*This transcript has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity. You can also watch the live, unedited version from the Kodiak Island Borough's YouTube channel.
Davis Hovey, KMXT: Let’s get things started with the four candidates for City of Kodiak council. Each candidate will have one minute for an opening statement before we begin the questions. As a reminder, candidates must stop speaking when the timer sounds.
And we ask that all candidates maintain a civil, courteous demeanor throughout the forum. First up is Richard Walker...
Rich Walker: Good evening, everyone. I am Councilman Rich Walker. This is my 12th year of service on the Kodiak city council, and I have decided to run again for another three-year term. I bring the experience needed and know how, as far as city operations and how they work. This gives me the insight and knowledge of work needed in our city and upgrades, especially in our infrastructure within the city, which we must address soon, like sewer water and road upgrades. I am also the city's representative on the borough lands committee and the billing codes committee. I have lived in Kodiak for 34 years, and then in Anchorage before then for 10 years. So 44 years in the state of Alaska. My wife, Julia Walker, has lived in Kodiak for 51 years, and we have raised six great kids together… [comments ended due to timer beeping]
Brian Venua, KMXT: Thank you. Next, Jay Celli, please give us your opening statement.
Jay Celli: Hi Kodiak. My name is Jay Celli and I'm running for city council this year, and I believe I can make a difference for the people of Kodiak. I've attended several of the public council meetings and work sessions, and I can clarify for voters how their tax dollars need to be used. The council is about oversight, not daily administration, and oversight is needed. I have a great respect for anybody elected by the people. And my friends, Terry and Richard, they have the best intentions, but it is time for a change. I plan on bringing leadership to Kodiak. As a resident of Kodiak, I've seen firsthand where I can make a difference, and I've lived in other cities that can bring and I can bring experience, the leadership and decisions that I've seen work for those people, and evaluate programs that just simply don't. My leadership will bring fresh eyes to lingering situations and the ability to think creative, creatively about long standing issues. The new contract for the fire hall having the surprises which I'm sure will arise will need some oversight. Well, it's the cities….[comments ended due to timer beeping]
KMXT: Thank you. Collen Ford, it’s your turn to give an opening statement.
Colleen Ford: My name is Colleen Ford. I have lived in Kodiak about 35 years. I am running for city council because I have walked in this town for 35 years, and honestly, we could do better for such a small town that we have, it should be safer for pedestrians to get around, and this is linked to economics. If people can live with one less vehicle, they're all going to be financially off, better off, not to mention the fact that it should be safer for our kids to get to and from school. Walking is the gateway drug of exercise. Everyone should be able to do it, and you shouldn't have to drive to the to the track just to go for a walk.
KMXT: Thank you. And finally Terry Haines, please give us your opening statement.
Terry Haines: My name is Terry Haines, it's been a real privilege to serve on the Kodiak city council, and I'd like to serve one more term, if the voters agree with that. I'm presently engaged in a number of things that I'd like to continue to work on in the in the near term, including a new round as the city's representative on the ports and harbor advisory board, and fisheries issues are, have always been dear to me. I've been engaged in them for a long time, and this is a time in Kodiak that I'd like to continue to be engaged in fisheries issues at this time, I think I bring a certain amount of experience to that particular subject. But when it comes down to it, I'm extremely happy to see more people running for office here, and when, and in the end result, it's all about having a civil discourse and being respectful and listening to each other and listening to the public. Engaging with the public is maybe one of the, if not the most important thing that we have to do and we need to do. Thank you.
KMXT: Thank you. Moving on to the questions, now. Each candidate will have two minutes to respond to each question. We will rotate who answers first each time, so the first candidate to answer the first question will not be the first to answer the following question.
As a reminder, candidates must stop speaking when the timer sounds. And we ask that all candidates maintain a civil, courteous demeanor throughout the forum.
1. KMXT: We’ll be going in alphabetical order by last name to begin, so Jay Celli, you’ll go first for this one:
How has the city been doing with securing federal funding for capital improvement projects such as the replacement of St. Herman Harbor? How can those efforts be improved? What projects are your priority to push for if elected?
Jay Celli: I think the city has done an excellent job receiving funding for different projects, including the Herman harbor. But I personally kind of disagree with some of them, actually. I think funding is a great thing to get, but I think we can stand on our own two feet with some of those things, and I think some of that might be annexing some of our city tax dollars per sale, or some other means to start paying for some of these things on our own. Grants are an awesome thing for a lot of things, but they…. what's the word I'm looking for? I guess they're more of a crutch. And I'd like to see the city stand on its own two feet. And I think there's several options to do that, and one of my big pushes will be when I get into office is fisheries in the Herman harbor, and I definitely see some improvement needed. And I think federal funding is a great thing, but I think we should do it without.
Colleen Ford: We do a pretty good job of getting federal funding. There's a lot of times that there's a project that needs to be done that we just couldn't do on our own, and a lot of it has to with fisheries, and I believe the federal government should help us out on that and especially managing it, especially because they're the ones that are also regulating it in a lot of instances, as well as the state. I would like to see a bigger emphasis on the Kodiak Island Trails. And I know that they just got a big grant. I think that the more that we develop those types of trails in that way, is going to help us in the long run, in every aspect, both for our residents and for our tourism. That's just a thing that I think that needs to be looked at. We haven't ever really put much effort into bike paths, really. There's a couple here and there, but it's just a whole look…. Even downtown should be easier to walk around, should be easier for people, to be more accessible for people with wheelchairs. There are parts on the crosswalks that are just a wreck. But again, we're doing pretty good on the federal funding and for some of our projects that is necessary to continue to keep moving forward.
Terry Haines: Well, Kodiak is very engaged with both our federal and our state delegations, as well as our the agencies that they have, and that's willful investment in our part, and it's paid off in the end, and I think in the past, and I think it's a good policy. Our mayor's always been a very good spokesperson, as has, as was our former mayor, and that's very important, and that brings federal and state dollars to us. It's meant that our Kodiak taxpayer has gotten a break for building things like our fire station. The Saint Herman harbor is our most important ongoing project, and right now we have to go down a list. We don't, we can't just put it on the backs of the Kodiak taxpayers initially, because, frankly, the Kodiak taxpayer can't afford it. So we have to go down, right down the list. First, we try to get federal funding, we try to get state funding, we try to get any kind of grants that we can possibly apply for. And in the end, if we aren't able to get grant funding, we're going to have to look into low interest loans for these kind of projects. And that is, again, not our number one... That's not the first option that we'd like to do. And we'd like to get grants and direct funding. But in the end, if we need to, we can get funding through bonding, and loans would be very low interest, and the citizens of Kodiak would pay it off over a very long period of time. So that's kind of our... the way we have to go down the line if we're unable to get grant funding. We know that we have a ticking timer right now, and if you ask our Harbor Master, he's very adamant about that, we only have so much time left on that Saint Herman harbor. So no matter what kind of funding we get, it's going to be dependent on the permitting that we're doing right now. Nobody's going to give us funding, whether it's grant funding or a loan, until we get all the permitting done that shows them that it's not a high risk operation, once we get all the permits in line, and those permits say this is a project that can go forward and will probably be successful, and we can look for funding.
Rich Walker: Well, I feel that the city has done a great job in getting funding for a lot of our projects. I mean, they we've got people out there. We've got our representatives and senators and then with, I don't know if a lot of you are in the loop, but you know, we have a lot of things coming up here with the federal government, the US Coast Guard, for the last two years have been rebuilding docks, putting in new docks, and the Navy is supposed to put a couple ships in here and to be stationed here. This is all because of the Arctic. Everybody's vying for the Arctic… that share edges of the Arctic for mineral rights and oil and everything else, and we're going to have to step up our patrolling. And anytime that the federal government gets involved with a community like this, it makes it a lot easier to get grants and funding for other things, like our harbors and our roads. And we have a really old and antiquated sewer, water & sewer treatment plant. We can hardly even, you know, grow town very much without…. [before] we start getting all that type of stuff done, because it's been there for a while, and we need to upgrade a whole lot of things, [as] far as infrastructure in our town. But we've been very lucky. We have some good people out in front, you know, with the government and letting them know. Kodiak has been talked around for quite a while now in government circles, especially with the Arctic mission. And it will bring more people. It will, you know, like the Coast Guard right now is rebuilding Nemetz Park, and they have some other housing that they're looking at putting in, and so it should help relieve some of the problems in town with finding houses to rent or….. Thank you [comments ended due to timer beeping]
2. KMXT: Moving on to the next question, Mrs. Ford, you’ll respond first this time:
One of the issues facing Kodiak residents and businesses right now is the lack of housing available within city limits. What are your thoughts about what’s contributing to the housing crisis and what should the city do to address the lack of affordable homes?
Colleen Ford: It's been a long time coming in the time that I've been in this town. I was here when Jackson's [mobile home park] was sold. I was here when Kodiak Plaza was sold at Trident to be used as a bunkhouse. I've watched our downtown… disintegrate basically. It was, it's actually starting to come back a little bit, but it was dead or pretty dead for a long time. We need to open and you know, it's all great to open up more land for houses, but the thing is, is that's not working for a lot of people. A lot of people are just not going to be able to afford a new house. That's not where the problem is. I don't make a lot of money as a receptionist, but I do own a condo, and I gotta say, I think we need more condos and townhouses. That's going to make it more entry level for our people to make it, more first time home buyers to be able to get in. The other thing is, I think that we need to move it closer into town. It would be great if we could use the section that had the police station that's going to be vacated by the fire station and the old library area. That would be awesome. But there may be questions with that. But we need.... wherever we do put it, and we do need to put in this kind of housing… a little bit denser housing, is we need to put in an area where people can access other things, where they can do some shopping without necessarily getting in a car... Because we want to make it affordable, and putting another house way out at the end of the town for a family that needs two cars is not going to do the trick. So we need to make it more integrated. Also, if we can have more housing downtown, more people will be walking around downtown, and that'll help the local, the small businesses that work there.
Terry Haines: Well, I think it's been pointed out that housing is perhaps our most dire problem right now, no matter what you want to do, whether you want to get people in to work for Highmark or people who want to work in the healthcare industry or teachers to teach in our schools, they all need this place to live, and they'll all tell you that it's very difficult to find in Kodiak right now. It's common knowledge and it's true, all you have to do is look in the newspaper. So I think the solutions are going to have to be varied and everything we can possibly dig up. One thing that we could look at is simply freeing up land. There isn't a lot of land in the city of Kodiak right now, that's ready to go, but the state has lands, and we've, we've lobbied for whatever lands they have that they don't need and could let us have essentially that they should do that. The borough may have lands that they can free up. And when we looked at our annexation study, when we were considering annexing a little bit more land to the north and south of the city, we found out that we couldn't afford to annex the northern and populated part of the... in service area number one, as much as we'd like to we just simply couldn't afford it. We would have to raise taxes to a level that we weren't comfortable with. But on the other hand, to the [south] end of Kodiak, we have utilities that go essentially to Gibson Cove. And there was some interested in.... there was some interest in developing that northern part of Kodiak, and part of that deal would be that the city would annex that area. And that's an awful that's an awfully big area there, and we already have city utilities going that direction. I think it could be very exciting, and we can annex that whole area at virtually no cost, because nobody lives there now. So we could annex that area, be in a position to help developers to move forward there, and that might be an exciting place that we could look into, but essentially, it's going to be everything and anything we can possibly think of.
Rich Walker: Yes, we have had a housing shortage for quite a while, and it really pops up bad when we have a lot of construction projects going on in town, and it's a Coast Guard base because the builders from off island come swooping in and they rent everything in town, and there's no rentals for anybody else. And that's the way it's been. You know, there's some groups around trying to help, you know, RurAL Cap is in town, working with the Kodiak Island Housing Authority and the city and the borough. And, you know…everybody's kind of looking at that. We've just starting back the lands committee, and we're going to be looking at different parcels and all that, that we might be able to sell off, but we're just getting that stood up and back together. I think that's pretty soon, if I remember, but that's where it is … there is other land. I mean, there's not a lot as far as downtown. There's more as you’re moving out [of city limits], but there's still some parcels around, if you get out and start looking around…that can come, could come available and at a good price. I mean, the cost of living right now is so bad, nobody can afford to do much of anything as far as housing, especially building a new home and that type of thing. But we have… we're 100% behind it there at the city, you know, we're trying everything we can to look forward and what we can do to, you know… I think [Colleen’s] idea was a great idea. You know, it's just getting the land to put it on and get the zoning right and everything else, you know, so we can get some of that type of work going.
Jay Celli: So as we all know, our housing crisis is a multifaceted problem, and it requires a multifaceted answer. I think the first and foremost would be getting some multi-unit dwellings going so that we could get the city of Kodiak re-staffed, any businesses in town that need to be re-staffed, to get our staffing shortage addressed first, right? We can grow our city all we want, but if we don't have the staff to support our city's infrastructure needs, it's pointless anyway. So I'd start by a couple multi dwelling units just to staff the rest of the city and everybody's needs. Then I think we, once, we start kind of seeing the finish line in that aspect, as some of the others have said, you know, zoning out some new areas and getting some more places for some affordable housing, and attracting some of those residents to Kodiak to start kind of hopefully regaining our population as well.
3. KMXT: Next question is for Mr. Haines first:
The non-white minority populations of the City of Kodiak make up nearly half of the island’s demographic, yet our elected local officials remain predominantly white (males). How can we achieve more equitable representation in local government across race, sex, and cultural lines?
Terry Haines: Well, I think we do need more diversity, starting with a little more age diversity. One thing that we do have is a bunch of old codgers on the... I'm actually one of the younger ones, but we do. We've always been aware of the fact that better… more diversity is better, and the more diverse our council has been in the past, I think the better our deliberations have been. And the fact is, it's just it sometimes takes a lot of time to serve, and people are busy. You know, people are busy with their lives. And I think there are plenty of people out there who would be excellent leaders for their communities, but are just, you know, they look at the workload involved, you know, frankly, you have to do the homework, and you have to be there for meetings. And so if you're someone who is used to taking two or three months off every year, or doing something else and leaving, that's not something that you can easily do and serve on the city council. And I think that it is…it's tough, and when people do step forward to serve, I think they feel it's rewarding. But how do we achieve more diversity? I think just make it look great, make it look fun. You know, get more people running like we have right now, and get people listening to these kind of forums, and once people start to think about the issues that are important to their communities, I think we'll have more people step forward. But if they see that, they can make a difference, and I think a lot of that has to do with the process. You know, if they see the city council functioning in a civil manner, in a respectful way, that people listen to one another and listen to the public and are able to change their minds when it's warranted, then I think they look at that and they say, ‘Well, I could do that. I could be part of that.’ And if they see a process that's a little more..., a little more fraught, and that perhaps is, it doesn't seem to be as fun, frankly, I think that makes it more challenging to attract people to it.
Rich Walker: Okay, well, for most people, it's pretty scary. You know, you walk into those meetings and see what's going on. But since I've been on the council for 12 years, back over the first six years, we had quite a mixture of ethnic people on the..., you know, we had Filipinos and Native people on the board… And it's scary. I mean, when you first start, for anybody coming into a council meeting… you know, we don't bite. We are asking people to come down all the time and get involved, you know, and run for office, if you are so inclined. But I don't know it's… like Terry was saying, you know, you walk in and bunch of white haired old guys, you know, sitting around, but we do have a lovely lady Councilman that is Annika [Woods], who is very smart and very articulate, and she comes up with some good ideas. And I think the big thing is, is we need to advertise better and kind of get maybe some sort of training, you know, where people can actually, you know, get into the environment a little bit and come to meetings and see if it's something that they would really like to do. I think the more the better. Thank you.
Jay Celli: I think with the diversity that we're looking for on the council, I think streamlining things to make things a little more approachable would be a good start. And I also think to kind of touch on my other my colleagues here is starting younger, you know, getting some student government body going, maybe getting kids kind of proactive and interested in government bodies, and starting out young. Because when we get old, we get kind of set in our ways, and it's kind of hard to go out there and say, hey, get involved, you know. But I think if we start with a little younger, start at the high school, get some government bodies going on or something, and try to really get the youth involved, I think that would help in the long run, with some more diversity on the Council.
Colleen Ford: I’d have to say I agree that it's a bit intimidating. What got me I didn't even plan to run for city council until probably August 12, when I looked at Facebook and saw, hey, there's nobody running. And I went, okay, I guess I'm somebody, and that's what got me running. I don't know. Maybe we have to do what the KEA did and start offering door prizes if you come to a council meeting. I haven't a clue, but they all have a point. It is intimidating. And when we look at our council, if you see it online, it's really intimidating, because you look at, aside from Annika, it's all old guys, really. Sorry, guys. I'm not much younger than any of you. So I'm going to be honest there. I can say, as a single parent, my kid is 16 now ...There's no way I could have run for council five years ago. So that… there's that too. Sometimes you have to wait until, for parents to have their kids a little bit older. It's because they take up a lot too. I can tell you that I do engage with the entire population on a daily basis, because I work in health care as a receptionist, so every... I see a cross of everybody. I don't really know what we need to do to totally get more people involved, other than to make sure that we are talking with people regularly ourselves, and make sure that we make an effort to talk to all segments of the city ourselves.
4. KMXT: Next question for Mr. Walker: What are your financial priorities for the City of Kodiak, and which departments or budget items do you think are currently over- or under-funded?
Rich Walker: Well, financial responsibilities… something that's really happened with the city here over the last three years... We looked at how we were investing our money, and we had a new person come on the council that was very aware of how to get a hold of the right people. And as far as… we're doing a lot better in all of our investments at the city now than we ever have in the 12 years I've been there, and I would say we're in a lot better hands than we’ve ever been, and things are looking pretty good. Other than that, you know, we have quarterly meetings and, you know, stay on top of things, and make sure that we're keeping an eye on what's going on, especially during this recession so... But we've been pretty fiscal responsible here for quite a few years now, at least over the next three to five years, we've really looked at that and saw how we could do things better. And, you know, you get up there and you have so many projects coming in, you have so much stuff running a city, you know, and sometimes you might not, unless they bring it in front of you, you know, you don't go down and look at… how the investments are going, as much as the people that we have overseeing it, so... But we've got some people on there that… they have been forcing the issues, and you know, getting [us to] look at other areas, and seeing how we can do better. And I think we're in good hands.
Jay Celli: I think our city investments are a good place to start. I also see some improvement, or some areas as Mr. Walker mentioned earlier, with the Coast Guard, with the military doing like some large floating dry docks, some shore side services, something to start bringing some of those services in to Kodiak itself; I think is a good way to start with some of that. And also on the other end of the spectrum, I'd like to see more of our money spent in infrastructure maintenance. A lot of the maintenance in our infrastructure is way outdated. A lot of our buildings need... I mean, look at the fire station, right? I went and toured the [city] fire station. I've actually talked with all department heads recently…kind of gone around and gotten a real feel for the city, and its emergency needs. And getting a look at the fire station was a real eye opener for me. It's literally raining in that building because of the maintenance needs. And it's not the only building on Kodiak like that. It's not the only equipment on Kodiak like that. I'd like to see a lot more of our money go towards recouping the investments we already have and making sure that those investments are taken care of. And that's what I do daily with my employer for Highmark marine fabrication, is to protect assets, and I think that's a good place for the city of Kodiak to start, is protecting its assets and making sure that money is not wasted replacing things that shouldn't be when they should have been maintained.
Colleen Ford: I think we do pretty good on the whole. They're small things I'd like to see. I'd like to see better paint in the crosswalks. But then, of course… since I started here, I've been talking about walking…and we do okay on our investments, and we are moving forward. We are going to be changing things. Our fishing industry is going down further, we have to decide how we want to move forward when we start looking at tourism. So a lot of where we're going to put our money is… we're going to have to decide what we want our town to look like, and we're going to have to figure out how, you know, as the Coast Guard expands, how's that's going to look and we're going to have to have a good image of it in our minds before we can make final decisions on that. On the whole, though, we are doing pretty good on investments, and Jay is right, if we maintain things properly, they cost less money, and we're not spending money to replace them all the time.
Terry Haines: Well, unfortunately, we're not overfunded for anything, but we have changed a lot in how we look at City's finances, and it's been a result of looking at how municipalities have been changing how they think about their finances around the state and, I'd imagine, around the country. But we learned that Fairbanks started its own Permanent Fund. They just took some of their revenue that was sitting in a savings account, which is what we used to do. It's what everyone used to do. The idea is, it's the public's money, so you don't do anything risky with it at all. You just do the safest possible thing, which was putting it in a bank account at practically 0% interest. So it's making no money for us at all. At the same time, the stock market was going crazy and Fairbanks had a permanent fund that was yielding 10%. But at the same time, we're getting nothing out of our money that's sitting in a savings account. Some bank is making money with it by doing the same thing that Fairbanks is doing with its permanent fund. So as Mr. Walker said, Council Member Stanford had a great interest in this, and he decided to put in the time and work with staff. And we've changed everything about how we look at the city's finances. We still want it to be safe, and we realize that there's only a certain amount of risk that we want to take with the city's money. But we also realize that if we want to be wise about how we handle the city's money, we can have some funds that have a certain amount of low risk, but higher risk than the rest of our money that will generate capital for us, that will help us so we don't have to tax the citizens for the things that we need. But having said that, it's all about taxes. And the bottom line, it's all about taxes, how much we extract from the citizens and the taxpayers, and then what we do with it. And we've tried to be wise about having a pot of money for everything that we need for the future. So we have a pot of money for water and sewer, we have a pot of money for the harbor, and we have a pot of money for everything else. None of those pots are big enough for the needs that we have for any of these various things. And we're looking better than a lot of municipalities across Alaska, it's a common problem, so we're just going to have to continue to look for funding as we go along, for all of our needs, and try to continue to be wise with our money.
5. KMXT: Back to you Mr. Celli for the next question: What are your thoughts about the council’s process for finding and hiring a new city manager? Do you believe it was fair and that the city was transparent enough with the public? (ie hiring committee process)
Jay Celli: That’s a loaded question. I don't agree with it. I don't agree with how it went down, and I believe she [Josie Bahnke] should have been hired on an interim, I guess, an interim basis, until one [city manager] could be found to fit the criteria.
Colleen Ford: It's tough all over looking for city managers. I talked to a few other people that have been working on this, and I've heard of other cities that have their manager only working there part time. We've looked for city managers over the history too. I can't say that we've always had the.... it's always been a challenge. I don't ever... every time we've looked for one, I remember it being a challenge. I gotta say, I didn't pay much attention at the time. I wasn't running for city council at the time, so it wasn't really much, even on my radar. We settled with Josie, right? And she was a good choice. She was already doing the job, and honestly, I don't know if we could have done any better, or if we continued on where we were going.
Terry Haines: Well, the process that we went through to choose the city manager was thorough. Frankly, I would have been tempted to just sort of shorten the process, since we had such a worthy candidate already working for us in Josie. But Josie didn't do that. She put her name in the hat, along with everybody else, and there were a lot of names in that hat, a lot of qualified candidates, none of them even close to as qualified as Josie. Josie has been the president of the Managers Association for the entire state of Alaska. She could take a job anywhere in Alaska, and they'd be very happy to have her. She just happens to like Kodiak… she's been working for us and been doing a fantastic job. I've been watching her work closely, she is really good at what she does, and we are extremely lucky to get her. Having said all that, we bungled the public outreach and the communications. It's something that the city does. We bungle the communications part. We've done it on a regular basis. We've talked about having someone who does that, who is in charge of communicating with the public and making sure that our communications are better. And I think we are moving forward with that. Actually, we're still looking for a person to do that position, because it's not a fluffy job. I think it's essential. If we can't communicate well with the public so that they can engage us in a positive manner, then it makes it so much harder for us to serve the public well.
Rich Walker: I was on that [hiring] committee, and I'll tell you exactly what happened. We went through what, 11 applicants, or something about like that. A lot of them from out of state. Most all of them weren't even close to being certified. And we've came... we had voted in, as far as the committee, that we didn't need to go any further; that the Harbor Master [Dave Johnson] had applied and Josie had applied, and that's who we whittled it down to. They're local, they both have a lot of experience. I've been working with Josie, and so has Terry and the rest of the Council for a number of years, especially as she was the assistant city manager, and she's very well known around the state. She's got connections everywhere, with the government, different government entities, and she's smart, and she knows what she's doing. We went back and forth, back and forth on the qualifications of those two. And it came down to it in the final vote, you know, it was Josie unanimously, that she was the one that's going to… that we wanted for the job. And I've worked with her, she is a very smart lady. She knows what she's doing, and she… if there’s anything I can say bad about her, she tries too much and too hard to please everybody and get everything done, and that can get you kind of burned out, you know, after a while. But she'll have an assistant that comes along with that position, and I think she's going to do great things for us.
6. KMXT: And speaking of the city manager, there is a Ballot proposition before voters in the upcoming election to change city manager residency requirements, specifically: “Change city charter/code from requiring city manager to live within city limits to require city manager to reside within 12 miles of the city…”
Mrs. Ford, what are your thoughts about this proposition, and how would you vote on it?
Colleen Ford: I went back and listened to that meeting. At first, I was definitely, ‘oh, they should definitely be in the city. Oh, definitely.’
And in my heart, I believe that. But then it did come up... we have to look at our housing issues, and they are huge... of trying to get somebody and trying to find a place in town. And I thought about that, and 12 miles really isn't that far out of town. As much as I would prefer them to be in [town]. And maybe I would prefer that instead we look at it… you know, we put it in that you have to be in town unless you get an exemption from that. I'd be okay with that. But again, until we settle our housing issue, we really can't force everybody to be in the city, and 12 miles is not that far out. I would prefer to be in town, but I completely understand the situation.
Terry Haines: Well, for years and years and years, we did require the manager to live in the city, and of course, I think we would have required the manager to live in this office, if we could have, because that's the kind of job it is. You know the reason we do that is because the manager could be called up for any number of issues at any time. And we had a manager, I think, that lived just a couple blocks away for years and years and years. So that was pretty easy anyway, but it's just bowing to reality. You know, one of our topics today was our housing crisis. And as Colleen just said, we just had to make that decision, because if we get someone who's qualified to be our manager, but they can't find a place to live, that seems like a pretty ridiculous reason to not have a good city manager. And if that person does end up not being able to take the job because they can't find a place to live, then we're right back again looking for a new city manager, and we'll have to go down the list of less qualified people. So it was… it's a nod to the reality of today, and if things change, so that we do have a ready access to housing within city limits, I could see [us] going back to the other way. But again, as Colleen said, it seemed like a good compromise. The 12 miles is well within the boundaries of many municipalities, and so it seems like you know that's enough. That's a few minutes away from wherever you need to be.
Rich Walker: Well, kind of following on what Terry had to say there. Some of these regulations and everything were, what, 60 years old? And they're not dealing with a lot of things that we deal with now. A lot of people weren't wondering about emergency response if somebody was 12 miles outside of town. But they have deputies, they have other people that you know, can take care of things until they get there. I mean, I remember back when the landslide came down here on the side of the mountain years ago, and we were taking people to the base in boats, and they were helicoptering people back and forth that needed to be here. And it's just kind of archaic. It's old. We need to move on. I mean, that's the person we picked for the job. I mean, she [Josie Bahnke] lives out in Bells Flats, and I can understand her wanting to live out in Bells Flats. That was way before this came up. She got a beautiful home out there. And we're going to say that she can't do the job because of that is just ludicrous I think. Thank you.
Jay Celli: Again, it's kind of a complicated answer we have here, but the gist of it all is, I do agree that they [the city manager] should be able to live outside city limits. I said earlier that I didn't agree with the city manager, and I just didn't agree with the way it went down, but I do think that somebody should be allowed to live outside city limits in that capacity. But on the same hand, I think that should apply to all city incumbents that may fall into that rule, that they should be allowed to live outside the city limits. And to even go further on to that one, I think if you own and operate a business in our city limits, that you should have a say as a city person. You shouldn't be stuck in the borough and have to go, ‘Well, I can't vote on a city issue because I live in the borough, but yet I own, maintain and operate a successful business in the city limits.’
I think that's unfair. So I think if we are going to extend that opportunity to a member of our city's municipality, that needs to be extended to everybody as well.
7. KMXT: Mr. Haines, What is one of the best decisions the Kodiak City Council has made in the last two years? What is one you believe could have been handled differently?
Terry Haines: Boy, that's a tough one to go first on. Well, you know, I think that the best decision we made was to put the [new] fire station in the place where it was, I think, because it was quite a journey finding a place to put our fire station. And, I mean, that was just relief. And we'd worked and worked and worked, looking and looking and looking, and finally it came up for us. But…another decision that I feel proud of because of the way the process worked, was our decision to allow ATVs on roadways. When the option first came out to allow them on the roadways, everyone on the city council and the mayor thought, 'I don't know, that doesn't sound like a good idea,' and we pretty much had signaled that that's what we were thinking. But the public came forward and wrote emails and came before us and were extremely persuasive, and in the end, they were right I thought. By the time that process was over, the public input process was over, they had convinced us that they were correct and that we should allow ATVs on the roadways. That's how the process should work. The public should be able to come forward and make their case, and the city council… I can guarantee you, the squeaky wheel rule really applies with the City Council.
And with regard to people that work, living, inside and outside the city, I believe the city council needs to keep two kinds of people in mind, both citizens and taxpayers. If you pay taxes in the city, you deserve the ear of the council, and we should be keeping your needs and making sure that we're serving your purposes as well. Because when we take the taxes from anyone, the assumed bargain is that we're going to use them well so that you can continue to come to the city and buy things at Safeway… [comments ended due to timer beeping]
Rich Walker: Well, I think one of the most wonderful things we did right is vote to fund the sports and rec center that is almost completely done, down at Baranof Park. And also, you know, we came up with some extra money to put in a brand new playground for the kids, and that's really looking good. They're getting it put in right now. And I was on the fire department, the new Fire Department, finding the locations [for the fire station] and I was on the design committee, working with the contractors and all that. And I am so glad to see that coming out of the ground…You do not know how many rules and regulations go with where a fire station can go. It took us forever to try to find a place and come to find out a piece of property we already owned, right there by the park, was the best spot. So far as … I don't off the top of my head, I don't think of anything that was really that bad that we've done, or had come up, or one of the worst things come up, other than trying to pick a new city manage, that was tough.
Jay Celli: I'd agree that the ATVs on the road was one of our best recent decisions, and the reason is not just because of the ATVs on the road, [but] with the way it was handled right. Public outreach was not crazy, but public outcry was insane. And I think that's one place where the city council really stood up and listened to the citizens and listened to their voices, took it into consideration, and made a strong and stable decision regarding their voice. And that's just kind of what I think all decisions should be right, is that people should be listened to. And that's one of my plans on city council, is to hopefully amplify the voice of the people, so that they are heard on City Council.
Colleen Ford: I'd have to agree on the fire station and that was one time when I actually did hear a lot more on the outreach. I remember reading many posts on Facebook about all the problems they were having. Terry was posting it, and it was his argument, and it was there, and it kept me along, I stayed along with it. One of the worst decisions I saw actually happened over at Baranof Park. And I think it was Parks [and Recreation] that made that decision. And the decision was… that I didn't like, is that they ripped up the climbing equipment for little kids, and that was a couple summers before that was put back. And I don't know if you guys are really aware of how much of a destination park Baranof is, especially I mean, if you went in there…in an evening, around 6 p.m. on a summer day. It was really common when I would see kids watching their younger siblings at the park and or one parent might be walking the track while the little ones were climbing, and somebody else was over at the skate park, aspect of it. So for me, that was really upsetting when I saw that that equipment was gone and before it was put up over at East Addition [park]. I think that should have been done first, simply because that left a lot of kids without that park. And there's not that many that are that accessible to kids, and there's not a lot of entertainment that is, you know, easily accessible for kids, even in the summertime like that.
KMXT: That concludes the question segment of the forum. We’ll move ahead to closing statements which we will again do in alphabetical order by last name. Jay Celli, please go ahead with your closing statement. You have one minute.
Jay Celli: I'd like to say to the citizens of Kodiak, city council members, and everybody else involved, I really appreciate the support that I've received during my run for city council so far. I've had a lot more support than I expected. As a result of that, I plan to do a really good job on city council once elected, because I'm confident that I will be, and I really look forward to amplifying the voice of the people and making sure that we're making decisions that the city residents agree with and that the city residents are okay with. I really plan on watching over our financials and making sure that every penny spent is spent wisely and that we oversee that and oversee it well. And again, I'd really like to focus on some maintenance in our city and make sure that we're not wasting tax dollars where they really unnecessarily are sometimes.
Colleen Ford: I'm running for city council, and I'm actually very surprised at the support that I've received in running for this as well. We have a very supportive city, I guess is what it comes down to. If I don't win, if I do not get this place on the council, I really hope that at least I've brought to the attention the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists and people who are getting around other than their own private vehicle. I also would like to have that taken…. As I said, we're looking at how our town is going to develop in the long term, and how that's going to look in our planning. And I think that we have to consistently keep in mind all the citizens of Kodiak, and I sometimes think that they're not all taken into account, that sometimes it's the people you know, the people at the council are the ones that get their way. And those are, if I look at the council, every one of them, every one has two car families…. [comments ended due to timer beeping]
Terry Haines: Well, I'm extremely happy to see Jay and Colleen running and that just really makes me feel great. I feel better about our future as a city when I see citizens step forward who obviously are capable and just want to do what's good for the city. Having said that, I decided to run for one more term, because I'm pretty thoroughly engaged right now, and I'd like to continue to engage in the issues I'm working on right now. I'm the representative member for the city on the port and harbors advisory board. I'm also serving on the fisheries work group. I'm presently on the board of directors of the Alaska Municipal League, and I'm the president of the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference [SWAMC], which is our economic entity for the region. And we're doing some very exciting work right now, so I would like to continue to be engaged in those things. I think I still have another term's worth of usefulness in me and after that…. [comments ended due to timer beeping]
Rich Walker: You know, our city council has worked hard meeting the day to day challenges, and they are day to day challenges. And the reality for future projects… and the list that we have moving forward, as far as infrastructure projects for our town, a lot of our areas, water, sewer, sewer treatment plants... If we wanted to expand, you know, we can't right now, we need upgrades and all that. All of the downtown areas, all those have plans to redo all the utilities down there. They're so old and antiquated. And I agree that, you know, one of the biggest things we need is we need to work on the housing shortage here in the town. And I just want to let everybody know that I've enjoyed working on the city council for the last 12 years, and I feel that we've come a long way…[comments ended due to timer beeping]
KMXT: That concludes the City Council Candidate Forum. Thank you to Jay Celli, Colleen Ford, Terry Haines, and Richard Walker for participating. Thank you to the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce, KMXT, and the Kodiak Island Borough for making the Sept. 9 forum possible.
A reminder that municipal Election day is Tuesday, Oct. 1. Get to know your candidates and the issues, then take a few minutes on Oct. 1 to cast your vote.
