Council rejects motion to reduce planning commission from seven to five members
In a four to two vote, the Nome Common Council voted down an ordinance amendment to reduce the number of members for the Nome Planning Commission from seven to five.
The reason for the reduction, City Manager Glenn Steckman said, is that they have a hard time of making quorum, with many meetings canceled for that reason. Steckman said that quorum couldn’t even be met when a very important meeting was scheduled for Nov. 7, for a presentation on the Nome Downtown zoning district. “If the planning commission can’t meet, we can’t get things done,” Steckman said.
Currently there are two open seats at the planning commission.
Speaking up against the reduction was planning commissioner Ken Hughes, who argued that two individuals put in their applications to serve on the commission and never heard back. Steckman explained that the city manager does not handle commission appointments. This is the job of the mayor, who nominates candidates for approval by the council and the mayor has used his authority to not nominate these two people, said Steckman.
Hughes also said that the planning commission also serves as the Historical Commission, which is a seven-member board, which put it out of compliance were the number reduced to five commissioners.
Hughes applauded the city for hiring a city planner but the contract is too constrictive and if the planner were allowed to work more hours, more would be done, which would make it more enticing for people to serve on a commission if things are moving forward.
“The more people we can bring in to our boards and our commissions, that generally speaking, the more representative and the better result will occur. So, for these reasons, I would urge you to not consider this solution any further and to instead urge the appointment of the two members that the two members of the public that have currently got applications in, or another round of aggressive advertising for members to sign up for the public,” Hughes said.
Council members Maggie Miller, Cameron Piscoya, Sigvanna Tapqaq and Mark Johnson voted no; Scot Henderson and Adam Martinson voted yes. The motion failed.
In other business, the council approved in second reading an ordinance to retain a foreclosed property on the corner of Warren Place and 4th Avenue, for the purpose of using the property as a location for a 3-D printed house project.
The council approved an ordinance to lease out space at the NomeBeltz campus for a cell phone tower to Atlas Tower LLC, for a 360 month term, for a monthly rental fee of $750 plus $250 per month for each additional national broadband mobile network carrier installing equipment on the tower. Atlas will also pay personal property taxes on the equipment.
City Manager Steckman recommended to reject bids for two projects – the NACTEC siding and painting job and the installation of a new Heating and Ventilation System at City Hall. Bids for both projects came in at a much higher price than the city engineer had projected. The council obliged and voted down the bids, but authorized the city manager to go back to the bidders for further negotiations.
In citizens comments, the operator of Nome’s lone cab service came before the city council to shine a light on what he perceived an injustice: traditional cab services having to abide by city rules and Uber drivers just getting way with no municipal oversight at all.
Rodney Jones, who owns and operates Checker Cab told the council of the difficult business climate, how difficult it is to operate a cab business in town, having survived the COVID-driven downturn of business, just to be facing now a former driver of his trying to get into the taxi business as an Uber driver. He objected to the city allowing her to operate a cab without going through the same process that he has to abide by with Checker Cab, obtaining so called cab medallions or licenses.
The city has 11 cab licenses available in the city and RJ has six of them. Another cab service owning the rest is not operational. “I’ve had babies birth in my cabs,” RJ said. “I’ve had an ambulance situation where the police put an individual into my cab and told the driver to take them to the hospital for free. I give free rides to church for 16 years now. And at every funeral free rides for anybody who wants them. You know, I mean, these things should be in consideration. I mean, I thought you guys did have my back. And then you guys want to consider putting another person out against me? You know, it’s a rat race when there’s another individual riding around with a car trying to snatch your calls.”
Steckman explained to the council that Uber is not regulated by the city but by the state of Alaska. He added that RJs is not meeting the requirements of the city, but if the city were to shut down Checker Cab, “what are people going to do to be able to access food and get around the city?” Hence, the manager allowed the cab company to continue to operate and working with RJ to work through the deficiencies.
In final actions, Mayor Handeland nominated Jim West Jr. and Charlie Lean for reappointment to the port commission, Carol Piscoya and Shauntel Bruner-Alvanna to the
Nome Public Safety Advisory Commission. The council voted to approve their reappointments.
The council meets next on November 27 at 7 p.m.