CBJ Assembly Meetings

Funds were passed through the city and borough of Juneau assembly last night during a regular meeting.

The assembly adopted several ordinances. One of them appropriated $290,000 to update the Juneau-Douglas Wastewater Treatment Plant and the Mendenhall plant.

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation is providing the loan funds. City staff says loans will be repaid with wastewater utility customer revenues.

Assembly member Jerry Nankervis said he would like to know if that means a rate increase for Juneau residents.

“It might be three cents, I don’t know. But it would just be nice to have that sort of an estimate because I believe they could come up with that based on the number of customers and the cost what that would work out to be. But it’s just one of those things that I believe when people hear us pass these and they see that we just passed on a possible rate increase or more money to them, I would like to be able to answer what that is.”

The assembly also adopted an ordinance appropriating $1.5 million of grant funding from the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities for the replacement of four Capital Transit buses.

Deputy City manager Rob Steedle:

“This funding will replace four 35-foot New Flyer Buses which have provided over 12 years of service and nearly half a million miles. This is the last replacement of buses programmed into the 2008 Transit Development Plan and adopted by the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP). It is planned to replace these four buses with similar vehicles.”

Juneau’s airport is getting appropriations of close to $2 million, with the majority of funds coming from the Federal Aviation Administration.

$1.2 million is going towards the design runway rehabilitation project and more than $700,000 dollars towards an airport master plan study.

Kevin Jardell once lobbied against building a new state office building in Juneau. Now, he’s going to be representing Juneau in the state capitol building as the city and borough’s new lobbyist.

Kevin Jardell held high state positions in the Frank Murkowski administration before becoming a lobbyist at the end of 2006. He was deputy administration commissioner and then served as the governor’s communications director and legislative director.

Also on Jardell’s resume is almost five years as legislative aide for Anchorage Republican Representative Joe Green, a strong proponent of moving the legislative session out of Juneau.

Juneau Mayor Merrill Sanford voted to hire Jardell. He says Jardell’s work on the issue isn’t a concern, “If he felt that way back in the ’90s, he doesn’t feel that way anymore.”

The assembly voted 6 to 3 on the motion to hire Jardell as the new lobbyist, with members Karen Crane, Jesse Kiehl, and Loren Jones voting no.

As a lobbyist, Jardell made more than $380,000 plus expenses last year.

One of his eleven current clients is Exxon Mobil Corporation, which pays Jardell almost $12,000 a month.

Another client is Juneau1, the owner of Juneau’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development building, also known as the “Plywood Palace.”

Assembly members Kiehl and Jones say representing both Juneau1 and the CBJ is a potential conflict of interest.

“Lobbyists need to be able to represent all of their clients with equal vigor and equal integrity. And I think that one of this clients which owns the department of Labor building is too strong a conflict with the city support for a new office building that was proposed a couple years ago and hopefully will be in the works again, so I didn’t feel like that was a situation that would work,” says assembly member Jesse Kiehl.

Juneau representative Cathy Munoz was the prime sponsor of a bill in 2009 that would have built a new state office building in Juneau on Alaska Mental Health land.

“I would hope that Kevin would consider moving beyond representing Juneau1. Of course, I can’t – I don’t have a say, I don’t have any direct contact with him around those issues, but if he is truly going to advocate for the city of Juneau, I would hope that he would consider that, in terms of who his other clients are,” says Representative Munoz.

Mayor Sanford says a conflict of interest question was put before all five lobbyist finalists during interviews and they all answered the same way.

“They had to abide by the conflict of interest rules that were out there and they would make sure that if they had some issue that was a conflict between two of their clients they would talk to both of us and they wouldn’t handle the issue for one of them or the other,” explain Sanford.

Sanford says he doesn’t think Jardell has any current conflicts with the city and borough of Juneau.

Assembly member Mary Becker made the motion at Saturday’s special assembly meeting to contract with Jardell. She says she was impressed with his plans.

“He wants to build more of an assembly relationship in the Capitol building. I don’t think we’ve done a lot of that. We meet with the governor and we meet with our local, our three legislators but we don’t actually go into the finance committees with our lobbyist and talk so that was something that was appealing to me that I thought would be a real good idea,” says Becker.

Jardell’s proposed annual fee is $55,000. Sanford says that fits into the city’s current budget but the terms of the contract have yet to be determined.

Jardell currently serves on CBJ’s Docks and Harbor’s board.

Jardell has never lobbied for a city government before.

 

Original story, published September 23, 2013:

Kevin Jardell will be the new lobbyist for the city and borough of Juneau.

The assembly voted 6 to 3 on the motion with assembly members Crane, Kiehl, and Jones voting no.

The CBJ assembly conducted interviews with five lobbyist finalists on Saturday in executive session.

“The interviews went real well. We started a little bit after 2pm and interviewed all five on the short list. At the end we came out of executive session and Ms. Becker made a motion to contract with Kevin Jardell as our next lobbyist,” says Mayor Merrill Sanford.

Jardell’s current clients include Juneau1, the owners of Juneau’s Department of Labor building, also known as the “Plywood Palace.” Exxon Mobil Corporation pays Jardell almost$12,000 a month for his lobbying services. Jardell does not have any current municipal clients.

Prior to his work as a lobbyist, Jardell was a legislative aide for Anchorage Republican Representative Joe Green, served as Deputy Administration Commissioner for the state, and worked as a legislative director for Governor Murkowski’s office.

Locally, Jardell serves on CBJ’s Docks and Harbor’s board.

Jardell’s proposed annual fee is $55,000. Mayor Sanford says that fits into the city’s current budget but payment has not been determined yet.

Sanford says he is working with city manager Kim Kiefer to negotiate the terms of contract with Jardell. Sanford hopes it’ll be ready for the assembly in October.

Juneau’s League of Women Voters will host a Municipal Candidate Forum on Wednesday in Assembly chambers.

The annual forum is an opportunity for candidates running for Assembly and School Board to discuss the issues affecting Juneau.

League member Barbara Belknap is the moderator.   She says questions from the public are an important part of the event.

“You know we always are looking for people to come prepared to ask questions about what they care about. So they write the questions, a League of Women Voters member will pick them up then they’ll get funneled to me at the moderator’s desk,” she says.

Belknap says each candidate will have one minute to make an opening statement then 30 seconds at the end to wrap up their message.   They’ll have 45 seconds to answer each question.

With only four Assembly and two school board candidates, the forum may go quickly this year.  Only one race is contested.

The League has sponsored the pre-election forum for years.  Belknap calls the non-partisan organization one of the most enduring civic groups in Juneau.

“I feel like it is the most viable women’s organization in town that contributes specifically with these forums but also with voter registration, voter information,” she says.

Wednesday’s Municipal Candidate Forum is a 7 p.m. in Assembly chambers at city hall.

It will be carried live on KTOO radio.

Click here for the sample ballot.

 

 

Five finalists have been selected for the city and borough of Juneau lobbyist.

They are the Anderson Group, Bob Evans of Anchorage, the team of Mark Hickey and David Rogers, Kevin Jardell of Juneau, and Sam Kito, the third, also of Juneau.

Assembly member Randy Wanamaker sits on the lobbyist search committee. He says the finalists were chosen from a pool of 11 proposals based on certain criteria, “Their knowledge of how the state budgeting process works and how the different departments works, their familiarity with the community, and their experience in the state.”

Lobbyists Linda Anderson and Yuri Morgan are with Juneau-based Anderson Group LLC. Clients include the Fairbanks North Star Borough and the City of Homer.

Bob Evans is a lobbyist for many entities including Kodiak Electric Association and Neeser Construction.

Mark Hickey and David Rogers, both of Juneau, teamed up on one proposal. The two lobby for Apple Inc. Hickey has multiple municipal clients including Kodiak Island Borough, City of King Cove, and the city of Akutan.

Kevin Jardell lobbies for Exxon Mobil Corporation, Fairbanks Natural Gas, and Catholic Community Services among several others.

Sam Kito, the third’s lobbying group is Kito, Inc. Clients include the North Slope Borough, GCI, the Alaska Travel Industry Association, and Icy Straight Point.

The assembly will hold a special meeting and conduct interviews during executive session on September 21.

Wanamaker says the assembly will negotiate the length of contract, fee, and start date.

“To me they need to be on board either in November or December at the latest so that they are familiar with what we are doing in terms of setting strategic goals and legislative initiatives to help the community before the legislative session starts in January,” he says.

City manager Kim Kiefer says the lobbyist finalists proposed annual fees ranging from $52,000 to $85,000.

 

When Filipinos hear “Alaska,” often the first two things that come to mind are milk and basketball.

That’s according to the Philippines’ recently appointed honorary consul to Alaska, Jenny Gomez Strickler.

It turns out, the Philippines-based Alaska Milk Corporation sells milk in the country and sponsors the Alaska Aces — not Anchorage’s minor league hockey team, but a professional basketball team in the Philippines. Neither the milk nor the basketball team have a meaningful connection to the 49^th state.

That means if Alaska wants to make inroads in trade with the Philippines, the state has a lot of work to do. In 2012, less than 1 percent of Alaska’s exports ended up in the Philippines, according to census data.

But Strickler says connections are being forged that could help build a market for Alaska seafood, and even liquefied natural gas.

The Juneau resident and retired Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development worker spoke to the Juneau World Affairs Council on Wednesday. In her new honorary role for the government of the Philippines, she’s part bureaucrat, and part international trade facilitator.

She’s trying to make the case that “Alaska” should mean “seafood” in the Philippines.

“The Philippines is a fish-eating country,” she said. “Yet its fish is imported from other countries. And its imported salmon is farmed salmon.”

Strickler, Juneau Rep. Cathy Munoz and the governor’s office are trying to put together a seafood festival in Manila next year to show the country what Alaska has to offer.

Strickler shared an anecdote about a missed connection that networking at the festival might fix. A former Juneau resident brought some Alaska seafood to Manila for his friends to try. One of samplers happened to be a hotel owner.

“The business owner enjoyed it so much, he said, ‘If I get this from you, can you guarantee me X amount throughout the year, or a portion of the year?’ He looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘I can’t, cause I’m not a fisherman.’”

She said they’re working on a pitch to get support from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

Strickler also said she was on a recent conference call between Philippines Ambassador Jose Cuisia Jr. and state officials. The ambassador said he’s putting together a team to visit Alaska and investigate opportunities to import liquefied natural gas.

Finally, Strickler said Aklan State University in the Philippines is interested in sending instructors to the University of Alaska Southeast through an exchange program. They want to learn about saltwater fisheries.

Strickler said she expects that arrangement to come together after the Juneau Assembly adopts a sister city proclamation linking Juneau and Kalibo, the capital city of the Philippine province Aklan.

A Juneau Assembly committee backed the proclamation on Monday.

Jenny Gomez Strickler’s talk with the Juneau World Affairs Council is tentatively scheduled to air on 360 North on October 11th.