Council holds work session on Community Benefit Share

On Wednesday, Feb. 17, the City Council held a public work session to discuss the allocation of the $100,000 portion of Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation’s Community Benefit Share earmarked for youth programming. While they didn’t land on a definitive breakdown, the work session set the groundwork for the regular Council meeting on Monday.

Councilmember Mark Johnson was physically present at the work session, along with Mayor John Handeland and City Manager Glenn Steckman. Councilmembers Jerald Brown and Meghan Sigvanna Topkok attended over Zoom, and many community members attended both in person and over Zoom to advocate for their organizations.

The applications totaled to more than $262,000 in requests for just $100,000 in available funds. Community members were given the opportunity to present to the Council why they thought their organization should be awarded grants.

James Ventress, Associate Pastor of Youth at the Nome Covenant Church, spoke on the two proposals submitted by Checkpoint Youth Center. One was a roughly $4,500 request for the Checkpoint Bike Shop and the other was $7,000 towards regular operations of the Youth Center. The bike shop had been funded by the CBS for two years prior, Ventress explained, and needed one more year of funding to finish improvements on its small building so it could operate in cold weather. The other request would mostly go to food and utilities for Checkpoint’s main building. The Councilmembers present expressed support for both projects.

Rhonda Schneider, Executive Director of Nome Community Center, spoke about the three proposals submitted by NCC: $12,000 for a new ramp at the Boys & Girls Club, $10,000 for the Camp CRAVE summer program and $6,000 for a new van for the Children’s Home. These proposals were similar to

NCC programs the Council had funded in the past, and the Councilmembers present supported funding them.

Lori Hughes, Deputy Director of Nome Eskimo Community, discussed the $18,000 requested for two NEC youth programs, a basketball clinic and the NEC Outdoors Club summer program. While some of their programming had been moved around because of COVID, Hughes said they still planned to hold both the clinic and the summer program. Handeland said he was pleased they were expanding the Outdoors Club to non-tribally enrolled youth, and the Councilmembers supported

funding both programs.

Nome-Beltz Activities Director Patrick Callahan talked about three gym improvements that the high school is hoping to make in the next few years: a video board for $22,000, a new divider curtain for $18,000 and a new concession stand for $50,000. While the prices of each of these were high, Callahan said they didn’t expect them all to be supported right now, and that fundraising for these projects would be a multi-year endeavor. The Councilmembers present agreed to offer Nome-Beltz a portion of the leftover funds after it had funded other projects, floating a preliminary amount of $11,000 for whichever project Callahan thought was most pressing.

Nome Public Schools Superintendent Jamie Burgess talked briefly about the Nome Culture Club’s request of $7,500 to support two trips that the high school’s Native Drum and Dance Club was hoping to take in the next year.

Katy Tomter, who runs an informal girls’ club basketball team, also talked about funding for travel. She requested $10,000, mostly for travel to competitions around the state but also for new equipment.

Councilmember Topkok expressed some reservations about financing travel during the pandemic, while the City is also discouraging unnecessary travel outside the region. The Councilmembers agreed to tentatively fund the non-travel related aspects of these requests.

Finally, Dr. Kamey Kapp of Last Frontier Eye Care talked about the $80,000 request for seed funding for a planned Children’s Fund. The fund would finance free optometry to uninsured youth in Nome, replacing broken eye glasses for kids as well as additional optometry services beyond what’s covered by Medicaid and the Indian Health Service.

Dr. Kapp said the fund would be managed under her and Marcy O’Neil’s new for-profit business Last Frontier Eye Care in the short term, but that they planned to transition it to a non-profit organization Tundra Health Initiative down the line.

The Councilmembers present agreed that they couldn’t grant the request in full and expressed some reservations about offering funding for a nonprofit that didn’t exist yet, but proposed a reduced grant amount of $10,000 and agreed to discuss it further at the City Council meeting on Monday.

In Monday’s regular Nome Common Council meeting, the council passed in second reading amended budgets for several municipal funds, including the general fund, school debt service, special revenue, capital projects, construction capital projects and the Port of Nome budget and capital projects fund.

The agenda item dealing with the distribution of $100,000 from the end of year NSEDC community benefit share took up the lion share of the discussions. A work session, attended only by three council members, the mayor and the city manager took place on Wednesday. (See related story on page 5). The Council earmarked half of the $200,000 NSEDC CBS funds for youth-centered community projects. With recommendations from the work session in front of them, the Council went about divvying up the $100,000 pie: $4,502.82 for the Checkpoint Bike Shop; $ 5,666.67 Checkpoint Youth Center; $8,666.67 for new ramp at the Nome Boys and Girls Club; $10,000 NCC-Camp Crave; $6,000 for the Nome Community Center’s Children’s Home; $15,000 for two youth programs; $3,000 Nome Girls youth basketball; $ 24,663.80 for Nome Beltz High School concession stand; $2,500 Nome Beltz Culture Club; $10,000 for Last Frontier Eye Care and $10,000 to the Nome Winter Sports Association.

Discussion centered on an amendment to scrap the funds requested for a gym divider and a video board at the gym – with concurrence of NBHS athletic director Pat Callahan—and roll the $16,497 toward the building and remodeling of a new concession stand, which in turn will

help Nome youth generate money from concession sales for their programs.

Another point of discussion centered on Last Frontier Eye Care, a new optometry business in Nome. Councilwoman Jennifer Reader voiced her reluctance to hand community benefit shares to a for-profit business, albeit with a focus on youth. Mayor Handeland explained that the business intends to start a non-profit to help underserved children with eye care, but that this nonprofit is not yet up and running. Reader also wanted to know how many children would be served, but no data was made available to answer the question. In the end, all council members voted unanimously on the distribution of funds.

In the City Manager’s report, Glenn Steckman said the City is working with Alaska Housing to get rent relief to Nome renters who struggle to make rent or utility payments due to COVID-19. The City plans to coordinate with the Nome Visitor Center to set up a computer there to allow people without internet access to apply for the aid online.

He also reported that last week Nome had unexpected visitors, top brass from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do a site visit to the Port of Nome. Mayor John Handeland and Fire Chief Jim West Jr. took them on a tour of the Port and Nome.

In regards to COVID-19 vaccinations, he said that Nome can reopen again and even return to two flights a day when herd immunity through vaccination is reached. He said if 700 more eligible Nomeites would receive a vaccine, Nome would be near the 90 percent herd immunity needed to fully reopen Nome. “Vaccinations

are the key to really get the city fully open again,” he said. “But facemasks will not go away anytime soon. We still encourage their wearing in city buildings.”

In other news, he said that there are still $254,000 left over from CARES Act funds. He suggested to get another phase of relief out to the community in April, due to the lack of economic activity that usually comes with Iditarod. This year, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race will not end in Nome.

Steckman reported that nearly $800,000 of CARES Act funds were spent during phase 5 and about $250 to 260,000 in phase 6.