There are ten service area boards that handle things like fire protection or road maintenance within certain areas of the Kodiak Island Borough. Two of those are inactive and more than half have vacant member positions.
Service areas are geographically defined sections of the borough where the residents pay taxes dedicated to special services. For example, Service Area No. 1’s Board proposes a budget for road maintenance within an area that includes Mission Lake, Spruce Cape and homes off of East Rezanof Drive close to Mill Bay.
Raymond May, a longtime commercial fisherman, lives within Service Area 1 off of Woodland Drive and told the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly during a work session on Feb. 13 that he has not seen any action taken by the board recently.
“I’m very frustrated with what’s going on in Service District 1," May stated. "We’ve had two meetings for Service District 1, that I can find, in the last almost three years.”
The last time that service area’s Board held a regular meeting was in March of 2024. Its last scheduled meeting was for April 9, 2024 according to the borough’s database but that meeting was canceled.
May’s wife, Julianne Curry, requested that the assembly address road drainage issues that have been impacting their home on Woodland Drive – something they would typically bring to their service area board.
“The second half of Woodland Drive, the closer that you get to Spruce Cape Trail, the more significant the drainage issues get on that road. We have water that’s constantly draining into our driveway, creating an unsafe and hazardous driving condition in the winter time as our entire driveway ices up," she said. "This is due in part to road runoff.”
The lack of meetings is not unique to Service Area No. 1 - others like the Monashka Bay Road Service Area, haven’t met for multiple years. That board only has two members and hasn’t held a meeting since March of 2022.
Similarly, the Mission Lake Tidegate Service Area has only been meeting once a year for the past four years. Prior to 2020 it hadn’t held a regular meeting since February of 2017 according to borough records.
Based on Borough code, every service area board is supposed to meet at least once a quarter. But there aren’t any clear enforcement actions the borough can take if they don’t. Nova Javier, the Borough Clerk, said a local petition from voters living within the service area to potentially abolish or alter a service area can be brought to the Borough Assembly and then an election would be required for qualified voters to decide.
In some instances, sporadic meetings are due to a lack of members to achieve quorum and multiple vacancies that go unfilled for months or even years. But in other instances, like with Service Area No. 1, there is a full board yet a meeting has not been scheduled. That is the responsibility of the Board Chair, Borough Mayor Scott Arndt.
Arndt is also a board member of the Fire Protection Area No. 1 Board which is a five-member board with one vacancy.
“That’s probably my fault, for not calling more meetings, on there, just to be frank with you," he said.
Arndt added that more than one Service Area No. 1 Board meeting will be scheduled in the coming weeks so that the board can handle the annual budget program and other issues.
But despite some service area boards not holding quarterly meetings, Arndt said that their work is still getting done either by the Borough Assembly or through collaboration with other service area boards. For example, he said he handles duties for the Trinity Islands or Woodland Acres Street Light Service Areas which currently don’t have any members but are not labeled as “inactive."
Then there’s the Airport Fire Protection Board, which hasn’t been active in roughly 20 years as the Womens Bay Fire Protection District picked up their duties in a contract from 2001 which was updated in 2023.
Mayor Arndt said that service area board hasn’t been needed, and it demonstrates how other service areas or even the Borough Assembly picks up the slack as needed.
“There’s a fire district out at the airport, there’s no board for that either. Is that a problem?" Arndt asked. "Doesn’t appear to be after all these years; same with the street lighting. If there was a problem, then we’d be doing something different but there’s not a problem.”
Still some public complaints have been brought to the Borough Assembly in previous years and as recently as Feb. 13 to address issues within Service Area No. 1 specifically.
May urged the Borough Assembly to consider taking over management of that service area instead of continuing with the status quo.
“I'm asking you guys to either address Service District One and make them accountable or take over Service District One so we can address the issue we have," he stated. "It's very frustrating when I'm doing my due diligence on my property, but I'm not seeing it done on the borough side.”
Borough Clerk Javier told KMXT it’s not stated in Borough code that the Borough Assembly could take over a Service Area Board. That power likely remains with the voters and residents of the respective service areas to dissolve or drastically change a board through a petition and local election process.
Javier said she has reached out to the Borough’s attorney, Scott Brandt-Erichsen, for more information and clarification on what is legal in municipal code regarding Service Area Boards.
