City Council to Repair Mill Bay Road, Postpones Subsistence Act Resolution

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

The Kodiak City Council touched on Senator Murkowski’s rural status and subsistence bill last night at its regular meeting among other items of new business, including a contract with Brechan Enterprises.

On the agenda was the resolution to support the Subsistence Access Management Act of 2015, which would leave urban versus rural community status up to the United States Congress. 

In her staff report, city manager Aimée Kniaziowski referred to the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly’s decision at its last regular meeting.

“There was concern expressed at the borough level by the Aleutian Kodiak subsistence advisory board about the fact that this would come from the federal government and that it might limit local control or influence, so the Borough Assembly pulled their resolution to get more information and hold off,” says Kniaziowski.

Kniaziowski says the city heard back from their lobbyist in DC, and she described the email it received explaining the bill.

“The intent was never to eliminate local control, but simply to reinforce what they’d been hearing from the Kodiak community, that it would take a great deal to change, take away, the status of rural for the purposes of subsistence,” says Kniaziowski.

The council agreed to postpone the decision on that resolution.

An authorization request to contract Brechan Enterprises for road repair was also on the agenda. Kniaziowski described the need for repair on Mill Bay road around the police station and from Benny Benson towards Wal-Mart, a project she says would cost $1,150,000.

“The focus will be on Mill Bay and trying to mitigate some of the worst of the wear that we’re all seeing happen and try and save that road bed,” says Kniaziowski. “We’d like to work with them to use one stretch with hard rock in the hope that we can do a test and see if that hard rock section holds up better than the standard rock that we have used for our paving.”

Councilman Charles Davidson spoke favorably about the switch from soft rock.

“I want to be grateful for the fact that they’re gonna use some hard rock on part of this re-pavement, because you drive out Mill Bay – that’s one of my greatest concerns,” says Davidson. “That road is falling apart obviously, and it’s not that old, really.”

The council moved to authorize the construction. Its next regular meeting will be on July 23, and a joint work session with the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly is planned for Tuesday, June 30.

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