We conducted a comprehensive survey of residents to improve boroughwide services to the public. Thousands participated in the survey by answering our questions and providing valuable comments. Your documented comments and feedback are directly helping guide improvements to road service and the many other roles the borough plays on the Kenai. We will continue to ensure that KPB residents receive quality services that they pay for at the lowest cost possible.

We have placed ourselves in the shoes of the taxpayer. Under the Micciche administration, for the first time in a decade, a balanced boroughwide budget was passed by the assembly. We accomplished this while reducing your mill rate (property taxes). Prior to my administration, the previous two years saw a 16% increase in the KPB budget. The Micciche administration’s overall budget increased by only 2.55%. The general fund budget was also reduced from last year’s and, leading by example, my Mayor’s Department budget decreased as well.

Working with the Kenai Peninsula School District, we are helping to bolster and improve home-school options. Trying to see things through the eyes of home-school parents, students and families helps us be responsive to the 30% of our students who are home-schooled. It is imperative that we understand and meet their needs.

We are working to make KPB Emergency Services as efficient as possible to better serve the people of the Kenai. Our view and current national practices demonstrate that combined regional services are far more efficient, and effective, and are provided at a lower cost to taxpayers than many smaller service areas. We also procured and distributed life-saving extrication equipment for our emergency responders to help them meet the highway rescue challenges faced in rural areas of the borough.

We updated and implemented anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies to ensure the safety of KPB employees and protect taxpayers from legal and settlement costs. This includes a confidential reporting system, a mixed-gender review panel, and improved public official bonding requirements to protect the borough from financial liability.

We responded in record time to condemn and remove the collapsing Zipmart building in Sterling, which had become a serious hazard to children and youth in a location right next to the elementary school and the community center.

We created a limited-in-scope ordinance that will update and clarify borough code regarding KPB elections. These changes will ensure that our elections continue to be safe, secure, transparent and accurate. A few of the improvements this ordinance will make include giving more information to the public about when the canvass board meets, requiring the hand-counting of ballots in at least one randomly selected precinct even in the absence of any discrepancies, creating a clear process for write-in candidates, and adding additional and improved viewing areas for citizen election observers.

We are tackling long-standing issues within the borough in partnership with KPB constituents, local governments and state and federal agencies. These issues include K-Beach and Eastern Peninsula flooding, KPB housing shortages (particularly in the southern and eastern Kenai Peninsula), rural emergency services support, and communication service gaps. We are also mitigating the overregulation of our citizens through common-sense solutions in partnership with those we serve within the KPB.

We awarded 44 capital improvement and professional services design contracts, as well as servicing pass-through funding to the private sector and non-profit grant recipients for services ranging from senior citizen programs to community groups. Funded projects include the new Central Emergency Service station, the new Soldotna Elementary School, CPH and SPH hospital projects, Eastway Road drainage improvements, the replacement of siding on Homer Elementary School, and many others.

We made improvements to KPB Solid Waste Management to reduce the enormous cost increases in that department that have occurred in previous years. We have reopened reuse areas, such as the “Sterling Mall” and are evaluating how to further reduce storing marketable materials in perpetuity in our landfills. The team is also evaluating the most efficient methods to reduce and process regulated leachate to reduce costs to taxpayers.

In accordance with KPB code, senior center funding is redistributed every 10 years after the census is conducted and shows how many seniors currently live in each area of the borough. Many centers had their funding increased through the current formula in the FY24 budget, but several were dramatically reduced. Working with KPB staff, Mayor Micciche created a “hold harmless” solution to fully fund all centers and to ensure that none of our seniors will go without critical services. The “hold harmless” solution passed the assembly unanimously.

We have created open lines of communication so that all citizens can participate in our efforts to challenge how the KPB does business through common-sense solutions to long-standing, inefficient practices. Government is known for falling into ruts of inefficiency. By working with you, we are challenging each department to break out of long-standing ruts and take the fast road of maximum efficiency. In other words, we seek to provide quality services at the lowest cost to the taxpayer with an objective to keep the KPB affordable today, tomorrow, and for our kids and grandkids.