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Ketchikan City Council to consider water, electricity rate hikes Thursday
Posted by Eric Stone | Feb 17, 2021
Ketchikan’s city hall in 2020 (KRBD file photo by Maria Dudzak)
Ketchikan’s City Council is considering whether to hike city water and power rates. While officials say the increases will be necessary, some members of the council are wary of the timing.
City Manager Karl Amylon told the council earlier this month that the publicly-owned water utility has lost hundreds of thousands dollars each year for a decade.
“It’s basically because the council doesn’t want to raise rates to meet the cost of production of water,” Amylon said at the Feb. 4 council meeting.
The first hour of the regular Ketchikan City Council meeting was filled with public comment Thursday evening, with community members supporting a motion on the agenda to commission a totem pole to honor Alaska Native civil rights activist Elizabeth Peratrovich; speaking to the council s effort to urge legislators to resume the Ocean Ranger shipboard monitoring program; and a representative from Petro Marine Services offering information about the company s pricing structure as it takes over Crowley Fuels in Southeast Alaska.
The second hour was taken up with a discussion about whether a COVID-19 program authorized under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act â the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act â should be extended for city employees through June 2021, and the first portion of a presentation about the resumption of the cruise industry in Alaska by representatives from Royal Caribbean International.
Layoffs unlikely as Ketchikan City Council considers putting unspent federal aid toward first responder salaries
Posted by Eric Stone | Dec 16, 2020
Ketchikan’s city hall on June 11, 2020. (Maria Dudzak/KRBD)
Ketchikan city officials say they’re no longer looking at layoffs to fill a roughly $1.75 million budget shortfall. Mayor Bob Sivertsen says they’ll be able to make up the difference by cutting projects, leaving positions vacant and putting some of the city’s unspent federal aid towards paying first responders.
“We are not laying off anybody at this particular point in time,” Sivertsen said in a phone interview Wednesday.
He says city council members found other ways to fill the gap.