Fairbanks North Star Borough

After an evening of amendments, most of which failed, the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly sought to keep the property tax rate below the current 13.892 mills.

Public pressure to reopen Fairbanks North Star Borough parks has that staff analyzing how to keep users and employees safe. Borough Chief of Staff Jim Williams says staff members are slowly being recalled to borough facilities with very strict social distancing guidelines.

“We’re just getting a lot of requests for services right now.”

Tonight (Thursday) the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly will pass the budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in July. The Assembly met over three Saturdays in April to whittle down expenses, and a public hearing was held last week to get citizen input.

Links to the budget are in this post.

Getting small businesses running and fully staffed is an immediate goal of the Fairbanks North Star Borough’s Economic Impact and Recovery Plan.

View the online version at: ​https://covid-fnsb.hub.arcgis.com/

The plan has ramped up fast in the last month by the borough’s economic commission, which wants the public to comment on it now. The commission meets to approve the plan next Tuesday, May 5th. It looks at indicators like sales and taxes as economic recovery, but there are a lot of ways to measure success.

A program to monitor the borough’s 13 trash transfer sites will be launched this summer. The Fairbanks North Star Borough plans to hire a manager and an officer to educate users about what is allowed at the collection places. Public pressure to have someone monitor the transfer sites for safety and sanitation was considered with trying to save the borough money. The Borough Assembly approved the funding after reducing the staff from three people to two. The new officers, when the program starts later this summer, will be able to cite violators for illegal dumping.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough is closing off foot traffic and sending employees to work from home. Borough Mayor Bryce Ward met with reporters Tuesday to give the public a status report. 

Comments about the $5.6 billion sale of BP’s assets to Hilcorp will squeak in before today’s 5 p.m. deadline. The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has already heard from hundreds of Alaskans and will also hear from the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Last night the Assembly authorized a resolution for the administration to comment about the BP-Hilcorp sale.