Assembly Diary

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.