All council members to silence and put away cell phones. If you need to step
away or attend to personal matters, please make a motion to recess. For
those participating by phone, please keep your device muted unless you are
speaking. When speaking, kindly state your name for the benefit of those
viewing the live stream. As a reminder, this meeting is being broadcast live.
The camera is located above the clock at the back of the council chambers. Our
proceedings follow Robert's rules of order as set forth in Wasillo Municipal
Code 2.04.09. 090 to promote an orderly and respectful meeting. I respectfully
ask the council to observe the following rules. Please seek recognization before
speaking. No member may speak more than twice on the same motion without a vote
to suspend the rules. No member may speak a second time until all who wish
to speak have had the opportunity to do so. These guidelines help ensure
fairness, efficiency, and mutual respect during our discussions. When clerk,
please call the role. Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Council
member [snorts] Codle is absent and excused unless objection is raised. She
is in route to the AML conference and is going to try to call in. So, so we may
hear from her later in the meeting, but for now, she's absent. Council member
Graham >> here.
» Council member Schmidt >> here.
» Council member Grafton >> here.
» Council member Johnson >> here.
» And Deputy Mayor Rubio >> here.
» You do have a quorum. All members are present with us in chambers except
council member Codle who may participate telephonically later in the meeting.
» Thank you. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Council member Graham, would
you please lead us?
» I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
The next item of business is approval of the agenda. Before changes are
discussed, are there conflicts of interest to declare?
Hearing none, I'll take requested changes to the agenda. But before doing
so, I would like to move resolution serial number 26-47,
item 8.3.1, from the consent agenda to new business.
Are there further changes to the agenda? Hearing
none, the agenda is approved as presented unanimous. Unanimously
consent. Unanimous consent. Sorry. We are now at special orders of the day.
And there is one proclamation I will read for
city of proclamation recognizing September 11th as patriot day and a
national day of service and remembrance. Whereas on September 11th, 2001, our
nation endured an unprecedented tragedy that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000
innocent people in New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania. And
whereas the events of that day revealed the resilience, courage, and unity of
the American people as first responders, service members, and everyday citizens
demonstrated extraordinary heroism and selflessness.
And whereas Patriot Day and the National Day of Remembrance honors the victims of
the attacks, their families, and the countless individuals who rose in
service to their communities and nation doing during and after the tragic
events. And whereas September 11th, 2026, our nation observes the 25th
anniversary of the September 11th attacks, marking a significant milestone
to reflect on the lasting impact of that day and to honor the enduring strength
of the American spirit. And whereas communities across the nation continue
to demonstrate resilience through service, remembrance, and commitment to
the values that bind us together as Americans. And whereas we salute those
who responded to the tragic events with their courage and selfless
determination, resources, and skills. And whereas the city stands in sol c
solitary with communities across the country to
remember and honor the sacrifices made on September 11th, 2001, and to reaffirm
our shared dedication to freedom, unity, and service. Now therefore, I, Glenda D.
Leadford, mayor of city was hereby proclamate September 11th, 2026 as
Patriot Day, a national day of service and remembrance in Wasilla and encourage
all residents observe this day through moments of silence, acts of services,
and reflection in honor of victims, survivors, first responders, and all
those whose lives were forever changed. Reaffirming our commitment to the values
of freedom, courage, compassion, and unity dated this 25th day of August 20
26.
We are now at commissions and agency reports. We will begin with a report on
the airport commission from public director Shaw.
» Thank you, madame deputy mayor. Um, last Thursday we had our August Airport
Advisory Commission meeting. Um, we went over project updates and then the
commission also passed a resolution of support for the ongoing uh, land
purchase and uh, expansion of the 5100 foot runway which we're eligible now
for. So I'll be submitting that to the council shortly in the in this week so
that you have a come before you uh, at the next meeting. That's my report.
Thanks. Thank you. And next is our report on the
planning commission, but our acting city planner is not here. So, if you would
please refer to the notes in the packet. >> We have meeting minutes.
» The meeting minutes are there. We'll conclude commission and agency
reports with a presentation on city sales tax regulation and exemptions from
tax auditor and accountant Graham.
Okay, we're up. So, Moren Graham, sales tax accountant and auditor of the city
of Oello. Um, good evening, deputy mayor, council members.
Um, I've been asked to provide the council
with an overview of the city of Wasel's current business licensing, sales tax
exemptions, and protest procedures and identify potential policy changes for
future council consideration. >> Excuse me, Marie. Can you move that
microphone a little closer? Thank you. >> You bet.
» Okay. Can you hear me now? >> Thank you. [laughter]
So, I have been asked to provide the council with an overview of the city of
Wel's current business licensing, sales tax, exemptions, and protest procedures,
and identify policy changes, potential policy changes for future council
consideration. There are a lot of there's a lot of
information to get through, so we'll try to cover it fairly quickly, and I'll try
not to get too far in the weeds or put you to sleep with my tax nerd speak. And
I'm sorry to everyone who has to wait to speak after me. Um,
so if you have questions along the way, uh, we'll break in between the the
sections here. So feel free to ask them along the the way or interrupt me if you
feel the need to.
So we'll begin with licensing. So who needs a license?
A person or entity that engages in business in the city with a location in
the city either permanent or temporary meets the physical presence or meets the
physical presence required um requirements underella municipal code
5.16 sales tax is required to have a city of Wasella business license. We
have two types of licenses. an annual expiring December 31st of the calendar
year it's been issued in and a temporary or special event license that's good for
7 days from the start of the event. The city issues a license for each
location or each line of business that the lency engages in business.
The current license fees are $25 for an annual license and $10 for a special
event license. The payment is waved for nonprofits designated as a 501c 4, C3,
C4, or C19 with the IRS. We also wave the fee for additional
locations in the city, secondary or third locations, or additional lines of
business with the same business name. The state of Alaska business licensing
allows for one license for multiple business locations and multiple lines of
business for one fee. and we mirror that in spirit. However, our software systems
only allow for one license location and one line of business classification code
to be identified and printed on each license. So, we offer secondary or third
or whatever to accommodate that.
Submitted applications are reviewed by the planning department to determine if
permitting is required for the use under the title 16 and notify the applicant of
any violations. They're also reviewed by the finance
department to determine if delinquent debts are owed to the city by any of the
owners or officers or members of the entity for back sales tax, utilities,
special assessments or any basically any debt owed to the city. We also verify
professional licensing with the state of Alaska when required and document legal
entities are registered with the state of Alaska division of corporations.
Once approved by the planning and finance departments, an approval email
is sent to with instructions to print the business license for those with
paper applications that submit. The license is mailed or available for
pickup. Applications that cannot be approved will be sent an inspection
report with deficiencies identified from each department that are necessary for
approval of the license. [snorts]
Business licenses that are business licenses are non-transferable.
If a business is sold or transferred in the city, the city must be notified
within 15 days of the transfer. The name and contact information of the new owner
um should be provided and submission of final sales tax returns should be
submitted. All sales tax should be paid in full and
must be paid in full before a new license can be issued. If purchasing a
business, it's incumbent upon the purchaser to ensure all taxes are paid
prior to the transfer of the business to prevent any unpaid sales tax liabilities
under municipal code. To close a business, the city must be
notified in writing with the submission of final sales tax returns within 15
days of the closure or the date that the business is no longer operating in the
city.
Does anybody have questions so far? [clears throat]
Okay. >> What uh what happens when somebody goes
out of business and they don't notify you? Why is why is that 15 days in the
code? Well, it gives us a time frame to start trying to address it, but after
that, if they don't notify us, it just causes the city a lot of extra work to
try to track them down to figure out what's going on, why they aren't
contacting us. There's [clears throat] really no
penalty, but we try to put in guidance so that they know that they need to do
this quickly, get taxes in, and it becomes an issue, especially if they
don't do that when they're transferring a business because then when the new
person comes in, if there's back taxes owed, it needs to be a seamless
transition. So, we put the rules in there, but unfortunately, compliance on
it is difficult to maintain because if they don't tell us, we don't have a
mechanism to do anything. Um, but it helps if we can get compliance. So, we
always have the information out there for people and try to get them to do
that. And we we have the information on our website as well as well as the
closure form that we have on our [snorts] um online media site.
» Thank you. >> Yep. Any other questions?
» Okay. Sales tax basics.
A 2.5% sales tax is levied on all sales, rentals, and services made in the city
that are not expressly exempt in code. This rate became effective on December
1st, 2019. The sales tax was passed by voters and
became effective July 1st, 1993. I've included a history of the rate
changes for various projects that's been funded with temporary increases over the
years. I've been here for five of these changes
and joke that it's put at least some of the gray hair on my head. [laughter]
Changes to the sales tax rate and the code in general require multiple notices
and education for all businesses as well as compliance efforts by the city to
ensure the changes are properly executed by the businesses.
There's a cap on the first $500 of each transaction or $12.50 at the city's
current tax rate. [snorts] Many communities in Alaska
um have a sales tax cap and the amounts vary by jurisdiction. Sales tax caps are
kind of unique to the state of Alaska because we don't have a statewide sales
tax
and that that all businesses would be required to collect. So the cap helps to
keep local businesses competitive with businesses operating in areas where
there is no sales tax. Communities in more isolated areas tend to have a
higher tax cap as there's less competition for sales outside of their
boundaries. While municipal code provides guidance
regarding the max tax uh calculations for specific transactions.
Services rendered over a month are capped on the first $500 for each month,
even if invoiced or paid at one time. A service contracts for six months would
be prrated for each month and only capped if the monthly amount is over the
transaction cap per month. Short-term rentals, the cap [clears throat] is
applied to the daily rental rate, not the entire stay. So, if the daily rent
rate was more than $500, then the portion over 500 would be exempt each
day. Capital leases or financing leases are
treated as a sale on the effective date of the contract and subject to the
maximum tax as one transaction. Other lease types are taxed with the
principal amount of the lease payment for the term of the lease. If the if a
purchase is made at the end of the lease, then that's taxed as a separate
transaction and subject to the cap. uh interest and financing charges are
related to the lease payment are not subject to sales tax. Installment
payments are taxed uh as a single transaction collected on the first
payment. And products with service transactions in excess of 500 are exempt
when the product and the service are build or invoiced together and the
service is directly related or integral to the uh product purchase such as
delivery, installation, warranty or repair.
Service transactions are taxed on each separate service over $500, whether
invoiced or paid individually, collectively or collectively for the
period.
Application of sales tax. A local sale is made when the seller
establishes physical presence in the city by one or more of the following and
the sale has a point of delivery within the city. Physical presence is created
when the business has a brickandmortar or temporary location in the city.
Physically solicits business or receives orders through any employee, agent,
salesperson or other representative in the city.
Physically provides services, holds inventory within the city, rents, sells,
or leases property that's located in the city, or constructs, repairs, renovates,
or improves real property that's located in the city.
A seller that makes a local sale is required to obtain a city business
license and report and remit sales tax directly to the city of Wasala.
A seller that establishes physical presence and a point of delivery in the
city for any calendar year is deemed to have a physical presence in the city for
the following calendar year. After that year, if they no longer have physical
presence, they can close their account out or if they continue in the future or
establish it in the future, they would reopen at that point.
Remote sales are made when a remote seller or marketplace facilitator
without a physical presence in the city makes sales of products, rentals, or
provide services transferred electronically or delivered to a point
of delivery located inside the city and subject to the Alaska remote seller
sales tax code adopted by reference in municipal code 5.16.225.
[laughter]
Marketplace facilitators centralized administrative provisions are what
council just passed last month which allows for local sales of goods,
services, and rentals made through marketplace facilitators
having a point of delivery in the city to be considered remote sales and
collected through the Alaska remote seller sales tax commission.
The Alaska Uniform Remote Seller sales tax code that was adopted by reference
in our code requires remote sellers with no physical presence in the city to
register remit sales tax with a point of delivery in the city when their
statewide sales meet or exceed $100,000 in the current or preceding calendar
year. Those taxes are remitted to the ARSTC and collections are sent to the
city the following month. Madam
» you may sorry, can we go back to that real quick?
Sorry, I'm just trying to get an ex what could you give me an
example of a business that falls under this?
» Sure. Um, so anybody who's making a sale in the city by remote means, so one of
your online remote sellers, if they are selling into the city, they meet they
don't have physical presence here, but they meet the um
uh point of delivery. So, the next question is, do they have $100,000 worth
of sales into the state? If they do, then they're required to register and
collect tax with the Alaska Remote Seller Sales Tax Commission, ARSTC.
If they don't meet that threshold, they will not collect or register until they
do unless they voluntarily do it. Some some of them do do that, but um yeah,
and the ARSTC does monitor that and they they have some that they've weeded out
that don't meet those thresholds, but um a lot of the companies, they use uh
taxwork companies that help them know when those thresholds are coming up
because it's not just our state that has that threshold.
So, they're monitoring any states that they're doing sales into for that magic
number. and when they hit it then they register and then they have I think um a
number of days that they need to register within before they're you know
penalized. >> So the best example is probably Amazon.
» Yes. So um well Amazon is one. We also have Amazon's that local sales apply to
because um Amazon has a local presence in our community through sales delivery
trucks and things like that. So they do remote they do remmit to us directly.
But their other side of their business that is the marketplace facilitator side
where people sell their products on their website would be um the one that
remits through the ARSTC. Shopify, Wayfair, um I mean there's tons of them.
Apple uh yeah all of those guys that that remmit any kind of remote sales.
» Perfect. Thank you. Mhm. >> Now, you said that uh
uh the remote solar sales tax corporation remits that money to you
within 30 days. How long has it been since they remitted that within 30 days?
My understanding they're closer to 90 days out. Is that incorrect?
» No, they actually do it every month. So, um it's a little delayed though because
the So, let's see. um June sales tax is due the end of July for all businesses.
So they receive the ARCC receives the money in July, they then uh once July is
closed out, they balance those out and they remit it to us. Usually they try to
do it by the 15th, but due to system constraints and other issues, it's been
pushed back a little bit. So, it's usually pushing the end of our month and
then it takes us a few days, weeks sometimes to get those
payments in because we do individually receipt them. That is something that we
do for tracking purposes and we're working hopefully with our new systems
when we do when we convert to Tyler, we'll be able to um electronically put
those payments in so that we won't be spending so much manual time entering
those payments. But since we've done it for so long, I hate to lose that um
history or have a gap in the history uh knowing that we're going to be
converting to Tyler in the next year or a little over a year.
» Thank you. >> So, we continue to do it even though it
takes a little bit of time. >> Any other questions?
Sourcing of sales tax uh and point of delivery. Um [clears throat] point of
delivery is the location where the sale or service is received by the buyer
where they take possession or make first use of services.
While sell sales tax code spec provides specific guidance in its definition of
point of delivery when the product is not received or paid for by the
purchaser at a business location of the seller in the city. The sale is
considered delivered to the location where the uh where received by the
purchaser or the purchaser's recipient. An example would be an online or phone
sale that's delivered to a location in the city. It's taxable wherever that
location in the city would be. So it' be a city sale.
When the product is received or paid for by the purchaser who's physically
present at a business location in the city, the sale is considered to have
been made in the city where the purchaser is present even if delivery of
the product takes place in another taxing jurisdiction
or outside the taxing jurisdiction. These sales are reported and the tax is
remitted directly to the city. So this would be if you went to a store in LA in
in the city, paid for say an appliance and you're in the store paying for it,
you would pay sales tax at the store because even if you have it delivered to
your home outside the city or in another lo location like Palmer,
it's considered a city sale. [snorts]
When services are not received by the purchaser at the business location of
the seller, the service is considered delivered to the location where the
purchaser receives the service. Products or services that are transferred
electronically or other sales where the delivery address is for the purchaser is
unknown, then the point of delivery shall be the billing address of the
buyer. And when products and services are
transferred electronically or sales where the delivery address for the
purchaser is unknown, the point of delivery shall be the billing address of
the per of the buyer. These rules were specifically written to match sourcing
language in the Alaska remote seller sales tax commission to uniformly source
the sales tax and prevent double tax situations for both the remote and local
sales that cross jurisdictional uh tax jurisdictional boundaries. The city of
Palmer also uses the same language,
which is helpful since they're so close to us.
The code has rules for specific types of businesses. Um, for real estate
transactions, the commissions and fees are taxed for the sale, lease, or
management of properties that are located in the city. There's also
specific rules for the sale of gaming property as well as coin operated
machines.
The city has tons of information to help assist businesses with understanding
their responsibilities for collection and remittance of sales tax on our
website as well as links to our sales tax code. We have pages for licensing
and pages for sales tax and lots of links in between.
We also have a flowchart for both sales and services to assist businesses with
more complex points of delivery that cross taxing jurisdictions or that may
have remote sales into or out of the city. Businesses that have questions are
encouraged to request a tax ruling on any specific questions for their
business that they may have.
Additionally, the city is working with the Small Business Development Center to
provide education classes for new businesses. Currently, these are offered
in person, but hopefully soon will be available on demand as well. We also
work collaboratively with the burrow and neighboring cities and the Alaska Remote
Seller Sales Tax Commission to educate businesses and refer them to other
entities or agencies when applicable.
Sales tax filing and remittance. Tax returns are due monthly, but
businesses may request to file on an annual or quarterly basis if they have a
timely filing history um for the private prior year and meet taxable sales
thresholds of $150,000 for quarterly and $6,000 for annual. Request forms are
available in the finance department and on our website. Are those numbers
correct? It says quarterly 150,000 but annual 6,000.
» Is it 15,000 quarterly and then 1,500 quarterly to be 6,000 annually?
» Those are annual numbers. So they if they have sales that are $150,000
annually, then they qualify for being a quarterly filer.
» Okay. >> If they have $6,000 or less annually,
then they can be an annual filer. >> Thank you.
» Yeah. And that 6,000 basically equates to $12.50 a month. So like if they had
one max transaction, they could do annual. Other than that, it's infrequent
that we do that, but we do have a lot of businesses that file zeros for the
entire year for different reasons. And so this gives us an option to give them
an annual return. Other than that, we try to limit it in case, you know,
because some people say they're going to not do something and then they end up
doing it. So, it's best to try them out at quarterly if we're unsure, which is
why we require the year prior history, although we do sometimes make exceptions
for businesses that are obviously probably not going to meet that
transaction level.
Credit and debit cards may be used for um payments made online only and they
incur a 3% convenience fee. There is no fee for online echeks.
Cash and check are or can be remitted directly to the Fincaster Department
office. Businesses may take a 2% credit of the
tax amount due up to $100 per tax return for on-time payments.
Payment is late if it's not received in the finance office by the last business
day. I'm sorry, by the last day of the month following the period uh the
reporting period. Postmarks are not considered, so it has to be received in
our office. Penalties are 5% of the tax amount due for each month that the
return is late, maxing at 20% with an additional late fee of $25. Interest
occurs daily at 15%. And additional civil penalties are
charged if the city does not receive a tax return at all and has to estimate
the tax owed. Penalty waiverss are allowed one time in
a 12-month period. Penalties may be waved, but not the
interest or the credit for prompt pay.
Electronic tax returns are available online in our online software programs.
Instructions for each line of the tax return can be expanded by clicking on
the line item of the return. Returns must be electronically signed, dated,
and then submitted for payment either with echek or an credit or debit card.
They al also may be saved as a pending form and then um payment sent in or uh
brought in if people don't want to, you know, pay online.
For those that are technology challenged or adverse
um and prefer to do their paper uh returns, we do have paper forms in our
uh office as well as on the website. We do not mail sales tax returns. So,
businesses are encouraged uh to sign up for online account even if they don't
file that way just so they receive reminder and email notices of due dates.
If they don't do that and they forget, then they don't get notified until
they're late and then they get a late notice.
» So, I have a a question regarding online tax payments. You know, we have a 3%
convenience fee if someone pays with a credit card, but if they decide to skip
the 3% fee and walk in and talk to you and pay that way,
» Mhm. They can't >> What's that? They can come in and pay,
but they can't pay with a credit card. They have to only do
» Right. But what I'm saying is if they if they pay online, isn't that more
convenient for us? >> It is.
» And so, doesn't it seem odd that we're charging them a convenience fee? I know
a lot of uh you know uh you know credit card companies and things nowadays uh
say the convenience fee is well if you want a paper bill
» then there's a convenience fee you know and if you just handle it online
» they don't charge anything extra to yeah what what is the
» I think the the basis there is that um a lot of businesses or you know people in
general um want to pay a lot of things online with their credit cards because
they get benefits for those transactions. These tend to be large
transactions. Um, on some businesses, the fees are pretty high. I mean, we're
getting charged 3% by the credit card companies and so we want to be able to
pass that on and not to other taxpayers because it's the taxpayers that are
paying those fees. Um, it's certainly something that can be looked at. It's
not uh it's mostly policy. I don't think there would be any reason that you guys
couldn't change it if you wanted to. Um, I'm sure that the finance department
could get those numbers together for you of how much the credit card charges are
versus, you know, what we would so what we would be paying or what the taxpayers
would be paying for those fees for other people to pay. Um, but it's a good
question. They can pay online with an echek. They just can't do it with a
credit card and they can't do it in person either. So, the only way to pay
with a credit card is online. And um currently we're not accepting uh AC
payments from businesses uh where they initiate a payment to us um for taxes.
That's something that I'm hoping we will be doing in the next system. So that'll
just give them another layer or option of payment. Um so that's something to
look forward to hopefully. And Tyler, >> thank you.
» Council member Codle, are you online? Yes, I am.
» Thank you. Joined us at 6:33.
» All right. Getting close. Sales tax exemptions.
Municipal code exemptions um provides a list of 24 exemptions to
the city city's uh sales tax code. Some are required by state or federal
statutes. Others mirror exemptions of other taxing jurisdictions around the
state. I've highlighted a few that differ from neighboring cities which
include number 12, [snorts] 15, 16, 18, and 24 that we're going to
discuss further in a little bit. And then we can come back to these if you
have questions. We can go over them if you'd like to, but we'll probably those
other ones are um kind of ones we really can't change or wouldn't look to change.
So, >> Adam, deputy mayor.
» Yes, Council Member Cracken. >> All right. I know we're going to talk
about it in a moment just because I'm looking at it at the second though.
Number 18. >> Mhm.
» Um I believe pretty much everything in there exempted by state law.
» Was there something in there specific that you were like, "This actually isn't
covered that we wanted to or were considering changing?"
» Yeah. So healthc care um services are provided by um providers that are
licensed by the state of Alaska. So our code basically says that any provider
under title 8 is eligible um for human health care which is an important
distinction because veterinarians are in there. So we have basically said that
you know not all title 8 but all but veterinarians or anybody that's not
doing human um would be ex would would qualify for the exemption. So there are
other uh providers in title 8 that provide human health care, but other
codes such as maybe the city of Palmer's and others limit it even further saying
it's only uh medical doctor services, chiropractors, dentists, and they give a
list of the ones that they want specifically. But dieticians,
um, massage therapists, and others that are not necessarily in
the mainstream medical field, um, might be ones that you might not want to
exempt and other places don't exempt. So, there is a little bit of room in
there if you want to go through the list of the title 8 provider um under the
state statutes, the different types of uh medical providers and see if there's
are any in there that you don't want to exempt.
» Gotcha. Thank you.
» So, I have a >> Sure.
» another question for you here on page 12, slide number 12, I think it is. Uh,
the maximum tax per transaction talks about sales rendered over one month. The
payment of rent in excess of $500 and for more than one month shall be treated
as a separate transaction, making me think it's taxable. But when I
look at page 28, it says uh or excuse me,
» res page 29 number 15 where it says residential rentals for a term of 30 or
more consecutive days. >> That's correct. So all rentals are taxed
in the city except for residential rentals currently. So commercial rentals
are taxed. Short-term rentals are taxed. Tangible personal property rentals are
taxed. >> Okay.
» Um only residential rental is exempt. >> And that's all residential rentals.
» Thank you, >> Council Member Johnson.
» So storage units, for instance, are text.
» Those are those are taxable. >> Okay.
» Yeah. And we're collecting tax on them. >> We are
» on the monthly charges and and we do have that caveat in the code like you
said like you pointed out. So let's just say I pay for all 12 months of my
storage rental at one time. That doesn't excuse um and it goes over 500 bucks,
you don't get to have a cap. You prorrate that for each month's rental
and then it's taxed. So you wouldn't be able to lessen your tax liability by
paying a larger amount at one time.
» So an organization that is exempt from paying sales tax, for instance, a
doctor, if he's renting his property,
he or she or they are paying tax on the rental but not paying tax on the service
that they provide. Is that correct? Yes, but the for the business purpose,
like if they're renting a a place for their doctor's office, that would be the
commercial rental would be taxable. If they were renting a private residence,
that would be not taxable currently under code.
» Thank you.
» And we're going to talk a little bit more about that at the end here.
So, additionally, we exempt sales tax on sales [snorts] made by a qualifying
nonprofit that are recognized by the IRS as a 51c3, C4, or C19 organization.
So,
um, and then we also have sales tax exemption certificates or certain
entities that qualify to apply for an exempt. These certain ones apply uh can
apply for an exemption. We offer one for contractors which cost $250. Owner
builders can obtain one for $35. Uh wholesale manufacturing businesses and
nonprofits for $10 each. The tax exemption certificates exempt qualifying
purchases from taxation. The purpose of these exemptions for
contractors, owner builders, and wholesale exemptions is to prevent items
that are resold, consumed, or transferred, transformed into another
new product from being taxed multiple times prior to the sale, the end sale to
the consumer.
» Madame Mayor, Deputy Mayor, >> Council Member Johnson,
» going back to slide 30. Um [snorts] so if you had a nonprofit which
has say a coffee shop uh the coffee that is [snorts]
sold then it's non tax. >> If the nonprofit sells anything in the
city under this code it's not taxed at this point
» even though they're providing service to the general public.
Yep. And we're going to talk a lot about that at the well some we'll bring that
up again, but yes, you're in the right ballpark. Um, anything that a nonprofit
sells or services they provide are exempt under this code, this section.
» Council member Graham, >> and that's any nonprofit that is a C3,
C4, C19. There are like 40 different >> types of nonprofits. Most would be
subject to >> Exactly. although I think the majority
of them are probably fall under C3. Um C3 and four
are most common and then the 19s are mostly your veterans associations.
So, but we have others sixes and there's
some others like um labor unions and different ones that that are different
numbers under the IRS code. veterans taxes
sales. No.
» Yeah, a lot of your veterans organizations, there's there's quite a
few things that are not taxed under this particular thing. So, we can and we'll
talk more about that.
[snorts] Okay. Buyers that are incorrectly
charged sales tax may protest the tax within 60 days and may include incorrect
uh this may include like incorrect assessments of tax rates, sales tax
caps, um sales tax on locations that are outside the city limits or sales tax um
you know exemption certificates that are not honored for some reason. Uh two tips
to reduce incorrect tax assessments are to provide sellers with uh tax lookup
report which is found on the uh website that's provided by the Alaska Real
Seller Sales Tax Commission and also to use your zip plus4 in your delivery and
mailing addresses for products or services that you have delivered. These
are tips um that we also publish on our website under the sales tax exemption
page. The reason for the plus4 designation is when you are using a a
mailing address or zip code to determine the sales tax, the first thing they're
looking at is the 99654 or 99687, which says it's in Wasilla.
The uh tax companies say taxable. So,
they're going to code it in being taxable. The plus4 tells the system
where in the map of the city are you located and it'll tell you if you're
inside or outside the boundaries if that's the mechanism they're using to
determine it. So it's the GIS portion that pinpoints the exact location of the
address as in or outside of the boundary. If you don't have that,
they're just going to capture Wasilla and you're going to get charged sales
tax even if the address is outside the city. The plus4 will tell it it's
outside the city and therefore you won't have the sales tax. So on all your tell
your friends if they're getting charged tax or they're sometimes they're not
even looking or paying attention. So it's just really a good rule of thumb to
always put the plus4 in on all your little apps and the payments and Google
and all those things so that it's correctly assessing the proper amount.
The ARSTC is looking at um doing some addressing work with some of the bigger
uh with Avalera and others that are big tax word companies to give them specific
addresses to help eliminate or alleviate some of those incorrect tax assessments
because of the zip without the four. But um usually uh when we find that people
are being charged when they're outside the city, telling them to to do that and
change those settings usually makes it work. Not always, but a lot of times.
And so if it doesn't work, then we try the other um mechanism of uh sending
this report, which we're going to go over next. If you go to this website
that I'm referring to, the Alaska Tax lookup, which is provided by the ARSTC,
you can look up any address in the state, and it will tell you where it is.
If it's in a tech, you know, it's in the state, it's in the bureau, it's in the
city. It'll tell you exactly if there's any tax owed in which jurisdiction
you're paying it to. Um,
it will also allow you on this side here, it will you
can hit export and it will print out this report or bring it up. You can save
it uh and provide it to anybody who's charging you sales tax. So, you can let
them know that hey, this location's not in the city or it is and it's, you know,
valid validated. Um, the tax rate is all, you know, presented there. It also
gives information to, you know, sellers that are trying to find out if
something's taxable or not. Uh, it gives them the rules of the c tax caps and
many other things about our code that they can search through uh to see if,
you know, particular transactions are exempt.
So, it's a it's a very helpful thing, especially for businesses that are doing
transactions, you know, not just in elsewhere as well.
Are there any questions so far about exemptions? And okay, so options for
change.
So reasons for change, we'll go over first. Um,
there are multiple things to consider when we think about changing the sales
tax code. consistency uh between local city codes to help businesses that
operate across the boundaries throughout the bureau as well as the rest of the
state. Clarity to make interpretation clear and
concise. Fairness to equal or level the playing
field for competing businesses um within the city and uh businesses that compete
with those outside of the city. and revenue to broaden the tax revenue
sources which is consistent with the council goals and initiatives to
evaluate current and future tax revenue sources.
So, I've identified a few areas that um are potential places that the code could
be changed if the council uh feels like it's in the best interest
of the city.
Um the first one is kind of where uh Mr. Johnson was going, which was the 501c3s
uh exempt. We could require that uh entities operating more than 20 hours um
would have to remit sales tax. That would put us consistent with what the
city of Palmer does. Um, it would make the codes consistent and it would allow
for the types of businesses that are competing against other businesses that
don't have that have to collect the sales tax. It would put them on the same
even playing field. That's one option if you wanted to go in that direction.
We're not advocating for that. Just trying to give options and and
understanding what um doing something like that would do or not do. This would
um also allow for uh the smaller nonprofits
that are not working m you know operating businesses necessarily. They
would not have to remit. So you're not dealing with like your local booster
club or you know t-shirt sellers that are raising money for their cause or
something like that. So um it's one option. It is something that um Palmer
does because they have quite a few of these um operations that uh do like the
fair and other places that are are 501c3s and and those revenues are
important to that city. So, it's just something to consider. Also, the you
know level playing field of keeping other businesses competitive.
Another option is um to tax all gaming regardless of the nonprofit status. So
whether they're open for 20 hours or more or just any nonprofit that sells
gaming, um you could, you know, look at that being a rule. I do believe, um
Palmer has some regulations like that, too. I don't know if it's all or if it's
just I think they might limit it to only gaming that's done at the state
fairgrounds, but um you guys could do whatever you know you want, but it's
something that has room for a change. Um,
also this section of code, uh, back when we were looking at the specific rules
for different particular businesses, this one, um, it was written a long time
ago. And it was written, I think, mostly with pull tabs and bingo in mind.
And the gaming options have expanded now and include like a state lottery and
other forms of gambling. So, um, that might be just something that we want to
look at to see if there's other options for us to tax. Uh,
currently any nonprofits that are selling, uh, any gaming on their own are
not required to collect sales tax. But, uh, for-profit operators that sell on
behalf of nonprofits, because you have to, if you're selling any kind of
gaming, it has to go for the benefit of a nonprofit. But those for-profit ones
are paying sales tax. So they are at an unfair, you know, competitiveness, I
guess, or advantage. Um, the code makes it difficult to
administer when when uh some of these sales are the way it's currently
written, when some of these sales are made outside of the city. So like I
said, bingo and and pull tabs, they're all done here. But these other things
like raffle tickets and you know different things those some of the
tickets might be sold here and some might be outside the city but the way
that the code is written it makes it difficult for a business to be able to
determine or a nonprofit to be able to determine that. So those are things that
we want to look at if you want to change something like that.
[sighs] We could increase the sales tax cap. That's another room for change. Um,
I know that the McKinley Group study uh supported an increase um without harm to
local businesses. So, that's something that could be considered.
Um, like I said, the caps are varying throughout the state, so different
amounts currently. Um, that would also put us in line with the city of, you
know, Palmer if we made the caps the same. Um, but it's just something that
is possible. Um, I do believe that the information
that the McKinley study did offer was on the low side. I think it's going to be
probably higher than that, but unfortunately the number would not be
something that we can determine at this time. There's just a range and I think
her report and memo to you all was pretty clear about the range there. It
was, you know, quite a large range. So, um, another thing to consider.
[clears throat] Didn't our tax cap used to be like $1,250. We've lowered it
considerably over the years, hasn't we? >> As far as I know, the cap tax cap has
been on the first $500 the entire time. The rate the amount has changed because
the rate changes. So, it used to be $12, you know, then it or it was $10 when it
was 2%. Then it went to $1250 when it's 2.5. It was $15 when it was 3%. But it's
always been on the first $500. So if we went to a different cap, you could cap
it on the first 750 or you could cap it on the first thousand or you could cap
it on, you know, whatever you want. You just want to make sure that if you do
look at raising that, we make sure that we do all the things we need to do,
check with legal and all that stuff. Um, but also that you don't raise it too
high that it would hurt your local businesses and make them uncompetitive
with businesses that are not in a taxing jurisdiction and having to collect tax.
Um, so there's different reasons for changing it or not changing it or you
know then you got to decide how much. So there's lots of things to consider
there.
Yeah. Questions? um tax on residential rentals. So, as we
discussed earlier, residential rentals are the only rentals that we don't tax.
Um other cities do tax them. Uh city of
Palmer does. So, you know, it would be consistent with them. They would it
still be uh subject to the tax cap. So, if rentals were taxed currently, they
would be subject to the current tax rate, which is our tax cap, which is
$500. So, no more than 1250 on any one month. Um, but obviously if you're
looking at those other changes, then that would affect these types of things
as well. This was number 15 on the exemption list
that we were talking about. Um,
so we could remove the credit for prompt pay when collecting uh from collecting
businesses. Currently, like I said, the business that collects a sales tax um is
offered a 2% credit up to $100 every tax period. Uh so that's for some businesses
$1,200 a month or $1,200 a year that they would um take as a credit uh for
them to collect our tax. The city of Palmer does not allow for a
tax [clears throat] cap or a tax credit and there are other many others around
the state that don't. There are many that do. So, um, our code falls in line
with, you know, probably half of them. Um, so that's a place that you could
look for if you were wanting to make some changes. Um, Council Member
Schmidt, >> do you happen to have the figures on
what the discount is on early pay? >> What we collect currently for it?
» No, the discount. >> The discount is 2% of the tax amount due
» for the year. How much total does that add up to?
» It's on the next page. >> Yeah, on the next Yep. On the
statistical page. Yeah, I'll I'll go over that for you, but yes, I did
provide it for you. [clears throat] So, we'll skip ahead just for a second. So,
currently in FY25, we collected $183,000 in uh credit or you know, we could have
we've given that credit away and in the current year to date um it is uh 182
348. So, it's going to be real close when we get the last of the ARSTC
payments posted. So, that's one place that could be
changed as well. Um, Council Member Schmidt,
» do you think that's made an uh impact on people paying promptly?
» I don't think that it really does. I think that um the system calculates it
for them. A lot of times before the automated system and when people were
not filing online, a lot of times they wouldn't take the credit like they
forget to take it. it was more difficult sometimes for some businesses to take
it. Uh but yeah, I mean, of course, if you're offered it, you're going to take
it, but I don't think that it would incentivize necessarily people to
um pay on time over a penalty that's, you know, 5% or
more. So, I think th those those incentivize
people to pay on time more, I think, than the credit does to pay on time.
But it is something food for thought to consider. Um, businesses do not pay
anything as far as uh property tax to to be here. Uh, so really the only thing
that they are paying is the $25 and obviously, you know, staff to administer
that tax collection, but I'm sure that's not their only duty. So, um,
so that's definitely a place to consider.
Um, let's see what else.
Changing the city licensing fee structure. So, we have not had an
increase since the uh licenses were instituted in 1993. So, our tax uh
license fee was $25 back then and it's still $25. So, that is something. Um,
other licenses, I believe the state is $50 for a year, $100 for two. when the
burrow had theirs, it was $50 for two years. So, um, we offer a annual only.
I mean, we I'm not a proponent of going less than that be or more than that
because we have our sales taxes our sales tax accounts are tied to the
licensing and at the end of the calendar year when they don't renew their
license, even though they're supposed to tell us and close those accounts out, it
causes a lot of problems if they don't. And I just see if we leave it as a
two-year license, we'll have even more of those uncertain accounts that don't
close and just leave. So, I I would probably not recommend that, but I mean,
certainly, we could look at it and try it, [laughter]
but um I think other places have had other
other problems. It it would um allow us to
spend less time on renewal. the renewal procedures,
but uh if if we don't do them consistently, you're still going to have
like like the burrow I think when they did it, they they had some that were if
you got it this year, it was good for the rest of this year and next year. So,
you're always going to have renewals, so that really wouldn't lessen the workload
of the of staff to do it. It they would just cycle. So,
» Council Member Kraken, >> thank you. Um, so I guess I'm trying to
understand what you mean by changing it because you're not advocating for
increasing the co or increasing the cost or changing the time frame.
» You could do any of those. I mean, you could change the fee structure to um,
you know, less frequently and do the the, you know, like every two years. You
could increase the fee. We could look at taxing. Um, I don't we'd have to touch
with legal, but you could look into whether uh we could do fees based on
gross receipts like a license fee. If your business does this kind of volume
of sales, your license is $25 or $50. If you do this volume of sales, it's
higher, you know, until you get to like your big huge stores that would have a
larger footprint and then they would have a larger license fee. that's done
in other places around the country. So, we could look to see if that if Alaska
law would support something like that. We'd have to check in with there's just
different things to think outside the box on, you know, our our regular $25.
Um because again, these these are the only tax or only fee that that some of
these businesses are are paying. So, um I think a lot of times they're they're
referred to, you know, you have to have a license fee that's fees and taxes are
are not the same and we don't want to have a
fee that that's really a tax and so we have to kind of be careful with that and
that's why we should probably involve, you know, Holly or whomever to ask some
of those questions if that's something you guys want to delve into. Well, I
mean, it wouldn't so much be about the fee, but to me, it's the time frame. I
mean, one of the things that we discussed during, for instance, the land
use development with Title 16 was the short-term rentals.
» I mean, those were a year and then people were appealing them. And so, what
effectively ended up happening was people that got those permits couldn't
even use them because of how much time they were being tied up. And so, I I
think about how much time the city spends dealing with the permits. I mean,
I get it. Most of these people it should be you know you go online you click a
couple buttons you pay your fee you move on you know that's that should be a
majority of it but it's the ones that don't do that that start to become the
time suck and you you would think you it would become
more efficient to offer a longer term business license that would be in the
realm of three or five years um and it could even be based on what type of
business you're offering I mean do we really need Fred Meyer and Walmart
coming to us every single year applying for their business license. I mean, come
on. >> They're not going anywhere anytime soon,
you know? >> Yeah.
» So, it it it changes things like that. There's I get there's a lot of moving
parts there, but that's the idea that or the question that I would ask is would
that be more beneficial >> to the city?
» It it could be. We could we could certainly look at it. Um, for most of
our businesses that are not those guys, um, the yearly contact is kind of good
because a lot of information changes and people change and locations change and
people don't do all the things are supposed to do. Like
I've got several businesses just that I've seen around town in the last couple
of uh months that have changed locations and don't tell us they changed on their
license. So if you looked up their license, they're still at their old
location. And so then we end up having to contact them. Those are things that a
lot of times they change on their renewal form and catch up because they
see it and are asked to provide that information um or verify the information
that we have as correct and they're like, "Oh, no, that's changed. Oh, that
phone number's changed. Oh, this has changed. And so having that check-in
yearly is beneficial because that information that we're using that is for
those businesses is what helps us to collect the taxes when say they don't
pay their tax form or they, you know, leave the city and because they haven't
had to get a business license renewal in 5 years. If we stop getting those tax
returns, then it can make some of those things kind of difficult because they
just ghost us and don't tell us. So, at least at uh a year, I know that we're
going to cut them off and say, "Okay, they're not coming back or they're not
responding or they're not here anymore." And we know we're not going to go
further than a year when we don't know what they're doing. So, that would be my
only hesitation. Um, but I understand the other side of it, what you're
saying, and that we would potentially save time. Um, so we can certainly look
at those options or think about them. >> Thank you.
Um, and then the last thing was the uh the changes to the current exemptions or
exemption certificates such as the contractor owner builder exemptions. Um,
and then we also kind of didn't catch all of the ones that were that I had
mentioned or highlighted in our exemption forms. So, uh, exemptions on
the commission of travel, that's one that oops that we could, uh, also look
at. Currently, we do not tax the commission of any sales. Let me skip
back to it and see.
Sales of air, train, boat, cruise line or bus, transportation, car rentals,
accommodations or emissions to entertainment v venues where the
services provided outside the city, those are exempt and the fees and
commissions related to such sales. So, if you were buying something online for
a concert or whatever, um, airfare, well, it's not air because that's a
whole another thing, but, um, entertainment venues, that type of
thing, uh, those things are not taxable because they're
not here, but the commission of the fee that somebody sells, that commission is
is not taxed either. So, like your travel agencies, if you have a travel
agency in town, they're selling all these things. They they get a commission
fee for doing this service for you, but those are not taxed. Um, it would also
be the same thing for like Expedia, which we're looking at now taxing with
the uh changes that we just made last month. Um, so if Expedia is charging a
percentage of the fee for their service to to do all these services for you,
that fee is not going to be taxed because our code exempts it.
So that's something to look out. Council member Craftton,
» thank you. The part specifically I'm looking at here is what we'd consider
the contractor, owner, builders, wholesale manufacturers, and nonprofit.
Well, maybe we leave the nonprofit up. So contractors, owner builders,
wholesale manufacturers. When I look at the contractors, owner builders,
they're allowed to pl apply for an exemption. So they don't have to pay a
uh sales tax on every single individual transaction they make. So when they go
buy the concrete, they buy the blocks, they buy the wood, every single item
that they buy to build the house doesn't get taxed. That's essentially the
exemption they're applying for. Correct. >> Correct. And they pay $250 for it. and
» and it's yearly, right? >> It's yearly. And [clears throat] the um
there's no caveat that the required um that the things that they're buying are
for things inside the city. So, there are a couple of things that, you know,
you could do with that exemption. You could eliminate it, which would then um
make all of their sales tax. You know, when they make purchases, those sales
would be taxed and subject to the tax cap. So, if the cap was still $500, then
the most any one of those things that's going to be charged is $12.50.
Um, if if we raised it, then it would be
whatever you guys would raise it to. If they didn't have that, um I would to
prevent the double tax situation, then if you remove the exemption altogether
and they just paid tax on all purchases, then you could put an exemption in that
would exempt their services that they provide in the city from being taxed.
So, a consumer who hires a contractor to do a remodel would um not pay any tax to
that remodeler for their service um or the product that's being done. But when
the contractor goes and buys all those stuff for that project, they're going to
pay sales tax full price or based on the cap at wherever they're buying all their
stuff for. And it's just part of the cost of what they're going to be passing
on to the consumer. and they would not pay any additional tax on that. So
currently um there's a lot of we don't most of the stuff that's sold
here is consumed outside the city and not done here but that that is um is
exempted but I don't know that the contractors are uh completely complying
with what they're supposed to be reporting and remitting to us and to
audit that is probably not going to be super lucrative because of the tax cap
We're only talking about a handful of contractors doing a handful of jobs and
it's $12.50. So, we can spend a lot of time on compliance, but we're not going
to spend a lot of time getting revenues from that. So, it would be more, I
guess, cost pro cost beneficial to exempt having to charge the consumer tax
and the contractor reporting exemption that and just have them pay the tax, but
that would be more costly to a contractor to do it that way. So, give
and take. >> I I mean, the way I'm thinking about
this is look at the amount of home [snorts]
builders out here and where do they buy their materials?
» Pretty much all of it comes from the city. I mean, you talk to our deputy
administrator and she loves to tell the story about how successful Lowe's is.
Lowe's was not, >> nobody thought that Lowe's would be as
successful as it is, but then you realize that we don't serve 10,000
people. We serve 150,000 people, >> right?
» And so I I look at it and go $20,000 in cabinets, $50,000 in lumber. You know,
that's going to start I mean, yes, $12.50,
but think about how many individual transactions some of these contractors
are making to put a home together. They're not going to just eat the cost.
That cost gets passed on uh into the price of the home. Mhm.
» Um, >> that'd be an interesting one to look at.
I'll just say that because I I get where you're going for the smaller
contractors, but when I think I I look at this for the bigger people that are
that would make the difference between, >> you know, that $12.50 starts adding up
really really fast. Yeah. >> Uh, for people. So,
» and just so you know, too, I'm I'm not >> I know you're not advocating either way.
I'm just putting it out there. Like that's the thought that I go to when I
look at this and go, "Oh, there's 139 people that have applied for that
already." Uh, plus the three owner builders. And then you look at the
wholesalers and the manufacturers because again, they're not wanting to
pay sales tax on the stuff that they're wholesaling, just basically they're just
the throughman to get the products along the way. So,
» uh, just just an interesting uh, bit uh, to look at there. So, thank you.
Okay. So, we did the travel one. So, also daycare um there we currently do
not tax any care services in the city. Uh other codes uh local codes do. So,
another place for for places um looking at things as well as taxi ride shares.
Uh some do, some don't, but the taxi ride shares we don't currently tax. Uh
but with the changes we just made last month, your platforms like your Uber and
your Lyft would then be collecting those taxes. So we have not in the past due to
difficulties trying to find them and then difficulties trying to collect on
them. But if we had other mechanisms like those platforms to help us collect,
then uh that might be a a different conversation or a better outcome for the
city. And then uh we talked a little bit about
the narrowing of the medical health healthcare providers. So that's kind of
the group of tax exemptions that we discussed in the earlier slides. So
those are the places that I had identified. Like I said, we're not
necessarily advocating anything, just pointing out
where there are places that can be changed and uh leaving it to you guys to
decide what's best. And we're happy to answer questions about that and uh
discuss it with you further. Um, I've got the statistical information in here
too to help you guys um, uh, assist in your u, analysis of of the different
options that we've given you. Um, and we're certainly open to any other, you
know, suggestions that may have or questions that you have.
Council member Grant >> Moren, do you know what their
uh budget expectations were for sales tax for 25 26?
» Not numbers. >> Yeah, not off the top of my head. I know
they're they're fairly close to that, but
I'm sure Wendy probably can get that information for you.
» Thank you. >> Yes, please.
» Council member Craftton. Thank you. Uh I just want to say I really appreciate the
uh presentation here. Um I know uh some of
these things some of these changes were things I was already looking into. Uh
like Mr. Johnson had brought up. I mean to give you an example about the
nonprofits is uh I went down to one here recently and there was a shirt that
still had the tags on it from the original box store. I happened to own
that shirt. Not only was the shirt cheaper at the thrift store, but had I
purchased it there, I wouldn't have paid sales tax on it. And to me, it's like,
how is that fair, you know? That's that to me, that's a pretty simple change we
can make, you know, and I like the fact that you're like, hey, let's put the 20
hours on it so we avoid [snorts] hitting some of these really small
» um school event, whatever. There there were some there's some very small niches
in there that there's limits to to put on there. So, I really appreciate uh the
information here again. And there's more in here than I had thought of, but also
some things in here that I was like, "Okay, my my thinking is not wrong along
those lines." So, >> I do appreciate this very very good
presentation. Thank you, Marines. >> Well, I thank you guys for all your time
tonight because um I'm happy you're still awake [laughter]
and with me. Um sometimes when I get going on this stuff, people kind of
gloss over and they're like, "H." So, um, it's good to have, uh, engagement
from the council. Is there any other questions or
» Thank you, Marie. All right. Thank you, guys.
There are no items scheduled for public hearing this evening. We are now at
persons to be heard. This is a time for members of the public to share their
views with the council. Please note that this is not a question and answer
period. Speakers may be referred to administration and items raised may be
taken under advisement. Please begin your testimony by stating your first and
last name. And if you are a city resident, comments are limited to three
minutes. Concerns.
[cough]
» Good evening. My name is Tom Sterns. I'm the senior ambassador for the Wasel Area
Seniors Incorporated. Um, and I am here to share with you all the great things
that are happening at Watsi. But the first one is that we're going to be
closed on the 7th of September. If you can believe it, that's Labor Day. And we
will be closed. Uh, but after Labor Day, we have some great things that are going
to be happening. You, I hope, got one of these. That is our uh spring uh our
dance. Uh it's going to be a 70s and 80s theme. Uh and it's going to be part of
our fall prevention program. Um and so we're going to teach you how to dance so
you don't fall. And uh uh and so that's a very good uh good thing to have is uh
then uh the next thing uh that we have is our uh harvest fundraiser. Okay, we
had that last year. Uh it was a great success. We're going to have it again
this year. Uh $50 a plate uh for the u uh for the brunch. Uh and then we'll
have uh all sorts of um uh things to sell um auction off uh during that time.
What we need you to do is read the back. Uh and those are the things that we need
right now. Uh we need uh different uh things that you can uh uh uh donate so
that we can have things to auction off. Uh especially the folks that make
things. if you make things uh those would be really good things that we
could auction off for our raffles. And then the next thing is of course we have
our lunch sponsorships each month uh four uh $400 for lunch, $500 uh for
lunch and dessert. Um since we don't do desserts anymore. Um and then the next
thing is all of you are in the category except uh
Miss Rubio. Uh uh well maybe not all of you. All right. Some of you are are in
the category of being a senior and we are looking for three board members. All
right. and these board members, there are no incumbents. So, uh, if you're
running, uh, you have a very good chance of winning. Uh, and so we would like to
encourage any of you that are interested to, uh, get get a hold of our front desk
and they'll give you all the things you need to know. And then 17 September is
our next board meeting. Thank you very much.
» Thank you, Tom. Dan Kennedy.
» Greetings, Deputy Mayor Rubio. My name is uh Dan Kennedy. My address, 4701
East Shoreline Circle, Wasillo. I'm a non-resident, but I'm here this evening
with my wife Janet to uh thank the city. But before I uh
let you know why we're thanking this city, uh between Janet and myself, we've
had 82 years as CPAs. And for decades, our CPA office was in the Lake View
Professional Building on Cruzy Street. And my efforts primarily with the CPA
firm was economic development for uh some of our largest corporations around
to emerging businesses. And as past president of the Greater
Wasola Chamber of Commerce, I've sat at this table to your colleagues before
you, your predecessors, and went, "Your most valuable asset is the airport. Your
most valuable asset is the airport." And Janet and I wish to thank the city, your
predecessors, to the wonderful staff of your [snorts] organization, to our local
government for all your work on the city airport. Uh we're just thrilled with its
expansion and we want to uh encourage uh the city to maximize your revenues from
your most valuable asset. And again on behalf of Janet, myself, we want to
thank the city so much for all your hard work. There were so many people
involved. It was a team effort to get the airport moving towards expansion.
And uh Deputy Mayor, that's all I have tonight. Thank you for allowing us to
comment. >> Thank you, Dan.
» We are now at the cons uh consent agenda. Madame Clerk, please read the
items for approval under the consent agenda by title. Thank you, Madam Deputy
Mayor. Uh we have one introduction uh uh scheduled public hearing for September
14th, 2026, ordinance serial number 2616, amending the fiscal year 2027
budget by accepting and appropriating and a United States Marshall Service
short-term joint operation for sex offender compliance verification.
And I'm wondering if we're missing the word grant. Maybe not. in an amount not
to exceed $16,275,000.
We have two resolutions left on the consent agenda. The first is resolution
serial number 2648 accepting a grant from the state of
Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, State Emergency
Operations Center after hours answering point in the amount of $87,410.
And lastly, resolution serial number 2649 accepting an enhanced 911
searchcharge revenue DPS call taker grant
from the Mountus Susetta Burough in the amount of $43,15.
And I apologize, I'm suffering a cold. >> It's okay. We'll make it through it. Is
there a motion to approve the consent agenda as read?
» So moved by Councilman Johnson. >> Is [clears throat] there a second?
» Seconded amendment. Deputy mayor. It has been moved by council member Johnson and
seconded by council member Cfton to approve the consent agenda as read. Is
there any objection to the motion? >> Hearing none, the consent agenda is
approved. We are now at unfinished business. Madame clerk, please read the
item by title. >> Council, do you want me do you want to
take the um resolution we pulled first? >> Sure.
» Okay. We'll begin with resolution serial number 2647 approving a contract between
the city of Wasilla and Clear Gov Gravity for 43,9325
in consideration for financial budgeting software.
» Is there a motion to approve the resolution number 26-47?
» Madame Deputy mayor, I move ordinance or resolution serial number 2647.
» Is there a second? >> I'll second that.
It has been moved by Council Member Craftton and seconded by Council Member
Schmidt to approve the resolution number 26-47.
Is there objection to the motion? >> Discussion or discussion? I'm sorry.
Deputy Mayor, >> Council Member Craftton.
» Thank you. Um, I remember I really liked this initially
and after the presentation I wasn't 100% sold on it. Uh, I'm I'm a little back
and forth on this one. Um, I'd be curious to hear maybe some
something from the administration or I mean what the other council members
would have to say on this one. >> Council member Johnson. Madame Deputy
Mayor and Council, um, when when I heard about this, I mean,
the details of it, I I I sort of understood the details of what it is
that we're trying to to get with this. And I looked at this as, well, it's a
fairly expensive piece of software and it has all these bells and whistles and
that it does have some advantages and it's being recommended by the
administration. So I'm I'm not automatically opposed to it. However,
when I went through the package and I saw the ongoing costs at 150,000, which
is basically committing essentially, not exactly, you know,
about $40,000 a year for continuing software and support costs in it. I'm
going, what are our options? Are we I mean, it
looks to me like uh we were presented with this option. I have no other
options on the table and it's fairly expensive. This isn't a cheap program.
Um I I guess I would really rather have uh have us come in and look at what some
other options are rather than just immediately um spending this $44,000
upfront and then committing another $150,000 beyond that um with no other
options being laid on the table. So, it's not that I'm against this, but I'd
like to see more options being presented to us than just this. This is an
expensive piece of software.
» Madam Deputy Mayor, does our finance director have anything to add
to the deputy mayor? Can you >> Okay, go ahead.
Um so uh I had talked to uh former finance director um Ted Leonard before I
came here and we had discussed this this program and its capabilities of being
able to interact with our current finance package the Tyler package. Um
this package is able to interact be able to update at any time with the current
package that we have. Um, one of the other pieces, uh, that Ted was very
excited about is that it would cut down on at least, um, 200 to 240 hours of my
work. Um, and so what that translated into, um, was that I looked at our
finance goals. So when I look at those goals,
I looked at what would those cover, what would those take care of? Because those
are legislative priorities. So I saw um in goal number two
it would help complete the enterprise resource system and draw in those
figures so that we would be able to communicate those effectively with our
with our republic or with our public. Um it would organize resources and and set
up a centralized communication channel on our city's official website.
It would also create and implement a communication and engagement plan to
strengthen outreach and improve communication tools and networks.
And so with those in place, there's a little piece that it also does that that
uh that clear gov does. When I look at clear gov, I see that it can't that it
continues or it completes all of your grow all your goals one and communicates
those to the public. Now, it doesn't necessarily complete the 2025 2045
comprehensive plan, but it will put that out onto our website and communicate
that to to individuals who may not quite understand what a comprehensive 25 to 45
plan is. um complete the parks and rec MA master plan. Um putting that out on
the on the website as well. Um there are so many ways that this program can can
um can be placed out on on our website and being able to to do what they need
to do. When I look at further down um implement the airport master plan um by
marketing efforts, we can use that use this program to do so. Uh as well as
implementing or um one of the top three goals and is the SDS uh strategy. We can
put it out to promote that as well. Um, and one of the last ones, improve
community connections to promote resident well-being and understanding
our budget and how that impacts them. So then I looked at how the how does this
free my time up? So most of you know that I I was a city manager. So I I was
in charge of a city. I can tell you that in my past practice, I did all of goal
three. If I am freed up to do to do the finance
part of it and get, you know, get those parts taken care of and be able to
function with that. I can do all number three for you with
our department heads. I number four I can get that. All of these can get put
on the website as well with clear gov. Um, you know, just interacting with our
departments and getting these individually things done. I've worked
with our departments for legislation and continue to do so. Um, I don't know that
Eric was that done before. >> I've been working with Lori. So, that
was that was also done before. Um, also I did a little experiment. Um, so I went
to co-pilot and chat GPT and I dropped our budget into it. Um, the 2027 budget
just to see what we would get out of it. Um, for for those two packages,
the reading came back that it was too large.
So when we have people who are asking make make our uh I want to see what's
important to the city of Osilla but I want to put it into a chat GPT and
figure that out for me because I don't want to deal with that when they come in
and they say that that's too large that's not helpful for our budget. So I
went to another chat BT and did a G a Gemini. I went to Gemini,
put that in. It said it was too large and asked me to put put the um put the
URL in. I put the URL in asking for 2027 and got the numbers back and I thought
that's really funny because I know that the police budget was 9.7
million, not 9.3. And I look back and Gemini has the last
year's budget in there. So, we're looking at a pro, you know,
even though these chat GPTs and all these AIs are great,
there's still errors in them that people have to still look and catch. And I
really believe with this project, with this program,
we can make that happen and we can do these things and get these things done
on the on the that were part of your fiscal goals that you set.
» Madame Mayor, a follow-up question, Wendy, I agree with everything you said.
Okay. That wasn't my question. >> Okay. The question is we're we're
committing to clear gov which is a software vendor. My son is a software
provider for a different company who works out of Atlanta. Okay. You are
asking us to on a single soul source bid buy a piece of software for $44,000
with I would like to have seen a competitive bid from possibly one or two
other companies for the exact kind of source software. Now, you might still
end up with Clear Gov because it might still be the best solution. But I'll
tell you right now, from my perspective, $44,000 a year is a lot of money to be
spending in the software on an uncompetitive bid. That's really what I
would like to see. I would like to see you come back with one or two other
vendors saying, "These are what the vendors will do. We ranked these vendors
based on their capability, and we selected Clear Gov." Okay, that's what
I'd really like to see before you can really sell me on this on this vote.
It's I agree with everything you say. We need to do all of those things,
[clears throat] but I feel like we're not being given enough information to
really make a large commitment like this.
» Council member Schmidt, >> just a quick question uh follow up on
that. Did you use um this program at the small town that you come from?
» We did not. We were we were too small. Our budget was only 10 million.
[laughter] We did not use that.
» Have you um experienced any other programs or did you just manually do it
all with the programs that you had? I what I did is I went on the Matsu burrow
and used their program and asked some really convoluted questions and didn't
think it would be able to pull out what I was in, you know, what I was trying to
get out of it and and I was able to pull that information.
Okay. >> Council member Codle, do you have any
questions? Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um, I did
a lot of research into this program and being someone who's been in accounting
and finance for years, this program to me check the boxes and um, I'm in favor
of going ahead with this because it does what we're looking for it to do and it
will be um, I think a time-saving tool for us and it will in the long run have
a lot less human error because we're not having to pull information and put it
back into numerous places where this program will put it all in there. So,
I'm in favor of that. >> Thank you, Council Member Graham.
» Thank you. So, Wendy, I'm looking at the page 20 of the Clear Gov software
proposal, which I think is attachment A to this
um ordinance that we have before us. But
essentially it says uh you know 9 months prorated cost was about $30,000.
Uh you know so uh 12 months would be you know about what you see down below when
it talks about what we would owe in July of 2027 which is you know $40,000. Then
it goes up 5% a year. Is that 5% increment? Is that pretty standard with
» with, you know, software renewals and things like that? I mean, at this point,
I mean, we've we've already kind of sunk a bunch of money into
uh, you know, the setup of this trying to figure out if it's going to do what
it's going to do. But, but I mean, is that 5% a year? Is that is that a normal
escalation factor, you think, or >> it is postco?
I would say yes. >> Okay. Thank you.
because people are really it used to be two to 3% but now that people or
companies have experienced COVID they do 5% just
in case
» Wendy I do have a question for you >> um I am in favor of this program but
does your department plan on implementing this software for this
coming budget >> yes
» so the time lead on that is Good. >> Yes.
» Okay.
» Council member Graham. >> Thank you. And uh I I too am in favor of
this proposal here. You know, Cleargov is one of those organizations
uh that goes to the Alaska Municipal League uh annual conferences every year
and gives us plenty of time to talk to them and talk to their competitors or I
wouldn't even say competitors, but people offering similar solutions, you
know, and and each of those solutions is uniquely different. uh and I think
that's why we have a soul source contract here because we're looking for
a specific solution with you know specific results here and so while I'm
not a big believer in soul source contracts in this case uh you know to
get uh you know exactly what we're looking for as close to what we're
looking for as possible I think soul sources is the only way to go so I'm in
favor of this uh u action here tonight >> council Member Craftton.
» Thank you, Madam Deput. Uh, I guess just kind of a blunt question. Do you believe
this would be the best option at the best price that we have available for
us? >> I believe so.
» Can I say yes? >> Is there further discussion?
Is there objection to the motion? >> Yes.
» Roll call vote. >> Council, this is on the adoption of
resolution serial number 2647. Council member Codle, we'll start with
you. Yes.
» Council member Graham. >> Yes.
» Council member Schmidt. >> Yes.
» Council member Craftton. >> Yes.
» Council member Johnson. >> No.
» Uh Deputy Mayor Rubio. >> Yes.
» The motion to adopt resolution serial number 2647 passes with council members
Codle, Graham, Schmidt, Craftton, and Rubio in support. Council member Johnson
opposed.
» Okay. Next resolution is resolution serial
number 2646 approving priority transportation projects for nomination
to the Matsu Valley Planning for Transportation 2027 through 2030
transportation improvement program affirming the city's commitment to
provide the required non-federal share for projects selected for federal
funding and authorizing their submittal to the MVP.
» Madam Deputy Mayor, can we take a fiveminute recess before we dive into
this one? Yes. So, it's 7:39. So, we will be back
at 7:44. [clears throat]
» Sorry. [laughter] >> I'm not worried.
discussion. >> Mayor's gone.
» We're back on the record at 7:45. Is there discussion?
» Madam Deputy Mayor, >> Council Member Craftton,
» thank you. Um, appreciate the council for giving us a
little bit more time to to look this over. Uh, I had spoken with a a
» We're back on the record at 7:45. Is there discussion?
» Uh, I'd asked the attorney just one question. And I had two two concerns
with this, but the big one I wanted to ask was just a clarifying point around
some of the whereas clauses because part of the way it reads is that it sounds
like we're being bound uh to certain dollar amounts because
we're saying, "Hey, we're going to commit these projects and these projects
come with a cost and so we're going to we're going to be putting forward those
dollars." And so I just wanted to clarify with the attorney that's not the
case because that's not possible. >> Yeah. No, it's it's not binding. And
there's two reasons. And one, I'm glad you asked me before the meeting so I
could, you know, look through and process this, but um with the Matsu uh
planning uh group here, it's not binding in itself. This is just
saying this is a priority. We have an idea it's going to cost
around this and there's going to be a contribution.
But these are just estimates whenever it gets and gets federally funded, those
numbers are likely to change. Then you have to go through the whole contracting
process and approve contracts as it goes along. This is just kind of saying we're
going through this with the the knowledge we may have to pay that
portion. I don't know whether that's required under the federal law or that's
just strictly the Matt Sue requirement. So no one can come in and say, "Oh yeah,
we wanted that really big project, but now that you tell us we have to pay part
of it, we're not interested." Um second part of it is in the whereas
clause it's certainly not my whereas is just saying this is conditions today
whereas crime is out of control I'm binding you the crime will stay out of
control it's just saying this is why we are doing this and um if the feds were
to change it and not require any kind of matching funds you're not obligated to
it either at that point. So, it's it's just really kind of um
city's acknowledging it knows that this project [clears throat] goes ahead, it's
going to have to be looking for funding for project as the rules stand today in
warehouse clause. >> Thank you. Uh another question I have uh
not to the attorney here, but just um I I really like a lot of these projects.
Uh, I really only have one project that's a bit concerned on moving forward
and I know we've got uh I'm sorry I forgot your name.
» Kim. >> Kim here. Uh, could we have her come
forward? I'm I'm just curious about project what would be considered ID
number 19. It's the Seward Meridian Parkway to Sun Mountain connection.
Could we have somebody speak to what it would
look like if we have if we move forward a project like this that that has no
platted ride of the bike, especially because it's a high priority. There's
another one on here, but it's down the road. So, I mean, that one can
completely change, but we're we're committing to trying to move forward a
project that has no right of way right now, which it it to me is con
concerning.
Uh yeah through deputy mayor um Rubio I can answer that. So the idea like we
talked about the last meeting was the um extreme impact that the alpine
connection at parks and sun mountain has for um safety concerns. So the idea
would be to find a rideway that works with all of the land owners at the end
of Sun Mountain. It could be multiple things. It could be um using uh
purchasing some land from either one of the property owners at the end of the
culde-sac and getting down to super marine. It could be buying a home in
Whispering Woods neighborhood and making a thoroughfare into the Whispering Woods
neighborhood. There needs to be some sort of uh connection between Sun
Mountain and another thoroughfare that allows for a safe transition if people
are trying to go uh left or or inbound on the parks. And so the ultimate
alignment doesn't exist right now, of course, because it all of the options
need to be evaluated. But the request needed a line on a map, so we drew one.
But the ultimate way to uh mitigate some of those major safety concerns is to
give people a safe and convenient way so that they don't choose unsafe turning
movements to get uh back onto the parks to go inbound to Anchorage. So this
project would allow for the initial planning and then uh moving into the
design to make that connection to reduce those accidentprone intersections.
Council
member Graham. >> Thank you. So, I'm looking at the last
paragraph on page 121 here. Says MVP has requested that each member jurisdiction
adopt a resolution formally nominating its priority projects.
Where how did these become priority projects? This is the first time we as a
city council have heard of some of these projects. So, how did this how did these
become priority projects out of that list of projects that we saw 30 or 40
deep? How did these become the city's priority projects?
I mean, is is this just a list that the mayor and Eric came up with? What where
what makes these priority projects? because some of these look pretty milk
coast to me. I mean, they're
» um hi uh Kim Solian, executive director of Mats Valley Planning for
Transportation. I'll answer a portion of that question and then I'll defer to
Eric. Um so, as a metropolitan planning organization, we're supposed to create a
process um by which local governments can um apply for projects. Those
projects need to be evaluated on a metrics that looks at, you know, we
established goals uh for our long range plan and then we establish criteria um
to evaluate projects on whether or not they would help us meet the goals that
we established for the long range plan. And so once we figured that piece out,
after we assessed the transportation network and identified deficiencies um
and needs um we did a call for projects. So if you remember, I was here in
January and let you know that we were issuing our formal call for projects.
There would be a 30-day um nomination window and that we were requesting local
jurisdictions apply for projects. So I let you all know about that process. it
was on our website and it had um the project nomination form and then during
that 30 way day window um the city of Palmer the Matsubo and the city of
Wasilla did nominate uh a number of projects and I will pause there I guess
I'll say one more thing so once we received [snorts] all of the
[clears throat] nominations we vetted each project to make sure they were
eligible for federal funding and then we went about applying the scoring criteria
to each project and and then assigning a score to each project and then that's
what the numeric order is that you see um in your resolution in terms of what
score each project received. >> Yeah. And I understand that process and
but I'm just curious how did these become our
when I say our I mean the city of Wasilla's priority projects. I mean, one
of these projects here is to build a sidewalk
uh from a senior community to collect to connect, you know, uh to a bike path,
which is rarely used. I I I I'm just kind of curious, how did how
did these things become priority projects?
» Thank you. Through the deputy mayor. Um so knowing what the um scoring criteria
were for the MP MVP's review and looking at the needs as we received from public
comments and from known projects. We balanced what we thought would be
eligible through that program versus our larger list of needs that we know about
from repaving to um completing projects. We knew that the uh pedestrian
connections would um um compete very well numerically as we
saw we had the number one place because of that. Um if you recall the so the
Elorn project that you're talking about that came directly out of public
comments from Mr. Don Shishel that came in and talked about that. He'd also
called and some other neighborhood members called. So these projects that
were brought to us communitywise played well into the numbers. And then the
long-term ones that we talked about with um the connection to the um Sun Mountain
to Steuart Meridian, that's been a long-standing issue that we've been uh
coordinating with the burrow on and then the police department with a number of
accidents. And then um as we've gone through the uh railroad relationships
with like Snyder Crossing and then some other um known gaps in our
infrastructure um that's where the uh what are we calling it? The railroad
avenue to um oh I forget the name of the other street
that the fourth project that's on the list. those came from being uh long-term
plans that we needed help with and then the short-term uh pedestrian um uh
connections. So, in general, I built the list, vetted it through the mayor, and
picked the ones that would compete well numerically, and that's how the list
came out this round. Now, one of the things that we've been working through
with the MO is um the burough assembly has echoed some of the concerns you've
had where they didn't feel like they had an opportunity to to review the list
either. And so, at the technical committee and the policy board meeting,
we talked about that. And there's going to be some tweaks on the timeline so
that um elected officials such as yourself see a more official review
before the resolutions of support are asked for. And maybe Kim, you could talk
a little bit about kind of the feedback we've gotten at the last couple
meetings. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, we did hear like
Eric said from um, you know, Matt Subaro's staff that when I presented
this same presentation to the assembly that some of the assembly members had
never seen the list before. So moving forward, we are going to develop a
policy um that requires prior to project nomination in the future that um local
uh city councils and the Matsubber Assembly have a chance to review what
staff are recommending to move forward and have a process so that when projects
are nominated um it has already gone through an initial review um from the
local governing bodies. Um, and that's just one of the things we're going to
put in place to help prevent a s any surprises when we get to this phase
because where we are now as we in order to program our tip and decide where the
funding is going to go, we need that approval from the local government. Um,
so we need to document that there is um the that the projects are being formally
nominated by the local jurisdiction in our TIP. that's one of the federal
requirements and that we can show that there's um the the funds are reasonably
available. So that's the two things that your resolution is doing. Say we ad we
agree that these are the projects that we would like to nominate and um if the
project is selected for funding that we'll commit the match. So that's part
of our documentation to federal highways.
» Council member Graham. >> Thanks. So,
you know, the the committing to the federal match, uh, you know, is not
something the administration could do. It's something that the council has to
provide funding for. So, in future, you know, and this is a fiveyear project,
three year, four-year project. So, you know, future council may say, you know,
I don't want to spend $500,000 on this project. We need to spend $500,000
on a different project. And so the council may say, "No, we're not going to
we're not going to do that project." And how does that affect the process?
» That's a great question. Sorry, I forgot my protocol. Through the deputy mayor to
council member Graham. Um so projects have either a four or a six-year
lifespan. Um with some exceptions. So, one of the jobs that staff have is to
figure out with our limited funding. Um, we'll have about $7 million a year to to
program. We'll have to decide which projects go first, second, third, and
when their start year happens and when their construction year happens. So if
we program some of the city of Wasilla's projects in the first year, um very soon
some probably early you know January, February, March, the DOT will come
forward and be looking to work with you on match and maintenance agreements. So
what if that number one project is going forward you whoever the body is at that
time will be committing to paying the match and maintaining the project over
its lifespan. Um, if at that time you decide we don't want to do that project,
then you would say that and then we would amend our tip and remove that
project. It would no longer be eligible for funding. So, we anticipate having to
update our tip probably annually, maybe a couple times a year, hopefully not to
remove the projects that some that have been prioritized, but that is certainly
how we would handle that. And so the overall amount that $7
million a year would remain unchanged. It's just [clears throat] up to the
board to figure out what new priorities would be with the project if it's not
approved by the local governing body. >> So if um so the federal highway funding
bill does change every four years and we don't have a new one yet. So we could
get more funding, but seven million is what we're working with now and that's
what we're using to program um our current TIP. So if we program our TIP
and let's say two of the city of Wasilla projects go forward um and they are
proposing to start in year one and be constructed in year four, we would be
having that conversation this coming year about your commitment. And then if
another one of your projects is going forward in year three and construction
wouldn't start until the future tip, we'd be having that conversation in year
three. So you will get another um bite at the apple, so to speak, to affirm
that you do want to move forward this project. But our assumption is if you're
putting the projects in your resolution, um that's giving us the go-ahad to
program that tip. and when we come back or when the DOT comes back to you for um
those match and maintenance agreements, you've committed to that. But we there
is an escape clause um if the future council decides they need that.
I will say once you start once we start spending federal money, [clears throat]
if you change your mind and decide you no longer want to do the project, you
will have to pay the money back. So that's
» so two uh
follow-ups on that. So at the last meeting I had asked for something kind
of showing what these projects were and I got for tonight's meeting I got the
same map that we got at the last time we talked about this. Is there a website
that shows the conceptual plan for this? I mean how many feet of sidewalk are we
building? How many where exactly is that sidewalk going to go? What right away
are we concerned about? I mean, not, you know, I don't want to see an eight
page, you know, a blueprint of what's going on here, but I would like to know
where these things are going. What is the proposed route, you know, to get uh,
you know, the project that we were talking about, the sewer meridian
project, what where is this Elhorn sidewalk going? Those sorts of things.
Is there a website that I can look at? I know with DOT projects, I can go and
look at the DOT, you know, couplet project and shows me all sorts of stuff
and has for years. I mean, is there a similar
method uh for getting into these uh MVP projects?
» That's a great question through the um deputy mayor to council member Graham.
Not yet because the projects aren't official projects. So once the tip gets
programmed and the tip gets approved um the DOT has a multi-phase process to
developing a project and the first phase is doing that um the environmental
review right away research and acquisition phase and documentation um
uh the planning level design and then um once they get that those pieces updated
then you will have that fuller picture of what the project is, where is the
exact alignment, what the what the cost is proposed to be. Um, so that's part of
the first phase of project development. So because these projects were just
nominated to us, we took the information that was provided by the nominators and
then DOT used that information to develop uh planning level cost estimates
to give you a rough amount of what we think the project will cost and what the
match will be. that those other details about exact design, how much rideway,
where the sidewalk is would come um during that first phase of the project.
» Council member Graham, can you hold your thought just for a second? Um Council
Member Codle, are you on? >> Yes, Deputy Mayor, I'm on.
» Do you have any questions? >> Uh no, I don't at this time. Thank you.
» Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Council Member Graham.
» So, this I think comes back to what Mr. Craftton was talking about. So we
approve these projects tonight. We say put these on the list. And then DOT
comes forward or whomever comes forward and says, "All right, let's start
planning this." And they start planning this projects. And we look at each other
and go, "There is no way in hell we're going to sign up for that project." So
at that point, we're committed to paying
the federal government back for the money that DOT has spent on the planning
process. even though we didn't know what the
project was to begin with.
» I don't know if you have So,
back me up if you can, Eric. So,
I think the short answer is yes. Like, we have to go through the planning
process to document all the details of the project. Like I think each of the
projects has a description. I'm sure um Eric could provide we could provide you
the applications that they submitted that were very detailed with the
information that they have now. But project development research happens
with every single project. So the difference is you're being a you're
using 90% of federal funds to do that instead
of 100% of your own funds. And so, um, I don't know.
» So, the short answer is yes, we would be on the hook for
» paying the paying the federal funds that get spent on that, um, phase one of the
project. Um, yes, that's a federal requirement.
» Council member Craftton, >> thank you. Um,
I think that kind of justifies some of my point here. So, there there's a
couple things I have. Um, again, I'm going to go back to kind of
what Mr. Graham's saying here is by nominating these projects, we're almost
committing these dollars upfront. I I I mean, if if federal dollars are going to
be spent, um, then and because a lot of it's the design phase, they're be
they're the the biggest part is once they get to a design phase, then we're
committing. And I can understand that maybe before they even get to the design
phase, they're going to come to us and say, "Hey, this is the project we're
going to start working on next, we're going to get into the design phase. We
need to know that there's a commitment from the council before we start
expending dollars on it." I'd assume that's going to hopefully happen happen
first. But when we submit that list, the list
should be a list of projects that we we know we can stand by. and project 19
here, the Seward Meridian to Sun Sun Mountain one is I don't think one we can
stand by because when we look at already what's happening in this corridor,
there's two other projects that should address a lot of the concerns that have
already been brought up about this this connection here. And one of that is the
the redesign of the median down uh the middle turn lane and then the other one
is the hopefully the Herman road and help with the efficiency of traffic flow
uh through both of these areas here. And so I'm just I'm really struggling
committing to knowing that this project's going to be done because I
mean I've I've looked at a map. There's two property owners that you would have
to go through to get this road, Sun Mountain, connected to Sewart Meridian,
and one of those property owners, it's a very large chunk of their property. I
I'm just not seeing a feasible way that that we could achieve it at this time. I
mean, to me, it's too early to try and nominate a project like this to go
forward. So with that, madame deputy mayor, I move that we strike project ID
19, which is project name South Seward Meridian Parkway to East Sun Mountain
Avenue connection project uh from the resolution. Uh which actually, excuse
me, we'd be striking it from exhibit A. >> Is there a second?
» Graham seconds.
You want to read that back in another direction?
» Sure. >> It's been moved by council member Krep
and seconded by council member Graham to strike from exhibit A project number 19
which is a South Seward Meridian Parkway to East Sun Mountain Avenue connection
project. >> Madam Deputy Mayor,
» Council Member Craft. >> Thank you. Just to finish speaking my
motion here again. I think it's too big of a project too soon. Um, as I
mentioned, uh, the state is in the design phase for a middle turn lane
adjustment, um, on the parks highway right now. Um, which one of the biggest
concerns is getting the lefthand turn lane off Sun Mountain, which is
technically I think it's Alpine and their auxiliary connections to the parks
highway. Um and essentially it's that corridor is about to go through a major
redirectioning with that project and compl coup coup coupling with the Herman
road extension that's happening as well. So I I think at one point in time yes
the sewer meridian would have been a great idea to to connect through. I
think there was even intentions to connect it down to Seward Meridian and
put a roundabout there to connect the blue I think it's the blue loop pine
frontage road um and just that whole area start putting in some roundabouts
make things a little bit more interconnected there but at this time I
think it's not a project in the next four years it should be a project in the
in a further I think six plus year time r time frame at this time
» we're gonna Eric did you want to talk >> yeah I just wanted
comment on the two projects that Mr. Craftman talked about. Um, I'm
intimately familiar with both of them and while they're important, they're not
the panacea to the problems there and we're going to continue to have extreme
safety issues even after those projects are figured out because of the number of
uh people that use that area and the traffic alignment. So, I I understand
what Mr. Craftton is saying is concerned about rightway. Um, I guess I just want
to caution the council that as we enter the world of being part of the MO, there
are going to be significant projects that have to be decided on. And these
are these are um decadel long thought processes that have to happen. They're
not little small um road extensions. Herman Road is a teeny project compared
to what the rest of the MO projects are going to be. And while this is a huge
project for the city of Wasilla, it is um small on the side of MOized projects.
So um I would ask the council as we go forward in the years on on interacting
with the MO um the projects that are going to come before you are going to be
drastic because of how far behind we are in safe transportation projects in the
valley. Um we we know how many people died on KGB when uh Governor Walker
stopped the project before um Dunley started it again. We're talking about
multiple people dying each year on different roads because of how far we
are behind in safe transportation corridors. So these are going to be
really important and they're going to touch major um improvements. They're
going to have new rideway that has to be purchased. They're going to have
detailed traffic studies. They're not going to be done in little myopic
projects anymore. They're going to be very big with um all of the standard
transportation design that's required for federal projects. So very well
vetted, very public facing, but also they're going to be of a new caliber
that we haven't had to [snorts] deal with before. We've waited for the um
couplet project for 15 years, right? So that is a great example of a project
that took far far far too long. Our whole downtown has not been redeveloped
because property owners have been waiting for a decade too long to have a
project completed. The MO exists so that doesn't happen anymore. That project did
not go anywhere because the MO didn't exist to push these long-awaited
projects and make major safety improvements. So, um I appreciate if Mr.
Craftton wants to wait on this. We we have three other projects that we
desperately need, but this is going to be a new relationship to transportation
projects on LSU.
» Council member Graham, >> thank you. Just for clarification,
uh Eric, you said you'd appreciate if Mr. Craftton wanted to wait on that. Are
you asking him to change his motion or what?
» No, what did that what did that statement mean? I I understand that um
it feels too drastic. I think that that connection's going to have to happen. Uh
whether Herman Road is complete in the next three years and whenever the uh
Parks Highway turn lane project happens, they they don't they don't negate what
needs to happen with that corridor for safety.
» Okay. Thank you. And then my question uh madame deputy mayor or actually a
comment madam deputy mayor is has to do with exactly what Kim was talking about
exactly what Eric was talking about and exactly what Ian was talking about. So
we look at project 19 which is the one that we're looking at now. You know
total cost estimate uh of $6.5 million. Okay. [snorts] I would be willing to bet
that $4 million of that money will be spent before any utility is moved or
before any shovel of dirt is turned. And what Kim has told us is if we get to
that point on what is now a pie in the sky totally unknown project, well, we're
on the hook for $4 million and for which we get nothing and for which we have had
no say in because we haven't seen anything on this. So, I'm going to stand
with council member Craftton on this and and vote to strike project ID19. May I
maybe with the attorney? That's not what this resolution says.
» So,
you know, >> what's the motion on the floor? The
motion on the floor is to strike, >> but this resolution does not say you're
on the hook. So, if you are on the hook, probably moving forward, we need to
change the verbiage in the resolution. >> Just throwing it out there. I I I see
where uh Madam Clerk, you're you're trying to say like like I said, what
should come before us? The next thing like we approved this tonight. The next
thing that should come before us theoretically is is a resolution from
the administration. Uh because Kim has said, "Hey, we've got the federal
funding. Uh the dollars are coming down and project number one, we have the
number one project." They want to start the design process. council, we need to
know you have a buy in and that you're willing to because they want to start
spending money, but we have to know that you're going to be willing to commit to
these dollars before they start spending the money. That's my understanding as to
more or less what should be be happening next.
But I think what the bigger picture I look at is is it it tends to be how the
council and the administration operate as a whole. when things are put before
us in this fashion, people go, "Oh, well, we already agreed to doing this,
so we're just going to do it." And to me, that's the bigger concern is that
just because the projects before us doesn't mean we should do it. And what
it goes a step further into for me is our roads master plan. We're 20 years, I
think 20, 19 years out of date on a roads master plan. We have roads that
were that were projected to be built that still haven't been built to this
day and now won't be able to be built. And these projects have come like uh
Eric said from basically just a list of things that needed to be done that were
really important. But the next time that this list comes forward, it's going to
be based on a list of projects that the roads master plan has already told us
that probably need to be done. And we're going to look through it and go, "Yeah,
we don't care about this one. We do care about this one. Uh this one can wait a
little bit longer." But and so that's really where the formulation's going to
come. But I think what we need to be looking at now is the fact that what we
put forward we're willing to commit those dollars to because there's a good
chance that whether it's us sitting here or somebody else sitting here that
they're going to be committing those dollars to it. So I want to make sure
that that's what what we're going to be working towards
» through the mayor to speak towards the next um step in the process. If this
passes tonight, there will be a reimburseable agreement that comes in
front of the council to codify with the state what the funding agreement is. So
that'll be the next opportunity for uh a go or no go vote. There's no monies
promised in this resolution. It's just it kind of speaks to a larger idea. When
we go and apply for grants, they're going to say, "Well, you need to have
some match." we go and apply for grants without council approval because the
mayor is the city manager and says go apply for the grant but we also want to
know that there's support moving forward. So this you know as we talked
about what's going to change the next time we see this with more initial
outreach with uh elected bodies um we still do go out for grants and then and
then ask the council's approval and grants have been um not approved for
that same reason. So, this is really just a grant application and then we'll
be back to talk about um funding if we're selected.
» Is there further discussion?
Is there objection to the motion? >> Amendment.
» What's that? >> We're on the amendment.
» Oh, we're still on the amendment. Yeah. Is there objection to the motion? Yeah.
» Madam Deputy Mayor, I object. I object.
» Okay. Wolf. Okay. >> Thank you. And this is on um amend what
I'm going to call amendment number one. And this is the proposal is to strike
the motion was to strike project number 19 from exhibit A. Council member
Graham. >> Yes.
» Yes. To strike it. Council member Schmidt.
» No. >> Council member Craftton.
» Yes. >> Council member Johnson.
» No. >> Council member Rubio.
» No. Council member Codle. >> No.
» Amendment number one fails with council members Graham and Craftton in favor.
Council members Codle, Schmidt, Johnson, and Rubio opposed.
» So now we are back to the >> to the main motion which is to adopt
resolution serial number 2646 as presented.
» Madam Deputy Mayor, >> Council Member Craft.
» Thank you. Uh I won't be supporting this. Um, I think we're committing the
city to too much. I mean, what you're looking at now is, uh, especially
project number 19 was heavily based on right of way. And
I mean, the only step forward would be to say, hey, we want to enter design. We
say yes. They start designing. We've committed dollars. We can't get right
away. The only option is em eminent domain at that point. I mean, you're
committing the the city to a lot of money when to a project that has no
plotted right of way. So, I'm a no vote on this entire project.
» Council member Johnson. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor.
[clears throat] So from what I understand from this,
if we do not approve this at this particular point,
basically we stand to lose um
any federal money basically for these projects because of the time frame that
we've got. From what I understood from your conversation is we either move
forward by September or we can kiss most of our federal money by
» um >> now is that pretty much it
» through deputy may the deputy mayor to council member Johnson. So we have asked
the Matsu bureau, the city of Palmer and yourselves for a resolution nominating
your projects and that that you want to prioritize and agreeing to pay the
match. We have given a date of September 1st um to all the municipalities
[clears throat] because we need time to program our tip. So once we receive the
resolutions and we um figure out what projects um have been uh nominated by
the local jurisdictions, we'll go go about programming our tip. So we
anticipate having the draft tip completed for our technical committee
and policy board in October. It would go for public comment in November and then
be approved in December and submitted to Federal Highways. If you do not approve
a resolution in the very short term, we will not program any projects for the
city of Wasilla. So, right now, as our current short-term metropolitan
transportation plan list looks, um we have uh priorities from the city of
Palmer and the Matsu Burough. So, the city of Palmer is asking for 7.5 million
in the short term. The city of Wasilla's projects total 14.8 million and the
Matsu Burough's projects total 56.4 million. So their projects span beyond
the current tip. And I share this because they have applied for a lot more
projects and [clears throat] we I just want to let I don't want you to miss
your opportunity for the next 12 or 15 years to access some of this
funding because the the bureau has applied for a lot. So I I'm not trying
to pit the bureau against the city, but we've tried to allocate a share based on
population and the application. um the projects that were applied for and
that's yeah if so if you don't pass a resolution we won't program your
projects potentially for a couple cycles.
» So in response I mean I um
I don't like the list in front of me. Okay, I'll be perfectly honest there. On
the other hand, I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot by saying, um, yeah,
I don't like this or I don't like that or, you know, if if I have a shot at
federal money, realizing that I still don't have a commitment for the funds
and I can still at the later time when the resolution comes through say no. So,
while I don't like to do this, I sort of feel exactly in the same position we did
with the software vote just a few minutes ago. This is being forced down
my throat. In this particular case, I will support it because I don't want to
lose the federal funding, but I'm not really a happy camper.
» May I Yes. >> add a comment. I'm so sorry. So, we're
in this unfortunate time frame right now with approving our long range
metropolitan transportation plan and developing our TIP at the same time
because we're a new MO and the federal guidelines say within four years of
designation, you have to finalize these two plans and
start spending the federal dollars that are suballocated to your region. So in
the future there won't be this pressure that you have one week to make a
decision or three weeks to make a decision. We will update our MTP every
five years. We're going to start on that and two years again to do another
update. We will update our TIP again with amendments probably annually, but
we will redo our TIP every four years because we know priorities change and
project interests change. There would normally be a year between TIP
programming and MTP finalization so that there isn't this time pressure. But
because we're a new organization and we're trying to meet the federal
deadline of finalizing our documents by December, that's why there's this
condensed timeline.
» Council member Schmidt. So, I'm [clears throat] in favor of this and I I
think anyone that looks at it can say, "Hey, there's, you know, 14.5,000
or million dollars here on the board and we're only looking at approximately 89%
to take care of in [snorts] our city." And as we all know how much uh tight
money is here in the city, we were just talking about taxes earlier. We don't
want to keep on raising and raising and raising. if we had to play for just one
of these projects is more than doing the total of them with the 90%
um help from the government on this. So, I'm definitely in favor of this.
» Council member uh Crapton, >> thank you. Um
I mean, what I'm hearing is it's just a few years that we're missing out on
because all we're doing is missing this round of projects. It it doesn't stop us
from getting federal funding. It's just these specific projects.
I mean, again, I I think of the future bind that we're going to potentially be
in when these projects come back and they say, "Hey, we need to work on
getting this." And we say, "Sure, go for it." And then we turn around and find
out that this project's a lot more than what we are expecting and now we're
bound to those dollars. So, I I I still stand by uh by what the by
voting no on this project. >> Council member Graham.
» Thank you. [clears throat] First, I suppose I should commend the
administration, which would be Eric mostly for
allowing the the NO to kind of tell you what the test answers were before you
took the test. You know, he said, "These are the priorities. these this is what
gets the heaviest weight and so on and so forth. And then obviously from the
numbering of the projects you did very well. I mean our projects our lowest
ranked project is number 19 you know so you've done very well for
you know seeing what is going to float uh through the through the planning
organization which is good but what you know is missing you know is our roads
master plan. where does this fit in? And and uh for this particular uh
resolution, you know, it doesn't fit in at all. Uh but it's but it's kind of the
best that we have at present. And although I really think, you know, uh
project number 19 is uh is, you know, like throwing spaghetti at
the wall at this point. I mean, it's it's just a jumble of stuff there.
uh you know the other projects you know are far enough out uh or far enough down
the line where I think I can support these uh and and come back you know it's
a it it you know it's great leveraging of the federal funds uh that are there
and by the time we get to those two big projects at the end of the list we will
have had time to talk about them and hopefully by then we'll have a roads
master plan and and be able to dovetail them together. But this one is uh I know
not ideal but it is workable. Thank you. >> Is there further discussion?
» Madame clerk, can you do a roll call vote?
» Thank you, madam deputy mayor. Council member Schmidt, this is on the adoption
of resolution serial number 2646. >> Approve.
» Council member Craftton, >> no.
» Council member Johnson, >> yes.
» Council member Rubio, >> yes.
» Council member Codle, >> yes. Council member Graham.
» Yes. >> The motion to adopt resolution serial
number 2646 passes with council members Codle, Graham, Schmidt, Johnson, and
Rubio in support. Council member Craft and opposed.
» We are now at communications. Madame Clerk, please read the items by title.
» Thank you. I am number 2610, monthly financial reports for the period ending
April 30th, 2026. IM number 2611 monthly financial reports for the period ending
May 31st, 2026. Two sets of planning commission meeting minutes July 14th and
July 28th, 2026. We are now at audience con um comments
which is a time for members for of the public to share their views with the
council. This is not a question and answer period or a time for dialogue.
Speakers may be referred to administration or issues raised may be
taken under the advisement of the council or administration. Please begin
your testimony by stating your first and last name. And if you are a city
resident, comments are limited to three minutes.
» Good evening, uh, Deputy Mayor Rubio and council members. My name for the record,
my name is David Wilson. I'm a city resident. I just wanted to share a brief
little story I shared with the police chief. Uh, we ran into a resident over
the weekend who was telling me about a situation with a law enforcement
officer. They were in medical distress. And short story of the matter, I was
hoping that she would be here today, but I think it's raining and didn't want to
wheel the wheelchair down here, but uh the police officer
Rice it was um came and really lended aid to this uh um elderly uh lady and um
helped her get her wheelchair back into her place after she was cred off to the
hospital. She came back to that surprise and didn't really want to trust an
officer, but she said uh Officer Rice had the kindest eyes she's ever seen and
really made it a pleasant experience and now she has more faith into law
enforcement. She looks forward to more interactions, positive interactions with
Wasola PD. So, I just want to say you guys have a fine while still doing great
service and I know that you guys don't always get those compliments and stories
back and so uh she just wanted to make sure that the public knew uh about what
he did and that she wanted to honor him and she was like, "Oh, we need to have
the press come because I guess he's out of town." And so, when he gets back to
the airport, we want to do this whole hurrah for him. And I was like, "Whoa,
whoa, whoa. Why don't you start with council first and let them know that
what a wonderful job that he did on um in serving and protecting our
residents." So, thank you. >> Thank you.
Okay, seeing no more, we are on We are now at mayor, clerk, attorney, and
council comments. Madame clerk, >> thank you. And I I think I'll just echo
onto that. I didn't ever say it publicly, but I got hit um by a teen
driver in the Target parking lot, which is why I'm driving a rental. It was my
first um interaction with the police department. He didn't know me. I of
course never identify myself as a city official. He was professional. He was
kind. I couldn't have been a better experience and I had shared that with
the chief. So kudos to WPD. Um our election is progressing. We have our re
review board which will meet here on Thursday um to test the ballot
tabulators that'll be used in the election. If you want to vote by mail,
deadline is 5:00 p.m. September 29th to get that application into the clerk's
office. And then early inerson voting will take place here at city hall
September 21st through October 5th. We have weekdays 9 to5 and Saturdays 10 to
three. And we will see you all here next regular meeting September 14th. Thank
you. >> Thank you city attorney.
» Thank you uh no comments. Very long meeting.
» Thank you council member Johnson.
» Thank you mayor. Um, I'm going to be traveling to the lower
48 uh for the first 3 weeks of September. I will endeavor to call in on
the 14th uh so we can have a quorum um
other than that I don't really have any comments.
» Council member Codle.
» Thank you, Madam Deputy Mayor. Um good meeting tonight. I want to thank Moren
for all of her work on this presentation for the sales tax um options for us.
Gives us a lot of things to to think about. Um I also just want to make a
comment that I appreciate the staff status update report from
administration. I think it's good to get these updates and it just gives a lot
more transparency to what's going on um for the council and and keeps us in
touch with the administration and I just appreciate that and that's all I have.
Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member Johnson. Oh,
it's on here twice. >> Council member uh Graham [laughter]
Graham that other old
» flip of the I don't know. We're going with Graham.
» I resemble that remark. [laughter] Uh yeah, first I wanted to uh you know
thank me. That was a very interesting uh presentation. Lots of information uh out
there uh a lot of questions uh answered that the council has asked over the
years and has never really been addressed as a bundle. So that was a a
very good thing. I really appreciate it as well as all the staff work on a
variety of things. Uh I did mention to the chief uh and to
Lori, you know, from Mattcom that the burrow uh is now in in public meetings
saying that there's going to be a new MATCOM
» [snorts] >> uh near Tate and Bogard Road associated
with a new fire station. Uh I'd be interested in finding out more about
that, but since it's already 8:30, maybe we can do that at a future meeting. You
know, I mean, if if this is just the burrows pie in the sky idea, it'd be
nice to know that, but I'm really curious why they would be saying that
that's the way things are going to be if if the city doesn't hasn't signed off on
that. you know, MATCOM is a city uh issue and and and it's a a city function
and uh it's interesting to know how would be interesting to know how the
bureau plans to take that over and and just move it without uh telling anything
about it. Uh also uh the uh updates provided by uh the deputy administrator
the written updates that that [snorts] council person codle talked about very
uh good uh to know what's going on uh and I look forward to seeing more of
those. I mean, as a council person, you get questions all the time. You know,
what's going on here? What's going on there? And if if the administration, uh,
uh, you know, doesn't pass that information on, then each of us end up
going, uh, to Eric or going to Scott or going to wherever to get the answers,
which is, you know, certainly not ideal. So, this, in addition to being a lot of
great information, it also, I think, cuts down on staff time. So,
congratulations on on getting that out. Look forward to that as well. But thank
you uh for being here uh tonight. It's always a pleasure to have uh interaction
with the public. So uh get out, enjoy the fair, have a good time.
» Thank you, Council Member Schmidt. >> Yeah, I want to say thank you to Marine
as well. Um that was a very good presentation on the taxes. Um quite a
bit of information there, but I appreciate all the information she
brought to everyone. And thank you, Eric, for uh getting these uh proposals
together for uh the transportation uh tips um so we could uh get some of this
federal funding. I think that's a great job on that. Thank you. And I will
probably not be attending the next meeting on the September the 14th. I do
go on an annual moose hunt and that's the date. I
» Things may change. I may get home sooner or later. You never know. and I may call
in. So, if that's the case, I will do my best to make it, but it's about an 80%
chance I will not. >> Hopefully, you get the moose quicker.
» Either way, >> have fun. Council member Craftton,
» thank you. Uh, couple questions I did have. Um, first was to Eric. Eric, uh,
where we're at with the airport property acquisition. Did you say at the next
meeting we're going to be getting some more information?
Yeah, there's a lot happening on that front. So, um [clears throat] I will
pull together the updates that we've had before and where they stand. Um there's
a parcel that um the large parcel we've been talking about. We have been meeting
with the FAA on its importance to the extension that we've talked about and
because of the value of that parcel, we have to do another appraisal to m to
meet the FAA's um requirements. One of the other things that we're doing on the
other parcels is explaining to the FAA on the ones that we've already purchased
why we needed them. And we'll be explaining that um there's this there's
this process showing if we can show that the whole process whole parcel makes
more sense than all the work and cost and time to subdivide it, then they'll
join us in the complete purchase. So our consultant is pulling that together. So
I will be bringing the council an update on where everyone stands. um property
acquisition wise. Um the other thing I want to let the council know is we're
working with the burrow fire department to um uh burn down the um gardener house
that we purchased. That was one of the first purchases we made. Um it froze
last winter with all of the extreme wind events that we had and so it was
couldn't live in it anyway, but it it needs to go down. And so we've been
working with the fire department to make that happen. and um it's looking very
positive in their steps. So there'll be an agreement that we have to sign that I
think will probably have to come in front of the council. I've asked legal
to look at it. So I think the council will see that because of um the way they
do liability coverage. So you'll see more on that at the same time.
» Are we burning marshmallows? Are we all >> We definitely should have a party on
[laughter] >> they're practicing practicing.
» Uh second question probably might be this one might be to our finance
director Wendy. Um, great uh, presentation by Meen there. Like I said
earlier on sales tax. I know a lot of this was questions that I think the
council has had hanging out there for a while. Um, the big question is what is
the end goal for this presentation? Was it to just kind of say, "Hey, here's
some changes. Is the are we expecting the administration to bring us forward
some ordinance changes or is this uh, something that the council needs to a
council member council members need to take up?
First and foremost, it Can you hear me? >> Yeah.
» Okay. Um, first and foremost, it was out of the meetings that I that
Crystal and I sat down and met with you. Almost every one of you wanted to meet
uh about that or wanted some kind of understanding of what sales tax was here
in the city. Um, you know, it really did flesh out a lot of things um that need
to change. and um Moren and I were were going to be sitting down and looking at
some of those revenue items that you said that you could that that you saw on
her presentation that need to be updated.
» Okay. So, there's a good chance we could be seeing an ordinance come forward from
the administration is what I'm hearing. >> Yes.
» Okay. And then last question, I'm just going to beat the drum again about our
water and sewer rates. uh would love to still have that meeting uh with is it
mut >> waterworth
» waterworth with Munworth that's what it is so just just a reminder on that one
again >> yes Eric and I um have that on our
agenda and we definitely will be talking about that
» can I ask something if I may I just had a thought would it help Wendy if we had
I was kind of thinking of how the council flushed through some of those
changes with title 16 would it help if we brought back another sales tax
presentation and you guys could kind of flush through
we kind we're kind of on board for this, you know, changing this exemption or
increasing revenue here, but like this is completely off the table.
» I'd be open to that. I I think the biggest thing is don't throw it under a
public introduction with no debate. I mean, know that when we talk about that
one, that's going to be a heavily debated topic. So, I would think the
biggest thing is >> that would be wonderful. making sure we
have the the time to debate and discuss as a committee of the whole. So it'd
almost be better to come in as a a new business or something committee of the
whole discussion with here's the items. >> So that
» I think that may may end up being more fruitful in the end just suggest
» then than feeling like we're beating up an ordinance that's been spent you know
many hours on working out and just to turn out for us be like we don't like
this scrap it and start over. So uh with that that is all. I appreciate it. Thank
you very much. Uh great meeting tonight. Um, thank you. Back to me. I just want
to echo what everyone's saying. Meen, uh, her presentation was awesome
» and so very informative. Enjoyed it and, uh, as I look at it, we no further
business at hand. And I'm >> Did you get Kyle?
» Yes, I got it. >> You said Johnson twice.
» He was on there twice. He got lucky and Schmidt got left off. So I I got it. I'm
adjourning the meeting unless