Three City and Borough of Juneau task forces are set to meet this week, all of which are still in their early stages.
On Tuesday, the Assembly Task Force on Homelessness meets for the third time, holding its meeting in City Hall room 237. Chair Debbie White said the meeting will delve into how to provide more bathroom facilities for the homeless downtown, solutions to littering and where a winter campground would work. City staff is also supposed to provide further statistics from the vulnerability index survey done in May, that counted and analyzed Juneau’s most vulnerable homeless individuals.
Another task force — the Assembly Public Safety Committee — is holding its first meeting. The meeting takes place at noon Wednesday in the Assembly chambers at City Hall. Deputy City Manager Mila Cosgrove, who is staffing the committee, said the meeting is “purely organizational” and will lay out some basic goals for the committee.
Mayor Ken Koelsch formed the committee, assigning the group to take an inventory of local services that address public safety, treatment for drug and alcohol addiction and re-entry, according to a memo he sent regarding the committee. After identifying these services, the committee is to make recommendations to the mayor, including what services the community still needs.
Deputy Mayor and Assembly member Jerry Nankervis will serve as the committee’s chair. Cosgrove said the committee will also include Juneau Police Department Public Information Officer Lt. David Campbell, CBJ Municipal Prosecutor Sherri Layne and Bartlett Regional Hospital’s newly-appointed Behavioral Health Officer Bradley Grigg will also be on the committee.
At the same time as the meeting on public safety, there is a scheduled meeting of the Assembly Mining Committee in City Hall Room 224. This would be the second meeting for the committee, which is chaired by Assembly member Norton Gregory, but Gregory said there’s a chance this meeting could be delayed.
Earlier this year, a handful of local businessmen wrote up a proposal to the Assembly that claimed that the city’s current ordinance makes it more difficult for a mining company to pursue mining in Juneau. They wrote that the current ordinance has regulations in it that are the same as national and state regulations, making it unnecessarily difficult to start a mining operation in Juneau.
Currently, City Attorney Amy Mead is examining the mining ordinance for duplicative language. She’ll report back to the committee when she can, but it might take a while longer, Gregory said. Until it’s clear what the ordinance says, Gregory said, he doesn’t want to move forward with the committee’s work.
At this stage, the committee seeks to answer the questions of what action should be taken with the current mining ordinance and what public process should be taken when looking into the ordinance. The committee currently includes Gregory and Assembly members Maria Gladziszewski and Beth Weldon.
At the committee’s first meeting, which took place July 21, the group decided that it would appoint two Planning Commission members and two members of the public. Members of the public are allowed to send their applications to the City Clerk’s office until 4:30 p.m. today, though Gregory said that timeline might be extended if this week’s meeting is postponed.
“It is my intent, or it is my recommendation to the committee that we don’t appoint committee members until we know what work is before us,” Gregory said.
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.
