Assembly Covers a lot of Ground in Year’s First Meeting

Maggie Wall/KMXT

The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly last night went into the new year with a range of topics as varied as Kodiak itself.

-(((Boro Ass 4:57 "It started just….property taxes. SOC.")))

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It happened just before the meeting came to order. There was no "official minister" to give the invocation. Would Ron Painter-who was in the audience to follow the proposed rezoning of some family property-mind saying the invocation? He said he’d be honored-and so the first Kodiak Island Borough Assembly regular meeting of 2011 got underway.

The assembly then ticked items off an agenda that started with the Student of the Month and covered everything from tax foreclosures to ocean acidification to a new football field and missing Exxon Valdez claimants.

Starting at the top…Kodiak High School senior Jayse Taan was named Student of the Month.

Doctor Robert Foy from the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center presented a short Power Point display explaining the problem of acidification of the world’s oceans and the predicted impact-mostly not good-that it could have on Kodiak’s fisheries in the next decades.

And as an aside, Foy told the assembly that 12,500 people signed the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center visitors’ log last year. And he swears he didn’t sign in and out every day, so that is a fair representation of the popularity of the touch tank and other displays.

Rich Walker on the City Parks and Recreation Board updated the assembly on efforts to get a new turf football field and upgrading the track at Baranof Park.

-((Baranof Track and Field

Attorney Matt Jamin testified by teleconference on the status of the borough’s Exxon Valdez Oil Spill claim. He added that about 100 claimants are "lost" and out-of-contact. Jamin said if they don’t come forward, their funds will be turned over to the state.

-(((Missing People

The meeting clipped right along. No one commented during any of the three public hearings.

The Borough Manager was out, so acting borough manager Bud Cassidy provided details on issues. The Borough Mayor was excused so there was no mayor’s comments, though assembly member Jerrol Friend chaired the meeting.

There was no unfinished business from the previous meeting. Which took the assembly right on to new business.

The assembly adopted a capital improvements wish list for the federal government. Cassidy said historically the borough doesn’t have much success with federal funding, but some of the projects are Coast Guard related and may get funded through the Coast Guard’s budget.

-(((Fed Projects

Under ordinances for introduction, the assembly unanimously approved Ron Painter’s request to rezone a piece of land at the corner of Rezanof and Woodland Acres. The property, owned by the Painter Family Trust, is currently zoned rural residential, and if the ordinance is approved in final reading at the next meeting, it will become business property.

The assembly also approved a number of quick items. It protested the renewal of the liquor license renewal for Kalsin Bay Inn because of unpaid taxes. Appointed Cheryl McNeil to the Board of Equalization and Alan Schmitt to the Planning and Zoning Commission. And directed the finance director to publish the list of properties in foreclosure because the owners failed to pay borough property taxes.

I’m Maggie Wall.