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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12192018 PACAB Minutes City of Seward,Alaska Port and Commerce Advisory Board Minutes December 19,2018 Volume 3,Page 352 CALL TO ORDER The December 19, 2018 regular meeting of the Port and Commerce Advisory Board was called to order at 12:00 by Chair Terry PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Harbormaster Norm Regis led the pledge of allegiance to the flag. ROLL CALL There were present: Christy Terry presiding, and Carl Hughes, Laura Schneider, Lynda Paquette, Erin Lemas Comprising a quorum of the board; and Absent were: Bruce Jaffa Colby Lawrence (excused) Also Present: Norm Regis, Harbormaster Jeff Bridges, Interim City Manager Brennan Hickok, Assistant City Manager GeNeil Flaherty, Executive Liaison Suzi Towsley, Council Liaison CITIZEN'S COMMENTS ON ANY SUBJECT EXCEPT THOSE ITEMS SCHEDULED FOR PUBLIC HEARING Tim Jagielski with JAG—Representatives from JAG were invited to come to the meeting and give an update on their operations. Tim said that while December has been slow it has given them time to do maintenance and cleanup of the dry-dock yard and facilities. In January they have 2 dry-dockings contracted with 3 bids out for other jobs. Including the Spar from the Coast Guard. (Which at the end of the meeting they got the news that they will in fact have that job.) This will be close to a$2.5 million contract. The job will start towards the end of January and take about 60 days to complete. Terry stated that she has heard a lot of good comments regarding the improvements to the dry dock yard and thanked JAG for coming to the meeting. APPROVAL OF AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA Motion (Schneider/Lemas) Approval of Agenda and Consent Agenda Terry moved to have the November 7 meeting minutes taken off the consent agenda. Motion Passed Unanimous I City of Seward,Alaska Port and Commerce Advisory Board Minutes December 19, 2018 Volume 3, Page 353 SPECIAL ORDERS,PRESENTATIONS AND REPORTS Alaska Railroad Report—Christy Terry submitted a report but also mentioned that she will provide the year end numbers at the next meeting and that the Marathon Wrestling team will be practicing in the cruise ship terminal starting in January. She stated that even though there was some damage due to the earthquake on the Railbelt between Whittier and Seward, it has been fixed and the Seward facilities did not have any damage. She then said that one of the Vice Presidents of the Alaska Railroad talked to one of the executives from TOTE and let them know that the port of Seward was open and will be willing to be their backup port in the event of another earthquake. Chamber of Commerce Report—Cindy Clock submitted her report electronically and Terry said that the Chamber will be closed until the beginning of January and that their Community Business Awards will be on January 25th this year. Harbormaster Report—Norm Regis brought up that during the earthquake the harbor staff woke up 5 different residents that live at the harbor on their vessels as part of their"live aboard" emergency procedures and that the harbor did not have any damage either. The SMIC project is about 99.9%done. The crane and the north dock are finished. The fisherman's float is almost finished. The south harbor launch ramp project is not stalled,the concrete planks are being built in Anchorage at Anchorage Sand and Gravel. They will arrive in Seward as they are finished. Also, some last minute small design changes on the floats needed to be made and those are being built in Seattle. There was a vessel that sank in the harbor about a week ago and it is being prepared for removal. Terry asked about DEC and any concerns with the way the city is handling the sinking and Hickok responded that the process,which includes a written plan in the event of an emergency, slowed the response time but the city did the best it could do with the resources that it had. The rest is up to the contractor. Schneider asked when will we be able to start using the crane at the north dock and Regis said hopefully by the end of the month. Then she thanked him for the information packet regarding the harbor spill response plan and asked about the community spill response agreement in the information. It doesn't show Seward on the map which caused her to question if Seward has a spill response plan. Regis said that this was a copy he got offline and that we do have one. He also said that he will look into why Seward wasn't on the map. We have two spill containers behind the Coast Guard facility and we have boom located in different locations throughout the harbor. Administration Report—Assistant City Manager,Hickok presented the board with a lay down from the city's federal lobbyist, Brad Gillman. It has a lot of information in it but a few notable things are regarding Fisheries and Oceans and of course the infrastructure of the Coast Guard. With talk about Seward receiving a new Coast Guard Cutter. There has been talk that we are getting two,then one,then none because of the discussions going on about the border wall and funding. But Senator Sullivan assures us that we are in fact getting one. Terry asked if the Lowell Creek Tunnel was still on the list. City of Seward,Alaska Port and Commerce Advisory Board Minutes December 19,2018 Volume 3, Page 354 Hickok responded that the feasibility study is almost done but the Army Corps of Engineers is caught up because while doing the study it triggered a need for a different study with the existing dam. One study can't be completed without the other and that won't be until March. This is study will be a tabletop exercise to simulate the tunnel or dam failure. Once completed then we will move forward with a design and engineering a long-term solution. AML Report—Schneider attended the AML(Alaska Municipal League) conference in November and brought back a lot of information. This is a summary. *AHFC (Alaska Housing Finance Corporation) • Improving Outcomes and Strategic Energy Management. • How municipalities and communities can save energy. • Benchmarking-knowing what your buildings are using and strategies to track and get a timeline to work towards improvements. *Her recommendation would be to bring back the Energy Fair and share this kind of information with the community. *Local Government Adaption to Climate Change Impacts. • Website -Climatechange.alaska.gov • Renewables and looking for alternative energy solutions. *Cruise Port Community Action • Adapting to larger vessels coming into the community. • Engagement in the community-Communities need to promote themselves to the cruise line companies for before and after cruise excursions in order for something to change. *Community Block Party-this was for the attendees to visit tables from other communities. Seward's table was right as you enter the room and though people would walk past the they would circle back around, sometimes more than once. We received several compliments and many said that if there was voting we would win, that we had the best table. She noticed that many of the communities have rebranded. The take away from this is that Seward would benefit from a Special Projects and Communications person in the City Manager's office to promote the city. *Sales Tax and the application of Online Sales-the state would create a body that would collect sales tax from online retailers and they would push it out to the communities that participated. *Municipal Innovation-taking the stagnation out of local government. • Creating Culture Change • Grant funding possibilities • Promote the Human Perspective- engaging the community *Homeless and Housing • Locally we have The Homeless Connection in the Community. • Point-In-Time Count-If Seward had facilities and resources this would be a tool to use in order to understand the need in our community and get funding. • Seward would benefit from a shelter and many other resources available if we could get some more community involvement. Thank you for sending me and letting me share with you. Sewer and Water Utilities update provided by Doug Schoessler, Public Works Director. City of Seward,Alaska Port and Commerce Advisory Board Minutes December 19,2018 Volume 3, Page 355 Many have talked about extending the water and sewer utilities. This is costly and right now we just don't have any extra funds in our budget at this time. So how do we pay for extending and maintaining the water and sewer utilities? A few ways are taxes, metering, rate classification on billing or grants. It is time for a rate study, the last one was in 1993. Those do cost around $30,000.00 but they help with making decisions. If PACAB would be interested in showing support to the city council, I think that will help. PUBLIC HEARINGS - NONE UNFINISHED BUSINESS -NONE NEW BUSINESS - Motion (Hughes/Paquette) Approval of the November 7,2018 minutes. Motion Passed Unanimous Motion (Paquette/Schneider) Joint Work Session with PACAB and the Planning and Zoning Commission to review and establish land uses and development requirements was set for January 22,2019 at 6:00pm. Motion Passed Unanimous Chair stated the content of the 2019 PACAB January verbal report to the CityIssiJ Council will contain and the board approved. The 2019 PACAB priorities were discussed and will be prepared for the approval at the next regular PACAB meeting. The January regular meeting was set for January 2,2019 with the Topic to approve the priorities for 2019. The Work Session will be the Joint Work Session with Planning and Zoning to discuss and approve the Land Uses and Development Requirements. OTHER NEW BUSINESS The discussion about the 2019 PACAB calendar concluded to maintain the 2018 calendar through February and put it on the agenda for discussion then. City of Seward,Alaska Port and Commerce Advisory Board Minutes December 19,2018 Volume 3,Page 356 Board Comments: Lemas wished everyone Happy Holidays and mentioned that Catalyst Marine has their new water jet and it is working. Paquette said she was excited about the things that PACAB will be working on in the next year and Happy Holidays. Schneider also said Happy Holidays and thank you to everyone that came. Hughes wished everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Terry said is looking forward to being a board that gets a lot done in 2019. Regis also wished everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. CITIZEN COMMENTS Anthony Baclann said that he was impressed by the information the board member Schneider brought back from the AML meeting in November and that he was glad that she was able to go and he encouraged the board to continue to send someone every year. He suggested maybe having a grant writer for the city. He wished everyone a Merry Christmas. Suzi Towsley shared what the students brought to the council. She thanked the members of the board for their hard work and she looks forward to being the council liaison for the board. She echoed the appreciation for Schneider's report from AML. Also, Happy New Year and Merry L Christmas. At the time of the gavel for adjournment, Tim Jagielski with JAG announced that they did get the contract to work on the Coast Guard vessel, SPAR. They stated there is a possibility that there will be approximately 40 families coming with it. BOARD AND ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSE TO CITIZENS' COMMENTS Terry stated that is a good idea to continue to send a board member to AML every year. Thank you to Towsley for volunteering for being the council liaison. ADJOURNMENT - Meeting was adjourned at 1:45 pm '°a'iLejlij GeNeil Flaherty Christeffa rry 1 Executive Liaison Chair 0 •`t% of St 4 (City S tl) ��G ,,.•,_ `® inn SEAL ® ri r o *.,��.OF P,