The Wrangell Borough Assembly met Tuesday night, Dec. 8, for a work session and regular assembly meeting. There were multiple items covered during the night. Three big topics of discussion included a settlement with the Alaska Department of Environment Conservation, a fee increase for port and harbor facilities, and the acceptance of a grant from the State Homeland Security Division.
Back in October, according to the meeting's agenda packet, city administration reported to the assembly that The Marine Service Center had failed to comply with minimum requirements for training and inspections associated with the Storm Water Prevention Plan. According to the agenda packet, the work was being done, but there was a failure in reporting it. This failure has resulted in a fine from ADEC.
"ADEC conducted a financial assessment of the Borough to determine the capacity for payment of a fine that can be levied," the agenda packet reads. "Frankly, Administration believes this is extortion. Fines should be set for a violation and charged accordingly, not established based on the amount of money you have. That being said, ADEC has offered what is called an Expedited Settlement Agreement in the amount of $17,750."
If the expedited settlement is accepted, the issue is immediately resolved. According to the packet, if the city were to try and fight this, the fine could increase up to $100,000 per reported violation. Administration has discussed the matter with the city attorney, and he recommended that they accept the settlement, as legal fees over this could easily exceed $17,750.
Upon discussion, the assembly agreed to accept the expedited settlement. According to the agenda packet, Harbormaster Steve Miller has already reported several corrective actions to ADEC to ensure this kind of oversight is never repeated. This includes training for Marine Service Center employees for handling spills and leaks, electronic calendar reminders for inspections, and others.
The assembly also held a public hearing regarding amending the borough's fee schedule to reflect a priorly established fee increase of 2 percent for harbor and port facilities. In 2016, according to the agenda packet, the assembly approved a resolution that would allow a 2 percent increase to certain harbor and port fees annually, over five years. This was to be in place until 2022. This 2 percent increase affected fees for transient moorage, marine service center fees, and port development fees, among others.
In February of this year the assembly approved of an ordinance removing harbor and port fees from the municipal code, and establishing them annually by resolution. According to the packet, when the assembly passed a concurrent resolution establishing those fees, the 2 percent increase was omitted by mistake. The harbor staff did not realize this, so the 2 percent increase was automatically put into effect in July of this year. The increase has already been put into effect, the packet reads, so the resolution the assembly was looking at was to correct the error and apply the 2 percent increase throughout the fee schedule.
Two members of the public, Mike Lockabey and DJ McConachie, voiced opposition to the rate increase. This was a bad time to increase rates, they said, as many people were hurting economically because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The assembly will revisit fees again in the future, Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen said, but as the fee increase has already been implemented and many people have likely already paid their fees, she recommended the passage of this resolution. This was retroactive housekeeping, she said. The resolution was approved by the assembly after some further discussion.
The assembly also accepted a grant for multiple projects from the State Homeland Security Division, in the amount of $411,614.81. These projects include the purchase of an emergency generator for the Nolan Center, a surveillance system for Wrangell's port and harbor facilities, emergency dispatch consoles, and 911 addressing. This money does not fully fund all of these projects, according to Von Bargen, so there will still need to be some project scaling or other sources of funding acquired before things can move forward.
Other items covered in the meeting include approving an additional $60,000 of CARES Act funding for community grants, approval to use $10,344 in additional funds from the State of Alaska Hospital Grant for construction of the pharmacy at the new hospital, a legislative update from Rep. Dan Ortiz, and the presentation of a certificate of service to Julie Decker for her work on the Economic Development Committee from Sept. 2004 to Oct. 2020.
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