Candidates for City Council Face Off in Forum

[listen to the full city council forum here]
Jay Barrett/KMXT
The full Kodiak City Council Candidate Forum, sponsored by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce and KMXT, is linked above.

Council Advances City Management Expansion

[listen here]
Jay Barrett/KMXT
At last night’s Kodiak City Council meeting, an ordinance approving the hire of an assistant city manager was moved forward. Aimee Kniaziowski explained why she needs help in the city manager’s office.
“I certainly support this. We’re certainly a large enough community as I mentioned on Tuesday. What this will allow is more work to be done and I can move from daily triage to actually getting some of these key things done,” she said.
She said the new position would be assigned to perform human resources and risk management duties, as well as oversee other projects for the city.
The motion, which would change city code to create the position of assistant manager, passed on a 4-to-0 vote, with Councilmen Gabe Saravia and Randy Bishop absent.
The pay range for an assistant city manager would fall between about $87,000 and $131,000. Earlier in the meeting citizen Betty MacTavish said creating another high-level position within the city is not a wise move fiscally.
“That definitely would not reduce costs of running the city, but increase them,” she said. “We have businesses closing all the time in our city. I just looked online and there’s 45 homes for sale. This does not look like an active, vibrant city to me. So we need to be really good stewards of the citizens’ money.”
The ordinance will next come back before the council for a public hearing and a final vote at the next regular meeting, scheduled for August 28th.

M/V Tustumena Delayed Indefinitely

[listen here]
Brianna Gibbs/KMXT
The ferry Tustumena’s return to service has been delayed yet again, this time until the fall.
The ferry Tustumena’s return to service has been delayed yet again, this time AT LEAST until the fall.
“The Tusty will be out of service until perhaps the first week of October.”
That’s Kodiak City Mayor Pat Branson reading a message from Marine Highway System General Manager Captain John Falvey during last night’s regular city council meeting.
The ship has been in Seward Ships Dry Dock since November, but delays due to inadequate welding have left much of Southwest Alaska without regular ferry service all year. Poor welds and inferior materials have also caused the latest delay when they failed to pass Coast Guard inspection.
The bad news was nevertheless rather timely, as one of the items on the agenda was a resolution requesting the governor and legislature develop a long-term solution to ensure full and uninterrupted ferry service to Kodiak.
City Manager Aimee Kniaziowski said the resolution is an opportunity for the community to make a formal statement to the state about the big impacts reduced ferry service has had on Kodiak.