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City Manager's Report 4-20-2021
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SUBMITTED BY: Mark Detter, City Manager
FISCAL NOTES:
Expenditure Required: N/A
Unencumbered Balance: N/A
Funding Source: N/A
RECOMMENDATION:
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Receive and File.
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SUMMARY STATEMENT:
The following developments have occurred in the past two weeks:
* Stratton Edwards with the Capitol Hill Group received notice from Congressman Young's office that appropriations requests were due the week of April 5th-9th. Mr. Edwards worked with myself and other staff to develop background and cost estimates for two projects:
o The $20 Million sewer force main project (Requested $10 Million Dollars).
o The $10-12 Million small boat harbor reconstruction (Requested $5 Million Dollars).
The requests were also shared with Senator Sullivan and Senator Murkowski's offices.
* A2A Rail Project - Jon Katchen A2A Rail project leader, former Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell, and engineers from HDR (the consulting engineer performing rail feasibility study) met with staff via G2M on 4/7/21.
Initial results indicate Valdez is a high cost option, but viable alternative for rail. Permitting challenges are also an issue (although other parts of the state appear to have greater challenges related to permitting).
HDR Engineering made some adjustments to the rail path to avoid conflicts with residential neighborhoods, however, even with such adjustments, there is no way to create a rail path without land use compatibility issues.
Further discussion with local groups including Alyeska, CVEA, Petro-Star, and the City will need to occur. A2A has not conducted on-site feasibility in Valdez and plans to make those on-site inquiries in the future (no timeline to date).
A few other observations related to rail:
o The Presidential Permit remains intact, but is subject to review by the Biden Administration.
o The A2A groups believes rail in Alaska is not a single path question or dilemma. Rail can be developed to multiple destinat...
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