Borough Lands Committee Work Session of April 6, 2026

Okay. We'll go ahead and start the Côte d'Ivoire Borough Lands Committee work session for Monday, April 6th. It's 12:00 here in the Borough Assembly Chambers. We are going to start off with citizens' comments. If there is anybody in the audience who would like to come up to the microphone, there is 3 minutes per speaker.

Or if anyone on the phone would like to call in, 1-907-486-8336. 3-2-3-1 Or toll-free 1-855-492-9202. And we'll give them a few, a few seconds to, uh, to call in.

All right. Seeing no calls and I think we have guests later to speak on some proposals here. We are also waiting for Community Development Director Chris French too. So his items are A and B. Be here.

So, and I'd like him to be here especially for the housekeeping discussion. But we'll go ahead and start. Even though we're not taking roll, this is kind of a new Lands Committee. So let's just kind of go down the row, just introduce yourself and what seat you are representing here, just so the public knows who we have. So I'm Jared Griffin, Mayor of the Kodiak Island Borough.

And to my left I'm Rich Walker. I'm with the City of Kodiak.

Good afternoon. I am Lieutenant Commander Zach Ballard, the Assistant Facilities Engineer from Coast Guard Base Kodiak, representing Coast Guard Base Kodiak. I'm Dave Johnson from the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly. Tracy Craig from City Planning and Commissioner, Planning and Zoning. Beau Whiteside, Kodiak Island Borough Assembly.

Hi, everybody. Sarah Fraser. I'm the current Chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission representing the borough seat on this committee. Thanks.

Corey Grahn representing the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Corporations in the Kodiak Region. And we also have Administrative Official Seema Garut here. Hello.

So let's just jump down to Letter C, discussion of the 2026 Disposal Principles and Screening Criteria. So one of the things that I would like to do is, for public transparency and for kind of committee consistency, I've talked about this with DPO Whiteside and Director French and Manager Williams about seeing if we can come together on some guiding principles for the committee and a much more, I think, clear process for land disposal with some possible screening criteria. My intent for this is just to make the meetings go quickly or more efficiently, not quickly necessarily, but more efficiently, and also to give staff some more specific and explicit instruction and direction on what we would like from them to help us make our decisions. So I believe that Lena handed out a hard copy draft, and there's also one attached in the supplemental materials on the agenda online for those who would like to follow along. Again, this is just a draft.

This is just a work session. I'm just going to kind of go down, just hit some highlights. And I know Director French has some comments to add some things. But kind of a general discussion for us. So on this document, I had a few things in mind.

The purpose for giving the Committee a more clear framework is to help us evaluate borough-owned parcels. For possible disposal. And the framework that I've been thinking of is kind of a three-part framework where we look at— we look at parcels that are most ready for disposal now, parcels that may be suitable for disposal after additional work, and then parcels that we want to hold on to for potential future public purpose or planning or infrastructure. And I— my intent is to kind of reduce some ad hoc decision-making and ensure that we are really talking more intentionally about the long-term interests of the public here. So, there are several principles, and I'll just kind of list them and see if there are any comments about them.

So, under these disposal principles, the first one is public purpose comes first. We shouldn't dispose of land unless the committee, right, is reasonably satisfied that it is surplus and that there is a need that's going to be met. The second principle is that readiness matters. We should prioritize parcels that can be brought to market with minimal legal planning, infrastructure, any other kind of uncertainties that are out there, and that we feel that we've done enough work to understand what is— what is actually being offered to the public. Predictability.

I would like to see us follow a deliberately more publicly understandable sequence so that not just we understand, but everybody, our public also understands. And so to reduce some of the— reduce one-off decisions that might come up or we might feel pressure to make. We should be looking at best use. That we advance broader community goals, including housing supply, development, economic use, and compatibility.

Protect municipal flexibility. We should be cautious about disposing of land that may be needed for future public facilities, open space, public safety, shoreline, things like that. Fairness. We— the public should be able to see very clearly the basis for our prioritization of lands. G, avoid conflict, obviously, with other adopted plans or zonings.

And revenue is a factor, of course. But those are legitimate, but we should balance that with our need and long-term interests. So that was just kind of a laundry list right there of some of the things I've been reading and thinking about some of the best practices for lands Committee. Is there any discussion or comments or feedback on those? Yes, Corey?

Just B, readiness, the borough should prioritize. Who is the borough? Who is that representing that? Who is putting forward the parcels for discussion, or is that from this Committee? Yes, from— that's a good question.

I imagine it's from this Committee and then— I mean, it's the Assembly that represents the borough. In that case.

So I think when we bring a parcel to the Bureau, we should nominate those kinds of parcels that we think are ready for the Assembly to approve. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MAY] And then my follow-up to that is that it's some of this stuff based on future Bureau needs that we're not privy to necessarily. How are we meeting those objectives if that's going to be put into this document? [Speaker:COMMISSIONER DIXON] Great question. And I wish Director French was here to talk about that.

My idea or my goal would be to— the Comprehensive Plan that they're working on, the Plan 2045, would help make— help us guide that. It's essentially the Borough Assembly's decision to decide whether or not if it meets borough future needs like that. But I think our guiding document will be that Comprehensive Plan.

Yes, Sarah. Thanks. For Item C, Predictability Over Opportunism, the second sentence under that section says residents, neighbors, developers, and staff should be able to see why one parcel is moving and another is not. When we say able to see, does that mean that they should just be able to follow along with the existing public record, it kind of in the way that we deal with things now, or are we looking at coming up with some other— a website or some other mode for people to get information on land sales? A website would be great.

Director French has a— and that's letter B on our agenda— has a pipeline that the public should be able to, yes, follow along in that pipeline. And it would be great to— oh, there he is. Come on down.

Putting it on the web is.

I think a very good idea, especially for public and developers who can see.

Hey, Chris, welcome. Would you mind introducing yourself? My name is Chris French. I'm the Community Development Director for the Kodiak Island Borough. Thanks.

We are just now going over some of the disposal principles that are in that draft that I think you had some comments on. Mr. May? I think overall the principles look fine. I had some minor things in my comments on there, so I don't know if I necessarily need to go over all of them, but I think from the standpoint of what the Committee would be looking at in terms of land disposals or looking at borough lands for disposal, I think the main focus The message that I suggest would be, you know, understanding how long it might take to have property developed and then what your process is for disposal. One suggestion I did make to the mayor was the committee may want to look at our disposal methods that we have outlined in code.

That might be the most important thing to do because a lot of times we are We are restricted by code in terms of whether we're going to do sealed bids auction or we're going to do an outcry auction or we're going to do an RFP. Those are really our three options that we have for disposing of property. If there's other methods that the committee would like to look at, have staff research, we certainly can do that. We can look at other communities in the state and see what other methods have been used. I know I can tell you when I was in— Ketchikan, we used all the 3 methods that I just mentioned, but we had also used— we actually had a contract with a broker to sell property.

However, I would say the properties that we were selling through the broker in Ketchikan were pretty much ready to go to sell. I think a lot of the issues that we have for property here in the borough is that there's some work that needs to be done, especially as you get to properties that need utility and even some access construction. So those typically wouldn't be ready. Having a broker contract is really if those properties are ready to go and wouldn't be an option here, I don't think. But we certainly can look and research other potential options that other communities in Alaska use.

If I may, Mr. Mayor, on the— mm-hmm. I think we've—. The borough seems like they use public outcry auctions mostly, I think. And I think they've sold all lands, to my knowledge. So it seems like that process works.

I'm not sure we would need to consider the others if we have a working process. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] And I think that that's mostly determined by the Assembly, right? They are going to come up with the terms of the sale too, but there are options, yeah. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER DIXON] If you don't mind, now that Director French is here, I would like to put to pause on this and go back to the items A and B because I think those might help create some framework for what we are doing or what we would like to do. Back to Agenda A, the Organizational Committee Housekeeping Discussion.

Director French, you— one thing that— let me see. Let me pull that back up. There it is. One thing that Community Development staff had wanted to talk about was to talk about some potential review conflicts. For properties that need P&Z Commission review, not a conflict of interest, but you said a professional non-biased review of cases.

Can you talk about that a little more? That would be more for, you know, where Community Development would be in terms of the process of selling property. Okay. The reason why I say there can be viewed as a conflict if staff is reviewing a subdivision request. So if the borough developed a property that's being considered to be sold needs a subdivision— and I'm not talking about ones that go through the RFP process because that's a little bit of a different situation.

But if it's one where, for example, the Island Lake property where we already have some subdivision work done in the past, but staff is going to be reviewing a subdivision that's going to be coming in to subdivide property Also rezoning, so going— reviewing it for a rezone and those kind of things. I think there's a lot of good reasons for keeping the Community Development out of the sale of property because then I think it can be viewed as, you know, staff is biased in their review of a rezone case or biased in their review of a subdivision because the borough has already said they want to sell this property. And so trying to keep those separate, I think, is important. I think it's— I don't know if that's really a huge deal. I think the Manager's Office certainly can help with spinning up some of that staffing for the sale piece and so that the Community Development staff is kind of out of that part of it and can focus on the subdivision and rezoning processes.

Okay. That makes sense. So then I think then that just dovetails into the pipeline.

Were there— sorry, were there any questions or comments for Director French? Okay. So then, yeah, I think that dovetails into— Item B then. Let's take a look at that pipeline and then maybe you can tell us or direct us on where you might see that community development conflict in. So I'm looking on page 3.

You're looking at the flowchart? Yeah, the flowchart. Okay.

So if we look at the Island Lake properties land disposal, we're already somewhat through a portion of that process. Gone through the Planning and Zoning Commission's review of whether the property is surplus or not, and we're at the Assembly now for disposal resolution review.

In terms of Community Development's involvement in that process, there really isn't an issue. It's not until we get through the Assembly's review process with regards to the disposal and we start getting into the actual parts of contracting with a surveyor and that kind of stuff where you're getting into being, say, an applicant for a subdivision or a rezone versus staff who's reviewing those applications. That's where we would have to have some separation there of borough staff duties. So after that disposal has been— say it's approved by the Assembly with its terms of sale, then we would get into what would normally be an applicant or developer process, which Community Development staff should be separate from that because we will be reviewing a subdivision that a surveyor would be producing and we would be reviewing rezone applications. That's part of the original recommendation from the Lands Committee was to rezone the Island Lake property to the R-2 zone.

Okay. I think that makes sense to me. Do you mind walking us through that flowchart from the beginning where we can talk about the— Let me zoom in so I can see all of you. Okay. I know I had to zoom into like almost 80%.

Just again, just want to set our expectations and standards for this committee here. So we see at the beginning there's this— the green oval that says Lands Committee, and then at that point, our work is done? [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] So, yes. I would say the part where I think there's a little bit of— seems like a circular process is going back to having to go to the Assembly twice because for the Island Lake property, we went to the Lands Committee, then we went to the Assembly to review that recommendation of the Lands Committee, and then the Assembly approved a resolution there. Directing staff to submit an application to the Commission.

I think— and the Code is really silent. The Code doesn't have anything. If you look at Title 18 of the Borough Code, there is really nothing in terms of the Lands Committee. It is not really discussed in that title. So there is a possibility, I think, it must— one of the staff's suggestions was, you know, there is the Lands Committee has its recommendation.

That might go to the Manager for the Manager to initiate that recommendation. To the Planning and Zoning Commission so they can look at it in terms of whether it's a surplus property or not. And therefore, once the Commission acts, then both the Lands Committee recommendation and the.

Commission's recommendation on the disposal can all then go on to the Assembly, and so you are not having to necessarily go to the Assembly twice for a disposal.

Sorry, just taking notes.

So thanks for putting this flowchart together for the Assembly and for P&Z and for LANS also.

Are there any questions or discussion about the flowchart for Mr. French? Just timing-wise, Mr. French, do you see— it's been over a year. It's been 14 months, actually, almost working on 15. Do you see this as— this length of process being standard, or is this taking longer than normal? I mean, it depends on what the— it depends on the nature of what's needed for the property.

So, for example, for the Island Lake property, it— you know, there is a subdivision that's required. As part of that subdivision, there will be some work that's required because there's some drainage ditches and things that need to be dug because of some drainage issues on that property that are pretty well known. So those will have to be dealt with before the subdivision can be recorded. Once the subdivision is recorded, then the rezoning can go on to the Assembly for its action because once we have an actual legal description for these lots. Then we'd be able to rezone them.

Those processes are— the process for the rezone is pretty well known. It goes to the Commission for a hearing and then it goes to the Assembly for really two readings. So that's a pretty well-known process. What changes that length for each property is just how much work is needed on the property and if you're going to be— what kind of disposal methods. So if you're going through an RFP process, that's going to be a more lengthy process than if you're just doing an outcry auction or a sealed bid auction, for example.

So after that— so I think depending on what's needed for the property, this is pretty standard for it, I think. And also, as in terms of what's needed for the property, does it need to be rezoned would be the other thing. So, you know, if we have like the Island Lake was a public use lands district, then you would need to determine what kind of residential district you'd want it to go to. And we would have to rezone it. But, you know, it's possible that not all borough property that could be looked for sale would need a rezoning.

However, I think a lot of the ones we've— the Committee has already looked at, some type of rezoning would probably be needed. Even if it's going through an RFP process, you would probably get proposals from someone that would probably recommend that rezoning take place and also, of course, subdivision. Would need to take place because a lot of those other properties that we're talking about, the Beaver Lake properties, they would certainly need subdivision as well. Can I do a follow-up? Sure.

Follow-up to that. So as we look at these principles and things, so really, in reality, as we look at properties for surplus, we're looking at about a 2-year process before it— before we select something to— it goes to public outcry, RFP, et cetera. Is that a fair statement? So— and I think it's important for me, as I understand, that I'm looking 2 and 3 and 4 years out, not something that will happen in the next 12 months. I don't think it's— I mean, Island Lake property is probably the closest property, at least of the ones that the committee has reviewed, that would be the closest to development.

And even that one needs subdivisions, rezoning, and some work done on the property. When you get to the Beaver Lake properties or to the other properties that the committee has looked at, it needs a lot more work on those because it actually needs utilities, to the property and other things done as well. So, um, 2 years for that one. That—. I mean, I see that one could be more than 2 years.

Island Lake, I can't imagine that would take longer than 2 years to get that one completely done, but it certainly would take several months to get to the point where it would be ready to put them up for sale.

Um, I've, uh, in terms of like our, our organization, um or our structure, have you seen, does it make sense for us to create a more predictable calendar for us so that we make disposal recommendations once a year or twice a year, you know, every 6 months or so? We know that there's going to be some kind of movement from this committee for disposal recommendations. Or does it work better for you and for the time process to just address them as recommendations come up and just have it just rolling? I think if you could package a number of properties together at a time, that would be helpful instead of kind of like stringing them along. I think, for example, Beaver Lake property is probably— And I think they were looked at, they just happened to be where the votes were, but those being kind of bundled together maybe, you know, made sense in terms of how you review them.

It may not make sense in terms of how it's submitted for an RFP. It may make sense to have those in two different RFP requests, but in terms of reviewing them at the same time and looking at making a disposal recommendation, those would make sense. I would suggest bundling them where you can so that you give staff— if they can be. I mean, I could see if they're not really close together or whatever, it may not make sense. But if they are somewhat nearby, if you could bundle them, I think that would help staff with timing and those kind of things.

Maybe I can put my assembly members and mayor on the hot seat for a minute. When we approve— when the Bureau of Lands looks at some of these properties that maybe require some investment of infrastructure, Do, um, does our borough assembly members and mayor, do you guys consider that as far as your CIP process, uh, going into the future year, or is this kind of shoved off onto the staff and then they bring their recommendations? I guess I'm trying to look at from a process standpoint, because if we approve a subdivision that requires $3 million in capital improvements, that's probably not a 2-year or 1-year process. That's a further out, right? So I guess, how do you guys view that?

I don't think we've ever put it on a put the development on a CIP list. Mr. Arndt might have some historical knowledge, but Mr. Whiteside? [Speaker:MR. WHITESIDE] Yeah, I think we can address— better address that question when we get back to this draft screening criteria and the matrix.

I think once we get through the rest of that document, we can better answer that question. So I'm happy to revisit it then. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MAY] I'm okay with that, too.

Any other questions for Mr. French or for—. My only final comment is I think we've approved two, at least in my time since I've been here, we've approved two plots of land to— for push forward. I appreciate having this update in our regular packets as we meet just to know because we did the work, we did the effort, we talked about it and then it just kind of goes mum's the word and I read about it in the daily news. Paper or I look at the BUR website.

So maybe for our packet materials, maybe we can have updates along the way. It would be nice. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MAY] I am fine with including updates. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks. Thank you, Director French.

With Mr. Weisheit's recommendation, yeah, let's go back to the screening criteria, and that actually might help us along the way. So I included, you know, as part of a decision-making framework, sometimes you need a threshold question before continuing on, and so I included one in here for us to consider that after a parcel has been recommended to us, we should have a discussion if there's a reasonable basis to consider the parcel surplus or appropriate for disposal at all. And then that way we can come to some general consensus before we actually start really getting into some of the details of the parcel and our recommended— and our recommendation. And that screening criteria I've— there's a list there and there's also— I developed— there's another document, the screening matrix. And these are basically just yes/no questions for staff and for the committee just to help guide the discussion, I think, a little more formulaically.

And Chris, I had not— I didn't see if you had any comments on this. On this part yet. But so it's broken down into 5 categories. The first one is, right, does this meet, you know, municipal needs, municipal operations? The second one is kind of more the legal things that we need to think about and talk about.

And again, we're relying on staff for a lot of this.

3 Is for planning and any entitlements that— such as, right, we got the subdivisions and replatting, or the subdivision in the Island Lake case. And then we get to 4, which I think is what Corey and Beau were getting at, is really talking about the physical infrastructure of it all. What is going to be needed at that point? And then, is there a market? We should talk about if there's even a market for the land.

And if not, then, you know, what does it mean? So, you know, questions or discussion about these? We're not voting on approving these today because I still want you to take them and think about them and talk to your constituents about them too. But, you know, so I'm a teacher, I'm an educator, so having rubrics sometimes just helps and it makes grading a whole lot faster sometimes. And I say faster, more efficient, because it's not always quicker, but makes things a little more efficient, more time effective for, for me.

So, um, uh, what do you think? Is this something you can find helpful? I'll ask, I guess, Mr. French first. Do you have your own screening matrix that—. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] Yeah, we do not.

I mean, typically, Community Developments hasn't been— historically, has not been involved too much into the disposal other than the review of surplus. But, I mean, I think having this kind of methodology is good, and I don't see really any problems. The comments I had were more just, you know, small things, and so they are not really substantial. So what I think you have here looks pretty good.

Mr. Weisheit. Thank you. I think just speaking to not just the criteria or I guess criteria and this draft proposal for screening property for the community for considering for disposal is I agree. I've been paying attention to these meetings for quite a few years now and we are now just barely getting to the Assembly level of making a decision on if we are going to dispose property. Meetings have been infrequent.

I think this adds structure to the process in that we should— could and should meet more frequently. We should put more properties in front of the Assembly, but how do we get there? How do we determine which properties are actually feasible? And I think using these criteria is how we get there quickly. You know, from the Assembly perspective, the need is great.

We all know that. But how do we remove our personal biases on what properties should be forwarded to the Assembly and then through the P&Z process? And so I think that's what this screening criteria enables us to do. So from the borough perspective, we have limited funding for infrastructure development. I'm not aware of anything coming through the— to your earlier question, through a CIP list for federal or state funding.

I don't anticipate that happening, to be honest. I think we have limited resources available for any sort of infrastructure development. So I think we need to take that into account when we are looking at these properties is we have limited capacity for infrastructure. We should determine what meets the immediate needs. So from my perspective representing as a borough representative is we have strong demand here in town for workforce housing needs.

I'm getting away from the word affordable, uh, and going— we have— there's— there's— we have low-income housing. I'm viewing affordable housing as low-income housing. There's plenty of capacity there for those who qualify. What we need to— or what I'm looking through the lens of is entry-level housing for our workforce. There's people who want to move here, there's jobs available, there's not entry-level housing available to them.

So that's how I'm prioritizing using this tool is what properties are available now that are in town or very close to town that we can forward to the assembly that have minimal needs for infrastructure development. So thinking about condensed, small lot, low infrastructure expansion type projects or properties that we can move forward and have entry-level housing available to the community. So I think that's where this criteria can help us narrow down the large amount of options into what best serves our community for entry-level housing within the constraints of very limited revenue for— or, or funding for infrastructure development. We can't just throw all these properties out into the front with the expectation that we can put roads in, we can expand utilities for, for properties that won't suit the need, the immediate need of our community. And that's, that's how I view my perspective as a member of this Committee and a representative of the Bureau.

So a little bit long-winded there to sort of come full circle. I think this is a great document that can help us identify what meets the immediate needs and then, you know, some more longer-term projects or properties for disposal, but understanding that we have limited resources to do that. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] Thank you. Mr. Johnson, and then— We'll take Rich and then back to Corey.

Thank you. I think it's a good process. My perspective on it, though, is that it's very clearly tailored to today's problems. I would rather see a more future-proofed process because right now, yes, workforce-level housing is, you know, the elephant in the room. 10 Years from now, it might be something different.

And I will go ahead and air our dirty laundry in saying that absent a strategic plan or something that these committees can go back to and align their recommendations with, it can create a lot of frustration and wasted effort. If this committee is focusing on— workforce housing and the assembly has decided that that's no longer an issue, you could spend a year's worth of meetings coming up with recommendations for properties for disposal that don't go anywhere because it's not what the assembly is looking for. So I think the assembly owes the committees more guidance on what they should be looking for. And yes, the criteria and the rubric is great, but I think the overarching guidance is what's lacking. Mr. Walker.

Well, what was it, how long has it been now, a year and a half, maybe almost 2 years when we had the committee talking about the properties over on Saleef? And one thing that as a committee that we've done is, which I think was great, is anybody that was interested, we had really good conversations about, you you know, what type of development would work on those weird lots that are over there by the lake and everything. And then it— we kind of let the contractors that were looking or interested in bidding on lots or how to develop over there. I thought that was a good way. And basically what you have here is kind of what we followed.

Back then, and it's nice to get developers and contractors with good ideas that looked it over, make it more economical in the future. So I like this format, and I think moving forward, there's a lot of good meetings coming in the future.

Thank you. Mr. Grawn and then Mr. Whiteside. I think the— I like it, but I would strike H from the entire document. Revenue is a factor, not the only factor. The borough sells any of this land, unless it goes to a nonprofit, it will be revenue in perpetuity.

So although it's short-term today, it's very long-term in the long range of the borough. So I would just strike that language completely. I don't believe it's necessary. But I think it gives us a good starting point. So thank you for starting.

No, thank you. Mr. Weisheit. Thank you. I would like to follow up and request maybe an expansion from the Committee if you have suggestions on— I appreciate that, you know, we do have some shortcomings as far as guidance coming down from the Assembly on what we should focus on as a Committee. So what would be useful from your perspective as far as guidance from the Committee on what types of properties we should focus our attention?

If you're looking for an answer, I'll give a statement. I think the borough should put out as much land as possible. If you look on Zillow today, there's probably 3 available lots. So that shows me we have a very much— we have a lack of housing. A lot of private developers have lots of land and they hold it until it's ripe for them.

So I think through the borough process, 1 lot per person through an outcry auction, put out as much as we can and let the borough citizens develop. And I don't care if it's for a mansion. I don't care if it's for a trailer. I don't care if it's for a duplex, townhome. I—.

To me, I think we just need to get as much inventory out as possible.

Ms. Craig? Yeah, I— and Mr. Beese, I do think that we need housing, but I question— I just question how much.

We need, because I hear from people, you know, Tracy, these houses sit empty. You know, some of these people have like 2 Airbnbs, some of them have 3 Airbnbs, and they're not there. And if we build housing, I think it's great, but how do we know it's going to be used for what we say it's going to be used? We don't really have any rules. You know, I just I worry a little bit that we're going to be in the same situation because we don't have anything in place that's going to stop people from doing that.

Yeah, and that would be—. And so, yeah, we can open it up and we can say, yeah, this is what this housing is for, but what if it's not used for that? And then we're just back to where we started. So, and I don't know if that's a concern for everybody, maybe it's not, but that's just what I hear from people. Is you can open up all the land you want, but it's not going to help us because there's nothing— we don't have any rules, you know, like one person can have two Airbnbs or one person can have three, you know.

I don't know, and I don't know if we need to do that first, you know. I just don't know. That's my only concern. Thank you. That it wouldn't actually be used for what we I would say it is.

[Speaker:COMMISSIONER STEINGASSER] We do have the zoning code, right? So at least for borough land that we can control, we do get to— we have some say on what the allowable uses of the property would be.

But to piggyback off of stuff that's already been said, we obviously have a very narrow scope here in that we're looking at lands that are owned by the Kodiak Island Borough. But, um, in terms of how we should move forward, I do think it would be really valuable to hear about any efforts that the Assembly is thinking about that, um, could incentivize the private property owners that are already sitting on some of the most developable vacant land in the borough. So the, the Fairbanks North Star Borough currently has an incentive program related to reduced or deferred taxes. I think it's 10 years.

There's stipulations, of course, for numbers of bedrooms and types of properties, but I think from our perspective Knowing about some of those broader efforts that the Assembly might be considering would probably inform our strategy pretty well.

That's great. So really quick, so what I'm hearing, at least for future agendas, updates on where we are with lands that the Land Committee has recommended and then maybe an Assembly report. Just kind of helping with some of that direction, I think. And so that would— that means that we will need to probably put that on our own agendas so that we can direct the Lands Committee. Bo?

[Speaker:COMMISSIONER_MILLER] Yeah. I just want to touch on there are active discussions happening now at the Assembly level on how we dispose of the process and if we are going to put any sort of limitations on what the property can be used for. So that is being actively discussed for property that is in front of us now at the Assembly level. So anything we want to bring forth as far as suggestions for limitations for future parcels or land that we are going to forward to the Assembly, I am confident that the Assembly would be receptive to your ideas on that. And I agree.

I share that concern. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MAY] Okay. So, yeah, we are going to take a look at this again with your suggestions and feel free to email or text me with other comments or questions or changes and I will put them in an edited document and we will definitely look at this.

Again, and some more. We don't want to make a hasty decision on this. Thank you so very much for all of your feedback. I do want to give some time because we were talking about parts of recommendations. We do actually have a recommendation in front of us that they are— we have some representatives from KA here that I'd like to give them some time to talk about their request.

And then if we have time, we can take a look at some other— right now we're calling low-hanging fruit, but maybe in the screening document, it might be like a Tier 1, something that we can move on or at least look to bundle quickly for staff. So the KEA request, the letter is attached there in the agenda from Chair Freed, and they are looking at for parcel numbers within the Terra Lake Hydroelectric Project boundaries. And so Dan and Linda, would you like to come down and talk about your recommendation or your request? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Turn it on so you can hear me. And I'm not the chairman of the KEA Board of Directors.

I'm the chairman of the Budget and Policy Committee. Mike Brecken is our chairperson. And the information that I think you need is in the request. This parcel— these parcels— it's got one parcel number, there's four tracts, one of which is the bottom of Tara Lake. I was really surprised.

I didn't know about that one until I started to research it. These parcels were originally acquired by the borough as we were doing the municipal land entitlement selections, and the purpose was to try and help KEA and the Terra Lake Hydroelectric Project. And you'll recall, those of you that have been here for a while, the state built Terra Lake and the state owned it for some period of time. So when this land selection was being done, the state owned the property in the vicinity, as well as some of the native corporations have done some of their selections in the area as well. Over time, the Four Dam Pool bought the Terra Lake Dam and Some time after that, KEA became the landowner in the area.

We bought the project from the Four Dam Pool. We are starting to go through relicensing of that project. It's a federal requirement. And having the ownership of this land would help consolidate the project as we put it forward to the federal government. So we wouldn't have quite so much multiple land ownership in the area.

We are happy to pay for the cost of transferring the land, and we would love your recommendation to the Borough Assembly that it be granted to KEA. I did note the code provision in the— in Kodiak Island Borough Code that allows it to be a negotiated transfer because we essentially would be using it for a public purpose. I would be happy to answer questions and Dan's here. I will let him add anything that he wants. So just for the record, Dan Minth, President and CEO for Kodiak Electric.

Linda did a great job summarizing everything so we can answer questions if anyone has any, but I would stress again that these parcels are already surrounded by, you know, KEA property. We have no intention of developing it or anything to that, just really cleaning up the property records. And hoping to ease with our relicensing process, which will be kicking off here in May. So just getting that land ownership in order is a— just to call it a step in the right direction. It's a long process, very expensive process.

The license is expired in 2031, but it takes years to get it going. So it is actively kicking into gear shortly. And with that, happy to answer any questions. I'm sorry, Linda. Is this needed for relicensing, or this would just help with—.

It's not needed. It's just cleaning up the records. It would make it a little bit cleaner. So we're not under a time crunch for—. Well, the sooner we can get it done, the licensing process is kicking off now.

There will be some preliminary meetings being held. We're not going to do in-person. I can get more information if anyone is interested in listening in. But it is a long process. The FERC agencies are going to be more and more engaged as of May.

So getting this done— I am going to look at Linda here a little bit because I am not exactly sure how long it would take for the process to push through here. But the sooner it could happen, the easier it would be for us to incorporate into our records that we could then turn over to FERC for the relicensing process. Even though the license expires in 2031, we want to have it sitting on FERC's plate literally years in advance. Okay. In a 28-year time period.

Correct. Questions for KEA? Mr. Whiteside. Thank you. So this is a tough request for me as a representative of the community, and I say that because KEA just raised their electric rates for utility rates for our community by, I believe, 13 to 15%.

I don't remember the exact number, but it is a very high increase. Folks are feeling that now, especially with this longer winter. It's a tough ask for me as a representative of the community. You're not asking me, you're asking the community if you— for us to essentially gift you these parcels at the cost of transfer process, which is essentially no cost as I view it. So my question for you is, to be candid, what's in it for the community?

What's the benefit for the community based on an increase, an increase in rates, and now you are asking the community to give up public land for this process.

Us what is the benefit for the community. I will go first and if Linda has anything to add. It was a 12.5% rate increase. It was the first rate increase we had had in 30 years. So we worked pretty hard to keep that flat after all the inflation and whatnot after COVID.

What is in it for the community? This FERC relicensing process can be very expensive. The folks who are over in Cordova are going through it now and they are estimating, you know, on either side of $2 million. This could ease the cost, and I'm going to use the word could. I mean, it should ease the cost to the membership.

KEA is not going to sell the land. We're not going to develop it or anything like that. It would strictly just benefit the cooperative by making the Terra Lake facility more uniform, the relicensing process hopefully faster and cheaper. If I didn't add anything. And just to say, the borough selected this land in order to help protect the Terra Lake project.

Back in the early '80s. I happened to work for the borough at the time. So now is a time that it would make a difference for the co-op and all of us who are members to have it transferred to help reduce that cost as we relicense. It wasn't done initially because the borough didn't want to give— the borough had just taken this selection from the state, wasn't about to turn it around and give it back to the state as part of the project. But it's a within the project boundaries.

And so the Bureau really can't do anything with it either. However, as Dan said, it allows us to consolidate the property in the project area and we would hope it would help reduce our costs for relicensing.

Ms. Crane? So if it—. Are we going to have to pay pay more for our electric because you have to pay for relicensing? You know, we don't know that, but the fact is, is that we have to pay for the relicensing. We do our best as your board members— we're all elected like many of you are— we do our best to keep the rates stable, and we're able to do that for 30 years.

Okay, there's— we pay less for our residential electricity than anyone on the rail belt. Homer pays more, Anchorage pays more, Fairbanks pays more, and you know the remote areas pay way more than all of us. We've done, we think, a good job of keeping the rates stable, but there are things within our community that we don't have control over. And if you want to flip the switch, we need to have enough income to allow us to do that.

Mr. Gronn. So I guess I'm missing the whole part of how does this help in your licensing requirement process. Is it because it's part of the boundary and you have to certify that? I guess I'm missing how— and how would it save any money? I'm missing that process.

And so I've just— we haven't done this. You know, we have a 50-year lease. That lease is going to be up. What we do know is— I mean, I think we all know that FERC and government overreach can start getting into things. So if they start looking at, well, who owns this piece of property, who owns this, who owns the property from the beach up to Tara Lake, it just makes the process more complicated, which in turn makes it more expensive.

So when I say I hesitate to say it should make it cheaper, it should make it cleaner and therefore cheaper. I can't make any promises and neither should Linda. I mean, what we are trying to do is— and let me back up. I mean, we just went through the FERC Part 12 comprehensive assessment. We have got great relationships with FERC, U.S.

Fish and Wildlife. I mean, there's a lot of things that we do all the time that hopefully will make this relicensing process smooth. We are very good stewards of the land. We want to do everything that we can to be proactive, and this is just a very small piece of maybe making that relicensing process a little bit smoother for the membership. And like I said, this process, which is kicking off in a couple months, will take a couple years.

And all we can hope for is smooth and inexpensive. And it is something we haven't had to deal with for—. Is it a letter of certification of who owns the property? I guess how does this fit into the process? That is what I am missing.

Like—. Yeah, I was going to ask Mr. French just that question of how does that fit in. I will keep it at a 30,000-foot level because I can't go any lower. FERC is going to come in or the government agencies will come in and say, explain all the land ownership. And specifically, these parcels are surrounded by what is under KES control now.

So is that a problem? I got you. Hopefully not. I can— Mr. French, I'm thinking in taking those two, were there some—.

I mean, I don't know a whole lot about the FERC process other than I've reviewed several cases related to FERC, like the ones in the villages. I do know that if you can reduce the amount of time that you have to hire a consultant to work on it, you certainly will. Reduce your cost for the project. So I know for some of those Village projects where they had to get approvals from— because they were working on federal land, it did extend their process significantly and did certainly cost more because they didn't have control over the property.

We understand this is a work session and you can't make a recommendation today, but we are happy to answer any questions you may have between now and your next regular meeting and will attend your next regular meeting if we can have this as be an agenda item. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MILLER] Yeah, I imagine we will put this on our next agenda. We will have maps and we will ask staff to take a look and we haven't approved our screening criteria thing yet, but maybe that can help us with this request too. Any other comments or—. Questions for—.

Yes. I would just state that I think I— where I land is I'm going to support this when we go to this process. It sounds like this land was selected to support the dam, so that is of all public's interest. So they're all going to get the benefit anyway. Hopefully it reduces, maybe it doesn't.

But the reality is this land is not going to be likely developed by the borough for any other purpose. So to me, we're a part of this co-op Anyway, so to me, all residents will be supported in that regard. So although I understand giving away land, it is in the best interest of the public. So to support that dam, as we get 85% of our renewable energy from there. So to me, I will support this when the time is right.

But thank you for explaining, because I, you know, you just get the letter and I'm like, well, what does it even do? So thank you.

Mr. Johnson. Thank you. I don't know, I think maybe when it comes time to vote, I might have to declare a conflict of interest. But my question, and I think I already know the answer, but in transferring this land, will it in any way change anything financial or access that the borough— that citizens of Kodiak enjoy now? I.e., The land becomes KEAs, is there all of a sudden going to be less access?

There won't be any different access than is available for the other parts of the project area. Okay. Thank you. And in fact, as I mentioned, there is 4 tracks as part of this. And I was very surprised that one of the tracks is under the lake.

It seemed an odd thing, but somehow that became separate from the rest of the system. State Parks. Well, if we want to put borough offices in an underwater facility, you know, we might want to keep that open just in case.

It is 1:00. I understand that some of you might have to leave and head back for work, but I do want to give us one before we leave this item. First, thank you, Linda and Dan, for joining us. Thank you for coming. We'll see you next time.

We do also have a low-hanging fruit kind of thing. Is there anything from— there's this map that is attached. Anything that you want to address or bring up now for me and staff to get started on? I'm just going to go back to this property and maybe just a point of clarification. I'm not aware that we are in a work session.

I'm aware these are all normal meetings, so we could advance this process. So if I made a motion to recommend this property to surplus, would it go through the PNZ and it would do the regular flowchart process? Is that how this would work? Mr. French?

So Title 18, you really— so basically, how Title 18 works for disposal if the Bureau is going to be initiating the process is that the Manager's Office submits an application to the Planning and Zoning Commission to begin the process to review to see to see if there was a public purpose for that property and then make a recommendation to the Assembly, and then a resolution would be drafted for the Assembly to consider on the disposal. What we did a little bit differently, I think, for the Island Lake was that the Committee did their recommendation and then it went straight to the Assembly and didn't go to the Commission first for its review. And my suggestion would be maybe the recommendation go to the Manager so they can start the process with the Commission to make its recommendation and then then it can go to the Assembly after the Commission's recommendation. It can go to the Assembly for the disposal instead of the Assembly having to review it twice. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER MAY] So what we can do here is just if there is consensus, because we didn't officially take a roll or anything like that.

If there's consensus from the committee, then we can give that direction to the manager. And then at our next meeting, that will be a regular meeting, then we can take our formal action recommendation, which I would like to happen sooner rather than later anyway, because we got a lot of stuff to work on, if that's okay with the group. So, Seema, did you get that? Okay. All right.

So, it's moving forward. It hasn't stalled or anything. Risking the manager involved.

And then, finally, next steps, assignments, features in the planning. We got the KEA. We'll get some updates on some of the others. We'll talk about the screening criteria more formally and take some action on that one next time.

That would be much more orderly, much more orderly. So let's take a few, a couple of minutes for committee members' comments, and then we will set our next meeting date and time. We will start right here to my left with Mr. Walker. No comment. It is good to be back.

I was out for a little while, and be able to get our boots dirty. See what we can do to help out with the housing contractors that are looking for land. And that's a big part of it, you know. We want to keep Kodiak growing. We can't do that unless we open up properties for people to, to build.

So good to be back. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ballard. Nothing else to add. Happy to be here.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Johnson? Likewise. Ms. Craig?

Thank you, everybody, for being here. Thank you, KEA, and thanks for all the work you guys did, and we'll see you next time. Mr. Weitzel? Thank you. And just for the public, the meetings have been requested to be moved into the Assembly Chambers, and the reason is we are now being recorded and we will be captured on YouTube so folks can view this.

So increasing transparency, so moving from conference room downstairs with audio recording to being more public-facing is why we are in here. So I am grateful for that taking place, and I encourage us to consider if we are going to limit ourselves, which I guess is going to be lightly discussed before we adjourn here, if we are going to be limited to a 1-hour meeting, we need to have more frequent meetings. They have been infrequent in the past. The public has been hungry for this. The Assembly is just waiting.

So more frequent meetings if we are limited to an hour is my recommendation. Ms. Frazer. Thanks. Putting my P&Z hat on here, if you have not taken the Intergovernmental Cooperation and CIP survey that the Community Development Department has on the Plan 2045 website, please do that. It closes on April 17th.

Please let your constituents know that their input is also very important. If you have not yet participated, all the survey results for each section so far that they have done, those results are on the website for people to view too. So go do that, please. Thanks. Great.

Thank you. Mr. Groh. No comment. Thank you. All right.

Let's take a look at our next meeting. Time possibilities. Yes, like Mr. Whiteside said, there seemed to have been consensus to move meetings to the daytime, which typically means shorter, but I'm okay with shorter meetings and meeting more often than marathon meetings and meeting like once a quarter. But not meeting every week, obviously. So, I would like to propose— think about my own workload.

We have finals coming up here in a couple of weeks. So I would be happy with, if it's okay, Monday, same time, either on April 27th or May 4th. May 4th will work better for me. I think Senator Stevenson is retiring on the 26th. That is right.

Yeah. Okay. May 4th will work better. Okay. I'm seeing more thumbs up than middle fingers, so we will go—.

Mr. Mayor, on the scheduling, maybe it's best to just try the first Monday at noon of every month, and if we don't have a big enough agenda, you cancel. I'm okay with that. Maybe that's the target. I am okay with that. I'd be good with that.

All right. Lena. Are you going to stick with the noon meetings? I think so. We also have BOE that day for— until 5:30.

Oh, okay. But just wanted to make sure that it's a new meeting. Oh, that's right.

Yay. That's okay. That's okay. Classes will be done by then. So yes, Sima.

Can I just tell you guys, if you're looking for what land is available and owned by KIB, if you go on to the lands view viewer, and in that layers portion of the, of the map, there's something that's called vacant parcels, and you turn that on, it will color code you what KIB owns, what is owned by natives, what's owned by the state. You guys can be looking at that map to see what areas you think that we could develop. So KIB has its own special color versus everybody else, and it might just be something for you guys to look at when you're thinking about what what and where you guys want to tell. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that reminder, Sima.

Yeah, so generally speaking, we're going to shoot for the first Monday of the month at noon, and if there's stuff to talk about, as always. Yes, I don't believe in having meetings just to have a meeting.

All right, well then. Oh yes, Lena, I'm trying to adjourn. Sorry, Mr. Mayor. Um, so the May 4th will be tentatively a regular meeting, correct? Yes, yes, absolutely.

Yeah, all right, May 4th at noon. All right, with that, we're adjourned. Thank you everybody for spending your lunch hour with us. Have a great rest of your Monday.