to our attention. We have 60 days to respond. But in our typical process, we would send this to Planning and Zoning first, so we have time to protest it. We have 60 days to do it, so we’re trying to follow our own normal standards of sending this through the conditional use application process of Planning and Zoning before we actually hold a vote here on whether we protest or we don’t. Is that clear? Okay. The motion is to postpone to the second meeting in February. Roll call.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Brings us to 9D3, Liarsville Recreational Site license 4567 combined renewal.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: I move we protest Liarsville Recreational Site license 4567 combined renewal.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Pomeroy, second by Hillis, to protest the Liarsville renewal application 4567. Discussion? Roll call.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: No.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: No.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: No.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: No.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: No.

Clerk: Five no. Motion fails.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. That brings us now to our last item—well, not last—but to 9E, confirmation of appointments to boards, commissions, and committees.

Assemblymember Potter: I move we approve the mayoral appointments and removals to boards, commissions, and committees as listed in packet item 9E.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Potter, second by Hillis, to approve the appointments and removals as listed in 9E. Discussion. Go ahead, Assemblymember Hillis.

Assemblymember Hillis: I was excited to see the Comprehensive Trails Plan ad hoc committee getting a new member added to it. Maybe that means they’ll be meeting again. That is all.

Mayor Hanson: You’re welcome. And he is excited to be engaged and participate, and he knows a lot about trails, actually. So, Assemblymember Pomeroy.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: I just wanna give a big thank you and shout out to the person joining the Historic District Commission, a former chair of that commission. So that is a huge relief to me personally, having had to vacate that chair.

Mayor Hanson: I did reach out to Ms. Rapley, and knowing her very long service on the board—and that’s a board that, it’s a tough seat to fill, and it’s not always a very enjoyable seat—and she served for a very long time and has a lot of experience, and she was willing to step back in the role. I’d also like to say thank you to Lynn Davidson for continuing to serve on the Dyea board. She brought up concerns to me, and I’ll try my best to help kind of unlock some of the frustration that some of the people on the Dyea board feel. And finally, the last nomination I brought up is someone who is a young member of this community, Calvin Miller, and someone who I knew had all the qualifications in the world, having been running the garbage service forever. I asked him and he said no, but I think you need to try to get younger people involved. And he gave me some names and I reached out to Calvin, and I think he’s excited to get involved. So look forward to that. Roll call.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: Okay, we’re rolling right along here, Dan. We’re almost there. Mayor and Assembly discussion items. Does anyone have anything that they would like to have the whole table talk about, a topic for consideration amongst all of us that we can kind of talk in an open format? Okay. We’ll go to closing comments. Mr. Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: I have nothing, Your Honor.

Mayor Hanson: Alright. Thank you. Mr. Burnham.

Assemblymember Burnham: I just have the meeting for Public Works that will be scheduled for next week. I was gonna check the availability of Potter and Hillis if they have a preferred date or time.

Assemblymember Potter: I’m gonna be gone next week for Mineral Roundup.

Assemblymember Burnham: Okay.

Assemblymember Potter: Back on Thursday. Well, I’m back—well, could meet on Friday.

Assemblymember Burnham: Stop it.

Assemblymember Potter: That’s—

Assemblymember Burnham: Okay. I really don’t like you at meetings anyway. You tend to disagree with me a lot and all that.

Assemblymember Potter: Really good chocolate.

Assemblymember Burnham: Okay. If you bring those chocolates again. Mr. Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: I think Wednesday the 27th, the 28th—I think we’re trying to plan a Parks and Rec meeting at 5:30, so you could probably do it after that. 29th, I should be available.

Assemblymember Burnham: The 28th. Would you be back, Deb, or—

Mayor Hanson: That’s a Saturday. I’m the wrong month. January.

Assemblymember Potter: No, I don’t get back until the 29th.

Assemblymember Burnham: We could probably—you want to phone in? Do you wanna just miss it? That way we can just piggyback on his meetings.

Mayor Hanson: Why don’t you guys figure this out after the meeting, meeting, meeting. Let’s figure this out after the meeting. Yeah.

Assemblymember Burnham: Alright. And a regular guy wants a pool.

Mayor Hanson: Alright. Thank you. Assemblymember Pomeroy.

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Thank you, Your Honor. I wanna add to the shout-out that was given earlier to Public Works, AT&T, everybody who kept the roads clear, kept the power on. That was an unbelievable phenomenon, and I stood in awe, especially watching those involved with clearing the roads, battling the constantly moving snow drifts. That was amazing. And they did it. So I was not so successful in my own yard or walkway. That was amazing. So, once again, shout-out to them. But there’s one other thing that I wanna bring everybody’s attention to. I am so excited about it. Marketing more and more is being done through smaller—that’s a relative term—creators on different social media sites. And in the Tourism Director’s report, item I, she mentions that Explore Skagway has contracted an amazing new influencer beginning in January. And I am truly thrilled because I know that this influencer pops up on my FYP all the time, well before I even followed them. And it’s Eliza Meyers, and she has really excellent content that she puts out. And the fact that it’s now going to be used to showcase all of Skagway, that is just absolutely thrilling to me. I just wanted to mention that.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Assemblymember Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Thank you. Yeah, the snow was fun. If you haven’t driven over the highway to see some of those slides that they cleared, pretty spectacular. They were big. If you’re wondering why the highway was closed for so long, I unfortunately went over it twice during that, and it was rowdy to say the least. Also, on slides, you can see a break of a giant slide on Face Mountain from town. That’s how unstable the snow was during that storm. Also, on snow tracks up at Log Cabin, get out and ski. It’s much calmer over there. You don’t get blown by 20-mile-an-hour winds. A little colder, but much nicer. That’s all. Thank you.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. Assemblymember Potter.

Assemblymember Potter: Thank you, Your Honor. Also, of course, echo appreciation for our Public Works and Public Safety and just the community in general. Skagway is always at its best in the most challenging conditions. I want to thank the Log Cabin Ski Society for giving us some winter activity. I want to remind people that the state legislature just is in session, and if you’re like me and have fancy rabbit-ear television, you can watch it all day long. Our budget is real bad off. So they’re grappling with some big, big issues. So I would encourage everybody to tune into that. And if you don’t have antenna TV, you can watch it online on KTOO. I also want to note in the manager’s update, which she added because had she not added, I still was going to thank her for the dog park update. While everybody has also been busy trying not to freeze and shoveling snow, Manager Deach has been doing a lot of follow-up, trying to solve this mystery of whose land is it. And so she has made some real progress. As far as we have determined, it is DNR land and has an application in. So we are making some progress on getting a dog park, which I spent some time at when I was down south, and it’s just a great community resource. So thank you for following through on that. And excited to go to Mineral Roundup. It’s gonna be a really interesting time to talk about mining, and I know that we will represent the community’s interest quite well. And I am going to finish with talking about how excited I am for Mr. Tronrud’s book that I will be reading on the plane. Actually, I will start reading it tonight. To think about—it’s not necessarily very thick—but all the years of experience that are in these pages, I greatly commend you on such an accomplishment and really look forward to reading it.

Mayor Hanson: Thank you. I also look forward to reading Mr. Tronrud’s book. He’s been giving me updates of when it’s coming out, and I’ve been waiting. Couple things that are in the Tourism Director’s report that’s attached to the manager’s report. We are in the running for being America’s favorite small town, and you can vote on this daily. The link is in the packet under the manager’s update. But we’re getting a lot of votes of people who really like coming to Skagway. So bring that to everybody’s attention. You can go down and vote on this once a day, and it’s good publicity for Skagway, and I think it’s actually genuine. I don’t think it showed up because we got somebody manipulating a computer that spits it out. I think people legitimately come here and think we’re a pretty unique and awesome community and town to visit.

Mayor Hanson: Also, going back to things that happened during COVID, we have a film about Skagway that is going to be at a red carpet event on Saturday the 15th at 5:00 at the school. And I think a lot of you’ll remember when that was being filmed here in the middle of COVID. It was weird. Not so weird that someone was paying attention to Skagway, but it was weird ’cause there’s nobody here and a film camera throughout town. And it was just odd. The whole time was odd. But, you know, having a film camera following people around when there’s nobody there to look at was—I don’t know. I’m interested to see actually what it’s about. And I think Stan Bush, the director, actually has ties to Skagway. If I remember, I do remember meeting him, and he came up here on and off with different film crews for well over a year, as I recall. So I think it won an award at a film festival in New England. So looking forward to that.

Mayor Hanson: And this is just a time of year where I think when it’s a little bit of survival mode sometimes, when it’s this cold, you figure out things to—you make sure your water’s running, make sure your path to your fuel tank is plowed, and take care of each other. And that’s one of the things I really appreciate about Skagway, is that we do look after each other when people need help. And that’s all I have. Look forward to Roundup, attending with our great staff and the Vice Mayor, and we will give a report when we get back. Roll call to adjourn, please.

Assemblymember Burnham: I move we adjourn.

Assemblymember Hillis: Second.

Mayor Hanson: Motion by Burnham, second by Hillis. Roll call. Sorry, I’m messing Steve up here bad at the end.

Clerk: Henry?

Assemblymember Henry: Yes.

Clerk: Pomeroy?

Assemblymember Pomeroy: Yes.

Clerk: Potter?

Assemblymember Potter: Yes.

Clerk: Hillis?

Assemblymember Hillis: Yes.

Clerk: Burnham?

Assemblymember Burnham: Yes.

Clerk: Five yes. Motion passes.

Mayor Hanson: [01:32:00] Thank you. Meeting adjourned.