Local Government

CBJ Assembly Meeting
November 14, 2011
Agenda

There was a distinct public safety theme to a handful of items approved by the Juneau Assembly last night (Monday).

Members appropriated more than 131-thousand dollars in grant funds related police or fire services.

The largest chunk was a $94,575 dollar expenditure that will allow the city to hire two new police officers. City Manager Rod Swope explained that the amount covers the first six months of a three-year grant from the US Justice Department.

“This grant will fund two police officers for three years free of charge, and then we will be obligated to fund those positions the fourth year and thereafter if we want to keep them on the force,” said Swope. “So, in total this grant’s worth $567,452.”

Swope said the officers would be assigned to JPD’s downtown patrol.

“Which, I think given all the issues we’re having to deal with recently, will really be a good thing,” he said.

The assembly also approved $6,615 for a software program that will give police the ability to do three-dimensional reconstructions of car crashes. Funding for that item came from an Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities grant.

Another expenditure of $30,583 dollars will allow two members of Capital City Fire and Rescue’s Hazmat Team to go to a training seminar in Fairbanks. That item was courtesy of a grant from the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

The assembly last night also approved a $6.6-million dollar appropriation for continued funding of the Juneau Airport’s runway safety area project, with $6.3-million that was provided by a Federal Aviation Administration grant. The rest is coming from the Alaska Department of Transportation and Juneau Airport operating funds.

Assembly members also approved a climate action plan for the city and borough, which sets a goal of reducing Juneau’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by the year 2032.

Pint-sized Juneau songstress Anna Graceman was honored by the CBJ Assembly last night (Monday).

The 11-year-old singer-songwriter caught the nation’s attention earlier this year, when she made it to the semi-final round of NBC’s America’s Got Talent.

Mayor Bruce Botelho read from a proclamation recognizing Graceman’s many achievements.

“Anna found her musical gift at an early age, singing complete songs at 18 months, performing for audiences at the age of two, and playing the piano by the age of four,” it read. “At the advanced age of six she wrote her first song, entitled “So I Cried” – a song based on the experience of her brother being very sick when he was little.”

Graceman is performing in Denver this week, and was represented at the assembly meeting by her great-grandparents, Roy and Pat Varni. Roy Varni talked about how much Juneau has meant to Anna’s success.

“Juneau with its unparalleled beauty has provided much of the inspiration for Anna’s prolific songwriting,” he said.

Varni praised Anna’s teachers at the Juneau Montessori School for being particularly instrumental in her creative development.

Anna Graceman – “Superstar”:

A climate action plan, designed to help the City and Borough of Juneau achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, is up for adoption at tonight’s (Monday) Assembly meeting.

In 2007, the assembly set a goal of reducing Juneau’s emissions by 20 percent by the end of 2012. With less than half of that accomplished to date, the city is unlikely to meet its target.

The climate action plan sets a new goal of a 25 percent reduction by 2032. At a recent assembly work session, Consultant Zoe Morrison explained how the plan lays out potential actions and strategies that can be used to help achieve the objective.

“We don’t expect that all of these actions will be completed, but it provides a list of the range of things that you can do to reduce emissions,” Morrison said. “And the thinking is that the state, the CBJ, federal agencies, home and business owners, and residents will select the actions based on cost effectiveness, new technology, the potential for reduction, and what makes the most sense in each situation.”

At that work session, assembly members Carlton Smith and Randy Wanamaker voted against forwarding the plan to the full assembly. Wanamaker wanted to know how much the plan would cost to implement.

“We know there will be costs to us and we need to understand what those costs will be,” Wanamaker said.

Assembly woman Karen Crane argued that a cost estimate is unnecessary at this stage in the plan.

“I really looked at these as not saying that we’re going to do all of these things, but as potential suggestions for future action,” said Crane.

In addition to the climate action plan, the assembly tonight will hold public hearings on several spending ordinances. The biggest one would appropriate 6.6-million dollars for the Juneau Airport’s runway safety area project. Most of those funds come from a Federal Aviation Administration grant.

Tonight’s meeting starts at 7 p.m. in City Hall Assembly Chambers. It can be heard live on KTOO.

Links:

CBJ Draft Climate Action Plan
11-14-11 Assembly Agenda

City and Borough of Juneau Engineering Director Rorie Watt plans to start releasing parts of a study on the city’s water supply early next year.

In August, the Juneau Assembly appropriated 250-thousand dollars for the study – part of the city’s exploration of re-opening the AJ Mine. The city owns two-thirds of the old mine, located in Last Chance Basin – Juneau’s main source of drinking water.

Yesterday (Thursday), Watt told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce that he plans to release the study piecemeal, to avoid throwing too much gasoline on an already explosive issue.

“To some people it may look like we’re moving very slowly, and too slowly,” Watt says. “But that’s intentional, quite frankly. I’m trying to do a very deliberate process, and I think that’s what the community needs.”

Watt says the study will have four parts. The first will focus on the history of Juneau’s water system. Part two will cover current risks. Possible expansion of the system will be discussed in part three. And part four will talk about future risks, including the AJ Mine.

Watt says the analysis will attempt to answer two big questions: Is the threat posed to Juneau’s water system a fatal flaw for re-opening the AJ Mine? And how does the city maintain its standard of living and promote economic development in the face of threats to the system?

“It’s not a simple question of, can you have jobs, can you have clean drinking water?” he says.

Watt hopes to release the first two parts of the water study in January or February. He says the rest will be rolled out slowly after that, but he did not say when the whole report would be available.

Thursday marks the beginning of the 59th Annual Ski Sale in Juneau. The event is a fundraiser for the Eaglecrest Ski Patrol and Juneau Ski Club, which is the youth ski team.

Folks planning to sell their extra winter gear can check it in this evening, tomorrow afternoon and Saturday morning at Centennial Hall. The actual sale is 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, go to juneauskisale.org.

Meanwhile, Eaglecrest’s new general manager is on the job.

Matt Lillard, his wife and two-and a half-year old son just made the move across America from Londonderry, Vermont, where he worked for Magic Mountain Ski Resort.

Lillard says the two ski areas have some similarities:

“Size wise they’re actually quite similar, 700 acres is where I come from, and two lifts as opposed to four here, but we both pride ourselves in having some great terrain and great community,” Lillard says.

He’s settling into the Juneau ski area, learning the lay of the land as well as the bureaucracy of Eaglecrest, owned by the City and Borough of Juneau. But Lillard says the biggest challenge in the ski industry is always the weather.

“The New England weather is different from Southeast Alaska weather so I think getting a good grasp of that and how that works will be the biggest challenge,” Lillard says, “and after that just a lot of learning curve to pick up in a short amount of time.”

Weather permitting, opening day at Eaglecrest is December 3rd. Snow is building up, with about 7 inches at the base and 41 inches on top on Thursday.

Lillard answers to the city and the Eaglecrest Board of Directors, which sets ski area policy. The board has contracted with a local research firm and international ski area planning company to write a 20-year master plan to guide its decisions.

The first of two public meetings on the plan was held last week, and as KTOO reported, a random telephone survey shows hiking and biking trails and summer tourist attractions to be very important to the future of the area. The telephone survey questions are similar to a current online survey (skijuneau.com), which will be live until the end of November.  Click on the audio for more on the master plan study.