Ketchikan is a step closer to renewing its agreement with the nonprofit that runs the community’s hospital. The City Council says the terms of the new lease give the city more oversight and ensure needed investments and upgrades will be completed by the city and PeaceHealth, which has run the hospital for decades.
The new 20- to 40-year lease outlines millions in repairs and upgrades and seeks to cut down on large unforeseen medical bills. It also requires the hospital to provide regular updates to the city and take feedback from the council and community.
Council Member Dave Kiffer says the new lease is a big upgrade over the prior deal between PeaceHealth and the city, which was signed in 1981 and later extended. PeaceHealth and its predecessor, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, has run the city’s Tongass Avenue hospital since it first opened in the 1960s.
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.
Council to mull cutbacks in Ketchikan city employees’ hours, but survey says employees aren’t on board
Posted by Eric Stone | May 6, 2021
Ketchikan’s city hall on June 11, 2020. (Maria Dudzak/KRBD)
City leaders in Ketchikan are considering whether to cut back city workers’ hours to save money as the city faces a budget crunch. Members of the City Council floated the idea back in March, but a recent survey says most employees don’t like the idea.
The city says reducing its full-time non-union employees’ to four days a week could save $1.5 million this year. Council Member Judy Zenge floated the idea back in March when the city was considering laying off a firefighter to save money.
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.