City Council Discusses Investments

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

The Kodiak City Council held a regular meeting last night, and discussed city investments – both in the financial sense of the term and with regard to equipment that will benefit city operations in the long run.

City Manager Aimée Kniaziowski said the city has invested up to $14 million and has had poor returns.

“One of the things that our finance director was recommending and made a presentation earlier this month to you was to – we think it would be a good idea to form an investment committee, develop an RFP, and select an investment firm that could advise us.”

Kniaziowski said that would help the city increase its returns. The council passed the authorization to form the investment committee.

The council also talked about the purchase of a loader, which dumps and moves material in the composting facility. Kniaziowski called the loader one of the critical pieces of equipment they’ll need to successfully operate that facility.

“We need a mixer that we already have on site, this loader, and then of course the screener, which is somewhere between here and Seattle. We’re expecting it to come any time now. But we did rent a case loader. I know that our deputy manager was in Anchorage and took a look at a couple different used loaders. We rented this Case 521E loader.”

She said the city would like to purchase a used version of the same model for about $162,800. She said it would come with attachments.

“Specifically a push bucket, and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of those in operation, but what it allows is the crew to stack the compost in the curing bins higher than we can currently do that, and it is an important piece of the equipment.”

The council authorized that purchase from Yukon Equipment.

The next meeting the council will hold will be to discuss marijuana legislation. That’ll be a work session and it’ll be Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the Borough Assembly Chambers.