The rebuild process of the Twin Lakes Playground might soon have enough funding to begin.
Among the ordinances up for consideration at tonights City and Borough of Juneau Assembly meeting is one committing just over $1.3 million to the reconstruction of the so-called Project Playground. The playground, built initially in 2007 from donations and volunteer work, was burned down in April.
The city’s insurance is covering the rebuild, to an extent. The city’s agreement with Lexington Insurance Company states that Lexington will cover the costs to build a new playground in the same basic footprint of the previous one. Any new changes will have to be funded separately.
The community responded quickly after the act of arson, and as of mid-October the Juneau Community Foundation had received about $170,000 in donations.
Monday’s meeting is open to the public, starting at 7 p.m. in the Assembly Chambers at City Hall.
The Assembly is likely going to award the bid for the first phase of the Pederson Hill Subdivision. The low bidder for the development, which projects to provide 86 single-family housing units on a plot of land near Auke Lake, was Coogan Construction.
Coogan, a local company, beat out fellow Juneau company Arete Construction Corp. by $90,000, submitting a bid of $2.56 million. Speaking to the Empire in August, CBJ Lands Manager Greg Chaney said he hoped construction would begin either this winter or next spring.
At the end of the meeting, Assembly member Norton Gregory is expected to make his recommendations about the next steps for the Assembly Mining Committee. This would happen when committee and liaison chairs give their reports.
Gregory is the chair of the committee, which currently includes him and Assembly members Maria Gladziszewski and Beth Weldon. At a meeting last week, the three of them selected an additional four members (two Planning Commission members and two members of the public) to add to the committee.
The committee selected Planning Commission members Paul Voelkers and Ben Haight. From the public, the committee selected Kyle Moselle from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Office of Project Management and Permitting and Roman Motyka of the University of Alaska Southeast’s Natural Sciences Department.
Gregory will reveal the committee’s selections and will share his thoughts on how the committee should operate. The main issue at hand during the committee’s Nov. 9 meeting was whether to give the new members of the committee the right to vote or whether to have only the three Assembly members allowed to cast votes on committee recommendations.
While Gregory and Weldon agreed that they would prefer the Assembly members be the only ones to vote, Gladziszewski felt that all seven members of the committee should be able to vote. If Assembly members object to any of the new committee members or to the committee’s format, the Assembly will take a vote or a series of votes.
Looking ahead
One ordinance will be introduced on Monday’s agenda, and will be open for public comment at the next Assembly meeting Dec. 18.
The ordinance would authorize the city to sell permits for city-owned charging stations for electric vehicles. Revenue collected from these charging permits, the ordinance states, would be used to help offset the cost of future charging stations and infrastructure.
The popularity of electric vehicles in Juneau has risen quickly in recent years, with nearly 200 of them in Juneau according to the Juneau Electric Vehicle Association’s count. There are currently 10 charging stations in town, with the city looking to install more.
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.
