CBJ Assembly Meetings

An ordinance changing how the City and Borough of Juneau handles civil fines, such as parking tickets, is on its way to the full Juneau Assembly for action.

The ordinance was introduced at a special meeting last week after city officials were alerted to a recent Alaska Supreme Court order that nullified civil citations not delivered to an alleged offender in-person. Parking tickets, of course, are often attached to windshields while the person being cited is away.

City Attorney John Hartle told the Assembly Committee of the Whole on Monday that the proposed ordinance addresses the rule change by simply changing the type of citation being issued.

“They’d no longer be an infraction, they would become an offense and subject to a civil fine,” Hartle said. “And then, challenges to those tickets would be heard by a CBJ hearing officer.”

City Manager Kim Kiefer said the city would train a handful of CBJ employees to be hearing officers. She said the City of Ketchikan has the city manager’s secretary handle parking ticket appeals.

“We’re going to need to have more than one,” Kiefer said. “Because we’re going to have to have traffic court probably every week, and have somebody there for a couple hours, and people will be on vacation.”

Hartle said the ordinance has been changed from the version introduced last week to allow Juneau Police to issue offense citations to people who violate the city’s wood smoke and garbage ordinances. In addition, the parking section was amended to allow citations at Juneau International Airport.

The ordinance with changes was forwarded to the full Assembly for action at its regular meeting next week.

The state Supreme Court order that nullified parking tickets was in response to a housekeeping measure approved by the Alaska Legislature in 2010.

City Attorney job announcement approved

Also Monday, the Assembly Committee of the Whole approved a job announcement and advertising budget for a new city attorney to replace Hartle, who will retire June 30th.

Hartle announced on April 22nd that he would be stepping down after 20 years with the CBJ Law Department, the last 10 as city attorney.

The Assembly’s City Attorney Search Subcommittee met twice to craft the job announcement. It will appear in the state’s three largest newspapers, as well as on the CBJ and Alaska Bar Association websites, and the Alaska Municipal Attorneys Association email list. The Committee of the Whole approved an advertising budget of up to $3,000.

The Assembly will start reviewing applications June 10th.

City Attorney and City Manager are the only two positions hired by the Juneau Assembly.

The Juneau Assembly on Monday decided for the time being not to consider new restrictions on the use of motorized watercraft on Auke Lake.

Meeting as Committee of the Whole, the Assembly declined to forward a proposed Auke Lake Management Plan to the full Assembly for action until members get more data on the number and types of users that frequent the lake.

Assemblyman Carlton Smith said that’s essential for the panel to make an informed decision about additional lake regulations.

“I don’t disagree with some of the issues that have been raised here,” Smith said. “But, myself, I couldn’t sponsor additional regulation without some consistency of data over at least a two year period.”

The draft Auke Lake Management Plan was written by the city’s Parks and Recreation staff, and recommended for Assembly adoption by the Juneau Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee.

It was prompted by the accidental death of Juneau teenager Savannah Cayce. Last July, she was being towed by a jet ski on Auke Lake when the inner tube she was riding on collided with another jet ski. She died two days later of severe head trauma.

The management plan would replace the current vessel size restriction on the lake with a 10 horse power limit that eliminates jet skis, water skiing and wake boarding. Towing also would not be allowed.

Assemblyman Jerry Nankervis is the Assembly’s liaison to the PRAC. He said the problem for him in implementing new restrictions on Auke Lake use is that it’s the only freshwater lake on the Juneau road system.

“We’ve got that one lake that we’re looking at,” Nankervis said. “And I just wanted to point out something another Assembly member said, I think Egan Drive is dangerous too, and we’ve had a number of people die on Egan Drive. But we haven’t shut that down yet.”

Nankervis did not say which other Assembly member he was referring to.

Assemblywoman Karen Crane was the only member to argue for adoption of management plan largely as written.

“If we leave things the way they are without making any changes, we’re going to allow the same situation that we had last summer, where jet skis can still have tow ropes, and pull things behind them,” said Crane. “I personally think it’s irresponsible on our part to allow that particular situation to continue.”

The Assembly did direct the Parks and Recreation department to implement elements of the plan. Namely, new and improved signage and buoys marking the current no wake zones on the lake, which the department planned to do regardless of whether the Assembly adopted the plan or not.

The city’s Parks and Rec staff and the Juneau Watershed Partnership began collecting data on Auke Lake usage after the accident that killed Cayce last summer. The Assembly asked Parks and Recreation Director Brent Fischer and Parks and Landscape Superintendent George Schaaf to share the results of that study after this summer’s boating season ends.

The Juneau Assembly tonight (Monday) will hear details of the Auke Lake Management Plan, long after the ice has gone out and spring boating season is about to begin.

CBJ Parks and Recreation staff released the proposal in January.  The Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee adopted it soon after; Parks and Rec wanted to have it before the Assembly in February.

The management recommendations are the result of months of study and public hearings, prompted by an accident on the lake last July that resulted in the death of a Juneau teenager.  But Assembly Committee of the Whole meetings this winter  have been focused on the perennial problem of affordable housing.

Parks & Recreation Director Brent Fischer admits the delay is frustrating. He’d hoped any management changes for the lake would be in place this month.

The Committee of the Whole is the first stop in the Assembly process.  Members tonight could adopt all, some, or none of the recommendations, or decide to rewrite them.

“Then they have to be brought forth from the Committee of the Whole up to the Assembly for introduction, and then they have to then go through public testimony the following month and then are enacted 30 days after they’re adopted.  I mean we’re looking at probably July for ordinance change if they do that,” Fischer says.

Fischer hopes the committee will adopt the management proposal, which would replace current vessel size regulations with a 10-horse power limit.  That eliminates jet skis, water skiing and wake boarding. No towing would be allowed.

At the time of the accident, sixteen-year-old Savannah Cayce was riding in an inner tube being towed by a jet ski that collided with another jet ski.

The draft plan says existing motorized-use levels on the lake far exceed its carrying capacity. That Auke Lake is the only navigable lake on Juneau’s road system – a frequent argument from watercraft users – does not change the fact that it is too small for high-horse power activities, according to the report.

Parks and Recreation staff will lay out the recommendations tonight, which is strictly a work session.

Parks Superintendent George Schaff has done much of the work on the plan. He will outline the process, the public meetings and comments:

“The management plan is our best effort at developing a plan to manage the lake that reflects our professional judgment, the research we did and the people we spoke with in looking at how other communities manage their lakes.”

The proposed carrying capacity is based on the U.S. Interior Department’s Water and Land Recreation Opportunity Spectrum, or WALROS.

For now, Auke Lake will be managed under current ordinances.  The parks department can only set new buoys described in the plan, which must be done to comply with state law.

Tonight’s meeting is at 6 o’clock in Assembly chambers. It was to be focused only on Auke Lake, but a new parking ordinance and the city attorney hiring process have now been added to the agenda.

No public testimony is taken at Committee of the Whole meetings.

A subcommittee of the Juneau Assembly will recommend a month-long search process for a new City Attorney when the full Assembly meets as Committee of the Whole on Monday.

Jesse Kiehl is chair of the Assembly’s City Attorney Search Subcommittee. He says the group will recommend the Assembly start reviewing applications on June 10th. That leaves just three weeks to do interviews and hire a replacement for outgoing City Attorney John Hartle, who will resign June 30th.

“That makes our process for hiring a new city attorney fairly tight,” admits Kiehl.

But he says the Assembly has options if the new attorney isn’t ready to start immediately, or if the application period needs to be extended.

“If we expect a long delay, we may bring in an attorney as a temp,” Kiehl says. “If it’s going to be relatively short, we may elevate one of our current staff and contract out specific pieces of work to private firms. There are some former city attorneys who could potentially drop in and serve as acting city attorney. And someone may come up with another idea still.”

The subcommittee on Friday also approved a job description and position announcement for recommendation to the full Assembly. It includes just one requirement: applicants must be members of the Alaska Bar. Besides that there are a number of desired qualifications, including 10 years of combined experience working for a large organization, legislative body, or municipality. The Assembly also wants somebody with experience prosecuting criminal cases like driving under the influence and domestic violence.

Kiehl says the City Attorney is kind of like “a micro-Attorney General.”

“That varies from disputes with the state or federal government, to employment law, to contract negotiations and contract disputes,” he says. “The city attorney serves as the lawyer for the manager, the departments, for our enterprise boards, as well as the city assembly.”

The committee is recommending a minimum starting salary of $120,000, but candidates with more experience may be able to negotiate higher pay. Hartle’s current salary is about $140,000, though he has been in the job for 10 years, and with the CBJ Law Department for 20 years.

The position will be advertised in the state’s three largest newspapers, as well as the city and Alaska Bar websites.

City Attorney is one of two positions, along with City Manager, hired by the Assembly.

It could take the City and Borough of Juneau another year or two to work out all the kinks in its new process for determining property values. But the public can help by providing information to the Assessor’s Office.

That’s according to CBJ Finance Director Bob Bartholomew, who provided an overview of changes to the city’s assessment practices to the Juneau Assembly on Wednesday.

Bartholomew said based on the number of calls and complaints coming in to the Assessor’s Office, the new method of determining property value isn’t as dialed in as it should be.

“It’s not where we want to be. It’s too much change,” Bartholomew said. “And it’s the switch in the methodology that’s driving that. We will narrow a fair amount of that change. But we’re not going to get where there’s no change next year. I think it’s going to be a multi-year adjustment.”

According to Bartholomew and City Assessor Robin Potter, the new methodology was recommended by the State Assessor’s Office. The most significant change being a new “cluster land modeling” system that puts properties into 21 distinct neighborhoods for the purposes of determining land value.

Finance Committee Chair Karen Crane asked how the city accounts for the fact that parcels of land can vary quite a bit within the typical Juneau neighborhood.

“In this community, the neighborhoods are not similar,” Crane said. “You can have a $500,000 house, a $200,000 house, a shack, or whatever. So, they’re not consistent.”

Bartholomew admitted that’s a weakness in the model. But he also said it’s where the public can help.

“When you have disparity between the types of properties, the types of lots in a geographic area, we need more information,” he said. “We need more data elements to fit into the model.”

Bartholomew said the city typically receives that data when a property owner appeals their assessment. He said the majority of assessment disputes between the city and property owners are resolved through an informal appeal process. That’s where the property owner works directly with the Assessor’s Office to identify features and characteristics of their land or home that lead to changes in assessed value. If that fails to resolve the dispute, the next step is an appeal to the city’s Board of Equalization.

An appeal must be filed with the Assessor’s Office by May 15th this year.

The Juneau Assembly will host a public meeting Wednesday night to get an overview of the city and borough’s new assessment process.

At a recent hearing on Fiscal Year 2014 budget revisions, a handful of land owners complained about the new method of calculating a property’s value. They testified about large, unexplained increases in assessed values that don’t track with recently sold property of similar size, condition and location.

Assembly Finance Committee Chair Karen Crane says the assessment overview will be an opportunity for the public and Assembly to learn more about the new process.

“I’ve had people calling me and asking me questions, and so have other Assembly members,” Crane says. “So, we just want to be certain that we understand the new process that was used this year fully. And it gives the public also an opportunity to ask questions.”

According to a memo from City Finance Director Bob Bartholomew, the city made two significant changes to the assessment methodology this year. It started using a new “Cluster land modeling” system that puts properties into 21 distinct clusters or neighborhoods for the purposes of determining value. Also this year, the Assessor’s Office started using a new method of determining the value of residential structures. Bartholomew says it more accurately allocates the total value for improved property between the structure and underlying land.

The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, after the Finance Committee holds its regular meeting on other FY 14 budget topics.

Link:
Finance Director Bob Bartholomew memo on CBJ assessment practices