Bridge Park, Respite Care and Labor Law

On December 13 the Assembly heard presentations on the conversion of the waterfront area near the downtown bridge. We reiterated our support for a Bridge Park and the Empire story was a pretty accurate report. We want the area under the Bridge to be a Park, and we want it to be the terminus of the Sea Walk that would connect all the way downtown and on to the last cruise ship dock at the Rock Dump. Here is the rest of the story. As you know, the availability of money drives much of the process. So far we have been funding the Sea Walk with Cruise Ship Passenger fees. By U.S. law you can only have a head tax on cruise passengers if the money is used for them. So the further you get from cruise ship docks, the less justification there is for using those fees. The Empire notes we plan a building for Docks and Harbors near the bridge, but the real emphasis of the Assembly was that it needed to be a Maritime Museum or some kind of tourist attraction that would justify our claim that the Seawalk was necessary for the safe movement of cruise ship passengers. THEN we can fund the whole walk from the bridge back to the docks.

After the COW meeting we met as a Finance Committee. We approved a small contribution to help fund a Respite Lodging program for homeless citizens who are too sick to be lodged with other homeless in shelters, but not sick enough to be in the hospital. I am so grateful for the Glory Hole, St. Vincent’s, and JEDC for taking the lead on this and for Bartlett Hospital’s support. It is a small, but very needed program. Also at the Finance meeting we tabled the jewelry store tax proposal, but said we would re-visit the whole idea in the future, including looking at a possible luxury or seasonal sales tax or some other variation.

On Saturday the 18th we met for three hours to address some labor law issues and came to a number of agreements on how to adjust the process to be more equitable. I am pleased with these changes that were pushed by Bob Doll and myself (I talked about this issue in my September 6 post). The one unresolved issue is the unions’ desire to have contract disputes submitted to binding arbitration. Currently the Assembly has the final word. Given that city workers are prohibited from striking, the unions feel a system where the Assembly is the appeals body is unfair. I have been advocating for the state model, where arbitration is used, but any negotiated contract still needs to be funded by the legislature – or in our case the Assembly. So it includes arbitration, but still gives the Assembly the final word on budget issues.

Monday evening December 20 was the regular Assembly meeting. The one thing of note was the designation of the State Museum as a historical building. It was pretty confusing to sort out the issues—including the impact such a designation would have and whether it would pose any barrier for the State Library Archives Museum project. We deleted a section that called for the project to be located at another (unidentified) site. Ultimately it is the State’s decision. We just want to see the project move forward.

It has been an eventful year…..but aren’t they all? My goals for Juneau continue to be equal treatment for everyone with support for our most vulnerable citizens, an emphasis on public participation and government transparency, fiscal and environmental responsibility, and promotion of our local economy.

I want to thank so many of you who have expressed appreciation for my efforts on the Assembly. Your support gives me the energy to keep going.

I wish the very best holiday season to you all, and I look forward to 2011.

Enterprise Board Appointments and Docks and Harbors Issues

Monday 12/6 the Assembly appointed new members of the Planning Commission and Hospital Board. The Hospital Board appointments were significant because the Assembly did not re-appoint one incumbent, and another did not re-apply. A message was sent that we are concerned about management and look to the Board to make whatever hard decisions need to be made to improve the employee relations issue.

Wednesday 12/8 the Assembly had a joint meeting with the Docks and Harbors Board (because I kept pestering the Mayor to set one up). Docks and Harbors has a number of important projects going on. Statter Harbor (Auke Bay) is going to be totally restructured. The Assembly communicated how important we believe it is to get and listen to citizen input. On December 16, 7:00pm at City Hall, Docks and Harbors will host a public meeting to take citizen input on the Statter Harbor plans. If you are interested, PLEASE attend.

Douglas Harbor still needs to be dredged and the mercury laden remains need to be disposed of. It will cost money. Aurora Harbor needs to be reconstructed. And the cruise ship docks are proceeding (paid for by cruise ship passenger fees). I have been pushing for the new docks to have facilities for discharging wastewater and for electrical shorepower connections with the cruise ships. Currently, only the Princess dock does that. While nothing is certain, it seems like they are moving in that direction. Finally, the owners of Fisherman’s Bend told the city they are interested in selling. I think the Assembly communicated to the Docks and Harbors Board that with all the other spending needs, this has the lowest priority.

In other issues -- I mentioned previously that Juneau has an issue with what to do with snow that is cleared from the streets. Here is a just-off-the-press Snow Disposal study that addresses these issues. There are no easy solutions, but this lays out the problem fairly well.

The State Archives, Museum and State Library were funded last legislative session to start planning for a new joint building. Originally the acronym was SLAM – but now it is LAMP :). The Museum recently received a historical designation. The project has a website – and on it is a Historical Significance survey. Please weigh in on your thoughts.


One of the big issues last year was a potential Mental Health Trust Office Building to be built on the subport land in front of the Coast Guard Building. The state allocated several million dollars for a site survey and my understanding is that the subport site is “off the table.” I could be wrong (I certainly have been before), but this is what I have heard.

As mentioned last post --on December 13 the Assembly Committee of the Whole will receive a report on plans for the area underneath the downtown bridge. I am a big fan of establishing a Bridge Park as the terminus of the Seawalk.

Thank you all for reading this stuff and paying attention. Please encourage others to do the same.

Happy Holidays!

Last Monday 11/29 the Assembly re-considered the issue of removing the sales tax cap for jewelry purchases and referred it back to Finance Committee for future discussions. This has the potential to expand discussions to issues of a seasonal sales tax or other broader adjustments.

On Wednesday 12/1 Assembly Finance Committee had its first presentation on setting the FY11-12 budget. The Manager states we should be able to balance the budget without making cuts or taking dollars from the reserve. The article in the Empire Thursday made it sound like things were rosy, but I don’t think that is the case. They are very tight and future years are estimated to have real problems.

The Assembly has heard a lot of complaints about Docks and Harbors and particularly the plan for Statter Harbor (Auke Bay). So we have set up a special Assembly meeting with Docks and Harbors Wednesday December 8 at 6pm. If anybody has issues about D&H, this would be a meeting to attend. Since it is an Assembly meeting, public testimony should be allowed. I’ll certainly ask for it to be if anyone has issues they would like to raise.

On Monday December 13 the Assembly will have a Committee of the Whole meeting to discuss the area under the downtown bridge where the City Shops were located. There is a proposal for a Bridge Park to be located there, but Docks and Harbors has other proposals. We will hopefully decide on a way forward. This meeting is open but will not take public testimony.

Those who are interested in skiing probably already know that Eaglecrest will not open this weekend

The city, state and Mental Health Trust have been meeting regularly to devise a master plan for the development of the downtown Willoughby District. As part of that the city is doing an online Survey on Willoughby District. I encourage all of you to fill it out.

The new parking garage is open and there will be free parking in both garages for the month of December

And finally - Santa Clause arriving Friday December 10th

Happy Holidays to all.

Boards and Sales Tax Issues

A couple of time sensitive items. The deadline for applications to the Planning Commission and Hospital Board is 4:30 pm Monday 11/22. If you are interested, please fill out an application form. You will also be asked to respond to several questions—why you want to be on the board, what knowledge you have about the issues and what your vision is. And you will be invited to a short interview before Assembly members next month. You will almost certainly be asked whether you have attended Board meetings in the past. Each year there are three openings on the Boards (like Assembly members). While there is a tendency for the Assembly to reappoint incumbents, that is not always the case. There is always a tension between wanting to get “new blood” and wanting to keep experience. (Board members are also subject to the same three term limit as Assembly members.) As of Friday, 2 of 3 incumbents for the Hospital Board had reapplied and 1 of 3 Planning Commissioners had reapplied. Over the past year there have been a number of administrative issues surrounding the Hospital. I am sure that will be an issue. If you are interested in a Board position – learn about the issues. Review the minutes of the Board meetings so you know what is going on. Review the Planning Commission web site or the Hospital Board site. I also encourage you to call me or other Assembly members and ask about issues. Besides the Enterprise Boards there are a number of Assembly Advisory Boards and Commissions that constantly need members. No deadlines, just apply.

Second time sensitive item. Monday at 6:00 pm is an Assembly Committee of the Whole meeting about Solid Waste Management. I am uncertain what will be presented. We received no packet information, nor is anything posted on the website. An executive session is scheduled. I assume that will be about negotiations with Arrow Refuse on the collection permit. If you are interested in the solid waste issue, you may want to show up at 6 to see what is presented publicly.

There have been a lot of comments about the published Assembly “goals” that came out of our retreat. I mentioned this in my last post. The most controversial item appears to be the one to “Study the AJ Mine.” The language may be revised to “Review the Large Mine Ordinance.” Either way, many citizens have voiced concern over the Assembly intent. I have to say I have no idea what the “Assembly intent” is on this goal. We have never talked about it. The goals were arrived at by compiling votes on a secret ballot and picking the top vote getters. As I said last post – just because something is on the list, doesn’t mean anything will be done. Revised wording of goals will be presented to the Assembly at our next meeting November 29th.

The Assembly recently heard a presentation on a proposed Noise Ordinance. The Planning Commission has been reviewing it and it will return to the Assembly for introduction at some point.

A bit of a political play has emerged around the sales tax cap, which I mentioned last post. An ordinance was proposed to lift the cap on jewelry purchases. I objected that this discriminated against one particular product without any stated public purpose. I was in the minority in Finance committee, but at the Assembly the ordinance was defeated. However, the Mayor moved for “Reconsideration” which means we will address the issue again at our 11/29 meeting. In the meantime there have been efforts by one downtown property owner to advocate for the ordinance. That owner says that the profitable jewelry stores drive up the lease rates on all downtown properties. I find this really a stretch and furthermore I don’t see how lifting the sales tax cap will cause property lease rates to fall. It seems much more like ulterior motives – or resentment against competition, or just anti-tourist attitude. I am no big fan of the South Franklin Disneyland – but I will always advocate for equal treatment unless there is some public purpose. And quite frankly, it feels like there are other things going on that are not being made public.

The only ordinance up for public hearing on the 29th is my proposal to amend the sales tax code to make it constitutional regarding benefits provided to spouses of senior citizens. Because of Alaska’s constitutional prohibition on same sex marriage, same sex partners are prohibited from this benefit, as long as it is limited to “spouses.” The Alaska Supreme Court’s decision in Alaska Civil Liberties Union v. State of Alaska and Municipality of Anchorage ruled that such discrimination is unconstitutional. My proposal adds the phrase “and same sex domestic partners and will bring our code into compliance with the law.

Last week the Alaska Municipal League held its 60th Annual Local Government Conference, and Juneau received three awards. The Seawalk won in the category for education and local government. Eaglecrest won an award for sustainability – particularly for running electricity up to the hill, thereby saving more than 38,000 gallons of diesel fuel annually. And the Airport won an award for its use of geothermal conversion heat pumps.

I wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

2010-11 Assembly Begins

This post is a bit longer and more detailed. While complex, I encourage you to wade through this to understand some of the things going on.

Two new members of the Assembly- Karen Crane and Mary Becker are now active, and I feel they will make a positive difference.

Saturday the Assembly had its annual Retreat to establish Goals and set our year’s agenda. With all nine members voting we came up with the top ten objectives noted in the Empire article. Several that I wanted addressed did not make the “top ten” including reviewing the Assembly relationship with Enterprise boards and doing a thorough review of the Assembly’s debt position. But others were – such as addressing childcare, homelessness and supporting commercial fishing. Now having these goals doesn’t necessarily mean anything will be done — but they are a declaration of what Assemblymembers think should be addressed. What actually happens will be an evolving political process.

Monday 11/8 is our Regular Assembly Meeting and several items of interest are up for hearing. Dogs are always a contentious subject. Combined with the Dike Trail it arouses major interest. The new ordinance will modify the Airport rules to confirm that dogs can be off leash at the dike trail as long as they are under “competent voice control.” The language is similar to the regular Borough ordinance. I expect we will hear from a number of folks at our meeting.

A second item is one I previously commented on – to remove the sales tax cap on jewelry purchases. Currently only the first $7,500 of any purchase in Juneau is subject to sales tax. While I understand the intent of this ordinance is to nail out of state jewelry stores, I fail to see the public purpose of it. It would affect local jewelry stores as well, and it discriminates against one kind of product over others—also not something I support without a real public purpose (like increased taxes on alcohol and cigarettes). I opposed this in committee and will at the regular meeting. But I will be in the minority.

Probably the most controversial item in the agenda is a revision of the Senior Citizen’s Hardship Exemption, which is a complex issue. All Senior citizens receive $150,000 reduction of their assessed home values for taxes. On top of that, there is something called the Hardship Exemption that provides additional tax relief to seniors who are in a “Hardship” situation. The problem is that under the current law, hardship is so loosely defined that people with million dollar homes and incomes of hundreds of thousands of dollars can qualify as being under “hardship.” The revision puts an income test on the exemption saying one would have to make less than 400% of the US poverty rate. The Empire article on this was pretty accurate. I made a point in the meeting that – while I support the change – any exemption for one group of people has the effect of shifting the burden to others. There is no free lunch. People under 65 making real poverty wages and in true hardship are subject to full taxation and home foreclosure if they don’t pay. I said I was uncomfortable with that differential treatment.

The new downtown parking garage will open for parking December 1, and for the month of December there will be no charges for parking at either downtown garage. After that rates will be a bit higher at the new garage than the Marine Park garage (75 vs. 50 cents p/hr). Also in January the new on-street parking meters will be set up. They will be the kind where you register your license plate and pay at a machine. The first two hours will be free (rather than one as it is now), and because you register your license plate, you cannot just move to another on-street location to avoid a ticket. Also the legislature will get 60 slots in the garage and NOT get permits to park on the street. We will see how all this shakes out and adjust policy as we learn more about how people react to the new situation.

In another “wonky” Jonathan issue, I expressed concern about our increasing levels of city debt. Outstanding CBJ debt has risen steeply over the past decade due to the new High School, the Pool and numerous school renovations. In 2000 outstanding General Obligation debt was 16 million (or $703 per person). In 2009 it was 142 million ($4,641 per person) and growing, with the approval by voters of the Auke Bay School bond issue. The school district has more bond issues they want on next year's ballot. The debt situation is laid out on pages 222-225 of our Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. While the state pays 70% of the school debt (as long as they keep appropriating it), the debt service burden for the city continues to rise. We are not in any crisis, but it is something we need to keep an eye on.

A potentially very expensive issue that has not hit the media is the fact that our Thane sewage incinerator has gone down, and there is a question whether it is worth repairing. To deal with this we have established a 6 month contract with Waste Management to put the treated sludge into the landfill. This is really not a bad thing other than the “ewwww” factor. It is treated and mostly consists of dead microbes that have eaten the waste. However, it is a new cost and a new waste stream into the landfill. Another problem for us.

Finally, in more happy news, we are looking ahead to the issues of redistricting. With the defeat of the constitutional amendment to increase the size of the legislature, Southeast Alaska will lose representation once the census numbers are in and the Redistricting Board meets. Here is the rub – Juneau will not get two representatives of its own any more, but one or both of the districts will have to expand to include other communities. Juneau’s Senate district will also probably have to cover a wider geographic area. With this change, our representatives will no longer serve just Juneau, but other communities as well, and their priorities will change. We have no idea how the Redistricting Board will carve up Juneau, but it will have an impact.

FYI Thursday 11/11 is Veterans Day and all CBJ offices will be closed.

Equal Protection of the Law and Hardship – The devil is in the details

Friday 10/15 Mary Becker and Karen Crane, our two new Assembly members were sworn in. They are both smart and conscientious, and I am looking forward to working with them. We baptized them with fire right off, addressing detailed issues that still need to be addressed.

In the comments period we have at the end of each meeting I made a proposal to change our CBJ code to make it constitutional in one sub-section. Under CBJ Code 69.05.045(a) spouses of senior citizens who are not yet 65 can also receive the senior sales tax exemption. Since the code says “spouses,” this benefit is limited to those who are married and since same sex couples are prohibited from marrying by the Alaska Constitution, this falls under the same 2005 Alaska Supreme Court ruling that mandated extending state employee benefits to same sex couples. The City Attorney agreed that the code as currently written was unconstitutional.

The matter was referred to our next Finance committee meeting where we will have to decide whether to add same sex partners to our code language, or eliminate the exemption for everyone (I don’t think that is likely). I have always been a strong supporter for equal rights for everyone, regardless of individual characteristics, and this is just the right thing to do. But if I had not previously gotten the Attorney’s support on the constitutional issue, this would have had more problems moving forward. As it is – I still need to work it through Finance and back to the Assembly.

Then we held a short, previously planned, Finance committee meeting to address the property tax hardship exemption. Currently, all senior citizens get a $150,000 exemption from their property tax assessment, but if any can prove “hardship,” they get additional property tax relief. The problem is in the definition of hardship. Currently the regulations say a hardship exists if a person has property tax liability “in excess of 2% of the taxpayer’s gross household income.” That means that the owner of a $500,000 house can be said to be in a hardship condition if they make less than $250,000. That is obviously not a hardship and not what this exemption was intended for. So the proposal is to adjust the formula to lower the income rate that could qualify for hardship. While all exemptions are great – every time we give one, we increase the tax burden on everyone else. That is the reality of balancing the budget that we have to keep in mind.

This is a perfect example of “the devil is in the details” and our new members had to immediately vote on these issues. The Assembly asked for more financial information and we address this again in an upcoming Committee of the Whole meeting.

Next Thursday at 7 pm there will be a public hearing in the Assembly Chambers to address the creation of a Bridge Park and Seawalk beginning under the downtown bridge
The background can be found HERE Anyone interested in the downtown waterfront should attend. Unfortunately I teach Thursday evenings, but I hope some folks will be able to attend.

Elections 2010

The preliminary results are in and I am sure you have seen them. While we don't have the early and absentee votes in, it is rare that they change anything. They always seem to break the same way as the "day of" votes. That's kind of interesting.

Congratulations to our new Assembly and School Board members. I am looking forward to working with them.

Prop 1 on Auke Bay School Bonds was the big winner with 74% voting yes.

Prop 2 on the North Douglas Crossing was defeated by 67% of the voters.

And Prop 3 on a Charter Commission was defeated by 68% of the voters.

These are interesting because they were all very definitive decisions. No close calls here. Probably no surprise on Props 1 & 3. But I thought Prop 2 on the ND Crossing would be a closer vote. It certainly was the most contested campaign with lots of money spent by both advocates and opponents. As I mentioned in my last post, I really appreciate the public engagement in these issues. It is encouraging to me. While I was a supporter of the Crossing, I have heard the Juneau voters loud and clear that this is not one of their priorities.

As I see it, the next big issue will be on what to do for solid waste management. As I have mentioned previously, the collection and disposal of garbage is controlled by private businesses (Waste Management and Arrow Refuse). If the City wants to be part of it they have to either buy the collection permit or buy the landfill. I have not heard anyone advocate buying the landfill because of all the potential problems there -- but it still might be the one direction that allows us to deal with the actual problems. Currently we are negotiating with Arrow on possibly buying their permits. An alternative is to take them through eminent domain -- but that still requires compensation at market prices. So we have a bit of a connundrum here. Everyone wants to "deal with" the solid waste issue, but city options are limited.

A number of Assembly candidates talked about recycling. That's great. We do it now for anyone who will bring their materials to the landfill. But setting up collection or regional pickup spots would cost a lot more money for all citizens -- particularly if we did not own the waste collection permits. The best solution would be if somebody here in Juneau opened a business that used recyclables. Ultimately, recycling means using. The question is how and where. So anyhow, it will be interesting how this plays out.

North Douglas Crossing Plus Odds and Ends

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Docks, Jewelry and Proposition 3

Last Wednesday the Assembly Finance Committee addressed a number of issues- two of which are worth noting. First, we approved by an 8-1 vote for Docks and Harbors to replace the downtown cruise ship docks with the option known as 16B. This option creates floating docks about 100 feet offshore to replace the docks on the wharf. They do several things. First they remove the security issues from the Sea Walk. By putting the docks 100 feet offshore, the current docks will no longer be roped off by Homeland Security and will be available for anyone to walk. Secondly, they allow a larger ship to dock at the steamship wharf rather than docking in the channel. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, it essentially pre-empts any effort to build a new dock at Gold Creek. The remodel will be paid for totally by cruise ship passenger fees and will not pose any tax burden to Juneau citizens. I think this is the best choice for us to follow.

Secondly, the Finance Committee approved (with me opposing) a proposal to remove the sales tax cap for jewelry. Juneau has a sales tax cap of $7,500. That means big ticket items are not charged sales tax for the price above $7,500. My colleagues felt this would only tax tourists who buy expensive jewelry from out of town owned stores. While I understand the logic, I have a problem treating any group, person or product differently from others. I believe so strongly in equal treatment that I could not support this. The exemption will be introduced as an ordinance at our next meeting and have a hearing at the meeting after that. If you have a position on this, please contact us all

There are three propositions on the October 5th ballot. I addressed Prop 1 last week- the Auke Bay Elementary School bond. This post I want to address the least controversial proposition, Prop 3 – asking citizens whether they want to call for a Commission to revise the Borough Charter. Next week I will address the most controversial one—Prop 2 on the North Douglas Crossing.

According to our current City Charter, every ten years we must ask citizens whether they want to form a Charter Commission to revise our form of government. We can always amend the Charter one issue at a time – but a Charter Commission would be better able to address a number of issues at once – if that was what we wanted to do. We might want to do this if we feel the Borough government just is not working and we want big changes. We might want to change from a council manager to a strong mayor government or abolish all the Enterprise Boards or elect Assembly members differently or have MORE Assembly members. We could do this one issue at a time, but it would be easier to make many changes at once with a Charter Commission. I don’t think drastic structural changes would make our government better, but I also am not opposed to taking a look at this. It really depends on what you think. If we approved this, we would have another election to select Charter Commissioners. They would propose changes to the Charter and those changes would be put to citizens for approval. So I leave this one up to you. There is an article interviewing me in the Empire Voters Information Guide which is just “ok.” I will also address this at an October 1 “Evening at Egan” on the UAS campus.

Arctic Winter Games and Prop 1

This afternoon was painful. I voted against Juneau applying for the Arctic Winter Games because of the cost and the uncertainty of where the money will come from. It was a very difficult decision. I don’t even know if it was the right one. Those are the kind of votes that you can lose sleep over.

Well, the election season is heating up. The Juneau Borough election is in 2 ½ weeks (Tuesday October 5th). I will not be commenting on the Assembly and School Board races, but I will give you my take on the three Propositions. Here is a sample of the ballot you will see.

You can actually vote on all of this beginning next Monday (September 20th)


Today I want to explain my position on Proposition 1 “Shall the City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska, issue and sell its general obligation bonds, maturing within 10 years
of their date of issue, in the aggregate principal amount of not to exceed $18,700,000?”

So the question is whether we should borrow 18.7 million to renovate Auke Bay Elementary – and are you, the taxpayer willing to pay for this through your property taxes.

The complicated part of this is that the state of Alaska is pretty much saying they will pay for 70% of that. I say “pretty much” because they have to appropriate the money each year. They have always done it for those they initially approve – so we tend to count on it – but they don’t have to. If we assume the state pays 70% Juneau taxpayers will be responsible for 30% of the costs which is estimated to be $651,000 a year, for ten years. That’s about $50 more of property tax annually for a $300,000 home.

Even more complicated is the fact that we continually borrow money to renovate schools and do other capital projects. Bond issues are like mortgages and every time we need to do a long term infrastructure project we take out a new mortgage. Over time some projects are fully paid for and we take on new ones. On page 3 of this pdf you can see the debt service mill rate over the past 15 years has ranged from a high of 1.43 in 1996 to a low of .91 in 2007 depending on how many projects we were paying for.

It is the Assembly’s job to try and keep that debt service mill levy relatively stable. We don’t want to take on more debt than we pay off. The School District also wants to renovate Marie Drake, but the Assembly was clear that was too much this year. But it will come back in the next year or two.

Now as for this project – Auke Bay Elementary is truly in desperate need of renovation. There are many problems with the building. Given the state commitment to pay 70%, I support a YES vote on Proposition 1. But I also make a commitment to carefully evaluate the projects we take on to ensure our debt service mill levy does not just increase over time.

Make sure to VOTE!!!

Labor Relations

Happy Labor Day. I hope you are enjoying the day. The Labor sponsored picnic at Sandy Beach was great. Nice that the weather cooperated.

One of the many issues the Assembly deals with is labor unions. I make no apology for being a “Friend of Labor.” Despite occasional problems, I believe unions protect workers and balance the power of management. Currently, some CBJ codes and policies are less than union friendly. The city Personnel Board, which determines union issues for the CBJ has no union representation. City rules and policies allow groups of workers to withdraw from the union but still receive the benefits from union negotiated contracts. This is not the way it works at state and national levels. CBJ rules define things differently. I am currently advocating for rules and policy changes that provide some balance.

Another issue I am pushing is the strengthening of performance measures for the city. CBJ Departments have goals and measures, but in the past they have been mostly a formality. We have not used them as a strategic planning tool to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of city government. I will continue to push for this – but at the moment, whenever I talk about performance measures and performance management, many of my colleagues eyes seem to glaze over as they seem to say “there goes Jonathan again.’

I have also been monitoring managerial reform efforts at Bartlett Hospital. A significant number of employees have expressed strong dissatisfaction with Hospital Management. The clash seems to be around a tension between bottom line productivity measures and patient care and employee engagement. The Hospital Board has taken measures to monitor this situation and make constructive recommendations, but the proof will be the creation of a more positive organizational culture. I will continue to watch and question.

I believe in performance measures. I believe they are good planning tools for any organization. But the indicators must be more than just dollars. They must include indicators of employee, customer and/or citizen satisfaction.

Moving on from labor/personnel issues, on Friday 9/17 the Assembly will have a special meeting to decide whether to apply for the Arctic Winter Games for Juneau for 2014. The Arctic Winter games are a great effort to bring youth from different countries together. They would be a nice boost for Juneau for a short period of time in 2014. They would also cost upwards of 10 million dollars. We hope that the state and Feds would contribute significant dollars, but there is no guarantee. The biggest hurdle is that we need a second sheet of ice—and one that can accommodate at least 1500 spectators. Many people would like that second ice rink, but building it is only one part. It must be staffed and maintained. The current ice rink costs ½ million a year for personnel costs — in addition to utilities and building maintenance costs. I do not at this time see how the positives for a few weeks in 2014 compensate for the risk and expense.

JEDC recently came out with their annual economic indicators I encourage you to look at them. Juneau is “getting by” but there are definite concerns about our economic health. We need to be cautious about our spending at this time and we need to find ways to promote our economic health. I always struggle with the balance between visionary action and constructive caution about how we spend your money. It is a delicate balance.

The next big Assembly decision on the horizon concerns plans to refurbish/replace the downtown cruise ship docks – paid for by cruise ship passenger fees. Like everything else, there are pros and cons. I will get into this in a future post.

Monday 8/23 is our regular Assembly meeting. We will have hearings for putting two measures on the October 5th ballot. The first is about a bond issue for renovating Auke Bay elementary school. The second is about committing sales tax dollars to finance a second crossing of Gastineau channel. I am always in favor of putting big ticket items to citizens for their vote on the matter.

We also have an ordinance for public hearing to increase our water/sewer rates. This is never a popular thing to do – but to maintain our water system takes continued investment. We have also called for a managerial review of Public Works to ensure we are running the most efficient system possible.

The Assembly Public Works Committee meets at 5pm Monday. \I asked the manager to get an estimate of what it would cost to extend bus service to Costco/Home Depot rather than just stop at Anka/Glacier Dr. I am told that such an extension would mess up the whole bus schedule and cost lots. I will be asking a lot of questions.

The Assembly Human Resources Committee meets at 6pm and will appoint members to the new Aquatics Board to help manage the pools. They will also appoint new members to the Youth Activities Board that awards grants, and discuss our panhandling ordinance.

Tuesday is the state primary election. Remember that even if you are not interested in the primary candidates, there are propositions on the ballot regarding abortion and lobbying that may become law. Make sure you vote.

Finally, the Alaska Department of Labor has published its August issue of Alaska Economic Trends. The subject this month is the Cost of Living in Alaska. We always talk about it, but here is some good data. It is a worthwhile read. http://labor.state.ak.us/trends/aug10.pdf

On Monday August 23 the Assembly has a hearing on whether to put two items on the October 5 ballot. The first is an 18.7 million dollar general obligation bond to renovate Auke Bay Elementary School and the second is an allocation of the current sales tax toward a second crossing of Gastineau Channel. Regardless of the pros and cons of each, I am strongly in favor of putting these issues before the citizens and asking for their approval or disapproval. To me – this is what democracy is all about. We have some proposals for significant spending. Do the citizens support allocating their tax dollars in this matter. What could be more democratic? Why would you not support referring this to citizens?

In future posts I will share my position on the merits of these proposals, but I will definitely vote to put them on the October ballot.

We now know who will run for the Assembly this October and it is …..interesting.

There are always three seats up. The areawide seat is held be incumbent Johan Dybdahl, and nobody filed to run against him. The downtown seat is open (Jeff Bush is stepping down) and only former school board member Mary Becker is running. The valley seat, however, has four applicants: Greg Brown, Karen Crane, Mary Anderson and Christopher Nelson. All four are newcomers to city politics. The opening Juneau Empire story gives some background. We will hear more over the next two months.

One of the candidates, Mary Anderson, has a …..er…..ahem….close relationship with yours truly. I was as surprised as anyone over her decision to run. One thing I can assure you is that she is her own person and, if our personal relationship is any indication, she may differ from me on any number of issues. :) So we shall see how this plays out.

Next Tuesday, August 24th is the State Primary Election. Please remember to get out and vote. Primaries often have low turnouts. Please VOTE! In addition to the state and federal candidates there are two propositions. Note they are on the primary election and NOT on the general election ballot.

Proposition #1 is an “Initiative Prohibiting the Use of Public Funds to Lobby or Campaign; and Prohibiting Holders of Government Contracts and Family Members from Making Political Contributions.” I strongly encourage you to vote against this measure. It would prohibit communities from lobbying the state or federal government on issues affecting them. It would also prohibit any person who is a vendor to the city or state from financially supporting any candidate for any office, nor could their spouse, children, parents or other close relatives. It is a bad initiative.

Ballot measure 2 is on the sensitive and emotional abortion issue. It would require “Notice to or Consent from Parent or Guardian or Through Judicial Bypass” for a female under the age of 18 to get an abortion. I have struggled with the abortion issue for many years. While personally opposed, I have always come down on the side of personal choice, rather than government mandate. So I will vote no on this proposition.

Tomorrow, 8/18 I head to Kodiak for the Alaska Municipal League summer legislative conference. http://www.akml.org/services/conference/summer/

I don’t know if you have tuned into this news, but there is growing scandal in California over municipal salaries. It was started by a revelation that the city of Bell, California – a 40,000 person community of middle to lower class individuals was paying 4 of their 5 city council members $100,000 a year, their City Manager over $800,000 and their police Chief $450,000. Other salaries were also high. You can google Bell California and find a bunch of stories. Click Here for a link to one of them

This has stimulated interest in many communities of what they are paying their representatives and professionals, so I thought I should lay out what you are paying in Juneau. The City Manager’s pay is $176K but we do not pay him PERS benefits. The Deputy City Manager receives $132K and the Police Chief receives $123K. There is a link to the 2010-2011 CBJ Budget in the right menu column of this blog. Every department listed has a final page of “Staffing” and it lists the salaries paid to different positions.

Among elected and appointed officials – Juneau pays its Mayor $30,000 a year and expects them to put in about ½ time. Other Assembly members receive $6,000 a year. School Board Members receive $3,600 and Planning Commissioners receive an $1,800 honorarium. No other Board members, including all Enterprise Board members receive any salary.

The 7/19 Assembly meeting wasn’t covered in the Empire because their city reporter resigned and has not yet been replaced. There were a few things worth noting. The Downtown Parking Management Plan was passed. Also passed was a revision of the Table of Permissible Uses – which determines what kind of buildings and land uses are allowed in a particular zone. The revision reduced the number of situations that require going to the Planning Commission. We established a Low Income Housing Fund. Eventually we will make grants to facilitate affordable housing projects. We also approved a planning and design contract for Docks and Harbors to remodel the current cruise ship docks (paid for with cruise ship passenger fee dollars).

I had a minor success that was interesting. There was a resolution in the consent agenda to allow the Police Department to apply for federal stimulus dollars “to purchase equipment that will aid police officers with traffic enforcement and counterterrorism efforts.” I read that and went “huh?” So I found out that the “counterterrorism” grant was for a license plate reader to be installed at the ferry terminal. It would collect the license plate numbers of everyone coming and going on the ferry. That disturbed me a bit. I have no problem with the police monitoring the terminal for an investigation – but to collect and store everyone’s movements is one step closer to the surveillance state that we want to avoid. I expressed my concerns to the Manager and the Police Chief and they removed that request and replaced it with a grant request for their domestic violence program. That was a nice substitution.

The situation regarding solid waste has moved a bit. In order to be involved in the process we had planned to buy Arrow Refuse’s permit and contract back to them, but they wanted millions of dollars. Then we discovered that we could apply for our own permit (to collect garbage) and decided to go that route. If we get it we’ll put out an RFP for private contractors. Arrow could bid on that, but so could anyone else. On Monday August 2nd the Committee of the Whole will meet to talk on this more and hear a presentation from Waste Management (the ones who own the landfill) on what they can do. This continues to be a very complex issue. More information at http://www.juneau.org/pubworks/projects/SWMS/index.php

You may have read that Juneau is in the midst of applying to host the Arctic Winter Games for 2014. This is something that would be nice and bring lots of business into Juneau – but……. it also costs a bunch. The feds and state may help, but the Borough ultimately would be responsible and probably would have to commit several million dollars, even with state and federal support. We introduced an ordinance authorizing $50K to prepare the application. That will be up for hearing at our next meeting August 9th. I have some serious reservations about our financial ability to do this.

You may have read about a proposal to put a North Douglas Crossing measure on the ballot this October. I really support this because it finally puts this very specifically before the voters. We have said for years (decades?) that we want it – but have waited for the feds to pay. This proposal says we will pay for it ourselves. I like this process because over the next few months people (including me) will write about it and lay out the issues and then the voters will decide. That’s the way it should be.

On Wednesday August 4 we have a Finance Committee meeting to decide whether the North Douglas Crossing will be on the ballot. We will also decide what school bond issues we will put on the ballot. The school district wants Auke Bay Elementary and Marie Drake. The fall ballot will lay out how much each project would cost and how much it would add to property taxes. Then the voters decide.

August 6-16 is the candidate filing period for this year’s October 5th elections. Three Assembly and two School Board positions are up. Let me know if you are interested in learning more.

Things are a bit slow at the moment. The budget is done as are the vetos. Juneau did well, even if we did get a few things reduced.

I had an interesting experience with DOT. They have a process of rating transportation projects which they call the STIP or Statewide Transportation Improvement Projects. Many communities complain that DOT ignores them while they respond that they just follow their scoring criteria for projects. Of course there is the rub – what is the scoring criteria. Every few years they ask for public comment on these criteria and here is where communities can try and get them to alter those. That happened recently, and I submitted my comment calling on them to make the process more democratic. I browbeat CBJ to submit a comment. Bottom line was there were a total of 3 comments from the whole state. Sigh. You can view the comments and criteria HERE Yes, it is a bit “wonky” but this is how things actually happen. If you don’t respond to requests for comment, it’s hard to justify complaints – sort of like voting.

Monday night 6/28 is our regular Assembly meeting. I don’t see anything too controversial, although I encourage your review. There is a link to agendas on the right column of this page. One of the things on the agenda is art for Harborview School. We have a law that says 1% of a project’s cost must be allocated to some form of art for the building. We renovated Harborview a year ago and are just getting around to finalizing the art awards. See them HERE (big file)

I have been really interested in the 1% for art process for the downtown transportation center. So many people complained that they didn’t want another concrete box. Now I am really interested in seeing how this process turns out. We always appoint a citizen’s committee to select the art projects and the committee for the transportation center consisted of Paul Voelkers, Barbara Craver, Jane Lindsey, Donald Gregory, Ken Alper and Nancy Waterman. The projects looked great on paper, but I am anxious to see the final results. I also am interested in the final results of the park to be created on the top of the hill. I will follow up.

We finally made a decision about managing the new aquatics center. Through a series of 5-4 votes we decided to make it simply an advisory board. Lots of time and energy spent on something that doesn’t seem that big a deal.

There is continued concern with the organizational culture at Bartlett Hospital. I attended several Board meetings and subcommittee meetings. The Board hired the Foraker Group to assess the situation and they have just given their preliminary results. Now it is up to the Board to decide what they will do.

I will attend Monday evening’s meeting by phone from Hawaii. Isn’t that dedication!!

Happy solstice, summer, Independence Day and all that.

And the election season is just beginning......

Hope everyone is having a great summer—(even if it isn't officially summer yet.)

A number of miscellaneous items and updates for you to glance through.

First of all, tomorrow (Tuesday 6/15) the Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA) will hold a hearing on the AEL&P proposed rate increases at 6pm Centennial Hall. AEL&P is proposing a 22% increase. If you have something to say, now is the time.
Tips for participating in rate hearings.

The oil salvage from the Princess Kathleen which sank off Lena Point the year I was born (1952) has been completed – or at least as much as they are going to do. Read about it HERE and read the final report HERE

CBJ is gearing up to try and sell the last 11 lots on Lena peninsula. The formal announcement will come this Wednesday 6/16.

Bartlett Hospital has retained the Foraker Group to help them deal with their employee relations issues. I have been watching this closely and have attended several Hospital Board meetings. I know the Board is taking this seriously, but it remains to be seen what kind of action will be taken. Bartlett has been very successful in a number of ways, but managing any large organization is challenging. It takes a lot of ongoing work. I see many parallels between the problems at Bartlett and the problems at UAS.

Sunday June 20 is the next CBJ Household Hazardous Waste event. Check HERE for more info.

CBJ is selling off surplus “stuff” and Friday June 18 is the deadline for submitting sealed bids. See the items listed HERE.

CBJ has come to an agreement with the owners of the downtown “Pit” to have them fill and landscape it in the next month. The owners (presumably Tom Huntington and Hugh Grant) are still negotiating with Sealaska about a sale. HERE is what the Assessor’s database says. So they presumably pay almost $10,000 in property taxes a year. You would think they would want to sell or build.

In the very near future the Assembly will have to decide what measures to put on the October election ballot. There are several tentative bond issues simmering. The school district has already said they want to put two schools – Auke Bay and Marie Drake up for multi million dollar renovations. I have heard that Docks and Harbors may ask for a bond issue to pay for disposing of mercury laden dredge materials from Douglas Harbor. There may be a proposal to use local dollars for a North Douglas Crossing. There could be a proposal to amend the charter to establish a new empowered board to manage the borough pools. And all that is in addition to the “every ten years” required proposition on whether to totally re-do the city charter. Juneau has normally been very supportive of borrowing money to maintain our schools. They have been less enthusiastic about other bonds (depending on the issue). What we have to remember is that each bond we approve will raise our property tax. That’s OK if we are willing to pay.

Tonight – Monday 5/24, 5:30 – 7:00 pm at the UAS Egan Library there is a public hearing on the state project to rebuild Brotherhood Bridge and to run a Multi-Use trail from Brotherhood Bridge to UAS.

Monday noon the Assembly Public Works Committee hears the latest draft for downtown parking management.

Tuesday 5/25 at 7:00 pm the Planning Commission will hear a plan for the Coast Guard to install 3 wind turbines at the Juneau CG station. Because the federal government is not required to obey local regulations, this is a courtesy application for an “Advisory” conditional use permit.

Enough announcements.

One of the roles I feel is important for Assembly members is to attend various events, celebrations, dedications or meetings. This is not required and only some Assembly members do this – but it keeps me connected to the community and it lets people around town know they are recognized and appreciated. I thought I would share a few of the various events I have attended so far this month outside of Assembly meetings.

5/6 Youth summit at Centennial Hall,
5/6 DZ Covered Playground dedication
5/6 Public Reception at Centennial Hall for UA/NASA grant student projects
5/7 Native Youth Suicide Task Force Coalition
5/7 Glacier Valley Elementary renaming potlatch
5/7 Chamber of Commerce Board Meeting
5/8 Leadership Juneau Graduation
5/11 Police Officer Memorial Annual Remembrance
5/13 Eaglecrest Board Meeting
5/18 KJNO Radio – City Issues
5/20 Hospital Board/ Hospital Culture Subcommittee
5/21 Thunder Mtn HS Principal candidate interviews
5/22 Zach Gordon Covered Play Area dedication
5/23 Juneau Bar/World Affairs Council Forum for Russian Delegation on Juvenile Justice

I want you to know I really enjoy doing this. This is one of the best parts of being an Assembly member. And I am grateful to you for allowing me to take on this role.

Enjoy Juneau’s current summer!!

Final budget hearing

Final hearing and approval of the city budget happens at the Wednesday May 19th Assembly meeting. This is the last time citizens will be able to testify on the budget, the property tax mill rate, and capital improvement project plans. [The meeting was moved from Monday to Wednesday to accommodate those who plan to travel to Anchorage for Governor Hickel’s memorial service.]

Our last Finance committee meeting (of this cycle) was Wednesday May 12th. A number of groups and organizations had requested a total of $963,000 dollars from the $589,700 of increased tobacco tax revenue technically “available.” I say technically, because this is after we had previously decided to take a million a year out of our budget reserve to balance the budget. As you might imagine there was considerable discussion. We ended up deciding to spend an additional $112,700, and to put the remaining $477,000 back in the budget reserve.

The additional spending included:
Hospice and Home Care $50,000
NCADD Intervention Services (substance abuse) $19,600
Human Rights Commission $ 5,300
Council on Aging $ 2,800
JEDC Local match for a federal grant $35,000

Some wanted to spend more, others less, but I think this was a reasonably good outcome. It passed 6-2 with Mr. Wanamaker and Mr. Sanford opposing (Mr. Dybdahl was absent).
As I said, Wednesday 5/19 is the final hearing and anybody is welcome to testify on this tentative decision.

That $112,700 is small potatoes when looking at the entire city budget which is just under $300 million. It breaks down to about:
$89 million for Schools
$79 million for the Hospital
$63 million for general government services
$21 million for debt service
$19 million for capital projects
$14 million Water and Sewer and Waste Management
$5 million for the Airport
$4.5 million for Docks and Harbors

The revenue for all this comes from
40% user fees
26% state and federal grants
14% property tax
14% sales tax
6% miscellaneous

The property tax will be just slightly reduced from 10.6 mills to 10.51. That is a little over 1% -- or $1,051 tax for every $100,000 of assessed value.

Happy May Day! What a beautiful Spring we are having. I went down to the Fisherman’s Memorial to watch the Blessing of the Fleet this morning and that was really nice.

The Assembly Finance Committee continues to receive presentations on the proposed biennial budget. Last night we heard from the Enterprise Boards and reviewed the Capital Improvement Projects. You can view the power point presentations HERE
and the full budget HERE

This budget presentation stuff is mostly ritual. Yes, we technically have the right to change anything we want, but it rarely happens. We ask lots of questions of each presenter, but nothing is normally changed. The Manager has submitted a balanced budget. Each Enterprise Board must submit a balanced budget. They have already been reviewed closely and are difficult to change.

The one place where we always have deliberations is for the extra things that did NOT make it into the Manager’s budget that are requested by various citizen and non profit groups. This year we spent a million from the budget reserve to cover expenses – so I think it will be really hard to fund anything extra. The one area where we do have some projected dollars is in the social service/substance abuse area because of the additional revenue anticipated as a result of higher tobacco taxes. That will be discussed over the next few weeks.

The Juneau School Board has asked the Assembly to put two school Bond Issues on the October ballot—Auke Bay Elementary and Marie Drake. The Assembly has asked our Finance people to show us how these would affect the debt service mill rate over the next ten years. Every bond issue we take on increases property taxes unless other projects drop off.

There are a lot of other things going on right now, many of which I have mentioned previously. I thought I would summarize them with links to more detailed information for those who are interested.

We continue to consider how to deal with solid waste. Here are the detailed minutes of our April 3 meeting where we hashed a lot of this out. Currently we await an update on negotiations with Arrow Refuse to acquire their permits. What Arrow Refuse asks for will be crucial. If they want multiple millions for their permits, then we really have to think about whether we want them – but without them we can’t do anything about the waste stream.

Docks and Harbors is soliciting public comment for a major Statter Harbor (Auke Bay) project. The Assembly will not usually change what a Board decides to do as long as they have a plan to pay for it. What we ARE concerned about is that they get public input and listen to it. That is what we will be watching.

We are moving forward with a downtown parking management plan that will likely include high tech parking meters on the streets. This will allow us to “incentivize” where people park – and the payment through license plate numbers will prevent people from just moving from one spot to another. Please pass on your comments.

Public Comment is also being solicited for use of the area under the downtown bridge being vacated by the Streets Department. I think this should be a park as envisioned in the Long Range Waterfront Plan – but things are always “in play” until there is money appropriated. Please put your two cents in.

This summer we will have a Round 2 of Lena Point land sales. HERE is information on the first round from 2007 The city has really worked hard to increase the amount of land available – hopefully impacting housing prices. In the next few years we also envision making available land on Pederson Hill – to the North just across Brotherhood Bridge and in North/West Douglas as the road extension gets built.

On April 14 the Assembly met with the Hospital Board to discuss some of the labor relations problems they have been having. HERE are the minutes of that meeting where you can get an idea of what was said to us. I think it is extremely important that we have a good organizational climate for our Hospital. I will do whatever I can to promote that.

The United Way has completed their “Compass II indicators” about the state of social services in Juneau. There are some good and less good results. Check it out.

Finally, we are doing our annual solicitation of Board members for Docks and Harbors, the Airport and Eaglecrest. If you are interested, I encourage you to contact me and to attend some of the current board meetings. Eaglecrest applications are due May 26. Airport and Docks and Harbors are due by June 16.


And we’re all waiting to see how much of the state capital budget expenditures for Juneau will pass the Governor’s veto pen.

Addendum

Representative Munoz just contacted me to say that Senator Stedman's hold on the Mental Health Trust building was not because of any issues with her or the Trust. She told me she believes there may have been some agreement between Senator Stedman and the owners of the current Department of Labor building, but there was absolutely no truth to any story that Senator Stedman had issues with her.

The legislature has adjourned after throwing a lot of money here and there. Now we wait and see what the governor will veto in an election year. One interesting thing for the city is the maneuvers around the Mental Health Trust office building that was planned for the subport – in front of the Coast Guard building. Senator Stedman had issues with both the Trust and with Representative Munoz and so he held up her legislation in Senate Finance. In the end 5 million was allocated to “study” SOME location for an office building. If that makes it past the Governor’s veto pen, there will be more fun and games as locations are lobbied for. One competing alternative location is said to be in the Valley in the Vintage Park area across from Safeway. More on all this once the veto pen has been wielded.

In my last post I noted the Assembly Committee of the Whole was talking about a possible Enterprise Board to run the new Diamond Park pool as well as Augustus Brown. There are a number of interests at stake here including who will control what events and activities are scheduled for the pools. CBJ Parks and Recreation is implicitly criticized as too bureaucratic to be good managers. This moved out of Committee of the Whole and will go to the full Assembly. Establishing another Enterprise Board would require a Charter amendment that would go before Juneau voters in the Fall ballot.

More politics – this time surrounding Bartlett Hospital. The management team that took over after Bob Valliant died has been criticized by many as being heavy handed, top down and insensitive, especially to nurses. Others have come to the defense of management. We had a meeting with the Hospital Board last week where a lot of this came out. The Hospital is trying to implement a process of employee involvement to deal with some of the criticisms. The Assembly said it wanted to meet with the Board again in six months to hear of progress.

The Assembly sitting as the Finance Committee continues to meet Wednesday nights. Various groups who have been funded in the past come to the Assembly and ask that their funding be continued. The Assembly does not review the budget line by line. The City Manager by law submits a budget that is balanced – and this year that includes all previous groups funded at the same level as last year. The city has made up its deficit by not filling positions, cutting travel and using tobacco tax money, and it is unlikely to question any of the various budgets. It will probably only talk about requests for more money. That is difficult because there are few sources for “extra” money – particularly in the current year. The one place where there is some wiggle room is in the anticipated increased income from the higher tobacco tax. We used some of it to balance the budget (along with reserve funds). But there is a few hundred thousand more that remains unallocated at the moment and the Assembly will have to deal with the many groups that want a piece of that. It will probably be bounded by a self imposed intention to only use that money for substance abuse or other social service expenses. [Of course if everyone stops smoking we won’t have any of the money!!]

The City Streets Department that was located under the downtown bridge will soon move out to the new Consolidated Public Works building at 7 mile. Now we have to decide what to do with the space under the bridge. We have begun a public comment period to get feedback from citizens. Please take the time to review the plans and offer comments. There is competition from multiple interest groups on what to do with the land. Docks and Harbors wants it. There are proposals to commercialize it. Look at the power point presentation. [Unfortunately it is a huge pdf file, but it is worth downloading.] Use the feedback form or contact Skye Stekoll.


Docks and Harbors is continuing its plans and permitting for Statter Harbor renovation. Right now there is a public comment period from April 2 – May 3. If you are interested in this project please review and give your feedback

CBJ began its Junk Car Roundup April 19 and it will go to May 31 or until we reach our maximum. So if you have a car to dump, do it now.

Is that enough for you????

Lots of stuff going on. Of course the Legislature is on their home stretch, and everyone is running around in a dither and millions are being thrown here and there and NOT thrown there and here. It looks like Juneau will get a significant chunk of change thrown into various projects as well as supporting schools.

The Juneau schools have caused me some concern as an Assembly person. In the past I have not been convinced that their money was managed well. We now have a new Superintendent (Glen Gelbrich) who I am impressed with and who I believe is committed to good financial management. And the current School Board President Mark Choate is similarly committed. I like that. However, their budget comes to us for approval and in a year when the city operating budget is cutting millions, accessing reserves, and not filling positions, I don’t see similar cutbacks by the School District. In FY 10 the school district added 22 positions and in FY11 they propose 11 more. This at a time of declining enrollment. But the schools get funding from a formula—the state gives a bunch and the municipality also gives a formula driven amount. Neither one has declined. And they continue to ask the city for more than their formula amount. We really do want to give our kids the best education possible and I support that. I just want to know that money is being managed efficiently. The Superintendent and Board President told us last Wednesday that they would probably come to us for permission to put one or two school bond issues on the fall ballot. That translates to a higher rate for property taxes. Normally, I would say that if the citizens vote to approve something, then that is the way it should be. But I am not always sure citizens connect the dots between “support for schools” and higher property taxes.

The full proposed budget is now online I encourage you to at least read the City Manager’s Budget Message and Executive Summary in the Overview section. The Assembly will be meeting as the Finance Committee every Wednesday evening for the next six weeks to work through this.

Tonight the Committee of the Whole meets to talk about whether to establish an Empowered Board to manage the swimming pools similarly to Eaglecrest’s management (I mentioned this last post). I still think this is a bad idea. Fragmenting administration is not the path to government efficiency.

Immediately following that meeting we convene the Assembly for a Special Joint Meeting with the Planning Commission to talk about their recommendations to us on Downtown Parking, Wireless Communication facilities, land use regulations and capital improvement projects. If you are interested in the Wireless tower issue, you should read the proposed ordinance.

During this month of many meetings and budget considerations, I will try and post a bit more frequently. At this Wednesday’s Finance meeting (5pm) we will look at the general departmental budgets with special presentations by the Fire Department, the Law Department.

Today (Saturday 4/3) the Assembly had a five hour meeting on solid waste management. Recall that an ordinance for mandatory universal trash collection had been tabled when many citizens protested. Today we tried to put everything on the table to get a firm idea what is our next step. Recall also that both the Landfill (Waste Management) and trash collection (Arrow Refuse) are currently private operations that the Borough has no control over. There was general agreement that the next action needs to be a negotiation with Arrow Refuse to acquire their Certificate of Convenience and Necessity. That is the state permit to collect garbage. Unless CBJ has that, they can do nothing. A lot will depend on this negotiation and the terms of the agreement. Arrow is a private corporation and their goal is profit. There was no agreement other than proceeding to negotiate to acquire that Certificate.

Next Monday night’s (4/5) Assembly Agenda has a number of items you might want to glance at. First is the introduction of the proposed FY10-11 Budget. [There is a link at the right for Assembly Agendas – click on April 5 – Ordinance 2010-11 is the operating budget]. Second is the proposed school district budget Ordinance 2010-12. Third is the mill rate ordinance 2010-13 which proposes a mill rate essentially the same as last year. [the mill rate is what determines property tax rates] Those three budget ordinances are being introduced and will have future public hearings. Take a look at them. Throughout April the Assembly will be reviewing the proposed budget at Wednesday night Finance Committee meetings.

The Diamond Park pool in the Valley is coming along. An issue before us is how it will be managed. Some want to have a citizen controlled enterprise board, similar to the airport, hospital or Eaglecrest. The argument is that a citizen controlled board will manage more efficiently and effectively than professional staff under the city manager. I think it is a mistake to fragment city government, runs the risk of managing the pool in the interests of one group rather than all citizens and favoring money making practices over access for all citizens. We will discuss this more at our COW meeting April 12.

We recently hired Rich Etheridge as our new Fire Chief after Eric Mohrmann took a job in Kenai

We are moving toward a new election season. [I know—you really didn’t want to hear that]. This year there will be three elections. The state primary election is August 24th. This will be important because citizen initiatives are voted on in the primary rather than the general elections. The general election is November 2nd. The CBJ Municipal election is October 5th. Three Assembly seats will come up. Randy Wanamaker’s District 2 Valley seat is open, as Mr. Wanamaker has served three terms and cannot run again. The other two seats are held by Jeff Bush and Johan Dybdal. Neither have announced whether they will run again. Also every ten years the city asks its citizens whether they want to call a Charter Commission to amend the City Charter – and this will be on the 2010 ballot. Probably the main issue is whether to continue as a Council Manager system or to change to a Executive Mayor system like Anchorage. I strongly favor our current council manager system. There may be other issues on the ballot. The final date for us to decide that is August 23. Make sure you are registered.

You may have seen that the Mental Health Trust is working on a land trade with the US Forest Service. In Juneau, the Trust would trade several parcels of land including a large swath in Douglas uphill from all the condos, in exchange for land on Prince of Wales Island that they could log. Click HERE for more info.

If you haven’t already done it, make sure you fill out your Census form. That will really help us keep our representation.

And finally, if you have stumbled on this blog – you can get notification of any new posts by sending me an email requesting notification. I tend to do a new post every couple of weeks.

Each year the Assembly approves a Capital Improvement Project (CIP) plan that lists the capital projects we will undertake during the year. This is what we propose to “build” in the next year. One file shows Projects, Costs and Funding Sources. The second file shows Project Descriptions. The funding is either from sales taxes or from grants from the State or Feds or from user fees (Airport, Hospital, Water/Sewer fees). These are fairly easy to read files

Another area we have been moving forward on is to establish a downtown parking management plan that will try to maximize our facilities by adjusting the cost of parking. The proposed Parking Management Plan suggests a return to parking meters for on-street parking. I tend to think this is a good plan, but there will be lots of screams from people who don’t like parking meters.

I mentioned previously about our tabling the mandatory universal trash collection ordinance. On Saturday April 3 the Assembly will have a day long meeting to try to reach consensus on how we want to move forward on this issue that everyone is concerned with. The way it appears now—the choices are - do we move towards an emphasis on collection and recycling or on some kind of incinerator. The session is open to the public, but no testimony will be taken.

Next Tuesday March 23 the Planning Commission takes up the draft Wireless Communication Facility Ordinance which has been debated in several previous meetings. Assuming it is passed in some form, it will then go to the Assembly for public hearing. You can also testify on it in the Planning Commission meeting. This is the ordinance that was generated after citizen efforts to stop building more towers in the Valley.

As the legislative session enters its final month (adjournment scheduled for mid-April) things are starting to heat up. Odds are that little will get done besides the budgets. Currently there is a big focus on the capital budget that will determine what “projects” the state will fund. Juneau has a number of possible projects, including the proposed Mental Health Trust state office building, the new Libraries/Archives/Museum (SLAM), building, revamping the Johnson Youth Center, some road work and several others. We won’t know the final outcome until the bill passes both houses and Governor wields his veto pen. Currently oil is around $81 a barrel, which makes it likely that we will have available dollars.

If you are really a state government junkie, I encourage you to follow the blog “What do I know” by retired UAA Public Administration professor Steve Aufrecht. He moved down here for the session (along with his much better half, Joan) and has been hanging out in the capital taking videos and typing away. I think you’ll enjoy it.

If you have any interest in serving your community through a city Board or Commission, there are a number that have openings. Take a look at the Board Vacancy List and consider.

The big issue recently has been the proposed Mandatory Refuse Collection ordinance.
About 17% of Juneau residents take care of their own trash rather than having Arrow Refuse pick it up. This ordinance would have required everyone to have commercial pickup and that drew down the wrath of many citizens who responsibly take care of their own and want to keep it that way. In our 2/22 Assembly Meeting and again in the 3/1 COW meeting we discussed the ordinance and have backed off imposing it. My issue was that it was not clearly articulated why we had to do this. Some said to discourage illegal dumping. The testifying citizens responded that we should enforce the laws against illegal dumping rather than passing new laws that punish responsible citizens. Another argument that was not made clearly was that we needed total participation to make curbside recycling work. Yet, we are still far from having such a program. And if we go to an incinerator everything changes. So the Assembly basically said we (the Assembly) need to clearly articulate our direction on the whole issue of solid waste management. We know citizens want this resolved one way or another.

The Planning Commission has been discussing revising the Table of Permissible Uses
This table identifies just what is allowed and not allowed in each zoning district. This is an important issue and worth keeping our eye on. The Planning Commission is also working on a Wireless Communications Ordinance which would regulate towers (among other things)


Docks and Harbors is struggling with what to do in Douglas Harbor. In my 12/21 post I noted that the Harbor floor is rising and unless it is dredged it will slowly become unusable. The problem is that dredging stirs up the bottom and that results in mercury levels mixed into the water that are considered unsafe. The EPA says they oppose the open dump and recommend a more technologically sophisticated (and expensive) containment of the dredged material. One solution is to dig a hole in the channel bottom and put clean fill on top of the dredged material to slow leakage to acceptable levels. Complicated stuff.

I mentioned in my 2/11 post that the proposed use of Juneau cruise ship head tax dollars was out for comment. This is the final list that will be presented to the Assembly

There is a fascinating little effort going on to bring super high speed broadband to Juneau. Google has recently announced a competition for a limited number of communities across the United States to participate. Applications are due by March 26.
Google’s announcement gives us until March 26th. JEDC is coordinating Juneau’s application. We would love to have lots of people weigh in.

Finally, Parks and Rec is having a contest to create a graphic logo for the Diamond Park Pool currently being constructed. Applications due by the end of May.

Last Monday was a long meeting with a lot of different issues. After much discussion, the Assembly unanimously rejected the effort to rezone the MRV property across from the HS that I talked about last post. Everybody agreed it had the appearance of gamesmanship and favoritism. My point was that the Assembly should not exempt themselves from their own city code unless there is a REALLY good reason. It’s nice when things work like they should.

We also had a hearing on the mandatory garbage collection ordinance, and people came out of everywhere testifying about how they took care of their own garbage and how we should not punish them for being responsibile. I had a hard time getting too upset at $25 a month for one can. But OK. We deferred action and will have a hearing Monday night at 6pm before discussing this at the Committee of the Whole at 7pm. So if you have two cents to put in on garbage, come on down. See http://www.juneau.org/clerk/ASC/COTW/2010/2010-03-01-COW_Index.php for more info.

Several things going on in the capital budget at the state. It looks like there is a 10 million project for the Johnson Youth Center. The new Mental Health Trust/subport building is not there yet, but many are still pushing. There is also interest in funding a new Museum, Library, Archives building—known as SLAM—across from Salvation Army. Finally, the state bought the old Christian Science church building across Main street from the capital and will renovate that for offices. I like to see the legislature invest in capital infrastructure.

Next Wednesday night March 3 at Centennial Hall from 5:30-8:00 there will be a community reception for the finalists for University of Alaska statewide President. Rumor has it that UAS Chancellor John Pugh and Senate Majority leader Gary Stevens are among the finalists. The announcement on that will come out Sunday night and we’ll see how accurate the rumors are.

Well, we avoided the layoffs by taking 1 million from our reserves and another 1 million from the ANTICIPATED new revenues resulting from the increase in cigarette taxes. This solves the immediate problem – but as the months go on the shortfalls may increase. We are in a wait and see mode. Future sales tax returns will tell us if our revenue forecasts were accurate. At this point, however, the most evident result is that no new money is likely to be approved for anything this year.

At our next Assembly meeting February 22, there will be a public hearing on the proposed ordinance to have mandatory garbage collection. Right now 10-20% of Juneau does not have commercial pickup. Partially as a result of that – we have a dumping problem in our wooded areas. The mandatory policy is also seen as necessary to carry out a comprehensive waste management system for Juneau. I have heard no reason not to support this proposal. http://www.juneau.org/assembly/agendas/2010/2010-01-25/documents/2010-03.pdf

Here is a great example of some of the small complex issues that come to the Assembly. At our next meeting we are supposed to hear an ordinance to rezone a small area between JDHS and Evergreen cemetery from D18 to Light Commercial to accommodate a retail establishment that MRV Architects wants to put in their building (former Akiyama office). The Land Use code says you can’t rezone short of 2 acres, so they added a chunk of the cemetery to the proposed rezone. That brought out a lot of objections, particularly from the native community. The neighbors in the condo to the northeast objected – and to accommodate, Staff recommended prohibiting restaurants—but the Commission rejected that protection. It looks like an attempt to spot zone to accommodate one commercial property owner—but their argument is that this follows the revised Comprehensive Plan (it does) which said this should be General Commercial. Throw in that the proposed retail establishment will be partially owned by the Troxels who run the Breakwater and are in a clash with neighbors because of noise and disturbance problems at their bar. What is before the Assembly is just a proposal to rezone – we are not supposed to judge the Planning Commission decision unless there is a formal appeal. But still…….

Juneau collects 8 dollars per passenger from the cruise lines – 3 for port development and 5 for the general Marine Passenger Fee that must be spent on projects that directly affect cruise ships and their passengers. There is a proposed list of expenditures out for public comment until February 27 The city consults closely with the industry, which is one of the reasons why we have not been sued like the state for how we use the money. To review and comment see http://www.juneau.org/manager/passenger_fees.php

Anyone who uses the harbors—there is a public comment period on raising those rates. Comments should get in before the next Docks and Harbors Board Meeting February 25th http://www.juneau.org/law/regulations/regulations.php

Tuesday February 16 at 5:15 pm the Planning Commission will be talking about a proposed Wireless Communication Facility (towers) policy. http://www.juneau.org/plancomm/documents/STF_TXT09-07_003.pdf

As I noted last previously, layoffs have been postponed until the Assembly examines the budget and makes recommendations. We will do that this coming Wednesday, February 3 at 5:30pm in the City Chambers. I think some of my colleagues would have rather had the manager lay off people which would have avoided us taking responsibility for hard choices. We will have to either (or a combination of) a) cut the budget somewhere and gore somebody’s ox; b) Take money from our budget reserve or c) layoff city employees. None of those options are attractive but I would rather cut the budget and take money from the reserve than layoff city employees. That should be our last option. Stay tuned.

Board of Equalization
Every year some residents appeal their property assessment. These appeals are heard by a Board of Equalization- which until a few years back was the Assembly. At that time the Assembly delegated property tax appeals to an appointed Board. We have had some difficulty in filling all the seats and I ask you to consider serving the city in this capacity. Click HERE for information about the Board. If you are interested in applying for any CBJ Board click HERE

Planning Commission
The Planning Commission on 1/26 heard an update on the Downtown Parking Management Plan

The Commission postponed….again – discussion of an ordinance on wireless towers

Miscellany
Reminder of the existence of the CBJ Avalanche Advisory page

For the Mendenhall Valley – Here is the pagewhere we note whether there is an air emergency and a wood stove ban.

Layoff update

We had the discussion on layoffs Monday. I said we needed to consider other budget cutting options before laying people off. After some discussion, I made a formal motion and it was approved -barely- 5-4. I was supported by Bob Doll, Jeff Bush, Ruth Danner and Johan Dybdal. The Mayor, Randy Wanamaker, Merrill Sanford and David Stone voted to go ahead with the layoffs. We'll see what happens next round.

Well, you know that we have budget issues. We are short 2-3 million for next year’s budget. The Manager had asked the main government employees union to forego their negotiated wage increases for 12 months. Friday 1/15 the membership voted against accepting that contract revision. The Manager has said he will now have to lay off employees. The reality is that we have to find cuts of 2-3 million somewhere. (Foregoing the wage increase would have saved 1.2 million).

There are a number of political pressures that this stimulates. The Manager told the union prior to the request that if they refused, he would have to layoff employees. The Manager raised the ante in the negotiations, but the union called him. He is likely to feel he has to follow through and not look for other places to balance the budget since he made that threat. The Assembly can simply allow the Manager to do what he decides, or it can give instructions. Some- maybe a majority- on the Assembly feel we should leave “management” decisions to the Manager. That is another way to dodge making hard decisions. I believe the Assembly should provide guidance to the manager and I will say so tonight (1/18) at our special meeting.

The 1/18 Special Meeting is with the School Board. The School Board will want to preserve their funding. They may propose to put one or more school projects on the fall ballot as bond issues. The School District has not been subject to the same budget restrictions as all other areas of the city budget. They have not had their funding reduced at all. I have proposed that they share the burden proportionately. However, others on the Assembly do not want us to touch school funding. I have had numerous questions over the years about the school district’s budget management. As an example - last week we heard from city auditors that the school district essentially has a 7 million dollar capital project – dare I use the phrase?—slush fund. Old projects have not been closed and any money they did not spend has been dumped into this fund.

Another budget issue where I was the one person minority was the biannual citizen budget survey that has been carried out regularly for 20 years. http://www.juneau.org/assembly/Budget_Surveys/index.php The Assembly voted 8-1 to cancel the survey for this year. Some said we “couldn’t “afford it.” Others said “we have no choices, so why ask citizens.” This is total nonsense. In a year where we have to make significant decisions on where to cut and where to spend YOUR money– we say we don’t need citizen input. I am extremely disappointed that my colleagues don’t see this as essential.

Short Notes The U.S. Navy proposes to conduct training exercises in Alaskan waters. Some are concerned with the impact on marine mammals. Here is the general link to the Navy’s site http://www.gulfofalaskanavyeis.com/ which includes links for comments—which must be received by January 25th.

The State of Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities has a new amendment to their STIP (Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan) which is their plan for how to spend transportation dollars. Public comments must be submitted by February 1 http://www.dot.state.ak.us/stwdplng/cip_stip/index.shtml

Reminder that Juneau’s Legislative Reception is Wednesday 1/20 from 5-6:30 at Centennial Hall. Everyone is invited. Come welcome Alaska’s legislators and staff to the Capital City. Governor Parnell’s State of the State message will be broadcast on public radio and television Wednesday evening—tentatively 7pm.

Next Regular Assembly meeting is Monday January 25th at 7pm – broadcast on KTOO.