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It took the Ketchikan City Council less than 15 minutes to unanimously approve signing a draft Memoradum of Agreement between Southeast Alaska port communities and the Carnival Corporation.
Ketchikan City Council nixes proposed pay cuts, green-lights tourism strategy, OKs guns-for-armor trade
Posted by Eric Stone | May 10, 2021
Aerial view of Ketchikan (KRBD).
Ketchikan’s City Council rejected a cost-cutting proposal to reduce city employees’ weekly hours. The council also green-lit funding for a community tourism strategy and OK’d a proposal to trade forfeited guns for body armor.
Back in March, as city officials grappled with the fiscal impact of a second summer without cruise ships, four city council members floated cuts to city employees’ hours as a money-saving measure.
City finance officials estimate that cutting the city’s non-union workforce back to four days a week for the remainder of the year would save more than $1 million.
City of Ketchikan Mayor Bob Sivertsen was absent, with Vice Mayor Dave Kiffer presiding.
The council in its June 20, 2019 meeting approved the expenditure of the $20,000 for the program, but it was set aside when the COVID-19 challenges arrived and the money was not spent. The borough, according to information from Borough Planning Director Richard Harney, has approved $80,000 to support the project.
Harney explained the aim of the project during Thursday s meeting.
âIn order for us to be sustainable moving into the future, to try to get our community to be more resilient, we talked about this tourism strategy a few years ago, before the pandemic hit,â he said.
The Ketchikan City Council in a regular meeting Thursday voted to spend up to $10,000 to install portable toilets at the Ketchikan Port to serve community members in lieu of a previous proposal to open the Berth 3 restrooms for the summer season, which would have necessitated an expenditure of about $75,000 to pay two employees to monitor them.
The vote was 5-2, with council members Mark Flora and Sam Bergeron voting against the motion.
Due to technical issues, the conversation during that portion of the meeting was inaudible, but according to a text message from Council Member Dave Kiffer post-meeting, the idea is to allow the public to use the Ketchikan Visitorâs Bureau restrooms as well as the portable toilets planned to be placed on Berth 3 this summer. The Berth 3 restroom facility would be opened intermittently when the smaller cruise ships visit the Port.