Council hears NJUS updates
The Nome Common Council had a full plate in front of them at the regular meeting on Monday, albeit with only one action items on the agenda: the council’s approval of the Nome Economic Development Plan, prepared by Stephanie Queen Consulting of Soldotna.
The council approved the plan with the understanding that it is a living document and can be changed. City Manager Lee Smith plans to take the plan to implementation work groups and then bring it back to the council to approve the changes.
School safety
A substantial portion of the meeting was spent on discussion of a grant opportunity that Nome Public Schools Superintendent Jamie Burgess brought to the council. The school administration is applying for a School Violent Prevention Program grant from the Department of Justice, which requires a 25 percent match from another organization. Burgess asked the city for a letter of support and ultimately be the grant match in order to shore up safety features at school entrances at Nome Beltz and the Nome Elementary School.
Burgess said she’d apply for the full amount of the $500,000 grant which could require a $150,000 commitment from the city as a match.
She said that the school IT director Jim Shreve is currently soliciting quotes for an electronic access systems that would control access via an app with a code or like a hotel access card to allow access to certain areas.
Currently, the doors are locked with physical keys, and nobody has any idea how many keys are floating around in the community from former employees or contractors who needed access to the schools.
The advantage of an electronic system is that the schools can program access. “So, if somebody’s terminated, their access is done. We don’t have to go chase people around and try to physically collect keys,” Burgess said.
The council, with council members Scot Henderson, Kohren Green, Mark Johnson and Adam Lust plus Mayor Ken Hughes present, unanimously approved a motion to support the grant application with a letter from the city.
Pull Tabs
As the council mulls the change of taxing pull tabs, the council grapples with the prospect that less tax funds would flow into the city’s coffers. However, the expectation is that if the nonprofits keep more of their pull tabs earnings by being taxed more advantageously to them, they are less dependent on city contributions to their organizations. However, not every charity organization is also running pull tabs operations. If changes, as proposed, are done, the city could potentially lose $338,000 in tax revenue. But on the other hand, it currently spends about $213,000 in donations and in-kind services to organizations.
Council member Scot Henderson wanted to know how the city is going to plug the hole and if the nonprofits who depend on city contributions will have the means to absorb the loss of city donations.
“I mean, is it not a reasonable question to ask? We’re going to lose $338,000 in funding for these nonprofits. I’m just trying to understand where we’re going to fill the gap, and maybe we’ll find out at the work session.”
The council will hold a work session on the pull tab taxation change on Wednesday, August 5.
NJUS
Looming large after the last council meeting, in which nobody from Nome Joint Utilities was present to deliver reports to the council, the years of lagging NJUS audits and to top it off last Tuesday’s Nome Joint Utilities board meeting in which board members expressed their profound displeasure with management not having produced four years’ worth of financial audits and no budgets, three members of the NJUS team showed up and delivered reports. Ken Morton informed the council of heat recovery projects at the powerplant, wind turbine repairs, lift station projects and coordination with the Dept. of Transportation on future Seppala Road, Center Creek and Front Street projects.
NJUS’ Chief Financial Officer Chris Coffman updated the council on the audit situation: “2021 is done and complete,” she said. Auditors have audits for 2022, 2023 and 2024 in their hands. Coffman reported that the auditors came to Nome the week of July 13, did their field audit and now NJUS is waiting back to hear what else is needed.
She said she didn’t come to the council with a budget. “Sorry. My main priority is to get these audits done,” she said.
She also reported that NJUS is working with Northrim Bank for a fuel loan.
Ken Morton said that the NJUS won’t be topping off their tanks and only procuring two million gallons of fuel this year.
“The price of fuel for the utility is established by the average of the month of loading, which will be August,” Morton said. “So, we don’t know what the price of fuel will be, but we are budgeting at maybe $4.30 a gallon.”
Thomas Simonsson, NJUS Field Operations Superintendent, updated the council on NJUS’ regulatory compliances. NJUS remains in good standing, from a regulatory standpoint, he said. The water system is skookum and the completed annual customer confidence report was accepted by ADEC and “confirmed that our drinking water system had no violations during the reporting year.” Additionally, he said, NJUS completed its annual power plant compliance review, confirming that our permit requirements, monitoring schedules, and reporting obligations continue to remain on track and in compliance.
Since NJUS collects landfill charges and the Alaska Waste garbage fees, Simonsson asked the city to start an outreach campaign to customers and inform them of the doubling of landfill fees from $12.50 to $25 a month starting with the next bill. “I can foresee that we will get a lot of calls with angry people complaining to NJUS when it’s, as I understand it, out of our hands,” he said.
Citizen comments
Emily Stotts, proprietor of Rural Alaska Animal Resources LLC, the contractor to perform animal services for the city updated council on creating a system that would endure personnel or city management changes. She spoke of the partnership with the nonprofit organization PAWS of Nome and the goal to build a “sustainable partnership that combines municipal authority with the stability, experience, and community support that PAWS has developed over many years, and while RAAR fulfills the city’s contractual obligations.”
“To create an animal services model that is sustainable, community-supported, and capable of evolving with Nome’s needs, rather than reinventing the department with each change in city leadership, we want to establish a system built on continuity, clear expectations and long-term planning,” she said. First, she proposed to conduct a comprehensive review of the city’s animal-related ordinances “to ensure they are clear, enforceable, practical, and reflective of today’s community.” Stotts said she’d begin by holding a public meeting in mid-August to invite the public “to share their experiences, concerns, and recommendations regarding animal care and animal control in Nome.”
The expected outcome is a community-informed plan that clearly defines the city’s public health and public safety goals related to pets and their owners within city limits, while creating a roadmap for the future of municipal animal services. That roadmap should include sustainable operations, consistent enforcement, modern shelter management practices, and access to shelter veterinary medicine as a standard component of municipal animal services, she said.
In a continuation of taxi cab spats, Steven Longley, who operates without a taxi license, took issue with the city clerk handing taxi and chauffeur licenses to the new taxicab company Bootz & Co. Cab LLC although their mandatory decals that are supposed to be affixed to the vehicle, are not on the vehicle. The city has issued a two-week grace period as the new cab owners wait for the decals to arrive, which Longley criticized as being illegal. He also criticized that the city issued a chauffeur’s license to the dog Bootz, the namesake of the company. “It’s cute, but it’s fraud,” he alleged. Longley went on to complain about the customer service at City Hall by the city clerks, past and present.
The council recessed into executive sessions for legal and personnel matters with no action taken afterward.
The city council will convene on Wednesday, August 5 again for a work session on pull tabs taxation changes.