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.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
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......
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......
Monday, June 14, 2010
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.
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.
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