By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Assembly approved two actions Tuesday night that will help the city move forward on plans for a new floatplane dock for the city.
The vote was 6-0 on both of the agenda items, with Valorie Nelson, Aaron Bean, Kevin Knox, Kevin Mosher, Richard Wein and Mayor Gary Paxton in favor. Steven Eisenbeisz was not present.
The first motion was to authorize the administrator to execute documents to accept and administer a $842,629 Airport Improvement Program grant from the FAA to complete an environmental assessment and aviation planning services for the facility. The second was to authorize a city contribution of a $56,176 match for program.
The need for a fully-equipped floatplane dock for Sitka has been recognized for years, but received renewed focus by city staff after the Assembly identified it as a priority after the last election.
A site on the northwest end of Japonski Island, presently owned by the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, has been selected as best location for a 14-plane facility for private and commercial seaplane users. A land transfer and an environmental study will be required before the construction can begin.
Plans call for the $16 million project to be completed in phases, and to be ready for use by 2024. The city is seeking FAA funding to cover 93 percent of the cost, with a city contribution of about $1 million.
Commercial floatplane service owner Kevin Mulligan of Port Alexander spoke in favor of the project Tuesday night. He said that as of Sept. 15 his company, Baranautica, will be the only air carrier operation and charter operation on Baranof Island.
He thanked those who worked on the Sitka floatplane dock project.
“It should be a priority for Sitka,” he said. “It’s going to benefit Sitka extremely and all of the outlying communities that need it. And there are so many different reasons why it needs to move forward.”
Mulligan cited the potential of working with University of Alaska and Mt. Edgecumbe High School to start pilot training and aviation programs.
“There’s a global shortage of pilots in the aviation industry that’s coming to a head right now,” he said.
From the Assembly, Wein encouraged city staff to work with Mulligan.
“Because we delayed Sitka has lost business, notably to Juneau,” he said. “Because this was delayed, we are now being penalized 6.25 percent of the cost from the FAA which means $1 million.”
Paxton commented that Sitka is handicapped by not having a lobbyist or a public relations person on city staff, but said he plans to continue his lobbying efforts.
“Rather than aggressive follow up ... we’ve not been able to put the kind of impact we should’ve been putting on our delegation to get things like this,” he said.
Public Works Director Mike Harmon commented that the purpose of the environmental study is to look at any impacts of the project, as the first step in a three-phase process.
“The good news in the realms of the seaplane base, and FAA studies and requirements, the impacts of that are very low,” he said. “Their standards are built on international airports, so the noise generated from a seaplane base, the impacts ... are so minor in their standards, I envision it to be insignificant.”
Addressing why the completion date is 2024, Harmon said the FAA has a lengthy process.
“To be eligible for federal funding, and follow through their process, that’s how long it takes,” he said. “At the end of the day we get 93.75 percent funding, so that’s the pros and cons of it.”
The ordinance to allocate the match was unopposed on first reading, but Nelson asked why the city was signing the application agreement before the local funding ordinance – which requires two readings – gets final approval.
“It seems like we are appropriating funds for something that we’re going to sign before it’s totally approved, because the second reading won’t come until our first meeting in September, unless we have a second reading,” she said.
City Attorney Brian Hanson responded, “We don’t think we’re getting into trouble because we’re authorizing the signing of the application for the grant money. It’s our process of appropriating funds. We have to have those available when they ask for them. The second reading will give us that. If it’s not ... we’ll back out of it.”
Executive Sessions
The Assembly took up two items of business in executive session, one an update on the lawsuit against the city by police officer Ryan Silva, and the other about the terms of a sale of the Gary Paxton Industrial Park utility dock to the Hanson Maritime company.
The GPIP board recommended transferring the deteriorated facility to Hanson without charge in the interest of creating new industry and employment at the park.
Lee Hanson said he had no issue with the document being discussed in public. When Nelson asked if he would like to be included if an executive session were held, he said he would.
The suggested motion in the packet was for the Assembly to go into executive session with the city attorney and outside legal counsel “to discuss communications regarding a legal matter affecting the city, specifically the contract negotiation of the term sheet for the utility dock transaction between the city and Hanson Maritime.”
City Attorney Brian Hanson presented the options for including or not including Hanson in the executive session.
The Assembly voted 6-0 to suspend the rules to discuss the process.
In public comments on the executive session motion, a Sentinel reporter questioned the need, or the appropriateness, of an executive session when all of the parties to the issue are included in the closed door meeting. “Efficiency,” which was cited by an Assembly member as a reason for the executive session, is not one of the limited number of reasons executive sessions are permitted under local and state law.
In the end the Assembly voted 4-2 to have the executive session with Bean, Paxton, Knox and Nelson voting in favor. Mosher and Wein were opposed. The Assembly went into executive session at 6:35, and invited Hanson and GPIP director Garry White to join at 7:13 p.m. The two returned to the meeting room at 7:35, followed 10 minutes later by the Assembly with a motion.
The vote was 5-0 to “direct the administrator through legal counsel to prepare a final agreement to include amendments to the term sheet as discussed in executive session, including but not limited to, the deletion of the requirement of a pre-closing inspection.”
Bean was not present for the vote.
White said today that the purchase and sale agreement will be available for public review later this year.
The executive session at the end of the meeting on the Silva lawsuit lasted 15 minutes, and no comments were made when members returned to open session, and adjourned the meeting.
Other Business
In other business at the meeting, the Assembly:
– approved the Assembly Position Subcommittee recommendation to fill a vacant position of the Tax Specialist, and some overlap of personnel to cover training.
– made a number of appointments, including Joshua Thomas to the Library Commission, Charles Woodcock to the Health Needs and Human Services Commission, Al Stevens and Mike Johnson to the Gary Paxton Industrial Park board, and Stacy Mudry to the Planning Commission.
– approved appropriations for fiscal years 2019 and 2020 on final reading for items including $53,392 in pass-through funding and transfers in the airport terminal fund, the Gary Paxton Industrial Park contingency fund, the tobacco excise tax fund, and two small budget overruns in the harbor and pet adoption funds.
– voted 3-3 on first reading of an ordinance appropriating $150,000 from the SCH special revenue fund for electrical work at Sitka Community Hospital. Voting in favor were Knox, Mosher and Paxton. Bean, Nelson and Wein voted against. The item will be up for final reading Sept. 10. (It takes 4 votes against to kill an ordinance on first reading.)
Before casting his “no” vote Wein complained that the city is now paying for ongoing maintenance of a building SEARHC is using (at a rate of $1 per year) to provide services.
“This is the gift that keeps giving, because the dedicated fund is supposed to go to PERS (the retirement fund for employees) and all this other stuff, and yet now we’re faced with a $150,000 agreement,” he said. “I’m disappointed that somehow this was not part of their agreement because this is coming out of our – in essence – PERS payment.”
