Council tables pulltab ordinance overhaul

A conflict of interest question brought efforts to overhaul the City of Nome’s pull-tabs ordinance to a screeching halt as the Nome Common Council was getting ready to vote on it in first reading, during Monday’s regular council meeting. 
Council member Scot Henderson requested that anyone in the council, including the mayor, state on the record that they have a conflict of interest. When no such statement came forward, Henderson said that he believes that Mayor Hughes, who also is the president of the Nome Chamber of Commerce, which stands to gain a “substantial increase in their income” from this ordinance, has a conflict of interest. When Henderson asked Hughes point blank if he things that he has a conflict of interest, Hughes answered: “I would have to study the definition to know how to answer that.”
Procedurally this posed a conundrum as the mayor is normally the authority to decide whether a conflict of interest exists. Nobody in the room knew the answer to the question how to proceed when the mayor potentially has a conflict of interest.
After much discussion, the council tasked staff to obtain a legal opinion on the potential conflict of interest and voted to table the ordinance. This proved disappointing to the crowd in the audience that felt the conflict of interest declaration was premature as the decisive vote happens in second reading. 
The council chamber was full with representatives from the town’s nonprofits who stood ready to support the ordinance which seeks to replace sales taxes levied on pull-tabs – a significant way to raise funds for charitable and civic purposes – with an excise tax and then exempt the pull-tabs ideal net from this excise tax. The city would lose between $320,000 and $355,000 annually in tax revenue. But the nonprofits would improve their currently slim profit margins, which would position them well to support their civic missions. The nonprofits, the argument went, would infuse the pull-tab proceeds 100 percent back into the community in support of their charitable missions, thus lessening the likelihood that these nonprofits would come to the city asking for financial support.
In other business, City Clerk Dan Grimmer swore in the new student representative Lane Schuerch.
The council also heard from the Jason Brune, the chairman of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s board of trustees, which is holding its board meeting this week in Nome.
Kawerak’s Anahma Shannon updated the council on the recycling center project involving the complete renovation of the Monofill building. Utilities Manager John Handeland reported that the final fuel delivery is expected next week. “We’re still waiting for the final pricing on the fuel, but it definitely is more expensive than last year,” he said.