Good morning. I call the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee meeting to order.
Today is Tuesday, February 10th at 8.02 a.m.
Members present are Representative Kai Holland,
Representative Carolyn Hall, Representative Steve St. Clair,
Representative Garrett Nelson, Co-Chair Rebecca Hymshoot, and myself Co Chair Donna Meers.
We have a quorum to conduct business. Just an early morning reminder to silence your cell phones.
If you need to pass a note to committee members, please get the attention of my aid, Talia Ames.
Thank you, Talia, and thanks to co-chair Hymshoot's committee aid.
That's your brouwer.
Before we get started, I'd also like to thank our recording secretary, Sophia Denny,
and helping us from the Juneau LIO is Kyla Tupo.
So this morning we've got two bills on our agenda.
First, we'll take public testimony on House Bill 255,
Senior Citizen Grant's dividend raffle,
sponsored by Representative Stop.
This is the bill's second hearing.
And next we will hold the Bill introduction
and invited testimony for House bill 216,
transfer of railroad land to Whittier,
sponsored from Representative Holland,
and this is Bill's first hearing
I'd also like to remind the committee that we have an abbreviated hearing this morning to allow time for setting up the DOC Finance Subcommittee.
So we'll have a hard stop at 8.55.
So first, we will take up House Bill 255 for public testimony.
We've received additional documents for the bill.
So before we take public testimonies, representative staff, and staff you want to please come to the table.
Put yourselves on the record and provide a recap, and then we'll allow a little time for Q&A related to the new documents.
Thank you, Chair Mears.
For the records, my name is Representative Will Staff, House District 32, Fort Wayne Wright, Badger and East Fairbanks.
This is my staff, Liz Rexford, this.
Good morning, the chair lives with Rexfern.
And I will go ahead and recap the bill with the permission of the chair and to the through the members for starters the senior benefits HB 255 is designed to create a voluntary non-general fund mechanism to be able to set up a raffle very similar to
And it's designed to supplement, not replace, different types of services that are currently being offered to our senior citizens in Alaska.
The way the contribution allocations in the bill currently go are 50% of the immediate senior grants administered through the Department of Health,
of the Raffle Price Pool to encourage participation.
Like I said, it's designed very similar to the Education Bill
and excuse me, Education Raffle.
And that's a good, I think, overview and sufficient.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank-you very much.
Oh.
Where are we ready for questions?
Ready for question, chair.
Thank You.
Any committee members have additional questions
for Representative Stop?
Representative Holland. Well, thank you to the chair. I just want to acknowledge the the feedback that we've gotten and some of the questions from last time
I appreciate the sponsor getting back with some other information
Thank you, and I almost failed to note representative Prox joined us at 804
Any further questions? From the committee?
All right, Thank You very much. We will
And for the questions, we'll now open public testimony,
and we're going to limit testimony to two minutes.
So thank you.
You don't need to stay at the table
if you don' want to, my friends.
I love being here, though.
All righty.
So I will now open public testimony.
We're going to limit testimony to two minutes.
I'll say that again, because that's when you beg the gavel.
Thank you, representative Pimpchute.
So is there anyone in the room that
would like to provide public testifying?
Seeing and hearing none, do we have anyone on line?
Yes, we will.
start with Vivian Stivek from the Fairbanks LIO.
Ms. Stibek, please put yourself on the record
and begin your testimony.
My name is Vivien Stiver.
I'm here in Fairbank,
and I wanna thank the committee for this hearing today.
I wanted to briefly touch on some of the questions
that were asked last time.
One of questions was in regards to what was supportive.
housing, that 25%. That is for supporting things like housekeeping, laundry, changing
bed, washing dishes, trash removal, and changing a light bulb even. It's for like snow removal
lawns for folks that are staying in their home. Also for grocery shopping, pharmacy
pickup, mail assistance, appointment reminders for people who need that type of service.
Sometimes, I know that Representative Prox brought up Bantran.
It is a good service.
It's available to anyone 60 years and older.
However, sometimes there's a lack of flexibility, so things get difficult,
and we need to supplement them with other types of transportation.
And the transportation that's existing is well-
used and there's people who wait and you have to call well that they have some time
seniors don't know that far in advance and they
have go to a medical appointment. There's a question that click-pick and give.
The Fairbanks Senior Center receives $7,000 from the pick-click-give program
which is used for meals on wheels. They still have a wait list for
meals and still do fundraise and support that program. We talked about the
I don't totally understand it other than there's an actuary that would be the person
to talk to and I'll try to figure that one out.
So why we did the 25-25-50, it's in the state of Alaska senior services review that's done
and then the last 16 years I was told by Alaska Council on Aging that these three items are
concerns for seniors statewide.
And that is why that breakdown is in this bill.
But I wanted to share a story with you.
So I run Affordable Housing for Seniors.
I had a gal stay with us three and a half years.
Her family was great at seeing that she
got the services she needed.
She was able to stay for three-and-a-half years
longer before she went into the Pioneer Home.
If she had gone into Pioneer home,
it would have cost the state $264,000 plus for those three years.
But because she had supported services and it was tailored very well by her family,
she was able to remain an independent apartment.
Then we also had Earl Root from the VA.
He was a homeless veteran that came to us and was
able stay with us for four years after we gave him assistance,
for it at home, where he had grocery and he
had limited medical care in home and had someone come in
every day and work with him.
And he was able to stay there until end of life.
So these services do a great thing for the senior themselves
for dignity to staying in their communities and live
independently.
And it always comes down to dollars and cents.
And that's always the cold part of the deal.
The state saves money.
It's voluntary, it's not a tax,
it can add to these services and save the state money
and keep people out of the pioneer system longer.
And I'll take any questions if you have them.
Thank you, Ms. Divek, thank you for your testimony.
I also need to mention that we've got Tony Newman,
Director of Senior and Disability Services
in the room to answer questions.
Although we don't have anyone else on the line
or in a room for public testimony,
I will now close public-testimony.
Thank-you very much.
Are there any further questions from the committee
before we set this bill aside?
Alrighty. Thank you, Representative Stop at Stop and Ms. Rexford.
Co-chair him, shoot and I will be working on a committee substitute from feedback that
we got at our last hearing and conversations we've had since.
If you have input on the bill, please connect with our offices so that we can incorporate
ideas in the committee's substitute as well.
Next, we'll hear House Bill 216, Representative Holland and staff.
Welcome to the committee.
Please approach the testifier table, put yourself on record and proceed with your bill presentation.
Good morning, Chair Mears and the Committee members.
Kai Holland House District 9 representative, House district 9 covers the South Anchorage hillside down through
Ternigan arm to include Whittier, Alaska.
Whttier Alaska is a transportation hub for our state.
It has been for millennia as a passageway from the Prince William sound into Tournigan
arm.
This bill that we're talking about today, House Bill 216,
is largely an administrative bill to complete a legislative requirement.
The railroad, when it was transferred to the state of Alaska.
The statutes included a requirement that when and if the railroad ever sought to dispose or transfer any of its land,
it would have to receive legislative approval.
So this bill is very simply approving or
allowing, if you will, the transfer by the rail road to the city of Whittier land.
working on an agreement for that transfer, and this bill identifies the property that would be approved by the legislature for this transfer.
It does not obligate the transfer to be completed.
It provides our approval so that they could complete the negotiations,
and I hope eventually a transfer I'll just sum up by
Bill is already actually in its second committee of referral.
It was introduced through the House Transportation in the last couple weeks.
And we've been through presentation of the bill discussion and testimony.
And this is now its 2nd bill of referrals.
So I'll turn it over to staff, Aidan Nickel, who can give you a little more detail about the Bill and the sectional.
Thank you, co-chair Mears, for the record,
Aidan Nickel, staff, to Representative Holland.
So for those of you who are unfamiliar,
Whittier is a small city in District 9
that provides a primary connection
between Anchorage and the Prince William Sound.
That makes it a critical access point for fishing, shipping, tourism and travel on the
marine highway system.
Whittier is connected to the rest of the state by a multi-use tunnel through the surrounding
mountains and for most of this city's history this was a rail only tunnel so the city has
long relied on its partnership with the railroad.
The railroad in turn has benefited from its land holdings in Whitier which constitute
And in 1998, the railroad leased some of that land to the city, but leasing hasn't allowed the
city to reap the full intended economic benefits of the land. So under the lease,
the Railroad needs to be able to reclaim the Land if it once again becomes essential for its
operations. That of course creates uncertainty that discourages investment. And as a state entity,
the rail road is tax exempt, which means that the City is unable to raise municipal revenue
So negotiations have been ongoing for about the last two years, the city to take ownership
of some of this land, and the two parties came to agreement on terms for a sale in late 2025.
However, an obstacle that remains is legislative approval. The railroad is prohibited under Title 42
So, now that the city and the railroad have partnered to do the hard work of negotiating
a deal, the role of the legislature is to clear the way for that deal to proceed.
Here we have a map of parcels under consideration.
Originally all five parcels that you see here, we're going to be conveyed.
The current deal only includes the sale of three parcels in town, so those are the three
parcels on the right of map here.
that the other two parcels.
So these are the properties on the left of the map.
Those the head of debate will eventually be conveyed
as a further deal, and both parties
have expressed this intention as well.
That's why the language of
the bill contains authorization for all five parcels
Heading into the sectional analysis on the text of the bill is brief and straightforward.
Section 1 authorizes the railroad to make this transfer.
It describes the five parcels of land that the road can convey while recognizing that
the final boundaries of parcels being conveyed are not necessarily to be determined by the
And it explicitly names that the section meets the requirement for legislative authorization under Title 42, which governs the railroad.
And section two establishes an immediate effective date.
And with that, Chair Mears, I would like to turn it back over to Representative Holland before we take questions from the committee.
Thank you.
Thank You.
Yep, thank you to the chair and the committee.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
I just note that we also have representatives of the city here in the room if there are any direct questions you'd like to ask of them.
And I don't know whether or not we've got somebody from the railroad online either.
She's here.
Snuck in after I said it a little earlier.
So we also have a representative from the railroad here,
Megan Cleman, if there's some questions
of the rail road, thank you.
Thank you, Representative Hahn, and also online,
we have Christy Terry, who's the vice president
of real estate for the Railroad.
So, we are ready to proceed with invited testimony then.
Who's up first?
We have Megan Clemens up first from the railroad.
Excellent, thank you very much.
Ms. Clemons, please approach the table
and provide a testimony.
All right, good morning, co-chair mirrors,
co chair, him shoot and committee members.
My name is Megan Clement, and I am the external affairs director for the Alaska Railroad Corporation.
And thank you for
the opportunity today to express the Alaskan Railroad support for House Bill 216, which as you just heard would authorize the railroad to sell identified parcels of land to the city of Whittier.
And I'll start by noting that selling land is not something that the railroad takes lightly.
So as you know, the process to sell railroad land requires not only legislative approval,
but also railroad board approval.
And that's lined out in our statute with our board obligated to find that
the land isn't necessary for railroad purposes, and that a sale would serve the best interest of the state.
As we remain focused on our mandate to maintain Alaska's rail network and
for goods and passengers.
So it's important to highlight for this transaction
that over the last two years,
the railroad and the city have engaged
in ongoing discussion and negotiation
in pursuit of a mutually beneficial land sale.
Through this process, the scope of the proposed sale
has evolved and refined, culminating in a proposal
offered by the Railroad at our board's direction
to sell three parcels in Whittier's core downtown district
at fair market value, again as required by statute.
Following this proposal, we were pleased to receive a conditional letter of intent from the
city in late January and just last week the Alaska Railroad Board of Directors passed a
resolution approving the sales of areas of interest 1, 2, and 3 as defined under that conditional
letter intent. As I mentioned, this discussion has evolved over the last year and has been noted
noted as areas of interest four and five and I do want to clarify completing the
sale of parcels one, two, and three would in no way preclude revisiting four
and 5 for a potential future sale to the city of Whittier and in fact having
legislative approval to sell those parcels to
the City would only help to expedite that process should we receive that
guidance from our board in the future.
So with that, thank you again for the opportunity to speak today in support of this legislation.
It's our hope that this land sale is responsive to the needs of the community and the railroad.
But it helps the city realize its goals for local growth and prosperity.
And sets the stage for an ongoing productive relationship between the Railroad and
the City of Whittier in the years to come.
Thank you.
Thank very much for your comments or their questions from the committee.
Representative Prox.
yes thank you through the chair since both parties agree I think it's best
for us to mostly stay out of it but there's probably some questions that the
public would like to hear the answer to so through
the Chair I'm sure you've thought about but could you tell us there is it appears
these are sightings and then there would be room that the railroad
was using or could have used for freight storage and etc but does the rail road have
some other plan for
Through the chair, Representative Prex, good question, and as I noted, one of the prerequisites
for entering into a sale of railroad land is for our board to find that the land
is not necessary for railroad purposes.
You can take a broad look at that, but typically when we look
at railroad lands, we think of it as operating or reserve, operating being directly related
to the operations of train.
we have a rail barge operation that has quite a large footprint in the city center that would also extend to our right-of-way or sightings, as you mentioned.
The railroad also, when it was transferred from the federal government to the state of Alaska, came with quite
a bit of land that we had available for lease.
Now, that's critical to your ability to maintain our rail infrastructure and continue to provide those railroad services,
lease out for other commercial development.
The parcels in question here have been under a joint master lease agreement with the City
of Whittier for a number of years now.
So those have already been commercially developed for non-rail road purposes under
a lease share agreement, with The City of Whitier.
Given that situation, we don't see those parcels of land, areas of interest 1, 2, and 3, as
of determined that it would be mutually beneficial for both the railroad and the
city to complete a sale of these parcels.
Yes, thank you and thank
you through the chair. Has there been an environmental assessment? Does there
need to be one?
Through the chair, a representative pracks, so this bill before us is strictly authorizing the sale of the land.
But certainly, there's much more involved in actually completing this transaction.
And so, the conditional letter of intent that I mentioned receiving from the city outlines the full scope of
the purchase and sale agreement and all the due diligence that would need to take place for a sale to occur.
Do you have another follow-up?
Well, just comment, it looks like,
but the legislature needs to do is move this on
so that it can proceed, so thank you.
Representative Prox, Representative Hymsh?
Thank you, Chair Mears, through the chair.
I just don't know Whittier very well,
so my question is the parcels,
I guess they'd be four and five,
but one's on the left of the picture, on slide four.
Is that where the-
cruise ship dock is going in from Huna Todum, or is that further away still?
I don't know if you know that. I could share him shoot. So that area is typically referred to as
the head of the bay. That whole...
head of the bay there in Whittier.
The cruise ship dock that was completed last year,
that's not included in either parcels four or five.
It would be just in the north of those parcels,
but yes, that the general area
where that new development has occurred.
And it's finished, the dock is there.
Wow, okay, I need to visit Whitty or thank you.
Yeah, you do for a lot of other reasons.
Thank you very much.
got a question. So if are there any conditions once the land has been transferred to the city
for example are they free to subdivide and sell that or are any any condition.
I coach our mayor's note would be a sale to
the City of Whittier so it would a complete sale of the
land. Very much. Are there other further questions from the committee?
Thank you very much, Ms. Clemens.
And then next, we have the other partner in the transaction
from the city of Whittier.
We have Jackie Wild.
Please come and put yourself on the record.
I'm glad that you're able to be here in person.
We will not have any telephonic issues.
And you have plenty of time to share with us
your perspective from this city.
Please go ahead with your testimony.
I state my name, uh, Jackie Wild City Manager for the City of Whittier. Thank you, Chair
Mears and Committee for hearing us today. I think to start out...
for those that have not been to Whittier,
I'll give you a little bit of history,
but the picture that is behind you
is a great representation of what we are looking at
to purchase in these first three lots.
So when you're looking
at the large building in the center,
that's where 90% of the community lives.
The grass area off to the left is parcel number two
35 acres. And then to the very back where you see the harbor, the uplands are that additional
acreage, which is in number two.
And to left, there's one little, almost an acre of a parcel you can't quite see there.
vast picture of what Whittier is.
And if you even look further back by the queue,
you can see the start of the dock in this picture.
So that's the head of The Bay and the doc
that you were asking questions about, Chair Hinshoot.
I...
do want to point out that this is something that is almost 40 years in the making in 1998.
The city entered into what we call a master lease with the railroad. That master
lease did allow us to operate the lands within the master
lease, which is these areas that we're talking about. But at the same time, pay 40% of the
over the time, you know, it was originally given to this, the railroad and then entered into a
master lease because at the, time it, was like, is this going to be a city? Is this
going be something that, grows or will it stay, a railroad military town? And you look over
the last 40 years while I've only been there for five of those, uh,
need for economic development with a new cruise ship terminal being built the the
ability for us to be able to add more housing as I said earlier that's where
ninety percent of our community lives is in that one colorful building and the
other 10% lives in another building. The city owns very little land as it
stands right now which is the Buckner building for those that you know
It was built for the military. It is a large contaminated site and the other land that we own is called the tank farm
Which is up at the head of the bay?
This process working with the railroad, you know something that I love to say is
There will always be a railroad,
there will be always a state of Alaska,
and there'll always to be city of Whittier.
If we work together, look at what we can do.
And this is just a huge step for us
to make that step together.
Being able to sit here and say we're working
with the railroad because we are going to
be partners for decades.
And that is how I think that we need to look
at it whenever we dealing with
the rail road in the future.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions from the committee?
Thank, you, very, much, oh, we do
Representative fall
Thank You madam co-chair
I'm I am curious miss wilds are there particular projects in mind when it comes to the economic development that you're that the city is
Hoping to pursue I imagine that there must be a slurry of options that your looking at
through the chair of Representative Hall.
That is such a great question because we as a city
have already done a waterfront economic development plan.
It's finishing its last part of the draft phase,
which would then revitalize the entire waterfront.
So that is something that we've looked at.
We are working currently with state DOT
on a master transportation plan, you know.
little tidbit while Whittier is very small, it is
very mighty. We have over 700,000 visitors a year to our
community. And so though that aspect alone gives us, you know,
the need and want to be able to build housing, additional
housing additional storefronts and additional abilities for
economic development within our city, but also for the state.
follow-up. Thank you Madam Coach here. Ms. Wilds about how many years projected
out are you are these plans under development for like the next is this a
40-year plan, 20- year plan all that sounds really exciting and
I'm just kind of curious about those details.
So our city started through the chair, Representative Hall.
Our city has a capital improvement plan
that when we initially started it about five years ago,
I mean, they've always had one,
but we've grown that plan to about 30 years out,
where we, I me we are really looking at
how to use this land in the best way possible
for the community, for The State,
for Railroad,
Just just the alone the I know
Representative prax asked about environmental we as a city have received a Brownsfield on one of our lots
We are in the process of cleaning up a three additional lots
So we are looking at that future
really hard and really as an extension of how we do your will grow in future
Thank you Madam Coocher for your indulgence Ms. Wildt I'm curious so there
are any other barriers that the city is facing when it comes to these economic
development plans. Right now the biggest is that we don't own the land you know
it is extremely hard to even apply for federal funding when you're trying to
even do a community block grant you.
It is, it's a hard concept, excuse me,
it is a concept for people when you're talking to them
to say, oh, well, we don't own the land,
but please give us this federal grant
so that we can add.
to land that we don't own. So you know that master lease while at the time it
was introduced they thought it was a really really great idea. I think that
over the last 40 years we're all going okay wait this this may not this was not
a good idea and that is why it's just so great that were being able to get out of
that Master Leeson work with the railroad. Thank you.
We will
We're grateful for everyone presenting today, and with that, we'll set the bill aside until
a later date.
We've got to work around our budget finance subcommittees to bring this back.
So just a reminder to anybody that has interest in commenting on either House Bill 255 or
House bill 216, public testimony during our committee meetings is not your only opportunity
to weigh in.
address with which folks can send comments and that is house dot community dot and dot
regional dot affairs at a K L E G dot gov. So multiple opportunities for folks to weigh
in on these bills.
So that concludes our business for today. A reminder to committee members we will be
Budget Finance Subcommittee for DOC.
We will not have a standing committee meeting this Thursday
because we've got more budget work to do.
So seeing no further business before the committee,
this meeting is adjourned at 8.34 AM.