Session 09-03, a Regular Meeting of
the Economic Development Advisory Commission was called to order at
PRESENT: COMMISSIONERS ERICKSON, FAULKNER, HOGAN, NEECE, RAVIN
STAFF: SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR HOLEN
DEPUTY
APPROVAL
OF THE AGENDA
The agenda was approved by consensus
of the Commission.
PUBLIC
COMMENTS REGARDING ITEMS ON THE AGENDA
There were no public comments.
RECONSIDERATION
There were no items for
reconsideration.
APPROVAL
OF MINUTES
A. Special
meeting minutes of
The minutes were approved by consensus
of the Commission.
VISITORS
There were no visitors scheduled.
STAFF
REPORT & COUNCIL REPORT
Special Projects Coordinator Holen had
no comment.
Deputy City Clerk Jacobsen commented
that the Clerk’s office w
PUBLIC
HEARING
There were no public hearings
scheduled.
PENDING
BUSINESS
A. Lease
Policies
RAVIN/ERICKSON MOVED TO BRING TO THE
FLOOR FOR DISCUSSION.
There was consensus and discussion
ensued.
Commissioner Ravin commented regarding
the Fairbanks Lease Policy, noting the gentleman he spoke to, Patrick Smith,
has been writing leases at his desk for 21 years.
·
Mr.
Smith discouraged using the Consumer Price Index (
·
The
Anchorage
·
Their
leases are short, two or three pages, and the lease policy is pretty simple.
·
They
hire an appraiser to re-evaluate lease parcels every five years.
·
As
a yearly lease they run 4% to 6% of the appraised value for remote rural, 8% of
the appraised value for regular industrial land, and up to 10% of the appraised
value for prime commercial.
·
The
City of Fairbanks has gone to great lengths in the last two decades to dispose
of all lands they have so they have very few commercial leases.
Special Projects Coordinator Holen
commented regarding
·
They
used to have a Harbor Advisory Body that was involved in leases but did away
with it as they felt it interfered with lease negotiation. The Harbor Director
negotiates the leases.
·
The
lease rent is calculated at 8% of fair market appraised land value, adjusted
each year for five years based on the
·
There
is additional rent based on percent of gross sales for businesses that are
involved in sales. The percentage depends on the type of business.
·
The
policies appear to be crafted to minimize Council involvement; it is mostly
done by the Harbor Director and City Manager.
·
There
are no automatic lease renewals. They did away with it because they found
tenants developed a false sense of private ownership. Renewals are regarded as
a new application.
·
The
improvements pass to the City at the end of the lease unless the City requires
they be removed, which would be done at the tenants expense.
·
No
subleasing without consent of the City, and sublease tenants are bound by the
same rules as the tenant.
Chair Hogan commented that he reviewed
·
·
Crested
The Commission discussed lease policy section
13.2 regarding subleases and the inconsistencies with the process. The Commission expressed that they agree
subleasing should be allowed but should be governed by the lease holder, not
the City.
Commissioner Faulkner stated for the
record that in his twenty years of experience, the City’s lease policy has done
more too hurt the fishing industry on the Homer Spit than farmed salmon.
ERICKSON/RAVIN MOVED THAT THE EDC
RECOMMENDS THAT SUBLEASING BE ALLOWED
There was brief discussion.
VOTE: YES: FAULKNER, NEECE, HOGAN,
ERICKSON, RAVIN
Motion carried.
Question was raised about making this
retroactive to all leases currently in place. It was noted that there are
already binding contracts in place. It was noted that Commissioners Hogan and
Faulkner currently have leases in place and would have to declare a conflict
which would result in not having a quorum.
There was discussion regarding lease
renewals. Chair Hogan noted that in the
The Commission also discussed the
benefits of having a property management person to facilitate the leases. It w
Another topic the Commission addressed
was allowing the purchase of City property on the spit. It is the understanding
that the City doesn’t want to obtain any of the buildings on the spit.
ERICKSON/HOGAN MOVED THAT AT THE END
OF A LEASE, IF THE LESSEE IS IN GOOD STANDING THEY HAVE THE OPTION TO BUY THE
PROPERTY.
City Planner Abboud noted that there
is a universal process where City property has to be bid on and he doesn’t
believe that you can reserve the right to purchase City property.
Comment was made that if the City
doesn’t want to own the buildings then it needs to set up so that if a lessee
has viable business that the City wants to see stay, the lessee should have an
opportunity to buy the property after they have fulfilled their lease
agreement.
It was noted that there is property
out there that needs to stay in the City’s hands, like property that is needed
to expand the harbor, but there is no reason short term leases can’t be done
there in the mean time. The leases on the south and east sides of the harbor
should be sold.
It doesn’t need to be a blanket decision,
but should be an option to consider. A buyout option could be included on
certain leases but Council would have to outline it at the onset of the lease. It
would also be a good opportunity for new business to get started.
City Planner Abboud reiterated that
legally, it won’t work.
ERICKSON/RAVIN MOVED TO AMEND TO ADD
THAT IT BE SOLD AT APPRAISED VALUE.
There was brief discussion.
VOTE: (Primary amendment): NON
OBJECTION: UNANIMOUS CONSENT
Motion carried.
There was more discussion reiterating
previous discussion.
VOTE: (Main motion as amended): YES:
RAVIN, NEECE, ERICKSON, HOGAN, FAULKNER
Motion carried.
The Commission agreed to have a lease
policy worksession on
B.
RAVIN/NEECE
MOVED TO BRING THIS TO THE FLOOR FOR DISCUSSION.
There was consensus and discussion
ensued.
Special
Projects Coordinator Holen informed the Commission that the
NEW
BUSINESS
A.
Economic
Preservation
ERICKSON/RAVIN MOVED TO DISCUSS.
There was consensus and discussion
ensued.
Comments included that this will
probably be a lean year for tourism so as business owners and citizens, we want
to look toward growth of our economy outside tourism. This agenda topic was
inspired by the
B. Regarding the Need to Address the
Economic and General Impact of Recent Data on Climate Change
RAVIN/ERICKSON
MOVED TO BRING THIS TO THE FLOOR FOR DISCUSSION.
There was consensus and discussion
ensued.
Commissioner Ravin proposed the
following amendments to Mr. Scarpitta’s comments that were introduced into the
record:
·
The
first sentence after the word “recent” strike “news accounts indicate” and
substitute “sensationalist propaganda claims”
·
Bottom
of first paragraph; strike the sentence “increasing efforts at sustainability
while auditory will no longer be sufficient.”
·
Third
paragraph strike the sentence “the worst case scenario, among other things is
that the water will rise significantly, the spit would likely be lost”
·
Fourth
paragraph, strike the word “not” in the sentence “I believe it is not in
the economic best interest of Homer to postpone discussion of this.”
·
In
the closing add that the City of Homer is in no way qualified to steward life
in general and would like to direct people to look at the City charter and note
that weather is not mentioned in the State Constitution or in the Municipal Code.
RAVIN/ERICKSON
MOVED TO MAKE THE AMENDMENTS.
There was
brief discussion that the Commission should be modifying someone’s statement.
VOTE: YES:
RAVIN
NO: FAULKNER, NEECE, HOGAN, ERICKSON
Motion failed.
Commissioner Faulkner recommended
reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded, a
book on climate change. He pointed out that it is not in the Commissions pervue
to deal with this, noting that even if the State cut its carbon emissions
tomorrow there would be no change globally what so ever. He also noted that
after the ’64 earthquake the land around here went down 4 or 5 feet and the
first year the bluff receded as much as a hundred yards in some places, so any
raise in the sea level the bluff goes galloping backwards, that’s just the way
it is.
INFORMATIONAL
MATERIALS
A. Letter from Port and Harbor Staff Re:
Derelict and Abandoned Vessel
It was noted that there is potential
for our marine trades industry to deal with the problem. There has been a huge
amount of money spent on these vessels that are in the harbor to prepare them for
scuttling and they are still not ready.
Commissioner Faulkner commented that he
is interested in knowing the ownership trail on the Husky Two and gave a brief history
on the series of events surrounding it.
B. Items of possible interest from Jan 26
and Feb 9 City Council Meeting packet
COMMENTS
OF THE AUDIENCE
There were no audience comments.
COMMENTS
OF THE
There were no staff comments.
COMMENTS
OF THE COUNCIL MEMBER
There were no Councilmember comments.
COMMENTS
OF THE CHAIR
Chair Hogan said he would like their minutes
included in the City Council packets. He said has Federal Court Jury Duty for
the next two months so there is a chance he could be called up to Anchorage and
be absent.
COMMENTS
OF THE COMMISSION MEMBERS
Commissioner Faulkner had no comments.
Commissioner Ravin said that after the
fall of the Berlin wall and after a little bit of time when the Soviet Union
began to crumble, their government ran out of money and stopped paying for a
lot of their weather stations. From 1990- 2000 they closed down about 5000
weather stations stretched out over Siberia and Russia. Those weather stations
had been reporting their average temperatures into the massive data that has
been correlated by people that have been measuring average temperatures. There were
a huge number of data points from northern climates that went away after 1990.
They have influenced some of the weather data that was generated and caused
some bit of alarm of the last decade that possibly temperatures were rising. If
you take out that data, apparently that was not the case. In fact the last few
years have seemed to be cooler. Everyone he knows who was trying to grow
potatoes last year from Anchor Point to Razdolna got either very few potatoes
or very small potatoes, as we didn’t have much of a summer. He said he put up
solar panels in ‘07 and ’08. There were five weeks last summer wrapped around August
where we had no sun. It was the coolest summer in Homer since 1971 when he got
here. Some of the old timers who have been growing potatoes and feeding their
families data correlate with his. Mr. Ravin said we are in a cooling trend. He
is a Ham Radio operator and depends on solar activity to increase ionosphere activity
which allows him to talk on his radio all over the world. The solar flux has
been flat. Normally it is up around 200 but the sun has been flat lined at a
solar flux of about 70 for the last nine months. Last summer was cool; this
summer is guaranteed to be a lot cooler than last summer. The sun is not having
its sun spots. We are supposed to be about a year and a half into solar cycle
24, but it didn’t show up. This happened back in the late 1600’s it is called
the Maunder Minimum, glaciers came down on northern Europe, it was real cold
for about 40 years. There was some famine and reduction in human population at
that time. He said he is just giving them a heads up that the sun is very
quiet, has been for a while, and if it continues, people are going to have a
hard time growing crops. If you are worried about global warming, you should
probably start buying blankets.
Commissioner Erickson noted for the
record that she appreciates what the other Commissions go through and what they
are working on. Sometimes it can look like we don’t support each other, but she
wanted to say that she appreciates what they are doing too. She said she will
be absent from the April meeting.
Commissioner Neece commented that he
may be absent for the April and May meeting as he expects to be out of town.
ADJOURN
There
being no further business to come before the Commission the meeting was
adjourned at 7:51p.m. The next Regular Meeting is scheduled for April 14, 2009 at
6:00 p.m. in the City Hall Cowles Council Chambers.
MELISSA JACOBSEN,
Approved: