Council extends COVID Emergency Ordinance to end of April

By Diana Haecker
In a five-hour meeting consisting of a work session on the annual financial audit, followed by a regular session, the Nome Common Council covered vast ground. Discussed were topics ranging from the extensions of an emergency ordinance, to a resurfacing debate on a resolution approving the Historic Preservation Plan, the request from the port director for $1.6 million to fund the 65 percent design milestone for the port expansion and finally questioning the 2022 State Legislative priorities.
Present were council members Mark Johnson, Scot Henderson, Jerald Brown in person, Doug Johnson, Adam Martinson and Meghan Sigvanna Topkok participated virtually. In absence of Mayor John Handeland, Councilman Brown presided over the meeting.

Actions taken
The Council took up in second reading an ordinance to extend the local emergency authorizing the city manager to take necessary actions to reduce the impact and spread of COVID-19 to June 30, 2022. No member of the public gave comment. Discussion among council members revolved to shorten the period from six months. Brown explained that this is an ordinance that goes through the regular two-reading process as opposed to an emergency order — as were passed in the first months of the pandemic in 2020. Brown said that making the ordinance shorter to last for only 60 days, the council would have to take up an extension in 30 days again to accommodate the two-readings in two meetings process. He also said one of the reasons for the emergency ordinance’s six-month timeframe was a request from the citizenry to do away with those short-term ever changing emergency orders so that businesses can better plan for months ahead. Also, he said, the ordinance is not an emergency order, but is the underlying authorization for the city manager to act swiftly. “We can at any meeting review all the actions in place and reject or accept anything that is in place,” he said. For example if the city manager mandates indoor masking or closures, the council can vote to reject such measures.
Mark Johnson made motion to amendment the ordinance’s effective date from June 30 to April 30, 2022. His argument was that if the ordinance keeps coming up, it gives the council a chance to review it and also reminds the citizens that the City is still under an emergency measure. Brown voted nay, the remainder of the council voted yes to pass the amendment. The emergency ordinance as amended then passed unanimously.

Historic Preservation Plan
Another measure before the council was a resolution to approve the Historic Preservation Plan. For the third time this has been brought to the council, however, the council keeps rejecting the approval as objections were raised that the Native culture and history has been omitted and is not sufficiently addressed in the document. Ken Hughes, Planning Commissioner, addressed the council again and said that the council misses the point of the document which is addressing implementation and mechanics of historic preservation. He said that while nobody is attempting to diminish the local culture, the council should not get hung up on the “starting point.” “The first thing the plan says is that we need to find out more about our local history,” he said. In his opinion, it would take more than a couple of people for a couple of days to write a Native history into the plan. “How much staff time and effort are you willing to spend?” he asked. He said it’s a living document and doesn’t claim to be complete. Mark Johnson said that he thought valid points were made by Austin Ahmasuk to correct certain passages in the plan. The council sent back the document to the planning commission to overhaul those parts, but the document came back before the council unchanged. When the issue was addressed in a December council meeting, the council sent the document again to the planning commission, but the panel had no meeting since then. When it appeared back on the agenda in this week’s council meeting, members were at a loss. Councilwoman Topkok said she does not see her perspective included in the plan, but also didn’t find it would be hard to correct the sections that she takes exception with. Going forward, she said she would submit recommendations on fixing some paragraphs for the planning commission to consider in their next meeting on February 1.
The plan, Hughes said, would enable the City to apply for historic preservation grants.
The vote on approving the plan was postponed.

Port design funding
The Port of Nome expansion is a complicated web of players and funding sources. Involved are the Army Corps of Engineers Alaska District and the City of Nome as project drivers and a patchwork of funding through federal and state grants and other sources. The Corps has a cost share agreement with the City for General Navigational Features (breakwaters, causeway etc.), where the Corps pays 65 percent and the City pays 35 percent. The cost for local service facilities, LSF for short, such as docks and the causeway road, are 100 percent the City’s responsibility. Before the council was a resolution to approve funding for the next level of the design phase for the LSF. In September, the City awarded $206,000 of the $821,000 fee to design firm PND Engineers to fund the first 35 percent milestone of design. PND requested the balance of $621,000 to finalize the 35 percent design by February 15. “Also, to avoid delays and remain aligned with the aggressive Corps schedule, PND has requested the 65 percent design level fee of $1,058,425 to meet the deadline for submittals due by June 30, 2022,” Port Director Joy Baker wrote in a memo. Before the council was a resolution to authorize the city manager to proceed with the 65 percent design level for a fee of $1,680,425. The funds would be paid out of the City’s general fund and reimbursed by the port. How confident is Baker to repay the funds to the City? Baker said she is pursuing grants. “Without anything catastrophic happening, we can pay back the City within three years or less,” she said. Steckman also said he is confident that the port can cover the costs through grants, and that the 2022 shipping season promises to be an extraordinary busy year with good revenue. Baker said the port has paid back what it owed the City.
Baker also clarified that the $250 million that come through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is going to the Corps of Engineers to be used for construction of the breakwaters and dredging, not towards the City’s cost share obligations.
Councilmember Scot Henderson then asked, “Who’s paying for the remaining 65 to 100 percent?” The fee for 65 to 100 percent design would be another close to $1 million. Baker answered it would be paid by either grant funds or port funds.
For construction of the port, the City is responsible to pay approximately $83 million in cost share with the federal partner, the Army Corps, and 100 percent responsible for construction of the LSF (the docks, roads and other facilities) to the tune of approximately $64 million. Steckman said that the City would not have that kind of borrowing ability, but is pursuing grants and looking into public private partnerships of port users. Councilman Brown said he wanted to hear the plan how the port goes about finding that kind of money. “There is no way the City can spend $150 million,” he said. If funding does not materialize as envisioned and the City keeps fronting money for the port expansion, he asked: “At what point do we draw the line and decide not to proceed? We have to figure that out.”
The motion to approve the resolution to fund the port design fee carried unanimously.

Legislative priorities
Before the Council came a resolution to approve the City’s 2022 State Legislative Priorities. The Council didn’t come with those and thus, councilmember Scot Henderson asked “who decides on those priorities?” The list, in priority order, included an ask of $175 million for the Port of Nome expansion phase 1 construction; supporting the Teacher Housing complex with $9 million and the covered ice rink (covered multi-use recreational structure) with $950,000. Legislative priorities have to be submitted by February 1 for consideration. Henderson said he’d like to get feedback from constituents on the priorities and why does the City back only one housing project instead of incentivizing property owners or developers to develop affordable housing in Nome? Steckman explained that the housing project is driven by the Nome School District and the need to make Nome more attractive to prospective teachers and police officers. The housing complex is to include four units for Nome police officers. Discussion then veered off to the housing crunch and the question what role the City can play to alleviate the housing crisis without getting into the business of subsidizing rents or housing opportunities. While the council agreed that a separate work session is in order to address the housing crisis in Nome, Councilwoman Topkok made the motion to add under priorities to provide state incentives to stimulate construction of affordable housing in Nome. The amended motion carried and the council signed off on the legislative priorities.
In other business, the council passed a resolution to enter into an agreement with Altman, Rogers & Co. for audit services for fiscal years 2022-2024 at a total cost of $167,050.
Steckman in his city manager report said that starting Friday, COVID test kits, KN 95 and medical masks will be available to the public to pick up at the Rec Center. Also, he reported that the roof caved in over the handicap ramp at the Rec Center. He said it was never correctly installed at the first place and is getting fixed. Also, he said, he had to deal with raw sewage coming out of a house in Icy View and has no housing available to move the family into a different home. In regards to the chaotic trash pickup situation, he reported that he spoke with the regional manager of Alaska Waste and the information he gained was that the trash pickup routes were in former employees’ heads and nowhere put on paper and that the new employees are learning the routes as they go. The immediate issue of charging for extra bags has been resolved and Alaska Waste promised not to charge for extra bags. He said if the situation does not improve, he’d take it to the state’s utility commission.

Tax, penalties and interest
The council had before them a request from St. Joseph’s Church to retroactively forgive sales tax exemption. The church did not file timely for exemption, but the council voted to grant the exemption.
The Dredge 7 Inn requested to forgive penalties and interest due to a missed sales and bed tax payments in the summer. Tax payments were usually handled by hotel owner Judy Martinson who unexpectedly passed away in August and no payment was made for July. The council voted to forgive the penalty and interest payment.

Liquor license
The City sent a letter to the Alcohol & Marijuana Control Office with their recommendations that the Nome Liquor Store (aka Nome Quick Stop) package liquor license be renewed under the conditions to have security personnel on site; that the licensee shall not sell alcoholic beverages (other than beer or wine) in containers larger than .75 liters; that the licensee limit sales of alcohol to a single sale per person per day; and that the licensee shall not sell that single person more than one container of alcohol (other than beer or wine) per sale.
Under citizen’s comments, Ken Hughes commented that changing the business end of the situation won’t affect a change. He said people need to be held responsible for their actions. “We need to focus on that. We need to quit making it such an attractive situation,” he said. “We have to realize if we don’t have a court or a system under which we can hold people responsible for their actions, we continue to see what we have seen.”