The City and Borough of Juneau Assembly is expected to take action on the Juneau School District request for two voter-initiatives to be placed on the ballot, and for funds to conduct further work on studying the possibility of reopening of the AJ Mine.
The school district wants to ask voters two similar questions on the ballot.
The first is to allow bonds in the sum of $1.19 million for turf replacement at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park. The turf has reached the end of its useful life, and was further damaged by a fire. The project would be eligible for state reimbursement funds for 70 percent, with the district paying for the remaining 30 percent.
The district would take revenue interest of $370,000 from the Thunder Mountain High School capital improvement project and use it to pay down other bond debts. It legally cannot use that interest to pay for the new projects.
The second question will ask voters to approve a bond for $1.4 million to upgrade the heating system during the planned Auke Bay Elementary School renovation from heating oil to ground source heat pumps. The district has said that the upfront cost of the heat pumps is significantly higher than other systems, however the annual maintenance and operational costs on the heat pumps are significantly lower.
This project also would qualify for the state reimbursement program with the same 70/30 percent ratio.
The district also intends to use revenue interest of $420,000 from completed Glacier Valley and Harbor View Elementary schools capital improvement projects to pay down other bond debt.
Each of the projects’ debt pay-down mechanisms would mean a tax drop for property-tax payers in the first year of the 10-year bonds.
After the first year it would cost taxpayers roughly $1.21 more per $100,000 of assessed value.
In other business, the Assembly may act on a proposal to set aside $250,000 toward the AJ Mine. The funds would be used for a water study, extra staff hours or pay and for any legal expenses in the initial process. The Assembly Committee of the Whole (which is the full Assembly) forwarded the measure to its acting body this summer.
The Assembly also is expected to take action on several fund transfer requests, mostly accepting federal and other grant monies to departments for projects like the Airport Runway Safety Expansion, Downtown Transit Center, Montana Creek Access repairs and others.
The Assembly is scheduled to close the night with an executive session reviewing the status of the Request for Proposals contract negotiations for city-wide recycling.
For a full agenda and supporting documents go to http://bit.ly/qNsRLg.
• Contact reporter Sarah Day at 523-2279 or at sarah.day@juneauempire.com.
Comments (10)
Add commentwhy
My understanding is that the mine is also privately owned, so we certainly should not be looking to foot this 250000 using our hard earned tax payer dollars. If there is money to burn like this, then why not refund it to all of us.
I also think the mine is simply in the wrong location. We already have conjestion problems down town, down town is becoming an unhealthy & unsafe place to be.
We should work on & focus on the problems our town already has and not create any new ones! The AJ mine will deeply divide Juneau residents. Do we want this for our town? No.
Why is the city not addressing the dump?
Have folks noticed our "brown" channel this week? I think its because the city allowed a rock dump to be next to the river and with all this rain the run off is dragging all that fill material piled up and right into the channel! Yikes it is a mess there. Good lord, this is our wet lands and it is being destroyed. Lets use the money to study what is going on here and start fixing it. What chemicals our leaching into the wet lands from the dump and from the rock dump? Were is that data on this? I would like to be able to see that this is being monitored. I should be able to go on line and look to see data on when water quality checks were made etc..
What is the status on the incinerator? It should be fixed by now, if not put this money towards that and get it done.
Or, the city should make a real "good" decision and purchase the land for sale across from Tyler rental so that this area is not also developed. This land is one of the last parts of our wetlands and we need to preserve it. Use the money for this.
Lets move to make Juneau the most Green City and or use this money to make this happen. We need to put filters on our storm drains to keep oil, gas etc... from pouring into the ocean from run off from our parking areas, streets etc...
We have needs and better uses for this money.
Haily, because they can.
Haily, because they can.
Put it on the ballot
Using this money for the AJ mine "water study" certainly feels like it is being shoved down our throats. The right thing to do would be to put it on the ballot.
This decision should not be left up to the Assembly.
Auke Bay School
Ground heat pumps? Great idea! Get off the Diesel teat. 'Bout time. This technology will only become more economical as time goes by.
AJ Studies
$250K for more, and I suspect repetetive water quality studies. Hmmmm....Are the many studies done 20 years ago invalid now? Why? What's changed, other than the price of gold?
The expense of guaranteeing that AJ development would be clean and safe should be on the AJ owners and developers. We've been here before -- years of study, discussion, conflict, and the CBJ and State bending over backwards to provide AJ developers w/ damn near everything they asked: Corporate welfare at it's best? Worst?
Finally the U.S. EPA and Courts agreed that the AJ, and their concessions from local governments, were bogus: illegal.
All that's changed is the immense inflation in gold prices...That and the GOP Courts that rule consistently for corporations rather than the longterm interests of the citizenry.
Since gold is selling for what? 4-5 times it's early 90s prices, the AJ investors and owners should pay for the preliminaries...And, they should pay for the impartial review of those preliminaries, too.
I would like to see the city
I would like to see the city use the $250,000 to study how the city can have Geo-Thermal available for use in every neighborhood. Each home could pay hookup fees, we could also do a Co-op sort of thing to bring costs down.
boom = bust
when there is a boom there is always a bust
Ever have gold fever? I have. Its pretty easy to get, and its highly contagious. Lots of folks in town have it.
Gold prices will drop and soon.
Haily and gang
You are so whacked out it is laughable Haily. Take the bus, walk or ride your bike to ANY stream in town and you will see through your rose tinted glasses that the heavy rain is causing the muddy channel. That's what happens everywhere in this of the country. It isn't the "rockdump" or the tailings Juneau is built on.
The assembly needs to be forward thinking, get the AJ open and Haily, why don't YOU buy all the land you deem to be wetlands? Libs love to try and spend someone elses money.
Give me a break
Muddy channel
Actually the mud flowing down Gold Creek is from another landslide in Last Chance Basin. Ironically the last time it did this was when the AJ Mine Advisory Committee was writing their final report. And now when the Assembly is considering spending start-up money on the AJ, it happens again. Is nature trying to tell us something?
School Bonds again?
JUST SAY NO! to school bonds. About the time some are paid off they want to go it all over again. The school district needs to stay within their budget and put some money aside each year for such big expenses.
Perhaps parents that buy these high school kids new cars, instead should put that money into a fund for these school needs and also some of the HS students need to get off drugs and booze and put that money in the same fund.